Deciding not to heal

[Thaminor]

I am loving my dps favored soul. He can kick butt and is pratically immortal with self healing. The only problem is I can't heal a group well, especially while melee-ing. The question is, am I being unreasonable? Some people seem to take offence that I don't spring to fill up their health bars. I expect my healing capacity to change in the coming levels, but, for future reference, how unreasonable is it to declare oneself not a healer?

[Lorien_the_First_One]

As long as you are up front when you join the party its fine. However, when you take that last spot that the party leader reserved for fvs/cleric, in otherwords he was looking for a healer, don't take it personal when you booted.

In the long run, a good fvs can both melee or offensively cast at the same time they heal, but it takes player skill to get you there.

[seobanio]

I have a FvS that doesn't heal (much/well). If I'm not running with guildies I either accept healer position for that run or tell them I'm not a healer depending on the circumstances. I think the main thing people will get angry about is not knowing, or if you click to join and take the last spot and they thought they were getting a healer.
I am also always willing to try to throw in a heal here and there to help the group out if needed, but I suck at this because I forget to watch the little red bars.

A lot of new players get angry when people with divine levels don't heal. I've seen it many times, though no one has said anything to me yet. Shes lvl 15 now, 2 monk 13 FvS. I honestly think it is the TR-wings. In general, players who know enough to know they don't mean much also know non-healing divine is a viable build. Players who don't know shut up because they think I do. (I have them fooled lol).

G/L

[AyumiAmakusa]

Just tell them you don't heal (will only in emergencies) when you join the party (but not when they are OBVIOUSLY looking for a healer) and you'll be fine. If they ask what your build is for, just say you're melee-specced. If you are booted/blacklisted even though you told them you are melee-specced, then good, it saves you the trouble of having to blacklist THEM.

[TEcarson]

Most of my questing up to cap was done with my wife on her WF Monk. She knows my guy was built for melee in the first instance, and even now when I throw her a heal she sounds surprised and says "Thanks, but I was drinking pots.".

[pSINNa]

I'm about to level my 3rd fvs (soon as update 7 comes out and my very mellee focus tactical fighter2/18fvs horc will be born), one of my fvs is a capped TR, the other a monk2/18fvs, and all i can say is, you do what you can.

In the early levels on the monk2/18fvs my healing and buffing was a little lacking ( i took both monk levels up front to save hassle later, and make my own feat/ap planning easier).

When i joined groups i just said, 'this guy isn't the best healer, but i'll do what i can'.

Maybe i was lucky with my groups, but i really didn't have any negative's from people i grouped with doing that.

In fact, i met a fella that was so impressed with the effort as i got the nack of healing while swinging and buffing and swinging :P, he talked me into jumping ship with my guild at the time and coming on board with my current guild.

My two cents.

Coit out~

[Oolung]

on my favoured soul I will occasionally take a peek at health bars while everyone is gathered (or the melees at least anyways.)

if the bar seem sorta low, toss a quickened cure mod with sup ardor VIclicky on to give everyone a nice bunch of hitpoints back. If any one melee is missing alot of health I disengage the monsters for a second to target and toss the heal on the one guy.

Tends to work out well, not usually any deaths if you can remember to take a look at health every now and then. *but sometimes I forget then end up with a death - opps >_<)

Edit: reading the post by Lorien above me I agree - if they group specifies that they are explicitly looking for a healer, I'll avoid melee, but if there's another guy who desigates himself as healer, or the group is competent, the above method tends to work for me

[TEcarson]

Howdy,

Not sure what level you are currently sitting on, but based on your comment about "coming levels" I am guessing you may not have much mass heal capability.

I have a capped FvS "Lord of Blades" build, that is awesome. One of the mistakes that I made as I was levelling was that I did not take Quicken. I ran the Shroud (at lvl 19) where I was not in a healing role, and the main healer also didn't have Quicken. We wiped at Harry.

I'm not laying blame, but one of the first things I did when I hit cap was to do a Lesser Reincarnation and pick up Quicken (among other smaller changes).

