The "To DPS" vs "Not DPS" Debate

[Ghishlain]

The biggest fallacy in this "debate", and I use that word loosely, is the perception that your DPS isn't "required" and that your party's "real" DPS are terrible if it IS required. There is a similar topic over in the tank forums where other like-minded people are saying tank DPS isn't "required".

It isn't required. If you're at the appropriate ilvl, your DPS should be able to get past all the DPS gates without your help. However, with that being said:

Ok. So it isn't required. But let me ask: why should a fight tuned to be beaten in 5 minutes be beaten in 5 minutes? Why not 4 minutes? Or 3? It's not a matter of overgearing content; you can do this from Sastasha right up to Aurum Vale. In AF gear, in Darklight, whatever. Your DPS can be performing just fine and you can help clear faster. And then be doing whatever else you want to be doing.

I agree with this fully as well. I personally enjoy pushing the threshold of my class to the fullest and want to maximize my contribution to my party. This is the drive to allow the hard core endgame raiders to be just that, end game raiders. This type of mentality is not for everyone though and in fact, pushing someone beyond their limit could have negative consequences to the overall party dynamic.

My personal point of contention in the entire debate is two things:

• You're automatically labeled "bad" by only using your healing abilities
• You're automatically labeled "bad" by providing additional DPS to the group dynamic because you have the skills and gear to do so

Neither has any truth to it, yet healers are constantly being scrutinized and patronized for their "contribution" to a party because there's a disagreeable tank or DPS that don't like that particular play style.

If the healer is keeping you healthy, regardless of what they do (or do NOT do, in some opinions), they're fulfilling their role. Anything additional to that is gravy to the healer toolkit.

[Raestloz]

The biggest fallacy in this "debate", and I use that word loosely, is the perception that your DPS isn't "required" and that your party's "real" DPS are terrible if it IS required.

The biggest fallacy is actually the belief that healers need to DPS. They don't, in any way you can define the word 'need', need to DPS: there are 5 entire jobs that should fill that role. The Healers' role is that of the Healer: making sure the party can stay alive and well. Your scenario is not a point of Healer needing to DPS, but rather a scenario where the Healer can, optionally, contribute to the team a little bit.

The topic is arguing whether Healers need to DPS. The obvious answer is NO.Any complaints for the Healer should be about their lack of healing, not their lack of damage-dealing

BIG, FAT, NOTE:
At no point did I propose that a damage-dealing Healer is bad, especially if the party's DPS is undergeared and can't pass the DPS check unless the healer contributes. However, in this scenario the fault still lies entirely on the DPS for being undergeared, not on the Healer. It simply falls to the Healer whether they want to pass the content or not.

BIG, FAT, NOTE 2:
At no point did I propose that it's totally a-OK for SMN to refuse to Resurrect when they are needed. Unlike Healers, who need to race with casting time to make sure everybody's alive, DPS are generally not too time-constrained. Unless it's a DPS-check, 1 damage per second for 10 seconds and 10 damage in one second will still achieve the same result. There are also cases where a party member simply did not get out of the AoE in time and got OHKO-ed, which is not the Healer's fault. If the healer is busy keeping the SMN's ass from cleaning the floor, it falls to the SMN to not be a dbag and use that Resurrect

[sheepysheepy]

i don't ever bring it up in /p but imo a healer who stands around waiting for someone to take dmg is just as bad as a blm who spams ice spells when he's at full mp, they're both not doing what they could be doing.. i'm not a dick about it but they clearly arn't trying their best

[Vaara]

The topic is arguing whether Healers need to DPS. The obvious answer is NO.Any complaints for the Healer should be about their lack of healing, not their lack of damage-dealing

Clearly they don't need to, but if the opportunity arises then they should want to. I would prefer to be as useful as possible rather than just doing the bare minimum to get by.

[Ghishlain]

i don't ever bring it up in /p but imo a healer who stands around waiting for someone to take dmg is just as bad as a blm who spams ice spells when he's at full mp, they're both not doing what they could be doing.. i'm not a dick about it but they clearly arn't trying their best

Clearly they don't need to, but if the opportunity arises then they should want to. I would prefer to be as useful as possible rather than just doing the bare minimum to get by.

I agree, if there is idle time and the healer in question is idling, this is a perfect opportunity to learn how to stance dance and DPS. However, this doesn't make a healer "bad" in the definition of "bad".

Funny enough though, this thread was inspired by a friend of mine who was cussed at for doing "too much".

(Friend on WHM) "Why are you not dodging 100 tonze swing?"
(BLM in DR) "if you got time to nuke your not working hard your a f---ing healer not a black mage play your job properly" [Censored since I don't want to get bant =p]

[SeleneVenizelos]

There are situations where you're guaranteed DPS time and situations where DPSing might put your party in danger. The trick to being a top notch healer lies in identifying these situations from experience and maximising your contribution to a party.

A healer is not a bad healer for just healing but they're a bad player if they are otherwise stood scratching their arse. Healers are given Cleric's Stance and an arsenal of offensive spells for a reason. That reason is not for smoother solo play. A lot of dungeons are designed around monsters not annihilating your tanks in seconds. There are plenty of moments where you'll find time to yourself to stance dance and throw a few DoTs or nukes around before returning to your healing duties.

