Healers! I owe you a thank you!

raglau · November 2016

biovitalb16_ESO wrote: »

Dazza1968 wrote: »

Dont abandon destro staff totally as your group will love you running ele drain on that bar.

They will? I've seen "great tanking", "awesome tank", "dps was amazing"...never have I seen "great healing" or "ty for ele drain",

I have seen "OMG FAIL FING HEALER HASN'T DROPPED A SHARD IN 5 SECONDS!! KICK HER" though.

Like a lot of the most important jobs in the world, successful healing is unnoticeable because it just quietly happens. So it's not for the showboaters. It is also very easy in ESO - I still think it is fun - but that may be another reason why people rarely mention it.

Loc2262 · November 2016

Healers are like system administrators. If everything runs smoothly, nobody notices they are there. If something goes wrong, they get all the blame.

WhiteCoatSyndrome · November 2016

Reminds me of a dungeon run I had where one member kept yelling at me for DPSing instead of healing. My bar at the time:

Mutagen - Healing Springs - one of the Resto Ward morphs - Bound Armor - Mage Light.

Not a single damaging skill on it.

Some people just live in their own little world; don't let them get you down.

But re: squishy Templar, I run a Templar healer and this is what I do: I run a piece of heavy armor on the chest, and sword and shield when not using the Resto. All I use the shield for is that ability that bounces projectiles back; Templar abilities go in the rest of the slots.

If you want to stay completely in squishy light armor, first, my Breton Sorceress says hi, and also grab the CP points that make you less squishy. Also, try tristat food if you're Magicka-heavy so you have some stam to block with. My PvP guildies recommended it and it works wonders for me.

Alucardo · November 2016

The fact you made it through the dungeon with 2 idiotic DPS, no tank and a newbie, is probably testament to how well you healed the group. They should be thanking you, not flinging insults. If I somehow get stuck with a group that has no tank/taunt, I will slot inner fire on my stam sorc just to make sure the healer can do their job and not worry about getting agro.
Personally I would have loved having someone like you in my group.

vyndral13preub18_ESO · November 2016

Alucardo wrote: »

The fact you made it through the dungeon with 2 idiotic DPS, no tank and a newbie, is probably testament to how well you healed the group. They should be thanking you, not flinging insults. If I somehow get stuck with a group that has no tank/taunt, I will slot inner fire on my stam sorc just to make sure the healer can do their job and not worry about getting agro.
Personally I would have loved having someone like you in my group.

I like to grab the bosses and run around in a circle. If i have to suffer, everyone shall suffer with me... of course in the instance everyone was range so kinda pointless. But is fun when your fake tank is chasing the boss around trying to hit it as you run around with it.

idk · November 2016

Pibbles wrote: »

IrishGirlGamer wrote: »

(And just a word to the DPS crowd: if you really think you can run a dungeon without a taunt and queue yourself up as a tank,

The other day I wwas tanking DC II and two so-called 'healers' ended up in my PUG. But neither could work out how to open a box of Bandaids, let alone heal the dungeon. I kept asking, 'which one of you guys is actually going to be healing, as you both are listed to heal in Finder?"... No response...I guess people can get away with fake tank and fake heal to pop the queue early on the non-vet dungeons, but the wheels come off pretty quick on the Vet or II modes.

Still, most people in this game are great I find. Glad you enjoy healing, I played DPS for my entire time until I started a healer and a tank alts a few weeks back, gave the game a new lease of life!

I do not know what one calls real healing. For dungeons I might have regen, BoL and repent. Do most of my healing with repent and keep regen on. DPS the rest of the time.

runagate · November 2016

Re: archers - there is a self-healing Bow skill morph. I don't recall what it's called but it was changed in a recent patch. The least they could do is stay alive while failing.

Just the fact that the two ran ahead without responding to chat would make me kick/mute them.

Korah_Eaglecry · November 2016

Pibbles wrote: »

IrishGirlGamer wrote: »

(And just a word to the DPS crowd: if you really think you can run a dungeon without a taunt and queue yourself up as a tank,

The other day I wwas tanking DC II and two so-called 'healers' ended up in my PUG. But neither could work out how to open a box of Bandaids, let alone heal the dungeon. I kept asking, 'which one of you guys is actually going to be healing, as you both are listed to heal in Finder?"... No response...I guess people can get away with fake tank and fake heal to pop the queue early on the non-vet dungeons, but the wheels come off pretty quick on the Vet or II modes.

Still, most people in this game are great I find. Glad you enjoy healing, I played DPS for my entire time until I started a healer and a tank alts a few weeks back, gave the game a new lease of life!

