Making Healers Relevant in Dungeons Again

Arunei

idk wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

I think the easiest thing to make healers more relevant would just be to add a debuff that causes unavoidable damage every second, which increases more and more per tick. The initial ticks could likely be outhealed but unless tank or DPS slot Purge (yes make it purgeable and maybe it reapplies every x minutes) eventually it'll start costing the tank and DPS too much of their resource to effectively heal. Maybe make it cap out at something like 40% damage; make it so 1 tank/3 DPS CAN outheal it, but that means they're having to focus on mechanics because so much of their time/resources are spent healing and staying alive that they can't just burn through bosses.

This is not a wise course of action. To easy to work around since a tank or healer can slot purge and for a healers sake it forces them to do PvP even if all they want to do is heal 4 man dungeons, no trials.

People are usually required to do PvP to get skills anyways, like Caltrops, Vigor, Guard, and Warhorn. No one seems to care when the tank or DPS has to grind for PvP moves, why should healers be any different? And I say this as someone who very strongly dislikes PvP and only goes into Cyro during a handful of events. Also don't forget there are sets and other things that can purge negative effects, not just Purge itself.

If a tank or DPS slots the purge, that's taking a slot from their tank/dps rotation, and all in all is still going to force them to focus more on keeping the heals/purge going than straight burning of the boss, as well. Tanks could probably fit it on their bar easier than DPS, but for those who'd use it, Purge also costs a considerable amount of Magicka, which might not really be feasible for a lot of tanks.

mairwen85

So... Discussion summarised, we arrive at

• dots rather than one shots
• pve specific debuffs unique to mobs and bosses
• more creative mechanics that require heals
• increased dependency on player buffs
• more environmental (rather than enemy) dangers
• decreased potency of self heals

Out of all, I only disagree personally with changing self heals. Any approach in my mind shouldn't make 4xdps, or 3xdps + tank any less doable, just make having a healer more desirable.

Synnastix

It’s fine IMO, queue as a healer and quit whining. If the group doesn’t need you to heal then just dps your heart out, but if you have to help out then there you are.

As a healer, i love getting groups w/ bad ass dps and tank because it’s fun to watch stuff just melt. If your dps is just bad though or the tank is new/sucks then you will prob need to support that.

Healer queue is way faster than dps and near par with tanks. Not sure why you would complain about healing being not relevant if you’re not a healer, so just enjoy your quick queue and easy job.

idk

Arunei wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

I think the easiest thing to make healers more relevant would just be to add a debuff that causes unavoidable damage every second, which increases more and more per tick. The initial ticks could likely be outhealed but unless tank or DPS slot Purge (yes make it purgeable and maybe it reapplies every x minutes) eventually it'll start costing the tank and DPS too much of their resource to effectively heal. Maybe make it cap out at something like 40% damage; make it so 1 tank/3 DPS CAN outheal it, but that means they're having to focus on mechanics because so much of their time/resources are spent healing and staying alive that they can't just burn through bosses.

This is not a wise course of action. To easy to work around since a tank or healer can slot purge and for a healers sake it forces them to do PvP even if all they want to do is heal 4 man dungeons, no trials.

People are usually required to do PvP to get skills anyways, like Caltrops, Vigor, Guard, and Warhorn. No one seems to care when the tank or DPS has to grind for PvP moves, why should healers be any different? And I say this as someone who very strongly dislikes PvP and only goes into Cyro during a handful of events. Also don't forget there are sets and other things that can purge negative effects, not just Purge itself.

If a tank or DPS slots the purge, that's taking a slot from their tank/dps rotation, and all in all is still going to force them to focus more on keeping the heals/purge going than straight burning of the boss, as well. Tanks could probably fit it on their bar easier than DPS, but for those who'd use it, Purge also costs a considerable amount of Magicka, which might not really be feasible for a lot of tanks.

None of those skills are required in general. Some groups may require them and for top Stam dps one may be required. But the idea I quoted is requiring them just to do the content.

At that, few trial fights actually require a cleans yet the idea I quoted wants to require a cleans for all group content.

