Disheartened healer annoyed with Shadowbringers' difficulty

[RopeDrink]

If you or anyone else has videos of something like a Duty Finder Qitana Ravel where you DPS even half as much as you heal, I would very much like to see that.

I don't, but I can go make one - which might not be fair as I'm no longer levelling up. Having said that, Ravel was still a case of triple-pulling up to 1st boss, triple pulling the bat-groups before second boss, and double-pulling everything else (which has unavoidable breaks). You most certainly will be spamming Holy all day, but bear in mind that both the Tank & DPS determine how much you can do this before heals are required. Given it's a levelling dungeon with a lot of people likely just wearing shreds of gear from the previous dungeon, you will often get relatively squishy tanks and/or DPS being lower than usual, which means you can only spam Holy so much before your weaving is expended and you are potentially forced into CureII spam. In short, if a mega-pull is not dead by the time Asylum, Temperance, Tetra, Benedict, and all your lilies have been used, you're left with good ole Cure spam. All of which is determined by the Tank/DPS more than the Healer.

Once you reach the higher dungeons (with less frequency of such situations and with players often on a more even gear-keel), you then realize just how much freedom you truly have. I could head to Amaurot right now and use the 2nd boss as an example seeing as it's a glorified trash-fight with an abundance of player-target mobs that can't be tanked and adds that can't be stunned, yet it doesn't matter. Holy for days with the odd Rapture in between, possibly a MedII if you want to be lazy. Failing that, the big triple-pack at the very start of Akademia.

Honestly, no dungeon in SHB provided me with any kind of issue, other than those provided by paper tanks or by DPS trying to slap mobs with a wet fish. Even then, Holy is still the most pressed button. As Urth said, it has a lot to do with understanding the dungeon as well as a few niche playstyle factors and understanding limits.

[Tharnor]

I am not sure what people thought was going to happen with the dps/healer debate and SE clearly siding with healing. They made healing harder. Things hit harder more often and our heals did not scale well going into the expansion. I cant speak for ast but whm and sch have no issues healing when properly geared and played. That is with the normal pull everything strat on trash. People that were keeping themselves busy should not have had problems adapting. But, surprise surprise the "I only heal" crowd have issues now.

[MerlinCross]

It's just a matter of learning the fight. I don't fault any healer for playing conservatively and keeping players topped off while they're still learning a fight, but there are some things you notice after a while. Using Titania as an example, I just have to use one oGCD AoE heal for Bright Sabbath, and then another for Flame Rune a while later, and then I'm good as far as AoE heals goes until the add phase. For the tank, just toss one on them if they're getting low (and not even then if they have Excog, I can just let them go down to 50% to pop it), or if I see Divination Rune being cast (And honestly I should just learn when those are so I can toss one there.)

I encourage healers to DPS as much as they can, but that's not to say to neglect healing. Rather, I feel that any healer worth their salt has what it takes to learn a fight and learn to optimize their toolkit to heal people as fast and with as few GCDs and MP as possible.

I mean the fight is the same yes, Raid Wide Damage at 30 seconds into the fight. But I can't predict both my fellow players and ping, so I tend hold my panic buttons close and use more usual cures and heals so I can quickly fall back on the oGCDs if things go south. Now to people that know the fight or fully trust their groups to NOT mess up, yeah you can probably get away with it. Don't expect every healer to fall into that category though or end up calling them a bad player if they can't. Not saying you are but I've seen people pull that card a few times here and elsewhere over some really general stuff.

That said, I'm in the camp of at least throwing out a Dot or two if you have them. Yes providing DPS can help the fight go faster and cause less healing but at the same time didn't the devs say they aren't accounting for Healer damage anymore or is that old info/rumor?

[Urthdigger]

I mean the fight is the same yes, Raid Wide Damage at 30 seconds into the fight. But I can't predict both my fellow players and ping, so I tend hold my panic buttons close and use more usual cures and heals so I can quickly fall back on the oGCDs if things go south. Now to people that know the fight or fully trust their groups to NOT mess up, yeah you can probably get away with it. Don't expect every healer to fall into that category though or end up calling them a bad player if they can't. Not saying you are but I've seen people pull that card a few times here and elsewhere over some really general stuff.

That said, I'm in the camp of at least throwing out a Dot or two if you have them. Yes providing DPS can help the fight go faster and cause less healing but at the same time didn't the devs say they aren't accounting for Healer damage anymore or is that old info/rumor?

