Healers doing damage

[Staris]

The "this is the difference between a good healer and a bad healer" when it comes to dps really annoys me. A good healer keeps the party alive when the **** hits the fan and massive damage is being done. He manages to solo heal when the second healer gets locked out or DCs. Because that's a healers job, to keep everyone a live! Now if you your in a dungeon that doesn't require intensive healing and you can dps while healing then that's fine if your comfortable with the situation.

no, thats a bear minimal healer.

A good healer understands the role of every person in the group and improves all of them as much as he can (same for every other person in the group).
That is all.
its not 8 solo players, its a team effort

[KisaiTenshi]

its not 8 solo players, its a team effort

People who come from other MMORPG's appear to be under the belief that it's 8 solo players. Particularly players who came from open-world PvP games. Because in these games a Healer is the punching bag, so nobody plays them. I actually hear of this problem in FFXIV with the PvP content as well, and I've never played the PvP content because of this.

If you're playing FFXIV as it was designed, the healer role is not meant to DPS inside the dungeons, but the option is there. If you want to play a healer who can DPS or a DPS who can heal, you pick Scholar/Summoner, but you still don't expect the DPS to heal any more than you expect the healer to DPS.

The entire reason Cleric Stance exists is so that people will play healers and can play the single-player storyline content. The FATE's are a great example of how awful healers are when compared to DPS-only roles. Every time you have to level sync to where you can't use Holy, the BLM/Thaumaturge and the Archer/Bard will kill everything before you even fire off a shot since they have AOE's at level 18 or 12. It was such a pain in the butt chasing FATE's around for the Atma's only to have one or two DPS players kill everything.

[Cynfael]

Snip

I don't know why you keep telling people that healers aren't meant to use their DPS skills except while playing the small portion of the game that is solo content. If you're trying to encourage more bad, lazy healers, that would be the way to do it.

Also, you don't actually need to kill much of anything to get credit in FATEs; either heal the crap out of players with the most enmity or tag every single mob. Enmity gets you credit, not kill count.

Besides, I never have issues with FATEs even as a level-synced SCH OR WHM. Our damage is sufficient, and we will never die; what more could you ask for?

[KisaiTenshi]

I don't know why you keep telling people that healers aren't meant to use their DPS skills except while playing the small portion of the game that is solo content. If you're trying to encourage more bad, lazy healers, that would be the way to do it.

Also, you don't actually need to kill much of anything to get credit in FATEs; either heal the crap out of players with the most enmity or tag every single mob. Enmity gets you credit, not kill count.

Besides, I never have issues with FATEs even as a level-synced SCH OR WHM. Our damage is sufficient, and we will never die; what more could you ask for?

If the game was meant to be a cookie-cutter-clone of every lame MMORPG out there, then every class would be required to DPS and never do group healing. That is the point that people are somehow not getting.

When you do SOLO content, the WHM has only one AOE, Holy. You don't get to use it for most of the FATES because it's a level 45 spell. ACN/SMN/SCH has Bio II (Level 26,) Thaumatuge/BLM has several AOE's you get at level 12 and 18.

When you go into any dungeon where you are levelsynced below level 45, you don't get to use Holy either. When people on the forum are suggesting that a healer that stands around doing nothing is not contributing by not DPS'ing, or that they are lazy, they are completely missing the point that the healer role is not meant to be a DPS class because it takes more effort than a stand-alone DPS class, and takes all the blame for the party wiping. What would suck more is if the game actually enforced the job rules, so say you're fighting a boss and everyone but you, the healer is dead, and you're going to wipe, but look the boss has 1% HP (this has happened), maybe I can throw a DoT and kite the boss while I hit regen. If I stop and try to cast anything else, dead.

That's my point. If you're expecting the healer to DPS while in a party, then you're not playing the game as it was intended. It's up to the healer to decide if they want to. If you have a healer in your party, that gives the tank and DPS more time to focus on damage. If you expect the healer to DPS (so effectively the entire party is DPS), then everyone would be responsible for their own healing by bringing a buttload of pots to spam (which can't be done in FFXIV anyway.) This is how it is in other MMORPG's, and this is why freemium games stop being fun (couldn't afford to cashshop-only useful pots, well guess you get left for dead.)

And this brings up another point that I've seen thrown around the forum...

