The arrogance of some people

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Originally Posted by KaitlanKela

I will try once again to summarize this for people:

If you do not DPS as a healer 99/100 people are not going to care and just let you carry on. Nobody is attacking your personal preference or your playstyle. Do what you're going to do.

People are just trying to say that if you arbitrarily self-impose a limit on yourself, you will not be the best player you can be. The game gives you healing and dps, it gives you objectives, it gives you priorities. It does NOT tell you how to play your character. It done not impose any limits on how you use your kit, what spells to hit and what spells to avoid. If you don't use your whole toolkit appropriately, you are either 1. learning 2. lazy or 3.bad. Nobody's saying you CAN'T be learning, lazy or bad, get out we don't want your kind here. We're only trying to encourage players who DO try to be the best they can be to not limit themselves for NO REASON.

The end.

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That goes so much further then the scope of this game that like life in general there so many people in the world that don't do their full potential and how people do stuff in RL going to come into play in the game also.

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Originally Posted by Odett

I answered that in the first paragraph of this post. Also, a SCH's DPS can be very close with that of a DPS role, so it IS quite substantial.

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Doesn't cut into the worth of a dps then? If the other roles have jobs that can do damage comparable to a dps job, well that sounds like a good idea for people tired of dps players.

Why do these threads always end up the same way?

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Originally Posted by Kallera

Doesn't cut into the worth of a dps then?

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There's a few pages back in this thread where someone was trying to make a point similar to this but in a very immature way. No, not at all. Your question would only make sense if there was a group cap on DPS. There isn't. If you have the tools to help you group beyond what's required of you, you should do it. It's as simple as that.

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Originally Posted by Odett

There's a few pages back in this thread where someone trying to make a point similar to this but in a very immature way. No, not at all. Your question would only make sense if there was a group cap on DPS. There isn't. If you have the tools to help you group beyond what's required of you, you should do it. It's as simple as that.

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Alright, I understand. But I give this lesson about a week before the trinity starts blaming each other again, its like the airline food joke of forum threads.

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Originally Posted by Kallera

Doesn't cut into the worth of a dps then? If the other roles have jobs that can do damage comparable to a dps job, well that sounds like a good idea for people tired of dps players.

Why do these threads always end up the same way?

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Because people hate having others do their job for them. Or perhaps because people hate DPS classes, and only deal with them because theyhave to.

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Originally Posted by Kallera

Doesn't cut into the worth of a dps then? If the other roles have jobs that can do damage comparable to a dps job, well that sounds like a good idea for people tired of dps players.

Why do these threads always end up the same way?

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I say we should save our replies and just copypasta everything over and over again whenever the subject comes up.

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Originally Posted by Judge_Xero

Just wanted to come in and ask that, how does fulfilling your role as a healer by not letting people die while dishing out as much DPS as you can, not make you a better player than someone who just keeps everyone alive? (You are right that it does not make you a better healer though, so that I can agree with)

Then you go to state that it increases the likelihood of error, and yet if that healer continues to perform their required task (keeping everyone alive) plus any additional tasks (DPS) then that would definitely mean they are a better player.

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It doesn't make them a better player because they're unnecessarily making the run harder on the rest of their team, and increasing the chances of a wipe. Sure, if the rest of the team are all great players and on the top of their game and nothing goes wrong, then they can often survive in spite of that healer, but that's not something for healers to be congratulating themselves so much on.

By doing the minimum healing necessary, and keeping them just above the KO point except when you expect major incoming damage, you're removing the safety net. If the tank is at 20% health, and that's fine with you because nothing he's likely to get hit by soon does more damage than that, but then he mis-judges a dodge, or gets a sudden lag spike, or whatever, and takes some hits that he wasn't expected to take, then all of a sudden you have a dead tank. If you'd been keeping him at 90% and those same unexpected problems came up, maybe they'd just knock him down from 90% to 50% where you could readily take care of it and the run would continue on smoothly without interruption.

