I do play AST. I still find time to DPS.
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There is a fundamental difference between a bad player playing sub-optimally and someone intentionally being hot garbage. If I lldr into a dungeon where the healer has a sprout and they just spam cure I'm not going to give them grief about it. But if I get a sch who just /follows the tank and maybe rezzes someone who died because it was real obvious they aren't really paying attention, they can get bent.
That's exactly what I did many times as a BLM. PotD "Hey Kitty, stay back and heal". And I did :)
Of course me and my group died many times because the Heal was in DPS mode and didn't know how to handle Stance Dance.
On the other hand, me and my group died many times because the DPS was way too low, even when the heal was top. In that case I was sorry for the heal because of all his unrewarded effort till we made it to the boss.
I agree. Yoshi-P has said on multiple occasions that they tune battles in a way that Healers are not taken into account when it comes to DPS and that the Tanks contribute minimal damage towards the total DPS count. As you progress through each tier, you will get gear which will help you progress further. You should be able to clear the top tier raiding content with that in mind.
But, Raiders will always strive to be better and get the most out of their classes. It’s those people who will look for more efficient ways to heal, in order to make room for additional DPS. Or tank switching stances from tank stance to dps stance so that they contribute as much DPS as possible. It’s those people who will be able to clear Raid content faster than others and i applaud them for that, since it’s not an easy feat.
However, that same mentality doesn’t work for all players within the game and it should not be “forced” upon them. Performing their primary function comes first. For Healers that means healing and for tanks that means maintaining hate. Everything else is an added bonus.
You could say that this is the basis for FFXIV that Yoshi-P intended for their game. It’s up to the players to devise strategies to clear the content that is given to them.
In general it depends on the situation the party is in, if you can ask/expect a Healer to DPS in. There are plenty of situations where practically no Healing is required, so they can DPS to their hearts content. However, there are plenty of situations that even a more experienced Healer will not be able to DPS, even if they want to.
One of the main factors is the damage the party is taking. I’ve been in way too many Dun Scaith runs, where the party kept getting hit by avoidable damage and the healers run out of mana due to amount of people they needed to raise and heal only. Being aware of your surroundings and act upon them accordingly plays a very big part in the overall performance of an individual, whether or not they are a Healer, Tank or DPS.
Now, if there is no healing required and you are simply standing there twiddling your thumbs, you should have ample time to insert at least some attack spells in there. In situations like that, the average group will ask the healer to contribute at least some DPS to the encounter. That’s fine.
As a member of a group, you should keep the following rule of thumb at heart, which is “knowing your ABC’s”. The “ABC” stands for “Always Be Casting”.
Not every Healer is as experienced or confident as the other, so they might feel hesitant to cast attack spells because they feel that the group make take (critical) damage at any second and they want to be prepared for that. I know i’ve been one of those Healers at the start of 2.0. As you run more and more content, while gearing up your healer, you will start to feel more confident in your healing abilities. So, if you find yourself standing there, doing nothing, start with placing DoT’s on the target. Every little bit helps. After that, slowly work your way up to the “ABC” i mentioned earlier, until you feel comfortable with it.
A few people used the word “Downtime” when it comes to healers standing around, do nothing because there is nothing to heal. That’s not what i call “Downtime”. “Downtime” for me means that you are running out of MP and you do not have the resources to cast spells, forcing you to wait while you regain MP. For instance, when you had to sit down in FFXI, on order to regain your MP faster, or eating food in WoW.
If a healer still have most of it’s MP left, you still have resources to spend on your spells, so there is no real reason to consider that as actual “Downtime”.
But, like i said earlier, not every Healer is as experienced or confident as the other. You can’t simply judge a player based on not dpsing during a duty if the healer is lazy or bad. You can only say that with certainty if you know the actual person behind the player. So, because if that, i don’t judge people based on the DPS they put out as a healer. However, i will “judge” based on the skills they do use during the duty. I wrote “judge” between quotes, because i don’t kick people from my party unless they go out of their way to try and get us killed or they are intentionally locking themselves out of the boss encounter.
As long as they can keep the party healthy and we can finish the duty smoothly, i don’t really care.
