jhorry08
11-08-2008, 11:19 PM
This are my views on healing vs damage in games, and relating it specifically to WAR's situation.
If you want to skip this huge wall-o-text, the eventual point I make is:
WAR LIVE: Heal-over-time spells make healing too passive-maintenance, making the only viable damage strategy heavy spike dps. Because of the high maintenance healing and generally low offensive damage, the lack of Reparation/Preventive/Emergency healing has not been as much of an issue.
WAR TEST: Heal-over-time spells and Damage-over-Time abilities are largely balanced now, but Emergency, Reparation, and Preventive healing capabilities are not strong enough. The boost to offensive classes was needed, but now a general boost to healing geared towards these new offensive values is equally needed.
We all know about sustained damage, burst damage, AE damage, and crippling foes so your allies can deal more damage or finish foes off.
But far too often people forget about the types of healing that need to correspond with each of these methods of dealing damage, as well as needing to take into account the healer's reaction time to respond to the damage.
I currently don't think that the healers in WAR are equipped to handle the different types of damage situations that they will have to work through in this new patch, or that they were ever really prepared to handle incoming damage in loo of all the BW/SC death-dealing.
Suggested changes for TEST for all 6 Healers and their general heals:
Improve the Reparation healing by changing the 3 second heals to:
2.5 sec cast, 50% less likely to set back, 200% of their current base healing, 6 second reuse timer, 60 AP cost.
Rational: We will need big, efficient heals to counter the current damage. The 2.5 seconds and 6 second reuse timer limit these heals so that we must rely on other methods beyond just this heal depending on the situation, and it frees up more time to utilize these other actions. Reparation healing involves fixing damage thats already been dealt, which is exactly what this change would be geared towards. This will not be our highest Heal / second option.
For the 2 melee healers, their version (form which the above version was largely constructed), they would have a 250% heal from damage, damage would be unblockable and would ignore mitigation, and damage would be lowered to appropriate amounts to be balanced, 3 second channeled attack chain with a 50% reduced chance of set back which, each with a tactic in their Healing Mastery to boost it to cannot-be-setback. This would heal less total than the direct healer's 2.5 second heal due to the simultaneous damage component, and because Melee healers would be geared more towards maintenance healing.
Giving the melee healers, deep in their healing Mastery path, a 100 ft ranged 2.5 sec cast heal that also triggers the reuse timer on their melee-version would be nice for players who want to be able to repair damage like the other healers can.
Improve Emergency healing by changing the 1 second cast heals to:
Heal all their healing + HOT upfront, no heal-over-time portion, same 55 AP cost, no reuse timer. Considering the significant 55 AP cost for the relatively poor health return, this would be used as a method of saving someone on the brink of death, not as a main heal, due to AP consumption. Alternatively, they could receive most of their healing upfront, with a short, stackable 5 second lingering regeneration.
Rational: This is how we react when we notice a foe is taking heavy damage, we utalize this spell (or a better one if provided by our mastery) to buy us time to fix the damage that has already been caused.
I would suggest giving Zealots and RP a very short lived single target near-invincibility shield, which very powerful ward that only exists for only 4 seconds, instant cast, with a 30 second reuse timer, 50 ap cost. This makes them the "best" at clutch healing if need be.
I would suggest increasing the current base amount of protection from the AM and Shaman shielding spells by a ratio 1.5. This improve their ability to react to a clutch healing situation, but they wouldnt be as good as the RP.
The melee healers would not have a single target shielding ability like this at their base, but they have their group versions in their healing tree, giving them the group-clutch advantage.
To Improve Maintenance healing:
Keep the heal-over-time spells as they are, they are perfect as small, efficient additions to our ability to counteract incoming damage.
More importantly, especially for the offensively-focused healers, Divine Fury needs to NOT effect the healing from tap spells/attacks! Any damage done with a tap-based attack needs to heal for exactly the amount of damage dealt, or by the % of damage it is supposed to heal. Also highly important, life-tap based attacks need to ignore mitigation and defense abilities, or at least have an increased chance to ignore them, similar to Life Tap skills in EQ, yes, a game thats 10 years old figured this one out :P
Finally, improve the class mechanics that support damage and healing, along with improving the over all damage capability of these abilities until they are at a point to where they can realistically stave off some incoming damage on a single target, while not healing enough to actually repair the target.
To Improve Preventive Healing:
Each of the healing classes could have their own method of stopping damage or reducing it in some way, no where as good as a tank, but enough to help.
