Do healers need to be geared appropriately for Mythic+? When I PuG, I usually see the healer has the lowest ilevel and lowest io score.
Last week, I had 2 failed M+14 runs where the healer quit. I understand it was Grievous. Must be a pressure.
But early today, I have a failed SD+14. Some people dying on trash. I had Exhilaration, Healing Pot, Rejuv Pot, Aspect of Turtle… I am hard to kill. But when Pride pop’d, I have used all of my abilities to keep me alive… everything on cd. The healer failed to give me a single heal and we wiped on Pride. The Pride was just 1 killshot away.
Anyway, we went ahead to the first Boss. Dang, the Boss still has like 30% hp and we wiped. The healer died first then we started dying. Then the healer disappeared… offline.
I love challenges as DPS. I find DPS way harder than tanking. Is Healing more challenging? If yes, I would like to try to make a Healer toon. What Class is the best? I have been with WoW for more than 15 years, and I never had a Healer toon.
It’s different. If the group is good, it’s fairly easy most of the time. If the group is bad, it’s a nightmare.
It requires a different set of skills and a different kind of focus. I would suggest giving it a try and seeing if you like it!
Yes, they do. But we (speaking as my resto shaman) can get into groups with lower io/ilvl because we’re in demand. A group might have a dozen dps sign up within 30 seconds. If I app and I’m the first healer they’ve seen in 5 minutes, I’ve got a good shot at an invite even if I’m not their perfect candidate.
Also, it’s not as clear-cut that healers must do X HPS at all times for the group to succeed. If a group is playing well, interrupting, ccing, people using personals appropriately and doing mechanics right, I don’t need to heal all that much in general. I might be doing 1.5k hps or something… that’s not bad if it’s all the group needs. As long as you can bring the numbers when they’re really needed, nobody cares as long as you don’t wipe.
As @Pyri said, it’s just different. Instead of worrying about yourself and your own DPS, you’re now worrying about yourself and 4 other party members, in particular the tank (which can draw attention from a DPS that needs heals). Good healers can manage all that. Healbot or Vudu are particularly useful for those that have a hard time managing heals and debuffs.
Grievous is stressing for some healers because of the amount of mana spent to keep everyone over 90% on top of the normal duty to keep the tank alive. Again, it’s manageable if you’re know your rotation, quick with the buttons, and don’t have a bad group. Bad groups include the kind where DPS take LOTS of avoidable damage and expect you to make up for their lack of skill/caring, as well as having a a tank that doesn’t check the healer’s mana and pulls loads of crap when the healer can’t heal (needs 10 sec to drink, but you know “gogogo” mindset is a clear sign you should bail). I’ve seen people bail on runs (both DPS and Healers) when the tank picks a route, there were no accidental pulls, and a pride spawns at the wrong time (not on a boss or not on a heavy trash pack for fortified).
Healing is fun. It’s not that hard. You should try it! Everyone should try it. Worst case scenario you just go back to DPSing if you hate it because there’s no such thing as a pure healer.
I find healing to be the most relaxing role, personally. I know many people that find it far too stressful, too. You’ve just got to give it a try and see how you like it.
I will say, it’s an interesting role in that how hard it actually is very much depends on the group. I remember back in Siege of Org, LFR usually felt harder to heal than Flex or Norm raiding, even comparable to Heroic on some bosses.
When everyone knows what they’re doing and nobody is soaking extra damage, it’s easy to become bored while healing. Just space out and watch a movie, and everyone’s fine. But if half the group hurls themselves into the flames like it’s going out of style, you’ll really need to try hard if you choose to save them from themselves.
That depends on the group, as a healer you will notice every single mistake everyone in your group makes, if your group is great then healing is easier than dps, if your group isn’t great then healing is stressful.
The weaker the tank - the more I gotta heal.
The weaker the DPS - the longer I gotta heal.
The more mistakes group makes - the more I gotta heal.
Sorta. Kinda. Yes and no.
