What if, healers are not healers?

I don't post here often (read:ever), and I likely won't follow up on this thread for more than a few days after posting, but I'm going to write this anyways, maybe it'll give someone some food for thought.


Stop for a moment to get off your Sylphie soap box and consider this: What if healers in this game *aren't* healers?

There are plenty of mmo's out there that don't have any dedicated healer class, they'll have different types of DPS, some with more support skills, some with more tank-y skills, some with more potent attack skills.

What if this is one of those games?! *gasp* At least maybe it's almost like one.

Would all of our arguments cease if they name of the role that gets a green icon was just "support" instead of "healer?"

[For the sake of this thread, set aside the "support DPS" monniker for MCH and BRD. Yes they bring some utility at the SLIGHT cost of their own dps output, but the amount of actual support they bring is minimal. And that's a thread for a different section.]

Why look at it like this? Why consider that healers aren't meant to heal 100% of the time and are actually supporting DPS (EVEN when it's been stated that fights are balanced based on ZERO dps contribution from the healers?!)?


Let's look at tanks, first. Because tanks, like healers, have the ability to stance dance.

Tanks are a DPS, in that they are continuously contributing to the damage going out. No arguments here, right? They do damage per each second of the encounter, therefore tanks = DPS. And let's not forget that the goal of every piece of content in this game (except casual side stuff like gold saucer) is to kill the monsters and enemies. Tanks are *not* DPS, they don't get a red icon, it's blue. But they also are DPS. Tanks have a tank stance (read: CS off) and a DPS stance (CS on). Tanks trade off high damage for being able to control the aggro of the battle field, and they can sacrifice a bit of that control by stance dancing for a bit more damage. The ability to mitigate and control aggro is what makes them "Tanks" despite also being DPS.

tl;dr:Tanks are damage dealing classes that sacrifice high bursty damage (except fell cleave, because warrior OP) for aggro control. Effective tanks put out as much DPS as possible while controlling monster hate, and mitigating through the extra damage happening. DPS also helps kill the monsters faster, which is not only the goal, but helps the tanks do their jobs more effectively (more damage = more aggro). No one suggests that tanks should lose their significant DPS and be *only* meat shields. Even though their name implies that's what they should be.


Now let's look at our regular old red icon'd DPS. They go pew pew, do the most damage, and things die. Pretty easy. They get some extra fancy skills that let's them kill things in differently twisted ways (AOEs, DoT's, bursty combos). Stuff dies, no one complains.


And in the green icon'd camp we have the "healers" but let's call them support. They have these skills that support the others, in the form of heals, shields, and buffs (astro). Like a tank's top priority is to hold aggro and mitigate (while also DPSing), a "Support's" job is to keep the party alive using it's variety of skills, while also meeting the end goal of the content (kill the thing!), because that's everyone's goal. They're a lot like tanks in their design, with stances for different functions. Actually there's a part of them that's a lot like DPS too, which I'll get to.



Let's get all over-simplified hypothetical here and imagine every role in FFXIV had 9 skills only.

DPS would get 3 standard attacks (think your basic 1-2-3 combo), 3 more DPS attacks that cements their role as DPS (let's say 3 DoT's for a ranged class, or 3 AoE's for a caster), and 3 EXTRA DPS skills (think proc's or special circumstance skills, like bloodletter or trick attack), because their role defines them as the ones who put out more DPS, and their class separates them from the others.

Tanks would get 3 standard attacks for their average dps (1-2-3 combo), 3 aggro controlling skills (provoke, flash, tomahawk, etc.), and 3 damage mitigating skills (foresight, etc).

Try not to think of GCD/oGCD or buff vs attack, the point here is to consider each class has 9 very simple "functions" to get their respective job done. Like an oversimplified mobile version of FFXIV.
Each class gets 3 standard attacks that every class gets, 3 skills that perform their "role" (DPS get damage skills, tanks get extra tanky skills, etc) this is what will set their colored icon as DPS/Tank, and 3 special skills that help separate their class from the others in the role (e.g. what makes a DRK not a WAR) basically what defines their job.

