Dps As Healer

[Ama_Hamada]

Hrmn... you know...

What if, 'Overhealing,' was a mechanic? So say your Warrior has 50,000 HP. They're at 50,000, you slap down a Lustrate/Tetra/Whatever, and instead of the HP staying 50,000, it instead goes up to 65,000? It could make for an interesting mechanic in Boss Fights, beefing up the tank's health so they can take crazy damage. Or beefing up the party's health to take a big damage move. As for visually referencing it, the Green HP bar gets a pink/purple one over it. Double health? A Blue one.

and you do not see how there be problems with that? Maybe you wanan try again with explaining limits????

I can just see it now, enter a DF > Lustrate spam > aetherflow > more Lustrate > disaptation > more Lustrate> stoneskin (if you do not know how this works I really feel sorry for ya) > not possible to die, DF cleared in 8 mins if it was not for artificial blocking..
that be broken as hell.

[Vexander]

and you do not see how there be problems with that? Maybe you wanan try again with explaining limits????

I can just see it now, enter a DF > Lustrate spam > aetherflow > more Lustrate > disaptation > more Lustrate> stoneskin (if you do not know how this works I really feel sorry for ya) > not possible to die, DF cleared in 8 mins if it was not for artificial blocking..
that be broken as hell.

Good point. Guess it'd need some rules.

1) Cannot Overheal out of combat.
2) Absorb Shields do not take effect until HP dips into the base numbers.

I guess you'd need some kind of benefit to make Overhealing appealing to more than just the tank too. Maybe a 5% increase in Damage dealt per full bar of HP? Max of 2 extra bars so, Max addition of 10% Damage Boost? Does not stack with Balance.

[Nicobo]

Healers DPS or not?! It is nothing to argue! ^^;

Healers would not be able to complete those relic book FATEs (before nerf) if not DPS very very hard.
Solo those FATEs required untilizing your auto attacks and potions as well.

I told Yoshida not allowing ppl doing relic using another job (ie. crystal farm).
He didn't listen and that's why some healers would think healers no need DPS.

In many cases, a healer only cannot DPS because the party members are like to die for anything, and keep dying all the time.
But ironically such members will say oh this healer is bad and not DPSing..haha
When they die by their own fault, they will "advise" the healer, heal > dps. lol

[loreleidiangelo]

Because in other MMO's if you only want to heal you can, healing in a game like WoW or SWTOR there is enough incoming damage that you basically have to be constantly healing, watching HP bars, buffs, debuffs, dispelling, etc. Whereas in this game, there is much less pressure to be constantly healing, in some content if I'm playing say... a whm, I can throw a regen on a tank and he'll be fine without me needing to cast anything until the regen wears off.The way the fights are designed in this game, when I do heal I often find moments of downtime where I can just stand there waiting for someone to take damage and it's boring. It's not the same actions per minute, it's less, and for some of us that prefer a more active playstyle, it isn't very fun.

Which brings me to the point about the whole dps action thing, leaving aside the fact that healer dps in cleric isn't terrible and that you can cast a regen and switch to cleric with no penalty to it's healing. For one, it's the only way to keep that more active playstyle that I myself am used to and for another, I've always been of the opinion that I should always be casting something whether it be a damage spell or a healing spell, standing there watching paint dry is just a waste of my time when I could be helping out my party more. Sure, I can JUST heal, but if I can keep everyone alive while actively making the fights go faster? I'm always going to choose what speeds it up the most.*

When someone says "I'm tired of being a healbot," they're referring to the fact that they aren't just standing there doing nothing when no one is taking any damage. Back to other games, in a game like WoW or SWTOR back in the day when you overgeared content, your healer could just stand there doing nothing. I'd run dungeons with a healer buddy of mine and he would complain that I'm taking no damage and he has nothing to do because healers in OTHER games do such piss poor horrible damage it's not even worth it half the time. It got to the point where he'd ask me to unequip some of my gear just so I'd take some damage and he'd have something to do.

Gear in that game reached the point where I didn't even need a healer, I'd go in with 2-3 dps friends of mine, pull 50-75% of the entire dungeon at once (not exaggerating, completely serious), use my cooldowns, and they'd aoe everything down and I would honestly not even need a single heal since my paladin could recover HP on it's own. It rendered healers completely worthless at that point! Now with the DPS setup in this game, if no one needs healing, you can make a larger contribution in a meaningful way.

*I will concede the point that I don't dps in content that is brand new, I wait until I've taken some time to get used to it and the way the mechanics of it work.