If no one responds its time to start booting them.

1.) If youre not willing to communicate during a Dungeon you dont deserve to be there.

2.) Theres a good chance they arent responding to questions like that because they know if they answer you arent going to like what they have to say, if its honest at all.

IrishGirlGamer · November 2016

biovitalb16_ESO wrote: »

Dazza1968 wrote: »

Dont abandon destro staff totally as your group will love you running ele drain on that bar.

They will? I've seen "great tanking", "awesome tank", "dps was amazing"...never have I seen "great healing" or "ty for ele drain",

I have seen "OMG FAIL FING HEALER HASN'T DROPPED A SHARD IN 5 SECONDS!! KICK HER" though.

You know, it's a small thing really. But I have to ask:

How do they know it's a "her"?

runagate · November 2016

I believe the her in this theoretical example is you, and it's posited that it's what your interlocutors were thinking or saying to each other.

Plus, all girls are healers all boys DDers and whatever I am when I troll people with mementos and weird emojis doesn't have a word for it.

IrishGirlGamer · November 2016

runagate wrote: »

I believe the her in this theoretical example is you, and it's posited that it's what your interlocutors were thinking or saying to each other.

Plus, all girls are healers all boys DDers and whatever I am when I troll people with mementos and weird emojis doesn't have a word for it.

Okay, sorry, didn't get that the reference was to me.

BTW, "all girls are healers" are why I avoided healing for over two years ....

Dem gender stereotypes run real deep.

Kartalin · November 2016

I've heard "great heals" multiple times from pug groups so it does get said.

However the best thing I heard (read) was when a friend and I queued into group finder as tank and healer and halfway through a vet pledge one of the dps asks "this is a vet dungeon, right?"

kargen27 · November 2016

With pug groups if they run ahead and I am healing I will keep up with them to the first boss and keep them alive. During that fight I can tell if they are new and don't know better or just think they are that good. If they are experienced players and run ahead towards the 2nd boss I stop and look in all the crates, look behind rocks for heavy sacks and enjoy the scenery. When they die I tell them they need to wait for the rest of the group before engaging the boss. Usually it is a nightblade or something that can sprint ahead much quicker than I could move even in I were in a hurry. They need to learn to slow down.

Sometimes when I tell them to wait for the group they say this is a speed run. I respond no it is a random, you wanna do speed runs do it with a guild or spam zone you wanna do a speed run. I've been kicked and called all kinds of names for that response but that is okay I can amuse myself doing something other than chasing them down a dungeon hall. Normal random to me is a place to work on new characters or new rotations. A place where players new to the game can learn some mechanics. Don't get into normal dungeons expecting to just speed though, it isn't fair to the others and really isn't much fun.

One guild I am in we have a kind of informal rule if you pull agro before the tank does you don't get heals. We are lax with that for new members but we do try to teach them let the tank go first and never ever stand behind the healer.

I've only had one person tell me my healer should be doing DPS (I usually do if healing isn't sucking up resources) and I responded that my buffs were the only reason he was doing better than mediocre DPS as it was. He cursed at me a bit and informed me he would remember me and never let me in his group again. So sometimes good things do happen!

IrishGirlGamer · November 2016

vyndral13preub18_ESO wrote: »

Ill just add this as well. I know ive posted it before and so have others so if you have seen it, ignore.

But if you are new to healing it is funny, and sad all at once.
https://youtu.be/2DxS7eT_ky4

I just watched this (was at work all day and couldn't watch it until now). I laughed so hard!!!

I can't you give you enough awesomes for that post. So I went to TheHiveLeader's website and gave him a like, too. I also faved it so I could watch it again later.

Thanks for sharing that!

WhitePawPrints · November 2016

There are times I miss a block or miss a roll, and a healer saves my ass. I always be sure to ask them to marry me right then and there. I've seen healers save a lot of players before, and it is rare for the healer to be thanked.

There seriously need to be a penalty for any that queues for a role that they are not fitted for. Two plus hour lock out of the group finder should be sufficient. It's these players, wielding DW/Bow or 2h/Bow that complain up the yinyang about noob players doing this or than wrong - when I'm sitting there thinking if we had a real tank, then it wouldn't be a problem! Try to initiate that vote to kick on the noob, because I'll be voting for you to be kicked so we can get a real tank in.

NBrookus · November 2016

biovitalb16_ESO wrote: »

Dazza1968 wrote: »

Dont abandon destro staff totally as your group will love you running ele drain on that bar.