In this setup, healers would also get 3 basic attacks (e.g. stone, or broil, or malefic), 3 straight heals (e.g. cure or physick or benefic), and 3 special support skills to differentiate their roles (adlo, or regen, or card buffs)

The point is to strip everything down to the bare minimum and look at the basics of what every class was built out from. Every class gets the 3 basic attacks. The next set of skills it what defines their role (red DPS, blue tank, green support), and the last set of 3 is what defines their actual class (WAR/DRK/PLD, AST/WHM/SCH, etc).

You'll notice DPS have all 9 skills as DPS oriented. Tanks have a dedicated 3, but some of their remaining 6 likely also add damage in addition to the tank functions. Healers get 3 attacks, and the other 6 are dedicated to their support, like the 6 dedicated to tanks being tanks.


If you can look at it this way, EVERY class, which already has the same goal of KILL THE THING, also has the same basic function to get that goal done. Party dynamics don't change the presence of these basic abilities, they just provide more tools to work together as a team. Priorities will change depending on the role, for example tank is: Aggro first, mitigation next, DPS last. Support would be: Party health first, buffs (regens/shields/cards) next, and DPS last. DPS would be: Special utility your role brings first (caster bringing magic damage, or archer bringing dots), special class defining skills next (buffs, procs, etc), and basic DPS last (basically when 1 and 2 are met, you fill in the gaps with the 3rd, this applies to all 3 roles).


All of this boils down to the design not being, let's place these completely different roles into an environment together and force them to mesh, but rather, let's give everything the same basic design and then build them out to have unique ways of accomplishing the same task.

This isn't a game of meat shield + heal slave + damage dealer
It's a game of:
Slightly weak damage dealer with aggro skills + slightly weak damage dealer with healing skills + slightly weak damage dealer with strong damage dealing skills.


tl;dr I don't believe at any point was a role designed or balanced to be 100% healing, it's not how the core functions and mechanics of *this particular game* were made (long GCDs, slower builds of damage going out, etc). Other games have dedicated 100% healers who can't do anything else. No role in this game is built so that they can *only* do one thing.

That said, it seems to me that the devs like to be adaptive to varying play styles. You can tank an entire dungeon run without leaving Defiance. That doesn't mean it's optimal, but you can be successful (to a degree) doing this, just like a healer can not DPS the entire run, and still be successful (to a degree).

Why is healer DPS not accounted for in balance? Because the whole backbone of healing requires an understanding of mechanics, which you're not going to have when you're learning new content. When you're learning, you focus on your first, and maybe second priority. For tanks this still means they DPS (some, maybe in tank stance the entire time) because many of their role-defining skills also come in the form of attacks). Many slightly-above-casual healers, who are comfortable DPSing, won't go into new content and holy bomb all over the place, they'll pull back on DPS (if they DPS at all) and watch the damage going on while they're learning. Balance is designed around this learning to clear phase. It's like in sophia where the first phasar tilt mechanic doesn't actually tilt. It's there to demonstrate that one blue line = 3 small read ones and the board won't tip. If you're familiar with the fight, you don't care about this, but when you're trying to figure out the mechanics the first time, this is a huge clue. Just because it's not expected for you to DPS while learning a fight, doesn't mean DPS isn't expected to be contributed.

Balanced is designed around the ability to learn to clear a fight, not around being able to farm a fight.


So stop for a moment and consider, what if healers aren't healers? What if all classes had the same core basics (which they do), and then added more utility as you progress (which they do), that don't override the core functions (which they don't).

What if this isn't a game with 100% healing healers? (which it isn't) And while I wouldn't argue this is a game *without* any healing roles, like other games have. I would argue that this game falls squarely (pun not intended) in the middle between no healers, and healer-only-healers, and does a fantastic job of meshing support DPS with healing.


Really real tl;dr Don't you dare touch my cleric stance.

Thank you for being so very eloquent.

That was awesome.

I actually had similar idea and talked with friends
Like, if I gear my blm with all mind gear, will that a make a new healer never run out of mp?

