What are the incentives / benefits for healing various content?

KRBMMO · October 2017

I've mostly DPSed in the past and done a bit of tanking so I thought I'd try my hand at Healing and rolled a Templar.

Grouped up with a pick-up WB group and went around and healed the group through killing all the bosses in that zone. Of course some in the group didn't need the healing and some desperately needed it. The CP 600+ health bar never dropped below 90% but a few others health bar went down to below 25% every time the boss targeted them.

So I go to the bank to deposit my loot and can't find all the armor pieces I think I should have. Then I look at the map and two of the WB icons were still black.

Suddenly healer seems to me to be the crappiest role ever. At least with tank you might not do a lot of damage but at least you get the armor ant the achievement.

Now I'm curious - lets say you are grouped with ONLY noobs and you carry them through with heals through all the content. Would you just have zero experience and zero loot?

Now I'm wondering about dungeons and PvP as well - I always thought there was a reward for healing people in these types of content but now I'm not sure.

Can anyone point to some definitive information about this?

Nestor · October 2017

As long as you heal players in the group who do significant damage to the Boss, you will get loot. Provided, there are 12 or less people in the group. More than 12, then it's RNG as to whether you get a loot drop or not. No matter your role or damage output.

Also, there is a Boss Loot Timer in that if you kill the next boss too quickly, you get no loot. This timer is about 5 minutes or so, but it can run longer. It is possible to kill 2 bosses in less time than 5 minutes.

So, it was probably not because you were a healer, but other mechanics.

If two of the WB's icons were still black, it could for a couple of reasons. One, you never actually discovered the boss location, but were some distance away. Perandill's Perch in Grahtwood is a perfect example of this you can kill the bosses but never discover the location they are at unless you poke into the cave behind them. The other is you did not heal the significant damage dealers or were too far away from the boss when it died.

KRBMMO · October 2017

Nestor wrote: »

As long as you heal players in the group who do significant damage to the Boss, you will get loot. Provided, there are 12 or less people in the group. More than 12, then it's RNG as to whether you get a loot drop or not. No matter your role or damage output.

Also, there is a Boss Loot Timer in that if you kill the next boss too quickly, you get no loot. This timer is about 5 minutes or so, but it can run longer. It is possible to kill 2 bosses in less time than 5 minutes.

So, it was probably not because you were a healer, but other mechanics.

If two of the WB's icons were still black, it could for a couple of reasons. One, you never actually discovered the boss location, but were some distance away. Perandill's Perch in Grahtwood is a perfect example of this you can kill the bosses but never discover the location they are at unless you poke into the cave behind them. The other is you did not heal the significant damage dealers or were too far away from the boss when it died.

After reading your explanation It was probably because the guy doing the damage never needed healing and I was keeping the lowbies alive as they scrambled around like little chickens, lol.

Thank you for the explanation.

Magdalina · October 2017

There's also an awesome bug where you can kill certain WB without making the icon white. Irrelevant to the amount of damage or healing, I've soloed one a few days ago(standing right on his spawn point) and was really surprised to see the icon stay black regardless. It is pretty rare though.

Like Nestor already said, the most likely culprit is >12 people at the boss. Also the timer(though I suppose it wouldn't kick in in your case if you never actually got any loot).

Healers generally aren't discredited in terms of loot, you heal someone killing something=you get loot and exp usually. It's more a group oriented role though, to do questing and stuff on your own you'll still need some sort of dps setup/skills so you don't just heavy attack everything to death with resto staff

In group content - namely in dungeons - healers are highly in demand, they usually have significantly shorter wait times as opposed to dps in groupfinder. Of course, being a good healer in a dungeon is a bit more complicated than just spamming heals

In case of group instances, such as dungeons, you will always get loot and xp long as you're remotely close to your group(even if you do literally nothing or spend the whole fight dead). In case of PvP, spamming heals on a large group is arguably one of the most effective ways of earning ap.

AcadianPaladin · October 2017

Agree with Nestor.

My healer (Templar) does her thing with others vs loads of WB's - she really enjoys it and gets plenty of loot. She normally keeps everyone under from one to three Heals over Time (HoTs), feeds shards to those close to the boss and touches up any moderate damage with Healing Springs. She slots Breath of LIfe but only needs to use it if someone gets into real trouble.

Heck, even in delves, when someone blasts by her and she pops them with a Rapid Regen HoT, she gets lootable corpses from their kills. So I've no complaints at all about loot for healers.

I quite enjoy the healing role. It is absolutely a nurturing/support instead of power/glory role and the key is rapidly reacting/adjusting to what is needed based on what your allies are doing.

I view WB runs with low level players as my healer vs the boss, but in terms of 'I can heal my allies faster than you can hurt them, you big ol' meanie!'

zaria · October 2017

KRBMMO wrote: »

Nestor wrote: »

As long as you heal players in the group who do significant damage to the Boss, you will get loot. Provided, there are 12 or less people in the group. More than 12, then it's RNG as to whether you get a loot drop or not. No matter your role or damage output.

Also, there is a Boss Loot Timer in that if you kill the next boss too quickly, you get no loot. This timer is about 5 minutes or so, but it can run longer. It is possible to kill 2 bosses in less time than 5 minutes.

So, it was probably not because you were a healer, but other mechanics.

If two of the WB's icons were still black, it could for a couple of reasons. One, you never actually discovered the boss location, but were some distance away. Perandill's Perch in Grahtwood is a perfect example of this you can kill the bosses but never discover the location they are at unless you poke into the cave behind them. The other is you did not heal the significant damage dealers or were too far away from the boss when it died.

After reading your explanation It was probably because the guy doing the damage never needed healing and I was keeping the lowbies alive as they scrambled around like little chickens, lol.

Thank you for the explanation.

Yes, also groups imply being invited in an group, not just fighting the same boss.
If in group of 12 or less all get loot, even if did not move during fight as long as you are close enough.

Its pretty common for mage build to level with restoration staff on back bar and also level it, if doing quests switch to it then handing in quests so it get some xp.
One benefit of being an healer is that you don't need an so specialized build as an tank, you want cp into healing tree and more focus on sustain than an pure damage dealer but you can still do decent damage.

ArchMikem · October 2017

KRBMMO wrote: »

Suddenly healer seems to me to be the crappiest role ever. At least with tank you might not do a lot of damage but at least you get the armor ant the achievement.

Just because you're a Healer doesn't mean you shouldn't be attacking AT ALL. Every Healer, I don't want to say is expected to, but it's highly appreciated when the Healer supplements the group with what DPS they can give as well. In between your Healing put some DoTs on target, throw Shards on the Boss so it both damages and supplies the Tank etc. The game only counts you as a part of the fight if you actually attack the Boss.