They will? I've seen "great tanking", "awesome tank", "dps was amazing"...never have I seen "great healing" or "ty for ele drain",

I have seen "OMG FAIL FING HEALER HASN'T DROPPED A SHARD IN 5 SECONDS!! KICK HER" though.

I compliment healers all the time. A good healer makes everything so much easier.... and as a tank I am mighty possessive about my healer. When a healer says something like, "do you want orbs," or, "hey, are you magicka? I'll run ele drain" I know I'm in good hands.

psxfloh · November 2016

@IrishGirlGamer
Hey, you don't need dodge rolls to keep yourself alive.. Just spam Puncturing Sweeps. Like this you have absolutely zero problems to keep yourself alive and you're contributing to dps!
Only don't forget to block the heavy attacks, they might one shot you..

There was a time I was one of those "yeah, I kept everyone alive" healers.. then I realized I did a lot of standing around with no one to heal and no buffs/debuffs to cast, and I asked myself what I could do to improve group performance.
Then I gradually switched in more and more damage skills, respecced CP to more damage, and you know what? Dungeons didn't become harder, no no.. the opposite happened, dungeons got easier the more dps I, the healer, contributed!

If your group is halfway competent, DDs will have some self-healing capability or "oh ***"-buttons like shields or something and will use them. This opens a lot of "free" time for you as a healer where you should be contributing to DPS. Fights will be shorter and therefore a lot easier.

So for everything that's not a trial I strongly recommend to run a damage build (equipment, skills, champion points!) and swap in breath of light and your second favorite healing skill (like rapid regen/mutagen or combat prayer). Behave yourself like a DD and cast the occasional breath of life when needed. You'll make your groups a lot happier and your dungeon runs faster and smoother..

SaibotLiu · November 2016

It's funny to me the dps in this game are trying to be elitists, in most other mmo's Ive played this is generally the province of the tank, and dps are always just dime a dozen scrubs.

As for the story in the OP though I wouldve laid in to the guy and made him too ashamed to speak in a group chat again, you're way nicer than me.

CombatPrayer · November 2016

Wait till you heal vets, like when everyone is getting their ass kicked in WGT, ICP, or any other of the more challenging dungeons to heal. Few if nobody has self heals. You are expected to heal across a stadium while morons refuse to stick together as a group and they are out of you heal range. Then someone tells you to git gud despite they haven't had the sense to stay out of red, to use self heals, to stay in range, to move with the group.... These kind of people put me off vets entirely. Not worth the annoyance of people who truly are not particularly good at even common sense survival. Hell, I knew a sorc once who got rid of overload from their bar calling it garbage then died like crazy and ran out of mag all the time and wanted me to basically just babysit them giving them all sorts of mag and heals so they could get better dps. What a tool. Yeah sorry, other people need heals too. You are not my priority.

Also funny is when it turns out that your radiant destruction saves the day repeatedly.

Have fun and good luck. Ignore the idiots. They are amusing at best and unworthy of giving a damn about at worst.

AzraelKrieg · November 2016

If I'm running my healer setup for my Altmer Templar, the moment a DPS runs ahead, face pulls, and dies because of it is the moment they will stop getting any heals from me though that's a hard thing to promise considering all I do is passively heal groups I'm in. Nevertheless, if a DPS runs off and dies, I'm not chasing after them.

zyk · November 2016

I appreciate the sentiment of your post, but I don't entirely agree.

I feel that outside of trials, ESO isn't really a trinity (pure tank/healer/dps) game. It can be played that way, but it's not optimal most of the time. Because of the way ESO is designed, a character strong in DPS is also strong in healing and/or mitigating damage.

At the very least, tanks and healers should be built to perform their roles and contribute DPS. Most dungeon encounters can be completed with a hybrid dps/tank/healer taunting and absorbing most damage with the rest of the group composed of DPS with the ability to self-heal.

psxfloh · November 2016

AzraelKrieg wrote: »

the moment a DPS runs ahead, face pulls, and dies

The last part is mostly sufficient to recognize bad DDs.. good DDs don't die, their enemies will, and the healer won't do much of a difference.

CombatPrayer · November 2016

To be fair, you can contribute to dps, but that comes with time. After you feel solid as a healer and feel like you could do more then you can start using dps. Sometimes sacrifices will be made if you aren't good at animation cancelling but as you learn to mix in dps you will be able to handle dungeons with lowbies and end up even carrying them because you can do a lot more damage and off heal as needed.