Most of the time a safety net isn't needed, and you can manage a lot of clears even without it. And when it is needed is when something else went wrong, so you can always try and just blame the result on whatever that "something else" was. But if you'd done any less than you could have to protect your team from things going wrong, then the truth is that you're partly to blame for the results of anything in the run going wrong. Your job as a healer, or indeed as a member of a party, is to protect the rest of the team and do your best to ensure its success. As a healer, that generally means that when there is any healing or buffing you could do that would in any way increase the resilience of your teammates or yourself, then that's what you should be doing. There are occasional exceptions, of course, like when a bit of extra DPS would help with clearing a mechanic. After all, clearing mechanics can be more important to the team's safety than an extra buff. But for the most part, DPS is just a way of filling in down time when you'd otherwise have nothing productive to do.

And sure, some people like the challenge of playing without a safety net. It forces them to either be at their best or die, which can be exciting. But in spite of many people liking that extra difficulty, when discussing how good of a player someone is, it's generally about how well they can make the run go rather than about how difficult they can make the run.

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

By doing the minimum healing necessary, and keeping them just above the KO point except when you expect major incoming damage, you're removing the safety net. If the tank is at 20% health, and that's fine with you because nothing he's likely to get hit by soon does more damage than that, but then he mis-judges a dodge, or gets a sudden lag spike, or whatever, and takes some hits that he wasn't expected to take, then all of a sudden you have a dead tank. If you'd been keeping him at 90% and those same unexpected problems came up, maybe they'd just knock him down from 90% to 50% where you could readily take care of it and the run would continue on smoothly without interruption.
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Again, we are not saying to keep the tank at 20%, we are saying to let him drop down that much. There is no reason to just let him sit at 20%, but there is also no reason to cure him when he is at 90%.

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

And sure, some people like the challenge of playing without a safety net. It forces them to either be at their best or die, which can be exciting. But in spite of many people liking that extra difficulty, when discussing how good of a player someone is, it's generally about how well they can make the run go rather than about how difficult they can make the run.

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That is precisely what we are saying. A healer dishing out DPS will make a run go more well, and less difficult.

I would never want to imply to anyone that I party with that it is ok to stand in fire. Thus by removing that safety net I give them the proper message on what I expect as a healer.

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It is also very interesting that all the job story lines tell you how the Dev team envisioned it's play style. If you didn't get the notion from the Healer stories that killing things in within your capability then I'm not sure what to say.

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Not to mention that healers have always had some level of offensive abilities in the FF Universe.

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

snip.

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Okay, here's my response and you kinda just repeated things and said them long-winded, so I'll just sum it up.

Letting the tank dip to 20% while dpsing and then healing him to 100% IS keeping a safety net. A good healer assesses the rate at which their health is falling and how much "time" they have before the safety net is insufficient each and every time they commit to another DPS spell. If the tank is good, their health drains at a steady rate. If they take shock damage from failing a mechanic or standing in an AoE, in your situation that's the healer's fault for not "anticipating unexpected" damage.Meaning I should expect my tank to eat AoEs and babysit them? I will do that if necessary, although I CERTAINLY don't expect to and I will ABSOLUTELY tell the tank that it was their fault if they attempt to use your reasoning and blame it on me. It's not automatically the healer's fault if someone dies/there's a wipe. There are four people on a team, sometimes other people screw up. Why does the healer have to take the fall? If a healer lets the tank drop and then heals them to full without dying the only person who's job is "harder" is the healer's. They are in NO way making the run more difficult. In fact, they are making the trash die faster = better run = good player, by your logic.

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Originally Posted by Judge_Xero

It is also very interesting that all the job story lines tell you how the Dev team envisioned it's play style. If you didn't get the notion from the Healer stories that killing things in within your capability then I'm not sure what to say.

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Not to mention that healers have always had some level of offensive abilities in the FF Universe.

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https://600games.files.wordpress.com...315_223943.jpg

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Originally Posted by Iagainsti

image

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While cute and funny, not really applicable in FFXIV where a good SCH can pull 75%-100% of the actual DPS in a dungeon with little healing requirement

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Originally Posted by KaitlanKela

While cute and funny, not really applicable in FFXIV where a good SCH can pull 75%-100% of the actual DPS in a dungeon with little healing requirement

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Healers OP PLZ nerf.

