Do Healers have to DPS now during down time in between heals?

[Gestopft]

It shouldnt be expected for a healer to contribute dps

All group member should be expected to contribute what they can and remain consistently engaged. If you are caught up on healing, and don't need a particular utility at the moment, and you have a couple spare GCDs...yes you should be expected to contribute by adding damage instead of twiddling your thumbs. The tank and DPS are expected to be engaged and active 100% of the time that mobs are up- you should too.

- - - Updated - - -

What makes you think they just sit around? Sure in insanely high end groups this might be the case as people avoid as much avoidable as possible. CDs are used. Things are interrupted. You are right in this situation they COULD sit around then. But we are talking with better end groups so adding DPS makes sense. The problem is when it bleeds down into groups that are eating all the shit. No CDs being used. Nothing being interrupted. The healer has to purely heal but is punished for not DPSing and eats the blame. I will stress I heal and don't mind the healing meta doing DPS but it should be meta. It has bleed down to far.

I have never seen a healer blamed for "not doing enough DPS" when there's tons of damage going out. I'm sure it happens, but I think the expectation of healer DPS is not nearly as prevalent or 'enforced' as people seem to think in my experience.

[deenman]

They don't have to. I mean they obviously changed it to this and the game seemed to have worked then. I should stress I play healer and don't mind DPSing. I just think how they made it a lot more meta is more the problem.

no1 made anything meta,healers were made to be able to deal dmg so they can perform in solo play unlike in vanila and early tbc,as a consequence,harder raid content has to be tuned around the healer dps existing or else bosses would die to fast

and like i said,even in easy content where the healer doesnt ''need'' to dps,its still the nice and prefered thing to do simply to speed up things

- - - Updated - - -

This is entirely a lie. There are significant periods of downtime on healers or this wouldn't even be a discussion, as healers would never have time to do anything but heal, and nobody would bother asking them to do anything else.

exactly,in mythic there are many figths where healers are there mainly for the cd's,or sections of toping off,where unavoidable dmg doesnt happen for long periods,or many cases where not ALL healers need to be healing,in many figths you could manage with less healers,but you needed to bring that extra shaman for links,wod for example we had 2 links and it was extremly potent

[Nzx]

kenn9530 and shit takes on this forum, name a more iconic duo
Infracted

Doing nothing but healing is boring. Maximising your contribution by making good spell selections and using your utility to minimise damage taken by your group and therefore allowing yourself to deal damage is engaging, encourages player skill, and allows for tighter content tuning.

I don't often say opinions are objectively wrong, but "healers should only heal" is a trash opinion.

[arkanon]

Blah blah.

Maybe high end min-maxers, which were few and far between in the old days, did that.

WHen I played between Wrath and MoP it was never the case that healers were expected to do damage. Back then it was perfectly normal and acceptable not to see healers on the damage meters at all.

I think a LOT of people misremember vanilla, because it was absolutely normal and accepted for healers not to feature at all on the meter, as you said. Different now, especially in M+, but it hasnt always been that way.

[Relapses]

Doing nothing but healing is boring. Maximising your contribution by making good spell selections and using your utility to minimise damage taken by your group and therefore allowing yourself to deal damage is engaging, encourages player skill, and allows for tighter content tuning.

I don't often say opinions are objectively wrong, but "healers should only heal" is a trash opinion.

I just started healing in 9.1 on my Shaman. I've never healed in the nearly decade and a half I've played this game yet despite this I've found myself timing 15s with about the same ease as I do on my tanks and DPS. One of the things that keeps healing interesting for me is being able to find ways to effectively DPS and heal at the same time. There is ~a lot~ of downtime in M+ (the only content I do) so I'd probably be bored out of my mind if I wasn't playing the DPS/healing mini game. I'll admit there are times when I think I've focused too much on either damage or healing but being able to predictably switch between the two has opened a whole new gameplay style that I've found quite enjoyable (and I never thought I would). I really hope they don't change it too much, it seems like it's in a really good spot right now.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I have never seen a healer blamed for "not doing enough DPS" when there's tons of damage going out. I'm sure it happens, but I think the expectation of healer DPS is not nearly as prevalent or 'enforced' as people seem to think in my experience.

and... now we know where your skill cap is.