When you get to that point, radiant destruction, blazing shards, puncturing sweeps, novas are nice to toss in there. I think deltia gets it right, everyone should be doing damage. But for new healers, focusing on healing and support is essential till you really get your bearings. Learning to do that well is the main goal and then when you are solid with that you can add dps though less so on vets depending if the group has self heals and in general knows how to play and has at least average dps. And then your dps won't contribute nearly as much as theirs if they have solid dps, but things like radiant destruction help a lot and even shards can help boost group dps from what I have seen (blazing not luminous).

Just go at your own pace and don't pay attention to anyone who blames you. Every time I had been blamed I would mentally replay everything and even think of the players (sometimes it was people I knew) and there was always a few things that happened that were the issue and they had nothing to do with me. Usually low dps and/or people who had crap survival skills and expecting me to keep them standing upright while they killed stuff because that's all they could be bothered with. Overload? Garbage. Doesn't help their dps anymore. Vigor? They don't like pvp so eff it. Hurricane? Why waste a slot when the healer can do it all for them! And of course, they can run out of mag and stam and you are expected to provide it for them, but you apparently are expected to have endless supply of it when you can't get it back as easily as them, barring res staff, thank god for that - just don't use the res staff when they need that babysitting. Even if you have no mag from having to non stop heal their sorry asses. I will say I am lucky that I never really get these people anymore.

Do your best and ignore the rest.

lardvader · November 2016

Nice little read

I took a month break before T1 but had desided to focus on my healer when I got back. So ever since Tamriel One I've been playing healer - I've been healing so much that i changed my stamplar to a healer as well just to earn keys and a little more variantion.

I would like to get more experience as tank at some point as well but for now healing is one of the most fun play styles for me in the game. And I've definitely become a better player after I started healing. It also makes grouping a lot faster.... always someone looking for a ealer

lardvader · November 2016

Edit for double post

failkiwib16_ESO · November 2016

Different groups have different needs, I mean there is no correct way to play a healer in this game, because the tanks and DD's differ in needs & skills.
You can only adapt to your groups, and try to do your role as good as possible, contributing to getting through the dungeon.

I level up all skills in both morphs, to be able to adapt to all sorts of groups. This including all weapon and Alliance War skill lines. I didn't knew at the beginning what was needed, what was good and what different groups wanted - so I asked around and slowly got to understand more and more with experience.

Loc2262 · November 2016

Yeah, what @failkiwib16_ESO said. There's a big difference in requirement. Let's take two extremes: A normal tier 1 dungeon. You could probably solo it. So whatever group you get into, you can go almost all-out damage, and throw in the occasional Ritual, Mutagen or BoL.

On the other end of the scale, vet DLC dungeons. In a random group, you usually have a hard time even remotely finishing it. In an experienced organized group, you'll want to do pure support (shards, bubbles, ele drain, combat prayer, ...) to maximize your DPS' damage output and resource management.

Nax · November 2016

This was just the thing I needed to read. PUG'd today's vet dailies and immediately on the first trash pull, one DD died because he stood in AOE and didn't move from it. Second trash pull, same thing. Then what does he say in the group chat? "Hello healer?? How about do your job?" Now, me being pretty tired after a long day/night at work, I responded that he should take a look at where he was standing, and maybe move out of the flaming red circle. I immediately left the group at that point because I was in no mood to deal with arrogant DDs who think my job is to be their personal Breath of Life Spammer. What's funny is that, after I left, the group leader messaged me and told me to "learn to play my class", that I had "no idea what I was doing" because I didn't have Healing Springs on my bar, and that (yes, this next part is fu**ing for real), it is my job to heal through DDs standing in red because if they move, "their DPs is less". I literally laughed out loud in front of my screen. While I agree with him in some instances that some damage simply must be healed through, we were in the FIRST trash pack of the damn dungeon, and the dying DD was spamming Steel Tornado. Naturally though, his DPS would have been so much less if he took two steps to his left.

Two minutes after that, I found another group-- you know, with DDs that took a minute to think, "Hm, maybe I shouldn't stand in that big red flaming thing"-- and we completed all three dungeons with no deaths, including vCoS, scaled to CP 160.

And I didn't have Healing Springs on my bar.

Cherryblossom · November 2016

Jeremy wrote: »

IrishGirlGamer wrote: »

Since the beginning of the game, I've pretty much played DW DPS. I don't know, it seemed to go well with the characters I had in my mind, the races I liked to play, and I love that steel tornado animation!!

Then, on Friday afternoon, I was playing with a new Breton templar DW but everything just felt ... stale. Someone on guild suggested I give her a stave and so I did. Desto staff was fun and when I got to level 15, I turned picked up a resto staff as my weapon swap.

