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Friday, August 25, 2006
Should a healer deal damage?
Here is a tricky question: Should a holy spec'd priest in a raid try to deal damage when there isn't anything to heal for the moment?
Personally with my priest I often come out of a 4+ hour raid to Molten Core and haven't dealt a single point of damage. The only exceptions are Onyxia phase 2 (Dots! More dots!) and Ragnaros. But all the other trash mobs and bosses in Molten Core or Zul'Gurub I never even try to deal damage. And I have three reasons for that.
First reason is focus. If I start concentrating on dealing damage, I stop focusing on the health bars of whatever raid members I am assigned to. If I'm healing a main tank I would never even have the time to deal damage anyway. But even if I am healing a group of other players, I need to stay focused, because if some mage or rogue in my group gets aggro, he needs healing *fast*.
Second reason is resources, that is mana and time. If I cast damaging spells, I use mana. And if then suddenly we get an add and the fight turns out to be longer and harder than expected, I might have wished I still had that mana for healing. And both casting spells and using a wand blocks the countdown timer for some seconds. If I'm shooting my wand and somebody I should heal gets hit, it takes a lot longer to stop shooting, and wait until the countdown timer is done and I can cast healing spells again.
Third reason against dealing damage is aggro management. When I just heal I usually never get aggroed. But after having dealt damage to Onyxia in phase 2, I sometimes end up getting summoned by her and ripped into pieces in phase 3. Every dead priest is bad news for the whole raid.
But I argued with other priests who say that it is a healers duty to deal damage when he isn't healing, so as to maximize the damage output of the raid. I'm not sure if the tiny amount of damage a holy priest can deal is really worth it, especially if I would use my spells, which have a lousy damage to mana efficiency. What do you say?
- posted by Tobold @ 8:48 AM Permanent Link
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I play a priest in a raid myself and I refuse to do damage most of the time. The Mana and Cooldown issue is far too serious to be ignored (last time my warrior died in Zul Farrak because the priest was shooting with his wand and it took too long to cast a spell ...).
I do damage in AQ20 to burn Mana from the Obsidian guys, I use my wand to replenish my mana when there is the correct judgement on the enemy and I do damage on CThun and his small eye tentacle. But other than that I rarly do damage.
Keep the other classes alive and they will do much more damage than a priest could do (unless he is in shadowfom ;) )
I do damage in AQ20 to burn Mana from the Obsidian guys, I use my wand to replenish my mana when there is the correct judgement on the enemy and I do damage on CThun and his small eye tentacle. But other than that I rarly do damage.
Keep the other classes alive and they will do much more damage than a priest could do (unless he is in shadowfom ;) )
# posted by 
: 25/8/06 11:40
: 25/8/06 11:40
Another way to look at it is from the perspective of aggro management. Even if you use a wand to do DPS w/o spending mana, you are adding DPS aggro on top of your healing aggro.
Test it next raid and wand while you do your healing duty. If you end up pulling aggro of your MT or end up taking damage you normally do not take, then you know you can't afford to stack DPS aggro on top of your Healing aggro.
Test it next raid and wand while you do your healing duty. If you end up pulling aggro of your MT or end up taking damage you normally do not take, then you know you can't afford to stack DPS aggro on top of your Healing aggro.
# posted by : 25/8/06 12:31
: 25/8/06 12:31
I think it largely depends on the content you're working on and the gear of your raid compared to the instance's difficulty.
If we're learning an encounter or zone its rare I will contribute any damage at all unless the encounter requires it ('sup Naxx). If we have a solid raid in Molten Core with enough healing then sure I'm going to contribue some damage just to speed things along through trash. Heck, in my previous guild we would frequently have Druids in Cat Form and DPS gear through trash and to be perfectly honest it probably ended up cutting about 30 minutes off of our clear times when we started doing it.
Its all about intelligent mana use. If you're comfortable with your mana pool and regen whats the harm in throwing out a Starfire (or Smite or Lightning Bolt) or two. If the shit hits the fan... well I carry Mana Potions for a reason.
If we're learning an encounter or zone its rare I will contribute any damage at all unless the encounter requires it ('sup Naxx). If we have a solid raid in Molten Core with enough healing then sure I'm going to contribue some damage just to speed things along through trash. Heck, in my previous guild we would frequently have Druids in Cat Form and DPS gear through trash and to be perfectly honest it probably ended up cutting about 30 minutes off of our clear times when we started doing it.
Its all about intelligent mana use. If you're comfortable with your mana pool and regen whats the harm in throwing out a Starfire (or Smite or Lightning Bolt) or two. If the shit hits the fan... well I carry Mana Potions for a reason.
For the content you are doing now you are correct (wise even) to conserve your mana and global cooldown for healing.
During your first fights in aq20 and bwl however you will have the 'luxury' of casting dps spells (yay!). The trash pathers in aq20 have to be manaburned (they gain mana during the fight and when they hit full mana they explode) and for Razorgore only the pallies/shamen will be healing due to their lower threat when doing so - as a priest, your 2nd or 3rd (downranked) flash heal will get you zerged. These are refreshing encounters for a priest, if only for that reason alone.
DPS at your discretion, and keep fade handy.
