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

Just skipped over my main point didn't ya?

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Originally Posted by LadyAveria

The way I see it is healers are there to heal >.> if they can DPS as well, great! If they can't, that is okay! It is quite annoying to hear people expecting something from a class whose purpose is to keep people from dying lol I am grateful when a healer can DPS but I don't scold them or form a mob after them because they don't DPS, some people just can't handle doing two jobs in a raid or dungeon! If they are comfortable just healing and are enjoying the game, everyone can just go away XD Why don't DPS classes tank? Why don't tanks heal? It is pointless...just let someone play the way they are comfortable with. So basically to anyone that is sitting there high and mighty, leave healers alone that don't DPS >.> maybe they can't handle it and want to enjoy the game...and before you come back with "Well they shouldn't heal." How about you stop trying to be Square or Lord of Final Fantasy lol


And by the way, I DPS as a healer, I am comfortable doing it! ^+^

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To recap an earlier point, there is a fine distinction between healers who don't DPS and healers who are idle.

- Healers who don't DPS sometimes just aren't very good (yet). They don't know how to play well and/or don't know the fight, so their lack of DPS contribution is not because of entitlement or laziness if that's the case. Benefit of the doubt.
- Healers who are just plain idle know the fights and have gaping windows in which they could be doing something, but they stand around waiting for (usually) the tank to take damage. These are the healers who get carried by their parties and who are well regarded by no one.

As for other roles...

- DPS classes generally don't tank because, aside from being squishy, they don't have reliable enmity control and cannot use their full kits while under direct attack. It's bad for the party.
- Tank classes generally don't heal because, as with DPS classes, their ability to heal other party members is miniscule, and there is no bonus for healing beyond what the healer brings. The GCDs are better spent on other actions. It's bad for the party.

Healers generally should and do contribute DPS because more damage is almost always helpful and they don't need all of their GCDs for healing actions. It's good for the party.

The point I'm getting at is that the argument about why other roles don't do X or Y is not a good one. Healers have been given the tools to perform a wide variety of useful actions; their damage skills are not somehow separate from their job.

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

The point I'm getting at is that the argument about why other roles don't do X or Y is not a good one. Healers have been given the tools to perform a wide variety of useful actions; their damage skills are not somehow separate from their job.

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I'm just contributing here to re-emphasize on this point. Anyone who brings up the argument of "Well, BLMs aren't expected to Physick" or "DRGs aren't expected to tank" don't seem to realize that these roles are ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE at doing that. It's possible, yes, and sometimes you need to have that niche to clear a piece of content if the crap hits the fan but their performance in that aspect is so below average performance of that role that it's not even funny.

In contrast, Cleric Stance gives Healer's DPS stats that rival their caster counterparts of the same ilvl, allowing them to effectively DPS.

Keyword - effective

BLMs and SMNs can heal. It's ineffective because they don't have the MND stats to support their healing.
DRGs can tank. It's ineffective because they lack the enmity tools to try to hold hate on a DPS with equal ilvl and you end up with a bouncing hate table.
Etc.
Etc.

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Originally Posted by LadyAveria

Just skipped over my main point didn't ya?

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I didn't, and sorry if my response was a little condescending. This thread is not a question about inexperienced healers though, naturally inexperienced healers will perform their job wrong/inefficiently and may need people to slow down a little so they can learn. The thread is asking "As a healer, what am I supposed to be doing?" and the answer to that is "whatever is the most important responsibility on each GCD", which is a responsibility shared across all roles (yes tanks sometimes heal, DPS sometimes manage enmity, and all three deal damage). Is everyone at full health? Then you should be DPSing, overhealing and idling helps nobody, just like as a tank I can ask myself "Do I have a sufficient lead in enmity?" if the answer is yes then I should be using my DPS rotations.

While you may be ok with the "letting people play how they want" mentality, all it does is excuse lazy play in group content, which drives player complacency up and overall skill level down. Then what happens is people cry on the forums when content actually gets hard (Pharos Sirius, Steps of Faith, Weeping City, all content that isn't that hard). This is a bigger issue than healer DPS though, and feeds into overall game difficulty and skill gaps throughout different content in the game, which is a hotly debated topic that people should be far more open minded and invested in.

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

I'm just contributing here to re-emphasize on this point. Anyone who brings up the argument of "Well, BLMs aren't expected to Physick" or "DRGs aren't expected to tank" don't seem to realize that these roles are ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE at doing that. It's possible, yes, and sometimes you need to have that niche to clear a piece of content if the crap hits the fan but their performance in that aspect is so below average performance of that role that it's not even funny.