And I tried in a farm
Wipe

http://s.mlkshk-cdn.com/r/H66G

I agree with this lol every class is just a dps with their own special buttons. In no way do healers need to heal 24/7 outside of the hardest content.

I thought about something similar the day I got to play with all roles, in this game everyone is a dps with an extra role.

Tanks are DPS + Tanking.
DPS are DPS + DPS.
Healers are DPS + Healing.

I've played WoW before, so the moment I got to know the roles in FF14 that became obvious to me. Maining Restoration Druid back in Wrath of the Lich King was 100% about healing, and I had plenty of damage to deal with. When I got to FF14 and started the low level dungeons I could stay 3 or 4 encounters without healing once, because the damage wasn't worth it. So I realized: "Hold on, I have Cleric Stace. I have damage spells. I have lots of time. Oh, I should DPS.".

It is a given. But I guess all the salty ex-wow players want to ruin this game just like their own game is a ruin and force the Healer + Healer in FF14 as well, sorry people, this is FF14.

There may be another solution that enables healers to heal or dps through personal choice, or player's preferred playstyle, and that is to make all healers have the same damage dealing potential, so each healing class, is allowed to heal or dps as they choose just like tanks can choose to mt or ot. Healers can be 100% healers and still enjoy the game without ruining anyone's play. If you play a class that is being coerced into not using the spells it is designed to play because you are a scholar, for example, then its not actually very fair. I would like to use or choose to use all the spells I have for my class. Being classed as just support, kind of makes you lose the essential component that makes your role nessesary in a group

What do you mean, same damage dealing potential? White Mage and Astrologian both contribute as much as, or more than Scholar, through heavy AoE damage and cards.

I really don't understand what you mean.

"Tanks are a DPS,"

Stopped reading.

Every job has mitigation, damage, and healing moves because this game is primarily solo play outside of dungeons, trials, and raids. If all jobs didn't, everyone would constantly be in drg mode. So yes, healers will always have the ability to do damage.

Healers heal.

That's why a majority of their abilities have to deal with healing. They have the ability to do damage because the party questing style hasn't been in fashion for nearly a decade.

This is why tanks can do damage.

However, calling a tank a DPS without burst potential is blatantly wrong. DPS classes deal -high sustained damage per second-. This is not 'burst' damage. Burst damage is the phase where your cooldowns are popped to get the most overlapping effect from multipliers. (Black Mage Eno/LEylines/Raging, Summoner Dread/Raging/Pet buffs, Dragoons -all the cooldowns-, potions).

Tank damage is actually pretty lackluster, but they have phases of high damage output thanks to ridiculously good cooldowns with higher than average uptime. Tanks deal low sustained damage, but have high burst phases with shorter spans between them. This averages out to mediocre damage per second -but heavily favors short phase encounters-. Remember when 'omg warrior was op' in 3.0? The encounters were Ravana and Bismarck. Encounters with short windows of high vulnerability, perfectly suited to the Berserk / Fell Cleave style.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

However, calling a tank a DPS without burst potential is blatantly wrong.

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The point wasn't to claim tanks can't burst, but rather to identify the skills that make a tank a tank (defensive cool downs, aggro gathering), versus a DPS. A tank's offensive cooldowns aren't what makes the a "tank" they're just extra damage to help them control the theater of battle. You could argue a healer's offensive skills help them control the battle as well.

Also this:

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

They have the ability to do damage because the party questing style hasn't been in fashion for nearly a decade.

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Is based on what, exactly? I wrote a giant wall of text to hypothesize that maybe they *don't* just have the ability to do damage for soloing quests? That the basic game functions all point to a same foundation that grows outward to develop the roles, and then the class, system. That nothing actually signifies that healers are meant to purely heal in this game, other than a few players opinions as to otherwise?

Please base your argument in the functions of this game, not just what's "in style" for other games. And I have addressed the statement that balance isn't centered around healer DPS, so if your rebuke is going to include this point, please make sure to actually respond to the statement. It's not a discussion if broad ambiguous claims are made.