Further, as a tank I have used cleans and it does not slow down burning the boss. The one fight off the top of my head, first boss in vHoF, requires cleanses and as a tank I am cleansing many times. So if I can do it there I can certainly cleans often in 4 man dungeons that require much less effort.

idk

mairwen85 wrote: »

So... Discussion summarised, we arrive at

• dots rather than one shots
• pve specific debuffs unique to mobs and bosses
• more creative mechanics that require heals
• increased dependency on player buffs
• more environmental (rather than enemy) dangers
• decreased potency of self heals

Out of all, I only disagree personally with changing self heals. Any approach in my mind shouldn't make 4xdps, or 3xdps + tank any less doable, just make having a healer more desirable.

I think you miss the point of ESO combat. It rewards skilled playes for avoiding and mitigating damage. Ironically, healers in trials, where healers are most certainly required, benefit from skilled players being able to avoid and mitigate damage. You seem to want to remove that reward which will also make it more challenging for healers to heal vet trials. That is without a doubt.

mairwen85

@idk they sure are. Sorry, I opened the thread specifically discussing dungeons.

I'll update the title to better reflect that.

Edit

Fixed it.

At the same time, I am saying that challenge and reward for mitigation remain. No change should take away from that. Dots rather than one shots doesn't take away from that. I'd still rather not be dotted than be dotted. Heavy dots @ 12k per second is still nasty damage.

FrancisCrawford

frozzzen101 wrote: »

New dungeons should be 6 man content. Instead of 1/2/1 composition you'd have 1/4/1 composition. That's how you'd make healers more relevant. Your major courage, prayer, potl, aether... all offensive buffs and debuffs would then empower 4 dds instead of two and that's major value in amount of support you are providing. Also given overabundance of dds in game, this would lead to faster queues etc. And switching from 4 to 5 dds, while possible it wouldn't amount to much dps increase relative to how much extra you get from going from 2 to 3 dds because of amount of support you get from good healer.

Other than that there are mechanics that encourage healers. Good example is execute phase of Ruins of Mazzatun where you have constant pulsing damage that isn't trivial to self heal while you have to deal with other mechanics as dd like totems or Stoneshapers. You'd just have to be a bit more creative with mechanics. Oneshots are good and necessary, but not end all be all.

Conversely, since the change from 4 to 6 as group size isn't going to happen (and perhaps shouldn't, as it complicates player-cooperation challenges), we should just accept that dungeon healers actually have hybrid heal/buff/debuff/DPS roles. I'm fine with playing jack-of-all-trades characters in groups, just as I'm fine with duoing and soloing.

GarnetFire17

Jeremy wrote: »

mairwen85 wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

mairwen85 wrote: »

The purpose of this thread is to provide community feedback and ideas for how dungeons (present and future) can be updated or designed to make healers more relevant to the content (as the title suggests). Seeing as devs are regularly revisiting dungeons and weakening bosses, reducing adds, etc (not addressing the core issue of dungeon difficulty in my view, but it is what it is), I don't see why retro fits can't be introduced.

The main gripe you often hear is centred around 'One-shots'. I'm not arguing for the total removal of all One-shot mechanics; they add difficulty, they can enforce mechanics, and make for reactive strategy; but the sheer volume and number of sources are a major issue in current dungeon design -- and seeing as they often exceed the amount heal-able, more dps is preferred in many cases in order to progress faster. A rethink would be to instead of apply x damage, apply a 'wounding' debuff on target that does x/y over time (e.g. instead of single hit of 45K, 12Kps over 4 seconds). This makes a healer's role more necessary as that buff becomes purge-able(?), and the damage recoverable over time, despite the actual effect still doing decent enough damage to retain difficulty.

Self heals are in a good place in terms of cost vs effect, and dps or tanks slotting heals do little to outweigh the applicable power of a dedicated healer (considering additional effects and buffs).

Any other thoughts?

Frankly I think they should just remove "one shots" all together. They're stupid - and just makes a dungeon more annoying. It's also probably why so many people don't want to buy their DLC dungeons.

Challenge is only good so long as it makes the game more fun. If it's to the point that it makes the game more frustrating and annoying, then it's doing more harm than good.

So how would you provide that challenge in a way which makes healers relevant, and doesn't gimp the dungeon too hard.

Just make the damage and health of the enemies threatening - but not to the point it one shots people. That way healers can actually heal and keep people alive.

how do you make the damage threatening to a tank without being able to one shot DPS and healers?

MakeMeUhSamich

GarnetFire17 wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

mairwen85 wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

mairwen85 wrote: »

The purpose of this thread is to provide community feedback and ideas for how dungeons (present and future) can be updated or designed to make healers more relevant to the content (as the title suggests). Seeing as devs are regularly revisiting dungeons and weakening bosses, reducing adds, etc (not addressing the core issue of dungeon difficulty in my view, but it is what it is), I don't see why retro fits can't be introduced.

