Healers: When only 1 can be saved...

Scion_of_Yggdrasil

Lets discuss strategy/choice in a dungeon, and maybe even in PvP situations. Of course, this may vary based on personal builds and such, but overall...

(and not just healers should answer, I would love to hear everyone's side)

When Senche Tiger droppings hit the fan, and you, the healer, are about to die, but so is everyone else... who do you save? There is only 1 second to react, everyone is in view, but you know your next action will be your last (unless you heal yourself), and everyone needs healed... who do you heal?

Yourself? After all, what good are your heals if you are dead.

The tank? Chances are they will be the only one able to rez anyone.

That dodgy DD? Maybe they're the only ones in a safe spot, or have consistently been avoiding all the issues.

Now, this is very vague, but imagine one of your worst possible scenarios. Go!

Royaji

A situation where you and everyone else is about to die means the group has failed a one-shot mechanic and it's a wipe regardless. Most likely everyone will die no matter which actions you choose. Even if by some miracle one of you survives trying to claw out of three/eleven deaths and get back on schedule with the rest of the mechanics is usually not an easy task and it's rarely worth the bother.

So my actions in that last second are pretty simple. Yell "Wipe, reset!".

Iskiab

In pvp, if I don’t have a group heal available then I hit my single target heal hoping it lands on myself. Usually it will go to the squishiest player since their health is lowest, and we’ll all die anyways.

That’s how pvp generally works in ESO. The glassy guy doesn’t just kill themself, they kill their whole team because of smart healing.

PvP healer standard practice is to always heal yourself first. PvP healers are the tanks so to speak, yourself first is best practice.

RiskyChalice863

For PvE, I think the correct answer is the tank. Realistically, though, since I mostly play a Warden healer, I will end up healing myself too no matter who I’d choose in this sort of situation, since I’d be using Enchanted Growth.

FakeFox

I should be able to save multiple people with an AOE heal unless I messed up massively, so yeah. But following your scenario I usually tend to prioritise my self unless I see a really good chance for another person to do better then me in either finishing the fight or getting the group back up.

BXR_Lonestar

Its a bad day if you are the healer caught as the only person up, but assuming I'm able to pop a barrier, drop my AoE/HoTs, my preference would be to res the tank, and here is an example of why:

My group was in the midst of a Vet ICP run and we were on the last fight - Lord Warden, and it was going COMICALLY bad. We had done the fight before, but we were on alternative characters, had been experiencing issues with FPS drops, lag, disconnects, and other issues that were outside of our control. At any rate, we had Warden down to about 1/3rd of his health when everyone went down except for myself (healer). I was doing little damage to the boss, but after multiple times trying and failing, I was finally able to res the tank, who made it easier to get the DPS res'd by taking some pressure off of myself, and we were finally able to finish the fight.

While we finished, both myself and the tank had multiple times where we either got sucked up into the vortex accidentally as we tried to res someone, or we had to intentionally get sucked up to survive the comet phase - we guess we had to do that roughly 13 times before we were finally able to res the DD's because they were dead in bad spots and the vortex or the mana balls were simply in spots that did not allow us to get to them to res them.

Seriously, we should never have been able to finish the boss on that particular run, and we were laughing all the way because of how poorly it was going. But that goes to show you that if there is no burn phase where you have to dump DPS in order to clear a mechanic, your much better off saving a support vs. a DD IMO. Supports can often keep themselves alive a lot longer than DD's, making it easier to grab revives.

Kittytravel

In PvE your tank should not need a healer 24/7.
In fact they should only need a healer on a few select abilities throughout select dungeons but otherwise should be able to remain self-sufficient as long as you (the healer) are providing orbs/shards and any other resource boosts you can.

If it's a choice between all four of you someone screwed up somewhere pretty badly or your group wasn't ready for the dungeon. A good example of this is vet Moonhunter Keep; if you can't kill the two adds before they turn into big bad werewolves and the tank can't sit there and hold them forever that isn't a tank or heal issue, that's DPS fault.

The healer generally shouldn't be in a position ever where they have to make a choice between who to save; they should have an AoE burst heal (I know every healer except Necro and Dragonknight may not have one; I've healed on all the others) and that's the panic button to hit when craps about to hit the fan, if you can't dump your entire magicka pool to survive a mechanic you weren't going to live anyway.

So keep yourself alive, tank will keep themselves alive, DPS will be DPS and either die because they have no situational awareness or they will keep themselves alive if they know what they are doing. (And yeah I've died to plenty of stupid crap as a DPS, I'm not gonna pretend I haven't lacked situational awareness either).

Iskiab

Kittytravel wrote: »

In PvE your tank should not need a healer 24/7.
In fact they should only need a healer on a few select abilities throughout select dungeons but otherwise should be able to remain self-sufficient as long as you (the healer) are providing orbs/shards and any other resource boosts you can.

If it's a choice between all four of you someone screwed up somewhere pretty badly or your group wasn't ready for the dungeon. A good example of this is vet Moonhunter Keep; if you can't kill the two adds before they turn into big bad werewolves and the tank can't sit there and hold them forever that isn't a tank or heal issue, that's DPS fault.

The healer generally shouldn't be in a position ever where they have to make a choice between who to save; they should have an AoE burst heal (I know every healer except Necro and Dragonknight may not have one; I've healed on all the others) and that's the panic button to hit when craps about to hit the fan, if you can't dump your entire magicka pool to survive a mechanic you weren't going to live anyway.

So keep yourself alive, tank will keep themselves alive, DPS will be DPS and either die because they have no situational awareness or they will keep themselves alive if they know what they are doing. (And yeah I've died to plenty of stupid crap as a DPS, I'm not gonna pretend I haven't lacked situational awareness either).

Yea, this is so true. Next time you think the tank needs an emergency heal because things just went sideways, watch as everyone wipes but them and they start rezing people while holding the boss.

I usually worry more about giving them synergies on CD (especially in movement fights) than healing them.

mocap

Royaji wrote: »

A situation where you and everyone else is about to die means the group has failed a one-shot mechanic

this

Also, one shot mechanics is not about save, it's about avoid them completely. With rare exception of tanks under Magma Shell.

Grianasteri

In my experience, there is rarely ever an occassion when you would not prioritise the tank.

Same for wipes, if multiple players are down, anyone left alive should prioritise in order, tank, then healz, then the dds.

zvavi

Combat prayer can hit everyone...

ArchMikem

I always prioritize the Tank. They're the only one who can survive long enough to rez someone and save the group from a wipe. Sorry DDs but you're only good for hitting things until they die.

If I lose both DDs AND the Tank and I'm the only one left, but the Boss is in Execute, I just ignore everyone, throw self heals and spam Jesus Beam cause in my experience if I have aggro even with my heals and mitigation I don't last long while stuck in the rez timer.

Narvuntien

*Laughs in Necromancer healer*

akdave0

Everyone should atleast one self heal slotted, EVERYONE. For those oh crap moments that sometime occur. In vet dungeons, you may get away without it, but all vet trials everyone should be slotting a self-heal. Ego for the dps player is a hard thing to overcome. OT I try and get up the tank or if the a dps is a necro, I will get them up first.

BejaProphet

As somebody who loves to pug hard dungeons, the answer can not be given abstractly.

As you go through the dungeon, who has shown they can stay up while you rezz a second person?

That might not be the tank.

This is just a PUG perspective though.