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Originally Posted by Rennies

What do you mean, same damage dealing potential? White Mage and Astrologian both contribute as much as, or more than Scholar, through heavy AoE damage and cards.

I really don't understand what you mean.

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Scholars more than any other healing class are always expected to be the dps/healer. I am told that this is not because the other two classes are better healers, but because scholar has better damage dealing potential because of the dots left on target while the pet can heal. what other reasons why scholar is never considered a main healerI this may be because the heals themselves appear weak, combined with shied though it makes their healing just as effective as wmg.With indom/emergeny tactic/succur sch can do big aoes potentially every 15 sec on top of the normal non cd heals.Not to mention the other damage reducing buffslike adlo spread, eye for an eye and sacred soil. Just am told scholar is better dps. Its not my fault reddit thinks so.

Tank DPS nerf sorta invalidates this thread, IMHO. Tanks aren't damage dealing classes, regardless of anything else. By now I'm just patiently waiting for the inevitable healer deeps nerf.

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Originally Posted by Thunda_Cat_SMASH

Tank DPS nerf sorta invalidates this thread

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It was a DPS boost for any tank who was already gearing VIT as intended.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

It was a DPS boost for any tank who was already gearing VIT as intended.

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Any competent tank was using strength accessories and surviving just fine, no different than the healers that spend the majority of the time in cleric stance dpsing. It was a direct dps nerf no matter how you slice it with the change to the tank formula. Regardless of how you want to slice it, any loss of attack power is still a nerf.

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Originally Posted by Feyona

but because scholar has better damage dealing potential because of the dots left on target while the pet can heal. what other reasons why scholar is never considered a main healerI this may be because the heals themselves appear weak, combined with shied though it makes their healing just as effective as wmg.

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This is entirely my personal opinion, but I think a lot of this expectation is grounded in 2.0 compositions. With a WHM and a SCH it was easier for the SCH to let the fairy provide the supporting heals while the sch DPS's, because hey, there's an AI doing the healing for you. There wasn't a third healer dynamic to make the composition be reevaluated. Both SCH's and WHM's have really useful tools in their kit, however, and I absolutely agree you could swap the identities, have the WHM be the "supporting/off" heals and the scholar "main" it, but people see the AI and go, well, AI.

That said (again my opinion) I've always felt like the extra stance dancing a WHM has to do to keep regens up (if you consider the HoT's the supporting heals in the same role as the fairy for a WHM/AST comp), is offset a bit by the potency of a WHM's attacks. A white mage can do more damage than any of the other healers if they have 100% up time on cleric stance (not counting mp limitations). But because they have to stance dance more often to provide the supporting heals (regen, medica 2, asylum, etc), because there's no AI, their damage could potentially average out to be the same as a scholar who doesn't have to drop CS as much, but has less potency.

Astro's are caught in this place where when they're in diurnal and thus paired with a SCH, they fall into the same mold left by the WHM composition from 2.0 (despite having a 5% GCD speed increase). And when they're in nocturnal with a WHM, they lose their supporting heal options, and gain a healing potency, that also ends up pegging them as the more "main" healer. It also helps that their big DoT is up longer, so it doesn't have to be refreshed as often.

This is literally a game using the Holy Trinity Class/job archetype. You fall into X or Y category as designed with the queues.
It is literally programmed that you are X or Y category since you want to speak in terms of the functions of this game. The code, the most base form states "variable JOB = variable CLASSIFICATION". If you didn't queue as X or Y then you wouldn't be considered X or Y by the very system splitting people up for instances. PLD can't queue as DPS, DRG can't queue as healer, AST can't queue as tank. just because content is focused on healer DPS means we should be denied it outright.
Does it suck sometimes? Sure. Is it probably outdated for today's day & age? Sure.

However if we didn;t have these classification you could easily end up with 8 Monks or 3 PLD, 2 MCH, 1 DRK, 1 SMN and 1 BLM running Alex or Weeping City. Good luck surviving with your heals from BLM and SMN that aren't likely even cross-classed/on their hotbar. We have the archetypes for a valid programming reason and to prevent player outrage as such groups being composed. Look at the MOBAs who lack an archetype system. Enjoy your 5 squishy DPS that need end game builds getting wrecked early. Even DotA has roles listed on characters even if it's a soft version of the system It is still THERE for people to use.

