Umm, is it "bad" to switch to a healer because of the lower dungeon queue times?

I have ALWAYS been an elf-archer type in all fantasy games I have played, including this one. I thought it would be interesting to try a healer role and also experience the shorter queue times.

After running five dungeons as a new healer, I will say this--the queue times are WAY quicker...I have not waited more than 60 seconds for a dungeon.

Healing is interesting...I have always been DPS and been attacking the monsters. The healer mentality is different--you are like the catcher in baseball--you oversee everything, but you really (for the most part) don't attack the monsters. You are just "managing" the fight. I am still not sure if I love that or hate that. More time will tell.

Anyways, I love the "power-leveling" I am doing--the rested XP bonus I have, the Armoury bonus, and the quick dungeons due to low queue times.

I wonder how many others started a healer or tank due to the low dungeon queue times...?

Nope, I use healer for dungeons myself even though it's not my main. The difference in queue times is huge, on DPS I wait 10-30 minutes, on healer I can queue up and usually have the dungeon completed in the time it would take for just the queue to pop.

My first job to 50 was smn but I changed to sch pretty much right off the bat in order to beat the queue, I had a much more fun experience because of it.

Healing is actually pretty challenging and fun which will be a nice change of pace from any DPS job without the headache of having to lead the charge like tanks do.

Also, don't feel like you need to quit one job in order to play another one, this game really gives you the opportunity to play/gear multiple jobs simultaneously with the exception of maybe fcob due to dps requirements/lockout.

There is nothing wrong with switching to healer to beat the queue times. In fact all i did was spam dungeons from about level 16 all the way to 50. I think it took me about 2 days to hit 50 that way.

If a lot more people followed your example, DPS queue times would be short.

So no. It's not bad.

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Originally Posted by DoctorPepper

Also, don't feel like you need to quit one job in order to play another one, this game really gives you the opportunity to play/gear multiple jobs simultaneously with the exception of maybe fcob due to dps requirements/lockout.

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I agree, but don't most people "main" one job? I love how you can do multiple jobs on one character, but don't most people have one role they enjoy the most? I am trying to figure out if healing is my new love or not. Heck, maybe I will try tanking. The problem is I don't know the dungeons all that well haha.

I use my warrior for my dailies even though I main blm..

Why would it be?

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Originally Posted by Tiggy

Why would it be?

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I meant that was my primary motivation for doing so; it was not because I actually LOVED playing a healer role.

I tank everything because of the damn queue times. 2 total runs daily for 2 characters gets pretty annoying but oh well. Long as each run is 25~ minutes I don't let it bother me too much.

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Originally Posted by Slick

I agree, but don't most people "main" one job? I love how you can do multiple jobs on one character, but don't most people have one role they enjoy the most?

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Having a "main" really refers to raiding. Specifically in Final Coil right now and with poetics and the weekly cap. Since for both of those you really have to focus on gearing one job. If you are in a static as a blm for example, then that's your role and that's the job you will be spending your poetics on, and the job you will be rolling on loot in coil. You want this job to be the best it can as far as gear. This is your main. Most statics also allow each player to have 1 off-spec or alt that you can roll on so gear doesn't hit the floor if someone already has a certain piece. If you don't raid and don't care about poetics caps, then there is really no reason to have a main

Since I got to level 50 on my whm I never ever did another low level dungeon except the animus books. Cause I have had too many bad tanks that lets me tank 3 out of 4 mobs and I just get so mad at them that I quit haha. So nope I only use low level dungeons to level my jobs up and when im at 50 on all of them, never ever again ever

There is nothing bad about switching to healer, or tank, if you prefer shorter waits.

They only thing we need from you is to learn the class, do your best, and if you find yourself hating it down the road, return to DPS.

This game is, first and foremost, supposed to be entertaining. If healer feels like a job, everyone on the team could suffer. Just do what is the most fun for yourself!