The other night I was invited to run some Inspired Quarter quests, up to and including the Mindsunder. Looking at the makeup of the group I suspected it was planned that I be the healer. I asked and they said "yes".

So...I downed the Greatswords, turned on Quicken and fired up all of the healing amp stuff I could...dropped a few BB's and had three deaths (out of about 10 quests including 4 runs of Mindsunder). I ended up with some very nice loot and some very nice friends.

So...after my novel...you can definitely tell people you are not a healer. That is your choice and folks will (hopefully) respect you for stating this up front. But if you leave some flexibility to be a healer at higher levels you will get more groups and have a great time.

[Postumus]

for future reference, how unreasonable is it to declare oneself not a healer?

My barbarian finds it very reasonable to declare himself "not a healer." No one in the PUGS I join seems to mind.

[FuzzyDuck81]

Your best bet is to state up front that you CAN heal, but will mostly do it between fights, or (assuming you have them) will be fighting & throwing mass heals centered on yourself - if they want mid-battle healing they should stick close.

[vVAnjilaVv]

Whilst a FvS can much more easily get away with not healing than a cleric....you have to realize that throughout your whole DDO playing career, 90% of the playerbase are going to see that FvS icon next to your name and automatically think healer....it's just the mindset of the game.

[Astraghal]

Due to the game mechanics, it is a completely viable option for you to decide to not heal.

Having rolled a FvS, you are already on path to what is considered eliteness in this game.

You can toss a down a few BB down and kite mobs back and forth through them, until they are all dead.

Why would you heal anyone, when you only need to heal yourself?

You don't need anyone else, you can solo 90% of the content in the game in this manner.

The next step on the path to uberness is not passing out buffs in quests.

Why do they need buffs, when you will be doing all the work? (kiting) Those SP pots add up.

Soon, you will find it unnecessary to even communicate with others in the group.

After all, that time would be better spent kiting, right?

Eventually, you will have stopped even joining groups and solo everything.

Of course you occasionally still will, just to remind them how self-sufficient you are and needy they are.

Once you have reached this pinnacle of awesomeness, you will be able to post your amazing achievements on the forums and will be held in high regard by your peers.

[ayspam]

Due to the game mechanics, it is a completely viable option for you to decide to not heal.

Having rolled a FvS, you are already on path to what is considered eliteness in this game.

You can toss a down a few BB down and kite mobs back and forth through them, until they are all dead.

Why would you heal anyone, when you only need to heal yourself?

You don't need anyone else, you can solo 90% of the content in the game in this manner.

The next step on the path to uberness is not passing out buffs in quests.

Why do they need buffs, when you will be doing all the work? (kiting) Those SP pots add up.

Soon, you will find it unnecessary to even communicate with others in the group.

After all, that time would be better spent kiting, right?

Eventually, you will have stopped even joining groups and solo everything.

Of course you occasionally still will, just to remind them how self-sufficient you are and needy they are.

Once you have reached this pinnacle of awesomeness, you will be able to post your amazing achievements on the forums and will be held in high regard by your peers.

Yep thats exactly how it is, been there, seen it all.

[Odium]

Due to the game mechanics, it is a completely viable option for you to decide to not heal.

Having rolled a FvS, you are already on path to what is considered eliteness in this game.

You can toss a down a few BB down and kite mobs back and forth through them, until they are all dead.

Why would you heal anyone, when you only need to heal yourself?

You don't need anyone else, you can solo 90% of the content in the game in this manner.

The next step on the path to uberness is not passing out buffs in quests.

Why do they need buffs, when you will be doing all the work? (kiting) Those SP pots add up.

Soon, you will find it unnecessary to even communicate with others in the group.

After all, that time would be better spent kiting, right?

Eventually, you will have stopped even joining groups and solo everything.

Of course you occasionally still will, just to remind them how self-sufficient you are and needy they are.