/sarcasm

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Originally Posted by Thunda_Cat_SMASH

Healers OP PLZ nerf.

/sarcasm

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Lolol at that. Good one.

Healer's don't need a nerf, dungeons need a buff, am I right? I would have no problem at all focus healing through a dungeon that required it of me. I'd love it. :)

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Originally Posted by KaitlanKela

Lolol at that. Good one.

Healer's don't need a nerf, dungeons need a buff, am I right? I would have no problem at all focus healing through a dungeon that required it of me. I'd love it. :)

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The dungeons could use more things that encourage tanks to be...tankier, and healers to...well...heal more within reason. One thing I've always noticed is that auto attack damage from bosses is an absolute joke and incoming tank damage is always spiky rather than consistent.

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Originally Posted by KaitlanKela

Lolol at that. Good one.

Healer's don't need a nerf, dungeons need a buff, am I right? I would have no problem at all focus healing through a dungeon that required it of me. I'd love it. :)

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I completely agree.
I'd like to see Dungeons get a major buff, so that outgoing damage is substantial.
I'd like to see mechanics that make damage dealers use their utility skills.
I'd like to see healer damage remain roughly the same as it s now
I'd like to see tank damage remain roughly the same (PLD buff)
I'd like to see DPS get a major buff to their damage output

Those last 3 would effectively nerf damage on healers/tanks without actually nerfing them. Personally, I find it ridiculous that when I do an A1S run, the 2nd top DPS in my party is a Warrior who main tanked the entire run. If the DPS are not able to out-damage the warrior, the run shouldn't be clearable.

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Originally Posted by KaitlanKela

While cute and funny, not really applicable in FFXIV where a good SCH can pull 75%-100% of the actual DPS in a dungeon with little healing requirement

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Also not applicable due to HARM only being effective against Undead but still applying to my previous point of being an offensive spell.

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Originally Posted by Judge_Xero

Also not applicable due to HARM only being effective against Undead but still applying to my previous point of being an offensive spell.

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Lol, sorry best I could find. Guess I'll have to go look, dig my NES out of the garage if I still have it, and pop in FF1, start a new game, use harm on ghouls.

Anyway the true intention of the pic was a reference to, and I quote, "..healers have always had some level of offensive abilities...".

Ps- Harm2 was badass, especially utilizing the glitched squares north of the town you get your ship to power level vs. Zombie Minotaurs

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Originally Posted by Iagainsti

Lol, sorry best I could find.

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Awww sorry. My bad for seeing "Ineffective" and immediately frothing at the mouth. I must admit that my keyboard did not survive my last post. (Now typing from my phone).

Cheers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVJz-7nMSEs

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Originally Posted by KaitlanKela

I will do that if necessary, although I CERTAINLY don't expect to and I will ABSOLUTELY tell the tank that it was their fault if they attempt to use your reasoning and blame it on me. It's not automatically the healer's fault if someone dies/there's a wipe. There are four people on a team, sometimes other people screw up. Why does the healer have to take the fall?

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If you could have prevented a problem and chose not to, then the consequences of that problem are at least partially on you. It may be on others as well, if they also could have prevented the problem, but that doesn't take away your own part of the situation, and it's the healer's effectiveness that's under discussion in this thread. The most effective healer is the one who can keep everyone up even when everything goes south, not the one who can generally keep everyone up, but only so long as nothing goes wrong.

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Originally Posted by KaitlanKela

If they take shock damage from failing a mechanic or standing in an AoE, in your situation that's the healer's fault for not "anticipating unexpected" damage. Meaning I should expect my tank to eat AoEs and babysit them?

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Expecting it would be a stretch, but knowing there's a possibility it could happen and so preparing for it, doing whatever you can to prevent it from causing a problem, would certainly help to increase the chances for a successful run.

