Originally Posted by
Laerune
First let start by saying that I agree with you that as a healer, you should atleast do damage, when you are able. But I have to disagree with few of your points.
Lets start with the healer role, in almost all mmorpgs (FFXIV is the first one where I have seen healers being expected to do damage and this was not a mainstream thing untill the speedruns started, which was around 2.3/2.4) the healer has one role, to keep everyone alive, so its logic to assume that all those healers who came from another game (and have played alot of mmorpgs as a healer) are used to one thing as a healer, which is to only heal. Another thing is unless you do the Novice Hall, the game will not tell you that its expected as a healer to do damage. The player learns the most during the class quest where you learn about a ability, but all the class quests with the healer class have you do two things, either heal someone or remove a debuff.
I do not understand that part about the tanks, as a tank you do dps by default when tanking, which can not be said for the healer role. The Cure spell does not do any damage when being used to heal a player , but the Halone combo of the Paladin will do damage and increase agro to enemies. The part about the bard is a little odd aswell, as a Bard you can do damage and sing a song at the same time, as a Healer you can not do this, so I would not realy compare those two things. A fair comparison would be a Bard not singing is the same as an White Mage not using Divine Seal while healing.
Comparing a Healer who is healing to a Black Mage only using ice magick is odd aswell, as a healer by healing and keeping the other players alive, you are doing what is asked of you as a healer, as a Black Mage, only doing ice magick, which is inferior to fire magick means doing less damage, which is against what is asked of you as a damage dealer.
Should a healer do damage, YES! But I do not agree with your arguments.