Honest Question - Should healers have any dps skills on their bar?

littlelostkiwi · April 2016

I've been playing for a few weeks, I'm V2 now, and my Templar Healer has healed every single non Vet dungeon along the way, most of them multiple times.

My healing is fine, generally any dungeon I do these days we just steam roll, often without any deaths. But on my main bar I have 5 healing or utility spells. And when I'm not healing generally just spam fully charged attacks on my resto staff.

My question is though, is a healer expected to do more dps above and beyond that? I occasionally swap to my second bar and spam Puncturing Sweep when there is groups of enemies and I'm confident that my group is safe, however I am aware that it may chew up my magicka, and I am also aware that I am unable to heal for the 1 second animation if an emergency heal is required. So usually I don't bother and stick to the charged resto staff; I figure the group is better off with slightly lower DPS but with everyone alive rather than a wipe because the healer wasn't concentrating and wasted his magicka on DPS.

But I don't really know what the general consensus is? Should a healer ideally only be using his magicka for heals? What kind of DPS is expected from a healer?

I would love to get some opinions.

DocFrost72 · April 2016

In my opinion, no. It is far better to keep up buffs on allies (such as combat prayer) and keep them healthy. The fight may take longer, but it is way more certain who will win.

There is something to be said about HDPS though, it can really help to have radiant destruction at the minimum on your back bar to help the dps finish a fight with minimum commitment on your end.

NewBlacksmurf · April 2016

You need to play to your strengths as well as support the groups weaknesses.

That will mean doing DPs or helping with mana or stamina regen or tank shields, etc.
develop and open up a lot of skills and do all the skills quests so u have more options but you use have at least 2 dos skills cause what if everyone dies and u can't Rez. U need to be able to stay alive and kill until u can Rez to prevent a wipe

DDemon · April 2016

Depends on the dungeon and the group composition really. If it's an easy dungeon you can get away with running mutagen and perhaps add extended ritual for some HOTs, and put some DPS skills on your second bar.

In the somewhat harder dungeons I would focus soly on healing and keeping your groups resources up with mystic orbs, repentance, ele drain (when you have magica users) and spears for tank.

Also, if the 2 damage dealers in your group are both magica nightblades it will make healing really easy, you can then also focus on dps some more if you want.

newtinmpls · April 2016

littlelostkiwi wrote: »

But I don't really know what the general consensus is? Should a healer ideally only be using his magicka for heals? What kind of DPS is expected from a healer?

I would love to get some opinions.

I would say that much more than a "general consensus" on something are lots of cool ideas, and more to the point, what do the people you are 'currently' in group with want or expect.

Vangy · April 2016

Depends. I'm more of a tank and DPS then heals. But I do have some very competent healer friends. It easy to tell when you have a good healer just like when you have a good tank or a good DPS.

Good healers;
1. Dont just heal the group.
2. They provide tremendous support via buffs or sustain. Examples: Combat prayer/warhorn/necrotic orb/shards/ele drain etc etc
3. They are able to do both 1 and 2 while putting out 7-15K dps depending on how good they are.

One of my top healer friends puts out 10k+ while keeping up combat prayer, shards and orbs out for us. Its amazing when we run with him.

littlelostkiwi · April 2016

Thank you for the posts everyone

SienneYviete · April 2016

In trials no, healing and buffing is all that is required. In group dungeons absolutely. The way I think of it is the quicker something dies the less I have to heal.

GazettE · April 2016

What you can do is to put ur blazing shard or luminous shard in ur main healing bar skill. It will increase ur crit healing as well as giving u chance to help dps ing and also support your tank/stamina dps for their resource sustain. And most importanly you have to keep mutagen / rapid regen up at all times if u planning to dps while healing.

redspecter23 · April 2016

A good healer plays to the strengths of the party. A weak group may require more babysitting than a strong group. If the group is very solid, you may not be doing much healing at all, freeing up time for dps to make things that much smoother.

I guess my answer is, yes. Put whatever dps abilities on your bar that you can afford to put on. No need to heal someone that doesn't need healing and you need something to do with that time.

