Do healers need damage?

[Dark Viper.2378]

I'm an HFB main rn and I'm trying heal herald as well, but I tried now dps power DH and the damage is like a million times higher. Do healers really need try and do damage when their numbers is like 1/10th of a dps? Shouldn't healers just focus on healing? like HFB camping staff and only switching to axe/shield for utility or heal herald camping staff too and switching mace/shield for might generation. Am i missing something here or whats the deal?

[wasss.1208]

In group content healers are doing 3 things: Give boons, give heals, and handle mechanics (if they can), so people with good damage output can do their thing better. You don't need to worry about damage, unless you are in a really minmaxed speedclear group, that wants to shave 2 seconds off of an encounters time. Open world events are quite similar. Your job is to keep the damage dealers topped off, and booned up.
That said, camping your healer weapon is not always the best course of action. It is definitely a viable strategy, but you usually need things from your other set of weapons. Like druids usually camp X/WH, because of the boons, and only swap to staff, when they need big heals, because staff has no useful boons on it, only heals.

[Dark Viper.2378]

39 minutes ago, wasss.1208 said:

In group content healers are doing 3 things: Give boons, give heals, and handle mechanics (if they can), so people with good damage output can do their thing better. You don't need to worry about damage, unless you are in a really minmaxed speedclear group, that wants to shave 2 seconds off of an encounters time. Open world events are quite similar. Your job is to keep the damage dealers topped off, and booned up.
That said, camping your healer weapon is not always the best course of action. It is definitely a viable strategy, but you usually need things from your other set of weapons. Like druids usually camp X/WH, because of the boons, and only swap to staff, when they need big heals, because staff has no useful boons on it, only heals.

point proven, only switching weapon for utility reasons and not daamge, for HFB its for block or CC, for heal herald its for might. and I guess for druid (planning on tyring the class) is for boons

[Cuks.8241]

If you camp staff you'll miss on fury from axe symbol and protection uptime from shield though (assuming axe/shield). Fury is often not a problem though as everyone is spewing fury nowadays. In general boon uptime is the top priority for me as support and healing second. Just because healing is usually a by product of using your boon/dmg rotation unless you need to burst heal during a heavy dmg phase. 

[Antycypator.9874]

No, but power/precision or other dmg stats can be useful — especially if you're using enhancement effect, because they convert some of your stats into other stats. for example precision into concentration.

And as people usually say, it's better to do 4k dps than 0.

[Curennos.9307]

I would say it's the last priority on the list...But it's still on the list. IIRC most support builds in pve use harriers and have at least some damage stats, so if you're not doing anything else you should try to contribute to damage. Even if both healers in 10 man team are only doing 5k DPS, that's still an extra 10k total and can be useful. It really shouldn't make or break anything but can make for a smoother run.

[Jedrik.3109]

In this land of 40k benches, I would say not really worth considering. 2 hour FC groups only run one healer anyway. And to add, if you are already doing a fluid rotation on things like druid or mech you are hitting your damage potential with only a very minimal difference if you were super optimizing. 

There is considerations for something like condi druid. But we are now getting into the land of things I would not advise unless the group is very experienced. 

[Voyant.1327]

Depends on the play style and content you're doing.

If you're doing full party builds with meta minded players, no. As Meta is essentially a group of glass cannons relying heavily on support. 

However, undermanned or off meta its not unheard of or impractical. I run as the main healer for a small group, I average about 20-25k dps, as we tend to do content with half the recommended group size or less. 

Its pure preference, but the majority of the player base doesn't expect it as they're usually only utilizing one school of thought in group composition. 

Edited November 27, 2023 by Voyant.1327

[Firebeard.1746]

On 11/26/2023 at 2:27 AM, Dark Viper.2378 said:

I'm an HFB main rn and I'm trying heal herald as well, but I tried now dps power DH and the damage is like a million times higher. Do healers really need try and do damage when their numbers is like 1/10th of a dps? Shouldn't healers just focus on healing? like HFB camping staff and only switching to axe/shield for utility or heal herald camping staff too and switching mace/shield for might generation. Am i missing something here or whats the deal?

In most situations, making sure people don't die is your job. That being said, your damage can and does matter sometimes. If you're doing a challenging raid boss like largos, your small amount of damage can be the difference between a successful run or a wipe given the unforgiving enrage timers and mechanics that can easily interrupt dps. On a challenging fractal your damage could be the difference between phasing the boss or having to deal with a challenging mechanic. 

For HFB, you actually have a tool to boost condi dps using ashes of the just, not just for you but your party as well. My fire damage was ticking for about 10k whenever I used it on a harrier build.

Edited November 27, 2023 by Firebeard.1746

[Yasai.3549]

On 11/26/2023 at 6:27 PM, Dark Viper.2378 said:

I'm an HFB main rn and I'm trying heal herald as well, but I tried now dps power DH and the damage is like a million times higher. Do healers really need try and do damage when their numbers is like 1/10th of a dps? Shouldn't healers just focus on healing? like HFB camping staff and only switching to axe/shield for utility or heal herald camping staff too and switching mace/shield for might generation. Am i missing something here or whats the deal?

As a Healer don't worry about it too much. The game has been slowly pushing roles and builds into more specialized directions, meaning it's not going to be an FF14 case where even Healers need to pull heavy DPS numbers. 

Just worry about managing your healing capabilities and maybe if you are skilled enough, one day you'll explore Celestial builds. But keep that for the future.

Edited November 28, 2023 by Yasai.3549

[Barraind.7324]

On 11/26/2023 at 4:27 AM, Dark Viper.2378 said:

Do healers really need try and do damage

No.  You should Ideally be on Givers (or minstrels, depending) in instanced content, to allow for handling more mechanics, and eating damage.   And on fights you dont need that healing, you have a swap (or three. Or five) to a dps or boon support. 

The difference between full defensive gear and harriers is nearly irrelevant in almost all instanced content, with some fractal situations being the exception. 

[Lighter.5631]

any damage is good damage,

even in FF14, healer is basically competing how much damage you can squish in while doing your basic job of keeping teams alive.

even the damage is lesser then dps/tank

that's basically determines a good healer and an average healer

that's the min maxing end game for healers

Edited November 28, 2023 by Lighter.5631

[the krytan assassin.9235]

In the end its all about getting as much team dps in as possible, tankyer/more support focused builds tend to increase the efficiency of your group members. Minstrel/givers allows you to ignore more mechanics-> increases dps uptime on squad. 

Hybrids are a good alternative if you're planning to heal squads with 1.5 healer or fractals with 0.5 healer (like heal/boon/dps with 15-25k dps output). If you take a full heal build, slotting in slightly more dps from utility/armor/weapons will usually result in a negligible difference in dps output. 

[Knighthonor.4061]

So what does heal vindicator swap to?

[ericpeggy.8206]

On 11/28/2023 at 10:35 PM, Knighthonor.4061 said:

So what does heal vindicator swap to?

Swap to WvW.

Edited December 1, 2023 by ericpeggy.8206