Healer DPS

Hello,

Im new to classic and Ive been playing with my priest. Currently level 25 so I can do dungeons.

Should I be dpsing a lot as a healer?

Usually 90% of my cast are dps spells like shadow word pain and I just cast heal whenever someone drops under 30-40% (which isnt often). I heal earlier if tank is taking high amounts of incoming damage. I use cure disease and dispel whenever I can.

If i dont dps i kinda just stand there and auto attack for a long time. Doesnt feel right that I wont drink once in a dungeon.

But it doesnt feel right when all I do is dps as a healer. So im just stuck with the feeling that im not doing something right.

Is this the way it usually goes? I feel like im doing something wrong

Or do i just need to wait to higher level dungeons to worry about this stuff.

You don’t want to burn mana DPSing, and you want to cast as little as possible when you’re not actively healing so you start regenerating mana (after 5 seconds of no casts, you start regenerating mana in combat). You can wand, or melee as a Shaman/Paladin (which is good with Judgment of Wisdom), but you don’t need to be actively damaging the enemies.

It’s better not to worry about your mana and time being spent on damage than stopping multiple times to drink.

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I am a healing priest, and so far I have been #3 on the damage meter.

I find if I throw my dot on every enemy we engage and just focus them with my wand, I have plenty of mana left to heal when necessary and rarely ever have to drink.

Wands are super efficient.

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If you all out gear and level the dungeon go crazy.

For normal runs you will need your mana for your healing. Use your wand, typically really good damage anyway, to attack if your bored.

If you can keep healing while tossing some damage go for it, just watch your mana incase of am over pull. I always dps while healing on my paladin, but i also have the mana regen abilities to do it.

Find a play style that you like, you’ll definitely enjoy your class more :wink:

As a low level priest in dungeons, you wanna wand mobs and try to get the last hit on them to activate spirit tap, that will regenerate your mana quickly, make you drink less and potentially speed up the run.

Just wand, as a priest it’s your best DPS anyway.

I am always auto-attacking while I’m a healer, but typically conserve my mana for healing with one exception: utility spells. Druids have a “lower armor” and a CC spell that I will not hesitate to use.

That mana regen Espur mentioned earlier has made a huge difference for me after I first learned about it a few days ago. Balancing the 5-sec delay and slow automatic mana regen with casting spells is the difference between drinking only after an accidental pull or drinking after every pull.

Of course, it’s easy as a druid because the HOT spells slowly heal as I wait for my mana to slowly regen but it might help priest healing as well.

Good luck to you.

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Wands spec is real. I often steal the aggro off of dps classes.

Step 1) Pre-shield your warrior tank. This will give you extra time to DPS before you need to heal.

Step 2) Time is ticking. As soon as the warrior engages, throw a mind blast on a random target.

Step 3) SW:P all the mobs. This is your AoE.

Step 4) If a mob is chasing you now for some reason, kite it back towards the instance entrance away from the tank since the tank is probably busy with other things. If possible, throw another shield on the tank before you run.

Edit: Just in case… don’t do the above…

-=-=-

In all seriousness, until you’ve got a feel for how solid the group is when dealing with adds, limit DPSing to your wand (or level up mace/staff) and don’t burn too much mana. If your group can handle even a bad pull really well without you going OOM feel free to toss a couple spells into the mix once the tank has solid aggro.

I tank quite a bit and don’t really care too much whether the healer DPSes or not. Some are content to sit idly by and/or jump around for 30s before they need to heal, while others like to throw in a little DPS. As long as you’ve got the heals/mana when needed, what you do here is usually up to you.

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I heal when I need to heal and wand when I am not healing to save mana for healing. I also dot with SW:P. A perfectly legit way to play. Just remember, healing is your first job.

Here’s inside my head on a good pull.

Warrior pulled…hmm no face pull adds… yup theres a sunder…Dot everything but cc> renew tank…

hmm DPS not being idiots…except that rogue, renew rogue…
Tank at 80% health, renew tank…

Wand … I really need a better wand…
ok outside 5 second rule.
Ohh Tank took a big hit, let’s wait a second… Now! full heal. Yay almost no over heal!

That hunter has low dps lets beat him on the meter …theres one low on health to get a spirit tap… smite>wand, Back on tank target.

Tank is pretty good…lets see how good. smite>mind blast >smite> down ranked heal. *singing… shall I stay or shall I fade now? *
Wand…We got this easy outside 5 second rule…mana good for next pack.

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I’m not sure if you come from FF14 or not, but in Classic we don’t have infinite mana like most healers do over there to freely DPS.

Don’t stress it at all if you can’t do any damage. I auto attack when healing at times, just to do something if there is a lull, otherwise you can wand.

Warriors need to get hit to generate rage, so only shield the tank when he’s got plenty of rage. Definitely don’t do this before pulls when the tank has little to no rage.

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If you had read the whole post you would have realized it was a joke.

In all seriousness, new priests don’t always realize pre-shielding is a bad thing, so it was worth pointing out :slight_smile:

Don’t want pre shield tank. That robs the warrior / druid of rage. They need to get hit to help generate rage.

Don’t even shield in classic unless you know a big hit is coming. It is highly inefficient compared to just throwing out a heal.