Not everyone is a spreadsheet nerd. If you are so hardcore that everyone must be maximizing every last second of the boss battle, you're completely sucking the fun out of the game. It's a game, not a freaking job at McDonalds.

The point about the FATE's is that the game makes a lot of assumptions around SOLO or PARTY play. If I have to chase around low level FATE's to complete ATMA's where none of the FATE's in that zone are above level 40, then it's going to be impossible as the DPS will beat me to them every time. Want to know how I got the last ATMA for Western Thanalan and the last Atma for Central Thanalan? I camped the "boss" fates, because the trash mobs for the other fates were dead before I could cast anything but Aero.

[Lyzern]

When people on the forum are suggesting that a healer that stands around doing nothing is not contributing by not DPS'ing, or that they are lazy, they are completely missing the point that the healer role is not meant to be a DPS class because it takes more effort than a stand-alone DPS class

Ok, I see why you have that point of view. So let me clarify something: Dealing damage as a healer, is a thousand times easier than dealing damage as a DD. DDs have rotations, procs, positioning, damage buffs to be rotated, etc etc etc, healers don't. All healers have to do to deal damage is turn on Cleric Stance, throw in a couple of spells here and there, and that's it! Congratulations on being an above-average healer! You've done it simply by casting 3 or 4 spells more than you normally would, instead of:

looking at the screen... waiting... looking at bars... waiting... nothing happens? wait some more...

EXCITING!

[Magusrex]

SNIP

The only reason i enjoy playing a healer in this game is because I can DPS. I got my atma just fine all you need is one aero on one mob and you have the same chance to get an Atma. Most dungeons pre 45 I can heal in Cleric Stance except for a couple of bosses, what a waste of skill and abilities standing around doing nothing. Low geared tank, very little dps from me I get that. Push yourself, improve, get better.

[Cynfael]

If the game was meant to be a cookie-cutter-clone of every lame MMORPG out there, then every class would be required to DPS and never do group healing. That is the point that people are somehow not getting.

Not quoting everything, but let's start here: how is pigeonholing the healer role into pure heal/buff somehow less cookie-cutter?

A few more points:

-Yes, standing around doing nothing when you could be contributing somehow is lazy and unfair to your party members who are actually playing well.

- Pure healing in this game is a very easy job if you're at all good at it. Please don't pretend that healers have it rough with playing at bare minimum expectation, because they don't. At least not any rougher than any other player has it with incompetent party members.

- Aero is literally all you need to get gold during trash mob FATEs swarmed by other players. Tag each mob as it spawns, and that's it. Identify a tank or other high-enmity AoE character and heal it if applicable. I've done plenty of FATEs as a solo WHM, and Holy is not the only tool in your box. Blizzard II also works well for tagging clumps of mobs in low-level FATEs.

- I highly doubt that you have the breadth of play experience in this game to tell other people what is intended and what is not, and I don't think that you truly appreciate the capabilities of your own class.

[raela]

On healers and FATEs: I prefer having dps around because otherwise they take too long. Tagging everything with bio gets gold, and if I get to a FATE partway through, I tag with bio then switch to spamming heal on someone. I've ended up with credit arriving at 75% on bosses.

When you do SOLO content, the WHM has only one AOE, Holy. You don't get to use it for most of the FATES because it's a level 45 spell. ACN/SMN/SCH has Bio II (Level 26,) Thaumatuge/BLM has several AOE's you get at level 12 and 18.

Erm.. Bio II is single target with a 2.44s cast - things are usually dead before it completes if there are a bunch of DPS around. Bane is level 30 and spreads dots to 3 targets (but again, if things die that fast, good luck using it), plus is bound to aetherflow stacks/has a 10s cooldown. Miasma II is an instant (very weak) aoe, but that's at level 46. I've done fine with FATEs (at light farming stage now) without ever even using blizzard II.

[Alex_Lenderson]

If you're playing FFXIV as it was designed, the healer role is not meant to DPS inside the dungeons, but the option is there. If you want to play a healer who can DPS or a DPS who can heal, you pick Scholar/Summoner, but you still don't expect the DPS to heal any more than you expect the healer to DPS.

No. A healer who never casts an offensive spell is inefficient. Just like a DPS who gets lazy on their rotations.