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

[flipzide2002]

Healers are made for healing. They don't have to dps at all if they don't want to. But what separates a mediocre healer to a kick ass healer is assisting knowing when and what u need to do to help out the group. In early dungeons knowing how to use repose is the difference between an easy run or a run where ur always oom. At later levels helping dps could mean dealing with the bees in ak or just knocking out the wall fast enough to where the bees don't show up .
Stance dance isn't a skill a lot of healers aren't good it. It takes some practice and knowing when to do it or setting up for it is the key. My stance dance normally goes stoneskin/regen/cleric stance then pewpewpew then switch stance just in time to save the world.

[Zanika]

I know exactly the value of Stoneskin and it's a crappy Cure II. Cure II is much better unless I'm casting on someone with 7200+ HP, and that number would be a lot higher if my weapon didn't suck.

IF that were true, you would know that Stoneskin and Cure have different functions and can't be compaired. Stoneskin is a barrier that's based on the targets max HP. It has the same cast/recast time as cure I & II, and your last sentence suggests you missed this part of my last post..

It cost just as much as Cure II, which makes it somewhat easy to recover from, and because most people don't lose 18% of their health in one hit, I don't have to spam it as I would with Stone II.

Got something else, or are we done here?

[soshifood]

I agree with OP.

The whole DPSing as a White Mage was something that I slowly picked up through experience. While it might seem trivial to me now, Cleric Stance was quite difficult to wrap my head around.

Some tips for new WHMs.

Practice Cleric Stance first. The cooldown upon turning it on is going to throw you off if you don't know what you're doing, and sometimes turning it off will fail if you do it too early. If you're inexperienced, it's probably ideal to go back to healing once the tank's HP approaches half health.

Also, you should only start DPSing once you fully understand the dungeon/enemies (by going through them, not through a guide). While DPS is a good thing to have to finishing dungeons faster, it sucks really bad if; 1. You grab too much aggro from spamming Holy, 2. You run out of mana DPSing/or again, spamming Holy, or 3. The enemy did massive damage because you weren't expecting it. When starting mob fights, pop Divine Seal and Regen on the tank, then CC (Repose/Fluid Aura) appropriately so you have more time to DPS.

A healer's DPS helps when it comes to those situational moments like Titan's Heart/Gaol. Once you're familiar with DPSing, you should be able to decide for yourself when to stop and whether to just land your DoTs before going back to healing.

Lastly, remember that for most boss battles or difficult mobs, it is perfectly fine to go into full-healing mode. Nobody's going to bash you for it unless they're assholes. At the end of the day, you signed up for your party as a healer. DPSing may have many benefits, but if you think you're not ready for it, then just stick to healing and let the others do the rest.

[TeganLaron]

I don't think anyone on the healer's side here is debating that we can and will help out with DPS when possible. What people are objecting to is this view that we are expected to be switching back and forth throughout cleric all instance long. As I and others have said, we will DPS when their is a safe opportunity or for exceptional circumstances (i.e. full DPS on Demon Wall.) But if you really need your healer dishing out DPS all dungeon long, then it isn't the healer who is doing their job wrong.

[Fiddlestax]

IF you know the fight AND you can heal all or the vast majority of incoming damage through HoTs AND mana is not going to be an issue now or at any time in the fight THEN you should be in cleric stance. No question about it. If you have a bard, this is almost every fight.... Turn1 and Turn2 aren't optimal for it, but all of the HM primals, and even Turn 4 has HUGE windows for you to be in cleric stance. The only limiting factors are your gear, your skill, and if you have a bard or not... and if you don't have the mana to pull it off, at very least you should be dropping a fluid aura while in cleric stance the gaol after heart in Titan HM. It costs you no mana, and there is plenty of time to switch back out of Cleric stance before he MB/Tulmets. Make sure your tank has a renew on him and be ready to switch back to him quickly.

[Tanaya]

It has the same cast/recast time as cure I & II

Cures are 2s.
Stoneskin is 3s.

[SeraviEdalborez]

Taking a typical Amdapor Keep or Wanderer's Palace where you fight 1 pull at a time, Scholar can more or less keep Cleric up full time. And I should damn well hope it makes a difference in kill speed; 75%+ of tanks fail to maintain hate when I go full AoE DoT crazy (Relic+1 ~400+ MND, varies due to spiritbinding accessories). WHM is not that different, and I agree with Tanaya 101%.

If you don't stance dance DPS (out of spite/indifference, not out of fear), you're purposefully limiting yourself. There are lulls in almost every boss fight (or in some cases, the lulls are just dodging AoE on non-tanks so whether or not it's a free pass depends on if your DPS are awake and dodging). If you're new, just ease into it as others have said. Try to youtube a healer PoV run of (non-speedrun) AK or WP just to get an idea of when/what they do in those "lulls". That's how I changed from a robot healer to what I am now.

[Vyserion]

I think the main thing when DPSing as a healer comes down to experience. It isn't just knowing your class and the dungeon. It's having enough experience with that and with understanding tank's durability and aggro capabilities to know when its safe to contribute to dealing damage without pulling threat (or letting him get murderstabbed). A WHM or SCH dealing damage while healing can very easily out-threat any mediocre tank. As someone said before, I wouldn't recommend it for people just starting with the role. No tank wants to contend with trying to out-threat a WHM who has an over-fondness for Cure 2 and Holy Spamming. At the same time, you can definitely speed runs up by swapping to Clerics between any critical healing moments and teaching your DPS players how it's done.

I will say that with its pitifully small number of ranged damage abilities (and the stupidly short duration of Aero II) , DPSing as a WHM is a bigger pain during boss fights than it is for SCH. But even for those uncomfortable with dealing damage during bosses, I would recommend practicing the Clerics Stance Dance during trash. If nothing else, it's much more fun to heal while killing things.

[Zanika]

Cures are 2s.
Stoneskin is 3s.

One second more shouldn't make that big a difference. And if it does, then perhaps Stance danceing isn't the answer.

[myahele]

I only DPS when I know I can spare the time and that everyone is at an acceptable HP level.

Otherwise, it's a waste of time for so little damage. With global cool downs + the time it takes to casts spells it is not worth sometimes to do a cleric stance dance and risk having somebody die