Not another DPS thread...well, ok maybe sorta?

Ok so here is something I wanted to throw out there hold on a sec let me put on my flame retardant suit...ok. So the debate WHM DPS vs WHM no DPS is CLEARLY a sore spot and regardless of anyone's opinion. However what about the reverse DPS helping to heal?

In FFXI it was common for BLM, RDM, SMN to heal in the pt, obviously not primarily but on occassion as support for the healer when things were extra scary or tight. I have noticed that in FFXIV so, so many times the DPS refuse to heal under any situation except themselves being hurt. If a WHM should DPS should not then a BLM help heal in a situation where it is warrented. I play this with my wife (Aphrini is a girl clearly the player is a guy :) ) and as a blm she always heals when things get crazy i.e. a huge hit to the tank or major AOE to the pt, this helps stabalize the fight and because she has endless mp it helps reserve my mp pool. Is this not ok in FFXIV or taboo?

I say this because I have been in sooo many pt where I die for whatever reason and have to walk back and I watch my Tank's hp drop and drop til they die knowing full well the blm or smn in the pt has the ability to cure. It happened just last night, I got tarded and hit by Tonberry Stabber guy and then killed by another hit. Regradless I die and start to walk back in a pt with both a blm and a smn, they sit there and let that Tank die, not a single heal went off, they clearly had the mana and the ability to win that pull and instead they all wiped. It happens all the time. Is the idea of DPS helping heal taboo and not ok in this game or is this just a lack of skill based off of powering through the game through fates etc??

I main BLM and have found situations where healers go down and if the tank is still up I often will spam Physick, but 90% of the time this happens I found the potency of my healing is just not enough for lvl 50+ content to prevent a wipe.

My stats are:

STR 89
DEX 205
VIT 338
INT 470
MND 148
PIE 243

So as you can see my MND is really not helping much at all. I think it's better for DPS jobs to maximize their attack stats, to help keep fight times shorter. That way we can reduce the risks of slip ups like healers/tanks dying. In regards to helping to boost the whm's curing on bosses I have seen some WARs who have a pretty high HP buffer that can help get recovered...but again, it's usually not worth the effort given how weak our curing is.

The reverse isn't really true. The one exception I can see is with battle resurrection from a SMN. Other than that the heals are so weak that it's usually better to just focus on ending the battle.

Also, it's not a fair comparison - DPS have no mechanic to change their throughput between heals and DPS. Both healing jobs have Cleric Stance. With that stance you can match or exceed most DPS int ratings and then add another 10% onto that damage. You can't possibly expect a DPS to match that kind of massive shift.

As a healer, you have a wider range of responsibility and you are expected to execute pretty much flawlessly. It's a higher bar, but it's something I think most of us who have played healer in the past expect (and enjoy).

Yeah my heals only heal for around 250 hp if I remember correctly, and it's a spam fest to try to keep up with the inc damage which to no avail..I lose.

Also...healers aren't expected to do do DD nor is there a canned healers "should" DD. When I eventually roll heals I won't be doing any damage unless I'm bored...and that's when I will go back to my blm.

The difference between here and XI is the fact that magic classes like BLM and SMN had the tools to actually heal in a somewhat effective manner in XI thanks to Cure Potency equipment in the pre-Healing Skill update (not so much now that Healing Skill has such a huge bearing on how potent your Cures are in the XI universe).

There will be times where a heal from a DPS class at a critical time will prevent a wipe, but those opportunities should be few and far in between. It's not to say that a player should not be adaptable during this time, but it certainly isn't their primary purpose as a 200 heal shouldn't be that game breaking in the grand scheme of things of the end game. These situation arise more often in early game dungeons when any class with a heal can effectively heal any Duty Finder instance.

this actually makes much more sense however in the cases where I die, cause I do lol why not heal the tank at all?

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Originally Posted by Aphrini

this actually makes much more sense however in the cases where I die, cause I do lol why not heal the tank at all?

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If it's a situation where we know from experience that our really limited healing is not going to cut it, we're not going to delay the inevitable. However if you're talking about those rare situations where we can prevent a wipe, it's going to come down to the individual player's own effort to the party and/or their experience of healing as a last resort.

