Ion was wrong: Healers are useless on islands

Community General Discussion
1

I’m the one that asked for higher dps for healers in pve. They edited my question, what I actually wrote was:

Ion answered that (1) Healers aren’t useless on islands and warfronts because they let you pull more (2)Healers can’t have more dps in pve because their rotations are too simple and they would become unkillable gods (3)He personally uses his resto shaman to do world quests.

I found his answers pretty disappointing and unusually shallow, which shows they really haven’t given it much thought. But I thought… maybe he’s right and I should just do mythic islands. So this week I did my islands in mythic mode. The demon hunter dps outhealed me while doing 4x the dps I’m capable of. The hunter did almost as much dps as the dh. We all died once to a one shot mechanic. I never felt useful, unless you count being the one that picks up all the azerite as useful (and thanks to the demon hunter’s mobility I wasn’t even that great at it). It definitely was not fun.

Healers only shine in group content-- but all the new game modes introduced in this expansion that involve a group are balanced around a group of full dps. DPS have so much survivability, self-healing and CC that they have no downside at all and for all intents and purposes are the “unkillable gods” that Ion purports healers would become.

It’s really not possible to balance content to be completed solo or completed with solely dps and still make healers feel useful (and thus make content fun). Islands have healing orbs to make extra sure that they can be completed with only DPS. Why can’t those same orbs increase the DPS of healers? At the very least they could make the Sunstone item, which does damage when you heal during islands, always available for purchase, so healers could at least spend doubloons to make their character useful during islands.

This game design really makes me sad because the only time I’m playing my “main” spec is in a raid or mythic+. DPS get to play one spec and enjoy the whole game. Now even in group content healers are less useful.

41 Likes
2

I agree. When I do island expeditions in a pug, and see a healer, I always ask them to switch to DPS.

Because, yes, healers ARE useless in island expeditions. :frowning:

16 Likes
3

Which sucks since some of them refuse to play dps. My wife only heals. So she basically gave up on doing islands.

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4

I just wish they could make the LFG island queue so that people in heal spec don’t get grouped with other healers. I got in a heroic island a while ago with myself (disc priest), a holy priest, and a protection paladin. I pull more dps as Disc and the holy priest didn’t know how to play disc or shadow. We won, but hoooboy was it slow and unfun.

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5

I love having healers lets me pull the whole island on my dk with no worry.

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6

But pulling the whole island at once makes no sense because you left behind all those chests and such that you can’t open until the mobs are dead.

The whole design of IE’s discourages mass pulling. It’s clear this pack -> loot the stuff -> move on to the next pack.

6 Likes
7

Healers help a ton on islands if they actually heal. The few times I’ve had a healer that actually followed and healed as a DK, the island run went off like a charm. Won by a large margin and easily. It’s obviously healers aren’t needed to finish islands, but a healer is a huge boon on islands. I haven’t done Mythic yet, but I imagine healers would make mythic islands much easier.

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The problem is more with Island Expeditions themselves. How they work and how they’re designed. Healers ARE useless, but that’s because all the damage is avoidable, and if you don’t avoid it, it kills you.

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9

I don’t do islands. I only play holy and I’ve seen enough here on the forums to never queue.

I did try mythic one day with 2 guildies. I healed a lot there but we won all 3 runs.

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10

I play resto kitty.

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11

That’s true, healers are very helpful on Mythic islands.

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I’ve done 140 islands as a healer with great success. I’m not usually last in DPS, either.

Disc is pretty nice in islands.

5 Likes
13

Healers are useless everywhere outside arena, bgs, raid, and M+.

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14

I like what they do in FF14 where healers are expected to dps while not healing.

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15

But thats not accesible enough for your typical WOW player.

16

What does this even mean?

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17

I stopped doing island expeditions, but I did several as Discipline and I thought it worked really well. The argument that it lets the group pull more agressively makes a lot of sense to me. I’ll grant that Discipline is kind of a “special” spec, doing higher DPS than any other healing spec.

As for the Shaman bit, I can identify with that too, because Elemental is such a crap spec to solo with. Seriously, my Mistweaver kills mobs faster than my Elemental Shaman.

2 Likes
18

They already are in content that matters in WoW. FFXIV just has this weird obsession where healers are expected to max their dps at the risk of the group.

2 Likes
19

I like having a healer. instead of pulling 1 group with out a healer. get to pull 2-3 groups with a healer. maybe 4 groups.

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Islands should stay like that, with a healer its just take wayyyy longer.

Learn to dps sweety.

2 Likes