Have you ever seen a MMO where a healer has 0 DPS skills? No because we need to level and to do that we need to kill things. To kill things we need damage. If said kit got tossed aside once you hit level cap because you are no longer needed to kill things to level there wouldn't be progression for healers in future content with level cap increases. We would fall stagnant unable to keep people healed in the harder hitting content simply because we physically CAN'T climb the ladder everyone else is using. It would be like you graduating as a Doctor only to reach the hospital and have them take all your surgery tools away. "Oh you reached the end you don't need these anymore." No. You need said tools to do your job. That is why everyone has a bit of everything; for the gameplay as a whole and not just Dungeons or Raids or MSQ solo.

Can you picture playing a WHM but sitting there just using Stone 1 against a level 60 MSQ enemy? Or perhaps as an AST sitting there giving NPCs cards and heals until THEY finished your MSQ Duty? I bet you wouldn't touch that class then. Going to bare bones builds is asking for a bad time. Every single option every job has is an option to use. Healers got the OPTION to DPS just like Tanks got the OPTION to use Defensive CDs or self-heal. Really if you DO use that option it just makes you more flexible with your job as a whole within more content available. In the end it is always the player's CHOICE to do extra.

TL;DR = Holy Trinity Archetype if there for a valid reason unless you want even worse party comps than we have now in EVERY piece of content.

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Originally Posted by Feyona

Scholars more than any other healing class are always expected to be the dps/healer. I am told that this is not because the other two classes are better healers, but because scholar has better damage dealing potential because of the dots left on target while the pet can heal...

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I regrettably have to inform you that among all healers SCH has the worst DPS potency spells. Even Aero from WHM which they don't even use it all time (only with combine with fluid aura or when have to move or oGCD) becomes a valuable Dot for SCH which the SCH should keep it on boss near 100% uptime together with all their other DOTs. Beside even when you go as WHM/AST the main healer should dps too. It's wrong to think only the off-heal have to dps. Two healer should balance their heal/dps time.

The reason why people tell you SCH is a dps healer, is not because of their "better" dps tool or weaker heal (have SCH ever considered weak? :D ), but because SCH is BUILT for dps while healing/mitigating/supporting. You as SCH:
- have more potential instant heal skills than whm/ast: Lustrate/Indom (which you can turn off cleric and cast them immediately),
- can cast embrace/whispering down and other pet skills while in cleric,
- can put out sacred soil, virus, E4E, all while in cleric.
Those reasons make it perfectly for SCH to stay in cleric and doing most of their jobs. Heck, only physick, adlo, succor require you to stay out of cleric stance to cast them. Then tell me, why do you want to stay out of cleric stance all the time on SCH while more than half of your "healing" kit do not require you to?

If you think SCH should heal only and stay away from cleric cause you have so many amazing spells like you listed, then, you are playing sch wrong :|

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Originally Posted by DotsNnots

Is based on what, exactly?

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Warhammer
Aion
Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2
Every "Free Action MMORPG" (In the veins of Tera)
SWToR
Our very favorite comparison of World of Warcraft.

All examples over the past 10 years of games that have moved away from the FF11 / Everquest initial style of 'You need a party to do everything.'

In every example, even if the reasoning is different, the "healers" and "tanks" of the game were more than capable of dealing relevant damage, but clearly not the best. I could go through every example and tell you why, but frankly I don't need to.

Healers in FF14 are healers. You can classify them as 'support' if -you- want, but then they're pretty piss poor 'support' classes instead of adequate healing classes.

Support doesn't mean "Heals the party and does other things."

Support tends to refer to utilities that make up for the fact the person isn't bringing raw damage, raw tanking capability, or raw healing capability. It's why Bard in FF14 2.x got shafted via the Armory nerfs, because they weren't supposed to be able to do comparable damage while being 100% mobile and bringing the Bard Songs. The bard was considered the 'support class' because it brought some pretty overpowering, if simple, utility you couldn't get from anywhere else.