Examples:
Melee healers: a ward type spell that blocks 20% of all incoming damage until X amount of damage has been blocked, 10 second reuse, 30 AP.
Ruin Priest/Zealot: a target cannot receive damage that deals more than 20% of his health in a single hit for 3 hits for 10 seconds (aka, any damage over the 20% amount would be blocked) 20 sec reuse 40AP.
AM /shaman already has theirs with their potent debuffs.
These changes would largely balance out healing to where a single healer should be able to counter react the damage from the heaviest damage dealers, so long as the healer is not the target of the attack. It should take a coordinated offense to kill the healer's target, or two heavily burst / consistent dps classes focusing on their target.
Now, on to the actual, lengthy post:
I think I've read that this was discussed at some point:
The highest capable single target burst and sustained healing capability should be relatively equivalent to the highest capable single target burst and sustained healing capability at a ratio of 1.5 to 1.
That means that on average, if a BW / SR or WH / WE is able to maintains X dps, a pure healer should be able to heal that damage and them some, provided they are both targeting the same target and neither is being impeded by other forces.
This should take into account resistances, stats, and armor.
I think this is a fair goal to aim for, as it leaves room for strategy and group work.
For example, if a BW is Incineration spec, focused on heavy single target fast damage, a healer is going to have to focus most of their attention on the target that is getting burned down, if not all.
If that BW's target gets healing debuffed by another foe, then a single healer will probably not save this target, assuming this target is not a tank.
I feel this is promoting what the game intends, good cooperation and team work. A single healer cant keep a focused fired target alive, as thats one person attempting to counter the coordinated damage of two, since the Incineration BW cannot apply a healing debuff himself.
If you added in a second healer also trying to keep this person alive, both would be healing at half capacity for reasonable window of time, say 10 seconds, but thats still enough to counter the damage of the two offenders:
The Incineration BW is dealing his 100% effective damage, while his assistant who used a healing debuff is likely using a mastery path that is not conducive to "pure single target rapid dps," so he wouldn't be at the 100% marker of the BW, more likely around 75%.
Both the healers started at 150% effective healing when compared to the "top" damage dealer, the BW. with the healing debuff from the BW's assistant, that brings both their healing down to 75%.
That would be a healing capacity of 150% to a damage capacity of 175%, meaning for that 10 second or so window of opportunity, the damage side has a slight advantage over the healing side.
Then it boils down to who wants to blow their Moral abilities first. Either side using their Morals would likely shift the decision of the fight in this instance.
Where am I going with all this?
I think healing classes are going to need significant changes in their healing output capability and functionality if this goal is to be realized. Equally important, tanks are going to need more proficient protection tools to hamper the RDPS and MDPS attempts to slay allies. Not in the form of CC, but in active protection, like the ability to block the next attack on an ally and Hold the Line, and passive capabilities, such as applying guard to any target in the WB.
Healers should be prime targets for DPS classes, as attacking a healer should impair their ability to heal themselves, meaning they wont heal as strongly as if they were healing someone else as in the above example, negating a huge portion of your opposing side's defensive capability. This is the case currently, as in all PVP driven games, well, in PVE as well.
The biggest reason why healing should always out pace DPS is simply the nature of how healing works: reactively more so than pro actively or passively.
Healers have to respond to incoming changes in game play, while DPS classes cause these changes.
Essentially, DPS classes pick where they want the damage to flow to, healers only get to choose where to patch up the leaks.
Human reaction time as it is, healers must have absolutely incredible reaction times to help heal their allies. My professor mentioned that, due to previous assassinations in US history, we have found that on average, a bodyguard could take 2 seconds to respond to a close range assassination attempt, giving the assassin enough time to shot a hand gun 5 times.
Granted for most healers, this reaction time is likely around 1.5 seconds before seeing the change in the health bar, then taking reaction to this observation by targeting the person and using a healing ability.
Then you have to factor in the time it takes for the heal to activate.
This can be mitigated a tad by being aware of the battle situation and anticipating who will get attack by visually observing the field, but this is not always practical and should not be considered as to what the "average" individual would be capable of.
I actually APPROVE of the decision to make HOT's on a longer duration with the same amount healed, as this is putting healers in the right direction of actively healing damage rather than passively dismissing it with a HOT. BUT...
I think with what people have responded so far about the testing conditions, healers simply don't have enough "upmh" to repair or time to react to the damage cause by damage dealers when they are actively healing.