In contrast, Cleric Stance gives Healer's DPS stats that rival their caster counterparts of the same ilvl, allowing them to effectively DPS.

Keyword - effective

BLMs and SMNs can heal. It's ineffective because they don't have the MND stats to support their healing.
DRGs can tank. It's ineffective because they lack the enmity tools to try to hold hate on a DPS with equal ilvl and you end up with a bouncing hate table.
Etc.
Etc.

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Just to further emphasise this. I actually tanked Saint Mocianne's Arboretum from near start to finish-- trash and bosses alike -- on Dragoon because I outgeared the Paladin so much, he couldn't keep hate. And believe me, he tried. While it was certainly fun, my DPS hit the floor since I couldn't get positionals and had to prioritize holding Life Surge just in case I needed snap healing. Not to mention, the White Mage had to focus heal me to some extent. All in all, it's a massive party wide DPS loss despite being perfectly doable. As already noted, healers don't have this issue when DPSing. They can freely do both, which benefits the whole party.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

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It's always fun when you tank while not being a tank.
I've had a lot of instances where for multiple different reasons, I become a healer tank. At first it scared me and almost made me wanna cry (Not literally!) but after a while it became moments of "Oh yeah? You wanna ****ing go?"
Although whenever that happens and it's because the Tank is literally there, able to do tank things but chooses not to, makes me really wonder.

Here's an example of a healer who wasn't inexperienced or anything, they were just lazy.

Dropped into Tam Tara NM with a synced 60 SCH who did nothing unless the tank drop so low that a single Embrace wouldn't bring them to 100%.

I saw them do absolutely nothing for the entirety of the first mini-boss, so I asked them "Could you please help DPS?" Their response? They left the instance.

This is the kind of thing everyone who is pro-dps in this thread is referring to when they talk about "healers who don't deal damage". If you're new or whatever, fine. But if you're a Level 60 SCH who wants to be idle for almost 60 seconds, think again.

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

Here's an example of a healer who wasn't inexperienced or anything, they were just lazy.

Dropped into Tam Tara NM with a synced 60 SCH who did nothing unless the tank drop so low that a single Embrace wouldn't bring them to 100%.

I saw them do absolutely nothing for the entirety of the first mini-boss, so I asked them "Could you please help DPS?" Their response? They left the instance.

This is the kind of thing everyone who is pro-dps in this thread is referring to when they talk about "healers who don't deal damage". If you're new or whatever, fine. But if you're a Level 60 SCH who wants to be idle for almost 60 seconds, think again.

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I had a similar experience in PotD leveling my DRK with two White Mages and a Thaumaturge (that's right, no job crystal). One WHM followed around and did basically nothing, but I was busy tanking and didn't notice much at first since things were going smoothly enough.

Then we hit a floor with the debuff that seals your abilities, and someone had wasted the Serenity pomanders on inconsequential things, so we ran around with the active WHM (who had been both healing and attacking) stuck in CS and the other WHM stuck out of it. At one point we hit a Lure trap, and the CS WHM was reduced to trying to heal me through CS because the other WHM was standing there doing nothing at all. Finally the mannequin woke up and started spamming Medica (yeah don't ask why) when I was out of CDs and nearly dead. Explained that his buddy was watching an interesting movie that distracted him. For about a full minute, apparently, and while on a floor where his cohealer was obviously unable to leave CS.

...while I think most players will agree that this behavior is idiotic, it seems to me that Healer is the only role that consistently thinks it can get away with putting the party on the backburner. Sure, it's just a game, but if you're going to play it with other people, exercise some common sense and common courtesy.

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

backburner.

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Oh God. I don't want this thread to turn into "story time w/ bad healers" but I have another story (also from yesterday), that may contradict my "if you're new it's okay to suck" Stance.

So, Leveling my DRG (I like DRG but it's slowly becoming a living hell) and get dropped into Haukke NM with my brother, who was very unleveled (28), and only a MRD. Whatevers it should be fine since our DPS is great (DRG and NIN). The healer was a level 29 CNJ.

Healer did fine until the room that you have to unlock the door to get to the connecting room. My brother was slowly dying, because they weren't getting any heals. CNJ runs on and heals the tank and says "don't worry if you almost die. I will heal you and wait for me". Okay...

Right before the first boss I noticed something even worse. They were healing in Cleric Stance. It's not like they forgot to turn it off, because they never used a dps spell. I asked them "please turn Cleric Stance off. You're only healing for 150". They said nothing.

Tank dies in the basement and we both ask them again to stop healing in Cleric Stance. I even asked them if they knew what Cleric Stance was. Still no reply. Ugh... I at this point was fed up and started using shrug and facepalm emotes to try and catch their attention (I only used both like twice).