If you want to make sure that you run with like minded people, the best way to do that is to run content with people you can trust and know what their capabilities are. Just don’t “force” the “Raider”-mentality on the healers or the “I’m only here to heal”-mentality within the game. Aim for smooth runs instead and find a way to work together in clearing the duty.
And most importantly! Have fun while doing it.
It's not mandatory to be a good player. But to be a good player, it is mandatory to DPS.
The reason healer DPS is not included in calculations is because wiggle room needs to be left for shit going south. If healer DPS was included, if you happened to get a group that liked to bathe in the bad you may as well abandon the dungeon because you wouldn't be able to complete it. This is NO WAY means you shouldn't be expected, by your group, to fully contribute if things aren't going south.
I won't rely too much on Yoshida's words since they don't know how to balance correctly healer and don't know how healing works in their own game.
We'll talk about it again the day they'll design battle with so many damages that we'll need to save mana for healing only.
That's all I have to say.
He can't say there's no expectation for it, because the expectation for it is imposed by the community, not them.
Over and over again players will end up doing things the devs didn't intend because players will try anything to squeeze out the most numbers possible. The FFXIV devs may have never intended healer stance dancing in instances to be a thing at all, but it happened because players saw an easier way to meet dps checks or just do content faster.
Very often the players decide the expectations of roles. The most devs can do is change things to discourage what doesn't align with their vision.
Yoshi P may state that but that will not change the mentality of the community.
People will always complain if healers do not dps
Exactly.
Gordias is an example of necessitating healer DPS. It was quite literally impossible for even World First caliber players if their healers didn't DPS, which completely undermines dedicated DPS roles whose whole purpose is to kill things. That doesn't mean healers shouldn't contribute damage, just that their damage shouldn't be a requirement to meet DPS checks.
Shock horror. People don't respond well to lazy players looking to skimp by content by having them do all the work. Hate to break it to you, but if I have 300 casts in a fight and you have 100. I've done three times the work and may be a little salty about it.
It's an example of how necessitating healer DPS in any content wouldn't be good design. It leaves no wiggle room. That doesn't mean healers should get to be lazy because dungeons are easy.
This is purely subjective. I find healing classes and dps classes easy and tanking harder and stresses me out. You are giving an opinion and stating it as fact. Furthermore, it is a bit whiny on top of it's subjective nature. If you don't like what the "difficulty or perceived busy nature of a class/role change classes. Play what you call easy mode. Don't complain someone else is "doing less than you".
Furthermore the level of hubris displayed by players telling the head of a game that he has no clue what HIS design intentions are is simply astonishing.
Shock Horror, stop acting like i am your target. I always play to my very best, be it as stupidly easy content like sastasha or anything else.
The only thing i am against is the mindest that people think they have to force this playstyle onto random people they meet in DF.
Does this mean I can stop using aoe attacks as a melee dps? It stresses me out. As long as I single target I'm doing my job.
Actually few people did go back and reread. Also, giving healers dps skills so they can solo and level themselves without being beholden to other players is not bizarre design. Seems kind of basic in a game where everyone can solo.
My personal play style of healer is I like to throw dps when able while playing a healer. I like the hybridesque feel of the game play. Yoshi statment is pretty much trying to let people know to quit forcing a certain play style on others imo. He gave us the intended role of a healer. He didn't say dpsing on a healer was bad, but he did say the class wasn't designed for you to be required to do so.
After reading thru this thread the only conclusion I can draw is that the way healers are treated by this community is disgusting. Healing in MMOs was always a thankless job but now it's gone from a thankless job to a job that's looked down upon and in some cases treated with open hostility. I'm not sure how any healer can read this thread and not consider re-rolling to a different role.
If it were only meant to be able to dps in the world then CS would have been disabled withing dungeons/raids.
Because I *am* a healer and the only thing I find disgusting is people thinking it is ok for ANY role to sit there and look cute for over half of a dungeon.
I wasn't. I was responding to the notion people get upset when they're carrying someone.
They are, likewise, forcing you to accept their unwillingness to contribute. Just because it's DF doesn't mean people have to like it. Your decisions on how to play doesn't exempt you from the scorn of others, especially if you're being lazy.