do I hafta..

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Originally Posted by Luvbunny

You are a healer, your job is to heal. Everything else is just gravy and cherry on top. You main top priority is to keep everyone HP on check, takes care of status removal, DPS is the lowest in the totem pole and the least of your problem. When your healer has to DPS to help the DPS check, guess what??? You have a bunch of DPS who have no idea on how to do their rotation... and just pew pew or die.

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Not for undergeared progression. If DPS checks aren't met you lose, so DPS is on the top of your priority :P. At least for the scholar anyway~.

Dedicated WAR and SCH DPS is like having 5 DPS it's a huge difference. Also since SE is going so SMN-friendly lately in terms on mob numbers you can skip out on the caster and go 3 melee sometimes since SCH bane can fill in that AoE gap.

We don't need endgame for this to answer the OPs question.

There is no black and white rule for "do I have to DPS".

In every content the game has to offer and the more often you do it, you will eventually get better in it and you will eventually notice that by you getting more efficient in healing/shielding the incoming damage there will be downtimes where you are doing nothing at all.

This may vary by player and group skill etc, but once you get to this level you should try to squeez some DPS in, rather than doing nothing, amirite?

Im just gonna give my opinion here. I hate healers that dont do dps. Its either a sign of lack of skill or just lazy. Everyone keeps saying they wouldnt kick a healer for not doing dps, i personally would. Not from duty finder but from anything else.

If youre healing no one is gonna complain, but if party is topped off health wise and you are sitting on full; or close to mp, expect someone to say something.

As you get more comfortable your ability to dps as a healer is actually entirely on whether your tank is taking more damage then they should on their pulls.

That said it does feel like a waste of time dpsing as sch unless I have a Bard or Blm because then I just dot and use selene for the Blm/s. I just dps because it gets boring standing there at times.

Your main priority is to keep people alive, once you are comfortable with that start trying to stance dance and dos between phases of healing. Only do it when you feel comfortable and trust other members to not face tank mechanics and aoes. Pre 50 don't tend to stance dance but post 50, pitiful army in large pulls its common for the WHM to use holy. I reccommend eye for an eye, divine seal, regen then holy spam.

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Originally Posted by Ignnis

Your main priority is to keep people alive, once you are comfortable with that start trying to stance dance and dps between phases of healing. Only do it when you feel comfortable and trust other members to not face tank mechanics and aoes. Pre 50 don't tend to stance dance but post 50, piticularly in large pulls its common for the WHM to use holy. I reccommend eye for an eye, divine seal, regen then holy spam.

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Ugh no edit on phone and auto correct be trollin.

DO YOU NEED TO DPS AS A HEALER : Absolutely not.

And her are a few more examples.

Do you need to use cool down as a tank? No.
Do you need to use heavy thrust as a dragoon? No.
Do you need to get greased lightning stacks as monk? Nope.
Do you need to use ninjutsu as a ninja? Not at all.
Do you need to use all the skills available to you on any class? Nope.

Will using ALL the skills available to you be beneficial to you and your party members, increasing your chances at clearing new and difficult content? The answer is a resounding YES! Absolutely.

This game is quite far removed from healers healing, tanks holding the boss down while the dps beat it.

Healers can DPS to assist in overall damage, and push phases predictably.
Tanks can cycle cooldowns logically and use several self healing abilities.
DPS can also use self healing abilities and assist the healers by putting up defensive buffs on the party and tanks.

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Originally Posted by EmeraldRose

DPs when I heal? I'm no where near max level on my whm, but I don't remember dpsing on my sch either when prae first came out. Is that fail?

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You are never required to DPS as a healer.

You will however feel bored at times when the party actually knows how to avoid damage. The best point of reference is Castrum Meridianum, as there will be two tanks and two healers, and you may end up with 4 DPS that may downright suck. If you can get through a run without anyone dying, then you can probably find the windows to DPS in. Certain dungeons I'd probably not recommend ever DPS'ing (Aurum Vale for one) because the healing requirements are excessive.

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Originally Posted by Riepah

As a SCH, I find DPSing feels like a waste of time. By the time I'm done applying dots, most of the stuff is half dead anyway. When I'm on WHM, spamming Holy seems infinitely more useful - but on SCH, I tend to not bother with DPS and just keep people alive, for the most part. I may DPS on bosses, but not on normal mobs.

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I think the opposite is true. DPS'ing feels like a waste of time on healer because an entire switch to Cleric Stance lets you fire off any two DPS attacks or one Holy in that 5 second window before you can switch back. Holy does maybe 600 Damage (900 Crit), while a BLM casting pretty much anything does more damage and they have the same DPS cast speed but Astral Fire winds up making them do 5 times as much damage. As a point of reference, WHM can take Blizzard II from THM, but even with Cleric Stance, it does much weaker damage. In all the dungeons that you can't use Holy, DPS'ing as a healer lets you switch to Cleric stance, apply the DoT's, and then switch back.

There's rarely a situation where the Healer's DPS'ing makes a difference, since you're not contributing 25% of the DPS, you're contributing maybe 3% at most. The only time that it makes any real sense to DPS is when no damage is being taken, and won't be taken for a long enough window. Syrcus Tower has one phase like this during meteorfall. Ultima Weapon has a phase like this (though usually the Limit Break is fired here.)

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Originally Posted by Sanguisio

If youre healing no one is gonna complain, but if party is topped off health wise and you are sitting on full; or close to mp, expect someone to say something.

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That has never happened. Likewise, most Bards never use their Song skills, and nobody uses their self-healing skills. It's rather silly to think that the Healer should be contributing to DPS while the rest of the party does nothing to help heal themselves or... avoid taking damage entirely.

If the Healer "has to" DPS, then that is a tactless admission that you think the DPS are not pulling their weight. If a DPS casts Cure/Physick on another player, that's the DPS tactlessly admitting they think the Healer is awful. Similar statements can be made about players casting Stone Skin or Protect that aren't the healer. (Keeping in mind that it's not available to CNJ/WHM before level 34)

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Originally Posted by Whiston

Do you need to use cool down as a tank? No.

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Tankbusters say hi.

But I would say that more comparable to your examples than DPS is using things like E4E, Virus, Divine Seal, Surecast, and other healer skills which, by too many, get completely overlooked and unused. Even Regen in some cases. So to the OP I would say... DPSing is great if you're comfortable with the fight, or if you're a SCH and want to make the WHM do most of the work, but before that, make sure you really use all your healing skills to the fullest and are comfortable with doing so.