Whether that fact translates into meaning that you *should* babysit them depends on how important that effectiveness is to you. A lot of the content in this game is simple enough that you don't really need to be at your best all the time. So if you like the excitement of a more aggressive and dangerous playstyle instead, you can usually get along just fine with that. As long as the rest of your team is ok with it, there's nothing wrong with choosing excitement over effectiveness. (I play that way myself sometimes.) Just don't go around pretending it makes you a better player.

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

If you could have prevented a problem and chose not to, then the consequences of that problem are at least partially on you. It may be on others as well, if they also could have prevented the problem, but that doesn't take away your own part of the situation, and it's the healer's effectiveness that's under discussion in this thread. The most effective healer is the one who can keep everyone up even when everything goes south, not the one who can generally keep everyone up, but only so long as nothing goes wrong.

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I completely disagree with this mentality. It's not how we act in real life and it shouldn't be how we act in-game. That said, a great healer will sometimes be able to also keep a party from wiping when everyone else fails. It's great as a Ninja that you are able to so easily pass off the burden of a parties success on another player. That is very commendable.

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Originally Posted by Kaurie

It's great as a Ninja that you are able to so easily pass off the burden of a parties success on another player. That is very commendable.

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I've done no such thing. This thread is discussing how a healer can be most effective, so we're looking at what a healer can do. We haven't addressed what other jobs can do well or badly, because that would be too off-topic for the thread. There's just as much blame there when they do badly (as I said in that part you quoted in fact), but their blame doesn't affect the healer's.

(Besides, though Ninja's my main as near as I have one, White Mage is the one I've been leveling lately, so it's the one I'm currently focused on bettering.)

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Originally Posted by KaitlanKela

While cute and funny, not really applicable in FFXIV where a good SCH can pull 75%-100% of the actual DPS in a dungeon with little healing requirement

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lol, true that. but why even go with a dedicated healer class? Send in a combination of 4 Summoners and Arcanists with Titan or Topaz pets, the only healing that will be needed is of the Pets and you can max out on your DoTs....

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Originally Posted by KaitlanKela

While cute and funny, not really applicable in FFXIV where a good SCH can pull 75%-100% of the actual DPS in a dungeon with little healing requirement

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Jokes on you, that "little healing requirement" isn't even there because of your fairy.

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

there's nothing wrong with choosing excitement over effectiveness. (I play that way myself quite often.) Just don't go around pretending it makes you a better player.

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Except that players playing "agressive and dangerous" are choosing effectiveness, and it does make them better players, period. period. period. On a side note, I can't remember the last time that I let a tank die for using my DPS skills, even if they were noob or new.

You can keep coming with wall of texts, it will not change, the obvious will not change. Whats your next step? pull a biblical text and do an analysis using hermeneutics to try to justify bad players? You can do that, but keep in mind that you are doing a disservice to the community, you are INCREASING toxicity. it's already has been proved by Riot Games that if players know that they have room for improvement, they will behave better, you can see this clearly in any MOBA ranked system, how?


In low ranking matches (I.E. bronze), there will have much more toxicity, because when something go wrong, most players will imediatelly blame their team mates, why? They think they are already perfect, they don't have room for improvement, so the fault MUST be from someone else, so they start blaming and calling names, and they will be in bronze forever, because they don't try to improve.

Meanwhile in higher ranking matches (I.E. Diamond), usually there will be LESS toxicity, because most players have the mentality that they can improve, when something go wrong, instead of blaming their team mates imediatelly, they think "What could I have done to prevent this?".

A player standing around doing nothing is already perfect, its the best and a better player, ofc. You are encouraging the "bronze" mentality.

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Originally Posted by Eothas

A player standing around doing nothing is already perfect, its the best and a better player, ofc. You are encouraging the "bronze" mentality.

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I've never condoned standing around doing nothing, only that doing the most effective stuff > doing other less effective stuff. The only difference between me and Kaitlan in that regard, is in what we consider to be the most effective stuff. I define "most effective" as being "most likely to lead to a successful run" and she defines "most effective" as being "fastest". Since the game rewards success and does not reward speed, I think mine's a more accurate way of measuring effectiveness.

