DPS vs. Healing pt. 2
In my last entry, I discussed what life was like upon entering Outland. This entry will get to the core issue, why are all the healers gone? Well, there are a multitude of reasons, but I'm going to discuss the three primary ones that come to mind.
Nerfs
No matter what class it is, somebody is always crying about nerfs. However, it seems like healers always get the hardest, and many classes are unhappy with their talent trees. Priests are a prime example of this, with every single patch something is getting debuffed while everyone else is getting buffed. Eventually, it all adds up, and you're left with a beaten down healer, unable to get a break for the past 4 or 5 patch notes. This essentially puts the healer down in the dumps, who wants to feel outclassed by an overpowered (until 2.1) Holy Paladin on a day to day basis? I certainly wouldn't want to be outpaced by a Hybrid class, especially if my class was considered the MAIN healing class.
Note: The Priest class is anything but gimped, they're still amazing healers and essential to any group, but it seems a lot of the talents downgrade in usefulness as you hit level 70.
DPS is Fun!
Many people DPS because it means they are actively doing something. They're either clicking mouse buttons or tapping hotkeys, and it feels good. You're watching giant numbers flying above monsters' heads and it makes you feel important/awesome/whatever. How often do you see somebody go "OMG! I just crit healed that guy for 6k?! YEA!" Not too often, because chances are, you ended up overhealing anyways, and it's just not big of a deal. However, it works in reverse for DPS, you're chucking frostbolts at the enemy mob, and he's only got 1k health left, you crit for 2k, does it feel any less of an accomplishment? No. The mob is dead, mission accomplished, the same can't be said about overhealing however, and that's where the differences can start being seen.
More often than not the healing class is sitting there, watching health bars, playing whack-a-mole with decursing, and generally just WAITING for somebody to take damage. You get a tanking specced tank, and it becomes even more boring, they're barely taking any damage, and y'know what happens then? Holy fires & smites start getting spammed on mobs, the Priest is jumping around like a loony because he's just that damn bored. It's DEFINITELY like this in the casual players 5-man dungeons and such. It DEFINITELY changes once you start running heroics, and that's where healing feels important, but then again, I think heroics make EVERY class feel like they're playing a vital role. In general however, people just don't want to look at health bars all day and click a single healing button.
Group specs suck for solo
Another reason healers and tanks are rare is because it simply flat out sucks to not get a group. The protection spec Warrior doesn't want to quest and pretend he's a low DPS paladin, he wants to get out there and slash some faces off with his two-handed axe when he's by himself. The Priests wants to melt brains and faces, his +1000 healing doesn't mean anything at all against a legion of demons. Simply put, if you're having issues getting groups, or just have a completely off schedule, you don't want to spec for group play. Since blizzard aims this game towards casuals, that's exactly what you end up with, a lot of DPS specced players because they don't want to log in during their only free time, and find out they can't get a group, or everyone in guild is running heroics/karazhan, and then they are simply left in the dust waiting for 4 other people to come along so they can do something. Either that or they head straight to the Trade Cha- I mean, the LFG Channel, and start spamming it for groups. If you played for a 8 - 12 hours a week would you want to depend on 4 complete strangers in order for you to accomplish something? I sure wouldn't.
So, that in a nutshell, is why don't we have healers anymore? Because their healing trees keep getting nerfed with every patch, it's boring as heck compared to killing things, and you can't do anything by yourself easily. Wow... now that I look at that, being a healer really DOES suck... I think I'm going to go spec Retribution now. Just kidding!
Nerfs
No matter what class it is, somebody is always crying about nerfs. However, it seems like healers always get the hardest, and many classes are unhappy with their talent trees. Priests are a prime example of this, with every single patch something is getting debuffed while everyone else is getting buffed. Eventually, it all adds up, and you're left with a beaten down healer, unable to get a break for the past 4 or 5 patch notes. This essentially puts the healer down in the dumps, who wants to feel outclassed by an overpowered (until 2.1) Holy Paladin on a day to day basis? I certainly wouldn't want to be outpaced by a Hybrid class, especially if my class was considered the MAIN healing class.
Note: The Priest class is anything but gimped, they're still amazing healers and essential to any group, but it seems a lot of the talents downgrade in usefulness as you hit level 70.
DPS is Fun!
Many people DPS because it means they are actively doing something. They're either clicking mouse buttons or tapping hotkeys, and it feels good. You're watching giant numbers flying above monsters' heads and it makes you feel important/awesome/whatever. How often do you see somebody go "OMG! I just crit healed that guy for 6k?! YEA!" Not too often, because chances are, you ended up overhealing anyways, and it's just not big of a deal. However, it works in reverse for DPS, you're chucking frostbolts at the enemy mob, and he's only got 1k health left, you crit for 2k, does it feel any less of an accomplishment? No. The mob is dead, mission accomplished, the same can't be said about overhealing however, and that's where the differences can start being seen.
