Should healers now be allowed to play how they choose to play?

[Gemina]

The healer in that video was experienced with the fight though. The healer made a mistake by casting a second holy instead of topping off the tank; but the tank is really the one to blame here because he had no mitigation up the entire time; didn't self-heal and didn't get a holmgang off when he saw he was in trouble. The healer COULD have helped out with a regen before the pull; but that wasn't necessary - even a bloodbath would have kept the tank up long enough for the cure 2 to go off.

/edit - just saw your edit including the tank fail

You're right, the healer shouldn't be blaming themselves for that fail. The tank was ultimately the one missing key mechanics here (read: mitigate damage during large pulls)

I still blame myself though for that wipe. All because I know I should have cast regen, and shouldn't have cast that second Holy. You can even notice a slight hesitation to cast it, because I just had a 'feeling'. I was just waiting for the barks, but surprisingly to me, they never came. I wanted to apologize, but at that current moment I was silenced by shame. I dunno, I get that the tank should have popped their CDs. I even wanted to say it to him. But his mentor icon kind of held me back. I could have prevented it.

[Llus]

I think ultimately this thread boils down to:


I picked a class with the highest visibility for even minor mistakes (any healer class) and often take the blame for a party wipe and blame myself for the party wipe too. I'm afraid to step outside the typical role of a healer because of this; so can I just heal please? Honestly, I understand and sympathize with you; but I can't sympathize with you if all you do is overheal or spend 70-80% of the time doing nothing. Especially if you're a level 60 healer that should have learned stance dancing by the time you got to level 40. If you're new to the content and want to avoid a party wipe by just healing i understand that as well and provide for that. But a 100% only heal healer to me is as bad as a 100% tank stance tank (worse, because at least the tank stance tank is doing damage). You need to learn how to stance dance whether you're healing or tanking and the earlier you learn how and get those mistakes out of the way; the better you'll be in end-game. For new healers reading this thread, you're going to be shit on because your role has a microscope showing your mistakes. You're going to make mistakes too; tanks and DPS will make mistakes; but a healer that makes a mistake nearly always wipes the party. If someone gives you a lot of grief for that while you're learning, report them. If you aren't learning how to stance dance; you're limiting yourself to running everything over-geared and doing content that is fairly simple. If the prospect of that much pressure scares you, you'll need to overcome that fear or chose a different role because the role of a healer is arguably the most difficult one in this game. You are expected to heal, to shield and to DPS

[Shurrikhan]

This is true that is why it can be viewed as coercion to dps. Btw not saying I dont dps as healer only that some may prefer it not to be made compulsary. I dps but prefer to heal, maybe other people do as well

My healer calls me out if I don't dodge. I feel, effectively, coerced to heal for them.

tl;dr: Whatever your role, the job is the same: Keep. Doing. Things. (Ideally, with the most output for the time you're using them.)

[Llus]

I still blame myself though for that wipe. All because I know I should have cast regen, and shouldn't have cast that second Holy. You can even notice a slight hesitation to cast it, because I just had a 'feeling'. I was just waiting for the barks, but surprisingly to me, they never came. I wanted to apologize, but at that current moment I was silenced by shame. I dunno, I get that the tank should have popped their CDs. I even wanted to say it to him. But his mentor icon kind of held me back. I could have prevented it.

I hear this often from healers. They blame themselves for a party wipe even when they know someone else was responsible. Usually it's "if only i'd done this instead of that, we would have survived". Just because someone is wearing a mentor icon, doesn't mean they're good at the role they're playing - the WAR should have known better. We have no active mitigation in tank stance and even though we have a large health pool; that doesn't justify pulling 6+ mobs w/o mitigation. I have SCH and WHM at level 60 and I refuse to heal. Healing is way too stressful and even minor mistakes are glaring mistakes both in your own eyes and in the eyes of your party members. At some point though, you have to stop blaming yourself and realize that when trying to play to your full potential; you're going to make mistakes (in ANY role) and that you should try to shrug it off and keep going.

[Feyona]

I wouldn't expect a new group learning a10s or any other savage content to be 100%... I wouldn't expect the tanks to know the fight well enough not to die to tankbusters. I wouldn't expect DPS to not die to mechanics and I wouldn't expect a healer to know when they can DPS and when they need to heal. If the entire content of your OP is to allow you room to learn a fight before optimizing for healing and DPS; then by all means do so.