- - - Updated - - -

no1 made anything meta,healers were made to be able to deal dmg so they can perform in solo play unlike in vanila and early tbc,as a consequence,harder raid content has to be tuned around the healer dps existing or else bosses would die to fast

and like i said,even in easy content where the healer doesnt ''need'' to dps,its still the nice and prefered thing to do simply to speed up things

I never had a problem killing things in the world as a healer in vanilla, tbc, and the rest of it. Did killing a mob take 5 seconds longer? Sure. But I doubt we will see a healer in the world smoking things faster than a mage even today. Not to mention with duel spec it totally makes that pointless. With seriously one click you can do more damage "out in the world" for whatever that is worth these days.

[Gestopft]

I don't often say opinions are objectively wrong, but "healers should only heal" is a trash opinion.

Yeah I agree there. Do these same people think that DPS shouldn't use self-heals when they need to? Do they think that tank abilities should only cause threat instead of doing damage? Or does it only apply to healers, for some weird and inconsistent reason?

and... now we know where your skill cap is.

I, uh...don't know what you think you're reading into that. (But you're probably wrong.)

[Azerate]

Healers attacked the boss for regen back then. If they werent healing and not full mana they were attacking the target to regain mana to keep healing.

If you ever were in my raids as a healer and not on the meter at all id be questioning your ability as a healer, even in normal modes. The extra bits you contribute is what usually marks a decent player from someone being carried. All healers can usually throw atleast instant DoTs and in many cases casting DPS spells gave benefit to healing aswell (Such as MoP with Shaman LB/Druid wrath granting mana back, disc priests, paladins auto attacking seal of wisdom/judgements, fistweaving monks etc).
I dont think ive ever seen a time where healers didnt, if they were above average, do some damage even if it was inconsequential just as a part of rotation or utility. Vanilla most certainly healers attacked bosses (alliance side atleast). Your pally healers needed to judge the boss, and priests would wand at the very least to regain mana and druids could sit and auto attack between HoTs to keep mana up. Wrath might be the time it mattered the least as healers had unlimited mana for the most part and the regen was raid wide, still ill take the shaman healer that throws an extra flame shock out, or frost shock to snare a deadly target/druid using typhoon etc.

If the damage is so intense that the healers cant stop healing at all, sure. Ive never seen a fight that was like that from pull to the end, theres always been some intermission/downtime/healer assignment rotations etc that gave opportunity to do more than spam a heal key.

This kind of attitude was maybe present in very high end raiding guilds. Your experience clearly comes from living in a certain bubble. Even decently progressed heroic guilds did not have requirements like that back in the day. Sure, there were healing classes that had stuff that needed to be cast on boss every now and then (like judgement) but that was hardly comparable to forcing healers to dps whenever they are not casting a healing spell we have today. Half the posts in the thread are telling you that in the past healers were not expected to DPS, do you think all those people imagined that?

This is similar to many discussions about old wow expansions. People try to take very rare and minor phenomena to try to claim that in the old times people had exactly the same attitude towards the game as today, and that's just not true.

[Gestopft]

This kind of attitude was maybe present in very high end raiding guilds. Your experience clearly comes from living in a certain bubble. Even decently progressed heroic guilds did not have requirements like that back in the day. Sure, there were healing classes that had stuff that needed to be cast on boss every now and then (like judgement) but that was hardly comparable to forcing healers to dps whenever they are not casting a healing spell we have today. Half the posts in the thread are telling you that in the past healers were not expected to DPS, do you think all those people imagined that?

This is similar to many discussions about old wow expansions. People try to take very rare and minor phenomena to try to claim that in the old times people had exactly the same attitude towards the game as today, and that's just not true.

1) The reason there wasn't that requirement back in the day was primarily the mana requirements of healing back then, and in particular the five-second rule. This went away in Cata, but at the same time healers were made much less efficient at the beginning of Cata compared to Wrath (and I don't think they all had mana-neutral damage spells at that point, but I don't remember), so the notion that healers should fill down time by dealing damage took a little time to develop.

