Burn the healer. Is there another way?

[Wulfgang]

BRD on healer for interrupts / harassment
MDPS + tank on their RDPS

I frankly find this to be optimal in 30/40; if the healer gets a SC+Raise off, BRD wheels to drop the raised player. In 30/40, most healers operate under the assumption they will be targeted first. BRD on healer maintains that illusion typically long enough to drop the RDPS. Once it's 4v3, dropping the healer becomes more feasible as your healer has a marked survivability advantage.

Frankly, dropping the tank would likely be the best option, but I've found that tanks in 30/40 are often the most experienced players. You get a lot of derp RDPS who die before they even realize the healer isn't being targeted.

[Thebob89]

The best strategy I've seen so far is

Tank harasses the healer
Dps team pound the ranged dps, followed by the melee
Whm sleeps tank, and melee dps

Once the tank and melee are out of the way the whm is open to heal

Once the ranged dps is down the healer is less likely to be pounded by ranged interrupts leaving only melee who generally have to be close enough to be hit by fluid aura

All the while the other healer is scrambling to either heal or simply survive while being hammered with a flood of stuns or interrupts

But good luck finding a party willing to flow with that...

[Ryuko]

I sort of wish pillaring was as effective as it should be.

Too many times...
-- See a BLM/WHM casting sleep.
-- Hide behind pillar.
-- Slept behind pillar. Wut.

Or... to my advantage...
-- Start casting something on someone.
-- See them run behind wall/pillar.
-- Still hit them anyway. Wut.

I can dodge ALL THE THINGS in PvE yet pillaring isn't working all the time. :O

I personally like CCing the healer and burning a dps... mostly because I play a SMN and if we don't burn a dps I'll have to deal with someone wailing on me the entire match or another caster free casting. There's only so far Equanimity/Surecast/Swiftcast can get me with someone punching me in the face. The trick with killing a dps first is that the healer will most likely attempt to raise that person with SC... so, you have to be on the lookout for it. There is a delay with damaging revived people, so you'll have to wait a few seconds, CC the healer, and quickly burn down the dps a SECOND time.

In general, if the healer is GOOD at their job... go after a DPS first. If a healer is NOT very good/experienced, you can easily destroy them for a quick game match. I've been in a few random matches where I am queued against a healer I know is not very good... I burst the healer down first. But, you need to be careful that your own healer isn't also getting destroyed while you focus all of your attention on destroying a healer.

[Pentara]

I sort of wish pillaring was as effective as it should be.

Too many times...
-- See a BLM/WHM casting sleep.
-- Hide behind pillar.
-- Slept behind pillar. Wut.

Or... to my advantage...
-- Start casting something on someone.
-- See them run behind wall/pillar.
-- Still hit them anyway. Wut.

This dear god this, hate hate hate how latency effects line of sight in this game, its so bad

[Vaeria]

*agrees with Thebob* *Inserts 'The Law Of Teh Squishie' and 'Broken Fanged Tiger' rules* Not to be rude, but I find myself saying nothing at all when I hear everyone say go for healer 1st. This works well enough in 30s but in 40s, and all teh moreso in 50s, healer can be worse than the armored tank ;x Jumping him/her seems a 50% gamble. If he's inexperienced, not abilitied up, sure, he'll drop fast enough. If he's decent enough however, can be a waste of precious time. Hence, "The Law Of Teh Squishie: If there are multiple squishies, the squishiest of the squishies must be squished 1st." Ranged dps are the mp sinks of the team, even over the whm. No way to nullify the flow of damage (least not like a tank or healer) and once ya break one, your own healers gonna breathe that much easier. Assuming the tank's gonna go for the healer (usually by default), can just unload on ranged. Hopefully other dps'll be at least on one of the two, insteada melee or tank.

[Megido]

what SE needs to do is add something like swtor did to cover and a skill for warrior too...reduced damage taken by that cover was placed on, maybe if they added a defense boost to cover, and redirected all damage back to tank, it would kill the "kill the healer" strats somewhat

now i dont expect that much, but something like that would be helpful for pvp....and yes, make it a pvp only skill

But that could be used on a dps too.
If we want healers to get focused less (which i dont think is even really the case that often since a geared healer will always be geared for survivability unlike that dps or even tank) then we should make it harder to get ressed and healed back to full after dying.

[ish007xx]

certain tanks i normally rush on the hard cause they never expect it, but most time i let the my tank and rdps get the heals while i get the range other than that it always the healer 1st :P

[RinrinHeartilly]

certain tanks i normally rush on the hard cause they never expect it, but most time i let the my tank and rdps get the heals while i get the range other than that it always the healer 1st :P

you always rush me first if im smn or sch why ish whyyy

[Lucenia]

The way i built/play my monk is set up conversely different than the "burn the healer" mindset... Very few teams i have to alter to "interupt the sean kipling/turbo vrgn", but in most cases I lock down a healer and tell my team to burn the... everything else. Monk can have crazy good utility but all i see people doing with it is trying to max out damage like a dragoon

[ish007xx]

you always rush me first if im smn or sch why ish whyyy

lol cause i like to poke u with my lance :P