Healer DPS or no?

[MoroMurasaki]

Simple enough, I may have started tanking but I certainly don't have remotely the level of experience most of you have. The debate rages on in the saltiest place on earth (see: healer forum) but I'm curious if tanks care whether or not their healers DPS.

I know there are details here but if possible I'd like to go with broad generalizations. I get DRK's don't enjoy Holy spam and no one wants to die because your healer tunnel visioned but in general how do you guys feel about it? You are the most effected party member in most situations after all.

[Donjo]

In raids/extremes: It's expected. Since healing can be so planned in high level fights, room for DPS can easily be found... and if there's an enrage timer, DPS from any source helps.

Anywhere else: It's a bonus. I won't say no to a Holy/Gravity/Bane or three, but I'm not going to lambast dungeon healer #578 for not DPSing either. As long as I don't feel like I'm perpetually near death, I'm satisfied

If I'm the healer: Run :P

[xvshanevx]

In raids/extremes: It's expected. Since healing can be so planned in high level fights, room for DPS can easily be found... and if there's an enrage timer, DPS from any source helps.

Anywhere else: It's a bonus. I won't say no to a Holy/Gravity/Bane or three, but I'm not going to lambast dungeon healer #578 for not DPSing either. As long as I don't feel like I'm perpetually near death, I'm satisfied

If I'm the healer: Run :P

This 100%. I expect my static healers to dish out damage, but when I come across a random healer in DF, then I could care less.

[Felorr]

I get DRK's don't enjoy Holy spam.

WTF? Why? The damage done by Holy far outweighs any gauge the DRK is generating from BP.

But anyway. A healer who throws out damage feels like part of the team. A healer who stands there and casts cure a few times to top me off during the trash/bosses feels like I'm a chaperone. I get when a healer is new to certain content or getting a feel for the damage the tank takes, but there's no excuse to not throw out DoTs. If I see a healer who ONLY heals, you better bet I'm gonna make them contribute, by pulling as much as I can so the DPS can pick up the healer's slack with AOE.

[Galactimus]

Unless you plan to savage raid it doesn't matter if your healer DPS's, your tanks flash spam, your meld slots are empty, or you 1,2,3 spam with your eyes closed.

- Not DPS'ing as a healer is a personal choice
- Kicking said healers for not DPS'ing is also a personal choice (though I've never seen it happen)

However, anyone that plays their job to its maximum potential (using the jobs entire toolkit) never has to worry about silly opinions, party drama, vote kicks, or forum discussions. That makes my choice pretty easy, personally. That being said, Holy spam is always really nice but on very specific pulls (four Final Stings in Neverreap) it prevents Paladins from Shield Bashing (stunning) dangerous mob abilities since they've become immune to stun.

[ovIm]

I get DRK's don't enjoy Holy spam

Na, a good DRK will enjoy the fact that there is no need to mitigate any damage for 7s and delay his Blood Price DAAD Spam accordingly.

But in general, I love every healer that starts nuking mobs, it makes a run much quicker and encourages me to mitigate even better so that the healer has even more time to throw out some mad deeps.

[MauvaisOeil]

WTF? Why? The damage done by Holy far outweighs any gauge the DRK is generating from BP.

Playing with pugs don't allow you to time their holy as they don"t allways follow logic or sync to your gameplay.

If you go full grit with a pug WHM and he shuts you down with holy spam during a BP + TBN moment, your dps will be severed. That's the main problem : Of course it's more effectibr than having the DRK spam AOE under BP. But it happens at an unexpected time, and effectively might waste ressources the DRK has been putting in, while condemning him to a low gameplay for the next few seconds. Effectively : that's a potential shutdown of ressources, and on big packs (like gubal's library during 3.x) the DRK with BP & BW would throw any WHM away in DPS if he doesn't get the mobs stunned.

Of course in prepared teams, the DRK might as well go gritless and Blood weapon while preparing a TBN break for the moment they will be immune stun, but that means you need to communicate or share a sequence with the DRK so he can prepare defensive gameplay for when it's worth.

[bounddreamer]

I prefer that my healer dps as much as the duty and their mp will allow. I have a 70 WHM myself and I'll be leveling the other two when I can, so I'm pretty familiar with how much or little a particular instance allows.

That said, I'm not actively monitoring what they're doing outside of keeping me alive. If I notice them standing idle it may irritate me but I won't say anything. I might pull more just to make sure they have enough to do.

[HoodRat]

I typically don't confront anyone, but it annoys me when a healer shows they clearly have time to dps but they won't actually dps.

[Spartan926]

Personally while it's nice to see a healer doing DPS I don't get to fussed if they're not. Really I think the healers should focus on keeping themselves alive, then the tank, then the DPS, and only then focus on dpsing. The extra helps and is necessary in some fights, but not getting a tank healed or dying as a healer will cause a wipe. Also I'd argue the issue with enrage timers would only be a real one if the healer A) does NO dps during the entire fight or B) The boss gets down to like 1% and the healer wasn't dpsing as much as they could have.