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

[Zetor]

Now that I've actually run WP/AK enough times to get sick of them, here's my 2 HUF:

I DPS a fair bit in dungeons when I can (ie. the tank can hold aggro, isn't taking so much damage due to large pulls or low gear level as to require me chaincasting cure 2, nobody is standing in fire, I actually have enough extra mana to spend on nukes instead of being constantly in combat and praying for Shroud to come off cooldown, blah blah blah), but it's not a fulfilling experience. In fact, DPS as a white mage is somewhat boring. Until level 45, I had two viable attack spells, and one of those was an instant dot (there was basically no point to cast it when soloing either, except to tag mobs at FATEs or something). After that, I gained another dot with a casting time and a massive AOE nuke that eats mana like crazy. I could also crossclass yet another dot with a different icon, but the same casting time. Oh, I can barely contain my excitement... speaking of which!

Why couldn't healers assist/support the team in a way that's a bit more engaging than switching between two stances and spamming two buttons to make the bad dude's bar go down somewhat faster? There are plenty of good examples in other games. Attacks (or heals... or moves that do both damage and healing) that require good positioning from the healer's part, interrupts and crowd control abilities that actually work in dungeons, kiting abilities (or related buffs for teammates), cooldowns increasing the group's dps at a crucial point, various short-term buffs to the other characters' performance depending on the situation, short-term debuffs that have a major impact on the fight (Virus is ok I guess, though too generic), blah blah blah.

I guess this is a tangent, but - to me - the real question is "what else can healers do than heal?" and I don't think "pretend to be a dps" is the right answer. But this is a problem with the design of the game itself, not with the players.

[SeraviEdalborez]

Until level 45, I had two viable attack spells, and one of those was an instant dot (there was basically no point to cast it when soloing either, except to tag mobs at FATEs or something). After that, I gained another dot with a casting time and a massive AOE nuke that eats mana like crazy.

Stone2: 170pot
Aero: 200pot
Aero2: 210pot

Think some people need to take another look at the wall of math on previous page. I want some discussion on that

[Zetor]

Stone2: 170pot
Aero: 200pot
Aero2: 210pot

Think some people need to take another look at the wall of math on previous page. I want some discussion on that

I said level 45; you get Aero2 at level 46. Also, using Aero in most non-dungeon situations was a loss of killing speed, since mobs didn't have enough HP so it'd get almost all ticks of damage in (which it would need to do in order to keep up with Stone or Stone II).

e: the part you replied to was really a sidetrack of my point, but now that we're on the subject I'll have to note that solo questing as a white mage (at least until level 46, at which point I ran out of quests and had to FATE grind like everyone else, anyway) had to be among my 3 most tedious MMO experiences ever.

[SeraviEdalborez]

Tag something with Aero, put it to sleep/bind it. DoT keeps ticking without breaking effect. Your party must be killing quite quickly for even the first enemy to not last 18 seconds. Even if Aero only gets 5 ticks (15 seconds), it's 175 vs Stone2's 170.

Edit: v I know solo kill speed is pretty laughable to nitpick, but when you want to weave in a non-GCD (so basically just Fluid Aura), Aero is your tool.

[Zetor]

Tag something with Aero, put it to sleep/bind it. DoT keeps ticking without breaking effect. Your party must be killing quite quickly for even the first enemy to not last 18 seconds. Even if Aero only gets 5 ticks (15 seconds), it's 175 vs Stone2's 170.

Reread my original post, I specifically said Aero was only pointless to cast while soloing before 45. Of course it's worthwhile to use in a group or even against a very rare quest enemy that lives through almost the full duration... which, for me, also started to happen at around level 45.

e: and yeah, there were edge cases to use Aero when soloing, like when I had to dodge out of an enemy AOE and had to cast something on the move. Except most of the time I'd just Stone II spam from max range, Fluid Aura to KB the mob when it started casting, then Stone II once or twice, move on to next mob. Also, yeah, this entire sidetrack conversation is a bit of a silly nitpick -- I'd appreciate more discussion on why it is exactly good design to have an uninspiring DPS option as 'things to do' when not healing instead of, I dunno, the wide array of offensive/defensive/support abilities healers get in every other MMO I've played.

