Is DPS'ing as a Healer Vote Kickable?

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Originally Posted by Aramina

So we are bad because we assume everyone else has the ability to push buttons as frequently as other people? Why do you think so lowly of healers?

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Not bad, more like delusional. Most people have the ability to push buttons, but are they willing to?
I understand the frustration of a DF run with this kind of players (I had a Gubal Hard run last week with a BLM using the level 50 rotation and I was this close to abandoning the dungeon) but stressing over something so trivial will only affect you, and in a bad way.

I am of the mind that damage abilities for a healer should be seen as part of their healing kit and responsibility. The faster something dies, the less damage it can do and therefore less healing is needed because damage has been prevented, sort of like "pro-active health management" or "preventative healing". The when's and how's of balancing dealing damage versus healing damage is part of learning the role, job and content. In some instances it is best to just focus solely on healing, others it is better to focus more on dealing damage to kill things before they deal much damage and many times it is somewhere in-between.

The simple fact of the matter is that there is an expectation between players that when grouped together for a common goal, such as running an instance, that each individual will at least try to do what they can to help the group successfully achieve the group's goal in the most satisfactory manner possible. Trying to do what you can implicitly includes using the tools available to you to the best of your ability. Part of a healer's tools are damage abilities, not using them when you are able to means that you are self-limiting for some reason, although the two I have encountered most often is out of fear of screwing up or just plain laziness.

If a player is new or uncomfortable with the healer role, that is perfectly fine and other players should be supportive of them and help teach them and inspire them to improve. Willfully shirking basic group responsibility and shouldering of effort is a different story altogether.

It is of course a player's right to do the bare minimum or potentially even less if they wish to, just as it is the right of other players to not put up with that crap.

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Originally Posted by Fevelle

Not bad, more like delusional. Most people have the ability to push buttons, but are they willing to?
I understand the frustration of a DF run with this kind of players (I had a Gubal Hard run last week with a BLM using the level 50 rotation and I was this close to abandoning the dungeon) but stressing over something so trivial will only affect you, and in a bad way.

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I don't get stressed over it :) My comment was specifically to address the seeming attitude of "healers can not POSSIBLY be expected to be as active as other roles because.... reasons". As a healer main I find it offensive. We are just as capable as any other role.

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Originally Posted by Aramina

So we are bad because we assume everyone else has the ability to push buttons as frequently as other people? Why do you think so lowly of healers?

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Are you being serious? You really believe I think lowly of healers? Maybe you should go back and read ALL of my posts so you have a reference.

It has nothing to do with healers. It has everything to do with not assuming everyone has the same ability, or personal skill level, to do everything that is "expected" of them outside their designated role.

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Originally Posted by Leanna

Go in duo helps to kick anyone you want.

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By that logic couldn't you just form a full goddamn party instead of being petty?

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Originally Posted by AutoWhit

Are you being serious? You really believe I think lowly of healers?

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Well, what you said before implies that healers might not have the ability to actually still press buttons when they don't need to heal anymore and that you should not expect them to just because you personally are capable of it.

That's a pretty big insult, because there are DPS players who don't even have arms that are capable of more.

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Originally Posted by Zojha

Well, what you said before implies that healers might not have the ability to actually still press buttons when they don't need to heal anymore and that you should not expect them to just because you personally are capable of it.

That's a pretty big insult, because there are DPS players who don't even have arms that are capable of more.

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Not what I implied at all, but hey, whatever. If that's what you guys want to believe so as to continue a pointless argument so be it.

So, going by the majority of people in this thread, I should just assume everyone plays at the same, or higher, skill level as myself at all times, and if they aren't I should call them baddies, and kick them from my group.

Great, got it. Awesome community you guys are building.

How are we still having this debate? If a healer's job was only to heal cleric wouldn't exist, just like in pvp where the healing requirements are so intense it doesn't even let you pretend you'll have time to dps.

