Rant on healers acting as a dps role

I am not sure what to say, I think we have a very different way of looking at things. If I am main healing, and let's say doing 0 dmg, and the group is failing DPS checks - I am gonna feel awful. Is it my fault we're losing? Probably not, but you don't have to be a part of the problem to be part of the solution. And I want to help the team win, so I am gonna try my damndest to at least reapply Combust every 30 seconds. My team needs more damage to win, so I am gonna try to give them more damage. You're so worried about showing whose faults it is...who cares. The goal is to win and you are doing 0 dmg (hypothetical here I have no idea if this was the case) while your team is failing a dps check. Any healer at 0 is leaving damage on the table. Help the team win, help carry an underperforming dps. Quit worrying about whose fault it is. Try and put them on your back if you can - be successful.

Because in this game the amount of damage going out is small compared to potential healing output, and it is 100% patterned with fixed timings (in 3.0) it is very easy to dps while healing at least a moderate amount. That's why it's sort of become required. Because of how easy it is to do, a healer not doing it, assuming the group isn't derping left and right and the healer is familiar with the fight, is either stubborn, unskilled, or lazy.

I wasn't doing 0, I was hitting over 400 as AST while DPSing only half of the fight. They made me switch to SCH and we still didn't kill Faust (little did they know that AST's burst is higher for Faust). I was blamed and forced to switch jobs. Then we found out the MNK was using Buttons in a Blanket and both him and the MCH weren't using Draconian Pots. And I'm not the only one who has been put in this position. This is the "rant" and placing the blame. 100 DPS from DoTs here and there was never the issue. And if you're blaming yourself for 0 DPS as a main healer while DPS players are being sub-optimal, then I can't argue with you. I don't like to be stuck in fights, but carrying lazy DPS players is something I dislike even more.

Then they were idiots if they had 400 dps from a healer on Faust in the first week and were blaming you. Nothing much to say other than that. Ignore and move on. Nothing SE does can ever remove dumb from a section of its playerbase. Even worse blaming a healer while you are using suboptimal food or no pots in week 1 progression.

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Originally Posted by TatoRazzino

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Anyone who blames the healer for a lack of DPS is, quite frankly, an idiot.

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

Anyone who blames the healer for a lack of DPS is, quite frankly, an idiot.

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In his example, that most definitely was not his fault and whoever was blaming him is an idiot. But your statement is flat out wrong. In a game that consistently puts 2 healers in a party but does not put out enough damage to keep 2 healers busy healing, it is quite reasonable for people to expect some level of dps contribution from their healing team. I really don't like the word "blame" because it has such a negative connotation, and a good team is going to be solving problems not blaming people. But someone looking to healers to pick up dps isn't an idiot, they are probably playing Final Fantasy XIV.

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Originally Posted by Sidra

In a game that consistently puts 2 healers in a party but does not put out enough damage to keep 2 healers busy healing

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While I agree completely to that on pre-formed party duties, this is not the case on any DF runs, save for some rare exception.

Take Arboretum for example: extensive pulls by tanks where he will die if the healer loses a cooldown, even when popping cooldowns correctly; Final Stings flying everywhere and most tanks don't know how to deal with them and let the job to the healers; tanks eating the bees shots on purpose on second boss because they're too lazy to move; DPS getting Seduced on last boss at least one time each.

The game itself doesn't make too much unavoidable damage, but the people that run the content makes it that much harder to heal, sometimes absolutely impossible to DPS.

In general, any discussion about healer dps comes with the unsaid asterisks that you know the fight, are appropriately geared, and are in a competent party who isn't derping left and right. With respect to dungeons, specifically - you are correct there can be large pulls that are difficult to heal and dps through, or mini windows where it's not a good time to dps. But it's never an entire dungeon. In 2-3 ex dungeons a week for a very long time I've healed. With an uncooperative group, I might only get 150-200 dps out over the whole dungeon. Better groups are much much higher, but it's never 0...never. What about when that big pull has only 2 mobs left? What about the bosses, none of which in any EX dungeon put out much damage, tanks don't even need tank stance and you can still do damage while keeping them up? If you go an entire dungeon without turning on cleric stance, even with a not good tank, you are just not trying very hard to find the times when it is okay to dps.

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Originally Posted by Sidra

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Healer DPS is not required. I understand that if DPS is low a healer can help, but the healer should not be blamed for a lack of DPS. Yes, everyone should be contributing as much as they can, and DPS is expected from healers. But you cannot blame low DPS on a healer. A healer's DPS should not be what makes or breaks a clear. If it is then there is issues with your team.

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

Healer DPS is not required. I understand that if DPS is low a healer can help, but the healer should not be blamed for a lack of DPS. Yes, everyone should be contributing as much as they can, and DPS is expected from healers. But you cannot blame low DPS on a healer. A healer's DPS should not be what makes or breaks a clear. If it is then there is issues with your team.

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While it might not be required it means you are fully utilizing your class. A dps can also 123 and its good enough for the dungeon...

