Personally, I do love healing but I just don’t have the favour of doing damage as a healer. I prefer to save my globals to heal exceptional damage. I am mostly 90% active of the dungeon time.
Usually, I do keys with my friends who have really high damage output. And as a healer priest, I will PI them and I don’t do extra damage. We always time the keys since they are just like +20 or slightly above. And due to my friends dealing high damage output, no one will blame me because I do almost zero damage ( it’s like some kind of the OCD symptoms that I will use only one damage ability while boss fights and none of it during trash time).
While yesterday, my friends were all offline, and I want to do one more +20 keys to finish my weekly vault. I apply for a +20 HOV. Actually two of my teammates only have 300k health with my stamina buff ( I found it later cause I am not used to do body check before keys start). At the beginning of the key, the druid said , if we didn’t time the key, please stay for completion. And I found out that two of dps teammates have fairly low gears which might be a challenge to help them survive from the boss fights. I tried my best to keep them alive, in fact, despite they got one shot like two or three times during trash, I did keep them alive almost all of the time. And finally we did timed the key. I thought maybe I am not a good healer but I can be good at healing. However, as soon as we timed the keys, they flamed me for doing no damage and no doing explosives. I replied that, well at least I kept you guys alive all the time. And they said, no that doesn’t even matter…
So frustrated. If you want to flame me, do it earlier. But they must be afraid of that I would afk (which I won’t) if they had flamed me earlier. And since we timed the key ( I have already unlock the teleport like several months ago while three of them just gained the achievement by this run), why they still flamed at me?
I am not complaining. I knew what I insisted might be wrong but that’s the way I enjoy the game. This run is more frustrating than any before.
Your task as your role implies should be obvious. Tanks tank, heals heal, DPS you guessed it, do DPS. If the game ends up needing healers to pitch in damage, it’s not designed properly. Either it needs a tuneup so healers can’t mess around, or the mobs need to be softer so DPS can handle it themselves with decent gear just fine.
Simply put, you’re expected to deal damage because other healers deal damage. If all healers agreed to not do damage, nobody would expect you to deal damage (which of course won’t happen because disc my favorite healer spec heals through damage).
But for now if you are doing 0k dps and no explosives but other healers they would bring in do 15k dps and 100 explosives, it is seen as a deficiency. It is like tanks, they should be doing at least 30k dps while pulling the same and surviving because that’s more or less average in high levels. 10k dps from a tank nowadays is a deficiency that bringing most other tanks wouldn’t leave you with.
But then what’s the point of playing Disc? Damage is built into your toolkit, and for Disc it doubles as healing done.
Anyway, you do damage because you don’t need to emergency heal people every global. If someone dies from full in the middle of you casting Smite, that’s their fault and they need to play better. The game is not designed in such a way where you’re expected to heal everyone every .5 seconds, although I can see why you might be in the habit with pugs. (I also try to be as ready as possible.)
It’s about casting every GCD, and for GCDs where nobody is hurt, you throw out damage. For Holy Priest, I take damage trinkets and the damage ring, along with damage talents, just to make each cast pretty significant. I might do 25-30k overall DPS, which for HPriest is not bad at all (when great ones can push 35-40K+). That shaves minutes off of the dungeon.
In my view, what makes disc special is not the damage output, its the damage mitigation it offers ( pain suppression ,barrier ,shield, and some other one given by talents)
I guess the thing is, you made a thread asking why healers “have to” do damage. And that’s different from saying that you enjoy healing. I also enjoy healing, but I enjoy contributing as much as possible even more.
It’s satisfying getting a good Mass Dispel, Psychic Scream, or Dominate Mind off for me, just as I appreciate a nice burst rotation with Divine Image, Emypreal Blaze, and Burning Vehemence, just as I love using healing Holy Words and Prayer of Mending and triage healing.
I guess, to me, being a healer is more than just healing HP bars. I like the entire package and try to use it as such, as that actually differentiates each healer from one another better. All healers make bars go up, but what else do they do? That’s where differences matter.