I'm a tank main. My hp is a resource, just like everything else. Even the weakest instant heal (Lustrate) will give me back around 33% of my hp. If I'm on full hp the entire time, the healer isn't making use of a resource. A truly skilled healer will know when they need to heal and when they don't, but even if you're just learning, regen and done until I'm on like, half hp at most. Please god, use my hp. I have so much of the stuff.

If you go into some of the other forums, you'll see people complaining about paladin. If you're not familar with the tank jobs, pld is the only tank that doesn't have an aoe damage skill on the global cooldown. Some people say taking paladin into dungeons is SELFISH because of the amount of time they add on to a run. Are they right? Well... in a perfect world, yes. Paladin will always fail compared to the other tanks when all other things are equal.

tl;dr if you're not utilising all your resources, you have room to improve. For DDs this is cooldowns and rotations, for tanks this is hate/damage/cooldown management, and for healers, yes, it's learning how to use the hp of everyone else in the party.

And for the record, I've seen healers at minimum ilv for the dungeon dps just fine. Grubal hard last patch, a whm with incredibly low hp, tank was concerned they'd have to pull small. But actually, did the usual (read: big) pulls and the healer had plenty of time to dps. Isn't it a miracle?

(But if you're new to content, there's no expectation to dps from me. You need to be comfortable either with the content or your own ability to dps to the full extent, and that comes with time and practice. I've always suggested that dps thrown out of cleric while you learn is the best way to go, because that way there's less panic moment hammering cleric off when it comes to clutch time)

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Originally Posted by AutoWhit

Are you being serious? You really believe I think lowly of healers? Maybe you should go back and read ALL of my posts so you have a reference.

It has nothing to do with healers. It has everything to do with not assuming everyone has the same ability, or personal skill level, to do everything that is "expected" of them outside their designated role.

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I think they were trying to raise mind to the idea that conforming to the arbitrary concept of "designated role" is a silly concept in FF14. It's as you said though, people have every right to be as bad as they'd like, but people also have the right to not put up with it.

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Originally Posted by AutoWhit

Not what I implied at all, but hey, whatever. If that's what you guys want to believe so as to continue a pointless argument so be it.

So, going by the majority of people in this thread, I should just assume everyone plays at the same, or higher, skill level as myself at all times, and if they aren't I should call them baddies, and kick them from my group.

Great, got it. Awesome community you guys are building.

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It's worth pointing out that very few people in this thread (or period, in my experience) have expressed the following sentiment:
-"If a healer refuses to DPS at all, you have to call them out and should kick them."

Obviously you CAN call them out, and the sentiment "if someone wants to call them out, they have the right to do so" is being expressed. But no one is saying "you HAVE to."

The argument is more meta/general; i.e., "is this acceptable play?" And barring legit difficulty (someone is really trying, but just isn't very capable), disability, or some other such factor: no, it isn't.

In this thread - as is the case EVERY time this comes up - the "healers should DPS" crowd is focused on people who are not new, not inexperienced healers, not struggling to play the game at a basic level, etc. - it's focused on people who - often by their own admission - could DPS during downtime, but don't want to. Because... they just don't want to. Or are lazy, or are taking some kind of weird principled stand. "A healer should only heal!" And THOSE players, that will literally stand around doing nothing 87% of the time (to use Taika's figure from the experiment she ran in Xelphatol), simply because lol, are bad.

And yes, you are implying you hold healers to a different standard. Think about it. Imagine if a tank stood around for 60-80% of the time. They never failed to lose aggro, or if they did, it was only for brief moments - a monster would start to wander, and the tank would immediately reign them back in. BUT, whenever all currently engaged monsters had green and yellow jewels in the enemy list, the tank sheathes their weapon and waits for flashing orange.

Does this ever put the party in danger of DPS and healers being badly damaged by monsters the tank couldn't hold? No. Is it acceptable play? No.