Both me and my brother die on the final boss because the healer did nothing for a good 45 seconds (I forgot to mention that they occasionally went afk). We return, expecting a wipe. But the boss was almost dead and the healer decided to start healing the NIN so the boss went down. The reason we died? "Srry i fell asleep". Wtf.

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

Bad healer ;_;

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Bad players will be bad. Just like Drgs that dont heavy thrust, wars that don't maim, smns that dont dot, nins that don't trick, bards that don't foes... The list is endless. Cleric Stance is a very solid and very simple skill. We need to stop handing out participation trophies in the form of gameplay. :C

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Originally Posted by Rawrz

Cleric Stance is a very solid and very simple skill.

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This is why I don't understand it when people complain that they never have time to DPS and that their personal DPS isn't worth what they perceive to be the "risk" of entering CS.

Even when you take your time and explain how it works, the reply is almost invariably some form of "my groups are always terrible" (if they are 100% terrible, perhaps the fault isn't always with the group..?) or "you wouldn't understand because all of you are pro healers who play all content with perfect static groups."

A lot of people are more interested in looking for reasons to keep doing what they are doing rather than actually reading a tooltip or two and practicing to improve their gameplay.

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

pro healers

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I might be discrediting myself here buuuut...

I haven't even gotten to A9N yet. I haven't done any Extreme outside Garuda and unsynced Thornmarch. I haven't even completed Binding Coil Turn 2! I'm almost as casual as you can get. I ain't no pro.

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

I might be discrediting myself here buuuut...

I haven't even gotten to A9N yet. I haven't done any Extreme outside Garuda and unsynced Thornmarch. I haven't even completed Binding Coil Turn 2! I'm almost as casual as you can get. I ain't no pro.

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I did clear Coil, but my static was on A2S when I took a year off from the game, so it's not like I have recent raid experience, either :P

That being said, you can be as casual as anything and still have people make assumptions about how you play because they don't want to accept your advice or at least participate in an actual discussion. What they want is to keep thinking that using the full kit is only for healers who are backed up by experienced parties with perfect communication and that no one is understanding their plight. They don't want to imagine that the way they play could actually be contributing to some of the problems they keep running into.

My take is the same as ladyaveria post before

Healer not doing dps? Is the party doing allright? Progress is fine? 2 minutes average to kill mobs? Everyone hp is full and well? Then iam fine as it is, no harm done, healer doing his job, not 100% but good enough.

Not everyone put their effort in this game 100% all time 24/7 ESPECIALLY when they do Daily DF

This kind of "not 100% effort" play is not just on healer, DPS can be a prick too but nobody bats an eye to them, sometimes i see a dps in party not doing their full rotation, they just 1-2-3 combo thats it, no OGCD, no debuff, is that bad? Yes, but everything going smoothly as it is so nobody care, just go have fun

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Originally Posted by gumas

My take is the same as ladyaveria post before

Healer not doing dps? Is the party doing allright? Progress is fine? 2 minutes average to kill mobs? Everyone hp is full and well? Then iam fine as it is, no harm done, healer doing his job, not 100% but good enough.

Not everyone put their effort in this game 100% all time 24/7 ESPECIALLY when they do Daily DF

This kind of "not 100% effort" play is not just on healer, DPS can be a prick too but nobody bats an eye to them, sometimes i see a dps in party not doing their full rotation, they just 1-2-3 combo thats it, no OGCD, no debuff, is that bad? Yes, but everything going smoothly as it is so nobody care, just go have fun

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I agree with the spirit of not instigating unnecessary drama; after all, calling bad players out usually leads to an argument that consumes more time than quietly letting them continue to be bad. To be more charitable, if I'm running with a healer who is doing fine with the actual healing, I won't stop and lecture them for not contributing DPS. I may think that they are lazy if they are standing around doing nothing, but I'm not going to call the run to a halt to deliver unsolicited advice.

On the other hand, I tend to assume that players who bother to read class sub-forums have some interest in playing well for their own enjoyment and for party success, so I don't give too many nods to the laissez-faire philosophy in these discussions. If we were discussing the poor gameplay of tanks or DPS, I guarantee that there would be plenty of pain points to bring up there, as well.

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Originally Posted by gumas

2 minutes average to kill mobs?

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?!

2 minutes? No thanks. Too slow.

Also Lazy DPS annoy me MORE than lazy healers.

^i dont exactly count how long it take time to kill mobs though but yeah i think 2 minutes is a bit too long for standard 2-3 enemies lol

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LazyDPS annoy me more

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Also this, how come nobody complain about this? At the very least healer doing dps mean they are doing dual role class.

