Healing is neither easy nor difficult, it is simply frustrating, because half the time you can’t save anybody.
The reason is because generally everything is a one-shot, that’s why we spend half the time DPSing, because there is nothing to heal, you either don’t get hit (do mechanics, kick, CC, etc) or just get blown up instantly.
An example I experienced earlier, Priory first boss, main boss does big AoE (7 million to whole group) then a cast from the miniboss goes off at the same time because nobody kicked (12 million). Boom, dead player.
There are specific fights like Swampface where it feels really good to be pumping healing non stop, but those are exceptions. It is a bummer that the game has taken this direction regarding healing.
My main issue is that I usually run out of action bars for abilties. My rdruid, for example, has only two free slots, and that goes down to one if she gets a on use trinket.
And while OBR can help with that, I cannot get used to the extra GCD. Its led to a few people dying before.
Blizzard responded to healer DPS feedback entirely wrong. The correct response would have been to make some healer specs do decent direct damage while giving others more support style options as filler when healing wasn’t needed for the healers that didn’t want to focus on doing damage directly.
Instead they just made healer damage suck. Even the “big” dps healers this season just have tiny bars compared to the DPS even when they’re doing their damage. IE: if I’m on my shaman alt and spamming chain lightning with all my ancestors out, at best I might beat the tank if it’s a lower damage tank. If I ever beat a DPS they’re afk or 20+ ilvl lower and using OBR.
Or they could have just told them to shut the hell up, which is what everybody should have done.
The only problem here was the tiny, fragile ego of the “I refuse to DPS” crowd, because what BOTHERED them was other players in their groups saying “DPS when there’s no damage”.
It was never that they HAD dps buttons that bothered them, it was other people giving them pointers to play better.
Because giving other people pointers is simply unacceptable in WoW, to people who should never be playing online multiplayer games in the first place.
A support focused healing spec fits the theme of the role very well though. It would make perfect sense to have more support focused healing specs as an option.
The thing is this wasn’t even happening. Nobody complained about low dps, it was the pressure they put on themselves that they had to do something nobody was asking them to.
There might have been a few very isolated examples but it was not common at all for anyone to comment on healer damage in a key, at any level. They simply didn’t want to engage with the concept on principle and because refusing to meant they were playing worse, they didn’t enjoy the idea other people could be playing better.
The funny thing though is blizzard listened, they nerfed healer damage and made healing in M+ harder to give healers more opportunity to heal. And the result? They complained that healing was too hard because their ability to preempt damage, plan cds, and generally be a good healer was now a relevant factor for the group’s success.
I can’t remember the last time I cared how much dps a healer was doing in my groups (only vault level keys). I guess it’s saved some very tightly timed keys for me, but there were very good unrelated reasons those keys were tight.
Go back and read all the “I shouldn’t have to DPS” threads, if you want to be really depressed.
It was lunacy. And they should have been told to stuff it. Letting rot like that fester on the forums just leads to Blizzard doing stupid things. We’ve seen it many times before.
Better ones do, that’s kinda the thing. Healing difficulty in M+ is sort of a reverse bell curve. You start having to cover everyone’s mistakes, then they stop making them (Or they’re not your problem) and then unavoidable damage scales to the point it requires your planning and attention.
But unavoidable damage isn’t constantly threatening no matter what level you go up to.
This.
I used to mythic raid on my Druid, it was difficult, and yeah, if you don’t stop people die.
I mean, this was 10 years ago, but still I’m with you
Is there any way we can meet in the middle and let m+ healers not have 50% of their time centered around waiting for something to do?
Tanks and DPS always have something to do, would be more enjoyable of healing wasn’t 50% playing 50% afking when doing keys with players that doesn’t suck.
Sort of agree yes. I just started healing 11s and 12s this season and have definitely noticed the increased quality in pugs. on the other hand, there definitely are players who are getting handed keys they have no business doing and are 100% fishing for carries in LFG. I have noticed this the most with hunters for some reason this season
Would be great, tww s1 was the best it has been in a long time.
Sadly the bad players don’t like challenges, and the bad players are a majority, thus that isn’t a feasible solution.
They could simply keep m+ as easy as it is but give healers a bit more damage though. The bad players will still just do ~14 keys by the end of season and the good players will all push slightly further.
Bad healers won’t have to use their dps buttons and there still won’t be any need for them to do such in the key range they’re stuck at.
Good healers will get to feel meaningful again for the 50% of the key in which they have nothing to do because there’s no outgoing damage.