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

I've done no such thing. This thread is discussing how a healer can be most effective, so we're looking at what a healer can do. We haven't addressed what other jobs can do well or badly, because that would be too off-topic for the thread. There's just as much blame there when they do badly (as I said in that part you quoted in fact), but their blame doesn't affect the healer's.

(Besides, though Ninja's my main as near as I have one, White Mage is the one I've been leveling lately, so it's the one I'm currently focused on bettering.)

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You stated that if a DPS messes up and causes a wipe, the healer is at least in part to blame for not picking up the slack. This is a very poor mentality and a way to pass off the burden of a parties success. To clarify this point, I was not saying you were saying the DPS is not to blame, but you are passing off some of that burden to the healer when it shouldn't be. I'm sorry if this wasn't clear.

The thread is focusing on a healer can be most effective, and that is when the healer contributes DPS as well as heals the party. The way you can do this is by being efficient and managing your resources, knowing the fight and knowing how your tank takes damage. You adapt on the fly and heal them accordingly. This isn't hard in the slightest. I have healed for approximately 1300 hours of game time and rarely seen a wipe in a dungeon - I can think of one time I did DPS and the tank insta died. I adapted after this event. Some people may not have the ability to adapt, they are less skilled players and they play the best they can. I don't argue against this, and think it is right for them to not DPS. That said, they are worse players. It's just a fact.

Allow me to elaborate on a few points here:

Effectiveness
Definition: the degree to which something is successful in producing a desired result; success.
Definition applied in an FFXIV context: the degree to which a duty is successful in producing a desired result; success.
Once can interpret degree in a few ways. I would say that we have 2 main ones here: a) duty is completed/not completed and b) the time it takes to complete. As degree is generally a word of scale, I would tend to think b) is more appropriate. Further, the term effectiveness is also a term of scale.
Therefore, a more effective party is one which completes the duties in a more timely manner, and a less effective party is one who fails to complete a duty or completes it more slowly.

Better
Definition: comparative of good and well.
As good and well in terms of this conversation is completely subjective, it is based on the criteria we set forth.
As I mentioned in another post, we come from a capitalist economy, which generally considers progress and productivity to be better than the opposite. In this case, completing a dungeon in a faster time (more reward/time) is better. This also fits in with the above, it is better to be more effective. Finally, I would say that it is better to be able to use all of the skills and abilities given to you to maximize your effectiveness.

Therefore a better player is one who is more effective is one who completes the duties in a more timely manner. A worse player is one who fails at these things.

All of that said, better is completely subjective and you clearly disagree. To me, that makes little sense.

Anyway, we've had many back and forths and I have written you walls of text that you completely ignored. I am pretty done with this conversation now and am exiting under the impression that you are a terrible player.

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

No it isn't. The burden of a party's success is on the entire party, always. Blame isn't something that can be "passed off". The blame that falls on one person for a failure doesn't impact the blame on another player. You keep acting as though it were impossible for more than one player to screw up at a time. If a tank's hp are way down and they die from standing in an AoE, then the blame for standing in the AoE is on on the tank and the blame for their hp being low enough that it would kill them is on the healer. Both of those things together led to the tank's death, so both players are to blame for it. The healer's fault doesn't diminish the tank's fault in any way.

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I know I said i was out (and I actually should be, forum limit yay.)

Out of curiousity, if you and I partnered together, and for random reasons I decided not to heal you for the dungeon. Then you died repeatedly and we weren't able to meet any DPS checks. Would the failure of this be in part yours to blame, as the parties success is a team endeavour, or would it be 100% mine because I was stubbornly refusing to heal?

As for your 2nd part. I am not acting like it's impossible for multiple people to screw up. I mentioned that some healers may not be as skillful, and it's likely better for them to focus on healing as they may not be able to handle emergency situations as well.

Regardless of all of this, I feel that we may both be taking each others words to the hyperbolic extremes in order to prove our own points. This has become an extremely stupid argument. We're not swaying any opinions here. I'll just continue to play well, roll my eyes at horrible players, and queue in to expert with friends when I can. You can continue to do whatever you are doing.

