Question to healers

[Gimorian401]

I have been noticing that more and more healers are letting the tank stay at lower and lower HP so they can DPS. 50% is fine. Most dungeons don't have attacks that can kill a half life tank. 20% and less is what I'm seeing more of.

My question is why? I want to hear the points of view so I can understand.

(Note: that very rare times I'm watching the tank die, very rare)

[odie]

I have been noticing that more and more healers are letting the tank stay at lower and lower HP so they can DPS. 50% is fine. Most dungeons don't have attacks that can kill a half life tank. 20% and less is what I'm seeing more of.

My question is why? I want to hear the points of view so I can understand.

(Note: that very rare times I'm watching the tank die, very rare)

I am very confident in my healing ability. Sometimes I take a moment to gauge the damage the tank is tanking in duties i'm very familiar with to get an idea how far I can let them go. I'm not trying to make you crap your pants. I'm just maximizing the time I can stay in Cleric before coming out of it to top you off again. It's probably scary when you don't know your healer, but most of us have healed long enough we know how far we can let you get down to.

[Ashelia_Ferron]

If no one dies, I consider that good enough.

The healer's job is to keep everyone alive, not keep everyone at a comfortable HP level.

Plus healer toolkits allow for rapid burst healing in case HP does get to the point where death is close. WHM have their glorious Benediction which can be done even in Cleric Stance for maximum DPS time, and Tetra for another quick heal. SCH can easily recover low HP tanks through rapid Lustrate use. And AST Essential Dignity has more potency the less HP the target has so they have even more incentive to hold off on heals.

The point is, unless healers are letting tanks die, I don't see an issue

[AlannahCorvaine]

I don't often let a tank dip below 40-50% unless there's minimal damage going out. If they happen to dip to 30% or below it's usually a mistake on my timing or I've already made the decision to use Benediction, so might as well squeeze as much hp as possible out of it. It's not really intentional on my part though; I don't play chicken with a tank's health, I'm just trying to be efficient.

[LadyVal]

I do it because I'm comfortable with the content. I know in dungeons not a ton of damage gets done unless a tank is making an effort to do large pulls. I know what will hit hard and what won't and there's no sense in keeping a tank at 90% hp when a mob will maaaybe take out 15% of a tank's hp before the mob dies. I start healing at 30% just to be safe but honestly with mob-by-mob pulls, my fairy alone can keep a tank around 75% hp while I just DPS.

It mostly depends on the tank's speed though. If you're pulling one mob at a time, I'm a DPS with a healer pet, but if you're doing large pulls, I'll keep you at 100%.

[WhiteArchmage]

There are also some "ohcrap" buttons we can use in case the tank dips a bit too low or even as part of our "rotation". WHM can use Tetragrammaton as an insta-cast, mp-free, cure II (or, if you let the tank dip TOO low, Benediction); AST has Essential Dignity and a SCH can let the fairy heal and then throw a Lustrate. It's mostly a thing of practice and knowing your toolkit. A WHM that trusts their tank to keep aggro can even Divine Seal+Medica II+Regen on the tank and DPS while the HoTs tick away and, in general, if the healer is DPSing (while keeping everyone alive, of course), the run goes faster.

[Kaurie]

Cuz I must get my last dot off! I can't just put up Shadowflare Bio II and Miasma without Bio and Bane (and Aero)- that'd be crazy!

Also, been doing this since who knows how long. Maybe what you are seeing is that more and more players are getting more comfortable with their class as the game ages. It's less of a meta change and more of an experience change.

[Zojha]

Because healing is so powerful that you "can" do it without causing wipes?

The healing meta is pretty much:"DPS as much as possible, heal as little as necessary" and you can heal someone from 1% to 100% very quickly. The incoming damage, especially when tanks use their CDs properly, is pretty laughable compared to incoming healing. So you really just need to stop DPSing when the tank is just about to pop.

[HPDelron]

The only hit point that matters is the last one.

[Fiscr]

The answer is simple: it's efficient. There are several reasons.
- It reduces the risk of overheal and i can make use of alle my skills (instead of spamming cure II for example).
- From a whitmages point of view i have benediction and tetra. The more health a tank has, when using benediction, the more healing capability of this skill is wasted. It's similar for tetra, using this while the is over 50% might waste capability.
- Healing a tank below 10% boosts the limit gauge.
- Getting into cleric stance may be a risk, since it has a five second recast, in which i can not deactivate it. If the tanks health drops too fast during this time, for whatever reason, i'm caught in cleric stance and can't heal properly. For that reason, i wish to reduce stance dancing. This means, the tank has to drop lower in hp, before i start healing.
- When you know your healer class and the instance well enough, the point where you have to start healing gets lower.

Tanks shouldn't take this behaviour as a healers attempt to offend them. It's more like testing our own limits, so we get better and play more efficiently, which might be helpful in harder content.