As a mostly classic player who enjoys casual healing content, Dragonflight was disappointing as soon as I realized as a healer I was expected to DPS. Is this still gonna be a thing in War Within? Maybe this go around I should just focus on DPS instead…
5 Likes
Yes it will be probably and it’s not that your expected to DPS but that you are expected to always be using abilities and not just standing around when healing is not needed.
4 Likes
Healers only really have to dps in higher mythic+ and mythic raiding.
edit: Well unless you are a holy paladin or discipline priest. Of course every healer should be using dots if they got em and dps if you can just to make things go faster. But for the most part you can ignore dps if you want.
2 Likes
Tbh I look at it as less that you have to DPS as a healer and more as “If I have nothing to heal, may as well smack X thing to help a tiny bit”.
Edit: Post above reminded me, it’s actually necessary on a couple classes to proc certain effects (MW Monk being another example). But if you’re not one of those, just smack when there is down time. I.e Holy Priest
4 Likes
I totally feel you! I miss the good old days of healing where I could just focus on keeping my teammates alive without worrying about dealing damage.
Healer dps was meaningless in DF and it will be even more meaningless in TWW. Unless you’re part of the .01%, you will never fail to time a key or kill a raid boss because of healer dps. DPS during downtime if that’s what you want to to, but it’s not required or even helpful. It’s like those small shopping carts that kids can push around the grocery store so they feel like they’re helping.
12 Likes
A good group in low keys doesn’t even need a healer so press some buttons. 
Don’t overthink it.
3 Likes
Why is this the design and not like Final Fantasy 14’s design where healer dps is actually helpful, even if the rotation is a simple 2 buttons…
1 Like
You’re mixing up helpful and essential.
Healer DPS is helpful, rarely is it essential.
7 Likes
I think there’s varying definitions of helpful. Healers can commonly top chart in AoE trash pull scenarios in 14
Also take into account that the game design in TWW is changing in regards to defensive, self sustain, and healing requirements. Their moving away from the one shot mechanics, or rather trying too and they are moving to a more sustained maintenance healing model. In general healers should find they have a lot more maintenance healing to do and thus fewer GCDs to spend doing non-healing actions.
That doesn’t mean that it is not beneficial to your group to find ways to contribute when you find no healing needs to be done but, we should see a lot fewer situations like that in the new expansion if they are successful with their goals.
1 Like
OP plays casual content.
I don’t think most people consider 14s as casual.
WoW healers have a very similar amount of DPS buttons to those in FFXIV just that Healers in FFXIV have superior kits and not completely pathetic damage.
Like if Square made healing matter more in FFXIV I’d imagine at least some healers would quit WoW for it.
1 Like
Agreed. In a way the situations are reversed for each game. Neither has a good balance of healing to damage required
1 Like
As stated above, it isn’t required, but it can be helpful. If you’re doing casual content, play however you want. As long as you aren’t letting people die, no one will care.
1 Like
If the dps are doing less damage in a big pull than me spamming SCK I’m kind of scared.
2 Likes
Unless you are pushing up to or past Keystone Hero, people mostly don’t notice or care how much dps a healer does. Casual keys fail and fall apart over bungled mechanics and wipes, not damage.
1 Like
It’s ridiculous to try to claim doing more DPS when you otherwise would be contributing nothing isn’t helpful. Even if it’s rare that the DPS they provide makes any noticeable difference in the outcome of any fight, there are times when it will matter. That sub-1% wipe, that boss that transitions to an intermission phase at 3% health, that totem that gets its group-busting cast off under 10% health are all situations that can cause a group to have problems and even a small amount of healer DPS can prevent. And in the worst case scenario, even if you’re providing 5% of your group’s damage, that makes the run take 5% less time which can add up over the course of a season.
Yes, healer DPS is pretty meager and should be improved. But until it becomes actually zero, more than zero DPS at times when the player would otherwise be contributing nothing is better than zero.
Yes, in retail WoW the gameplay style of standing afk between damage events is not a thing good players do. You are expected to fill all of your globals during combat.
Just don’t do DPS. The amount of compliments you get for keeping everyone alive 0 deaths the whole dungeon when they know they should have died, vs 20 deaths and outdpsing (and embarrassing) them anyway, is so much more. Don’t even bind the DPS spells if you don’t want, it’s not like anyone is paying attention to what the healer is doing if they are alive.
Just play holy priest or resto druid or resto shaman or preservation evoker
I disagree that healer DPS should be improved. I think that about 70% of the intended healer dps should actually be passive for all healers, so you don’t lose all your DPS and the group goes even slower if the group is bad and you have to spend all your globals healing.
Also, there is that new affix where deaths are 15s off the timer, even besides this, preventing a death = like 100 seconds of healer damage considering the DPS do so much more than you anyway.