During your first fights in aq20 and bwl however you will have the 'luxury' of casting dps spells (yay!). The trash pathers in aq20 have to be manaburned (they gain mana during the fight and when they hit full mana they explode) and for Razorgore only the pallies/shamen will be healing due to their lower threat when doing so - as a priest, your 2nd or 3rd (downranked) flash heal will get you zerged. These are refreshing encounters for a priest, if only for that reason alone.
DPS at your discretion, and keep fade handy.
# posted by : 25/8/06 18:55
: 25/8/06 18:55
I think you should STFU and let other priests play the way they want.
I never know whether I should delete such comments, or let them stand for their humorous value. Is that guy going to every single WoW blog and telling the people there to shut the f*** up anonymously? Some people have strange hobbies.
I never know whether I should delete such comments, or let them stand for their humorous value. Is that guy going to every single WoW blog and telling the people there to shut the f*** up anonymously? Some people have strange hobbies.
generally I'll throw in DPS when I have a spare moment on trash or a farm status boss. On a boss that isn't a guaranteed win, I won't dps. I'm horde, so no mana from wanding and I'm not gonna waste my mana to throw up a 800 damage shadow word pain. My guild is working through BWL right now, just so people know what we are working on.
# posted by : 26/8/06 08:43
: 26/8/06 08:43
I'm talking strictly about 5-mans with a single main healer here. It seems to me like raids kinda muddle the issue.
In 5-mans with a single-healer it's dangerous to spend mana even when you are going after groups that don't have much hope of doing serious damage. You never know when bad luck or dumb play is going to make a simple encounter into a possible wipe scenario.
That said, I think it's very reasonable to whip out a wand. My Holy/Disc priest ends up doing 10-15% of the party's total damage in Baron Strath runs - almost all with the wand.
Being that I'm only wanding when I know I'm not going to need to heal, I don't buy the argument that I'm building agro on the target. As long as you're wanding the main tank's target, you're not going to have a problem.
Of course, as the initial responder points out, wands have cooldowns and that adds a signifigant amount to your cast time. But I think what really happens more often than that is that we get mezmerized by figuring out what we're wanding and what to wand next and fail to watch party health.
Still, there's no doubt there's risk. But there's reward too - the 10-15% of damage that a priest contributes means that the run will move 10-15% faster.
If you were told up-front that a given run was going to last 2.5 hours and incur no deaths, or it could take 15 minutes less and incur 1 death, which would you pick? I'd go with the -15minutes. Life's short.
In 5-mans with a single-healer it's dangerous to spend mana even when you are going after groups that don't have much hope of doing serious damage. You never know when bad luck or dumb play is going to make a simple encounter into a possible wipe scenario.
That said, I think it's very reasonable to whip out a wand. My Holy/Disc priest ends up doing 10-15% of the party's total damage in Baron Strath runs - almost all with the wand.
Being that I'm only wanding when I know I'm not going to need to heal, I don't buy the argument that I'm building agro on the target. As long as you're wanding the main tank's target, you're not going to have a problem.
Of course, as the initial responder points out, wands have cooldowns and that adds a signifigant amount to your cast time. But I think what really happens more often than that is that we get mezmerized by figuring out what we're wanding and what to wand next and fail to watch party health.
Still, there's no doubt there's risk. But there's reward too - the 10-15% of damage that a priest contributes means that the run will move 10-15% faster.
If you were told up-front that a given run was going to last 2.5 hours and incur no deaths, or it could take 15 minutes less and incur 1 death, which would you pick? I'd go with the -15minutes. Life's short.
# posted by : 26/8/06 22:43
: 26/8/06 22:43
For me it depends on the group, that is to say, when I even bother grouping. If things are going well - no crazy PUG participants, then I will wand once the mob is sufficiently close to death. If I'm really feeling my oats, I might even go Shadow for a few moments. But this is largely dependant on how confident I am that we all know what we are doing.
I will totally do DPS in between healing if there is a high level player helping out. But I do make sure to warn people not to get stupid just because a level 60 player is around. I have no more health or mana than I would if they weren't there and they will die quickly if things get out of control.
If I decide I want to raid this toon at 60 I will probably respec out of Shadow and do pure healing in raids, unless told otherwise.
I will totally do DPS in between healing if there is a high level player helping out. But I do make sure to warn people not to get stupid just because a level 60 player is around. I have no more health or mana than I would if they weren't there and they will die quickly if things get out of control.
If I decide I want to raid this toon at 60 I will probably respec out of Shadow and do pure healing in raids, unless told otherwise.
# posted by : 28/8/06 01:48
: 28/8/06 01:48
That could be a very effective strategy. I hope you can make it far with your stragery in damaging. Goodluck for your quest! Keep us updated.
# posted by : 28/8/06 11:07
: 28/8/06 11:07
IMHO - If you dont have anyone to heal you should be plugging away with your wand. Costs no mana and (especially if you have added talent points to wands) it can do a suprising amount of damage per fight. If you have ever wiped after getting a boss down to 1% you'll know what I mean... A few shots with your wand may have turned the tide of the battle... I also tend to drop a dot whenever im back up to full mana =)
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# posted by : 30/10/06 06:32
: 30/10/06 06:32<< Home
