I think we can all agree that dungeon healing in Dragonflight seems to be the most difficult role this season so far. Disregarding the balance between healing specs, I don’t think the issue is a healer tuning, per se.
I think the buff to damage and health just before release simply had a disproportionate affect on healers. Tanks are taking more damage, but are so sturdy at the moment that they could probably weather another buff to mobs. DPS got more meat to sink their teeth into and slightly harsher consequences for standing in bad, but healer specs, it seems, were not equipped to readily accommodate the increased expectations.
The problem this causes is that Tanks and DPS are quite easily capable of performing their roles adequately at higher levels that quickly outpace healer performance. Healers end up having to bridge the gap in performance with raw skill or brute force.
I like a challenge, but the combination of the stress and anxiety of some of the healing requirements and the feeling that I’m holding by my teammates in a way that I fear they couldn’t appreciate without having tried healing, has made this the least fun I ever had healing in WoW.
Maybe I’m biased as a resto shaman, but I’m not having much fun healing dungeons. I’ve never felt like I was unable to perform at the same level as my team, but now that I can’t support them at the level their role can manage, I feel guilty for holding them back to the point that I’ve excused myself from healing keys.
I’m not great at this game, but I find it hard to believe that my teammates got so much better than me at their roles, or that I got so much worse than them in the space of a month.
All that said, maybe I simply am bad and wrong about the reasons. Curious to know how others feel.
healing thus far has been too stressful (rdruid) and I’m having most of my issues on tyrannical DF dungeons - just not fun at all. NO elemental boss is really hard for me with thundering & RLP last boss is too much movement, AV last boss and storming is unfun. I might just lapse my sub for a few weeks until the catalyst comes out as tier isn’t drop/vault for me.
I’ve been enjoying it. It is a bit difficult, and there were definite growing pains getting used to the new dungeons. Now that I’m over that though, I like the challenge. Yes, there are times when it just all falls apart, but you pick yourself up and try again. That’s what makes the game interesting. If everything was a pushover, what would be the point?
I don’t think it’s about the challenge. It’s about the disparity in expectations between the roles. Traditionally healers have always had to pick up a little slack when undergearing content or covering for poor play, but I feel like healers are literally a tier or 2 below the other roles in dungeon performance which I fear it’s not healthy for the game.
I mean, I remember SL season 1 had some particularly challenging healing checks. I didn’t really play it much, because I got bored with the expansion and shifted to getting my pally her elite PvP set. Goofed off with PvP for a bit on other toons, but early on I remember you weren’t just rolling your face on the KB if you were a good healer. You were always contributing damage.
Speaking of healing being rough. I remember SL was pretty brutal as a healer in arena. It took a lot of skill to pull out wins. (I digress.)
I think it’s okay for things to be a bit rough in the beginning of an expansion. Things will smooth out over time.
SL S1 was tough for everyone. Tanks had to kite or die. DPS got merc’d by frontals and backals, left right and center, and healers had to deal with the damage from 20 missed kicks every pull and bosses like Dealer Xy’exa.
Everyone was on the back foot.
Now it’s warrior tanks surviving double packs solo without taking any healing, DPS ending keys at over 100k DPS, well beyond the requirement to beat the timer, but healers are pulling out all the stops to squeak by some keys.
I’m not crusading for change at this point. I don’t know how much of my problem is actually the expectations of the role and how much I’m personally fall short in terms of skill. All I know is that I’m not having fun with it anymore.
Yeah, tanks do seem a bit too self-sufficient. That said, if they were less self-reliant, then it would just be even more stress on the healer. They’re still going to pull just as many mobs.
Do I think some bosses are a bit silly in the number of mechanics? Sure. Azure Vaults, I’m looking at you. That being said, I think it’s okay to have mechanic-heavy fights. Just balance it out with a little more generous timer. I think people wouldn’t feel so bad if they didn’t feel quite so rushed.
IMO, healing is rarely the rate limiting factor in these dungeons. It’s almost entirely DPS performance. Good DPS can make the whole experience much better, and allow you a little more breathing room.
That’s my point, though. Right now DPS don’t need to perform anywhere near their peak to succeed at their role. They need to stay alive and keep a solid rotation.
