M+ affixes. Healers job?

[Enter Name Here]

my impression after several m+ threads:

every player that's in the 1-15 range is considered a bad/lazy player just for doing so.
unfortunately, that range is likely to be the majority of the m+ playerbase.

given that asumption, the majority of the m+ playerbase is playing bad.
thus all of those affixes ultimately are punishing the healer since you have to expect the other players to do fuck all about mechanics.

a relieve would be punishment as dps decrease in some other form than death for the failing player - reducing the likelyhood of picking on the healer when a dps fails.

[Sezh]

If you play with a bad group, all affixes feel like the healer's job. In fact, in a bad group, being the healer is the most stressful role you can play.
If you play with a good group, and all affixes are taken care of by the group and people don't take unneccessary damage, being the healer is extremely chill.

[Caerrona]

my impression after several m+ threads:

every player that's in the 1-15 range is considered a bad/lazy player just for doing so.
unfortunately, that range is likely to be the majority of the m+ playerbase.

given that asumption, the majority of the m+ playerbase is playing bad.
thus all of those affixes ultimately are punishing the healer since you have to expect the other players to do fuck all about mechanics.

a relieve would be punishment as dps decrease in some other form than death for the failing player - reducing the likelyhood of picking on the healer when a dps fails.

Stop being a push over and letting shitters "pick on you" (lul) post death logs if dps are trash.

Died to an avoidable mechanic -> player problem

Died over 10 seconds with no healing -> healer problem.

[Dakara]

It's already been said, but most (not all) of the mechanics in M+ (affixes and abilities) only punish the healer if the rest of the group aren't doing their jobs properly... interrupts can be especially bad in pugs.
The problem is (in pugs) that the players often refuse to see fault with themselves and instead just blame the healer.

If you run with a good group, you'll be surprised how much time you actually get to DPS as a Healer.

Where I think Blizzard have really screwed up however, is that the vast majority of groups don't play perfectly, and certain heal specs really suffer when it comes to emergency healing as they need to ramp up/plan ahead. This can then lead to players thinking certain healing specs are "bad" because the fail to heal through massive bursting stacks in a +7 because the Tank pulled 3 packs and the DPS blew their CD's.

I basically don't pug M+ apart from maybe 1 (2 max) slots to fill a guild group because as a Healer it's simply not worth being blamed when it all falls apart... which it often can.

[Jazzhands]

I feel like the healers who seem to think most affixes are a healer thing doesn't do serious keys at all. Specially in OP's case, as he seems to think people don't dodge sanguine "at all"... What.

There's two affixes that are sort of "healer affixes". Bursting and Grieveous. But the DPS / tank are the ones who control these affixes, so they're only "sort of" healer affixes.

Calling Explosive, Raging, Bolstering, Necrotic a healer affix....? What on earth.

Healers deal with the fallout of people messing up these mechanics, that's why people feel they're healing mechanics. Sure DPS/tanks do get called out for failing the mechanics, but that doesn't change the pressure those mistakes add to the healers job.

They specifically changed one of the mechanics in SL to be more disruptive towards DPS than punish a healer when it gets messed up, kind of supports how a lot of us feel. If a DPS messes up, the healer shouldn't be punished, and that's largely how it works right now.

I more or less refuse to heal a pug at 10 or above largely just due to this. Everyone makes mistakes and such but it's incredible how much worse dungeons can be as a healer with a bad group.

[burek]

Your suppose to dps in downtime or your just bad simple as that. This isn't 2004. In raids pvp and m+ good healers are separated from the trash by what they do outside of healing.

Yes, that's how the game works, but I don't think that's a good thing. It's much more enjoyable to dps as a dps spec, playing a healer and just doing some shit damage in a dungeon is not fun at all. I main a dps so I have plenty of that, I roll a healer expecting to do something else. But instead I still have mostly to dps, only this time all my abilities are wet noodles that hit for like 1k.

Random unavoidable damage all the time doesn't scale, it would either be tuned so low that its irrelevant or would be impossible to do higher keys as the damage would increase by key lvl.

That doesn't mean anything. "Higher" keys are impossible for one reason or another.

[Enter Name Here]

If you play with a bad group, all affixes feel like the healer's job. In fact, in a bad group, being the healer is the most stressful role you can play.
[...]

Stop being a push over [...]

In fact, i stopped bothering to do m+ at all.
Guess I always pugged* bad groups because it always** felt like 30min+ of non-stop emergency healing. Felt too stressful to be worth any reward.
Thus my expectation that it's just how m+ supposed to be.

*not caring about r.io
** i'm aware of the constant in that scenario

[Shiny212]

Inspiring - cc it
Shade - cc it
Bursting - dispel it/dont play with idiots
Grievious- dont let people get stacks
Necrotic - dont play with idiots
Explosive - dont play with idiots
Raging - group iq check (cc dangerous mobs)/ dont play with idiots
Bolstering- dont play with idiots
Sanguine - dont play with idiots
Quaking - dont play with idiots
Storming - dont play with idiots

Everything you listed is 100% a team effort.