The main gripe you often hear is centred around 'One-shots'. I'm not arguing for the total removal of all One-shot mechanics; they add difficulty, they can enforce mechanics, and make for reactive strategy; but the sheer volume and number of sources are a major issue in current dungeon design -- and seeing as they often exceed the amount heal-able, more dps is preferred in many cases in order to progress faster. A rethink would be to instead of apply x damage, apply a 'wounding' debuff on target that does x/y over time (e.g. instead of single hit of 45K, 12Kps over 4 seconds). This makes a healer's role more necessary as that buff becomes purge-able(?), and the damage recoverable over time, despite the actual effect still doing decent enough damage to retain difficulty.

Self heals are in a good place in terms of cost vs effect, and dps or tanks slotting heals do little to outweigh the applicable power of a dedicated healer (considering additional effects and buffs).

Any other thoughts?

Frankly I think they should just remove "one shots" all together. They're stupid - and just makes a dungeon more annoying. It's also probably why so many people don't want to buy their DLC dungeons.

Challenge is only good so long as it makes the game more fun. If it's to the point that it makes the game more frustrating and annoying, then it's doing more harm than good.

So how would you provide that challenge in a way which makes healers relevant, and doesn't gimp the dungeon too hard.

Just make the damage and health of the enemies threatening - but not to the point it one shots people. That way healers can actually heal and keep people alive.

how do you make the damage threatening to a tank without being able to one shot DPS and healers?

Only affects whomever holds taunt?

idk

mairwen85 wrote: »

@idk they sure are. Sorry, I opened the thread specifically discussing dungeons.

I'll update the title to better reflect that.

Edit

Fixed it.

At the same time, I am saying that challenge and reward for mitigation remain. No change should take away from that. Dots rather than one shots doesn't take away from that. I'd still rather not be dotted than be dotted. Heavy dots @ 12k per second is still nasty damage.

It is probably even worse if we are going to create one environment for 4 man dungeons and another for vet trials, outside of the general difficulty. That would seem to be an unhealthy design, imo.

mairwen85

idk wrote: »

mairwen85 wrote: »

@idk they sure are. Sorry, I opened the thread specifically discussing dungeons.

I'll update the title to better reflect that.

Edit

Fixed it.

At the same time, I am saying that challenge and reward for mitigation remain. No change should take away from that. Dots rather than one shots doesn't take away from that. I'd still rather not be dotted than be dotted. Heavy dots @ 12k per second is still nasty damage.

It is probably even worse if we are going to create one environment for 4 man dungeons and another for vet trials, outside of the general difficulty. That would seem to be an unhealthy design, imo.

? How so 2 environments? Dungeons already operate at a different scale to trials. They already have tighter mechanics... And are oddly at the same time more flexible in terms of group composition - - so we kind of have different environments already. But one of them has a greater requirement for healer and support than the other. That last bit is bad design imo.

idk

Of course they operate on a different scale of difficulty. The game has varying difficulties from overland to dungeons to trials. You want to increase the difficulty of dungeons in a manner that is not consistent with any other aspect of the game's design.

It does not make sense to have something appear only in dungeons that we see no where else. We have resistance to learn to do things like interrupt when we are questing. We find things that are beneficial to interrupt in dungeons then again in trials. There is a flow. What you suggest runs counter to that and you have not justified it on a game mechanics design level. There really is no justification at that level.

Again, I am not against healers. I expect Zos would look at things in this manner when considering an idea since there is an overall design to this game they must hold true to.

Valkysas154

Maybe i heard wrong but i thought they was going to nerf Vigor so it don't stack any more?

And for purge i never use that skill in pvp line it cost way way to much to cast when i can just use my Ritual - up to the group to use the synergy if they need it


And war horn is not worth it imo BUT i only do pugs so no point in giving a extra few k dps to ppl doing 7-8k dps as is i rather use Barrier
since they also like to stand in red

mairwen85

@idk zos do that every new gimmicky dungeon mechanic.

What I'm asking for is an increase in one established game mechanic, damage over time, and decrease of another, one shot. All boss mech stays the same, including cast, interrupt ability, and telegraphing. I fail to see your point.