Friday night I ran my first dungeon as a healer and had a blast. Two people I were with (from my guild) were fun and very helpful, and taught me the basics. It was unlike any build I'd ever run before. By the time the night was over, my Breton was now a pure healer (I completely abandoned the desto staff).

For about six hours Saturday, I worked my healer. She's a templar, two resto staffs, all magicka and I get health to 17k with health glyphs. I can buff health with food if I think I'm going have trouble in a dungeon but mostly I run magicka regen for food. I ran the entire day as a healer, healing dungeons, dolmens, boss fights, everything. I have biting jabs, the sun fire morph, and the javelin morph for a little damage if I need to run a quest or throw out some DPS.

Well, the fun came to an end Sunday afternoon. I queued in the group finder and dropped into a dungeon with a newbie and two experienced players (each had over 300 cps). I'd been doing this since Saturday and loving it. I find running with the new players great, and sharing some of their "Oh Wow" experience at running their first dungeon is a reminder of my own first experiences.

As soon as I hit the dungeon, I sent out a "Hey," to the group and the newbie responded. The other two just took off, running the dungeon. We hit the first set of mobs and they came after me. I roll dodged and started sending up heals but mobs were on me constantly. I had to spend my magicka to kill the mobs in my face. By the end of the second trash fight, I was concerned. By the end of the first boss fight, I send a group whisper: "Does ANYONE have a taunt?"

The newbie responded with a no; the other two didn't answer. They just kept running. Now, to be clear: my healer is squishy. To many mobs in my face and I'm probably gonna die. So I began to roll dodge like crazy and just heal. I even slotted stamina pots for the first time ever, so I could keep my roll dodge alive.

Final boss fight: I have two DPS with bows, another with a desto staff, and I'm trying to heal the group. The newbie dps at least had the common sense to hang back and stay out of the boss' face. One of the "experienced" players - the one with bow - couldn't stay out of the red, and felt the need to get in the boss' face. His health would drop to almost nothing in an instant.

But we got through it. I healed, I roll dodged like a madwoman, I dropped stamina and I healed some more. When we were done, I was kind of proud of myself. I got this group through the dungeon and without a single death. Just as I was feeling good, one of the "experienced" players sends me this gem:

"Next time DPS!!!"

Seriously? My Irish temper fired, and I was about to fire off a toxic response when I stopped.

That could have been me. Not with the snarky whisper, but being the DPS, running a dungeon, checking my DPS like the world revolved around me, and never realizing that the only reason I was able to spam DPS was because somewhere behind me there was a healer keeping me alive. I suddenly thought of all the dungeons I blew out of, proud of myself and my oh so holy DPS, without a word of thanks to the healer.

So thanks. Really. I get it now.

(And just a word to the DPS crowd: if you really think you can run a dungeon without a taunt and queue yourself up as a tank, then you freakin better to be able to drop enough burst DPS so that the mobs aren't in your healer's face and (s)he is gulping stamina pots to stay alive. Because if that's what's going on, you're doing it wrong. And the thing is: you'll make it through the dungeon, they will keep you alive, and you will never know.)

I've had similar experiences to this so I have felt your pain.

DPS who think they are too good to need tanks can make for one very miserable dungeon run - especially for the healer.

If you aren't a tank - meaning a defensive character designed to redirect enemy attacks or attention toward yourself - then don't queue up as one. If you want the shorter queue times - then play as a tank.

Please don't take this the wrong way, as I get where the OP is coming from. But and there is a But, it does depend on the dungeon you are running, there are numerous of the earlier dungeons where a Tank is optional and I'm saying this as someone who does tank and heal.

Loc2262 · November 2016

Nax wrote: »

PUG'd today's vet dailies and immediately on the first trash pull, one DD died because he stood in AOE and didn't move from it. Second trash pull, same thing.

It's funny really. When I started my "career" as a healer, I would have unconditionally agreed that standing and staying in the red is a no-go and it's their own fault if any DD dies from doing it.

Meanwhile, I've been in a good deal of groups where DDs tend to do that... So I've kinda adapted.

It's basically still their own fault, but if they like doing it and the damage is manageable, I tend to throw Springs on them and let them live through it. (In organized groups with high DPS it's even a tactic to use, e.g. burn down the Planar Inhibitor real fast ignoring the AOEs.) Indeed that does help to finish the dungeon faster if they can do more damage.

I guess one can argue if it's the healer's responsibility to be prepared for "suicidal" DDs like that in any circumstance.