How often are you group's healer?

[Isaelie]

When I join a group, I typically end up being the healer. Now, I do have the AA's to help out a little with this, and I have been able to be full time healer in RSS groups.

Do you guys think Pally's are decent at being a group healer?

[Gorblimey]

That usually depends upon the make up of the rest of the group - at least it does for me.

I've been healer in RSS but only when there was a very well geared 80 War tanking - he didnt actually need all that much healing.

I find that generally when I need to be healing, whether as main healer or not, I can be effective but the mana gets burned up very fast so for any kind of sustained fight that can be an issue. Some more AAs will help me out here undoubtedly but it's still the nature of Pallys as healers that yep you can pull something out of the hat in an emergency but you may well need a short rest and a nice cup of tea fterwards.

My best healing claim to fame was back in old guk years ago camping for the FBSS - the healer left and we had Pally, SK, Ranger, War. Most of the healing actually came from the DW Helm with my mana being used only when necessary - we carried on like that for about 3 hours.

[Carmaris]

Heh, deepwater helm...I remember those days. Had a group of 3 in Seb way back..me, another paladin, and a rogue. Other paladin leant me a stun bracer...I chain stunned, he healed with helm, rogue slayed. We were in the jail for hours...got some pretty good xp as I recall.

edit: Oh yeah, original question. Not real often atm, but that's because I've been mainly soloing lately...not a lot of time to play, usually just burn lessons then get back to RL. But I can heal when necessary--few weeks ago in DSH was the tank and healer; wouldn't have been possible without the enchanter & his charmed pet though.

[frocus]

Not sure about calling it group main healer but typically anytime i go to a zone i pick up what ever is lfg while im soloing and usually end up as the group healer unless a priest class comes in lfg. Highest tiered zone ive been main healer in was loping plains while doing double duty as off tank for the group since there was no chanter for mez just a beast for slows an sk and me plus a couple lower level toons for added dps.

[Normy]

In group content, the only time I'm the main healer is when I'm also the main tank. With stunnable content and single pulls, this really isn't that bad with the OOC timer. Anything higher than that and its an issue. This has gotten easier with AoM fixed, but once the mana pool is gone I'm in trouble.

In my opinion, we don't substitute well for a real healer. Typically healing a warrior will take me more mana than self healing unless the content is high end (like Cryst). We have decent heals for patching, but its not sustainable for long enough to make us feel like full-time healers. With a very over-geared tank, its probably possible but still inefficient.

On a raid, I will typically be in the death group, where we don't get a true healer unless every other group has a healer. On a raid I can do a pretty good job of keeping my group alive through AE's and such, but I can expect to be running out of mana on a medium duration fight unless its AE free (rare).

[shiftie]

with aurora new things are possible that's for sure, I have main healed all the way through to crystallos. When tanking it is easier to heal yourself than another tank with the epic click etc. The crystallos group had an sk tanking it was rather amusing though i dont recommend it. In zones like beza or guardian self healing while tanking is fairly easy but of course some classes were meant to main heal and some were not. If you get stuck being the main healer you may want to rethink playing a paladin and just make a cleric =P , sure we can do it but we weren't created to main heal. It is fun every now and again to see just how well you can do, or when there are no other options to flex your heal hotbutton but as far as playing a paladin like a cleric not much fun to be had if done on a consistent basis.

[dindaur]

well, being a healer as a paladin historically has been more of a challenge to overcome ( a welcome challenge ) because simply our heals dont heal for much and they cost lots, sometimes with lockouts. however if you can find stunnable content that'll really help ya because you'll cut the dps either you or your tank'll take which means less damage taken which means less heals needed to keep 'em alive. back in GoD one of the things you could do as a paladin was to try tipt of vxed without a healer ( well, you'd be the healer ) and yeah it was a challenge but doable given the right group members. basically everyone in the group needs to know how to minize risk, basically minimize their damage taken ( if they're weak ) and then if youre tanking or the tank that isnt you is tanking youll need good gear to gimp the hits to be mostly minimum. now this isnt required, paladins can and have healed through near cutting edge content before. its just more in the luck category than skill.

[Isaelie]

In small groups, I often feel like adding a real healer is just a drain, cuz them I'm left with too much mana and nothing to do with it.

[knytul]

in raids, i personally dont count on healers...never 100% trust em. to me, if i get a heal from em, great, if not, then my heart's not broken. When im tankin say: Deepscar mino's, or the mino's in MMM breakneck wave's part...ill spam aurora like its a religion (slippin FoD in for agro) and keep myself up pretty well. For group healing i keep myself a general rule: if the group avg is below 60% health, ill use Wave...if above, ill use Aurora. Doing these things, i usually can keep a group up fairly effectively and efficiently.

[Normy]

[Zorbee]

I haven't been a main healer in a group for about 3 years. If I'm tanking, then I can self heal on trivial content. If it's not trivial content, then why don't you have a real healer? (That's been my experience in the past several years.)

[Saintsaens]

Well, just tonight I was MH for my group in HoS. I've also MH'ed for a few mobs in SHIP as well while the real healer was either recovering from death/afk/low on mana, but that's about my limit in terms of difficulty. For raids, I've been making groups with more than one pally in them as the main healer/curer for group on nights when we don't have enough healers/curers, as well. But again, this isn't on cutting edge content, but in AG.

I actually think pallies turned into really good healers with Burst of Sunlight, not Aurora. It's fast enough to heal when we need it, and usually I don't need to heal the same person until BoS refreshes unless there's a really bad damage spike. I personally ALWAYS help out the healers, either as a way to gain aggro or if they're struggling to keep up. I also agree with the above statement that a pally MH is a lot easier to do when we're the MT in the group.

[dindaur]

i think thats fair to say, although i havent really messed with aurora too much, burst was earth shattering, while aurora was more of a subtle change-over. both're great spells, but burst is legendary in its greatness. if there were a competition between the two, burst'd win.

[olts]

the statement about selfhealing and tanking is absolutly true. it is a lot easier (and i do it pretty much everywhere beside crystallos and mmm), than healing another tank. even if the other tank is better geared. now i dont know, how much logic this statement has against unstunnable content, but still it seems easier to me. maybe though thats only because i trust my hp bar more.... but thats not logical too

in raids i usually put a pally with any group for group heals (which really need a boost!). i also help clerics out, even if pally heals just dont cut it in raid content. every bit helps

c.

[dindaur]

definately, i always found it easier to keep myself up versus another tank, i'd say it's to do with being able to tell when the rounds are landing and whether or not you can fire off a stun to give yourself a sec to heal

[Zorbee]

For me it's more about when to click epic, aoti and oow bp.