As for the post you quoted, it was a sumary if the ideas presented here. Do you have any ideas/suggestions that might work according to the spec you lay out?

idk

mairwen85 wrote: »

@idk zos do that every new gimmicky dungeon mechanic.

What I'm asking for is an increase in one established game mechanic, damage over time, and decrease of another, one shot. All boss mech stays the same, including cast, interrupt ability, and telegraphing. I fail to see your point.

As for the post you quoted, it was a sumary if the ideas presented here. Do you have any ideas/suggestions that might work according to the spec you lay out?

I think you misunderstood. The interrupt was an example of how Zos has learning mechanics from one level to another. Showing consistency in the design of the game.

However, what you are suggesting, unavoidable damage, is again what I already said as bad. You want to change out dealing with mechanics which is required for trials and add in unavoidable damage. We already had this discussion.

One shot mechanics are not an issue if you do the mechanics right. There are mechanics in trials that are one shots if not done right. Some fights it takes just one player screwing up and it wipes the group. Thinking vMoL Rakkhat, but twins is a good example as well. Nothing wrong with those mechanics and healers are required in those rights.

Facefister

And why it should be required? We've cleared every 4-man hardmode without a healer. Playing without a healer is actually more entertaining than having one since you can make use of off-role passives your class provides. For example, I can provide a large burstheal(Siphoning Ult) as a Stamblade when the group requires one, or our Magsorc can use the Negate. It truly hones the way you play and you don't have a safety net aka Healer. Not to mention the 190k group-dps on tank&spank bosses

mairwen85

@idk, I think you either misunderstand me, or are confusing me with someone else in this thread. I never once mentioned unavoidable damage. All I'm arguing is that damage applied instantly in some cases becomes damage over time as already happens in some dungeons. I'm simply asking for that to be more frequent. Go back and read my opening post, my opinion hasn't changed from that starting position.

@Facefister no obligation for healer, no requirement - - just that a healer has a better place, providing more usage than currently. It doesn't change how you want to play or devolve your established completion.

idk

mairwen85 wrote: »

@idk, I think you either misunderstand me, or are confusing me with someone else in this thread. I never once mentioned unavoidable damage. All I'm arguing is that damage applied instantly in some cases becomes damage over time as already happens in some dungeons. I'm simply asking for that to be more frequent. Go back and read my opening post, my opinion hasn't changed from that starting position.

@Facefister no obligation for healer, no requirement - - just that a healer has a better place, providing more usage than currently. It doesn't change how you want to play or devolve your established completion.

You are correct that you did not utter the words unavoidable. However, if it can be avoided it will do nothing to increase the need for healers, by definition.

again, I have no issues with healers. However, as a healer I enjoy that I can do more than heal in ESO. Yes, in trials the only damage I am doing is from applying buffs and debuffs as part of my job. But I have enjoyed beign able to heal and dps in 4 man content.

Heck, the original way we used to clear vDSA back when vDSA and us were lvl v14 was the healer tanked the adds in the final round. Those adds are mini bosses. I remember one time the tank went down (not my fault) and I had to hold the boss briefly while tank was being rezed. So I tanked, dpsed and healed in those clears of vDSA. Today the healer straight up tanks the final boss, heals the dps, all while the tank is off on their own.

So I think what we are missing is what defines a healer. We already know that the top content in hits game has healers doing more than just healing.

Facefister

Healers are still required if you're below a certain "skill" treshold. If you can't deliver a certain amount of dps or are unfamiliar with off-role tactics you will most definitely need a healer. But once you reach and/or exceed said treshold, a healer becomes redundant in any 4-man content.

In my opinion if you really want to make a healer required for 4-man content you have to:
-change the types of damage you receive in dungeons-> tune down one-shots but make the hard and constant enough so they can't be outhealed by let's say vigor.
-reduce the efficiency of all non-healer healing abilities so they're only supportive in nature but not more.

KappaKid83

BNOC wrote: »

Self heals are insanely strong, that's why healers are worthless in this kind of content.

Maybe they just need a third difficulty tier, it could even be as simple as %hp, %damage and %mitigation increases, then chuck a flat healing debuff in there to a point where DD's can't sustain on self heals alone.

Dedicated healer heals would also be down but part of the difficulty I guess.

Also, you'd probs just get dds heal stacking each other.

This is like what WOW did with the Mythic Dungeon system. It is a really nice addition to the game although I do not think ESO has the servers and/or people to do this.