Sorry, maybe my point wasn't precise. What I'm specifically asking is, why do healers like to DPS in this game? Looking at answers on the forums, it generally seems to be "because I like being optimal and there's not enough healing required to max out my number of actions per minute" or something like that - they're usually answers that have nothing to do with actually liking DPS in particular, it's more liking efficiency. There's a few people who mention liking the spell effects of moves like Holy or Gravity in particular, but for the most part I'm trying to point out that it's possible for the game design to change where healers can still max out "actions per minute" but have most of those actions be healing moves, buffs, or dispels, rather than moves that deal damage. And then I would ask the healers that like to DPS, "would you still like healing if the game were balanced more in that direction?", and people like the one I quoted might say "no because I can't DPS anymore" and that's why I'm trying to understand what it is about that point that's appealing. If you really enjoy just straight-up doing damage, why not actually play a damage dealer? Their rotations are way more interesting an in-depth than a healer's 3-4 dot application and filler spam.

In my experience, Jedi Sage in SWTOR could actually do some serious damage, no? I recall this earthquake move that was just pants-on-head with how strong it was, though it's been a while since I played so I might be mistaken. I could also tear up the meters in easier content in World of Warcraft by using my owl chicken affinity as a Resto Druid in dungeons and doing a Moonkin-esque DPS rotation, to say nothing of how Disc Priest is a class designed entirely AROUND the idea of doing healing through damage. Maybe older expansions of WoW had healers twiddling their thumbs because their damage was poop, but I don't think it's really the case in Legion, which is where the bulk of my WoW experience comes from (some WoD, but lolWoD). The difference is, there's just plenty to do healing-wise in content that you don't outgear, and more difficult content like heroic/mythic raids and M+.

Idk, hopefully that clarifies my point a bit.

[Derio]

Cleric stance is still needed. There are parts in the MSQ where you have to deal damage to complete an objective. Now many people would say, " If they have to complete the MSQ that requires damage they can just switch jobs."

That shouldnt be the answer and you should be able to do any quest with any job which is what we have now.

If you get rid of Cleric stance and the ability to dps as a healer, who knows what kind of effects that can have to the game population as well as the healer population.

[Vexander]

Cleric stance is still needed. There are parts in the MSQ where you have to deal damage to complete an objective. Now many people would say, " If they have to complete the MSQ that requires damage they can just switch jobs."

That shouldnt be the answer and you should be able to do any quest with any job which is what we have now.

If you get rid of Cleric stance and the ability to dps as a healer, who knows what kind of effects that can have to the game population as well as the healer population.

That's why I'd say give healers a choice of contributing DPS to the group/raid. They could slap on Cleric Stance and DPS as they can now, or use an Overheal Mechanic to boost HP pools, giving a stacking DPS buff.

[Averax]

Hrmn... you know...

What if, 'Overhealing,' was a mechanic? So say your Warrior has 50,000 HP. They're at 50,000, you slap down a Lustrate/Tetra/Whatever, and instead of the HP staying 50,000, it instead goes up to 65,000? It could make for an interesting mechanic in Boss Fights, beefing up the tank's health so they can take crazy damage. Or beefing up the party's health to take a big damage move. As for visually referencing it, the Green HP bar gets a pink/purple one over it. Double health? A Blue one.

What you are thinking of already in the game and is known as "galvanize" and "nocturnal field" and "stoneskin"

[Vexander]

What you are thinking of already in the game and is known as "galvanize" and "nocturnal field" and "stoneskin"

No, those are shields. Absorb effects. I'm talking about overhealing.

[Averax]

No, those are shields. Absorb effects. I'm talking about overhealing.

and what, functionally, is the difference between pre-shielding somebody and overhealing somebody.

A shield is essentially temporary bonus health.

[Adire]

Honest question - what precisely is the difference between pushing a button that makes green numbers float on the screen and pushing buttons that makes white numbers float on the screen? This isn't an attack, I've honestly always been curious what people mean when they say "I hate being just a 'healbot' like I was in other games" - or whatever that means. If you're doing the same number of actions per minute, except that your actions are healing actions instead of Cleric-Stance-and-DPS actions, does it make that much of a difference? What precisely is the difference? I just can't relate to it.

Dealing damage and healing damage are two very different things. Healing damage is an absolute must, a bare minimum job of the healer. Doing damage is extra effort. I like going above and beyond, simply doing the bare minimum I'm required to do bores me and puts me to sleep.

I'm also a DPS at heart. Healers having the opportunity to do that in this game makes a normally boring to play role entertaining for me. The dual job of the healer makes it more exciting for me than a proper DPS is at times actually.