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Originally Posted by Alahra

I don't think anyone would necessarily argue against that.

But I have a question that's tangentially related: given two healers, both of whom DPS to some degree, one of whom focuses too much on DPS, resulting in say, a wipe in one out of every few dungeon runs (costing the time it takes to get the group moving again), and the other of whom is more cautious, DPSing less (causing lost time due to their lower DPS) but not typically having wipes in their dungeons, which healer do you think is "better?"

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Clearly the 2nd is better, as I believe most people advocating that Healers DPS have been alluding too.

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Originally Posted by Alahra

Most healers I've encountered don't really fit neatly into a "never DPS" box or an "always DPSes to the fullest with never a wipe" box. They're somewhere in the middle, and and the ones in the middle can lean toward risk or caution. Which do you think is better? Risk, or caution? In a perfect world, yes, every healer would DPS with every unused ounce of time they have, but FFXIV's Duty Finder is far from a perfect world in my experience.

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I guess I have never thought about Risk vs Caution, I simply DPS and heal when required. I do this while trying to manage my MP. I know that as I am learning a dungeon or encounter, I will DPS less and slowly DPS more each time until I have hit my personal maximum potential.

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

Since the game rewards success and does not reward speed, I think mine's a more accurate way of measuring effectiveness.

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Could argue then that while you're finishing your run they are already away on and starting another run or roulette, therefor increasing effectiveness.

The game doesnt need to give you any item/tomes for it to reward speed. It automatically does by you finishing before less efficient people and doing other stuff while they are behind still.

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Originally Posted by Kaurie

You stated that if a DPS messes up and causes a wipe, the healer is at least in part to blame for not picking up the slack. This is a very poor mentality and a way to pass off the burden of a parties success.

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No it isn't. The burden of a party's success is on the entire party, always. Blame isn't something that can be "passed off". The blame that falls on one person for a failure doesn't impact the blame on another player. You keep acting as though it were impossible for more than one player to screw up at a time. If a tank's hp are way down and they die from standing in an AoE, then the blame for standing in the AoE is on on the tank and the blame for their hp being low enough that it would kill them is on the healer. Both of those things together led to the tank's death, so both players are to blame for it. The healer's fault doesn't diminish the tank's fault in any way.

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Originally Posted by Kaurie

Some people may not have the ability to adapt, they are less skilled players and they play the best they can. I don't argue against this, and think it is right for them to not DPS. That said, they are worse players. It's just a fact.

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I don't think anyone would necessarily argue against that.

But I have a question that's tangentially related: given two healers, both of whom DPS to some degree, one of whom focuses too much on DPS, resulting in say, a wipe in one out of every few dungeon runs (costing the time it takes to get the group moving again), and the other of whom is more cautious, DPSing less (causing lost time due to their lower DPS) but not typically having wipes in their dungeons, which healer do you think is "better?"

Most healers I've encountered don't really fit neatly into a "never DPS" box or an "always DPSes to the fullest with never a wipe" box. They're somewhere in the middle, and and the ones in the middle can lean toward risk or caution. Which do you think is better? Risk, or caution? In a perfect world, yes, every healer would DPS with every unused ounce of time they have, but FFXIV's Duty Finder is far from a perfect world in my experience.

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Originally Posted by Andrea

.The game doesnt need to give you any item/tomes for it to reward speed. It automatically does by you finishing before less efficient people and doing other stuff while they are behind still.

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While this is true, dpsing as a healer always carries with it some form of risk. A wipe will always cause several minutes of lost time, which is infinitely more likely to happen with a healer that focuses on dps rather than a healer that focuses on healing with occasional DPS. On average, I'd say most dpsing healers see a wipe at least once an hour due to circumstances not entirely out of their own control.

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

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Originally Posted by Alahra

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replied to you by editing my last post due to the 24 hour forum post limit.

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Originally Posted by Kaurie

Clearly the 2nd is better, as I believe most people advocating that Healers DPS have been alluding too.

