When did this become a trend?

@technole

What is the first most difficult savage healing?

Midas Savage. Although Gordias is pretty darn close.

A few things stand out. It was the first time they ever nerfed a heal check mechanic, in A6S in the middle of the patch. The healing needed from the Brawler orb damage is impossible if you didn't coordinate the orb stun. Overall I think they did it just to eliminate the frustration from constant progression wipes, and shaving 200k off of Vortexer was probably the most serious in helping push through.

Darkness damage. It's all over the place from bio to j-kicks and Arcanist Virus is useless for it. Astrologian was pretty darn good in this area with Disable/CU support. We came from it all over the place in Midas Savage to just one mechanic in Creator Savage having it.

Highwire boss damage up stacks. Two or more deaths in A7S just makes it practically a wipe. Same with A8S pretty much with BJ. More groups used tank LB for J-kick progression because the timing of the mitigation needed.

Then of course everyone wanted to avoid the waterspout damage in A8S because of the positioning, healing and damage loss. So saccing the DPS to it was just easier. It's amazing they didn't let this become an automatic wipe like A6S if the player with water dies.

Oh interesting, I took a break during Midas so I am not sure how they compared to Gordias.

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Originally Posted by Thunda_Cat_SMASH

This is correct. And except for tank busters, the damage that tanks took were so low that healers could effectively DPS with impunity

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This is very much incorrect. I think you've mentioned you haven't actually raided Alexander, so why would you claim something like this without any personal experience? Gordias required a lot from healers also in terms of healing when it came out, in fact much more than any other previous raid (perhaps excluding Savage Coil since I didn't do that one). I remember preys + tank busters being difficult in A1, but also the adds and group-wide AoEs. In A2 there were some very difficult waves (we had trouble with especially the last one and the one after the dolls) and A3 was just a nightmare in its entirety. A4S we didn't beat when it was current (only got to the last phase), but that wasn't a piece of cake either even when we were progressing in it at the end of the raid cycle.

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

Also, please do not blame poor performance of a healer on DPS / Cleric Stance. It's a method to optimize as a healer and the pinnacle of healer performance is making full use of their tool kit in an optimal manner.

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It is when you have one healer that refuses to get out of CS due to "my deeps". That is absolutely poor performance due to healer DPS and letting the party die because of it. I've had this happen more times than I can count in A11 and 12.

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Originally Posted by Seraphyna

It is when you have one healer that refuses to get out of CS due to "my deeps". That is absolutely poor performance due to healer DPS and letting the party die because of it. I've had this happen more times than I can count in A11 and 12.

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More than you can count? Wow your healers seem to be very bad then.

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Originally Posted by Seraphyna

It is when you have one healer that refuses to get out of CS due to "my deeps". That is absolutely poor performance due to healer DPS and letting the party die because of it. I've had this happen more times than I can count in A11 and 12.

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Of course it's bad play to refuse to heal when you should (and it is also bad play to refuse DPS when you should, although the latter is less likely lead to group members dying). No one has said it isn't. But claiming that promoting effective and skillful healer play through the use of all healer abilitys encourages this sort of bad play is a stretch.

Also, I have personally never seen this happen in A11 or A12 and have run them enough to gear 3 jobs, mostly on DPS classes. Not saying you're lying, but you really seem to have had awful luck.

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Originally Posted by Seraphyna

It is when you have one healer that refuses to get out of CS due to "my deeps". That is absolutely poor performance due to healer DPS and letting the party die because of it. I've had this happen more times than I can count in A11 and 12.

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A healer who thinks their primary purpose is to DPS should just play a DPS. So, blame the healer's performance and mentality, not the tool.

You won't even notice the best healer's in the game because they'll know when to toggle in and out of cleric stance for maximum up time while doing their primary duty. But you'll certainly notice the worst, regardless if they use or don't use Cleric Stance - I've had my fair share of DPS-only healers and my fair share of healers that stand there until you die.

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Originally Posted by Taika

But claiming that promoting effective and skillful healer play through the use of all healer abilitys encourages this sort of bad play is a stretch.

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The vast majority of healers I've seen that demand the tank sit in tank stance when the extra enmity and mitigation is meaningless have always been CS focused healers, in my experience. Healers that are focused on healing have no difficulties handling mechanics and keeping the party standing, but even with a proper CD rotation, many CS healers I've seen have demanded pointless excessive tank stance uptime.