While DPS whose their role is only damage and being lazy about it? YOU HAD ONE JOB meme.jpeg

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Originally Posted by gumas

At the very least healer doing dps mean they are doing dual role class.

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I know this was probably an off-hand comment, but it's also the idea that I wish more people would get firmly away from.

DPS is part of all three roles; it's just that one role happens to be focused primarily on damage since it has limited ability to control encounters or heal other players.

A healer dealing damage is simply doing part of their job; nothing more or less.

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

I didn't, and sorry if my response was a little condescending. This thread is not a question about inexperienced healers though, naturally inexperienced healers will perform their job wrong/inefficiently and may need people to slow down a little so they can learn. The thread is asking "As a healer, what am I supposed to be doing?"

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Alright! Fair enough! This thread is about if a Healer should and in an ideal party a healer should DPS if they can. I just didn't want people forming some kind of mob against healers who don't because of the ones that are still learning ^+^ I have been in a raid with another healer and the members just kept scolding and being complete butts when the healer stated at the start they were new.

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Originally Posted by gumas

Also this, how come nobody complain about this?

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I dunno how often you venture out of the Healer threads, but it's actually a pretty common complaint when teams have lazy DPS.

I partied with a healer earlier today. They were jumping around in place instead of helping out with the damage during the fights. It was a low level dungeon and the group wasn't in any danger of failing, but watching the healer jump in place instead of pressing a different button that'd help them effortlessly contribute to group damage sorta rubbed me the wrong way.

I understand when its a fight where healing is a priority, or not feeling comfortable enough to weave in dots in cleric stance. What that healer did was just poor in my opinion.

Huh, I didn't realize this was such a debated issue (just started lvling heals to help FC mates. Decided to read up some guides and forum posts for help). Figure I'd throw my 2 cents in to give a more outside perspective. :)

Tbh as a caster main, I have problems reminding myself to get out of Cleric Stance and keep people alive lmao. And I've been with more experienced healers that do the same. I can honestly say I prefer a healer that does no DPS, over a healer that does only DPS. XD It's about as fun as running with tanks that think their DPS stance is going to keep aggro off a BLM/SMN combo. :P

(darn 1000 character limit.... sorry, you're getting multiple replies ^^; ).

I totally get it, more damage = enemies dies faster = tank lives longer, and that's pretty much what my DPS mind decided to do when I started on healer, but I also get that not everyone is skilled or confident enough in later content to really run with the DPS when they're nervous about having a gimp tank, or... or whatever it is healers worry about (everything?). I know in later floors of PotD, I keep cleric stance firmly OFF, because we've hit traps, or mobs, and literally that 1.5 seconds it took to switch stance and fire off some Cure 2/3's made the difference between a wipe and a save. D: The bosses I'm more confident with stance-dancing because I got to learn the fights, and by then you sort have an idea of what to expect from the rest of your party.

ANYWAY, sorry, I'm getting side-tracked. My main point is, I think it's okay to be in-the-middle about this issue. ^_^ Is it nice when healers DPS? damn straight, and I intend to be one of them (when I suck at it less).

I've seen some pull it off flawlessly, but I've also seen a lot of healers fumble it too, and it often makes the dungeon take a hell of a lot longer than if they'd just left the DPSing to the casters and melee. :P Really, so long as their healer game is good, I've never worried about if the healer in my party is DPSing (probably because that's MY job. If I need my tanks and healers to help me pull out the deeps, I am a very sad addition to the party and we might as well just run with WARs and WHMs all around! LOL).

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Originally Posted by SeriousxSarcasm

ANYWAY, sorry, I'm getting side-tracked. My main point is, I think it's okay to be in-the-middle about this issue. ^_^ Is it nice when healers DPS? damn straight, and I intend to be one of them (when I suck at it less).

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The thing is, DPSing as a healer IS the correct way to play. Your argument is how harshly treated players who play incorrect are. Nobody can make the argument that only healing is the right way to play, because it isn't, and it neglects half of a healers toolkit (hell, SCH is a DPS for the first 30 levels). I do feel that players who struggle with healer DPS be helped and not shunned, but lazy players should not be supported when all they want to do is heal and idle. It's gotten to the point where there are threads asking for cleric stance to be disabled in group content, and that is not ok.

