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

  • idk
    idk
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    Without a doubt a healed should have offensive skills on their bar. Especially for 4 man content. A healer that cannot contribute to dps (in ESO) is a weak link. (Trials are a little different).

    Unless your running with a pretty bad group you'll have a lot of healing downtime permitting adding significant dps. As far as CP goes, most of it can go to dps. Not much needs to go into the pot that increases healing effectiveness.

    The best healers on in this game dish out the dps in dungeons. Back in the day we were v14 we healed vDSA with 2 heals on our bar, BoL and repentance. A dstaff and DW for weapons and dished out dps most of the time.

    Trials are a little different sinc Emanuel healers just heal there but it's also a different makup.

    With that, anyone who suggests you should only heal all the time is not very experienced. (And must be bored most of the time).

    Edit: also back at v14 many of us dropped the healed set and went full magika and spell damage. Our heals were within a fraction of what the healed set gave us yet our dps got a big boost. Have not seen a healed only heal 4 man content in a long time.
    Edited by idk on April 13, 2016 3:05PM
  • EgoRush
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    Another thing to note is to hold off on doing too much damage until you are familiar with dungeon/trial mechanics. When I first started doing vMOL I was so focused on healing and getting an idea of what damage is put out by enemies. Now I know the trial fairly well and know when to heal and when to do damage.

    As you get more familiar with the content you'll find the right balance.
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  • idk
    idk
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    EgoRush wrote: »
    Another thing to note is to hold off on doing too much damage until you are familiar with dungeon/trial mechanics. When I first started doing vMOL I was so focused on healing and getting an idea of what damage is put out by enemies. Now I know the trial fairly well and know when to heal and when to do damage.

    As you get more familiar with the content you'll find the right balance.

    I agree with this. You must be confortable with your heals and the group. Also 1/2 of healing is knowing when to expect the damage.

    Additionally, there are fights (WGT) where you are required to do dps. The planar fight is designed to require all to dps at some point in that fight.
  • waterfairy
    waterfairy
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    What does a healer do when playing solo? Of course they need to be able to kill things.
  • Resipsa131
    Resipsa131
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    Healer is really a misnomer you should really be called support, you can heal, you can boost DPS, you can help with resource management, and you can DPS. Your priority is probably as listed although resource management might be more important than increasing DPS at times. The point however is if you are taking care of priority 1, 2, &3 you can DPS.
  • Lightninvash
    Lightninvash
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    Zerok wrote: »
    DoT DPS yes. 1 or 2 seems perfectly fine.

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

    I would agree with this I do dots when I heal as well as the radiant destruction. see me I always keep my dps bar as dps so I can help with dps if needed but fall back on the heal bar when I need. I normally put my BOL on my dps bar just incase I need it. while helping with dps and swap bars for buffing and healing. I tend to use barrio on tough bosses as a last minute oh snap button if needed then burst heal the group up while the shield is on. War horn is another great buff to keep on the dps bar for support that way as well. but be careful if you do pug groups I have had it where I did too much damage and the tank wasn't too great so had to kite boss while healing and buffing. was an interesting dungeon needless to say doing it that way.
  • UrQuan
    UrQuan
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    Think of a healer's priorities as follows:

    Top Priority: keeping the party alive with heals/shields

    Second Priority: buffing the party (I include providing resources through shards/orbs in this category as you're buffing their sustain)

    Third Priority: directly contributing to the party's DPS

    You need to plan your setup based on those priorities, and where possible use skills that contribute to more than one of those priorities. You'll want a few skills that are purely focused on your top priority (you need at least one HoT and at least one burst heal), and the rest of your skills should mostly be selected based on contributing to more than one of those priorities. For a few specific examples:

    Combat Prayer helps with both your top priority and your second priority, and is therefore very useful - it's up to you to make sure that your positioning is such that you can catch the rest of the group in it (you won't always be able to get everyone in it, but you should always be trying to get your positioning such that you can maximize the number of people in it). If your positioning is good, I consider it to be a more effective group burst heal than Breath of Life (since it changed to only affect 2 targets), and on top of that it provides buffs.