So often when healing I feel like I’m one misplaced global from losing everyone. Even when I nail things I rarely walk away from an encounter like I was comfortable because I performed well. Mostly just grateful it didn’t fall apart at the seams one of those eight times on the one boss.
After the few keys I’ve done as dps this week I’ve been confident I could do the new key as dps. After healing sometimes I don’t even know how I made it out of the last one alive.
I don’t feel healing is the hardest re. I think it’s now equal to other roles especially in higher keys. Issue with healing is that most pug players are not use to having to heal. Now that they need to they need to adjust. Many have, I know lots of are doing fine but still some that struggle.
SL S1 was the hardest season to actually time +15s early on because the tanks had to kite, the dungeons weren’t nerfed, and the dps requirements were high. Every season after that you could do +15s on week 1.
DF S1 has very lenient timers, some tank specs are very strong, dps requirements aren’t as stiff so you don’t need to stack fomo classes, and you could do +15s on week 1-2 in M0 gear…
But for all that its also the hardest season on healers I’ve experienced so far. No dungeons in SL were as hard - even on Tyrannical - as some of these bosses. Healing is the hardest role right now.
Thats a big exaggeration. Some people who were really good on the best classes might have done that, but otherwise it just isnt happening. As a MW youll need 4pc and likely greater than 400ilvl to hope to complete many +15s.
My first +14/15s were all done iLvl 380-386 according to my key history on week 1 & 2. I know most of my guild mates were doing it around then as well.
The problem that happens is as each week goes by people keep raising the bar. So people will require iLvl 400 and a 4-piece to do a +15 when people can do it 20 iLvl lower with no tier.
I think they kind of flip flopped with later SL seasons where you didn’t need to be a great healer to do well if you have had a good team since so much damage was avoidable and timing was mostly a dps check.
You think you can carry a healer as easily as you can carry an underperforming dps?
I don’t think that’s what you mean, but that’s what I feel you said. Under no circumstances can you convince me that DPS is anywhere remotely as challenging as healing right now.
I’m playing a resto druid but I still feel this. Not only is there a lot of raw healing to be done, there’s more mechanics per dungeon than there was in SL and BfA. This wouldn’t really be a bad thing, but almost all of them one-shot you.
So it’s a lot of pressure to be able to keep an eye on my group but also dodge every single mechanic. Definitely the most stressful M+ season I’ve ever experienced. There’s just so much pressure to execute perfectly and absolutely pump heals.
We’re a month in and I’m starting to feel some fatigue. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not asking for it to be trivial. The challenge of M+ is something I very much enjoy. But this isn’t really a challenge… I can’t really work to improve and get better. I either do it perfectly or I die, and repetition is just me dying over and over until I learn to get it right. There’s no middle ground… no mistakes penalizing my timer and working to execute better and improve that. It’s just so binary, and thus, extremely mentally draining
I absolutely think you can carry a healer. There are fights where I barely have to heal, and with a different group - no amount of healing is enough. In the case where the party is taking no avoidable damage and using CDs, a mediocre healer will walk away feeling good. In the case where DPS are standing in things, not kicking, and underperforming - even the best healer will look like crap.
Granted, at super high keys, it doesn’t matter. Everyone needs to be performing at a high level.
But to play devil’s advocate: DPS are absolutely the critical point in the vast majority of keys. Tanking and Healing matter, but you don’t time if you have crap DPS. And in a lot of fights, you don’t even complete the encounter. I’ve seen more than a few fights finish with the healer dying in the first minute.
In SL the healer had to pump heals into the tank a lot in order to keep them alive during trash, but now their hp pools are so big that my heals do like 10% of their hp, and they can self-heal way more. Tanks are almost entirely self-sufficient like they were in BFA so they can do big pulls without much of a risk like in SL. They’ll need an external and that’s about it.
The actual thing that checked groups the most at higher key levels in BFA and SL was not getting one shot by Tyrannical boss mechanics.
I would say DPS was the critical point last expansion, but it’s not this one. The timers are extra lenient and only start becoming a problem until you’re doing +21s and higher.