The White Mage is not a support class. The white mage is bringing almost entirely a healing kit, having a heal of almost every variety, debuff removals, and a heavily nerfed from 2.x damage shield. Their damaging spells are fairly simple, and while they can be used to deal relevant damage, I'd hardly say people look at their party compositions and go "Shit, we don't have a white mage, we'll never make the dps check."

The Scholar is not a support class. The Scholar, being shackled to a baseline DPS class, is a limited healing class focusing on damage prevention while capable of doing good sustained damage for single target and AoE.

The Astrologian is the closest of the three current healers to being a support class, but is heavily hampered in that role through random chance as well as the fact that its options are limited to raw number boosts, and not something unique. In almost every case, those cards get relegated into 'damage boost'. Considering almost every job brings something that boosts the party's damage, I guess that makes erebody a support.

In the 4 party style FF14 is presenting, an actual 'Support' class wouldn't be all that useful. In the 8 party system, it's still questionable, but more likely. The best you can hope for in these small party systems in a game where most of the time you play solo are classes like Astrologian, Bard, or Machinist. Classes that have 'support lite' capability while primarily being a member of the Holy Trinity .

The Holy Trinity remains such because its far easier to keep things in line with each other, even if its not as fascinating as the Web-of-Niches.

Oh aion... I wish scholars could be like chanters/bard there... :(

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Originally Posted by Llynd

Oh aion... I wish scholars could be like chanters/bard there... :(

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And i wish the WHM would be like the OLD cleric (pre new stigma bullshit) but then the threads of people who complain about the WHM dps would never stop. Aion class design doesn't fit here at all and thats good that way.

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Originally Posted by Normalizer

I regrettably have to inform you that among all healers SCH has the worst DPS potency spells

The reason why people tell you SCH is a dps healer, is not because of their "better" dps tool or weaker heal (have SCH ever considered weak? :D ), but because SCH is BUILT for dps while healing/mitigating/supporting.

If you think SCH should heal only and stay away from cleric cause you have so many amazing spells like you listed, then, you are playing sch wrong :|

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This really is not my opinion it the reason I have been given. Plus if I have been playing scholar 'wrong' then I've made a damn good job of healing with it so far. Its only people's opinions really Also I really do have those healing spells, and I can actually just heal very effectively. That is actually my preferred way of playing, I would like to be able to choose thats all.

I liked your post. You clearly put a lot of thought and effort into it, and you aren't wrong. (This game has a lot of messed up terminology.)

MMO's have been based on the holy trinity; Damage Dealer, Tank and Healer. It makes everything easier. When we group I know quickly how to form my group. (I haven't assembled zero people that can take damage, 5 people that think they can do damage, a DD and one person who thinks he's a support). DPS refers to the Damage per second each player can do. (When people say dps they really mean DD.)

Imagine a healer isn't the best player and doesn't have the best gear. It takes all his effort to keep the party alive. This was how the game started. Healers weren't supposed to DD. Now some players got good/overgeared, or know the fight and started DDing. It's become the standard. (which it shouldn't be.) Once you have your role down you can do whatever makes you happy. Tanks take damage/hold hate, DD does high damage and healers keep party alive.

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Originally Posted by Feyona

This really is not my opinion it the reason I have been given. Plus if I have been playing scholar 'wrong' then I've made a damn good job of healing with it so far. Its only people's opinions really Also I really do have those healing spells, and I can actually just heal very effectively. That is actually my preferred way of playing, I would like to be able to choose thats all.

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The thing about SCH, is the job branches from Arcanist, which is a DPS class. It goes into what Normalizer is talking about with how the class/job is built. CNJ as it levels to 30 continues to get more utility towards healing with little focus on offensive magicks. Arcanist as it levels to 30 is LOADED with offensive spells.

