White Mage: You should DPS and here's why.

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Originally Posted by LiadansWhisper

This isn't a job. This is a video game. And yeah, sometimes it is above my freaking pay level.

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The point of the analogy was lost the moment you decided to say 'this isn't a job', not it's not a job - but we each play a role as people do in the workforce when we are in an instance.

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Originally Posted by LiadansWhisper

You "respect" other people's choices on one side of your mouth, then call them lazy on the other side of your mouth. So which is it? Do you respect them, or are they lazy? You can't have it both ways.

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I can respect someone who's lazy. They are not a mutually exclusive thing, as you would try to have people believe -

Dictionary.com's definition of lazy.
la·zy
adjective
1.averse or disinclined to work, activity, or exertion; indolent.
2.causing idleness or indolence: a hot, lazy afternoon.

As you can see, the word in and of itself is not actually a bad thing. You're not wanting to work harder than you have to, you're choosing to be idle, etc. There's nothing wrong with that - it's your own personal playstyle. As I said, I'm happy I'm not relying on you for my healing - because I believe in pushing my class to the absolute limit.

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Originally Posted by LiadansWhisper

Wait wait wait...

No one but the tank gets hit in your parties? Really.

So even though you have undoubtedly awesome parties (because most of mine have turned into madness as one DPS or the other decides to ignore marks and just DPS whatever the hell they want, or the tank overpulls and can't hold threat, or the DPS (or tank) are breaking CC that CAN be used for funsies), you feel that everyone else - regardless of their party makeup or circumstances - should be doing exactly as you do, and if they don't, they're lazy?

You realize everyone isn't you?

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Actually, my very first post, I listed off a number of circumstances where you wouldn't want to deal damage. As I've said, it's a case-by-case situation, and purely up to healer comfort. I believe you're misinterpreting the meaning of my posts, and this is ultimately causing you to feel more insulted than you really should.

I merely said you're lazy if you choose not to damage when you are capable of doing damage to maximize your downtime. I.E., the tank's holding hate and regen's keeping him topped off - which happens in more of my parties than the bad DPS/tanks you mention. I know it's easy to Dogpile on bad tanks/dps,but I tend to find they all perform rather well. Perhaps it's my own good fortune.

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Originally Posted by LiadansWhisper

It's a 5 man. Why the hell does it matter if someone isn't "playing to their maximum"? It's a 5 man. 5 mans are vapor. They are pointless and I don't see why anyone should be judged by a 5 man. Ye gods...

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My appologies if you feel personally attacked. That is not my goal. But really, you want everyone in the party doing the best they can do - because otherwise, runs take longer, whipes might happen, etc. No one enjoys sitting through whipes or taking 60+ minuts to clear an AK.

My experience is that some bosses / enemies are more clericstance-friendly as others. And yes, it is rather likely that I get a tank in these entry-level level 50 dungeons who needs spam healing and/or can't hold aggro against more than a single Holy cast. Yesterday 2 of my 4 AK runs had tanks that I basically had to spam Cure 2 on, even on trash (or Cure 1 if DS was up) or they'd drop like a rock. The only time I dared switch into CS in that run was against bosses for initial DOTs until my stoneskin on the tank wore off, and even that was wasting precious mana that actually had us wipe once (when the tank ate an AOE and I didn't have enough mana to swiftcast-Raise them). In most of the WP runs I did, I'd get yellow aggro on all mobs if I used Holy once, and red aggro if I used it again -- so I either stopped using it, or only used it when Shroud was up. My average ilevel is around 57, btw -- still using the i55 GC weapon because lol Ifrit/Garuda.

BTW, what I do NOT like is how unresponsive cleric stance switching feels. May be latency, but I find I usually have to slam the button multiple times (despite being an 'instant' 'off-GCD' ability) to make sure I'm out, which is not a good thing when the tank has just taken a massive hit and needs a cure 2 yesterday.

My personal opinion: DPSing as a healer does help (and it certainly beats standing around looking pretty), but - like others have said - its effectiveness really depends on personal ilevel and the skill/gear of the tank. However, I feel keeping enemies CC'd makes a much bigger difference, even though much of the hard-hitting trash in WP and AK is immune to sleep for some reason; it requires the healer to keep track of multiple CC timers, use fluid aura to ride out the DR immunity (or push loose mobs away), and apply CC at the right time to maximize uptime.

I just don't understand how it is "lazy" to do your designated job. You never see a Tank or a DPS decide to start healing everybody if their HP drops low, and you'd be ridiculed if you suggested they should, because it's not their job. However yes I agree your opinion is very much because of the fact you have been fortunate not to have to put up with the sort of parties some of us do. People crying and complaining if you cast a single DPS, or if their HP drops below 90%, these are the kind of parties some of us have to deal with.

At the end of the day if we were being lazy, we would be one of these people who just goes and sits AFK in CM. But we're not. We are simply doing the job we chose. I'd much rather it took an extra 5 seconds to defeat an enemy, than risk a pointless wipe.

it is lazy because there is more to a fight then your role.