Generally, if group’s damage output is solid, there will be less mechanics to deal with as trash/bosses die faster, thus less healing is required.
I think my first 15 was cleared/timed when I was 205ilvl. But the group itself was quite well geared.
Probably the worst affix to deal with. I don’t even mind necrotic as much.
Probably one of the hardest dungeons. Tyrannical first boss is a nightmare to heal.
A good tank keeps an eye open on everyone and everything. Watches your every step and monitors your cooldowns. I do it on my tank. Tanks “lead” groups. Assign kick order, kill orders, pull order, pace etc etc etc.
imho, tanks almost always decide whether this run is going to be timed or not. Granted, if you are to take 190’s into a 17 you won’t time it either way, but relatively speaking, a +15 group is averaged at ~217-220 ilvl now.
At times yes, at times not. There are folks who will use CD"s properly and not sit on their CD’s for 10 minutes and actually use them. Stuns/kicks/CD, reducing avoided damage. All these things matter.
but generally, yes, it is more stressful and demanding. Can’t snooze even for a second. While DPS is pew pew pew watch 1 cast to kick/CC, healer watches every trash cast, predicts incoming damage on group and tank, watches every healthpool and hopes tank will see that healer is OOM so we can drink. (bless I am paladin)
It can really happen that while healer is forced to constantly heal member X because they don’t dodge anything, others are also taking damaging, but player X is taking away all the group healing. THen healer’s life is a nightmare
I only tried Holy Paladin and Rdudu. I did not like Rdudu. Feels like all you do is cast-cast-cast healing spells non stop. Holy paladin, on the other hand, I actually get to dps!
But holy paladins are also in melee. The second you stop generating Holy Power, you healing output goes almost to zero. Being in melee is harder as a baseline.
THAT! lmao. So true.
As dps, or even tank, you can easily shrug off mistakes. Oh, I stepped on a trap in SD. Only took 25k damage. Got healed up though. It’s okay. Meanwhile healer had to use an emergency cooldown he was saving for a hard upcoming mechanic
I think one thing with healing is the difficulty can vary a lot depending on the people in your group. While this is true of all roles i think it’s especially so with healing. With DPS and Tanking being with other players that aren’t as good at the game doesn’t usually impact what you have to do (unless they’re really bad or for specific mechanics etc), you’ll probably just have to do it longer.
With healing however your main focus is the players themselves and so if they’re unfamiliar with the fight and/or their class they could be potentially taking more damage than they need which then makes it harder for the healer when it potentially didn’t have to be.
However, the reverse can also be true. If your group is much better at avoiding dmg, using defensives, and handling mechanics properly healing becomes a lot more streamlined. So healing isn’t harder or easier persay but there’s a lot more variance based on a group’s skill so the healer has to be ready to adapt.
Another major difference is that DPS have a rotation while healers don’t or at least not as much. Very rarely can a DPS ever do “too much” damage, but overhealing is huge indicator of healer skill. Know when to use which abilities is important to make sure you’re not wasting mana and/or cooldowns or potential dps.
Another difference that healers (as well as tanks) face is less or no redundancy for their roles. M+ only have one tank and healer and raids will have far few healers than dps as well. This means that there’s no one or far fewer people to pick up your slack if you make a mistake. Often it’s easier for a new or sub par dps to slide by with lower numbers or messing up some mechanics cause there’s other people who share the role who (again depending on the mechanics and how bad they’re messing up) can potentially pick up their slack. With healers, and especially tanks, there’s less people to fix your mistake if you mess up especially if it’s a mechanic specific to your role.
TLDR
I wouldn’t say healing itself is harder but i would say, on average, the game is much less forgiving of mistakes and poor play for healing than compared to DPS.
Healing if everyone is avoiding the damage they need to = super easy
Healing if your party is full of idiots who don’t understand how to move out of fire = super hard
Being good at DPS relies on your own personal ability to properly do your rotation while also doing mechanics, whereas healing relies on your party. Granted there are bad healers, but I would say overall it can’t really be compared just because what makes both roles difficult are completely different.
