General Community Resistant to Healer Damage?

You guys keep skipping over the problem, Healer DPS should NEVER mean the difference between a wipe or clear on causal content.

Also as a dps, saying dps not dpsing optimally isn't noticeable, that's a joke right ? We know when a boss takes too long or when adds don't die fast enough, trust me we notice everything. Even in causal content it's noticeable.

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Originally Posted by Noira

You guys keep skipping over the problem, Healer DPS should NEVER mean the difference between a wipe or clear on causal content.

Also as a dps, saying dps not dpsing optimally isn't noticeable, that's a joke right ? We know when a boss takes too long or when adds don't die fast enough, trust me we notice everything. Even in causal content it's noticeable.

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The normal mode encounters that do have DPS checks of some sort are lenient enough that unless your DPS are doing something extremely wrong with their rotation and/or dying repeatedly healer DPS is not needed, but always welcome.

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Originally Posted by Noira

You guys keep skipping over the problem, Healer DPS should NEVER mean the difference between a wipe or clear on causal content.

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What casual encounters are made or broken by healer dps?

That's what I'm asking.

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Originally Posted by Noira

You guys keep skipping over the problem, Healer DPS should NEVER mean the difference between a wipe or clear on causal content.

Also as a dps, saying dps not dpsing optimally isn't noticeable, that's a joke right ? We know when a boss takes too long or when adds don't die fast enough, trust me we notice everything. Even in causal content it's noticeable.

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It almost never is however. Most casual content can be limped through with every single player pressing 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 over and over again. It'll take awhile, but it has never been a barrier to entry. The /ONLY/ content that has this issue are the occasional story based solo quests. Such as the encounter with "Zenos" at the end of Stormblood, where it was definitely not tuned with most healers in mind and a lot of people did struggle with it if the massive topics here on the forums at the time were anything to be believed. However even that has become a moot point with ilvl increases and most people have generally outstripped the difficulty curve of that piece of content by the time they get to it these days.

If you go into dungeons and normal raids and don't DPS you aren't necessarily holding anyone back as those encounters are designed to be completed by even the most brain dead of players. You're making it take longer than necessary, but I think most people don't really care so long as you at least stay alive and herd the rest of the cats to the proverbial finish line. Because in those instances 'good enough' is generally fine due to expectations for good play being significantly lower than in more demanding content.

They will never make the mistake of forcing healer DPS to be essential in casual group content at this point in the development cycle.

I think It honestly has to do with mentality over anything else and it's even more prevalent with players coming to the game looking to heal and realizing that playing any healer job where you're doing nothing but healing means you're going to be experiencing a lot of downtime sitting on your thumbs. You would think the normal reaction to figuring this out would be them coming to the realization that they have plenty of time to dish out some damage rather than just sitting there doing nothing, but given the amount of healers I've seen that literally just stand there and cast their most basic heal anytime a tank takes a sliver of damage It's become evident that some people don't go through that thought process.


Whenever I've played a healer or leveled one in this game my thought process was always "How can i perform my role the most efficiently while supporting the group/raid I'm in" but as time goes on you will eventually come to the realization that there are people out there that either adopt odd play styles, are selfish and feel like doing damage isn't their job because they are a healer, or they are just all about themselves. I can't really wrap my head around why people insist on playing like this.

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Originally Posted by Shofie

but people get hellbent sometimes that a healer HAS to be dpsing or they're a "bad" healer

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Hmm... I don't see it quite that way.
A healer has to be ACTIVE or it's a bad healer. Simple as that.
Healing should obviously be priority #1 at all times but any healer should try to minimize the downtime as much as possible.

Inexperienced people are excluded from the above, I'd rather have them standing idle, focusing on healing/mechanics until they grasp the encounter and are experienced enough to know when to DPS and when to do other stuff. Much more efficient learning curve than trying to do EVERYTHING™ from the get go.

I did a run of Stone Vigil yesterday on an alt, her first run through there. She is not badly geared (already has some basic AF) but is obviously not wearing Neo Ishgardian stuff. It was a nice group of folks too which was the biggest novelty for me since I've run that dungeon many times. I was on WHM and I ran out of MP at least twice on big pulls, managed to keep the tank up but I was literally spamming Cure/Cure 2 (cure first because I was praying for freecure to proc but I often needed to use Cure 2 with no freecure). Had Regen on too and used Lucid Dreaming always. If I got the chance to pop a DoT on, it was only at the end of the pull.

Was it stressful. No, but I know what I'm doing. Had I been the sprout that I appeared to be, it could have been very stressful. My point being, healers come in all shapes and sizes and unless they're actively sabotaging your run by sitting in a corner and refusing to move, leave them alone. Or kick them them if them not DPSing bothers you that much. Personally I think a DPS not DPSing is far more annoying and happens way more often - yes, ice mages, I'm looking at you - than healers focusing exclusively on heals or tanks doing small pulls

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Originally Posted by Shofie

I bring this up every time there's a debate about healer dps, but not all healers are created equal, and not all of us are comfortable dpsing all the time in every single situation--which should be fine--! but people get hellbent sometimes that a healer HAS to be dpsing or they're a "bad" healer, throwing literally every other bit of reasoning out the window for it.

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No, a healer has to be efficiently using their toolkit, or they're a "bad" healer.

That means constantly casting, using either dps or the best healing ability for the situation, without wasting mana on unnecessary overheals or having downtime. Or at the very least attempting to get this mostly right. You don't need high percentile damage, just at least try to push what you can in low-healing situations. If you have to spam heal a paper tank to keep them alive and can't weave dps, that's fine too, you're using your toolkit efficiently for the given situation.

If Healer A can keep the entire party alive and weave in decent dps, they're far more valuable to the group than Healer B who can only keep the entire party alive. It's that simple really.

And yes, you don't "need" healer dps in casual content but that still means you're a bad player for neglecting it. You're only playing a fraction of the optimal, like a dps doing less than half the average for a player of their ilv.

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Originally Posted by Elladie

I did a run of Stone Vigil yesterday on an alt, her first run through there. She is not badly geared (already has some basic AF) but is obviously not wearing Neo Ishgardian stuff. It was a nice group of folks too which was the biggest novelty for me since I've run that dungeon many times. I was on WHM and I ran out of MP at least twice on big pulls, managed to keep the tank up but I was literally spamming Cure/Cure 2 (cure first because I was praying for freecure to proc but I often needed to use Cure 2 with no freecure). Had Regen on too and used Lucid Dreaming always. If I got the chance to pop a DoT on, it was only at the end of the pull.

Was it stressful. No, but I know what I'm doing. Had I been the sprout that I appeared to be, it could have been very stressful. My point being, healers come in all shapes and sizes and unless they're actively sabotaging your run by sitting in a corner and refusing to move, leave them alone. Or kick them them if them not DPSing bothers you that much. Personally I think a DPS not DPSing is far more annoying and happens way more often - yes, ice mages, I'm looking at you - than healers focusing exclusively on heals or tanks doing small pulls

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Stone Vigil is a poor example because it being one of the early dungeons, massive pulls aren't as easily manageable. If you were in that same situation in say, Holminster Switch or Grand Cosmos, you'd be spamming Holy more than all your healing abilities combined.

Regardless, it isn't a competition on which role performing poorly is the worst. They're all bad. A DPS not AoEing is just as bad as a tank not popping cooldowns or a healer throwing out useless heals. The point remains none of it should be encouraged—and for the most part isn't. Healers are the only role, however, that often get an excuse. Hence the near constant argument.