The only time "maining" something comes into play is if you are gearing a job with limited token gear. there is nothing wrong with being profecient in multiple class/jobs. It is actually encouraged by most people as it gives you a greater understanding of what is going on and how things fit together.

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Originally Posted by Slick

I agree, but don't most people "main" one job? I love how you can do multiple jobs on one character, but don't most people have one role they enjoy the most? I am trying to figure out if healing is my new love or not. Heck, maybe I will try tanking. The problem is I don't know the dungeons all that well haha.

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Leveling up multiple classes is actually totally sensible because of cross-class skills. If you're healing, you'll likely want to level up the other healer class at some point (for Stoneskin and Eye for an Eye - both nice, neither necessary) and you'll definitely want to level up BLM to 26 as soon as you can (for Swiftcast - make any spell instant-cast once per 90 seconds, a must-have at endgame). If you're running BRD, you'll likely want to level up DRG and MNK (for Blood for Blood, Invigorate, Internal Release, and Mantra).

Also, you get a +50% experience bonus to all DoW/DoM classes that are not your single highest level class. Even if they are the same level, if one has less experience than the other, it gets the +50% bonus. This makes leveling up multiple classes much less painful. And, don't forget about Challenge Log and Daily Roulette exp bonuses - once you have one class at 50 and unable to gain experience, you can get the daily/weekly bonuses on other classes so as not to waste the free bonus experience. (Speaking of the Challenge Log, if you're a new player, be sure to do the level 17 quest "Rising to the Challenge" in Limsa Lominsa asap. It unlocks a feature that gives you weekly bonus exp and gil for doing specific things, like running 5 dungeons in one week.)


Regarding choosing a main, well, at endgame, you have limited resources for acquiring the current endgame gear. Like, right now, you can only get 450 Allagan Tomestones of Poetics per week, and it costs 375-850 for a piece of Ironworks (item level 120) gear, making it hard to buy Ironworks for multiple classes. When the latest iteration of the Crystal Tower raid is the most current content (which is not true right now, but will be in 2.5), you can only loot one piece of gear per week from the dungeon. When the latest iteration of the Binding Coil of Bahamut raid is the most current content (which is true right now, but won't be in 2.5), you can only beat each turn of the Coil once per week. So, you have to work out with your static raid group who will be getting what gear (or if you PUG it, you're only going to have a shot at the gear for whatever class you're running at the time). Also, the Zodiac Weapon quest is extremely long, grindy, and expensive. While you can get multiple Zodiac weapons, it's almost prohibitively time consuming to do so, and for most steps, trying to do the same step for two or more weapons at once either can't be done or will slow you down immensely.

Those are the only ways of getting current endgame gear, and the lockouts/weekly limits pretty much force you to pick one class to gear up to the highest level. But, there are people like me who really don't give a crap about being the absolute highest ilvl you can be. I like switching up what I do, so I've spread out my Poetics between many classes (I have the caster, tank, melee dps, and healing rings, tank gloves/legs, caster pants, etc). Most serious raiders don't do that, but many more casual players like me do.

In addition, you can do almost all endgame content (all except the Final Binding Coil of Bahamut) with the second latest gear (ilvl 110 instead of ilvl 120-130), and getting that for multiple classes is totally doable.


EDIT: Also, on the question in the title - no, it's actually "good" to do that. It lowers queue times for everyone. Even though I play BLM in most content, when I queue solo, I always queue as PLD. That gets me both instant queues and a 4,500 gil "role in need" bonus. The "in need" bonus on my datacenter is always Tank for everything right now. It's kind of sad, except in that it means I always get the bonus, which is rather nice. More people should switch classes for quicker queue times, because if everyone does it, queue times for everyone will become nearly instant.

Not at all, my main is BLM but I go healer for roulette dailies. Healing's fun, you aren't the leader but as you mentioned already you're in control of the fight and get to observe what's going on. On top of that you can DPS as well as long as everyone's HP is topped and your tank isn't dying.