Couple that with the low ratio of classes that can heal, and the seemingly lower ratio of people willing to play them in most games, and you end up with situations where people are dieing constantly vs having to strategically pick their targets and coordinate their efforts in terms of offense and defense.
As a nonpro-game developer, I've had to think about many of these situations, and obviously there is never "the" answer, hence all the balancing that has occurred in games over the years.
From my personal experience, what has seemed to work best has been:
Provide a health mixture of Preventative and Reactionary healing methods, essentially into four categories: (using AM as an example, putting Mastery abilities in () )
Repartition: heals that are strong enough to fix damage that has already been done, with activation times or focus times the give opponents time to interfere or finish off the foe before the ability is completed:
Example: Boon, Blessing, (Essence)
Maintenance: heals, such as hots and most life taps, that are not meant to repair damage, but rather help to counteract incoming damage as its happening. These usually can be applied quickly, and have a moderate effect over a time period, or some alternative benefit to using them such as simultaneous damage generation. These can quickly swing the tide of a fight, because that ally isnt droping as fast as the offense hoped, and the offense has been taking damage simultaniously from the tapping.
Example: Lambent, Transfer Force, (Balance Essence)
Preventive: heals that limit incoming damage to the ally, or hamper the foe's damage dealing capabilities, to buy time for Repartition heals
Example: Nothing much at base besides debuffs (Magical Infusion's +25% healing)
Emergency: heals that usually have instantaneous activation and immediately noticeable effects, usually with a long reuse timer or some strong drawback.
Example: Moral Heal, Shield of Saphrey, Healing Energy.
The problems I see so far, in the case of the Archmage:
General Issue: The Archmage's Mastery paths are set up so that all healing is found in one path, all debuffing in another, and all damage-oriented abilities in the third.
This is a poor choice for a healer class, as every line should have its general way of aiding with healing, even if they are different healing types. Each has its place in a balanced game.
Isha should be our Repartition/Emergency line, the one that actually focuses on fixing damage that has already happened, and reacting quickly for those "oh crap" moments to give itself time for a large heal.
Vaul should be our Preventive line, focusing on limiting damage that can be done to our allies. Having a Vaul AM should stem the incoming damage enough that they, and other healers, shouldnt need to focus on Emergency healing as much as Reparation healing, and this helps Maintenency healing get more bang for their buck.
Asuryan should be our Maintenance line, focusing on dealing damage to heal allies as they are being hurt, and being offensively oriented in general as a means of defense and healing (Cleansing Flare as an example) by being the constant healers of incoming damage, they also serve as a buffer for healers who will be patching the major damage.
All healers should be decent at each type of healing at the base level, but your Mastery Paths and your class choice should help decide which role you predominantly lean towards:
The Runepriest and Zealot are, in general, the best healers at Emergency healing.
The Shaman and Archmage are, in general, the better healers at Reparation healing.
The Warrior Priest and Disciple of Khaine are, in general, the better healers at Maintenance healing.
The problem with the Heal over Time spells was that every healer class was exceptionally good at passive Maintenance healing, with little limitation. They would hot or pre-hot anyone as soon as they took any damage, and would then focus on big repartition heals or quick emergency heals on anyone who was taking excessive damage.
Spreading passive, fire-and-forget maintenance healing around so easily meant that damage dealers we not making much headway in many cases, baring situations such as magnet pull-aoe spam and such, or unless they were doing excessively high amounts of damage in a short time span.
How many times, for example, have you heard someone say that "only burst dps matters in WAR ?"
That stems from the idea that with so many healers having great passive Maintenance healing, that the only way to counter this was excessive DPS focused on a single person in as short of a time frame as possible.
Most healers in War have absolutely terrible Emergency healing capability, so that is why Zealots and Runepriest tend to get the tittle of "the best healers" or "the pure healers," because they are the only healer adequately prepared for heavy burst dps for the most part.
In my guild group, we know the current limitations of healing and plan accordingly. On my DoK, I dont fool myself by thinking I'll currently be making much healing-headway in terms of repairing damage already done to an ally, BUT I can perform my roll of active maintenance healing by dealing damage to my foes to keep my currently target alive, giving my shaman time to heal him up from afar, while also keeping an eye on me, while my Zealot friend is ready to start emergency healing either me or the shaman, while also healing anyone else who currently needs it.
Its a great system that as served us well, but there isn't much you can do if 2 or 3 BW decide to focus fire on a non-tank target, there simply isn't enough of an hp buffer to handle their damage currently, but this will be more balanced after their +crit chance is reduced a bit, possibly their +crit damage as well.