[YuriRamona]

Crossposting from the General Discussion thread for feedback:

Thanks for this analysis. If this isn't conclusive proof that healer DPS is more than just margin-of-error percentage points increase in total damage, I don't know what is. 1000-2000 potency every 30 seconds is pretty much the difference between two DPS of item level 50-55 and two DPS with item level 75-80.

-------------------

I'll throw in my numbers for BLM.

Looking at the somwhat-consensus rotation here - -http://i.imgur.com/QV8dmXQ.png, and being quite generous with the possibility that five Fires can be cast every Astral phase, the breakdown goes:

[Number at start of each line is time elapsed in seconds]

0 - Thunder 2 (250, plus factoring in Thundercloud, an additional 125 = 375*)
2** - Fire 3 = 220. Potency 154 if casting in Umbral Ice III.
3.75 - Five Fire I, plus two Firestarter Fire III every five casts. Astral Fire III bonus potency factor = 1.80 x (5 x 150 + 2 x 220) = 2142.***
21.25 - Blizzard 3 = 154 due to Astral Fire III ice penalty.
23 - restart rotation.

Total potency = 3770 per 30 sec. Seems about on par with Summoner, which makes sense. So the rest of your napkin math is probably okay.

*Thundercloud factor: 5% chance every tick for 5 ticks of Thunder 2 of an instant, free 295 potency cast and reset on duration. 5x5%= a 25% chance that cast will yield an additional 295 potency initial cast plus the standard 200 potency damage over time.
**Thunder II normal cast time is 3 seconds, but assuming Swiftcast is used every 60 sec, average time is cut in half. Added 0.5 seconds to correct for GCD usage by Thundercloud cast.
***Source (and ongoing discussion): http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/1pirqf/exact_astral_fire_and_umbral_ice_mechanics/

[SeraviEdalborez]

I'll throw in my numbers for BLM.

Thanks for that. One thing that was pointed out to me is that I'm ignoring auto-attacks for those napkinmath numbers, which is not an insignificant boost (for Sword Oath PLD especially) though SCH and SMN have marginally better STR than other DoM jobs (still far below that of a DoW). However to crunch that out I'd have to assume a certain weapon for each job and meh, can't be bothered

[Mycow8me]

I dps when every bit of DPS counts. An example would be after topping everyone off HP wise at the start of heart phase up to the next set of tumults, top everyone off again with aoe regen and spam stone II's again. This is very easily done on whm and you can even use clerics stance if the party is dodging fairly well. Not only does this help ALOT with heart phase but most of the times you don't even need to LB when the healers contribute.

Asking for DPS from a whm for anything other than Aero or other DoT's is just getting into the "can haz faster speedrun gooby pls" argument and I don't play with these people anyway.

[Bloodwillow]

If I find the area could use more damage in a battle I will do it. Will I do it because people FORCE me or BITCH at me to? Nope.

As a WHM I heal. And buff. I do not do damage, though I have Cleric Stance. Feel free to disagree with me, but in large fights like Garuda and Titan, my focus in keeping everyone alive, not chipping away at the mob.

I don't like people telling me how to do my class and I'm sure others don't either. But you have fair points. If no one's health is lowering and the mobs are trash, do help out with some damage.

I want to point out, I have had people shout at me to do more damage, as well as my husband who is a SCH. These people are also all about the speed runs. They HURRY HURRY mentality. Well guess what, I don't play that way and neither does he. Go find yourself a DPSing healer friend to do that.

[ShannaraAK]

Just to clarify since there are people in this thread who does not know ... If you are in the healing role, you heal. If you want a healer to dps, then you need YOUR dps to do better. Roles are clearly defined. If you want that changed, you need to take it up with SE instead of trying to get healers to do something SE has not intended/designed.