2) I think a better question is (with the five-second rule gone, and healers having generally mana-neutral damage spells): why would it be acceptable for a healer to NOT be filling with damage abilities if there isn't any healing/utility that's needed at the moment? The tanks are going going going until the mobs keel over. So are the DPS. Shouldn't the healers be contributing to the group for the entire encounter too?

[Azerate]

1) The reason there wasn't that requirement back in the day was primarily the mana requirements of healing back then, and in particular the five-second rule. This went away in Cata, but at the same time healers were made much less efficient at the beginning of Cata compared to Wrath (and I don't think they all had mana-neutral damage spells at that point, but I don't remember), so the notion that healers should fill down time by dealing damage took a little time to develop.

2) I think a better question is (with the five-second rule gone, and healers having generally mana-neutral damage spells): why would it be acceptable for a healer to NOT be filling with damage abilities if there isn't any healing/utility that's needed at the moment? The tanks are going going going until the mobs keel over. So are the DPS. Shouldn't the healers be contributing to the group for the entire encounter too?

Okay, so if we are now discussing the reasons as to why the shift happened, that clearly means it used to be a different way, and it's perfectly understandable that some people just prefered that old way. A debate as to whether the "new way" makes more sense or not is kind of pointless. I agree that it makes logical sense that healers are expected to deal damage as well, but it's also quite obvious that it makes an already stressful role harder and even more stressful.

For me and for many others, including OP it seems, healing is just too loaded of a role with too much responsibility. Not only do you have to react quickly and keep people alive, you are also expected to do damage. Ever wondered why there is such a healer shortage? Cause a lot of people cannot / don't want to deal with that. So yeah, I would much prefer that Blizzard made it literally impossible for healers to deal damage through game mechanics, because that way the role would become slightly easier and maybe more people would be willing to try it out. As it is, I can try tanking from time to time, but I will never try healing, because it's basically a multi-role position at the moment.

[Shelly]

Not as damning as you're trying to make it sound because:

Tanks are basically just DPS who cast an occasional mitigation.
DPS are basically just DPS who cast an occasional interrupt.
Healers are basically just DPS who cast an occasional heal.

OK, wow, this is incredibly incorrect in regards to the responsibilities of each role.

The job of a tank isn't DPS, technically it isn't even mitigation, the role of a tank is functional crowd control. The tank moves the mobs and maintains threat, the usage of mitigation is all about staying alive long enough so that you can keep doing that. This is actually something tons of people get wrong despite that being the core of the tanking challenge from Legion Mage Tower. You pick up adds, you move mobs, you apply crowd control, you maintain threat. Everything else you do is in service to this role, whether it be damage or mitigation.

DPS does more than interrupt. They also stun, purge, apply CC if it's available to their class, assist the tank in threat and for many classes they will also often throw out a heal or two - I play with a Ret Paladin that regularly shores up bad healing with WoG. Warriors that dump some of their rage pool into ignore pain or hit spell reflect are also great.

Healers, again, use your full toolkit. If you can damage then add damage, if you can add a lot of mitigation add mitigation, apply CC, interrupt, stun.

This is a group game, we all have a ton of tools at our disposal.

If you really want to learn how to use them I'd actually suggest you go into Torghast and start playing around with them and powers. Many times the powers will remind you of the mitigation available to a DPS or the damage spells you'll be able to find time to cast as a healer.

[Nzx]

Okay, so if we are now discussing the reasons as to why the shift happened, that clearly means it used to be a different way, and it's perfectly understandable that some people just prefered that old way. A debate as to whether the "new way" makes more sense or not is kind of pointless. I agree that it makes logical sense that healers are expected to deal damage as well, but it's also quite obvious that it makes an already stressful role harder and even more stressful.

For me and for many others, including OP it seems, healing is just too loaded of a role with too much responsibility. Not only do you have to react quickly and keep people alive, you are also expected to do damage. Ever wondered why there is such a healer shortage? Cause a lot of people cannot / don't want to deal with that. So yeah, I would much prefer that Blizzard made it literally impossible for healers to deal damage through game mechanics, because that way the role would become slightly easier and maybe more people would be willing to try it out. As it is, I can try tanking from time to time, but I will never try healing, because it's basically a multi-role position at the moment.