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Originally Posted by Thunda_Cat_SMASH

The vast majority of healers I've seen that demand the tank sit in tank stance when the extra enmity and mitigation is meaningless have always been CS focused healers, in my experience. Healers that are focused on healing have no difficulties handling mechanics and keeping the party standing, but even with a proper CD rotation, many CS healers I've seen have demanded pointless excessive tank stance uptime.

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My experience is complete opposite and you can see all the best groups with high DPS healers also having their tanks in DPS stance.

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Originally Posted by Taika

My experience is complete opposite and you can see all the best groups with high DPS healers also having their tanks in DPS stance.

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Adding my two cents here that I feel the same, and I've been doing a rather large part of my EXDRs on MCH since it's currently my best ilvl job.

The only recent time where I've seen a wipe was when a tank decided to pull excessively with a SCH who I could wasn't too comfortable with the role given their gear (they were using a PvP book >>; .... ) and how they handled themselves. I was going to make it known to the tank to bugger off if they made a scene after the wipe but they thankfully remained silent and decided to pull less on the follow up.

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Originally Posted by Thunda_Cat_SMASH

The vast majority of healers I've seen that demand the tank sit in tank stance when the extra enmity and mitigation is meaningless have always been CS focused healers, in my experience. Healers that are focused on healing have no difficulties handling mechanics and keeping the party standing, but even with a proper CD rotation, many CS healers I've seen have demanded pointless excessive tank stance uptime.

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Put simply, those healers need to "git gud." I actually got a touch annoyed because a friend of mine kept trying to insist I put on Grit during A9 because she wanted to lazy heal. I flat out told her no, I have cooldowns for a reason. If the tank is properly holding aggro and rotating cooldowns, then they've done their job correctly. Any healer whining about it is at fault. The one exception I'll grant is if DPS are dying or something else unexpected happens. Occasionally, I swap back into my tank stance just to ease the sudden heal stress since people are screwing up. But assuming a decent run? Yeah, no. You don't try to force other people to play their job wrong because you want to be lazy.

I caused an A12N wipe the other day, as I was so wired to the idea of going into timegate and the other healer went in as well.

For those that don't know in A12 Savage, it requires one healer to go into the SE gate, toss some DoTs, the add does a lot of damage and you have to heal through it until DPS come by to help. So when I do normal I just go in without thinking about it, the other healer never goes in. It frees up a DPS to stay outside to get the kill quicker, and its just a simple tank buster to heal though. Of course, someone made a comment about healers thinking they are DPS, and I immediately thought of this thread. I should have known better, considering the other healer was playing cleric stance chicken. But I explained as-above how wired I was and being used to the savage way, and no one said anything. I mean I have the Alex weapon so I wasn't lying. Next pull we ended up both staying out.

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Originally Posted by Taika

My experience is complete opposite and you can see all the best groups with high DPS healers also having their tanks in DPS stance.

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Yep, and the fastest savage kills involve practically no tank stance at-all because of good cool down management by both tanks and healers, freeing up both roles to DPS a lot more.

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Originally Posted by Culfinrandir

It's what happens when everyone insists that DPS is the pinnacle of game play & healing comes second.

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You have no idea what you're talking about tbh. I DPS through 90% of that fight (Whispering Dawn ftw), and know to shield and Lustrate the preyed DPS. I stopped running A11 a loong time ago because I have no use for it, but back when I did I'd always get co-healers who wouldn't DPS and just stand there, and I'd always be the only one taking care of the prey, which is no problem at all, really, since the fight is easily solo-healable if the group isn't absolute crap. Sometimes the aforementioned DPS would run towards me and kill me because lol DF, and the other healer wouldn't take care of them either, so we'd both die.

It is not a matter of people DPSing more than healing. It is a matter of people being bad at the game and not knowing how to heal a fight. And I guarantee you that healers that don't DPS fit that description like a glove.

i've noticed it happen in at least 40% of the runs i've done, since release until now. it's just one of the few healing checks in the casual portion of this game, and people struggle with it, in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Thunda_Cat_SMASH

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We all already know that you want healers only healing so they can spam heals on you while you sit in DPS stance as a tank all day long without using appropriate cooldowns. (This is the only way it would make sense because with proper cooldown usage a healer can still DPS when a Tank is in DPS stance) Sorry that you are clueless about how this game works and efficiency. I do hope, one day, someone is able to get through to you and passed your blind ignorance and stubbornness.