If you were the DPS or healer in that run, would you just roll with it? Refuse to say anything to the tank? If someone else said, hey man, that's not okay, you'd defend the tank? "That's just how they want to play!" I doubt it. You'd be frustrated with them playing that way and you know it.

So why do healers get a free pass to stand around 80+% of the run? THAT'S what Zojha is getting at.

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Originally Posted by AutoWhit

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Well, there's 3 skill levels generally.

10-8 Healers that can dps perfectly satisfactorily while keeping the group at stable, if not necessarily healthy, levels of HP.

7-4 Healers that can keep the group in perfectly good health, but aren't comfortable adding in dps for whatever reason, but are still capable of clearing content in a timely manner

3-1 Healers that struggle to balance their healing and dps appropriately, causing numerous needless wipes, deaths, and possibly even enrages because they lack the skill to even perform the absolute minimum required for their job, causing significant dps loss from the group as a whole despite trying to add in their own numbers.

I just find it funny that people are trying to argue that people failing at both primary and secondary responsibilities are somehow better than those capable of satisfying their primary requirements with flying colors.

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Originally Posted by AutoWhit

So, going by the majority of people in this thread, I should just assume everyone plays at the same, or higher, skill level as myself at all times, and if they aren't I should call them baddies, and kick them from my group.

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And this is precisely the part where you imply what I just told you you imply.

Let me walk you through your own statement.
What people expect of healers is that they use the time where they do not need to heal to DPS instead. Full stop. And just for clarification: Nobody expects healers to DPS when they should be healing right then. The entire argument goes around people who really don't need to heal now nor in the immediate future. People who just stand around doing nothing for 5 or more seconds - 5 seconds because that's a cleric stance window.

You now say that you should not expect that of healers because not everyone is the same skill as yourself and not everyone can attain it. But the skill level people ask for is not nor has ever been their own - it's the one required to use damage abilities when no healing abilities are required. As such, your statement implies some people might not have the skill nor can attain the skill to hit damage abilities when they do not need to hit healing abilities - that is a very, very low skill level. And since you use that argument for healers, you imply that this low skill level is to be expected from healers, not the skill level at which you can press damage abilities when you do not need to hit healing abilities. In other words, healers usually suck and you should expect them to suck.

I gladly believe you that this is not at all what you wanted to say. But it's pretty much what you said.

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Originally Posted by Zojha

... But the skill level people ask for is not nor has ever been their own - it's the one required to use damage abilities when no healing abilities are required. As such, your statement implies some people might not have the skill nor can attain the skill to hit damage abilities when they do not need to hit healing abilities - that is a very, very low skill level. And since you use that argument for healers, you imply that this low skill level is to be expected from healers, not the skill level at which you can press damage abilities when you do not need to hit healing abilities. In other words, healers usually suck and you should expect them to suck.

I gladly believe you that this is not at all what you wanted to say. But it's pretty much what you said.

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This. This is *exactly* what I was attempting to say in my last post.

^ Spot on. Stance-dancing is something I'd understand a less experienced player being uncomfortable with trying to do too much till they get used to it, but you can try to toss out a few Aero's, at least.

Besides, that's a new player; for the most part, what we're talking about in this thread is experienced (often level 60) players who literally refuse to use any DPS abilities, simply because "I don't feel like it." I also can't help but notice that the question - posed several times - of "What exactly do you do with all that downtime?"has never really been answered.

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Originally Posted by Thunda_Cat_SMASH

I just find it funny that people are trying to argue that people failing at both primary and secondary responsibilities are somehow better than those capable of satisfying their primary requirements with flying colors.

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No one is arguing that.

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Originally Posted by Thunda_Cat_SMASH

I just find it funny that people are trying to argue that people failing at both primary and secondary responsibilities are somehow better than those capable of satisfying their primary requirements with flying colors.

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I'm thinking you're slightly off base with where the Pro-DPS'ers are coming from.

