What's up with healers not healing?

[Myrany]

As someone who is trying to learn WHM now (I healed for 15 years in other games) I can tell you that for me anyways DPS wise the best I can do many times is get a few DOTS out. The rest of the time I am healing. Between people standing in bad. Me trying to dodge bad myself while healing. Tanks pulling huge and running off. My poor level 29 healing kit just does not afford me much time to DPS if everyone is going to stay alive. I am learning. I will get better. Right now I am focused on keeping people alive 1st and foremost.

Most people have been very nice to me as I learn. There are unfortunately always exceptions and those can be pretty off putting. If I didn't have so much experience healing in other games with far worse communities than this one I probably would have given up after my first dungeon when a very nasty person linked parses and screamed at me for bad DPS. I was like um dude its Sastasha and I have never healed in this game before. I did what I felt I could do safely and no one died. Thanks for reminding me why I left those other games. LOL

[Granyala]

As someone who is trying to learn WHM now (I healed for 15 years in other games) I can tell you that for me anyways DPS wise the best I can do many times is get a few DOTS out. The rest of the time I am healing. Between people standing in bad. Me trying to dodge bad myself while healing. Tanks pulling huge and running off. My poor level 29 healing kit just does not afford me much time to DPS if everyone is going to stay alive.

That's quite normal in leveling content, especially if you are a genuine lowie with crap gear and not an alt decked in HQ crafting gear of appropriate level.
Don't worry, it will change drastically once you hit max level. You will be DPSing ~ 80% of your time, even during mass pulls, provided you have a competent tank at the helm.

Expert dungeons are ridiculously easy, of you go back to leveling dungeons you realize that some of them hit like trucks by comparison.

With 8-man content, it could be a case of one healer thinking the other healer will get it so that they both don't waste a cooldown.
With no form of voice chat, healers can't really coordinate with each other other

Unless we're talking savage or extreme, a tank needs a lot of time to die from auto attacks. If that happens, both healers were asleep at the wheel. "I thought the other guy would do it" is not an excuse, once the tank drops below 30% it should be obvious that the other healer has no intention of healing.

Coordinating is fairly easy. Just watch what the other is doing, you can see the casts after all.

[Mimilu]

Unless we're talking savage or extreme, a tank needs a lot of time to die from auto attacks. If that happens, both healers were asleep at the wheel. "I thought the other guy would do it" is not an excuse, once the tank drops below 30% it should be obvious that the other healer has no intention of healing.

Coordinating is fairly easy. Just watch what the other is doing, you can see the casts after all.

Could also just be a case of healers tunnel visioning while DPSing and/or waiting for oGCDs to get off of cooldown.
I'm a Green DPS, I like spending my cast times DPSing and leaving heals to oGCDs. There are a lot of people with this mentality and the game does kind of foster it.
We are also so far into the expansion that people are going to try different roles. With Tanks and DPS both having more DPS-focused gameplay, never really having to look at/worry about other partymembers' HP (sans a handful of mechanics), that mentality might bleed in while playing healers.

[SnowVix]

As someone who is trying to learn WHM now (I healed for 15 years in other games) I can tell you that for me anyways DPS wise the best I can do many times is get a few DOTS out. The rest of the time I am healing. Between people standing in bad. Me trying to dodge bad myself while healing. Tanks pulling huge and running off. My poor level 29 healing kit just does not afford me much time to DPS if everyone is going to stay alive. I am learning. I will get better. Right now I am focused on keeping people alive 1st and foremost.

Most people have been very nice to me as I learn. There are unfortunately always exceptions and those can be pretty off putting. If I didn't have so much experience healing in other games with far worse communities than this one I probably would have given up after my first dungeon when a very nasty person linked parses and screamed at me for bad DPS. I was like um dude its Sastasha and I have never healed in this game before. I did what I felt I could do safely and no one died. Thanks for reminding me why I left those other games. LOL

this is the actual problem, is that people treat early game content like it's end game content and assume that everyone has enough of a kit for mass pulls. healers are very unequal throughout the leveling curve, they even out at expansion end. SCH is just a green DPS who lets the fairy do 99% of the work until Cutter's Cry/Stone Vigil, where they take a massive hit as the Fairy can't keep up but they also don't have the tools they need for mass pulls, and don't get those tools until 50. WHM is actually pretty weak at healing until about Halatali, then it stays strong through 50, and AST has Essential Dignity which is just ridiculously OP in early levels but evens out as incoming damage accelerates.

and anyone who gives you crap about DPS in Sastasha and links parses in game deserves a Report Harassment

[Granyala]

O1n-o4n: incoming tank buster, pop cd. Wait for heals, wait for heals, wait for any type of heal, boom die to auto attacks.

Get better armor. Most tank busters are a joke.

*pops blackest night* :<

On a more serious note: this can't be very widespread behavior, since it is typically quite unhealthy for the healer to let the tank die.
I'll heal you if you drop below 50%.

[Mimilu]

On a more serious note: this can't be very widespread behavior, since it is typically quite unhealthy for the healer to let the tank die.
I'll heal you if you drop below 50%.

With 8-man content, it could be a case of one healer thinking the other healer will get it so that they both don't waste a cooldown.
With no form of voice chat, healers can't really coordinate with each other other then stopping what they're doing and typing (which can be especially bad for controller players, who will have to drop their controller to do it).
Other factors are things like the mudding and the attempted removal of proactive vs reactive healing and the lessening importance of off-tanks.

[ReynTime]

Eh, I rarely run into an issue of healers not healing myself. The only problems I have from time to time are healers insisting on wall to wall when they can't keep up or DPS who disrespect what the healer can deal with and pulling in my stead. If I notice the healer is just overwhelmed by boss mechanics I don't even get angry about wipes or anything.
Seriously sometimes it feels like people are way too spoiled and act like it's such a huge sacrifice to adapt to each party's pacing. Personally I don't care if it takes 5, 10 or 15 mins longer to clear something.

[Kikoten]

Lol.

I remember when people used to get pissy at me for not DPSing. It's not that I refused to DPS, it was because their dumb asses were either failing mechanics or they were tanking without the tank stance, back when being in a tank stance actually meant higher defense.

[ForteNightshade]

Lol.

I remember when people used to get pissy at me for not DPSing. It's not that I refused to DPS, it was because their dumb asses were either failing mechanics or they were tanking without the tank stance, back when being in a tank stance actually meant higher defense.

I mean, you never needed tank stance in any content. Even Ultimate, tanks primarily stayed in DPS stance. There's a reason they axed it this expansion.

[Jandor]

I mean, you never needed tank stance in any content. Even Ultimate, tanks primarily stayed in DPS stance. There's a reason they axed it this expansion.

Technically they didn't axe it, you just can't switch it off anymore.