The trick is to realize that they are not panic buttons, but rather tools to be used. A 30 second recast does little to help if you're holding onto it for 5 minutes.Using them when they're available, especially the AoE heals, allows you to not only DPS more for a shorter fight, but also save your MP for when things go south.

The quick casting nature of your oGCDs may make it seem like they're for emergencies, but in truth? If someone is taking avoidable damage rapidly enough that you'd be unable to reach them with a cast in time, they're likely beyond helping even with them.

Your oGCDs are free to use. Use them early, use them often. Your MP casting spells, on the other hand, are your things for emergencies. It does take some getting used to that line of thinking, but once you do so you'll find you have a wealth of resources available to you.

[HyoMinPark]

I mean the fight is the same yes, Raid Wide Damage at 30 seconds into the fight. But I can't predict both my fellow players and ping, so I tend hold my panic buttons close and use more usual cures and heals so I can quickly fall back on the oGCDs if things go south.

You shouldn’t hold on to your oGCDs for emergencies. Especially since they tend to be stronger than your base kit GCDs. All fights and all outgoing damage in this game is scripted—once you learn the dance, it’s 100% possible to map out your healing in its entirety when it comes to oGCD usage. Even if people stand in the bad. Holding on to Essential Dignity for a full minute when the recast is 40 seconds means that you actually get less uses of them throughout any given encounter. Same for Excog, Indom, Tetra, and any other oGCD. So it’s really important to get in the habit of utilizing them first before you turn to your GCDs.

Priority for your healing should be oGCDs first (so things like Tetra, Essential Dignity, Indomitability, Lustrate, Excog, Asylum, and the new Sacred Soil), then GCDs (if you have instant-casts like WHM’s new Afflatus spells, use them first, then the casted GCDs like Cure I/II, Benefic I/II, and Physick).

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

I am sure many healers noticed tanks taking more damage than they are used to in leveling dungeons, but I think its just a gear/leveling issue. At 80 in experts the tanks don't feel nearly as squishy as they did when I was leveling WHM to 80.

WHM in Shadowbringers really feels awesome to me. I have an instant heal for every occasion and can spam Holy with impunity much of the time without regard for my mp.

[AyaneKitsune]

I thought the exact same thing when I started Shadowbringers. I had been playing WHM a lot before the expansion, because I finally "understood" the class. I would pop a regen, asylum, maybe an aoe Aero, and then spam the heck out of holy. It was almost like playing a black mage, that occasionally would heal.

I started doing the same thing in dungeons when Shadowbringers came out, and the tanks couldn't stay alive. As soon as I even touched a dps spell, the tank would be nearly dead. So I went back to my 2.0 ways and... completely stopped dps'ing. I then started to realize opportunities to dps when doing large pulls, and I feel like I've been playing a lot better.

You can't play healers like you could pre-5.0. Start a "healing only" routine, and then slowly increment the amount of dps spells you cast until you (and the tank) feel comfortable. I just did all of the raids today as a WHM and loved the heck out of it.

[Shurrikhan]

I mean the fight is the same yes, Raid Wide Damage at 30 seconds into the fight. But I can't predict both my fellow players and ping, so I tend hold my panic buttons close and use more usual cures and heals so I can quickly fall back on the oGCDs if things go south. Now to people that know the fight or fully trust their groups to NOT mess up, yeah you can probably get away with it. Don't expect every healer to fall into that category though or end up calling them a bad player if they can't. Not saying you are but I've seen people pull that card a few times here and elsewhere over some really general stuff.

That said, I'm in the camp of at least throwing out a Dot or two if you have them. Yes providing DPS can help the fight go faster and cause less healing but at the same time didn't the devs say they aren't accounting for Healer damage anymore or is that old info/rumor?

Plan around your CDs, rather than saving them for emergencies. On average, as soon as you can use them without overhealing, you should probably be using them.
Your GCDs are strong enough to act as emergency tools except in wall-to-wall pulls, wherein everything short of your tank lagging out and standing in multiple strong AoEs is both granular and predictable.

[Dynia]

im sorry OP but you need more trening as healer or change class to dps, healing in Shb dungeons is too easy for me and I rly wish it would be 2x more harder
I hope they will make something like M+ from wow or hard mode with harder mobs and better rewards with items and exp

[Atlantasia]

Outside of getting used to the new expansion leveling learning curve which occurs with every expansion and leveling dungeons, nothing's felt remotely like the OP described for me when leveling WHM or even at 80 with WHM. I leveled both my main and alt to 80 with WHM too.

The only time I've had issues with having to heal a lot is with bad tanks not using cds properly or a good tank messing up a cd on a large pull. xD