LadyNalcarya · April 2016

Depends on the situation. These days, many dds use glass cannon max dps builds with zero sustain so they need a lot of support.
If I heal, I usually do some aoe damage with blazing spear and use my execute. But keeping up ele drain, siphon spirit, combat prayer, SPC procs and healing has the priority.

scorpiodog · April 2016

Depends on how good the other DPS in the party are, I suppose, lol.

Seriously, though - since most heals are Magica you could keep an offensive stamina-based attack handy. It doesn't consume the "Healing Pool" and if your Magica ever does get drained down you are doing more damage than just your staff alone.

TheDarkShadow · April 2016

Well, as you already state in your post, it depend on: 1- if your group is save, 2- your resource management. If you can handle both, then the more dps you can do to help, the better. For templar, I suggest shard and radiant destruction. Shard does AoE damage and also give stam for tank and stam dps, and radiant is just too good to miss out when boss <35%. Channel Focus help your regen a lot. If I have to choose between Cleansing Ritual and Channel Focus, I'll choose the 2nd.

Paulington · April 2016

As a Templar healer just keep Jesus Beam on one bar and spam the hell out of it when you can. Easy DPS.

Good healers heal and buff the party, great healers can do that and DPS the enemies however it is very group dependant. If your group is constantly standing in the stupid then it's not really possible but with a good group healers can do 10k DPS over the course of a boss fight without too much trouble.

Zerok · April 2016

DoT DPS yes. 1 or 2 seems perfectly fine.

Spammable DPS, no. If you heal, you don't have time to spam DPS abilities.

PhatGrimReaper · April 2016

Loaded Question!!!! 100% dependant on 1) Content 2) your Group 3) your skill/resource management/multi tasking....

When in doubt, just heal.... keep it simple, but if you find that you have a lot of down time between healing and buffing, throw in some DPS.

Makkir · April 2016

You need to stop pigeon holing classes and builds into traditional MMO roles.

hedna123b14_ESO · April 2016

littlelostkiwi wrote: »

I've been playing for a few weeks, I'm V2 now, and my Templar Healer has healed every single non Vet dungeon along the way, most of them multiple times.

My healing is fine, generally any dungeon I do these days we just steam roll, often without any deaths. But on my main bar I have 5 healing or utility spells. And when I'm not healing generally just spam fully charged attacks on my resto staff.

My question is though, is a healer expected to do more dps above and beyond that? I occasionally swap to my second bar and spam Puncturing Sweep when there is groups of enemies and I'm confident that my group is safe, however I am aware that it may chew up my magicka, and I am also aware that I am unable to heal for the 1 second animation if an emergency heal is required. So usually I don't bother and stick to the charged resto staff; I figure the group is better off with slightly lower DPS but with everyone alive rather than a wipe because the healer wasn't concentrating and wasted his magicka on DPS.

But I don't really know what the general consensus is? Should a healer ideally only be using his magicka for heals? What kind of DPS is expected from a healer?

I would love to get some opinions.

While you don't need to have anything that you don't want on your bar, there are better and there are worse setups. The most efficient 4 man groups have everyone (possibly save tank) dpsing. When I heal dungeons I deal between 20 and 30% of group dps (in a good group), with the other two dps picking up the rest. It isn't mandatory but it shows that you can manage multiple things at once and that you are a better player. But ultimately it's your deciaion, play as you like, afterall if a game feels like work why play at all?

littlelostkiwi · April 2016

OK, you guys have given me a lot to think about, including a list of skills I had never considered. Thank you very much for that. I do have a follow up question based on the suggestions here - which of these skills do you think best complement a well rounded healer? Are there any others I have missed?

- Spear Shards (and is Luminous Shards or Blazing Spear the better morph?)
- Combat Prayer (I'm not so sure about this one since it is targeted and requires the DSP to be close together to be effective)
- Radiant Destruction (is Radiant Glory or Radiant Oppresion the better morph?)
- Necrotic Orb (I presume that Mystic Orb is the better morph?)
- Weakness to Elements (I assume that Elemental Drain is the better morph?)

Thanks you again for your wonderful suggestions

Mojmir · April 2016

littlelostkiwi wrote: »

OK, you guys have given me a lot to think about, including a list of skills I had never considered. Thank you very much for that. I do have a follow up question based on the suggestions here - which of these skills do you think best complement a well rounded healer? Are there any others I have missed?