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I think that's part of the issue with these discussions (similar things happen in discussions regarding tank DPS, too): this is often understood to be the case by those arguing for more DPS, but it's often lost in how heated the discussions become, and it leads to players believing that if they aren't DPSing for some particular period of time that they're bad—or framed differently, it pushes less savvy players to take on too much risk at the expense of proper caution.

The increased emphasis on DPS cultivated by Heavensward has, honestly, made Duty Finder an absolute nightmare at times, as Duty Finder is invariably a place to exercise caution (at least until you're familiar with the capabilities of the unknowns that have been assigned to your group), but the "proper" way to play is to lean toward risk. Granted, I most often see the worst behavior in this regard from tanks (I swear, if I have to heal one more "never-uses-a-cooldown" STR tank...), but healers have a similar trade-off between risk and caution (it's just that theirs is more forgiving since it's based less on gear choice and more on proper ability usage, something that can be adjusted in situ the way it can't be for tank accessories).

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Originally Posted by Kaurie

I guess I have never thought about Risk vs Caution, I simply DPS and heal when required. I do this while trying to manage my MP. I know that as I am learning a dungeon or encounter, I will DPS less and slowly DPS more each time until I have hit my personal maximum potential.

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A lot of healers (and tanks) honestly don't in my experience. Even when players take care to express the need to become comfortable with content before DPSing on the forums, that message can get lost as it transmits through the various echelons of the playerbase in the game itself, in part because most of the game doesn't really have a tradeoff between risk and caution, so players tend to expect that there is one "right" way to play, when it's not necessarily that simple.

It's easy for it to happen, too. It's easiest to illustrate (again) using tanks as an example: a new tank asks their FC, "Which is better for tanks, VIT or STR?" and they receive a simple, but basically true, answer of "STR is better." But a fresh tank, who isn't familiar with any of the level 60 dungeons, might actually want to use at least some VIT until they're over a certain HP threshold, or while they're learning the content, and so on. HW leveling dungeons are also tuned (it seems, from running them countless times) with higher tank damage, making VIT more useful (especially for newer tanks). But in my experience, the nuance doesn't often get expressed in the game itself (and most people get their information not from the forums but from people they know in the game).

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

If you could have prevented a problem and chose not to, then the consequences of that problem are at least partially on you. It may be on others as well, if they also could have prevented the problem, but that doesn't take away your own part of the situation, and it's the healer's effectiveness that's under discussion in this thread. The most effective healer is the one who can keep everyone up even when everything goes south, not the one who can generally keep everyone up, but only so long as nothing goes wrong.

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Totally wrong, we can even say then that we always need to save the Limit Break for the heal, cuz we never know what happens...

Out of all the mmo's i've played. This is the only one where it seems that healers get a lot of hate for doing something that really isn't meant for their roles. (It's a healer, not a DPS). Just worry about the healer keeping you alive, that's our job. Nothing more, if we wan't to DPS, we can. If we don't, then we truly don't have to. And no, that does not make the healer a lazy person. A lazy healer would be like a sch that goes afk letting their fairy heal the entire run while they have themselves set to follow someone. I'm just going to say this, if people want a healer to dps so badly, then roll a healer and do it yourself. If you don't want to..then why on earth are you forcing a healer to do something that even you don't want to do? It's interesting, people are going like the dps from a healer will determine if the party survives or not. If it does, I hate to say it. But the DPS is severely lacking.

I do it when I see opportunities. Presence of Mind in tandem with it is great when you know the dungeon and whatnot so you can dole out some quick DPS that isn't just DoTs and it's CD isn't so bad.

Much of it's anticipating what will happen next. I like to get a feel as to what kind of people I'll be dealing with when put in a random group so I don't start right off the bat with my DPSing. Much of it's predictive.

But in a group that has bad DPS overall, a WHM isn't going to suddenly change the tides that much is certain.

