In a recent post a blue-poster noted that some healers were “sitting in the back just healing”. Many healers are casters, and getting into the strike zone of a boss mob isn’t the best idea, so we do sit back. We also heal, a lot. That is our job, we take care of our teams and do our best to keep thier HP pools high. We have to react to game mechanics the same way that all other casters do.
So, what exactly is Blizzard’s issue with healers? You haven’t articulated an issue with any specific play style, and you haven’t told is what behavior your trying to improve.
When you nerfed the heck out of Tank Brann, you effectively punished all healers who had just started enjoying healing in delves. You did it without warning, without details, and most importantly, you didn’t properly test the impact your changes would have.
The finally enjoying content cannot be overstated. Blizzard fails to provide much content for healers that is fun outside of raids and dungeons. When you provided us with something else, we flocked to it and most of us loved it! Then you arbitrarily and capriciously nerfed it to the point that it is unplayable. It appears you make a rash decision and implemented it without planning or QA, and did it to give a big middle finger to healers.
When you randomly punish a group without any information or details, it appears arbitrary and capricious. Arbitrary, because it looks like you just got up in the morning and said “Hey, screw the healers!”. It look capricious because it was done suddenly without any notice. The severe degree to which you nerfed Brann feels emotional on your part.
So, I ask the question, why are you punishing healers? What exact behaviors are you trying to change or extoll?
They were sitting in the back, and JUST healing, because the buffs brann got when you healed him outscaled using your damage spells when brann does not need healing.
As in, they were healing brann even when he didn’t need healing just to give him a buff to do more damage rather than using downtime to use some dps abilities.
And now tank Brann is so fragile that healers are forced to constantly heal him and have no downtime to use some dps abilities. So… not sure what they accomplished?
I mean I still run with tank Brann as a dps and just don’t heal him, opting to kill everything before he dies. He’ll heal himself between pulls quick enough.
Do you want healers to do DPS, or do you want them to heal? Have you ever died and complained about the healer not keeping your health up? Because that’s what you get when the healer is distracted and has to dps while healing.
The current healing playstyle uses healing spells that have secondary DPS benefits. For example, healing rain becomes acid rain. If Blizzard wants healers to DPS, then there is no point to the healer. We should just get trinkets that keep our pools up and everyone can DPS.
In the healing community we have a concept called over healing. That’s when a spell heals you for more than you need. A big part of healing is not overhealing in order to preserve resources like mana. If Blizz wants to address overhealing brann to maximize the buff, they can simply penalize overhealing.
Punishing all healers without telling us they want us to DPS is wrong. And frankly, I don’t think that’s their point.
It’s baffling that Blizz expects Healers to do more than just heal. We’re playing a HEALER for a reason, because we don’t WANT to dps, savvy?
Blizz needs to stop trying to dual-spec where it’s not needed. I just want to sit back and heal, not pop a few heals in between dps while playing a Healing class.
That proves the point. The only way that Tank Brann is effective is if we have to DPS in addition to healing. Has Blizzard stated they want that gamestyle? No. So, what is their point?
Someone in a position of power got a bug up their butt about some very solid healers doing very well in delves and decided it was time to punish that behavior for the rest of us. Well, That’s group punishment, and that’s what this post is asking. Why are they group-punishing healers?
1. False Dichotomy: “Do you want healers to do DPS, or do you want them to heal?”
This assumes healers must choose between DPS and healing, when in reality, they are expected to do both.
Healing in most MMOs, including WoW, involves active and downtime phases where healers are encouraged to deal damage when their party isn’t in immediate danger.
A good healer knows when to heal and when to contribute DPS—these are not mutually exclusive.
The best healers use their time efficiently, weaving in DPS when healing isn’t needed.
Counterpoint: Healing has never been 100% uptime; if you’re just standing around doing nothing in downtime, you’re wasting potential contribution.
I want healers to dps when there’s nothing to heal, saying your job is “only” healing is like saying my job is only dps so why should I spend any resources healing myself.
I get your tongue-in cheek statement. But honestly, we don’t crack a beer, switch on youtube and toss a heal once in a while. There is a rich and deep playstyle for healers. And, when you do it right, you can do some amazing things. But not everyone can heal properly. If you think you can, make a healer and try it. I promise you it won’t be easy. You can’t faceroll as a healer.
But really, you’re making the same argument about healers that many of us have made about people playing beginner classes where they can face-roll and get max dps. If Blizz doesn’t want that playstyle, screwing over all healers at once isn’t going to do it.
This is a bad faith argument. Just because Healers CAN do both, doesn’t mean they’re EXPECTED to do both, yet Blizz is FORCING that decision on us. Yes, if a Healer has downtime, they’ll opt to DPS, or if they’re lazy, they won’t. Instead, we’re punished for CHOOSING to perform our main-role and NOT our secondary OPTIONAL role.
Don’t forget that Blizz have not said anything about their preferred gamestyle for healers. This is a completely arbitrary punishment levied against all healers because they can’t properly articulate what they want. Listen, not everyone has the benefit of a Harvard education, but simply articulating their desired playstyle shouldn’t be this difficult.
And this is precisely what’s wrong with the game: player’s like you expecting healers to both heal and dps.
It doesn’t take a Harvard Education to learn to heal efficiently, only practice, but I refuse to be expected to also deal damage just because there’s a few seconds of downtime.
We’ve seen Blizz push for every class to ALWAYS be doing something so that there’s no downtime whatsoever, and it doesn’t make me a bad player for refusing to be pushing a key every second of every minute in every dungeon, delve, or raid.
I agree that Blizz does need to better articulate what their future goals are for healers, because if they keep punishing ALL healers simply because a few of us love ‘sitting back and just healing’, then they’re going to discourage those players from ever playing healers again.
Erm, have you played a healer in the last five years?
A Holy Paladin’s entire kit deals damage to heal, as does a Mistweaver Monk and a Discipline Priest.
Even Holy Priests have a ton of damage spells that also heal while dealing damage, and the same goes for Restoration Shamans. Even Restoration Druids can toss out DoTs and shift into Kitty Form to bleed mobs.
I’m beginning to think, you have never played a healer before.
This is an objectively false statement. You are completely wrong, and likely have never healed true end-game content. If you’re healing a M+ and you have time to DPS, either you are a God, or your team is dying… a lot.
Listen, I get it. It’s late, and it’s fun to troll. But we’re trying to have a serious discussion. Please only contribute when you have something worth contributing.