Also, just as an aside, I have never run any savage but I do do research and listen to those who have, and watch videos on them. I also play the game and understand how most kits work so I can theorycraft quite a bit. People arguing that Healing has been low in most savages, so healers are somehow "lazy" and DPS a lot (oxymoron), and that Healer DPS in savages is a "new thing" in Heavensward are clueless.

so i went back into A11 to try out some of the tips i saw here and i now understand the frustration of the OP's post. After just checking the party list during that time it's literally a non-issue to keep them alive. i did have one run where a dps almost killed me with it though, but that was only once tonight.

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Originally Posted by Thunda_Cat_SMASH

From what I've been reading on the forums though, that's exactly what is being suggested though, that any healer that heals first and dpses second should move to a different game.

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Taking out of context.

I AB HoT when I see the prey mark, and have ED ready for the one I'm not B2ing. Then again, I usually just Monk that fight.

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Originally Posted by Taika

As already said by others, I see way more ignoring prey from "I'm here to only heal" healers than from the healers who are actively using their whole tool kit.

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Also this.

Wiped twice in my weekly A12S on account of healers who frequently left me, the MT, at sub-20% HP (for as long as I could hold out on Grit DA-SE and then LD alone, so some 10-18 seconds at a time), letting marked targets die, and failing to stack. When I asked why they weren't using their toolkits (refering to AoEs and HoTs), they responded with "we only heal".
I healed it for the first time, actually using HoTs and spending the majority of the time dpsing (my SCH cohealer only DPSing apart from EoS WD), and no one dropped below 40% even once. /shrug

One of the reasons this is happening to you op, is that most casual content doesn't involve preys let alone this kind of burst dmg you see in wiping city or A11N. This means many inexpierenced healers, whether they play healer just for fun or trying to main healer, but are still new, are probably suprised by the dmg of the attack and maybe some of them start to think that is not possible to heal and stop trying to do so. Others are probably just not aware of the attack, cause they usually don't play healer and focus on other stuff.

This can be annoying as runs taking 3 times as long, because of the dd are or tanks that pull everything and do no use cd, but lets remind ourselfs that this game lends itself to try other classes more easily than other games. Just tell them in a nice way, what they could do better, because only then people can improve.

I'll be honest, I haven't run A11 much (Burnout's fun!) but I do run as a SCH, and it took me until one of my more recent runs to even know that *could* be healed through, since every time I watched for it the poor DPS went squish just that fast. Now obviously that is on me, but since I hadn't looked up a full guide at the time, I was only running on what I noticed.

It never really made sense that there'd be a mechanic that always one-shot a DPS, but I never could seem to keep them up. Might do better if I tried these days.

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Originally Posted by ZhaneX

Plain and simple, it's just general incompetence that's on display constantly in A11.

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Remind me to never heal you when I'm still relatively new to an instance.

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Originally Posted by era1Ne

One of the reasons this is happening to you op, is that most casual content doesn't involve preys let alone this kind of burst dmg you see in wiping city or A11N. This means many inexpierenced healers, whether they play healer just for fun or trying to main healer, but are still new, are probably suprised by the dmg of the attack and maybe some of them start to think that is not possible to heal and stop trying to do so. Others are probably just not aware of the attack, cause they usually don't play healer and focus on other stuff.

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That's really it. In current content outside of savage, and extreme primals about the only timed healing death threats are Weeping City Hell Wind and A11N Prey.


It's just like with tanks, where it's been rather lax in casual content lately where if they don't hit a cool down for a tank buster they will likely die. Like back in A6/A8. Sure you'll get those jockey tanks that come into Alex with their low ilvl weeping city gear and not using a cool down for things like A12 heat. As long as they don't take sac damage stacks somewhere, they'll live, barely.

It's great at-least the casual raids have these mechanics somewhere as a job-compenancy check.

The thing with that prey is that it happens in a period with a ton of other crap happening on the screen at the same time and is very easy to miss if you're not looking for it. Though by now, healers who've been running it constantly should be familiar enough to know and expect that it is coming that they know to shield and use instant heals on the target. I admit during the first weeks of 3.4 I really couldn't reliably save the preyed target but now it's very easy with to heal through it.

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Originally Posted by Kamui_Argent

The thing with that prey is that it happens in a period with a ton of other crap happening on the screen at the same time and is very easy to miss if you're not looking for it. Though by now, healers who've been running it constantly should be familiar enough to know and expect that it is coming that they know to shield and use instant heals on the target.