Healing isn't hard. My guild gave up this expansion so I've been exclusively pugging and I've dropped DPS for healing because it feels infinitely more casual. Perhaps not at +25 level or whatever, but if any of you were playing at that level you wouldn't be complaining about getting to DPS as a healer, so at the level people in this thread are playing at healing is probably the easiest role.

[Shelly]

Healing isn't hard. My guild gave up this expansion so I've been exclusively pugging and I've dropped DPS for healing because it feels infinitely more casual. Perhaps not at +25 level or whatever, but if any of you were playing at that level you wouldn't be complaining about getting to DPS as a healer, so at the level people in this thread are playing at healing is probably the easiest role.

In raids healer is the easiest role to carry.

In M+ it very well could turn out that way too as the expansion goes on and depending on the dungeon you're doing.

[saixilein]

They should, yeah. But i dont like it. If its not nesseccary i dont do it. I play healer to heal my party, not doing dmg with the basic and boring class rotation.

[Gaidax]

There are some totally weird takes here.

Yes, you absolutely have healing downtime in raids and M+. Yes sometimes you need to bloody balls to the wall heal throughput pump so people won't die, but sometimes you legit have little to nothing to heal.

People who want to just heal have more "classic" healer specs and people who want to occasionally blast got Holy Paladin and Disc Priest.

As difficulty increases, so it becomes more important for healer to toss out some dps. This does not require some crazy ability juggling either - Healer DPS is very simple to account for their extra responsibilities.

And then it's just for many more fun, our Paladin healer most certainly enjoys popping his shit and giving DPS a run for their money even if it lasts only for a short time.

[Azerate]

Healing isn't hard. My guild gave up this expansion so I've been exclusively pugging and I've dropped DPS for healing because it feels infinitely more casual. Perhaps not at +25 level or whatever, but if any of you were playing at that level you wouldn't be complaining about getting to DPS as a healer, so at the level people in this thread are playing at healing is probably the easiest role.

Remember to always add ",for me" after making statements obviously contrarian to the general sentiment. If healing is so easy, why is that most auto-lfg groups usually lack a healer to be completed, while dps and tanks fill up quickly? Or maybe it's too easy and people get bored playing healers so they don't do it? Please...

[erifwodahs]

Healers doing dmg is always expected. I mean I understand that in HC dungeons or low keys, I don't pay attention to that, but if healer doesn't do dmg at all in weekly keys - I just pull more to make them sweat. Quite often it comes to the case where healer who doesn't do damage is not a good healer either. No shit talk, no comments, just purely make them sweat it's quite fun

[Asrialol]

I don't get the people who say they don't like to DPS as healers. What would you like to do instead, then, if there's nothing to heal at times? Stand there, idling? Chat? Or do you want there to be a passive aura everywhere that does 10% of players health in damage every few seconds so you always have to heal?

[Raisei]

When I’m pugging as a tank I don’t want my healer to do damage (paladin obvious exception).

I’ve had too many runs where my healer is focused on dps while my health yoyos and I keep blowing CDs to stay alive until I finally run out and die. What works with a group in discord doesn’t work playing with randoms.

That is basically what I meant. For a healer to spend time on DPSing you need a group that can look out for itself for a few seconds at a time. In pugs this is rarely the case, because the synergy between Healer, Tank and DPS is non-existant.
If I go in with my guild group I know I can depend on them to use what they have to stay alive, interupting, avoiding aoe and using defensives go without saying. This drastically cuts down on the time where I really have to burst heal (usually just during specific mechanics, like the Shards of Halkias in Halls or the Red Mask guys in DoS), that is good for my mana management and allows me some time to dps.

I feel that is how dungeons are supposed to be done. Everyone should be encouraged to make use of their full range of abilities. A DPS that can only use their 4 button rotation and has no clue what Utility is in their kit is not a good player, neither is a Healer that can only use his 4 heals and nothing else.

[kappalol]

During mythic progression, it is necessary for healers to do some dmg, some fights can be impossible if healers do 0 dmg until dps get more gear.