If you want to skip this huge wall-o-text, the eventual point I make is:
WAR LIVE: Heal-over-time spells make healing too passive-maintenance, making the only viable damage strategy heavy spike dps. Because of the high maintenance healing and generally low offensive damage, the lack of Reparation/Preventive/Emergency healing has not been as much of an issue.
WAR TEST: Heal-over-time spells and Damage-over-Time abilities are largely balanced now, but Emergency, Reparation, and Preventive healing capabilities are not strong enough. The boost to offensive classes was needed, but now a general boost to healing geared towards these new offensive values is equally needed.
We all know about sustained damage, burst damage, AE damage, and crippling foes so your allies can deal more damage or finish foes off.
But far too often people forget about the types of healing that need to correspond with each of these methods of dealing damage, as well as needing to take into account the healer's reaction time to respond to the damage.
I currently don't think that the healers in WAR are equipped to handle the different types of damage situations that they will have to work through in this new patch, or that they were ever really prepared to handle incoming damage in loo of all the BW/SC death-dealing.
Suggested changes for TEST for all 6 Healers and their general heals:
Improve the Reparation healing by changing the 3 second heals to:
2.5 sec cast, 50% less likely to set back, 200% of their current base healing, 6 second reuse timer, 60 AP cost.
Rational: We will need big, efficient heals to counter the current damage. The 2.5 seconds and 6 second reuse timer limit these heals so that we must rely on other methods beyond just this heal depending on the situation, and it frees up more time to utilize these other actions. Reparation healing involves fixing damage thats already been dealt, which is exactly what this change would be geared towards. This will not be our highest Heal / second option.
For the 2 melee healers, their version (form which the above version was largely constructed), they would have a 250% heal from damage, damage would be unblockable and would ignore mitigation, and damage would be lowered to appropriate amounts to be balanced, 3 second channeled attack chain with a 50% reduced chance of set back which, each with a tactic in their Healing Mastery to boost it to cannot-be-setback. This would heal less total than the direct healer's 2.5 second heal due to the simultaneous damage component, and because Melee healers would be geared more towards maintenance healing.
Giving the melee healers, deep in their healing Mastery path, a 100 ft ranged 2.5 sec cast heal that also triggers the reuse timer on their melee-version would be nice for players who want to be able to repair damage like the other healers can.
Improve Emergency healing by changing the 1 second cast heals to:
Heal all their healing + HOT upfront, no heal-over-time portion, same 55 AP cost, no reuse timer. Considering the significant 55 AP cost for the relatively poor health return, this would be used as a method of saving someone on the brink of death, not as a main heal, due to AP consumption. Alternatively, they could receive most of their healing upfront, with a short, stackable 5 second lingering regeneration.
Rational: This is how we react when we notice a foe is taking heavy damage, we utalize this spell (or a better one if provided by our mastery) to buy us time to fix the damage that has already been caused.
I would suggest giving Zealots and RP a very short lived single target near-invincibility shield, which very powerful ward that only exists for only 4 seconds, instant cast, with a 30 second reuse timer, 50 ap cost. This makes them the "best" at clutch healing if need be.
I would suggest increasing the current base amount of protection from the AM and Shaman shielding spells by a ratio 1.5. This improve their ability to react to a clutch healing situation, but they wouldnt be as good as the RP.
The melee healers would not have a single target shielding ability like this at their base, but they have their group versions in their healing tree, giving them the group-clutch advantage.
To Improve Maintenance healing:
Keep the heal-over-time spells as they are, they are perfect as small, efficient additions to our ability to counteract incoming damage.
More importantly, especially for the offensively-focused healers, Divine Fury needs to NOT effect the healing from tap spells/attacks! Any damage done with a tap-based attack needs to heal for exactly the amount of damage dealt, or by the % of damage it is supposed to heal. Also highly important, life-tap based attacks need to ignore mitigation and defense abilities, or at least have an increased chance to ignore them, similar to Life Tap skills in EQ, yes, a game thats 10 years old figured this one out :P
Finally, improve the class mechanics that support damage and healing, along with improving the over all damage capability of these abilities until they are at a point to where they can realistically stave off some incoming damage on a single target, while not healing enough to actually repair the target.
To Improve Preventive Healing:
Each of the healing classes could have their own method of stopping damage or reducing it in some way, no where as good as a tank, but enough to help.