- Spear Shards (and is Luminous Shards or Blazing Spear the better morph?)
- Combat Prayer (I'm not so sure about this one since it is targeted and requires the DSP to be close together to be effective)
- Radiant Destruction (is Radiant Glory or Radiant Oppresion the better morph?)
- Necrotic Orb (I presume that Mystic Orb is the better morph?)
- Weakness to Elements (I assume that Elemental Drain is the better morph?)

Thanks you again for your wonderful suggestions

shards,RD,ele drain (situational),power of light is a nice one to keep up

PhatGrimReaper · April 2016

- Spear Shards (and is Luminous Shards or Blazing Spear the better morph?) - Luminous

- Combat Prayer (I'm not so sure about this one since it is targeted and requires the DSP to be close together to be effective) - This is a bread & butter skill for healers... Must Have!
-
- Radiant Destruction (is Radiant Glory or Radiant Oppresion the better morph?) - Radiant Oppression is the better morph by far.
- Necrotic Orb (I presume that Mystic Orb is the better morph?) - Yes, Mystic.
- Weakness to Elements (I assume that Elemental Drain is the better morph?) - Yup, Ele Drain for sure!

TheDarkShadow · April 2016

Blazing Spear: More damage and stun
Combat prayer: never use in pug, they rarely stay in 1 place. Templar already have BoL for burst heal. Rather have a dps skill in 4 man dungeon than 8% dps buff.
Radiant oppresion
I only slot Orb when the group ask for it.
Weakness to Element: I don't use it.

phaneub17_ESO · April 2016

Shattering Prison on a Sorc healer is nice, it keeps the mobs in place and less likely to do damage to anyone.

Totalitarian · April 2016

Yes, you should.

Out of all 12 skills (including ultimates) slotted, I normally use 4 normal ones and 1 ultimate for healing/support (I don't include Purge, which I slot for the magicka regen, and can't recall the last time I used it instead of Purify)

From there, I run 1 defensive ability for myself

And 3 damage abilities and 1 damage ultimate

Of course, the build changes a bit if a boss is hard,
IE:
Use Power of the Light instead of Magicka Detonation if the boss does not summon adds
Use Healing Ward instead of Healing Springs on a boss that requires constant moving, such as Ash Titan
Swap out Dual-Wield for Destruction staff if the boss is weak to shock, and requires a ton of DPS to take down, or needs an interrupt (vICP bosses)

Flexibility is something big to focus on. The last thing you want to have happen is to be 1-shot by a boss (not saying it still won't happen with defense), be overrun by adds, and, at the pinnacle, be in a fight that boils down to kill before you're killed (again, vICP).

Mix and match, and find your favorite setup and keep with it.

DynastyIXII · April 2016

You should be able to DPS and Heal, but you need to know when to attack and when not to attack. Also DPS also need to be able to self sustain a bit. But take it one step at a time, work on keeping up buffs and heals (HoTs), then work on DPSing a little at a time, so you can get a feel for your resources.

Odditorium · April 2016

As a Temp healer I have jabs and jesus beam slotted especially in pvp

Maotti · April 2016

Sweep, sweep, sweep, heal. And repeat.

nine9six · April 2016

I had Jesus Beam at times for PvE and Shards.

Shards counts for DPS, IMO. Can spam it like a boss if needed.

I haven't PvE'd in about a week, and I don't Heal Bot in PvP.

timmayyyboy · April 2016

Id say it depends on the group you have. When i play with my guildmates, ill put alot more dps skills on my bars because they are good players who know the dungeons and mechanics. But if i run with an lfg group who isnt so used to the game then ill run about half and half heals and support only, no dps

DDemon · April 2016

scorpiodog wrote: »

Depends on how good the other DPS in the party are, I suppose, lol.

Seriously, though - since most heals are Magica you could keep an offensive stamina-based attack handy. It doesn't consume the "Healing Pool" and if your Magica ever does get drained down you are doing more damage than just your staff alone.

This is actually the worst thing a healer could ever do. Not only does a stamina based attack hit like a wet noodle from a magica based build, you are using up your precious stamina pool, if you get stunned and are unable to break free, your group dies.

Dubhliam · April 2016

Far too often have I died in a dungeon just before the end of the boss fight.

Why?

Because healers cannot resist Jesus Beaming.

Do your job!
Heal!