I supposed you are better than the ones I am talking about then, it was trash mob pull WP but to your point yes your heals are very weak especially when compared to blm in FFXI I just needed to know :)

Hey Aphirini been a while from the SMN LS on cerberus back in XI :D

One other thing to mention is that sometimes assisting with weak heals is actually a detriment to the party.

When my FC was first doing Titan one of our BLMs would keep spamming Physick on himself whenever he took damage instead of letting the healers handle it, which caused several wipes during the heart phase till I noticed what he was doing.

I can't think of any fights in FF11 except that Snoll fight and the Tenzen fight for CoP that required you to kill something within a time limit.

Hey there Whippet! You play on Oblivion's server how lucky you are! Whippet what was your name on FFXI??? I miss all my SMN so, sooooo badly :( Hornie was the best LS ever!

Personally I have healed through several bosses as a BLM when the healer dies. Three times on the Guardian boss in Sunken Temple and even once last night in Aurum vale on the first boss. Guardian is pretty easy due to his attack pattern giving me time to both DPS and heal through over 50% of his HP. It's not going to work in every situation as stacked debuffs can take a toll on my limited healing capability.

The goal though is to ensure that party HP never drops so low that we lose someone and in many cases throwing out a quick cure will mean the difference between a death or even a wipe. Sacrificing a little pew-pew to keep the party chugging along benefits everyone in the end. Being a good player is about knowing when to adapt to a situation and challenging yourself to utilize your entire toolkit.

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Originally Posted by Teknologik

Personally I have healed through several bosses as a BLM when the healer dies. Three times on the Guardian boss in Sunken Temple and even once last night in Aurum vale on the first boss. Guardian is pretty easy due to his attack pattern giving me time to both DPS and heal through over 50% of his HP. It's not going to work in every situation as stacked debuffs can take a toll on my limited healing capability.

The goal though is to ensure that party HP never drops so low that we lose someone and in many cases throwing out a quick cure will mean the difference between a death or even a wipe. Sacrificing a little pew-pew to keep the party chugging along benefits everyone in the end. Being a good player is about knowing when to adapt to a situation and challenging yourself to utilize your entire toolkit.

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This all day long :D

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Originally Posted by Teknologik

Personally I have healed through several bosses as a BLM when the healer dies. Three times on the Guardian boss in Sunken Temple and even once last night in Aurum vale on the first boss. Guardian is pretty easy due to his attack pattern giving me time to both DPS and heal through over 50% of his HP. It's not going to work in every situation as stacked debuffs can take a toll on my limited healing capability.

The goal though is to ensure that party HP never drops so low that we lose someone and in many cases throwing out a quick cure will mean the difference between a death or even a wipe. Sacrificing a little pew-pew to keep the party chugging along benefits everyone in the end. Being a good player is about knowing when to adapt to a situation and challenging yourself to utilize your entire toolkit.

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Yea healing for blm/smn is effective BEFORE end game... Once you hit endgame you no longer have the int + mnd on all your gear. Its either all int or all mnd. So once you gear up for damage your heals take a HUGE drop in potency. Cleric stance is the only reason healers are viable dps as well as healers, just takes some stance dancing.

On a totally off subject off note, the term Stance Dancing is fancy I really like it lol

as a BLM at level 39, I've had to heal before when the WHM died and we won the battle but it was a very hairy fight, had to use swiftcast a few times but I managed it.... I've noticed some DPS don't pay attention to anything else but themselves and it's caused wipes but its a game and you get over it and try again :-)

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Originally Posted by Aphrini

Hey there Whippet! You play on Oblivion's server how lucky you are! Whippet what was your name on FFXI??? I miss all my SMN so, sooooo badly :( Hornie was the best LS ever!

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Ratatapa the original leader :P

Ha how have you been Rata?

Good Good hating on noobies and lazy SCH/WHM that refuse to nuke when they have the time (because healer suppose to heal only)

Usual stuff what

To expand on this topic a bit more, even though it's not recommended and outside the scope of one's roles, players being able to make use of their tool kits to their utmost efficiency and providing clutch recoveries is what differentiates a good player from an exceptional players.