IonicKai

I think the bigger issue here is player mentality. People get stuck thinking DPS is the only way because they are just trying to go fast. Honestly most groups benefit far more and get much easier completions if you run a healer. The skill ceiling to run 3 DPS and a tank is much higher and far less forgiving as that means there is no backstop where a support could jump in and heal for nearly full health instantly or flat out heal through mechanics that are supposed to be dodged. A decent healer can allow groups with middling DPS or subpar tanks to complete content with relative ease and for groups where everyone is solid at their role it can get to a point where DLC dungeons feel like a joke.

Facefister

IonicKai wrote: »

I think the bigger issue here is player mentality. People get stuck thinking DPS is the only way because they are just trying to go fast. Honestly most groups benefit far more and get much easier completions if you run a healer. The skill ceiling to run 3 DPS and a tank is much higher and far less forgiving as that means there is no backstop where a support could jump in and heal for nearly full health instantly or flat out heal through mechanics that are supposed to be dodged. A decent healer can allow groups with middling DPS or subpar tanks to complete content with relative ease and for groups where everyone is solid at their role it can get to a point where DLC dungeons feel like a joke.

Depends entirely on the group. If you have core group of 4 players (1T 3DD) where everyone knows what to do in emergency situations, you'll clear the dungeon much easier and faster. The boss, the adds and the trash wont reach a situation where they become lethally dangerous.

Riejael

From my experience, you could easily replace healers with more DPS and even Tanks up to and including some Trials. Its starting to feel a bit more like GW2 where you just zerg stuff down before you wipe completely. With the new Necro ult, things are going to get even dumber.

I agree with another poster that the base group size should be 6. Everquest 1 and 2 does this, and not only are healers way more relevant, but off healers and hybrid healers begin to shine in large damage fights and more importantly the Fourth Role of Support becomes strong. What happens is you have a class like Bard/Enchanter that comes in and increases the groups damage (Tank, Healer, and the other 3 DPS) by an amount greater than a single DPS would add themselves.

Crowd Control also becomes a subrole of Support that makes dungeons a tad bit more manageable. And with how threat mechanics work in ESO, it would benefit greatly from CC effects.

KappaKid83 wrote: »

This is like what WOW did with the Mythic Dungeon system. It is a really nice addition to the game although I do not think ESO has the servers and/or people to do this.

ESO is in the big three of MMORPGs. It shares and switches positions with WoW and FFXIV. It can handle it. But a harder difficulty needs better rewards. Not simply drop gold versions of blue and purple sets, but perfected versions.

IonicKai

Facefister wrote: »

Depends entirely on the group. If you have core group of 4 players (1T 3DD) where everyone knows what to do in emergency situations, you'll clear the dungeon much easier and faster. The boss, the adds and the trash wont reach a situation where they become lethally dangerous.

Yes it can happen that way but what I am saying is that in my experience you can reach a similar situation with 1T 1H and 2DD. Group synergy can take many forms and I think the big issue is that people insist it must be one way and that's simply not true. Easiest completions have always had a healer because the buffs and survivability benefits completely out weigh the minor damage increase. Keep in mind you actually lose a little bit of each DDs damage when you run without a healer as they need to focus more on keeping themselves alive and likely won't get all the same buffs you would in a trial.

Facefister

It isn't a minor damage increase when the DDs know what to do. We're talking about 40~60k more dps, in our group atleast.

IonicKai

I don't think it's more then 40k and that is absolute max unless the healers you know contribute absolutely nothing to the damage. The additional debuffs and buffs plus not having to worry about your own health as much makes that gap even less. In my experience having a 3rd DD would only yield maybe a 20-30k gain in practice.

Edit: To clarify I am not saying there isn't a benefit and different groups certainly synergize with their ideal composition. What I am trying to get at is that too many people who have that good group synergy throw out the possiblity of a healer even providing a benefit which is wrong for most groups.

Facefister

Cast a Barrier with 4k weapon dmg, go in, nuke first boss in vFV with 190k group dps. Barrier has still a few seconds left.

KappaKid83

Riejael wrote: »

From my experience, you could easily replace healers with more DPS and even Tanks up to and including some Trials. Its starting to feel a bit more like GW2 where you just zerg stuff down before you wipe completely. With the new Necro ult, things are going to get even dumber.