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Originally Posted by Seoulstar

Out of all the mmo's i've played. This is the only one where it seems that healers get a lot of hate for doing something that really isn't meant for their roles. (It's a healer, not a DPS). Just worry about the healer keeping you alive, that's our job. Nothing more, if we wan't to DPS, we can. If we don't, then we truly don't have to. And no, that does not make the healer a lazy person. A lazy healer would be like a sch that goes afk letting their fairy heal the entire run while they have themselves set to follow someone. I'm just going to say this, if people want a healer to dps so badly, then roll a healer and do it yourself. If you don't want to..then why on earth are you forcing a healer to do something that even you don't want to do? It's interesting, people are going like the dps from a healer will determine if the party survives or not. If it does, I hate to say it. But the DPS is severely lacking.

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If you can do something to aid the group, but you won't do it because it's not your "job" you are indeed lazy. As a monk/drg my role is to dps as hard as I can, yet whenever I quee ravana ex I end up tanking the blinding blade with the mt to help since most ot's have no idea what blinding blade is. According to your logic, I should dps the manipulator in a4 and ignore the orbs, because tanking those is not my job.

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Originally Posted by Kaurie

Effectiveness
Definition : the degree to which something is successful in producing a desired result; success.
Once can interpret degree in a few ways. I would say that we have 2 main ones here: a) duty is completed/not completed and b) the time it takes to complete.

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That might be true if both of those were standard goals. For example, if a duty gave a base number of tomes just for completion, but then increased that in varying percentages according to how fast you finished, then I could agree with you. It doesn't. The biggest rewards in a duty generally comes from completing it. Other rewards come from killing mobs within it and opening loot chests. Bonuses that add to the completion reward can come from a variety of sources depending on the circumstances (roulette rewards, new player bonus, quests or other tasks that can be advanced by the duty, to name a few). But none of those things are time related.

Now it's certainly true that many players like to go fast, and make that an additional personal goal. That's perfectly fine. It's also perfectly fine to tune your playstyle towards your own personal goals rather than just the standard ones. The only part that's not fine is when you start saying that other players can only be good by tuning their playstyle towards meeting your made-up goals which they likely don't even share.

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Originally Posted by Kaurie

As degree is generally a word of scale, I would tend to think b) is more appropriate.

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Either can be scaled. When talking about a yes/no condition like whether the run succeeds, scaling it becomes a matter of looking at likelihoods. If skill A will increase the likelihood of success more than skill B, then skill A is more effective.

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Originally Posted by Kaurie

As I mentioned in another post, we come from a capitalist economy, which generally considers progress and productivity to be better than the opposite. In this case, completing a dungeon in a faster time (more reward/time) is better.

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Faster isn't better just because you keep saying so. The capitalist argument would only go as far as indicating that maximizing your rewards is better. But see my first paragraph above. Time does not affect your rewards.

The reason time usually gets incorporated into productivity in the real world is because of income/expense ratios. Lots of expenses keep recurring in time based intervals. Every month, you need to earn enough to cover a month's rent, a month's worth of food, a month's worth of utility bills, and so on. That's why the amount you can earn in a given period of time has a significance beyond just the amount you can earn for a given activity. But none of that applies in-game, because the game doesn't have time-based expenses. With no time based rewards and no time based expenses, time is simply not a factor in your in-game productivity.

Sure, if you finish a run fast, you can start another run afterwards. But if you finish it slower, you can still start another run afterwards. There's no difference there. The dungeons aren't going anywhere. In fact, the only content in the game that ever goes away is festival quests, and those aren't repeatable anyway.

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Originally Posted by RickXRolled

If you can do something to aid the group, but you won't do it because it's not your "job" you are indeed lazy. As a monk/drg my role is to dps as hard as I can, yet whenever I quee ravana ex I end up tanking the blinding blade with the mt to help since most ot's have no idea what blinding blade is. According to your logic, I should dps the manipulator in a4 and ignore the orbs, because tanking those is not my job.

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I think we both have different opinions as to what is and what isn't lazy. Anyways, as I've stated. If you want a healer to dps so badly, roll a healer and do it yourself.

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Originally Posted by Seoulstar

I think we both have different opinions as to what is and what isn't lazy. Anyways, as I've stated. If you want a healer to dps so badly, roll a healer and do it yourself.

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Been doing that since 2.0.