As a healer, is it my job to DPS? A new perspective.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

The difficulty of stance dancing isn't healthy in the big picture, especially when deactivating Cleric Stance can get really buggy.

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Its been so long since I've messed up Cleric Stance, I almost forget what it feels like...

I have Cleric Stance on one of my mouse buttons for easy access but it also causes me to fuck up often when I'm hyper b/c of coffee or soda. I spam buttons a lot.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

I thought of a great example to describe the situation with healers and DPS.

So picture that you own a restaurant, and you just hired a server. Said server does a great job waiting on tables. Suddenly, you notice a customer spilled something on the floor. You call to your server and ask them to grab the mob and wipe up the spill while you watch the front, and they respond: "That's not my job."

It's the same here. No, the healer's job isn't to DPS, just like it's not the server's job to mop the floor. But why would I keep around a server like that when I can hire one that will wait tables and clean spills? For the same reason, why should I recruit a healer that won't DPS, when I can find one that will?

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Queue into a restaurant with a waiter you didn't hire. Waiter sometimes breaks the necks of customers while trying to mop the floor. Do you want to tell the waiter to mop? Waiter can barely provide good service to customers, asking him to mop and risk breaking the necks of customers is a bad thing.

Goodbye.

Breaking a customer's neck has permanent consequences. Accidentally allowing the team to die when you're DPSing doesn't. The analogy doesn't work.

Goodbye.

I see no reason not to DPS. If I've nowt to heal and have confidence in my tank/team, providing DPS means things die quicker thus less healing needed. That doesn't mean it's my job, it means that I can make my job easier by assisting. Same for tanks who can provide DPS when safe, and DPS who can provide utility on the fly. The alternative is black & white mentality.

Only a few things will discourage me from DPS'ing:
a) Tank prefers huge pulls or reduces me to healbot mode and/or to mind my MP over extended periods, especially if b) also applies.
b) Tank is not tanky / gets sporadically chunked. If I can't trust their HP in general, I can't trust the game not throwing me a CS glitch.
c) DPS going ham / Pulling mobs before tank / Incapable of mechanic dodging - nothing annoys me more than having to stop healing the tank or DPS'ing just because actual DPS are impatient (or plain stupid).

If the above happens enough, I'll be very cautious with CS -- otherwise, DPS'ing 90%.

Honestly, I'm still leveling my healer, but on topic: I DPS when I know I can without someone dying. Usually, what this translates to is infrequent DPS'ing until my second or third run through a piece of content. Until I know what kind of output I can expect from enemies, DPS'ing isn't really an option for me. At least not at the level of the first pulls of Castrum.

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Originally Posted by MrMcKay

Honestly, I'm still leveling my healer, but on topic: I DPS when I know I can without someone dying. Usually, what this translates to is infrequent DPS'ing until my second or third run through a piece of content. Until I know what kind of output I can expect from enemies, DPS'ing isn't really an option for me. At least not at the level of the first pulls of Castrum.

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I learn by doing the opposite.
I DPS until "Oh Shoot", and no one usually dies. I did Cutter's cry with 3 new people Sunay and the tank died once because he derped (and was super undergeared), and a DPS died once because he triple derped on the last boss. I did more DPS than the rest of them combined and it was my first time healing that dungeon.

As stated earlier in the thread and elsewhere, even if someone dies and you're DPSing, the encounters will always be faster (sometimes even with a wipe).
As a Healer, you should be reacting to non-raid damage to your party members with very few exceptions of planning.
If you CS before a fight starts you can always click it off.

Healers have this weird fear of letting people die. Yeah it isn't great, but most of the time it barely matters. If you derped cleric stance and someone dies, you have an insta-rez anyway.

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Originally Posted by MikeWW

Queue into a restaurant with a waiter you didn't hire. Waiter sometimes breaks the necks of customers while trying to mop the floor. Do you want to tell the waiter to mop? Waiter can barely provide good service to customers, asking him to mop and risk breaking the necks of customers is a bad thing.

Goodbye.

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Any content that I would be willing to queue into through duty finder isn't hard enough for this debate to even be a big deal. At that point, healer DPS just boils down to, "how many minutes could I shave off my daily roulettes if I DPS as much as possible?" It's not like healing any of that content is hard. There are times at the end of the day where I was finishing my roulettes and literally falling asleep at my controller, yet I was still able to heal efficiently and DPS. I would conk out during the boss fight for a few seconds, and just keep pressing the buttons while I struggled to keep my eyes open.

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Originally Posted by KaitlanKela

FTR: this thread wasn't really meant to address healers that aren't comfortable DPSing. It's meant to address the argument that it's good and acceptable for healers to choose not to when they otherwise could.

That said, if anyone reading this isn't comfortable with cleric stance, I would recommend experimenting with it at low level dungeons to acclimate yourself in a low pressure scenario rather than just writing it off as too difficult (if your not a CNJ/WHM, put it as your first cross class to have access to it in Sastasha, for example). It introduces complexity and fun to the job, in addition to the added utility! Best of luck!

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How do you tell the difference between someone not comfortable doing it and someone who can but doesn't just from the fact someone isn't DPSing? Most DF groups don't even talk, let alone get into extended discussions about gameplay and their motivations.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

How do you tell the difference between someone not comfortable doing it and someone who can but doesn't just from the fact someone isn't DPSing? Most DF groups don't even talk, let alone get into extended discussions about gameplay and their motivations.

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Because there's no one in the game who's not good enough to not be able to use Cleric Stance.
Someone not comfortable should be starting the fights in cleric stance, putting DOTs up and then healing.
Someone lazy will not even do that.