Good players know their roles and execute them passably and get the job done. It might not be the most efficient / fastest / effective means, but there were no serious hiccups or derpy moves made.

The exceptional players are those who make use of their tool kit and can adapt quickly to unexpected and ever changing situations that arise from any encounter. These are the players who can make clutch wins happen, who knows how to pick up the slack if someone else falls, who can counter balance the mistake of someone else if push comes to shove. These are the players who understand their role, play it to its maximum potential in that role, and then exceed that role by completing tasks that are not normally tasked to them while maintaining their efficiency or preventing a catastrophe from hitting the party.

I wish there was more exceptional players out there though, but I guess that's why they are that: 'exceptional'. At one point in time during a DF HM Ifrit, we had a non-AoE LB setup given and we decided to give it a shot. After two wipes on the nails, we worked on ordering and who was Limit Breaking where and which target, as well as getting added DPS from one of the healers to help burn down the nails. Lo and behold, success! But then, right on the first set of eruptions, our OTs Stun gets resisted and then promptly gets exploded in the face along with the rest of the party except for myself and MT. We're at two and a half bars of LB and I figure in my head if the MT continues to stun, we'll get up to LB3 and I can wipe recovery the party with my LB3.

...the MT doesn't stun, just continues to build hate nonchalantly and doesn't stun at all. He literally eats the next set of eruptions and I can only heal so much while trying to dodge eruptions myself. He eventually dies and we wipe.

It's situations like these where experts play up and beyond your role can lead to clutch wins and victories and I wish more players had the capacity to understand their tool kit beyond their designated role.

Oh well.

I was in a terrible Haukke Manor group where the tank had awful gear, and didn't seem to undestand threat. I couldn't do much more than heal, and repose. The next run I had a great tank, and dps that cc'd everything - I moved cleric stance to my main bar, and dps'd A LOT.

The best players in any MMO have situational awareness to do what is most beneficial in a given circumstance. Sometimes that might be sit back and heal, other times it might be CC, or DPS to contribute more. It's all going to depend on theplayers in th group, theire gear, skill set, and the mechanics SE throws at us.

I'm guessing there will be DPS races where healing is trivial and every bit of damage is absolutely neccesary... and there will be healer intensive fights where the healer can do nothing but spam heal.

The last two posts are pretty much my view, yes DPS healing may be horrible but a exceptional player knows how to use all their tools to succeed. Perhaps on their own they cannot turn the tide but maybe in a particular situation xyz factor inserted the whm is already doing the brunt work but a quick assistance heal can save the day. Obviously not normal or every fight but I believe all options regardless of job should always be on the table.

I do not consider myself an exeptionall player and i can still nuke np

people need to stop putting the word 'elitist' everywhere

You will always be leet in my book buddy

I have 50 vlm and 50 whm. I have to say more than a few times, when the whm dies, or hell even the whm AND the tank, that if the other dps can kite at all, I've spammed Physick constantly to give them time to run back and save us. But if the Dragoon/Monk etc can't kite... it's almost a waste of time.

Edit: Also the BLM can bind / sleep / heavy run away back toward the tank/healer coming back also helps.

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Originally Posted by Whippet

I do not consider myself an exeptionall player and i can still nuke np

people need to stop putting the word 'elitist' everywhere

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I do use the word "exceptional" quite broadly and generally, but those traits I've defined are the players that stand out the most in my mind and I feel deserve the recognition they deserve. "Well played" may be the better term to use perhaps, as I also do not feel like an exceptional player in the general sense, just understand the nuances of the class and can play it well (and just like yourself, I am also able to nuke while healing effectively).

I do feel you misunderstand the intent of my post though. I feel the mindset and play style I defined in my post is something that everyone should be striving to achieve, but "elitist" has an very strong negative connotation that I did not wish to impart in my original post. The abrasive elitist attitude doesn't create a solid community foundation and I try to avoid it when I can because it generally devolves down to is "MY OPINION IS BETTER THAN YOURS" followed by an array of petty name calling.

It was certainly not my intent to make "elitist" sound nicer by saying "exceptional player".

I took it to mean exceptional as in very good at what they do ;) Elitist is far cry from exceptional also I did not assume you to be saying that you were exceptional, though I bet you are :D