    Shards (either morph, although I prefer Luminous Shards to be able to use this to help people with their magicka) helps with both your second priority and your third priority, and is therefore very useful to use at times when everyone's health is high/full.

    Orbs either helps with both your top priority and your second priority, or with your second priority and your third priority depending on which morph you take. I personally prefer the Mystic Orb morph, because I usually have more than enough heals on my bars and don't need any additional help with the top priority, so I'd rather use this skill to contribute to group sustain and DPS than heal and sustain.

    Once you feel like you've got enough skills fully focused on your top priority, and enough skills that help with 2 of your 3 priorities, you can fill out the rest of your bars with whatever you feel will make your groups more effective. For me I usually like to finish my bars off with a couple of pure DPS skills, as I usually find that by providing a decent amount of DPS in between heals and buffs, I can help make the fights shorter, which makes it easier to keep everyone alive through the fight.

    Only ever use a pure DPS skill at times when nobody needs healing, and you've recently applied buffs, though. The rest of the time, if you're going to use a skill that contributes to DPS, make sure it's a skill like Shards or Orbs that also contributes to healing or buffing the party. Radiant Oppression is a tempting DPS skill for a Templar healer to slot on one bar (that execute can be fantastic, and really massively help a fight end more quickly), but it's also a potentially dangerous skill for a healer to be using, as it's a channel and if people in the party get hit with burst damage while you're in the middle of channeling it, you may not be able to burst heal them quickly enough to keep them alive. If you slot it, only use it when you're sure it's safe to do so. If your finger slips and you accidentally use the skill at a time when you didn't intend to, bash to interrupt the skill and get back to what you were doing immediately.

    That's my advice anyway.
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  • notimetocare
    notimetocare
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    Overhealing doesn't kill the boss, so yes. That said, only;y have dmg skills if you have common sense.
  • UrQuan
    UrQuan
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    Oh, and even in PUGs you should never need to be healing the entire time. In every fight there should always be times when you're using skills to buff and/or provide DPS without worrying about healing. I've been running a ton of PUGs over the last week as a healer (my only VR character on my second account is a Templar healer, and I've done a minimum of 2 PUGs with him every day since cake arrived), and with good PUGs and bad, never once have I had a fight where I needed to be healing the entire time.
    Caius Drusus Imperial DK (DC)
    Bragg Ironhand Orc Temp (DC)
    Neesha Stalks-Shadows Argonian NB (EP)
    Falidir Altmer Sorcr (AD)
    J'zharka Khajiit NB (AD)
    Isabeau Runeseer Breton Sorc (DC)
    Fevassa Dunmer DK (EP)
    Manut Redguard Temp (AD)
    Tylera the Summoner Altmer Sorc (EP)
    Svari Snake-Blood Nord DK (AD)
    Ashlyn D'Elyse Breton NB (EP)
    Filindria Bosmer Temp (DC)
    Vigbjorn the Wanderer Nord Warden (EP)
    Hrokki Winterborn Breton Warden (DC)
    Basks-in-the-Sunshine Argonian Temp
    Someone stole my sweetroll
  • llllADBllll
    llllADBllll
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    If you're not doing damage you're not a real healer.

    Doesn't have to be all the time know when to deal damage but as a healer since console release I always have a minimum 2 offensive moves one being Shards which is also a buff the other is Dungeon dependent and yes Beam is one of them purifying light and Bane are used too.

    Purely Templar perspective but would assume the same would apply to other classes.
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  • Cinbri
    Cinbri
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    Full time healer is no needed, even in vMoL healer can have plenty of time to dpsing enemies. If you play templar you can play just like dd with BoL, it will be enough.
  • kojou
    kojou
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    Depends on the group really... If you have a couple magi-blades using funnel then keep BOL for emergency heals and DPS, if you are in a group with melee stamina players then you will need to do a lot more support and healing.

    We have run vet dungeons with 2 magi-blades and no healer when the tank and other dps knows what they are doing.

    Trials... Just buff and heal.
    Playing since beta...
  • AOECAPS
    AOECAPS
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    Yes! Only heal you really need is rapid regen throw on some combat prayer for more deeps Bol for ppl that can't get out of the red and repentance for trash mobs
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