Im more suprised ppl are like i dont want to dps as healer or the party is too bad for me to dps, looking for outsides biased opinions instead of objectively asking themselves: could i do any better? If the answer is no, you are either top1 in fflogs or you are simply blind or ignorant to improve yourself.

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

Healer DPS is not required. I understand that if DPS is low a healer can help, but the healer should not be blamed for a lack of DPS. Yes, everyone should be contributing as much as they can, and DPS is expected from healers. But you cannot blame low DPS on a healer. A healer's DPS should not be what makes or breaks a clear. If it is then there is issues with your team.

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That is only true in the strictest sense. If your definition of "required" is that, after the first few weeks in a raid cycle when it often is actually required that a team with a good amount of 4x dps and 2x tank damage while getting 0 from the healers can beat a fight before it's enrage - then you are 100% absolutely correct.

However, there is a very strong counterpoint to that which I think is a more important way to look at it. So many fights in this game are made easier and risk reduced when things die faster or phases are cut off. Whether it be removing Jumps from A1, beating A3 as quick as possible to ignore some more difficult mechanics, having enough extra dps for A4 sac strat to be successful, beating Thordan before phase 9 even begins etc. All of these types of things save time and greatly enhance a team's chance of success in the given encounter. And healer dps in addition to everyone else playing well is required to make those types of things happen, generally. Healer dps helps tremendously to make a group strong. So because of that, and the fact we know the encounters in the game are tailored pretty well for healers to add dps, a lot of groups and players do require it. And rightfully so - it's reasonable to expect what has been proven over and over can be done and is very helpful to the team.

Am I going to point my finger at some healer doing 0 dps and say "this loss is all your fault." Absolutely not, that's counterproductive. But will I let them know I saw they aren't doing any damage and suggest some windows where they can safely cleric stance, or even get a tank involved and ask if they can use a spare CD somewhere so the healer can feel safer dpsing at that point. Absolutely.

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Originally Posted by Supersun

I can't find the source (read it sometime this last week), but Y-P recently talked about how people were using healer and tank DPS to clear Alexander content below the expected gear level which...pretty much implies that when at the expected gear threshold that tank and healer DPS shouldn't be required to clear, but if you are below that threshold then healer and tank DPS will be required.

Edit: Found the source
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...w_with_yoship/

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The irony in this of course is this:

With higher ilvls, it's much easier to risk tanks and healers in dps stance. So...you know, when you're lower ilvl/learning, you'd prefer to 'turtle up' so to speak, but can't effectively (why healer and tank dps is the meta), but once you have the ivl, it's BURN ALL THE BABIES!!! time anyway, and people naturally would be pushing dps on all roles more.


Still, because those who first cleared it had to do it w/ tanks and heals contributing dps, and since that is actually only easier to do as ilvl's increase, it's generally expected everyone on the team is doing something at all times...and for heals, that means if you're not healing (or refreshing mana for an incoming big healing output moment), you should be dpsing.

On easier content, it's even more expected you assist w/ dps rather than overheal/do nothing.

Basically in any fight, at any time, the secondary healer has 5 options:

1. Assist with healing b/c the incoming damage is more than a solo healer can easily/safely keep up with (only happens at most for 10% of any given fight)
2. Overheal/cause healing partner to overheal b/c you both healing= way more healing output than is required (what would happen if both healed most of fight)
3. DPS. Since healing is covered atm (either by another person or just in general), and since the MP reserves are fine, DPS is a way to contribute to the battle in a positive manner.
4. Stand around doing nothing waiting to be useful.

this last one shouldn't really count , but esp for learning parties, is something to consider as the secondary healer's role too:
5. Be party's 'training wheels'. IE you are 'first raise'/healer of the 'you stood in the bad' etc. In this case, you likely might not be able to dps...but as party learns fight, you should be able to totally be free of this role. and able to do one of the 4 things listed previously.

You need to keep in mind, in some content, even true solo healers (they are the only healer in group atm) find time to dps. If you have the mana, time, and health levels are being maintained, you probably should be dpsing on heals...just like OT's will be in DPS stance until they are needed to tank something. Healers have to do the same. No one would accept the OT just standing off in the corner until they had to swap/pick up adds...same idea for healers. If you only need 2 healers actually healing for 10% of the battle, then for the other 90% someone (or both depending on content) should be dpsing.

I wasn't saying that healer's shouldn't DPS, but that theoretically they shouldn't be required to DPS to clear a DPS check.

Just because they don't need to DPS does that mean that they shouldn't? Of course not, if anything even though it's not "required" a healer DPSing can create some leeway in case of error or "worst case scenario" and there was no error then you simply finish that much faster.

In terms of laying blame, anyone so quick to lay blame on anyone other than themselves are idiots and surprisingly more often than not the one laying blame is usually the one that was slacking the most.

If "blame" is required, just analyze the situation and try to figure out what everyone could have done better in general and give calm and collected feedback to everyone.

But yeah, will people blame healers because their DPS wasn't high enough. Sure, but that's nothing new. People blame the healers for everything. That's why my personal rule of thumb is, "It's always the DDs fault"