I agree with another poster that the base group size should be 6. Everquest 1 and 2 does this, and not only are healers way more relevant, but off healers and hybrid healers begin to shine in large damage fights and more importantly the Fourth Role of Support becomes strong. What happens is you have a class like Bard/Enchanter that comes in and increases the groups damage (Tank, Healer, and the other 3 DPS) by an amount greater than a single DPS would add themselves.

Crowd Control also becomes a subrole of Support that makes dungeons a tad bit more manageable. And with how threat mechanics work in ESO, it would benefit greatly from CC effects.

KappaKid83 wrote: »

This is like what WOW did with the Mythic Dungeon system. It is a really nice addition to the game although I do not think ESO has the servers and/or people to do this.

ESO is in the big three of MMORPGs. It shares and switches positions with WoW and FFXIV. It can handle it. But a harder difficulty needs better rewards. Not simply drop gold versions of blue and purple sets, but perfected versions.

Agreed, something worthy of the fight. Be it a perfected dungeon version or extra gold mats or extra keys per run, something to incentivize a dungeon run of this difficulty. Hell, maybe even create a weekly leaderboard like the Arenas/Raids and reward accordingly to that.

zvavi

To make healers relevant you need to make zones where you cant damage boss if you are outside, but you have unavoidable DoT when you are inside (so healer can stand outside of it and focus healing/buffing, while occasionally stepping inside to drop WoE then back where it is safe to keep healing.

Things that won't make healers relevant:
1. DoT effects that can be purged.
- Gives edge to Templars
- Dds can slot purge.
2. Defiles.
- it is an interesting uptake, but you know, dds adapt. As someone who 3dd'd vFV hm, we all run barriers and supported tank well. Iceheart helped too. I can only say, that as a tank, there is nothing i hate more than defiles.
3. Any complicated mechanics that will never stop and wont let people even resurrect others are a big no.
- it makes tanks sad. It makes dds sad. It makes healers job impossible. Dds need only to dodge mechanics while keep dpsing boss. Healers need to do the same, while healing dds that are all over the map where heals cant reach with CP(combat prayer) and impossible to get them with HS (healing springs), and the only option is to spam BoL/matriach, which makes other heal classes less effective, or even useless for those places. Because keeping eye on 3 targets while doing mechanics is so much harder than keeping eyes on one, predictable one.

Examples for things that felt like they make healers more viable:
1. In FV fire phase where boss stands and spits fire on everyone until his shield is gone is a nice one. But i dont think it should involve a dps check. Because if dds cant get it quick enough, we will all run out of resources (similar to pew pew phase in HRC), on the other side, with 3 good dds the shield is gone in less than 5 seconds, not enough to kill them if they are block casting.
2. Safe zones where mechanics dont happen, but you cant damage boss either. It also gives breath time for dds in case they need it. Or at least deal 50% damage but get 50% damage reduced as well. If it seems too boring zones where things deal more damage but get more damage are optional too
3. Unavoidable unblockable pulsing damage. (Not the whole fight, parts of it)

Quantact

Iskiab wrote: »

Healers are relevant, I don’t see the point of the thread. I tried a group with one tank and 3 dps, it was horrible with lots of deaths and low dps.

3 dps groups are fine because there are less healers so it doesn’t bother me, but thinking it’s optimal is ridiculous.

The game has been setup to play how you want so 3 dps groups are possible of course. The tank can pump out healing and the dps can self heal, but healers can dps as well. If running a healer isn’t working for you then the healer must be overhealing like crazy and doing nothing else.

I totally agree with this.

I only run heals in dungeons, and I do occasionally get parties that breeze through vet DLC dungeons and kill the last boss on Hard Mode from the first try. With those I just have to make sure I don't get stupid. There are people who can clear harder dungeons but with difficulty and I have to try my best for them and we win. Some groups I am in don't have as good gear and as much skill, I have to do my very best to keep them alive, and there are times when we just are stuck on a hard boss and can't go further. You can have effective heals in such situations, and you still lose. Without a healer, such players have no hope of clearing even easier dungeons.

Also, healers don't just heal, they provide utility help such as Shards, Necrotic Orb, Spellpower Cure, etc.

It kinda sounds like the OP is at the top of the food chain and hasn't had exposure to parties which can't beat High Kinslord Rilis at the end of vet Banished Cells II, much less get through vet Bloodroot Forge. Try to think of everybody in the community rather than assume that every DPS will run 240k damage and knows how to self-heal.