Healer + DPS Synergy
There’s acquaintances and pals and then there’s good friends - you know they’ve got yer back and you’ve got theirs and when the shite hits the fan you’ll be able to pull through or at least laugh at yer mishap.
A lot of really cool people have been writing about healer and tank synergy this week - the first two I read being that by Phae at Resto4Life and the person who had inspired her - SaladFork at Omen of Clarity. I know I’m a little late to the party (story of my blog-life) but I figured I’d go and stick up my own little view from the ‘third’ point of view - dps - specifically melee dps.
Melee dps get the least love when it comes to healing. A lot of healers tend to look down upon the poor ill-fated rogue, warrior, crittycat, shaman or retridin who has commited the heinous crime of taking damage. In 5 mans you know, as a rogue especially, that if you take aggro (it can happen for reasons other than stupidity, trust me) you’re not going to get a heal unless the healer is content that the tank is ok. You sort of accept it with a small sigh, accept your res and move on.
It’s not always the case, however. I, personally, always try my best to make myself aquainted with a healer if I’m running a pug. Water / mana pots drop? Pass ‘em to the healer. “Thanks for the heals” also goes a long way. I find if I do this, and make friends with ‘em, I get more heals. Making your healer feel loved means more heals all around. That might seem a bit feindish to most of you but I see it as win-win. The healer knows I appreciate them and I appreciate them all the more as a few more heals come my way. This works on me too - I am more inclined to heal those who take time to appreciate my efforts when on my Shammy.
However! The topic was special bonds. I think the reason, perhaps, any dps are less likely to feel a special bond with their healer is that they don’t really get assigned a healer to themselves. Noone ever says “Ok, Priest-1, you’re healing Aurik”. Unless they’re a ‘lock, mage or hunter tank most dps will never have a special healer to themselves. Melee dps, however, have their resto shammies. Resto shamans are awesome melee healers and in Burning Crusade the melee often takes a lot more damage than ranged (not always true, I know, but in general). This means having a healer assigned especially to us! As a group we love our resto shaman and she keeps us alive - we know half the time we owe our ‘lives’ and our dps (from not being dead) to her timely heals.
I have learned around how much her chain heals hit for and when they will heal me and when I should maybe step out and bandage / pot on raid-damage heavy bosses. I also keep an eye and ear out to make sure nothing’s decided she’s a tasty meal-inna-crunchy-shell. In Hyjal, with so many mobs, sometimes I’ll find a caster targeting her or a skeletal mage who’s slipped through and will do my best to stun/maim or otherwise incapacitate them - or failing that aggroing and pulling ‘em to the Pally-tonk. For us ‘our’ Shammy part of the melee team. Doubly so as sometimes she fights alongside us enhancement spec!
An in game relationship of any sort - one on one or amongst a small group - makes working with others so much easier and better. It’s all about trust and doesn’t matter, in my opinion, if you’re a tank, healer or dps. People who trust each other and know each others limits will not only do better but enjoy their time more - going a step further than they might have otherwise.
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Heya Aurik,
You’re absolutely right when you mention that it is possible for melee DPS to also form a bond with healers and tanks. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the game, melee DPS doesn’t have priority with either of the two previously mentioned groups.
However, you raise an excellent point that shouldn’t be overlooked when it comes to making sure the healers and tanks know who you are (and thus giving you at least a bit more priority in the future). That is, make them like you.
In a good run, everyone is working hard. Tanks love being complimented on their tanking job (”good job picking up that add!”), healers being complimented on theirs (”woah, that was a close one, great job healer!”). And even DPS like being complimented on the numbers their pulling (or on how they decide to use their cooldowns).
Do it enough, and you’ll start seeing compliments heading your way as well! Additionally, you’ll notice they start giving you a lot more priority when it comes to who needs to be ressed / saved.
Of course, throwing extra mana pots at the healer and extra healing pots at the tank (for example, many items could work here) can never hurt, ;)
~Salad
As the unofficial melee group healer of TRI, I have more of a bond with them (at least in a “feeling protective” sort of way) than I do with most of our tanks.
Yeah, on some fights I do a bit of tank healing, but group two? They’re *mine*. My melee scrubs! I guess after healing them almost exclusively through SSC and TK, I now know who to watch for, who is likely to be standing next to whom, which of them pays better attention to things like bandage and vanish. And, while I’m not sure that they feel that way about me in particular, I know I suffer the most “healer guilt” when one of them dies.
So that melee group/resto shammy thing goes both ways :)
These days, I tend to sub for raids when they should yell my name and beckon. As a sub, I am normally given a DPS slot, and, therefore, end up clawing behinds. With Cower seemingly useless, a few lucky crits could end up with me tanking.
To be kinder to my healers, it has become an almost automatic response that, when I see a mob turn toward me and start hitting, to switch into bear — more armor and health to absorb the attacks with so I won’t drop like a rock. The healers appreciate the effort made and, therefore, try to keep me in their radar between dropping heals on the tanks.
Or switching out and tossing a heal or two at myself in those situations, or, should we be low on healing, offer to switch gear and help them out.
So, I guess what I’m trying to get to is that sometimes even the littlest effort that we give toward making their lives just a tad easier will make for one happy healer who will find a spot in their mad rush of smashing the right buttons to toss a heal toward little ol’ you.
Your post brought back hellish memories of a recent heroic Shattered Halls run (my first as a healer) that was comprised of the tank, 3 melee DPS and me! That was probably the most intense afternoon’s healing I’ve ever done. Like you say, the tank is my #1 priority, however I hate to have anyone die when I’m healing, whatever the reason. The thing that drives me nuts when I have melee DPS to heal is how Prayer of Mending usually works; I put it on the tank who duly gets hit and it will jump back to me, or maybe a caster, right over the head of the rogue or kitty druid. Very occasionally it will bounce around nicely between the tank and a melee DPS but it seems to be rare :(
You’ve hit it spot on, it’s about building a relationship and a trust.
I think the reason it’s most often brought up or occurs between tanks and healers is because there are limited numbers of each, I know all the healers well in my guild because there aren’t a ton of them.
I end up running with one or two healers for most of my five mans and in raids I find that they are frequently assigned to heal me. The DPS offer a bit more variety, granted I have my favorite DPS too, but I rarely have the same DPSers on each run. If I did I bet there would be some fantastic synergy there too. (They trust me, I protect them… yada yada)
Wow, so many awesome comments <3 Thanks for taking the time to read and reply, guys :)
@Salad: I did miss a bit out about the tanks but, I guess, I find as a rogue the tank doesn't feel the need to rescue me very often! hehe. When everyone works hard everything goes good - I think most people are aware of at least one fight where lack of dps caused as many problems as lack of heals or aggro.
@Anna: We melee loves our shamans, so we does! <3
@Lin: Absoloutely! Making things easier on the healers is awesome and I see so few who bother to bandage / pot. I sometimes have to make the decision on whether to use a dps pot or healing pot and knowing my healers means I know when the dps pot is 'safe' or even fair to use.
@Hulan: Ahh I can see why that'd be frustrating - healing on my shammy, though, full melee groups are an absolute dream except in MgT! I guess that's why PoM is as powerful - it's randomness negates a little of it's strength at times? Not too sure as priests are one of the classes I know least about!
@Dez: Agreed, I find that any groups who run instances / heroics together always synergise well when raiding together - I found myself commenting tonight on how I've grown to know the damage levels that a particular Pala tank takes as I've been running instances / Kara with him for a couple of weeks now and am getting that way with some of our dps - though I still can't keep a particular mage alive >_<