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Originally Posted by Bixillarla

Better not get in a group with me then. I am there not heal and keep people alive not dps. I do not dps on my healers, if I want to dps then I will go on a dps job.

There is no requirement to dps as a healer, our job is to keep everyone alive so they can do their job.

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Sorry but this attitude, ESPECIALLY on a SCH is just basically "I want to stand around and do as little as possible while my fairy handles the bulk of the work."

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Originally Posted by Saito_S

I also can't help but notice that the question - posed several times - of "What exactly do you do with all that downtime?"has never really been answered.

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On a personal level, for instances like Dun Scaith where a run can go from smooth to utterly chaotic in under a few seconds, I freely admit that I do very little Stance-dancing, if any at all. I prefer to stay sharp to keep the group up when an add goes astray, multiple mechanics are failed, or when another alliance starts faltering - if my own is healthy, I can heal and raise to assist another team. You're right in the sense that I'm not "doing" anything, but I do think there are circumstances where it might not be unusual for a healer not to DPS even when the run is going fairly uneventfully.

I DPS pretty much all other content, though. Just, there are times in Dun Scaith where I've DPSed heavily during the beginning portions of the run and ran out of gas when things went south, so I prefer to stay prepared in an instance like that where plenty of people are new or still struggling with mechanics.

Can't we just get rid of cleric stance and balance healer damage without it? There's no reason to keep such a clunky design in place when other MMOs have demonstrated that it's unnecessary.

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Originally Posted by MisterLucie

Can't we just get rid of cleric stance and balance healer damage without it? There's no reason to keep such a clunky design in place when other MMOs have demonstrated that it's unnecessary.

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It's only clunky in the sense that it sometimes doesn't click on/off. It's purpose is pretty straight forward and anything but clunky.

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Originally Posted by MisterLucie

Can't we just get rid of cleric stance and balance healer damage without it? There's no reason to keep such a clunky design in place when other MMOs have demonstrated that it's unnecessary.

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Yup. This, alongside the removal of Accuracy, would encourage the bottom of the barrel Healers to start contributing. Also, we need to reduce button bloat anyway, so might as well get rid of that pesky stance.

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Originally Posted by Greedalox

It's only clunky in the sense that it sometimes doesn't click on/off. It's purpose is pretty straight forward and anything but clunky.

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What purpose is that, exactly? Any healer with a brain is going to know when to be in or out of it, it doesn't require a particularly noteworthy amount of skill or forethought. It's occasionally unresponsive, which means even when you are using it perfectly you can still get screwed over by the game's own limitations. And, probably the most annoying of all, is that healers in PvP are reduced to nothing but healbots because they literally can not do any noticeable amount of damage.

Get rid of cleric stance, balance healer damage to be a bit lower than what it currently is in cleric stance, and make the role more flexible in what it's capable of performing.

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Originally Posted by loreleidiangelo

On a personal level, for instances like Dun Scaith where a run can go from smooth to utterly chaotic in under a few seconds, I freely admit that I do very little Stance-dancing, if any at all. I prefer to stay sharp to keep the group up when an add goes astray, multiple mechanics are failed, or when another alliance starts faltering - if my own is healthy, I can heal and raise to assist another team. You're right in the sense that I'm not "doing" anything, but I do think there are circumstances where it might not be unusual for a healer not to DPS even when the run is going fairly uneventfully.

I DPS pretty much all other content, though. Just, there are times in Dun Scaith where I've DPSed heavily during the beginning portions of the run and ran out of gas when things went south, so I prefer to stay prepared in an instance like that where plenty of people are new or still struggling with mechanics.

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I have this vague recollection of someone earlier in the thread saying that 24-person raids are a poor way to measure this whole healer DPS thing -it might have been another thread, but regardless, I agree with the idea. Weeping city and Dun Scaith even more so, because they seem to be harder than Void Ark or the CT series were.