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There isn't actually that much else going on at that point (1 set of lazers in Mizzteq's guide, but I recall not even seeing those at the same time with Prey on my runs: https://youtu.be/1uRc-3SNz_0?t=2m47s). And yeah, the whole point is that the healers should know to look for it, identify the target as soon as the mark is up and be ready to heal them.

Well this thread is a rollercoaster.

Something else I see a lot is that when the prey marker goes out, DPS seem to want to run to the far ends of the earth. It's like watching someone try to run away from their shadow. I've had a few cases in DF when I'd had tetra all lined up and ready to go and the DPS runs right out of range.

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mejqqhKkaR1r04g8j.gif

Plain and simple, it's just general incompetence that's on display constantly in A11.

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Originally Posted by Thunda_Cat_SMASH

This x1000. Currently proDPS healers tend to demonize those healers that would rather focus on making sure the party survives through all mechanics rather than spend 90% of their time in clerics.

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That is more than just wrong. A good healer will always keep his party alive (if they don't fuck up everything and die of stupidity) and do dps. If the healer deals dps and doesn't heal his party on top of it, he is either bad or he needs way more practice.

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Originally Posted by Ilan

That is more than just wrong. A good healer will always keep his party alive (if they don't fuck up everything and die of stupidity) and do dps. If the healer deals dps and doesn't heal his party on top of it, he is either bad or he needs way more practice.

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We *know* it's wrong because we have experience. If someone is relatively new & keeps having the deeps>all hammered into their skull it's no surprise that they try to please. After all, if the l33t are continuously telling you that deeps is king, then why would a casual not believe them? Evidence - people who watch a certain YouTube "celeb's" content & then screw up mechanics because it's how he told them to do it & he's Godlike, right? ;P

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Originally Posted by Ilan

That is more than just wrong.

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Not really wrong when it's what I see on these forums every day. =u=/ Personally when I play healer I'd rather make sure people are properly healthy first and foremost before tossing a few dps spells out, but it does get amusing to intentionally let someone die at the last minute, since I can just say I'm learning and no one will care.

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Originally Posted by Thunda_Cat_SMASH

Not really wrong when it's what I see on these forums every day. =u=/ Personally when I play healer I'd rather make sure people are properly healthy first and foremost before tossing a few dps spells out, but it does get amusing to intentionally let someone die at the last minute, since I can just say I'm learning and no one will care.

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I admire your persistence in an odd way, but are you ever going to drop this fiction that it's impossible for healers to ensure that parties remain "properly healthy" while using the DPS side of their kit?

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Originally Posted by Thunda_Cat_SMASH

Not really wrong when it's what I see on these forums every day. =u=/ Personally when I play healer I'd rather make sure people are properly healthy first and foremost before tossing a few dps spells out, but it does get amusing to intentionally let someone die at the last minute, since I can just say I'm learning and no one will care.

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What fantasy world do you live in?

I know I'll never get a proper response, because you never give one, but show me this: "Currently proDPS healers tend to demonize those healers that would rather focus on making sure the party survives through all mechanics rather than spend 90% of their time in clerics." You make erroneous statements all the time and never offer evidence. And anyone who does that anyway is a bad healer.

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Originally Posted by Taika

There isn't actually that much else going on at that point (1 set of lazers in Mizzteq's guide, but I recall not even seeing those at the same time with Prey on my runs: https://youtu.be/1uRc-3SNz_0?t=2m47s). And yeah, the whole point is that the healers should know to look for it, identify the target as soon as the mark is up and be ready to heal them.

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Prey can go out when nothing else is happening at all or it can when loads of stuff is happening all at once. it varies by how much the dps pushes the encounter and how much stuff you skip.

Sometimes I can get the preyd target adlod and stoneskinned in the few seconds before they take the hit.

other times however i'm dodging tons of yellow beams, circles and whatever else shooting all over the arena and hardly have a second to stop and cast.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

Prey can go out when nothing else is happening at all or it can when loads of stuff is happening all at once. it varies by how much the dps pushes the encounter and how much stuff you skip.

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Alright, good to know! I've only seen it happen when there isn't that much other stuff going on. :) On the other hand, the healers should also try to reserve their instant heals for it.