You're helping those awful queue times as well by going as a role duty finder needs.

I've always enjoyed healing and return to it pretty often. I can't seem to make it stick in the long run, though, because eventually I want to see the action instead of health bars. Once I've had my fill I usually go back to healing for a while.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrK

I've always enjoyed healing and return to it pretty often. I can't seem to make it stick in the long run, though, because eventually I want to see the action instead of health bars. Once I've had my fill I usually go back to healing for a while.

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Do low level stuff as SCH and let Eos or Selene do all the healing while you DPS. Best of both worlds!

On top of shorter queues, you also get easier dungeons as a healer. Tank low level = 90% chance of DD or AV, healer low level = 90% chance of something below level 30 that takes 20 minutes or less.

When I need the tomes I go as SCH for low level roulette, pull out EoS to heal, and do gimpy damage in cleric stance, backup healing on occasion.

As soon as I get Nexus done on my summoner relic I'm going to run everything as healer or tank for faster queues. XD

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Originally Posted by Slick

I agree, but don't most people "main" one job? I love how you can do multiple jobs on one character, but don't most people have one role they enjoy the most? I am trying to figure out if healing is my new love or not. Heck, maybe I will try tanking. The problem is I don't know the dungeons all that well haha.

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That's entirely up to you really, personally I play about 4 of my jobs frequently and they're all pretty well geared.

Of course I have one that is a bit more geared up than others but that's only because I've been spending all of my poetics tomes on that job for the most part. You end up getting lots of soldiery tomes while you're collecting tomes of poetics so you can gear up your alt classes in i100 gear from soldiery and then do ST/SCOB to gain sands/oils for upgrading that gear to i110 and will also see i110 gear drops in SCOB.

At i114 I've pretty much gotten all of the poetics gear for my first job that I actually want so I'll be moving on to my alts for poetics gear this week.

i started tanking when 2.4 hit, for easier queues, and my war is level 44 now

I think the queue times for the range dps classes really lowered a lot since the release of the rogue. As a bard I used to wait like 20-40 minutes to queue, and these days it's under the 10minutes.

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Originally Posted by Garotte14

Having a "main" really refers to raiding. Specifically in Final Coil right now and with poetics and the weekly cap. Since for both of those you really have to focus on gearing one job. If you are in a static as a blm for example, then that's your role and that's the job you will be spending your poetics on, and the job you will be rolling on loot in coil. You want this job to be the best it can as far as gear. This is your main. Most statics also allow each player to have 1 off-spec or alt that you can roll on so gear doesn't hit the floor if someone already has a certain piece. If you don't raid and don't care about poetics caps, then there is really no reason to have a main

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Wrong. Not everyone raids as their main. My main is healer (both SCH and WHM) but in my raid group (and one I belonged to in the past), I've always gone as BLM because the healer roles are always filled.

I thinkk that this video is relevant to the thread >_> http://youtu.be/4akl6AUj_JM

On the other hand I started as a healer. I love being a healer, and trying to level DPS... it's a real pain and I just don't like it much... Tanking is okay though...

Thank god you can do Zodiac upgrade on any job. Gathering lights on MNK Nexus took a thousand hours whereas WAR took twenty seconds.

I couldn't imagine Dungeon Atma locked on DPS.

I do dailies as Whm or Pld for the Q times. I main bard for raid etc. Hate waiting.

Not only are you helping yourself get in sooner, you're helping 2 DPS that don't want to make this change also get in sooner.

Oh for sure, I've played things only for fast queue times. It happens a lot. They even put role-in-need bonuses on roulettes to encourage switching. It would be nice to use dps classes more often, but I would rather wait less and play the role in need.

I used to main Monk, even started relic on it and got Novus now, even though I've been main on WHM for months now for my static. Probably never going to get nexus cause for dailies I go either on Whitemage or more often Warrior, for that bit of extra money by being the needed Role. ;) Just cannot be bothered to do stuff on my Monk anymore. XD