So in those instances, what you are saying is perfectly reasonable (and you said that you DO DPS outside of that for the most part). Outside of those, I myself have played things that way during certain boss fights or trials, where some combination of the boss' ability to deal out fast damage and my party in that case being possibly not the greatest, gives me pause. I can recall instances where I kept placing my finger on the trigger, so to speak, hovering over my Cleric Stance key, but never pulled it, because every time I was going to, something made me second-guess myself and stick to being ready to toss out heals. Was I right in doing so? Certainly not on every occasion, and if anything, I'd bet I'm way too cautious as a healer because I never felt confident at the basics of the job (and I'm rusty as hell at it; haven't tried it in ages).

If I were to answer that question myself, in instances where I end up hardly every going into Cleric's and not DPS'ing much if at all, what do I do with all the downtime? Fretting! I freely admit that I'm not a particularly good healer, and while I would like to give it another go at some point, I have a lot of room for improvement.

I'd still like to hear from someone who flatly refuses to DPS during downtime "on principle" or whatever, what they do while waiting for damage to come in...

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Originally Posted by Bixillarla

Better not get in a group with me then. I am there not heal and keep people alive not dps. I do not dps on my healers, if I want to dps then I will go on a dps job.

There is no requirement to dps as a healer, our job is to keep everyone alive so they can do their job.

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It's one thing to say this
but I'm more puzzled why this post has 21 likes, hooray for encouragement I guess.

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Originally Posted by Yasuhiro

It's one thing to say this
but I'm more puzzled why this post has 21 likes, hooray for encouragement I guess.

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Not everyone likes dps crazy healers. I personally can't remember a single smooth run with them ever.

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Originally Posted by Thunda_Cat_SMASH

Not everyone likes dps crazy healers. I personally can't remember a single smooth run with them ever.

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I can't remember the last time I've seen a dps healer drop a tank in a dungeon run. Are you using your CD's?

That's a serious question BTW, I know some people on these forums claim they stop playing their role when the tanks/healers aren't playing how they like, so they force it.

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Originally Posted by Thunda_Cat_SMASH

Not everyone likes dps crazy healers. I personally can't remember a single smooth run with them ever.

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Strange I find runs are smoother with healers who are able to DPS

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Originally Posted by Greedalox

I can't remember the last time I've seen a dps healer drop a tank in a dungeon run. Are you using your CD's?

That's a serious question BTW, I know some people on these forums claim they stop playing their role when the tanks/healers aren't playing how they don't like to force it.

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Tanking dungeons are kinda boring, so I really just run them as dps. I do however use my cd's appropriately as a tank in order to maximize my dps stance uptime and minimize stress on healers.

Incidentally, I find that even when dps stancing dungeons, the dps don't tend to be that great, so even with big pulls a run can take 20 mins+. I'd rather go as a deeps, since I have a run of 15 or lower with a one or two minute wait.

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Originally Posted by Yasuhiro

Okay...but what about a middle ground of damage and healing? Why does it have to be one extreme or the other?

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Because there really isn't a middle ground from what I've seen. People are either kept healthy, or with just enough HP to survive the next unavoidable AoE, unless RNG curses them with a surprise crit, and even then it's still possible they might die anyway. I know I certainly got in the habit of keeping health potions on me, because most of the time I can't trust my own healers will be able to keep me alive.

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Originally Posted by Thunda_Cat_SMASH

Not everyone likes dps crazy healers. I personally can't remember a single smooth run with them ever.

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Okay...but what about a middle ground of damage and healing? Why does it have to be one extreme or the other?

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Originally Posted by Saito_S

The argument is more meta/general; i.e., "is this acceptable play?" And barring legit difficulty (someone is really trying, but just isn't very capable), disability, or some other such factor: no, it isn't.

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Just out of curiosity, how, precisely, would anyone be able to discern a complete stranger's "really trying, but just isn't very capable" or disabilities? What would be acceptable "some other such factor"?