I do not actually mind dpsing as scholar when there is a space between healing, and this in my opinion is how it should be viewed. Ive seen parses of sophie ex showing scholars doing 1k dps in fights. This, I would say, reies on other factos, such as member's gear the other healer's output, etc. Lately, I have had bad experiences of feeling bullied and kicked out of static because I couldnt dps enough. I did feel this to be unfair, and I almost left the game over it. This is where the expectations put on healers gets out of hand,and should not be encouraged, for the sake of people being allowed to play their roles in the way they feel they are most comfortabe with and what they feel most comfortable doing. I know that content can still be cleared whether the healer does a little or alot of dps.Im feeling increasingly more stressed and pressured to perform two roles that I find difficult in the new content anywy

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

The thing is, DPSing as a healer IS the correct way to play. Your argument is how harshly treated players who play incorrect are. Nobody can make the argument that only healing is the right way to play......

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I don't believe I said anywhere that it is not the correct way to play? :P Just that there are likely reasons why some people do not, or if they try are not good at it (lack of skill, lack of confidence, unfamiliarity with the content). Absolutely, when you encounter a situation like Ragology mentioned above, that is unacceptable, but when I see people lose their minds because the healer isn't helping us shave off a whole 20 seconds from an easy mob is kind of infantile (and especially when the tank is a dud, and DPS are fluffing AOE dodges). To be more clear: I think healers should aspire to learn the balance between heals and DPS, but I think other players need to be more tolerant when it just doesn't happen sometimes. (1/2)

(2/2) I know my DPS just plummets when I have to break out res and physic (sometimes titan-egi) to help my healer prop up a bad party, that doesn't mean I'm a shit DPS, just that the situation means I don't have a good set up for it, does that make any sense? I've never gotten hate when my DPS took a back seat to keeping people alive. I think it's ridiculous when we see healers getting that hate instead.

And I've encountered those anti-Cleric Stance threads (I was trying to find advice on how to not screw it up at critical moments. The general consensus is = you WILL screw up eventually. Pray to Nophica for blessings LOL). From my understanding, they don't want to lose CS because they hate DPSing. They want the DPS to scale off of MND so there isn't a switch mechanic to flub (note, this does not mean I support the idea, that's just what I've read).

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Originally Posted by SeriousxSarcasm

To be more clear: I think healers should aspire to learn the balance between heals and DPS, but I think other players need to be more tolerant when it just doesn't happen sometimes.

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I know you're probably not a member of the development team but I must ask- like water your average player takes the path of least resistance, how do you promote players to aspire to find that balance while at the same time tolerating (I think this is a loaded word, but I'll use it :P) the mediocrity of "it just doesn't happen sometimes."?

At what point is the healer who's spent 60 levels healing, has a lot of modern gear from dungeons and extremes subject to not having 90% overheaing/ standing still for 20 seconds expected to try/find that balance?

This is actually a serious question, not meant to berate you.

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Originally Posted by Greedalox

This is actually a serious question, not meant to berate you.

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That's fine, I'd prefer if someone ask clarification instead of putting words in my mouth. :) I think Someone with healing experience and gear, standing around wasting time has no excuse. My thoughts are of times when I have seen a healer chewed out when that is NOT the case. They're under-geared and/or newish (happens in Satasha a lot), maybe they have a squishy tank and can't take the risk of DPS because they need a cure every 4 seconds (my first run of Aetherial Chemical Research Facility was like this. :S ). It's sad when I see they're trying, but the only thing the tank seems to care about is they haven't seen a Stone cast yet. :P And I just think the blanket statement of "DPS or GTFO" in these threads encourages these people. Haven't seen many people cautioning players to not be dicks to people who are trying, but aren't necessarily up to the challenge yet.

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Originally Posted by SeriousxSarcasm

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I have never actually seen this in a levelling dungeon. I have seen it in end game dungeons, but if anyone ever berates a first time healer who is levelling, they have to deal with me. I have however seen a lot of lazy healers in dungeons, who feel that the content is so easy that they can watch netflix while idling. I don't think that many people in this thread are saying "I hate healers who have never healed and are learning in levelling dungeons", they are trying to address a real issue within the core of the game, which is player complacency, and I feel the devs have done a horrible job of addressing it (such as making dungeons painfully easy to heal)

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

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I would count you lucky then, because while it's not constant, it's far from uncommon (or maybe I'm just unlucky. =P ). Sorry if I was kind of off topic. It just caught my interest because those people sound awful similar to some of what I've read in this thread (except much ruder), so I couldn't resist poking around to see if this is the general attitude to expect (in which case, F heals, I'll stick with my support DPS and be happier not to face the abuse lol).