Doing the bare minimum of your job is what I would consider being a bad player. You could be good at the bare minimum; I have met plenty of healers who never let people die but they don't do much else. Yes, they are good healers but they're not good players. A good player plays to the best of their job's ability whilst maintaining their key responsibilities.

You could say this is merely a debate of semantics since people have varying degrees of good and bad. What most people seem to be saying here is not that somebody is a good or bad healer if they do or do not nuke. They're saying somebody is a bad player if all they do is heal when they have time to nuke or people die because their healer is too busy nuking.

That said, it happens with every job. Some people are okay with doing the bare minimum. Others make the effort to be the best at their job and take advantage of every mechanic possible to make the group's progress more efficient. Dragoons who use Mantra when there's no Monk for big hits, tanks that swap between Sword and Shield Oath depending on their duty, etc. There are many examples that we could use to label people on other jobs as 'good' or 'bad', but I would argue such players are good or bad players, and not good or bad Dragoons/Paladins/etc.

Same for healers. If a healer just nukes or heals I would call them a bad and lazy player, not a bad healer.

[SeraviEdalborez]

You could say this is merely a debate of semantics since people have varying degrees of good and bad.

...

There are many examples that we could use to label people on other jobs as 'good' or 'bad', but I would argue such players are good or bad players, and not good or bad Dragoons/Paladins/etc.

For the more sensitive people in the crowd, let's swap all cases of "bad and good" in your post with "good and great". Because this is otherwise spot-on.

[Penguinmayhem]

I'll agree with the sentiment about White Mage, but not Scholar.

Scholar is a DPS job. Actually, it's both, though really more healer than damage. Your fairy does a whole lot of your work for you, if you know how to manage her properly, and as long as things aren't too rough, so much of the time should be spent adding extra debuffs and dots to things. Knowing how far you can push that, how much your tank can deal with, and when you need to switch focus from supporting to actually healing, is important, but the fact that you're not the sole source of healing takes a surprising amount of enmity off you.

White Mage, on the other hand, I would personally recommend either not DPSing at all, or if you must, be very careful with it. White Mage generates a metric ton of hate. In my experience so far, you're spending more time doing nothing as a White Mage than actually doing anything, partly to avoid aggro and partly to avoid burning through MP or getting caught in a cast. You have Aero. You have Repose. You have Fluid Aura. These are useful things. But a White Mage should never feel guilty for being the least active member of the party.

If you're a Scholar and you've got your hands full, you're doing your job.
If you're a White Mage and you've got your hands full, things are going very wrong.

[SeleneVenizelos]

But a White Mage should never feel guilty for being the least active member of the party.

There's a difference between being active because you're putting in maximum effort and being inactive because you just don't bother. I think this thread is aimed at healers who will stand there for ten seconds doing absolutely nothing; there's no healing to be done and nobody is in any danger. They just stand there doing nothing.

In those situations, yes they should feel guilty. They're bad or lazy. Choose whichever word makes it sound nicer. Many jobs could say they don't have to do this, they don't have to do that. The difference between being an average player and being an exceptional player is making the effort to do things you probably don't need to do.

I don't have to Heavy Thrust as Dragoon. It's not like we'll die to any rough DPS check in Amdapor City because I'm not using Heavy Thrust. But why wouldn't I? It's a 15% increase to my damage. No difference in this situation. If you have time to scratch your arse and reflect on being the least active member of the party, you probably have time to nuke. And on the hate front you have Shroud of Saints. Also, you could probably claim the tank isn't as good as they could be if a White Mage nuking is pulling hate. I have no problems keeping hate off a White Mage going hell for leather with holy and in four man dungeons it probably makes their curing easier because the monsters are stun locked most of the time.

From my experience as White Mage, in AK, AC, WP, etc, etc, take your pick, I can basically spam Holy every pull and so long as I keep Regen on the tank I hardly have to heal them. I could just put that Regen on and stand there for thirty seconds doing nothing, but I like to put the extra effort in to be as good at my job as possible. Not only does it make me happier knowing I'm trying hard, it also speeds the run up, so it's finished quicker.

Everyone benefits.

Who benefits if you just heal? Well, just you because you do less. The outcome of the battle is exactly the same either way it just takes longer; unless you've overnuking and people die, but once you find a balance you're experienced with it will very rarely happen. This of course does not count people who refuse to dodge anything and die anyway. In those situations, you could argue a White Mage shouldn't be nuking; but this is down to other people's mistakes and not the design of the job itself. Should a White Mage stand there for thirty seconds doing nothing just incase somebody fails to dodge an attack? And since Cleric Stance can be toggled like a bi-polar traffic light it's not like it takes plenty of your time to switch back and cure them up. I do it all the time.

The only argument that I can think of is if you run out of MP being too nuke happy and don't have any to heal people. Even then, it's such a rare occasion that it's almost not even worth mentioning.

[BinaryJack]

/snip

Scholar rolls as a Healer. It is not a DPS job. The end.
If you're a WHM or a SCH and you are standing around twiddling your thumbs, you can DPS.
Knowing when to heal with a SCH and WHM to ensure that you do not draw enmity is part of understanding your class/job.