More often than not the healing class is sitting there, watching health bars, playing whack-a-mole with decursing, and generally just WAITING for somebody to take damage. You get a tanking specced tank, and it becomes even more boring, they're barely taking any damage, and y'know what happens then? Holy fires & smites start getting spammed on mobs, the Priest is jumping around like a loony because he's just that damn bored. It's DEFINITELY like this in the casual players 5-man dungeons and such. It DEFINITELY changes once you start running heroics, and that's where healing feels important, but then again, I think heroics make EVERY class feel like they're playing a vital role. In general however, people just don't want to look at health bars all day and click a single healing button.
Group specs suck for solo
Another reason healers and tanks are rare is because it simply flat out sucks to not get a group. The protection spec Warrior doesn't want to quest and pretend he's a low DPS paladin, he wants to get out there and slash some faces off with his two-handed axe when he's by himself. The Priests wants to melt brains and faces, his +1000 healing doesn't mean anything at all against a legion of demons. Simply put, if you're having issues getting groups, or just have a completely off schedule, you don't want to spec for group play. Since blizzard aims this game towards casuals, that's exactly what you end up with, a lot of DPS specced players because they don't want to log in during their only free time, and find out they can't get a group, or everyone in guild is running heroics/karazhan, and then they are simply left in the dust waiting for 4 other people to come along so they can do something. Either that or they head straight to the Trade Cha- I mean, the LFG Channel, and start spamming it for groups. If you played for a 8 - 12 hours a week would you want to depend on 4 complete strangers in order for you to accomplish something? I sure wouldn't.
So, that in a nutshell, is why don't we have healers anymore? Because their healing trees keep getting nerfed with every patch, it's boring as heck compared to killing things, and you can't do anything by yourself easily. Wow... now that I look at that, being a healer really DOES suck... I think I'm going to go spec Retribution now. Just kidding!
posted by Sylvina Solaris | 8:28 AM
6 Comments:
I found Priest, Paladin, Shaman healing to be boring. I do, however, love Druid healing with the HoT aspect.
I don't know what it is, but I feel like I'm doing something when I'm timing HoT's and healing to full potential. I guess it's less of a spam fest, and more timing involved.
You've hit the nail on the head though, almost no one likes playing a healer because it lacks accomplishment. We live in the "reward" era, where children are being raised with incentives for good behavior. These incentives, in-turn, cause the "accomplishment required" mentality.
What if crit heals caused damage to the healed target's target? Would that help the healer feel more accomplished, and if so, could it be balanced?
Thanks for adding my link on your blog; I've added you as well. ^^
I think the most successful class out there right now that 'heals' would be a Shadow Priest. They're DPSing and having fun, but their abilities are actually majorly supporting their team and doing a good job of healing (unfortunately this just means the main healers have less things to go, which in return, creates more boredom). If more classes could heal via DPS/Not Clicking a button that says "I am your heal spell", then I think there would be a lot more happy healers out there.
I've more to say, but this inspired me for a pt. 3! Be prepared!
Oh, and no problemo, thanks for adding me back. ^_^
I think blizzard needs to overhaul the Pally class. I have a lvl 70 holy Pally, I hate healing. I miss all of the content, because I am solely focused on health bars during all the encounters. So I sit in the back with my shiny 12K worth of armor and shiny weapon and shield and spam heals.
They need to make retribution raid viable. I want to be a holy warrior, not an armored priest. I admit, giving the ret Pallys DPS is scary and could easily make them imba. However, they could give them ret talents that would make them raid viable. For example, give me a talent that makes my gains from judgements affect my whole party; so when I hit a mob that I judged with wisdom, my whole party gets mana or health with light. Give me a seal that I can judge on mobs that produces rage/energy. There are ways Blizz could make Pallys raid viable, without giving them straight DPS. But all the Blizz employees are too busy playing their warlocks to care about pallys.
LOL... Warlocks... yeah, they seem immune to such things as nerfs, Rogues too (I think Illumination is my first major nerf since playing this game... it was shocking.)
Anyhow, I think you are on to some things, and I think a lot of these ideas have been touched on for retribution. However, the one thing even Holy Paladins need is to be on the front lines, even if your DPS sucks, the fix to cleaves in 2.1 means you can run up and stare at a mobs ass all day long, and as long as it doesn't have any crazy weird AoE stuff you should be fine. Paladins of all specs need to be on the front lines, whether judging, healing, or whatever. It's semi-possible right now, but in general... why the hell are you even wearing plate if you're just sitting in the back lines anyways? Y'know. Smacking a mob and doing damage (it doesn't even have to be great) WHILE healing would make the Paladin fun as a healer as well.
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