I do understand the lazy healers gripe. Goodness knows I end up cleaning up after them enough with Res, I just thought I'd bring up a different side to the discussion that I didn't see people mentioning, or more likely they just consider it a different issue all together, but then I forgot I suck at explaining and just confuse everyone. @_@

The other day in Novice Network someone came out and said if healers aren't DPSing then they are Leeches. And many were quick to slurped that garbage up.
One of them went so far as to say "not knowing how to DPS as a healer is as bad as DPS not knowing how to AoE". NO! It's no where near that because damage is never the healer's job, damage is the DPS's job, and I can't even find anymore better DPS than the increasing number of DPS players playing heals for pretend when it's only because it's to easily cheese DPS requirements that THEY, the healers, were NEVER considered in. And the problem grew, festered and perpetuated thanks to Gordias Savage and SE's poor job at handling this.

How poor?
- Excessively obnoxious/disjointing controls that get in the way of DPS doing their best for an illusion of a challenge. So instead let's find a simpler, faster solution, until the DPS are up to the job, which they never have cause, why do that when they can rely on some extra hand holding by the healers.
- Making enemies excessively cast long AoEs, which hurts DPS's ability to fight and helps give raise to Healer DPS.
- Giving healers more damaging spells. They could have added traits or more unique spells but NOPE, just 2~3 spells with similar effects to the other healer, and more damaging spells.
- Not applying the Vitality Tank rework sooner, because of course those dungeons including Gordias accommodated for possibility of squishy STR tanks being there.
- Rarely a mechanic only the healer can fix. Too many healing+DPS hybrid mechanics: break this thing to stop it from peppering the party with weak AoEs.
- Too many avoidable AoEs. Guess how much damage the enemy is doing while casting and missing. If you guessed Zero then you are correct!
- Lowering the accuracy caps. Like seriously this would have helped put a stop to this, because it demeans removing accuracy from all of the HW healing gear to a degree. It may not have been clear at first but it was foreseeable.
- Little communication with stats and left too much up to the player to interpret, when clearly there was a direction the devs wanted this NOT to go. I mean now I got people lying about what the dev's said about their stance on healer DPS. FACTS you can easily look up in their forums.
- Overtuning Gordias Savage and the failed intention behind it. On week 1 it was impossible for anyone to be decked out in normal gordian gear, but it didn't stop World's First from finding a way to cheese the design. Many players then have relied on and eventually believed that healer DPS is a requirement ever since Week 1 of Gordias Savage, even now when clearly Creator Savage is made to be significantly easier, people still believe it. Instead of getting better and more importantly actually geared.

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Originally Posted by RiisWolf

One of them went so far as to say "not knowing how to DPS as a healer is as bad as DPS not knowing how to AoE". NO! It's no where near that because damage is never the healer's job, damage is the DPS's job

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This is a really poor argument. I understand the sentiment, but I already answered this:

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

The thread is asking "As a healer, what am I supposed to be doing?" and the answer to that is "whatever is the most important responsibility on each GCD", which is a responsibility shared across all roles (yes tanks sometimes heal, DPS sometimes manage enmity, and all three deal damage). Is everyone at full health? Then you should be DPSing, overhealing and idling helps nobody, just like as a tank I can ask myself "Do I have a sufficient lead in enmity?" if the answer is yes then I should be using my DPS rotations.

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No role is fixed into their archetype in an isolated environment,and the mark of a competent (i.e. should be standard practice) tank/healer/dps is to utilise all of the tools at their disposal, regardless if they are concrete within their role, to help the team progress. Healers are supposed to DPS if that is the most important thing for them to do at the time.

Uh, it's true that 0 DPS healers are leeches. On Reddit there was a post by a Scholar who literally did nothing but /follow while her fairy healed the entire Sastasha run. There is literally no term that describes that type of player more accurately than "leech".

They will always be votekicked from my parties, nobody gets a free ride off my efforts.

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

. . .the mark of a competent tank/healer/dps is to utilise all of the tools at their disposal. . .

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That's a poor counter.
1) DPS's job is to pump out as much damage as they can first and foremost. Knowing how to AoE is part of their job to deal damage. If the fights are slow, then it is because the DPS aren't good, not because the healer wasn't pulling half of what one of them can possibly do. Wanna watch a summoner fail to attack more than one enemy at a time when they can easily do it? Healer's job first and foremost is to keep players alive; melting everything with holy doesn't change that. Making an argument against it is like saying, "no, healer should DPS 100% of the time" then WHY are you a healer!?