Examples:
Melee healers: a ward type spell that blocks 20% of all incoming damage until X amount of damage has been blocked, 10 second reuse, 30 AP.
Ruin Priest/Zealot: a target cannot receive damage that deals more than 20% of his health in a single hit for 3 hits for 10 seconds (aka, any damage over the 20% amount would be blocked) 20 sec reuse 40AP.
AM /shaman already has theirs with their potent debuffs.
These changes would largely balance out healing to where a single healer should be able to counter react the damage from the heaviest damage dealers, so long as the healer is not the target of the attack. It should take a coordinated offense to kill the healer's target, or two heavily burst / consistent dps classes focusing on their target.
Now, on to the actual, lengthy post:
I think I've read that this was discussed at some point:
The highest capable single target burst and sustained healing capability should be relatively equivalent to the highest capable single target burst and sustained healing capability at a ratio of 1.5 to 1.
That means that on average, if a BW / SR or WH / WE is able to maintains X dps, a pure healer should be able to heal that damage and them some, provided they are both targeting the same target and neither is being impeded by other forces.
This should take into account resistances, stats, and armor.
I think this is a fair goal to aim for, as it leaves room for strategy and group work.
For example, if a BW is Incineration spec, focused on heavy single target fast damage, a healer is going to have to focus most of their attention on the target that is getting burned down, if not all.
If that BW's target gets healing debuffed by another foe, then a single healer will probably not save this target, assuming this target is not a tank.
I feel this is promoting what the game intends, good cooperation and team work. A single healer cant keep a focused fired target alive, as thats one person attempting to counter the coordinated damage of two, since the Incineration BW cannot apply a healing debuff himself.
If you added in a second healer also trying to keep this person alive, both would be healing at half capacity for reasonable window of time, say 10 seconds, but thats still enough to counter the damage of the two offenders:
The Incineration BW is dealing his 100% effective damage, while his assistant who used a healing debuff is likely using a mastery path that is not conducive to "pure single target rapid dps," so he wouldn't be at the 100% marker of the BW, more likely around 75%.
Both the healers started at 150% effective healing when compared to the "top" damage dealer, the BW. with the healing debuff from the BW's assistant, that brings both their healing down to 75%.
That would be a healing capacity of 150% to a damage capacity of 175%, meaning for that 10 second or so window of opportunity, the damage side has a slight advantage over the healing side.
Then it boils down to who wants to blow their Moral abilities first. Either side using their Morals would likely shift the decision of the fight in this instance.
Where am I going with all this?
I think healing classes are going to need significant changes in their healing output capability and functionality if this goal is to be realized. Equally important, tanks are going to need more proficient protection tools to hamper the RDPS and MDPS attempts to slay allies. Not in the form of CC, but in active protection, like the ability to block the next attack on an ally and Hold the Line, and passive capabilities, such as applying guard to any target in the WB.
Healers should be prime targets for DPS classes, as attacking a healer should impair their ability to heal themselves, meaning they wont heal as strongly as if they were healing someone else as in the above example, negating a huge portion of your opposing side's defensive capability. This is the case currently, as in all PVP driven games, well, in PVE as well.
The biggest reason why healing should always out pace DPS is simply the nature of how healing works: reactively more so than pro actively or passively.
Healers have to respond to incoming changes in game play, while DPS classes cause these changes.
Essentially, DPS classes pick where they want the damage to flow to, healers only get to choose where to patch up the leaks.
Human reaction time as it is, healers must have absolutely incredible reaction times to help heal their allies. My professor mentioned that, due to previous assassinations in US history, we have found that on average, a bodyguard could take 2 seconds to respond to a close range assassination attempt, giving the assassin enough time to shot a hand gun 5 times.
Granted for most healers, this reaction time is likely around 1.5 seconds before seeing the change in the health bar, then taking reaction to this observation by targeting the person and using a healing ability.
Then you have to factor in the time it takes for the heal to activate.
This can be mitigated a tad by being aware of the battle situation and anticipating who will get attack by visually observing the field, but this is not always practical and should not be considered as to what the "average" individual would be capable of.
I actually APPROVE of the decision to make HOT's on a longer duration with the same amount healed, as this is putting healers in the right direction of actively healing damage rather than passively dismissing it with a HOT. BUT...
I think with what people have responded so far about the testing conditions, healers simply don't have enough "upmh" to repair or time to react to the damage cause by damage dealers when they are actively healing.
Couple that with the low ratio of classes that can heal, and the seemingly lower ratio of people willing to play them in most games, and you end up with situations where people are dieing constantly vs having to strategically pick their targets and coordinate their efforts in terms of offense and defense.
