The "To DPS" vs "Not DPS" Debate

[Ghishlain]

Since this debate seems to crop up in every other healer thread in existence, here are my two cents to fall onto deaf ears! Let's do this!

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1) You are a bad healer if all you do is heal
False. Your goal in a party is to heal. Your primary purpose is to ensure the health and well being of your party. This means:

• Maintain the health of your party members; not necessarily keeping them topped off, but keeping them healthy and able to withstand the on coming AoE damage. Your fellow party members aren't robots, something will EVENTUALLY hit them, and you're there to ensure they can keep fighting.
• Remove detrimental status effects. Slow and Paralyze come to mind as the most frequent and annoying. Remove them via Esuna / Leeches when a moment is available.
• Using cool downs and abilities to help stunt oncoming damage that is unavoidable or being prepared for these instances to heal party members quickly and efficiently

You are a HEALER first and foremost. This is your priority above all else. Fights are tuned to a certain ilvl. If your DPS is of that ilvl, your party should be able to overcome all mechanics associated with that fight WITHOUT your assistance in this regard. If you are forced to DPS as a healer to help "push a fight forward", the fault lies squarely on your lackluster DPS.

2) You are a bad healer if you DPS
False. You are all a bad healer if your ENTIRE FOCUS is to DPS. Your primary job is to keep your party healthy. If your party is healthy while you can maintain a healthy dose of damage, you are doing an excellent job and should be commended for balancing the heal / DPS role of your job.

This method of play comes at a higher risk but is more rewarding to the healer who can balance this methodology. This ensure there is less "idle" time for the healer and is therefore contributing more to the overall party dynamics. Healer DPS can help push phases faster or allow your party to focus down the primary threat after adds or down. WHM's Holy and SCHs Shadowflare can provide additional mitigation in the form of stunning mobs or slowing their attacks respectively, thus making it EASIER to heal when the pulls are great enough.

This is not to say this method isn't without risk. Healers must understand how to properly balance these two positions and adapt to the situation so they don't over extend themselves, thus causing a wipe.

3) If healers are to DPS, why shouldn't I be telling Tanks and DPS to heal?
Healer's are in a unique position where they have an ability called "Cleric's Stance". This allows them to transpose their MND and INT stat, as well as provide a 10% damage bonus to their attack spells. This allows well geared healers to have in excess of 500 INT that greatly increases their damage (at the tradeoff of hampering their healing potential immensely)

NO OTHER ROLE IN THE GAME CAN DO THIS.

DPS and tanks cannot magically make their MND 500+, thus making their heals infinitely less useful than a well geared and primed healer. Healer DPS is nothing substantial but the DPS contribution they can provide far outweighs the healing contribution other classes can provide by "using their heals".

This doesn't mean there isn't a time and place for these other roles to take the mantle of healing for a brief moment as adaptability to a situation is something all players / roles should try to encompass and make snap decisions based on their assessments.

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A healer's primary function is to heal. Anything they do beyond that is gravy to the healer package. Telling a healer they are bad because all they do is heal is wrong. Telling a healer that they are bad because they add DPS is also wrong.

Part of the the intent of this post is to encourage the fact that healers cannot be defined as "good" or "bad" arbitrarily, but can be defined on a scale with these two points as the min and max.

--- Bad healer (healers that cannot keep party members alive no matter what)
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| Average healer (keeps party members alive and healthy)
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--- Good healers (healers that can maintain party health while using the full extent of their tool kit to provide additional support for their party)

Good healers will be those that are adaptable and use their toolkit to the fullest. The average healers will keep their party alive. Just because a healer completes their primary goal and doesn't excel past that is no reason to call them "bad".

[lxSch]

My input on the topic.
1. Can a healer dps?
WHM Holy crits for 900 per cast (i90 gear) and WHMs can spam it for a while. Scholar DoTs + blizzard do (400 + 150) / 3s (i90 gear, no crit), which is a lot. WHM/SCH can easily steal enmity from a mediocre DF tank if they are not careful.
2. When should healer DPS?
When you have time to do so. It supposes perfectly knowing the encounter, so you will know when team/tank should not be taking much damage and you can dps. Being bored or sleepy is a certain sign you could do some dps.
3. Cleric stance?
Try to do tribe dailies without a cleric stance, and then apply it - difference is very big. If you don't have time to pop the CS - you probably don't have time to dps either.
4. SCH or WHM?.
Scholar:
+ never runs out of mana;
+ never has enmity issue (with a decent tank);
+ most of dps skills are long range AoEs;
+ pet can do all the healing work;
+ can heal very well while in cleric stance (lustrate);
- no burst damage;
- lack of CC.
WHM:
+ burst damage;
+ knockback;
+ mass stun;
- enmity issue;
- mana issue.
5. How to improve healer dps?
Overgear the dungeon: the more overgeared you are - the more time to dps you have, and more difference your damage will do.

[AldoVonAlexandros]

post this on the dps and tank forums

[Sessurea]

"Sorry I thought this was a speedrun, GL"<----last words of a darklight sch b4 he dropped party today. I'm guessing he's just used to OP BLM brayfox runs xc....in any case, he didn't try to dps, despite bringing the topic of low dps up numerous times. That moment of absolute cosmic absurdity when people stop and waste time to talk about about how the slow dps is making the run take too much time. We were 2 bards. It wasn't that slow. It, however, was not flare rotations. In a situation where mobs aren't AOEed down VERY fast, the DOTs from the scholar would have helped alot

[tab9]

If he was in darklight then he had no right to complain !