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Originally Posted by Culfinrandir

We *know* it's wrong because we have experience. If someone is relatively new & keeps having the deeps>all hammered into their skull it's no surprise that they try to please. After all, if the l33t are continuously telling you that deeps is king, then why would a casual not believe them? Evidence - people who watch a certain YouTube "celeb's" content & then screw up mechanics because it's how he told them to do it & he's Godlike, right? ;P

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I have literally never seen a healer give the advice that DPS > all. I've only ever seen it in strawman arguments from people opposed to DPSing for whatever reason. The DPS advice I tend to see is "Heal super well and toss some mitigation on the tank so you get some breathing room, and then use that breathing room to do some DPS"

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Originally Posted by Urthdigger

I have literally never seen a healer give the advice that DPS > all. I've only ever seen it in strawman arguments from people opposed to DPSing for whatever reason.

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I have, but mainly from raiders who are referring to SCH & AST. There's still the belief that WHM is the "pure" healer class & the other two are DPS with heal abilities. If you tell that to new healers without the context of it being mainly applicable in a well oiled static (usually with voice ability) it's very easy to see how people start to expect a second healer to be the main or expect high DPS from healers in 4 man content.

For contrast, how often have you encountered jobs with heal or shield abilities (eg PLD, NIN) who never use them? It's part of their job but they ignore it for deeps. The good ones don't, of course, they know when it's appropriate.

I hate the healer DPS meta in this game, but I don't really blame the playerbase for it, I blame poor healing DESIGN. When I read a thread like this I can't help but think it's a poorly-disguised bash on players who adapted to the meta, rather than the ones who stubbornly refuse to change to suit it.

Seriously guys, just because you die sometimes in a video game doesn't mean that it's because the healer was riding Cleric's. Sometimes they had a brain fart, misclicked some other person, or just plain weren't paying attention. STUFF HAPPENS. If you're mad about the healer DPS meta, work on identifying the real causes of it, which are overtuned healing potencies, overtuned DPS potential re: Cleric Stance, fully scripted encounters and a supremely glacial global cooldown that is great for newer/learning players but makes the game predictable at higher skill floors of play. Don't make lazy passive-aggressive threads claiming falsities like "the meta makes healers let me die in faceroll content!" or "I hate how healers spend more time looking at the meters than looking at me!". NO SKILLED PLAYER DOES THIS. All these threads do is seriously undermine any type of honest, critical discussion about the healer DPS meta and whether or not it's a good thing, an unnecessary thing, a bad thing, a thing that should be changed, whatever.

tl;dr hyperbolic threads like this just make my side (the anti healer DPS side) look bad, because they're not based off of objective fact-parsing or logical discussion. They're based off of hearsay, personal bias, and frankly, general overall ignorance. The OP had some bad or lazy healers in A11 normal. This scenario is absolutely a relative non-entity in regards to the grand scheme of the meta in this game, and trying to attribute a root cause to it otherwise is simply fallacious.

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Originally Posted by loreleidiangelo

snip....

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So you are a healer who doesn't like to dps if there is nothing to heal? I don't want to offend you but i ask myself what you are doing between the heals. I can't just stand still or jump around and do nothing if no one needs a heal, thats a waste of time for me.

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Originally Posted by Ilan

So you are a healer who doesn't like to dps if there is nothing to heal? I don't want to offend you but i ask myself what you are doing between the heals. I can't just stand still or jump around and do nothing if no one needs a heal, thats a waste of time for me.

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I'm not really sure where this new trend of people not reading my entire post is coming from... Am I too verbose, maybe? Concisely speaking: I would like this game to be more healing-focused in nature, rather than the setup we have now. No, I do not support standing around doing nuts-all in a party with our current healing design, because I acknowledge this game just doesn't give healers enough to actually heal WITHOUT having some downtime to DPS. That doesn't mean I wouldn't like to see the design shift a bit in the future to make the actual healing part of the role more required for endgame content, though.

Does that clarify it a bit?

You get the heals you deserve. I know how much you need to keep you alive assuming you can dodge mechanics. If you can't survive avoidable damage long enough for the regen to top you up then you die. Not my problem.

Honestly sometimes A11 is easier if a lot of players who can't dodge are dead when propeller wind comes out anyway.

This is how healing works here. Get into it, get over it, or get out. Most people who want to only heal can't handle the "complexity" of stance dancing despite it being easy.

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Originally Posted by ckc22

You get the heals you deserve. I know how much you need to keep you alive assuming you can dodge mechanics. If you can't survive avoidable damage long enough for the regen to top you up then you die. Not my problem.

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This thread is about an individual mechanic that cannot be evaded or survived without heals...