I mean, I get what you're saying. I really do. But that's such a vague statement. Unless the healer is either me - or one of my friends - I'm not going to know if my healer is high on drugs (illegal or otherwise), or has some sort of disability that would affect reaction time, or has their little sister playing.

Whenever I see a healer that doesn't dps during the downtime I assume they are new to healing

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Originally Posted by Amirya

Just out of curiosity, how, precisely, would anyone be able to discern a complete stranger's "really trying, but just isn't very capable" or disabilities? What would be acceptable "some other such factor"?

I mean, I get what you're saying. I really do. But that's such a vague statement. Unless the healer is either me - or one of my friends - I'm not going to know if my healer is high on drugs (illegal or otherwise), or has some sort of disability that would affect reaction time, or has their little sister playing.

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It's really not that difficult to tell. Someone who dances/stands still 90% of the time... probably a good guess they are lazy. No one is asking for perfection, if I see someone is tossing out a few dots or holy or broil or whatever (either with or without CS) they seem to be at least TRYING and that is a-ok. Someone doing the manderville for 30 seconds between casting cure on the tank is not really trying.

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Originally Posted by Thunda_Cat_SMASH

Not everyone likes dps crazy healers. I personally can't remember a single smooth run with them ever.

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Just in general, but isn't this just going to be confirmation bias? Of course you aren't going to remember the smooth runs, nothing happened in them.

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Originally Posted by Bixillarla

Better not get in a group with me then. I am there not heal and keep people alive not dps. I do not dps on my healers, if I want to dps then I will go on a dps job.

There is no requirement to dps as a healer, our job is to keep everyone alive so they can do their job.

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Because waiting for something to happen to that health bar in a dungeon is oh so exciting. IDK about you, but i like my dungeon runs to get done in about 15 minutes, which doesn't happen unless i contribute.

Especially as a scholar, because Eos can do most of your job leaving you just standing there.

As a WHM, holy spamming can be more effective than spam heals if your tank likes to pull big. The stun prevents the damage from happening in the first place.

The only healer where dpsing can be more tricky is AST, they have only one stun, and nothing other than HoTs (and that's if they're in diurnal) to sustain the group while you dps.

People are so selfish. I try to dps as much as possible so everyone in the run can get out faster instead of making it drag on an extra 3-5 mins(depending on content), which not only impedes myself, but everyone else in the run.


I can't believe I'm sayibg this but reading some of these posts are actually making me think even less of non dps-ing healers....sigh.

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Originally Posted by RLofOBFL

I can't believe I'm saying this but reading some of these posts are actually making me think even less of non dps-ing healers....sigh.

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I don't think the comments fill the non-dps healers with warm bubbly positive options of the pro- dps healers either. Neither side is ever going to see eye-to-eye on the matter or think highly of the other faction...

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Originally Posted by SDaemon

I don't think the comments fill the non-dps healers with warm bubbly positive options of the pro- dps healers either. Neither side is ever going to see eye-to-eye on the matter or think highly of the other faction...

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Really? but our way is far superior! c:

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Originally Posted by Medicine

Really? but our way is far superior! c:

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No thanks. I don't take sides in this playground war.

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Originally Posted by SDaemon

No thanks. I don't take sides in this playground war.

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Hmm... Should I have added a /s? I thought my sarcasm was obvious. Anyways none of this matters, healers should be able to play however they want so long as they aren't being rude about it.

I consider 0 DPS in dungeon content rude enough to warrant a vote kick.

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Originally Posted by Rennies

I consider 0 DPS in dungeon content rude enough to warrant a vote kick.

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More power to you. I tend to vote kick players who try and kick people over ridiculous matters like that. In the end it just depends on the rest of the group and how they feel.

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Originally Posted by Medicine

Hmm... Should I have added a /s? I thought my sarcasm was obvious. Anyways none of this matters, healers should be able to play however they want so long as they aren't being rude about it.

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Sorry, didn't convey to me. I'll apologize for assuming you were trying to spark something. <3