Should you always focus the enemy healers ? YES!!! and no…
It’s actually a bit more complicated than that, and keeping the “focus healers” mantra up at all times is actually a reason for many fails.
1 – The Theory, level 1 :
Target priority is almost always :
Healers
DPS
Tanks
And you hear “ignore the tanks” about six hundreds times per day over discord.
It makes perfect sense since it’s very, VERY often the best choice.
Is it always the best though ?
No it isn’t, first because real life is often different from theory, and second because there’s more to add to the theory.
2 – The Theory, level 2 :
Numbers :
In RoR, a healer can usually heal much more damage than a DPS can dish out, and can also resurrect said DPS if we would kill them.
So our healer>DPS priority is valid.
But up to what point ?
If you could kill 10 DPS or 1 healer, I guess you would prefer killing 10 DPS, and rightfully so.
Where is the tipping point ? When is it better to kill DPS than healers ?
Sadly I don’t know! But let’s say 2 DPS, if you can kill 2 of them or 1 healer, kill the DPS.
Killing anyone is always pressuring the healers anyways, first cause they try to heal the damage taken, and second cause they’ll lose valuable time trying to resurrect the dead.
Unbalanced setup :
Sometimes, you are not in a perfect 222 setup and that can (and most likely should) change target priority.
Let’s say for exemple your warband lacks 2 healers, maybe keeping 2 enemy DPS dead (or with res sickeness) would alleviate the damage pressure enough for your healers to keep up with enemy’s damage.
3 – Real Life :
In real life, YOUR PARTY/WARBAND COMES FIRST !
With that in mind, then you can start applying the theory discussed above.
But first be sure to keep your friends safe!
Most of the players (in any game) using the “focus healers” words without even having seen the battlefield are causing more harm than good.
They will rush to the enemy healers, even if they are in Caledor while the fight is in Ostland, make everyone overextend trying to help them, die, make their whole party die, and yell at everybody that we lost because we didn’t focus healers…
This is (almost) not an exageration, it happens EVERY DAY.
If the only target you can hit while keeping your party safe is a tank, then hit the tank, build morale. It’s not great, but it’s infinitly better than putting your party at risk.
Below are 2 exemples that happened to me not that long ago :
1 – Scenario premade on discord :
Tor Anroc scenario, first clash on top of the mountain.
We (destro) arrive first and only meet a 2h IB on top.
Our MA ignore him and rush down the hill/mountain to reach the healers.
By doing so we cut the line of sight of our own healers and quickly die.
Why not attack the 2h tank first ? He is the one out of LoS from his own healers at the time, we have a shot at killing him. And even if we don’t kill him and achieve nothing, it’s better than dying…
Order had 4 slayers so of course, I hear “slayers too strong” on discord /facepalm
2 – IC city defense 12men on discord :
First fight I spot 3 slayers, one is guarded, two aren’t.
Our MA ignore them and rushes for the healers.
Eventually we lose the fight.
Again I hear “slayers too strong we cannot do anything” on discord /doublefacepalm
Why not destroy these 2 slayers in seconds ? Just cause “FOCUS HEALERS !!!” ?
It makes ZERO sense.
Of course, when playing order I hear the same things, “Mara KD too strong!”, “Choppa Pull too strong!” and so on and so forth.
All of this may be true, all these classes may be too strong, but we’ll never know if we give them the victory for free.
4 – Note on tanks :
Your job is NOT to dive healers by yourself, achieve nothing then blame others for not following you.
If you have access to an outgoing heal debuff or a CD increaser, then feel free to apply it to nearby healers, but do not chase them. Stay with your team.
Cake’s Thoughts :
This is a big topic.
If you played any MOBA at “high” level, you already know about target priority and the wrongly applied “FOCUS” mentality. You only hear “focus xxxx” at a low level, when you climb the ranks, everybody know what should be the target at an instant “t”, and it’s almost never the one hiding 15km in the back.
And remember that if you go past the enemy frontline in a straight line to reach their backline, then automatically their frontline is on your backline…
Cake's Plan 