So basically most healers have a dps spec right? Otherwise it would take forever to kill things and progress through content. Basically I’m asking the healer role definitely requires gearing up two specs?
I imagine most people switch to a dps spec when leveling or questing with their healers, yes. In fact all of the other healers in my guild do. That said, there are a couple caveats.
- All healer specs have access to a decent amount of damage, you’ll usually just have to talent specifically into it.
- You don’t need to “gear up” 2 separate specs even if you do decide to use a dps spec.
What I mean in point 2 is this: Four out of the six healer specs share their main stat with at least one of their dps spec. Resto druid/boomkin = int, disc and holy/shadow = int, resto shammy/elemental = int. And for the other two that don’t (hpal/ret, and MW/WW), most gear these days has all 3 major stats attached to it (str, agil, and int). This armor will freely switch between those stats depending on which spec you are currently in. Secondary stats won’t matter that much if you plan on maining your healing spec and just leveling/questing with your dps spec. It’ll still do enough damage even if your secondaries are completely unoptimized.
All that said, I was my guild’s first lvl 60 when shadowlands released, and as far as I can tell, within the first few dozen on my server to reach level 60 while leveling as a resto druid specced for damage talents. So it really depends on how determined you are to make it work and how proficient you are with the spec. It’s certainly not the most efficient way of questing, but it’s 100% doable if you’re completely comfortable with your spec.
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Yeah just confirms healers just need a bit more work after reaching end game, but I find the role very rewarding and also hectic. Thanks for your reply. I do like my ret pally but recently found holy spec more fun, I think I’ll stick to having two specs but keep my holy more geared since I can queue for group content easier.
As a long time healer, I just use my heal set for dps, except for weapons, trinkets, and legendaries. It’s more than capable of doing the job for solo grinding. Now if I’m switching roles a lot in raid or giving a crap about mythic+, I’ll try to get more BiS for both sets.
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