Another post about hating that I have to DPS as a Healer

Community General Discussion
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This is my PERSONAL OPINION and I know that some may enjoy this facet of being a healer or accept it as how the game works now but I just need to say this…

I hate hate HATE having to deal damage. If I wanted to deal damage then I’d play a DPS spec. In fact… I don’t even want to see damage dealing abilities on my bars! I hate it so much lol, I just wish I could focus on healing and only healing, maybe throw out a few damage dealing abilities in my downtime but honestly? If I was able to play exactly the way I wanted to w/o being yelled at by the pugs in my group, I wouldn’t even do that, in my ideal world I would never have to throw out a damaging ability unless it somehow directly buffed my healing.

Now I’m not here to say “The game needs to be played like this” or “This game sucks so bad because of xyz,” I just wanted to vent about how much I miss being a healer and only a healer. Maybe it’s always been that way, I’m 27 and have played since WotLK but didnt really start to fully understand the game until I was older, near end of MoP, but I was so happy and carefree back in those days before I realized my job is to help deal damage when I can :’)

My biggest complaint isn’t even with Blizzard, it’s more with the playerbase foaming at the mouth when a healer isn’t dealing damage in +15 keys… We’re gonna blow through this key why do I need to deal damage, let me rest please.

I firmly believe the days of healers only healing will never return but if they ever decide to let mana issues make a comeback so casters need to conserve their mana I’d be quietly crying tears of relief. Hell, don’t even make it caster specific, make it healer specific like they do with healers mana regen in PVP. I’m sorry, I would throw every healer under the bus and welcome a very unpopular nerf just to stop dealing damage on my healer.

Also before anyone says “Stop playing healer then” that’s the plan baby, after healing for 15 years I’m gonna try maining a DPS for Dragonflight. I may come crawling back to healing after a while but at this point I’m just done with it, time for something new. I have no hate for Blizzard, no real theoretical solutions or anything, I just want others to know I’m miserable. MISERABLE!

EDIT: I didn’t think this would gain so much attention and I’m surprised by how angry some of you are in the comments. The entire point of this post was to say I personally don’t like dpsing as a healer, not to argue about why I need to and how unfair it is to expect DPS to always mash buttons while I sit there looking pretty lol. It’s sad that so many people seem to have taken this as a personal attack when I was specific in my wording, expressing this as a personal opinion and that I know a lot of people feel differently and that’s fine because we all have different ideas of fun.

Some of you need to learn how to see an opinion that doesn’t affect you negatively AT ALL and stop taking it as a challenge or an attack against you. You can easily see this, think “That’s an interesting way of enjoying the game, why do you feel that way?” and not “Wow you’re a dogsht player and a lazy healer, learn to play the game the right way and stop expecting us big strong DPS players to carry you in content you stupid bum.” Also go to therapy maybe.

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Totally feel that. Filling a critical position that gets fingers pointed at it the second anything goes slightly wrong is nerve-racking enough as it is, I don’t need even more anxiety from having to try to meet performance expectations in an ancillary role. Sure, I’ll toss in damage when I feel comfortable doing that, but it’s critical to understand that it’s a cherry on top at best and probably won’t make a material difference in the outcome of the dungeon.

If DPS-healers are to continue to exist I’d like to see something like a “reverse Discipline” spec where damage happens by way of the healer in question doing healing things, similar to how tanks do ok damage just by doing tank things.

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To be honest I don’t think anyone cares about healer damage in raids until the very bleeding edge and for keys way higher than 15.

You can chill and just heal for like 98% of the content if that’s what you want to do and nobody will say anything.

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Disc priests have no idea what you are talking about :rofl:

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What do you do with un-used global cooldowns? Overheal? Just stare blankly at the screen waiting for your next healing opportunity? Do you really need lots of micro-rests between heals? I am honestly curious. When I heal I do damage to keep from getting bored and to help the group progress faster. I see this debate come up from time to time, and just trying to wrap my head around “why NOT dps?”…what are the wasted globals doing for you?

Minus an interrupt here and there, the global cooldown maxes your required APM to only 45. This isn’t speed freak territory.

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Get ready for a rude awakening. As someone who has healed only since 9.1, being a good DPS is 100x harder than being a good healer.

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Exactly the opposite.
I love keeping them topped off and then trying to beat some of the DPS players on damage lol

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Depends on the group.
If they dont overpull, dont stand in the bad, dont pull for the tank and comprende the word M I T I G A T I O N, then healing is pretty easy most of the time.
If not, then it can be the worse role quite easily

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I also want to know the answer to this, OP

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Yes, I leave those groups relatively quickly. I’m not their mother to clean up their messes

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All positions in mythic+ are “critical”. Tanks and Healers depend upon DPS to kill stuff, DPS depends upon tanks to keep aggro and tanks depends upon healers to keep them alive. If you take one leg out of that tree, then they will all fail.

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Sure, but there’s 3 DPS but only one tank and healer. The single-person roles have significantly less room to slip up, since nobody else can pick up the slack.

And often DPS will only call each other out if they’re bad on the meters. If they pull extra crap due to bad spatial awareness, stand in fire, etc they’ll usually point at the healer or sometimes the tank instead of taking responsibility for their own slip-ups.

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these days are very gone most multiplayer games healers are no longer true healers were supports yes we have to keep our team alive but throwing damage as we can is an equalpart of our job at the higher end sure you can do up to 15’s just healing and afking but is that really fun?

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I don’t mind dealing damage (healer main) but there shouldn’t be an expectation where I hit a certain number. If I am keeping health bars more full, then those DPS players are able to focus more on their rotations than worrying if they might need to jump out to avoid a death. Down time for their dps is much more impactful than down time for mine.

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Completely agreed. Not healer specific but as I was trying to get into tanking I saw a tier list of tanks that was basically based on the damage they deal.

As a tank I thought the concern should be surviving, having utility, keeping mobs off my team mates and possibly helping the healer here and there with heals if playing something like a paladin.

But what it feels is that a good tank is one that is able to survive just enough not not die while dealing as much damage as possible.

I’d rather not having my healer stress out trying to heal me than focus on having a perfect rotation and build for dps. I’d rather leave that to the dps in party.

I could be wrong, but I don’t think tanks or healers should be measured on how much damage they deal apart from doing their job.

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That’s all I do. Toss out Moonfire and Sunfire. Heal. Maybe a few Wraths in downtime. That’s it.

Do we have to do more than that?

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this is why raiding is superior to m+

you can actually do your roll.

that said no one should ever waste a gcd on just waiting to heal. you should do dps if u have time… i just wish blizzard would make encounters that required a healer.

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Not everyone thinks of game play in terms of maximizing globals.

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What if the answer was nothing? If they are healing you and the dungeon is going smoothly why are you worried about it?

Everyone plays to have fun, not everyone considers pressing keys every .02 microseconds fun.

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Guess the anxiety suggests to do at least as much DPS as the tank.
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(Welp emote fail)