2) The types who love to use THIS argument. You argue that to be competent you gotta use ALL the tools, but will push for more damage. Tanks got additional means to sustain themselves and damage abilities for when they are OT, but "nobody" likes it when the Paladin takes the time to sustain themselves by making active use of both clemency and stoneskin, because that gets in the way of more damage, and boy I bet shield bash is nowhere near the top of your list of attacks. Healers have better things to do if healing is not required, either mitigate the damage the party/tank takes or take advantage of cleric stance, which was added just to make solo content NOT a complete slog, however I bet you will praise them for being pretend DPS even if they straight up don't do the DPS or healing part right and shun them if they instead opt to mitigate damage with their barriers. In the end, there is no gotta use all the tools to be good, it's just gotta deal damage to be good.

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Originally Posted by Rennies

Uh, it's true that 0 DPS healers are leeches. On Reddit there was a post by a Scholar who literally did nothing but /follow while her fairy healed the entire Sastasha run. There is literally no term that describes that type of player more accurately than "leech".

They will always be votekicked from my parties, nobody gets a free ride off my efforts.

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And you don't have anymore information about that SCH in question? That she was new or was in raid gear, anything? Did the person even confront her or did they just went with it, pulled little and THEN complained? Being a leech means we could have done this without you, you are literally dragging us down even if we are winning AND that you intentionally did nothing, knowing that you could have done something. But frankly healing is extremely easy, and using Sastasha of all things is weak. Summoning carry fairy in an extremely easy place and following idling by isn't exactly enough to label someone as a leech, lazy for sure, but not something this extreme.

Here's a better example: Aery, tanks in STR gear and uses no CDs and flashes only twice, then Alt-tabs to watch Youtube in every pull not attacking a thing. He loses threat and before the first boss I confront him, and the idiot just spills the beans, DEMANDED I do my job as a healer while he gets to sit there and maintain zero aggro. I let him die twice and healed only the DPS who did his job better than he did before we finally kicked him. THAT is a leech, without a doubt.

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Originally Posted by RiisWolf

That's a poor counter.
1) DPS's job is to pump out as much damage as they can first and foremost. Knowing how to AoE is part of their job to deal damage. If the fights are slow, then it is because the DPS aren't good, not because the healer wasn't pulling half of what one of them can possibly do. Wanna watch a summoner fail to attack more than one enemy at a time when they can easily do it? Healer's job first and foremost is to keep players alive; melting everything with holy doesn't change that. Making an argument against it is like saying, "no, healer should DPS 100% of the time" then WHY are you a healer!?

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No one here is indicating that healer's shoulder DPS 100% of the time. What they are trying to encourage is always be using your GCDs as often as possible as this leads to higher efficiency and optimized play. It's wasteful to spend GCDs in healing when the tank has taken only 100 damage and it's waste to sit there idling if your MP is full. So what's the most effective use of the healer kit in this scenario? You DPS.

Most people here realize the first priority of a healer is to ensure their party's health. Once that is achieved they begin to fill their GCDs with other abilities that help push the group to victory. This usually entails using their DPS abilities because it's the most direct way to contribute and there are a lack of non-combat utility tools overall in the game.

While I can understand the desire for a higher HPS requirement, take into mind that the current MP regeneration tools do very little to support a non-cleric stance play. If HPS requirements were so high you couldn't even afford 5 seconds to enter Cleric Stance most healers would be out of MP by the 4-5 minute mark and compositions would be forced to run double BRD / MCH / combination of both just to sustain the MP requirements. Higher HPS requirements would require the healer kits to be retooled and balanced to be suitable and sustainable which is a pretty sizable task. While I could see this shift occurring in the future don't expect it to be a quick change either.

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Originally Posted by RiisWolf

2) The types who love to use THIS argument. You argue that to be competent you gotta use ALL the tools, but will push for more damage. Tanks got additional means to sustain themselves and damage abilities for when they are OT, but "nobody" likes it when the Paladin takes the time to sustain themselves by making active use of both clemency and stoneskin, because that gets in the way of more damage, and boy I bet shield bash is nowhere near the top of your list of attacks. Healers have better things to do if healing is not required, either mitigate the damage the party/tank takes or take advantage of cleric stance, which was added just to make solo content NOT a complete slog, however I bet you will praise them for being pretend DPS even if they straight up don't do the DPS or healing part right and shun them if they instead opt to mitigate damage with their barriers. In the end, there is no gotta use all the tools to be good, it's just gotta deal damage to be good.

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I do feel it should go without saying that most people who realize how to make the most out of their tool kits will have the ability to compartmentalize which abilities are high usage abilities and which are niche usage abilities. Clemency, Shield Bash, Stoneskin (on PLD) are all situational abilities that, while not high on the priority level, when used effectively shows the players know what they're doing (IE, A11S healer is dead during Pyretic as the healer Photon goes out, PLD saves the still-standing healer via proper Clemency use). In fact when player's do NOT use these abilities because they are unnecessary at the time, it also shows a level of competency in their aptitude.