I think the whole point is that, any mistake by the team, and any level of play has mistakes, punishes the healer aswell. That's just how the game works though. Healing lower m+ is often way harder due to the amount of mistakes.

[Kaver]

Random mobs will be infected by Inspiring Presence and highlighted with a gold glow around their model. Any other creatures within 15 yds will have the Inspired, making them immune to CC effects.

dont play with idiots is a really bad argument. it still doesnt change the fact that IF failing, it will be the healer that takes the heat.
And majority of people are pugging, thats like wanting to reduce car crashes... well dont drive near idiots.

Except that you can actually choose who you play with. Even when pugging. This is why raider.io is so good. You cannot in the same way choose who you are driving near on the road, so that’s a horrible example.

Healing is easy if you play with good players and hard if you play with bad players. Use raider.io to avoid the bad players.

[Jazzhands]

They want dps to be "penalized" and the only way to do that is dmg reduction, which also makes the healer work harder in the end anyways.

Instead of working with the group they want to press a heal button instead of a dps button like it makes any difference unless your staring at your action bar. "Hell yeah i pressed that rejuv soooo hard. Moonfire!? Miss me with that shit."

Also pure laziness.

A longer fight that has less damage going out isn't really a punishment, it's just a less stressful fight.

You can punish DPS in several ways by making the game unfun for them when they mess up. Have mechanics that stun, knock you around, slow you, increase your GCD, disarm you, basically any CC effect. Damage often goes unnoticed by bad players, but this type of mechanic doesnt, and they don't directly add additional pressure to the healer but will frustrate the player and they'll eventually get better or stop doing the content.

[Enter Name Here]

stuns or any loss of control seems like a good idea for punishment but I think it wouldn't work as intended.
It just prevents them from avoiding more stuff and leads to death eventually. that will get blame to the healer for not saving them. back to square one.

dps decrease of any form (flat, gcd, cast-time, w/e) seems more obvious to me.

the other day, i read about a change of one affix - i guess it was volcanic - being changed so it knocks the player up in the air. fall damage will still be healers job but at least the failing player will face some dps penalty as well, depending on class.

[Raisei]

Inspiring Presence-More healing needed since no CC
Spiteful Shade - More healing needed since people will get hit no matter what
Bursting. - More healing needed
Grieveous. - not more healing per say but hella more stressful healing
Necrotic. - Not more healing but sort of more healing needed
Explosive. - If not killed more healing needed.
Raging. - More healing needed since more dmg taken
Bolstering. - ^
Explosive. - Not more healing per say if dealt with properly, but missing one = more healing needed.
sanguine: - more healing needed since it cant be fully dodged (can but cmon no one does that).
quaking: - Ok not more healing unless standing in eachother which happens.
Storming: - more healing needed.

Wouldnt now be a perfect time to actually add affixes that doesnt punish JUST the healer?



Spiteful shade would of been a perfect candidate for something like: Whenever any mob dies, it will summon a Spiteful Shade creature nearby that will fixate a random player. Targeted players damaged is reduced by 99% to all targets except Spiteful shade until its defeated.

Or storming: Getting hit by a Tornado will grant you immunity to damage, but you can also not do damage.

Most people ignore stuff that only hurts beacuse.. well it only hurts, healer can heal that up... right?.

So why aren't they adding stuff that isnt only for healers to technically have to deal with the outcome of failing it?

As a DK Tank I can tell you that Necrotic is a lot worse when you are a Tank and Healer at the same time.

Also it is everyone's job to deal with affixes. Dps need to kill priority targets(Bolster and Raging), be careful with aoe (Burst), kill explosives and mitigate/heal as much as possible while avoiding what can be avoided.

To a point you can can should make up for their mistakes, but that only mean that you should mitigate small mistakes, if your group is completely ignoring everything they are bad. The only affixes that specifically target you are Grievous and Quaking (in the sense that you need to be ready to stop casting to avoid the silence), but even with those your team can and should help. A Health pot or self-heal can safe you tons of mana on grievous weeks.

[Soluna]

Inspiring Presence-More healing needed since no CC
Spiteful Shade - More healing needed since people will get hit no matter what
Bursting. - More healing needed
Grieveous. - not more healing per say but hella more stressful healing
Necrotic. - Not more healing but sort of more healing needed
Explosive. - If not killed more healing needed.
Raging. - More healing needed since more dmg taken
Bolstering. - ^
Explosive. - Not more healing per say if dealt with properly, but missing one = more healing needed.
sanguine: - more healing needed since it cant be fully dodged (can but cmon no one does that).
quaking: - Ok not more healing unless standing in eachother which happens.
Storming: - more healing needed.

Wouldnt now be a perfect time to actually add affixes that doesnt punish JUST the healer?