As a nonpro-game developer, I've had to think about many of these situations, and obviously there is never "the" answer, hence all the balancing that has occurred in games over the years.
From my personal experience, what has seemed to work best has been:
Provide a health mixture of Preventative and Reactionary healing methods, essentially into four categories: (using AM as an example, putting Mastery abilities in () )
Repartition: heals that are strong enough to fix damage that has already been done, with activation times or focus times the give opponents time to interfere or finish off the foe before the ability is completed:
Example: Boon, Blessing, (Essence)
Maintenance: heals, such as hots and most life taps, that are not meant to repair damage, but rather help to counteract incoming damage as its happening. These usually can be applied quickly, and have a moderate effect over a time period, or some alternative benefit to using them such as simultaneous damage generation. These can quickly swing the tide of a fight, because that ally isnt droping as fast as the offense hoped, and the offense has been taking damage simultaniously from the tapping.
Example: Lambent, Transfer Force, (Balance Essence)
Preventive: heals that limit incoming damage to the ally, or hamper the foe's damage dealing capabilities, to buy time for Repartition heals
Example: Nothing much at base besides debuffs (Magical Infusion's +25% healing)
Emergency: heals that usually have instantaneous activation and immediately noticeable effects, usually with a long reuse timer or some strong drawback.
Example: Moral Heal, Shield of Saphrey, Healing Energy.
The problems I see so far, in the case of the Archmage:
General Issue: The Archmage's Mastery paths are set up so that all healing is found in one path, all debuffing in another, and all damage-oriented abilities in the third.
This is a poor choice for a healer class, as every line should have its general way of aiding with healing, even if they are different healing types. Each has its place in a balanced game.
Isha should be our Repartition/Emergency line, the one that actually focuses on fixing damage that has already happened, and reacting quickly for those "oh crap" moments to give itself time for a large heal.
Vaul should be our Preventive line, focusing on limiting damage that can be done to our allies. Having a Vaul AM should stem the incoming damage enough that they, and other healers, shouldnt need to focus on Emergency healing as much as Reparation healing, and this helps Maintenency healing get more bang for their buck.
Asuryan should be our Maintenance line, focusing on dealing damage to heal allies as they are being hurt, and being offensively oriented in general as a means of defense and healing (Cleansing Flare as an example) by being the constant healers of incoming damage, they also serve as a buffer for healers who will be patching the major damage.
All healers should be decent at each type of healing at the base level, but your Mastery Paths and your class choice should help decide which role you predominantly lean towards:
The Runepriest and Zealot are, in general, the best healers at Emergency healing.
The Shaman and Archmage are, in general, the better healers at Reparation healing.
The Warrior Priest and Disciple of Khaine are, in general, the better healers at Maintenance healing.
The problem with the Heal over Time spells was that every healer class was exceptionally good at passive Maintenance healing, with little limitation. They would hot or pre-hot anyone as soon as they took any damage, and would then focus on big repartition heals or quick emergency heals on anyone who was taking excessive damage.
Spreading passive, fire-and-forget maintenance healing around so easily meant that damage dealers we not making much headway in many cases, baring situations such as magnet pull-aoe spam and such, or unless they were doing excessively high amounts of damage in a short time span.
How many times, for example, have you heard someone say that "only burst dps matters in WAR ?"
That stems from the idea that with so many healers having great passive Maintenance healing, that the only way to counter this was excessive DPS focused on a single person in as short of a time frame as possible.
Most healers in War have absolutely terrible Emergency healing capability, so that is why Zealots and Runepriest tend to get the tittle of "the best healers" or "the pure healers," because they are the only healer adequately prepared for heavy burst dps for the most part.
In my guild group, we know the current limitations of healing and plan accordingly. On my DoK, I dont fool myself by thinking I'll currently be making much healing-headway in terms of repairing damage already done to an ally, BUT I can perform my roll of active maintenance healing by dealing damage to my foes to keep my currently target alive, giving my shaman time to heal him up from afar, while also keeping an eye on me, while my Zealot friend is ready to start emergency healing either me or the shaman, while also healing anyone else who currently needs it.
Its a great system that as served us well, but there isn't much you can do if 2 or 3 BW decide to focus fire on a non-tank target, there simply isn't enough of an hp buffer to handle their damage currently, but this will be more balanced after their +crit chance is reduced a bit, possibly their +crit damage as well.