The same can be said for healers too. Why should the SCH be using Adlo when the single target damage can be healed with fairy use? You may as well optimizing for quicker encounter clear at that point and use the right abilities at the right time for maximum effect.

Again, most people will realize what marks a good healer and those revolve around maintain party health while maximizing their GCD usage. If you're being badgered for doing bad healing "because your DPS is low" but the party can't dodge stupid worth a crap, then you can just smirk and realize their ignorant in the ways of healing and carry on doing what you do best - playing a healer to the fullest.

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Originally Posted by RiisWolf

DPS's job is to pump out as much damage as they can first and foremost. Knowing how to AoE is part of their job to deal damage. If the fights are slow, then it is because the DPS aren't good, not because the healer wasn't pulling half of what one of them can possibly do. Wanna watch a summoner fail to attack more than one enemy at a time when they can easily do it? Healer's job first and foremost is to keep players alive; melting everything with holy doesn't change that. Making an argument against it is like saying, "no, healer should DPS 100% of the time" then WHY are you a healer!?

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I wasn't actually comparing healer DPS to DPS AOE, you will notice that I directly compare healer DPS to DPS managing enmity (quelling strikes, smokescreen etc). These skills are good for keeping enmity under control, something which traditionally is a tanks job. My point is that all roles are responsible in some form for all aspects of play, and as a team, the party must work together to overcome the challenges dynamically. If you ignore DPS because "dur hur im a healer" then you ignore this fact of play. Do you also ignore shroud of saints because enmity management isn't your job?

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Originally Posted by RiisWolf

2) The types who love to use THIS argument. You argue that to be competent you gotta use ALL the tools, but will push for more damage. Tanks got additional means to sustain themselves and damage abilities for when they are OT, but "nobody" likes it when the Paladin takes the time to sustain themselves by making active use of both clemency and stoneskin, because that gets in the way of more damage, and boy I bet shield bash is nowhere near the top of your list of attacks. Healers have better things to do if healing is not required, either mitigate the damage the party/tank takes or take advantage of cleric stance, which was added just to make solo content NOT a complete slog, however I bet you will praise them for being pretend DPS even if they straight up don't do the DPS or healing part right and shun them if they instead opt to mitigate damage with their barriers. In the end, there is no gotta use all the tools to be good, it's just gotta deal damage to be good.

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What? Do you even have any understanding of how to play PLD? People dont clemency/stoneskin because it is sub-optimal, the better argument is tanks who don't use their standard mitigation cooldowns and just does their 1, 2, 3 enmity combo rather than any DPS combo or DoTs (or dark arts etc.).

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Originally Posted by RiisWolf

And you don't have anymore information about that SCH in question? That she was new or was in raid gear, anything? Did the person even confront her or did they just went with it, pulled little and THEN complained? Being a leech means we could have done this without you, you are literally dragging us down even if we are winning AND that you intentionally did nothing, knowing that you could have done something. But frankly healing is extremely easy, and using Sastasha of all things is weak. Summoning carry fairy in an extremely easy place and following idling by isn't exactly enough to label someone as a leech, lazy for sure, but not something this extreme.

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If you're wasting my time by refusing to do more than the bare minimum, you are a leech. End of story. Don't have a clue why it's so difficult for you to understand how the game is designed.

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Originally Posted by SeriousxSarcasm

And I just think the blanket statement of "DPS or GTFO" in these threads encourages these people. Haven't seen many people cautioning players to not be dicks to people who are trying, but aren't necessarily up to the challenge yet.

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You haven't looked then.

Basically all of us who say Healers should DPS almost always make a point that it is a healers choice to not dps, they should not be treated poorly for it and while its inefficient, if they aren't comfortable with it than it is fine.

However lazy healers are a whole other story.

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Originally Posted by RiisWolf

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A week ago I was doing a run of Tam-tara for Leveling. I was WAR, I got a SCH, DRG and BLM. I thought "Great this will be a quick and easy run, basically 3 DPS". The SCH however just spammed Physick + Embrace the whole time. Even though I rarely needed to be healed. When she wasn't healing she was running around and jumping. Her weapon was ilvl 250. After the first boss the DRG piped up and said "You could help DPS. It'd make this go a little faster."

The SCH immediately left.

She literally wanted to do nothing, and when her contributing to damage was brought up she decided it would be better to take the penalty and leave the dungeon rather than suck it up, stop being lazy, and to DPS. This is a leech.