The "To DPS" vs "Not DPS" Debate

[Staris]

I mean if your only required to wear 15 pieces of flair, and you only wear 15.... your a bad healer.

[givemeraptors]

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

Your comparison doesn't work. DPS are supposed to maximize their damage, spamming Blizzard is directly gimping a BLM. A healer not DPSing is not at all gimping their role of healing.

[Staris]

Your comparison doesn't work. DPS are supposed to maximize their damage, spamming Blizzard is directly gimping a BLM. A healer not DPSing is not at all gimping their role of healing.

Your limited perspective of encounters is so funny.
So DPS shouldnt worry about mana song for a healer?
or popping Virus/Eye for eye?
because its not the role they signed up for?

You are capable of doing damage and healing in perfect capacity.
If you are maximizing both for the group, you are bad.

If you don't understand the concept, you are bad.

That is all

[RhazeCain]

Your comparison doesn't work. DPS are supposed to maximize their damage, spamming Blizzard is directly gimping a BLM. A healer not DPSing is not at all gimping their role of healing.

Stop thinking of a role so narrowly. Everyone's role is to make the run be successful.

Why is this even labeled a debate? Many times a healer can keep everyone alive while only using a percentage of their time. The remainder can be used either to DPS, or for useless unnecessary stuff. So of course you DPS then. As the difficulty of fight increases, maybe you heal more and DPS less. And then there are the cases where win or lose depends on the group's DPS: Titan Heart, fast conflag in t5, super slug in t6, etc. Healer DPS can then be the difference between win and lose (same for tank).

[Ghishlain]

I mean if your only required to wear 15 pieces of flair, and you only wear 15.... your a bad healer.

I'm confused.

Everyone's role is to make the run be successful.

I agree.

Why is this even labeled a debate? Many times a healer can keep everyone alive while only using a percentage of their time. The remainder can be used either to DPS, or for useless unnecessary stuff. So of course you DPS then. As the difficulty of fight increases, maybe you heal more and DPS less. And then there are the cases where win or lose depends on the group's DPS: Titan Heart, fast conflag in t5, super slug in t6, etc. Healer DPS can then be the difference between win and lose (same for tank).

I labelled it as such because all too often in game and on these forums you hear this:

"OMG YOU ONLY HEAL THEREFORE YOU'RE BAD"

Or when a quote like this arises:

(WHM) "Why are you not dodging 100 tonze swing?"
(BLM) "if you got time to nuke your not working hard your a f---ing healer not a black mage play your job properly"

Neither is true.

• You are a BAD healer if you consistently let your party face plant
• You are a BAD healer if you cannot remove status effects when all you're doing is spamming cures
• You are a BAD healer if you tunnel vision DPS and let your party wipe
• You are an AVERAGE healer if all you do is heal (I will make the concession that you are also a lazy healer when it's blatently obvious you don't care)
• You are a GOOD healer if you can DPS and heal and keep your party healthy and unhindered during the course of a fight
• You are a GOOD healer if you maximize the utility of your healer toolkit

Players should be working to attain the pinnacle of healing prowess, which involves maximizing the usage of your toolkit. The players that excel will the ones you'll be taking to Coil and EX Primals while the average players you'll leave for the more friendly 4-man DFs/DRs/etc. And you don't want to touch the bads with a ten foot pole.

And then there are the cases where win or lose depends on the group's DPS: Titan Heart, fast conflag in t5, super slug in t6, etc. Healer DPS can then be the difference between win and lose (same for tank).

In response, I quote myself:

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.

With that being said, this is not to say healer DPS isn't contributing to a clear, but allows the party to clear content faster. HOWEVER, when a healer (or to a degree, even a Tank) is outright blamed for causing a wipe when the DPS can't clear the content in a DPS check and are of appropaite level, then the fault is not the healers, but of the DPS instead.

[SeraviEdalborez]

With that being said, this is not to say healer DPS isn't contributing to a clear, but allows the party to clear content faster. HOWEVER, when a healer (or to a degree, even a Tank) is outright blamed for causing a wipe when the DPS can't clear the content in a DPS check and are of appropaite level, then the fault is not the healers, but of the DPS instead.

I don't disagree, but I also wonder what you believe is appropriate ilvl for something like T8.

[Ghishlain]

I don't disagree, but I also wonder what you believe is appropriate ilvl for something like T8.

If I were to use the original coil as the basis:

T1 = i70
T2 = i73
T4 = i77
T5 = i82

And then assume you could do T6 at i90, my guess would be T8 is tuned to i97. Given I believe the first T8 clear was downed within the 2nd week of patch launch (1st week also only being half a week), this means that at most the average ilvl of a group would probably be around 92-94. This is why I respect the end game hardcore community because they know how to get the maximum output possible to achieve content below the recommended gearing. And yes, in this case, you WILL need your healers DPSing at every opprotunity to clear it since you'll need every single possible ounce of efficiency of your group to clear that~ (but the players who are doing this understand this already)

[TheWaywardWind]

I agree, but only to a certain extent. Due to the fact that you can really only do so much damage in specific instances, I choose to only utilize holy when the tank has a massive trash pull we plan on getting rid of ASAP.

There are other instances were I've actually seen well-geared WHM's and SCH's DPS instead of heal, and leave the healing solely to me.

I just acheived level 50, so my gear is far from fantastic, so it boggles my mind when people freely choose to leave the healing to me at the risk of throwing in an extra Aero II or Stone II here and there.

It can be difficult playing as a healer, and sometimes I feel I suffer too much heat for the faults of other players, especially DPS, who cannot move themselves fast enough to avoid an AOE insta-kill.

In situations like these, and various others, 'Let me see if I can snag in an extra Stone II!' is the FURTHEST thing from my mind.

[givemeraptors]

Your limited perspective of encounters is so funny.

Stop thinking of a role so narrowly. Everyone's role is to make the run be successful.

Wow. I never realized what a close-minded person I was. I didn't say anything about whether it's appropriate for a healer to DPS or not DPS, merely that it was a bad comparison and it is.

If you're going to use a BLM that only spams Blizzard as a point of reference than you should be comparing them to a healer that only spams Cure I.
If you're going to make this about a healer DPSing or not DPSing and compare them to a BLM then a more appropriate point of reference would be a BLM that doesn't use Manwall, Manaward, or Aetherial Manipulation.

Both are not necessary tools to pull off the job compentently, yet someone who truly excels at the role will use everything they have (even Surecast).

But thanks for jumping to conclusions.

[AichiSuu]

DPS only when you can keep up with healing. If there is very little damage going out on your raid and you're just sitting there twiddling your thumbs, you should DPS. There should never be a point where a healer is doing nothing.