Spiteful shade would of been a perfect candidate for something like: Whenever any mob dies, it will summon a Spiteful Shade creature nearby that will fixate a random player. Targeted players damaged is reduced by 99% to all targets except Spiteful shade until its defeated.

Or storming: Getting hit by a Tornado will grant you immunity to damage, but you can also not do damage.

Most people ignore stuff that only hurts beacuse.. well it only hurts, healer can heal that up... right?.

So why aren't they adding stuff that isnt only for healers to technically have to deal with the outcome of failing it?

Well, I mean, how else do you expect people to get punished other than taking damage for failing to deal with affixes? Would you argue that every mechanic is a healer mechanic, because dps takes dmg from it if they do it incorrectly? That's just dumb.

[Rageonit]

I think OP is complaining that healer is the last resort. Yes, if everything goes south, we are the last resort - that's kinda our job.
Like, since Day 1 of WoW, the main punishment for doing something wrong is losing health, right? And that's where we come into the equation. If you punish people with something else (like damage reduction), our role will be less important. Even now the meta for high level m+ is a healer than can do damage, and that problem would become even more obvious. Which means Blizz would have to balance healers around... DPS numbers.

[Arainie]

I don't have a problem with failing affixes falling back on the healer as healing is what I've primarily done for 15 years, but I do think more effects should have a negative impact on the party. Besides dealing damage, letting an explosive orb go off could easily result in 10% reduced damage dealt, standing in sanguine could give you a stacking debuff that reduces attack/casting speed etc.

I think there should be an incentive to deal with affixes in another way than saying "the healer can heal through it, don't worry", and that M+ should be tuned around your group properly dealing with affixes so that the healing becomes overwhelming if you fail too often.

[Jazzhands]

Well, I mean, how else do you expect people to get punished other than taking damage for failing to deal with affixes? Would you argue that every mechanic is a healer mechanic, because dps takes dmg from it if they do it incorrectly? That's just dumb.

There are plenty of ways to punish DPS when they fail mechanics. Largely things like CC, disruptive stuff like being knocked in the air or thrown across a room, slowing down your GCD or increasing the cooldown time of abilities, or getting mind controlled.

The entire point of this thread is that the group failing makes being a healer less fun, and with M+ that's now significantly more prominent than ever given how many more mechanics happen, and those failures more or less have no effect on the person who made them. Pugs were always pretty meh, but M+ has pushed that to the extreme even at low levels to the point where it's just not fun sometimes.

It's fine that healers are the "safety net" for groups, it's fine that people make mistakes, it's just annoying that 95% of the mistakes people make don't actually punish that person in any way, and instead it just falls to the healer. That was fine before but now with M+ and every trash pack having 6+ mechanics it's just bad.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

What do you want it to be instead? How do you punish DPS without punishing the healer? If the pack takes longer, you have to heal more. If the DPS get CCed, they can't prevent any incoming damage with interrupts or CC. If the dungeon takes longer and you fail because of it, everyone is punished equally.

What could you possibly add which doesn't punish the healer?

[Arainie]

What do you want it to be instead? How do you punish DPS without punishing the healer? If the pack takes longer, you have to heal more. If the DPS get CCed, they can't prevent any incoming damage with interrupts or CC. If the dungeon takes longer and you fail because of it, everyone is punished equally.

What could you possibly add which doesn't punish the healer?

Better incentives to avoid taking damage from the rest of the group. It's not that hard to figure out that people put less emphasis on avoiding things that can be healed through if it allows them to do more damage, but if it is negative to their damage output you can bet your sweet behind on that they'll avoid them like the plague. Obviously this doesn't happen in good groups, but the vast majority of M+ groups (even premade groups) are unfortunately not good groups.

[Rageonit]

The entire point of this thread is that the group failing makes being a healer less fun

Personally I feel it makes being a healer more fun, because I can actually make use of my cooldowns and skills. Whereas when nobody is failing, I mostly FS/LvB/LB (shaman here) to do laughable DPS. Not sure if it's more fun - for me it certainly isn't.
And lets face facts here: if you have a bad group of players who think that they can ignore mechanics, "because healer can deal with it"... they will most probably ignore them too if those mechanics give damage debuffs or whatever. Result? Healer will STILL have to deal with it, and group DPS will be smaller. I know it's cliche, but don't play with baddies. Any good player knows how to deal with affixes (and does it).

[Harbour]

I think some people miss the point of OP.

Its not that healer has to do more than DPS players. Its that if DPS players tend to be braindead the affixes dont punish them because there is healer to heal them. They are NOT punished by affixes because of healers.
While healer cant afford to fuck around relying on DPS doing proper CC and movements.

Affixes supposed to punish all roles but in practice all they result into punishing the healer, not tank or DPS. This sucks.

Id want some affixes to make DPS unable to DPS or lower their DPS for x% or significantly damage their armor so they feel bad not doing their job properly.