So if a healer dies right before the end of a fight and im in summoner/black mage I shouldn't keep the tank up with physick? I should just refuse because I am dps?
And please remove mantra from your bar monks, that's a healers job to pay attention to healing!

If the boss is as 1% health, and everyone else is dead, should the tank stop hitting it?
Because he is not a dps he is a tank!


This isn't people complaining about you not doing 5 dps while DPS are doing 5000.
The amount you can contribute is significant , except in coil (accuracy). Tank dps can make a difference too!


lazy bads are lazy bads.

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Originally Posted by Staris

it is lazy because there is more to a fight then your role.

So if a healer dies right before the end of a fight and im in summoner/black mage I shouldn't keep the tank up with physick? I should just refuse because I am dps?
And please remove mantra from your bar monks, that's a healers job to pay attention to healing!

If the boss is as 1% health, and everyone else is dead, should the tank stop hitting it?
Because he is not a dps he is a tank!


This isn't people complaining about you not doing 5 dps while DPS are doing 5000.
The amount you can contribute is significant , except in coil (accuracy). Tank dps can make a difference too!


lazy bads are lazy bads.

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You would make more sense if there weren't so many holes in your logic.

BTW, the Mantra a Monk uses is far, far better than anything that can be cross-classed. I guess that next you're going to tell Scholars to use Stoneskin for you. :) That makes about as much sense as what you just said.

I don't know why healers would be standing around looking at the sky. If you have nobody to heal throw some DoTs. If you have even more time throw some Holys yo. In AK I never leave cleric stance on my SCH since I have a set party with a good friend of mine tanking. I don't enjoy seeing bees and purple balls during the dungeon.

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Originally Posted by Eidolon

The same goes for SCH's - they won't be able to have their Fairy solo-heal early on, because the fairy takes a snap shot of their character when summoned and its stats are based upon them.

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Mabe not, but even if the fairy sucks when you first get it, (I'll see when I get that far) I imagine the small window it provides is still far more than a WHM is afforded at that time. What level did we first learn the shroud spell again? How useful was it as a MP recovery spell till lvl 48 when i get's enhanced? Remember how useless Hi-ethers and Elixers were by lvl 35? And if you use Duty finder instead of building a party beforehand, remember how little a difference these things made when it really mattered?

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Originally Posted by AunaYuuki

I don't know why healers would be standing around looking at the sky. If you have nobody to heal throw some DoTs. If you have even more time throw some Holys yo. In AK I never leave cleric stance on my SCH since I have a set party with a good friend of mine tanking. I don't enjoy seeing bees and purple balls during the dungeon.

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DPSing as SCH is so much easier, tho, because Lustrate has nothing to do with your healing power (since it returns a fixed amount of health based on the target's health) and your fairy snapshots your healing power when you summon her (so if you're not in Cleric Stance when you summon her, she never gets the 40% healing debuff that you yourself do).

Well, then in a way I'm certainly glad you prefer dungeon finders because pity to anyone running with you consistently if your'e not willing to do more than the idle cure / cure2 / regen thing. Oh right..and your stoneskin, shouldn't forget that.

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Originally Posted by Gurpsmeister

Well, then in a way I'm certainly glad you prefer dungeon finders because pity to anyone running with you consistently if your'e not willing to do more than the idle cure / cure2 / regen thing. Oh right..and your stoneskin, shouldn't forget that.

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I mostly run with a static group, actually. Tzain even made me a macro so I can laugh and poke the tank. :-P

But mostly I bug him on Mumble to please pull more because I'm bored.

Then I get to pop CDs and heal him back up. That's honestly what I enjoy. But my DF groups have uniformly been hell. :)

Edited to Add: If you think that Cure/Cure 2/Regen are all that I cast, you must not be very acquainted with your toolkit.

Also, I never said that I was 100% unwilling to ever DPS. I said that healers choosing not to DPS doesn't make them bad. Every situation is different, especially with healing. Healers don't just fight the boss, they're fighting their own party/raid members. And for someone to make a sweeping statement that if you don't DPS 100% of the time, you're just bad and wrong is, quite frankly, stupid. If you had any sense in your head you'd understand that situations are different, and the absolute worst thing you can do is make a sweeping statement like that. What about the guy without a Free Company who can only get into groups via the DF (because no relic = no run these days)? What about the guy who is in a Free Company with his friends, but his friends are either a) derpy or b) jerks and make the run a serious chore? When he loses the tank or a party member because he was busy trying to stance dance on top of actually doing his job (which would be healing), do you think they give a flying rat's posterior whether or not some post on the forums said he should be DPSing? They're going to ream him out because he wasn't doing his job at the time and someone died.

The truth is, there's absolutely nothing wrong with choosing to simply heal and not DPS during a dungeon (barring gimmick situations where you have some ability that is absolutely essential to the strat, anyway). What's boring for you isn't boring for other people, and what's safe for you to do with your static group isn't going to be safe for everyone else playing the game right at this moment. Different situations are different, and you honestly should be ashamed that the only come back the lot of you can have is to call people "bads" and tell them they're stupid. Seriously, get over yourselves.