Upon receiving your SCH soulstone, even if I take away the fact that your fairy can take care of a great portion of the healing required, the utility SCH brings on their own still heavily favors that of DPS. Your fairy skills have their own CDs, so it is not a matter of having to choose between your SCH tool kit, and your fairy tool kit. Add to that, that for anything other than Physick casts, you literally hop in and out of Cleric to cast those abilities (over time it becomes muscle memory to do so), and it just comes out to having a MASSIVE window to DPS.

The title of this thread, though it compartmentalizes all healers, I feel is better directed right at SCH. It truly is a DPS/healer while WHM and AST would be Healer/DPS. I by no means take anything away from SCH as healers. I consider them to be the best "oh shit!" healers in the game because all of their 'oh-shit' abilities are instant, and only limited to aetherflow stacks and relatively short cool downs. So I just encourage you to remember that in every instance you go in as SCH, your ARC abilities comprise 60-85% of your entire tool kit depending on your level. I also encourage the 'ABC' rule (always be casting) while avoiding over healing.

Interesting thread. I play healers in MMOs because - when the group is not outgearing the encounter - it's a pretty challenging and intuitive minigame of resource management (both my own and my team's), triage/prioritization and situational awareness combined with utility that helps my team recover from bad situations as well as help everyone kill things faster. If I just wanted to maximize my personal damage numbers, I'd play DPS (and I do!)... their damage abilities are more mechanically interesting than, say, the white mage dps 'rotation' (solo up to like level 46 it was like aero, stone 2 until dead).
Some examples of support / hybrid gameplay that were fun in other games:

City of Heroes: radiation/sonic defender. In addition to AOE healing the group, debuff the crap out of enemies, buff my team in response / preparation to certain enemy actions, control and nuke dangerous enemies with a pretty big selection of attack abilities (all of which would further debuff the enemy, increasing the amount of damage my team inflicted on them), some oh-crap cooldowns and summons, etc. Probably the best support role I've ever played.

Lord of the Rings Online: green-spec captain. Mainly beat on the most threatening enemy while buffing my team and debuffing theirs, including AOE stuns and interrupts. Spot heal as needed; also mark some of my allies with 'brother' skills that'd allow me to augment their offensive and defensive abilities (or have them be the target of some heals), switch as needed depending on who needs healing / damage assistance. This one was more about strategy than tactics, but still worked well as a hybrid.

Rift: lots of potential options here, but my favorite was probably senticar (sentinel/justicar/inquisitor) -- I could keep people up with traditional healing spells, but also heal them through doing damage, and I had plenty of offensive utility to crowd-control and debuff enemies as well... plus I had to regen mana by actively beating on enemies when Purpose was off CD. You could also go chloromancer as a mage, which AOE healed the group (and ST healed your priority target) directly based on your damage.

WOW: resto shaman. In addition to a large healing toolset, I can help the tank kite, help everyone move faster, interrupt enemy casts -- and my biggest 'heal' on non-boss encounters is a delayed AOE stun. I even have a reliable CC if needed... used to have even more utility, but much of it has been removed. Even though I have a grand total of 4 attack abilities, it's made somewhat more interesting by procs that can make one of them instant. This is probably the weakest example here, since resto shamans are the healer with the lowest DPS and least straight-up offensive power in WOW -- other healers have way better options, especially monks and disc priests.

Other games: Aion chanter, WAR warrior-priest, anyone in The Secret World... heck, even Age of Conan (Lance of Mitra was a directional attack that healed allies near enemies hit by it). Wildstar probably went too far in the other direction, IMO.

Anyway, my point is: which of those options I listed above has an analogue in FFXIV for a healer (esp WHM)? From my admittedly outdated experience as a white mage at level 50 a few years back, it was to switch to cleric stance and spam a spell or two to kill things faster. The only mechanically interesting dps spell was Holy because of the delayed damage/stun component, but it was also a massive mana hog, so couldn't cast it more than a few times... and the crowd control options that are actually pretty interesting (Repose, Fluid Aura, Stone 1) were barely ever used, especially Repose.

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TLDR: yes, doing damage as a healer is what you should be doing to increase group efficiency... but is it actually fun?