[Sessurea]

If he was in darklight then he had no right to complain !

Debatable I guess. I was just hoping to vent my frustration somewhere and found this thread ^_^

Was another time actually, on my scholar. Haukke storymode of all things....the bard thought it prudent to inform me that I was in cleric stance. Also decided I needed an explanation of what cleric stance was, and then continued to ask me to turn it off . "we have enough dps" ( all this before we pulled any mobs ). The bard refused to let the tank take back agro on all bosses " they are undergeared, it will take all day" to which I responded "but you are kiting the boss away from the monk". This is the kind of idiot asking me to not use cleric stance, I was never before ever asked to turn it off.

Moral of the story!!!! Let the healers dps. And if a situation arises where the group isn't taking heavy damage, and the healer isn't contributing dps, then he shouldn't take offence when asked to help out. Holy and sch dots+bane is hardly insignificant. BUT OBVIOUSLY! Healing takes priority. ( as if that even needs to be said )

[Ghishlain]

post this on the dps and tank forums

I wonder how badly I'd get flamed if I did that, heh. Is tempting though.

[ariaandkia]

Debatable I guess. I was just hoping to vent my frustration somewhere and found this thread ^_^

Was another time actually, on my scholar. Haukke storymode of all things....the bard thought it prudent to inform me that I was in cleric stance. Also decided I needed an explanation of what cleric stance was, and then continued to ask me to turn it off . "we have enough dps" ( all this before we pulled any mobs ). The bard refused to let the tank take back agro on all bosses " they are undergeared, it will take all day" to which I responded "but you are kiting the boss away from the monk". This is the kind of idiot asking me to not use cleric stance, I was never before ever asked to turn it off.

Moral of the story!!!! Let the healers dps. And if a situation arises where the group isn't taking heavy damage, and the healer isn't contributing dps, then he shouldn't take offence when asked to help out. Holy and sch dots+bane is hardly insignificant. BUT OBVIOUSLY! Healing takes priority. ( as if that even needs to be said )

Yeah, I do appreciate a reminder if I have cleric stance on while healing (though I usually notice it first, even if only by a second), and if I see a healer healing while in stance, I will remind them (though I might sound a bit harsh since I'm usually either trying to tank or DPS while typing so I kind of just say it with the best translation to human speech I can manage without interfering with my other functions).


But a lot of DPS are just like: lol, wut?

Like I'll totally kite and force the melee DPS to play catch up games if NEEDED (like, tank is dead, healer and/or other dps are dead, low on mp, boss has aggro on me, and I am confident that I can kite the boss and manage the fight). But unnecessary kiting is just bad.

I wonder how badly I'd get flamed if I did that, heh. Is tempting though.

Do it!!!!


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Funny story, three missions in a row yesterday. I had to tank and/or heal as a THM.

First mission, thousand maws nm, Healer ditches us partway. So I say screw it and heal as a THM. Healer joins us like two seconds after we start final boss and I tell the healer to stay. We beat the boss with me healing and dps'ing.

Second mission, Haukke, healer ditches us. So I say screw it and heal as a THM up until a healer class joins us.

Third mission, copperhell nm, tank ditches us. So I say screw it and tank as a THM. Healer dcs partway in. So I say screw it, I'll tank, heal, AND DPS. Because screw logic, I have healing powers.

I've also healed as an archer before >.> And as a gld. Actually, name me one combat class that I haven't healed with, lol.

Friend 1 on me healing with THM: But THM heal sucks.

Friend 2 on me tanking with THM: Proof or get the [blank] out!

Friend 1 on me tanking and healing: -.- what the [blank], stop hacking.

[Viviza]

Telling a healer they are bad because all they do is heal is wrong. Telling a healer that they are bad because they add DPS is also wrong. Healers need to be adaptable.

I think this contradicts itself. A healer who only heals is not adaptable.

The point at which a player is "bad" is subjective, but refusing to DPS is simply ignoring a a substantial part of the class toolkit. It would be like a paladin who refuses to use sword oath. The argument might go - a paladin is a tank so you can't call a paladin bad for refusing to maximize their DPS while not tanking a mob.

Either way, it's an intentional decision to not give a full effort, which affects other players, and given it's a team game other people do have the right to express their concerns when the group is not doing its best.

[ariaandkia]

I think this contradicts itself. A healer who only heals is not adaptable.

The point at which a player is "bad" is subjective, but refusing to DPS is simply ignoring a a substantial part of the class toolkit. It would be like a paladin who refuses to use sword oath. The argument might go - a paladin is a tank so you can't call a paladin bad for refusing to maximize their DPS while not tanking a mob.

Either way, it's an intentional decision to not give a full effort, which affects other players, and given it's a team game other people do have the right to express their concerns when the group is not doing its best.

I think the decision should really be on the HEALER, not the party. If the healer feels that they are better off not DPSing, then the healer should NOT DPS. If the healer feels that they are better off DPSing, then the healer SHOULD DPS.

It isn't "an intentional decision to not give a full effort." That is assuming things.

As I mentioned before, there are plenty of reasons why a healer might not want to DPS. Now, I will usually try to do what the party asks, but... If I'm spamming cure II just trying to keep the tank alive because he is taking so much damage that doing anything else will kill him (and he is literally hanging on by a thread), and you tell me to start DPSing? I will tell you to pay attention to the situation.