Once you have reached this pinnacle of awesomeness, you will be able to post your amazing achievements on the forums and will be held in high regard by your peers.

lol, +1 for quick wit and accurately discribing the situation!!!

[Loceish]

I'm currently approaching cap on my tr fvs. I will heal the group, but I don't look at my spell points as being dedicated for healing or buffing. My spell points are mine. I will use them to complete the quest the fastest way I can. If that means I run ahead and blade barrier everything to death, that is what I'll do. If it means getting into the fights and helping dps mobs down, that's not a bad deal either.

Dedicating oneself as a healer is in most cases lazy. Why? Because this most often turns into a "healer" sitting back and waiting for someone to take damage. In a raid like TOD, this is alright. In most quests, its just lazy.

Everyone in a party is responsible for having a way to heal themselves. Healing wands and potions, heal scrolls, reconstruct scrolls. Having a healing capable class in the group is mostly for emergency heals during battle. I don't want to toss a heal on Leroy because he has 20 ac and 300 hit points once he's at roughly 60% health. I'm more inclined when he drops to around 25-40%.

It takes some practice and skill, but its not too difficult to heal and fight. Just be upfront with the groups, and make sure that you fulfill the role you are expected to from the group first, before you splash around with what you want to do. (For example, if you join a group that is looking for a healer, its ok to melee, just make sure you are keeping everyone alive the best you can. )

If you're supposed to be healing, and you are having a hard time keeping up with the damage everyone is taking, step out of combat for a moment, get on top of the healing, then go ahead and join the fray once more. Don't take an "assignment" from the leader as the only thing you are supposed to do. If you help kill the mobs faster, that's less time and less healing needed to complete the quest.

To answer the original question, I think it is more than ok to declare yourself not a healer.
It is much less ok, but still your decision to declare that you will not heal.

[elujin]

there is difrence between not healing and not healing well its like rog saying i don't do traps .

people should know though that a fvs monk 18/2 or a wf greathsword fvs are battle specced and don't heal that well in most quest with a good pug healing isn't needed that mutch and a pally could do it with his lay on hands at higher levels healing is a bit easyer with quicken mass cure you can just trow it in now and then while hacking away .

[Lorien_the_First_One]

My barbarian finds it very reasonable to declare himself "not a healer." No one in the PUGS I join seems to mind.

I have on occassion declared myself to be a healer on my non UMD barb. It's good for some laughs.

[Carpone]

I am loving my dps favored soul. He can kick butt and is pratically immortal with self healing. The only problem is I can't heal a group well, especially while melee-ing. The question is, am I being unreasonable?

Yes, you're being unreasonable. You have a blue bar and access to the best healing spells in the game. LotB builds do not have a problem healing at all, even as a primary healer. If you're just going to melee, there are much more optimal characters to bring to a quest than a melee FvS.

[Bodic]

You can F1-F6 and target others/heal as you still swing at the mob infront of you.

Its not impossible or even improbable
Your just to Lazy to help out
Why not let the Pally,Rog, or Rang dump their much better DPS
to help someone else out for 3 seconds.

[CrescentCalling_5]

Yes, you're being unreasonable. You have a blue bar and access to the best healing spells in the game. LotB builds do not have a problem healing at all, even as a primary healer. If you're just going to melee, there are much more optimal characters to bring to a quest than a melee FvS.

That's stereotyping and no different than claiming that a wizard only exists to buff everyone else, and that cleric's blade barrier should never be used because they only exist for healing purposes.

In truth a melee FvS build is actually VERY hard to beat in terms of surviveability. Although it doesn't have the HP of a barb it can self heal, it has buffs to balance out DPS, offensive spells to kill off tougher targets, and many more features. FvS don't exist to heal, just like clerics don't exist just to heal. FvS can be a lot tougher than most other melee classes if they choose.


@OP:

I don't think there's anything wrong with playing an FvS and not healing as long as you make it clear that you are NOT a healer. If you don't make it clear then it "is" a problem or if you join a group that's only looking for a healer.