You contradicted yoursef. Firstly, you say a healers role is to dps and heal, but not in that content I mentioned. So which content am I a dps healer and which content arnt I ? And how is the comunity going to know which is which ? They will expect it in all content wont they? New content, savage, primals, whatever.So this is the point of my entire post, not what you put in your post that patronizingly sums up my mindset, thank you very much but you are wrong. And to Shurrikan, everyone knows when you have time right? Well, according to these posts Im going to be kicked for not dpsing if I dont have time

[Shurrikhan]

You contradicted yoursef. Firstly, you say a healers role is to dps and heal, but not in that content I mentioned. So which content am I a dps healer and which content aren't I?

You are when you have time to be. You are not when you do not have time to be.

If you will have mana enough over the course of the fight to use a stronger heal, allowing yourself time to DPS, you should do that, and then you should DPS in the time you gained yourself, especially when that GCD would be worth more than others (a Bio II, rather than a Boil).

[Bourne_Endeavor]

You contradicted yoursef. Firstly, you say a healers role is to dps and heal, but not in that content I mentioned. So which content am I a dps healer and which content arnt I ? And how is the comunity going to know which is which ? They will expect it in all content wont they? New content, savage, primals, whatever.So this is the point of my entire post, not what you put in your post that patronizingly sums up my mindset, thank you very much but you are wrong.

You should be DPSing in all content whenever you are not required to heal. There is no content in this entire game-- Savage included-- where you will not have any downtime to at least throw up dots. The sole exception is progression. If you are new to something and announce it, people are far less judgmental since they aren't expecting you to know the fight. That being said, if you start seeing yourself standing around or topping people off despite them taking minimal damage, you aren't playing healer well if you don't correct that on future attempts. Whether the group you get cares or not will always been a crap shoot but I fail to see why the inclusion of two new DPS changes the DPS healer philosophy. From my own perspective, if I notice my co-healer not putting on Cleric, I go into full DPS mode. What tends to irk me is when the "I only want to heal!" healers suddenly can't handle that responsibly whereas the more versatile ones can go full healer mode and need very little assistance if any at all. Perhaps I am wrong to assume but it does make me question whether they want to heal or just want an excuse to do less work.

[HoodRat]

Do western players do literally nothing but argue? And the same thing in circles no less.

Yeah it's the best. That's why I always come to the healer forums when I need a quick laugh. The dps and tank forums aren't quite as funny unfortunately.

[Llus]

You contradicted yoursef. Firstly, you say a healers role is to dps and heal, but not in that content I mentioned. So which content am I a dps healer and which content arnt I ? And how is the comunity going to know which is which ? They will expect it in all content wont they? New content, savage, primals, whatever.So this is the point of my entire post, not what you put in your post that patronizingly sums up my mindset, thank you very much but you are wrong.

This topic is not new, but in light of the proposed changes, like two more dps classes which all the dps has to choose from, could we now leave healers alone to play as healers, and those who want to dps, dps? Thinking that many people would like to heal as a chosen playstyle. The feedback I have received before is that its not playing to 'optimal efficiency', but this is not a workplace it is where people come to enjoy themselves, not be coerced into doing a role that they didnt choose- dps as healer. Most dps did not choose to heal, and have a monopoly of different playstyles to choose from, on the other hand healers are being made to dps, to sort of make up for dps defiency, Then I see a question asking for harder content, just stop healer dps and the content will be harder to clear. Healers that want to dps go dps,leave others to heal or tank if thats what they enjoy.

Again, I refer you to your OP. The entirety of your post can be summed up as follows: "Since there are going to be more DPS classes to choose from, can I be a heal-only healer?" And to sum up the responses: Absolutely, but don't expect people to carry you through ANY content. When you are learning content, you can expect people to make allowances; but if you are spending the majority of the time simply overhealing to look busy or standing around doing nothing expect people to get upset about it. If you chose to be a healer because you thought it would be an easy and lazy job; you chose the wrong job.

[IttyBitty]

Moving the Goalposts 101: The Thread: The Movie: The Game.