Overhealing Question

Was in a low level leveling dungeon (Cutter's Cry). All was going well and then the tank started to tell the healer he was overhealing (I was DPS, not the healer).

I understand what overhealing is, and get that it generates enmity... but how does the tank know this? Am guessing he's probably using a 3rd party parser to monitor percentage. Not cool in a low level dungeon, but it is what it is. Can he "see" this any other way? I.e. I guess if he notices that the healer keeps casting heals when his HP is full or near full.

Maybe. But also having played tanks: It's not that hard to tell you're getting overhealed when cure spam is coming in while you're down 2~3% health.

He could see the healing numbers on his side, and his own HP. He also possibly was a healer player himself so he knew he really didn’t need healing that much. If you’re only losing 5% HP before the healer is giving you full whack heals every 3 seconds, they’re overhealing.

Well usually if healing is not required, then healers are recommended to DPS to make things go a little quicker but it's not mandatory. Though if it's a low level dungeon, was the healer new to the role or perhaps a new player altogether? Either way the tank could have explained what they wanted a little better.

You can see the enmity bar for all targets literally in game. Lets say the tank has regen, medica 2, the healing bubble, and the healer is spamming cure 2 on the tank. If the healer is number 2 on the aggro list. You can bet either the tank is not using cooldowns, undergeared, or the healer is overhealing their butt off.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

Maybe. But also having played tanks: It's not that hard to tell you're getting overhealed when cure spam is coming in while you're down 2~3% health.

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Ah okay. I haven't really tanked so am not sure how they would see it. I imagine there is no way of telling whether the tank was saying that because from parser data, or from just watching the heals comes in non-stop when he was full health.

Yeah you aren't going to build much of a case here, since there's no way of knowing if it was parsed or just from looking at casts and whatnot. I 'm more surprised he even just cared at all in a lower level dungeon. Not like healers ever dps anyways lol.

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Originally Posted by EaMett

Yeah you aren't going to build much of a case here, since there's no way of knowing if it was parsed or just from looking at casts and whatnot. I 'm more surprised he even just cared at all in a lower level dungeon. Not like healers ever dps anyways lol.

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I should have paid more attention, but I'm new to MCH and wanted to keep my rotation optimal. I did queue the dungeon again later and the healer there literally did no DPS at all which was weird. I've brought all healing classes to 70 and while I won't claim I'm that good, I'd lose my mind not DPSs in between heals. That being said, I'm a bit ashamed to admit I don't really know what a tank sees from his/her side of the coin. I.e. if a healer is overhealing how impactful that really is on enmity or how apparent it is that they're spam healing you to death. I guess I need to level a tank!

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Originally Posted by bgd624624

That being said, I'm a bit ashamed to admit I don't really know what a tank sees from his/her side of the coin. I.e. if a healer is overhealing how impactful that really is on enmity or how apparent it is that they're spam healing you to death. I guess I need to level a tank!

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I'd like to clarify something. It is a misconception that overhealing generates any extra enmity compared to normal healing - obviously the more healing you do, the more threat you will get, but it's the same modifier whether those heals refill bars or just go into ether. The issue really is wasted gcds, basically there's completely no reason to just spam heal so you might as well dps. Also in case of big pulls, the longer the fight takes, the more likely it is you run out of mp and tank runs out of cds, so sometimes offense is best defense. It's true that it doesn't really matter in low level dungeons, but there's also nothing wrong with giving advice to new healers, as long as you're not being an ass about it. Saying something like "hey you don't really need to spam heal me so much, feel free to help with dps a little" is just trying to help the newbies for the future.
It is also incredibly easy to tell if the healer is overhealing in a dungeon. Tank's hp never dropping low enough, seeing healing numbers next to the tank, cast bars in party list and even just looking at animations on the healer will all tell you that, no need for parsing.

All that said, leveling at least one job in each role and familiarizing yourself with kits of other jobs, are very important steps to becoming better at cooperating with your party and making the most of your own skills.

You don't need a third party parser to see if your healer is overhealing or not.

It can be seen on the HUD : buff list (regens ?), cast bar, HP lost and restored, enmity
Besides, saying to a healer to be careful about his overhealing isn't necessarily tied to "you could dps instead", but also because it's mana wasted.
A lot of new healer tend to indeed heal every single HP lost and not being aware of the power of their regens, leading them into struggling with their mana managment later and seeing healing as a really hard task.

I'd guess the healer healed him whenever he lost a sliver of HP. It's pretty obvious in such cases, also, the tank can see whenever he gets healed as well. Doesn't always have to be a parser, really, though it's of course also possible to see it that way. Plus, you can see what which party member casts by looking at the party list. Though that one's a bit more dangerous since you might miss something important while you monitor the party list...