So I was kicked from Halatali today

[Skyhunter]

I feel the need to add that (and this may be me getting extremely unlucky) a lot of people seem to underestimate how much healing I actually do in low level dungeons (and higher level ones as well) when in the duty finder. On several accounts I have in fact run myself out of mana without a single wasted heal because of people (usually the tank or a melee DPS, or in the rare occasion, a bard or black mage who has gotten tunnel vision) choosing to take damage and keep DPS'ing instead of avoiding AOEs. Typically I am casting one heal spell every 5 seconds at the very least with very little if any wasted healing.

I am curious, are most of the players posting here referring to experiences with clan members? Or is this generally the case with groups formed in the duty finder as well? Because with complete honesty, most (not all, but most) dungeons I partake in through the duty finder leave me in scenarios where, if I were to cast Cure, switch stances, and then Stone II, followed by another switch to Cure and repeating, usually that isn't keeping people alive.

When I play in my own clan it's different because we know how we all work, but with the duty finder there have been many times when I ran out of mana, even with Shroud of Saints.

[Cynfael]

Snip.

Either you have extremely bad luck with DF (which is possible!) or you might not be healing as efficiently as possible.

- Are you taking advantage of Freecure when you can?
- Avoiding Medica I/II and Cure III except when truly needed or MP-efficient?
- Letting HoTs do the job when possible and not topping people off when they don't really need it?
- Rocking enough Piety to keep your MP healthy?

[Skyhunter]

Assuming I have full access to every single ability, my method at the start of a fight is to first Regen the tank, and then Medica II the whole group. On a good group, this is when I'll begin trying to DPS (and if I think I will need to spam Holy, I will use Divine Seal before Regen and Medica II to keep them as potent as possible). I virtually never use Cure III unless there is a massive group of adds with massive AoE's that I want to stay out of and the party should all need heals at once. I always use Cure II in place of a Cure if there is a Freecure active, and I typically do not begin casting a heal spell until the one taking damage is around precisely the point at which one cure would bring him to full health.

I can tell you exactly what kills my mana and ability to DPS. It is the sheer number of people who do not understand the strategy of making sure you know what you are fighting. First of all I will encounter tanks that simply make way too large of a pull (large enough that Divine Seal and Cure II isn't keeping them alive)... I will say this is partly my fault as well as the tank. I think the tank needs to take a moment in the first fight or so to understand what I am capable of healing, and it comes to my fault when my gear simply is not end-game gear yet, which seems to throw several tanks off.

The second thing that ruins me is the quite large amount of players that don't pay attention to their aggro indicators while fighting. I will see a BLM lay into multiple adds before a Tank can even get a single flash off, and I will see melee DPS'ers not only bombarding enemies that the tank is not focusing on, but also not avoiding AoEs that are very clearly marked. I could say that in some cases it's the tank's fault for not marking an enemy, but the bottom line is that once a large group of adds gets onto players other than the tank, I have to start healing more which draws more aggro on myself and, not only makes it harder on the tank, but interrupts my casting times.

I might agree that the problem is not as pronounced as I feel like it is, but as far as I can remember, every day that I have run any sort of duty-finder related activity, there has been at least one (sometimes many more) where I end up getting myself screwed over by players with tunnel vision, and this causes me to have a great deal of caution, especially in learning the game. One great example is running Cyrcus Tower last night. After my first run I decided I wanted to do it a few more times for tomestones of both varieties as well as maybe some higher-end loot for other classes I'd like to level. Our team's healers consisted of two WHMs, and overall it was rather simple, except when we got to Xande, people just could NOT focus at all on mechanics, so much that we were almost bombed by a comet (maybe a head's length from hitting the crystal), that's how out of whack players were (and yes, I did Cleric Stance and fight the crystals :P). Throughout that whole fight, both myself and the other WHM stayed off Cleric Stance the whole time aside from the comet phases, and even with that I had to raise the other WHM three separate times, as well as remain casting healing spells almost constantly.

Now this isn't to say I haven't had good games, but I'm having a difficult time warming up to DPS'ing when so many dungeons, trials and raids that I have played in seem to be infected with players who aren't paying any attention at all to where they stand. In that one Syrcus Tower fight I mentioned, one of the DPS'ers actually got killed by Amon during Curtain Call, and with as much warning as you have to avoid that, there was no other explanation other than not paying any attention at all to his surroundings.

So, perhaps I've had a nasty streak of luck, or maybe I'm just being overly critical through my learning process due to trying to learn so much at once, but the amount of times I am able to stand around doing nothing feels extremely minimal lately. As a matter of fact, the worst experience I have had to date in terms of players with a lack of focus was during Titan Hard Mode (NOT extreme) where the party wiped three times by getting blasted off the edges. They even tried to vote abandon it, but in the end we beat it with one tank, one DPS and a healer (myself) staying alive, and I was absolutely mana-less, using every bit I had to cure. It is experiences like these during my learning process that makes it hard to trust players to not totally screw up without warning (and I do not say that with arrogance, I know there are plenty of good players out there as well, and certainly I am not a faultless player myself).

I will say that I have been doing more of the higher-end content the past week or so during what I believe was their free weekend, so maybe there has been an influx of players less familiar to the mechanics, but either way my DPS moments have not revealed themselves much lately.

[Lilyanna]

I will see melee DPS'ers not only bombarding enemies that the tank is not focusing on, but also not avoiding AoEs that are very clearly marked.

In the case of DPS not getting out of aoe's ... if it is purposely or constant, just let them die. You are not their heal slave that is there to let them stand in the fire. People don't understand that healers aren't your slaves for you to do whatever you want. THIS is the problem: "Oh the healer will just heal me!" - DPS/Tanks.

[Moqi]

"Oh the healer will just heal me!" - DPS/Tanks.

Or spam "ress me" in party chat when there are other things that have priority over ressing someone who will die within 15 seconds.

[Cynfael]

Assuming I have full access to every single ability, my method at the start of a fight is to first Regen the tank, and then Medica II the whole group.

Not that this is the "a-ha!" tip, but I would avoid this early-in-the-fight Medica II entirely. It's basically a waste of MP since everyone except maybe the tank will be at full HP when you cast it, making the initial burst pure overheal. The HoT effect will either be A) almost entirely overheal as the group functions properly and takes little-to-no damage except for the tank or B) insufficient heal to keep bad players healthy, requiring you to Curebomb them anyway. Medica II does best at recovering the party from big hits when you can allow the HoT to gradually top them off or need the HoT to help combat unavoidable, ongoing damage.


Aside from that, it really does sound like you are running with some of the most terrible players I've ever heard of. Bad players can really cramp your style as a WHM since they'll greedily eat up most of your GCDs.

Edit: And yes, allow awful players, especially in casual raid settings like CT/ST/WoD, to die and stay that way. The problem only gets worse as these players receive consecutive rezzes and get the Brink of Death debuff, making them even more prone to dying again.

[Lilyanna]

Edit: And yes, allow awful players, especially in casual raid settings like CT/ST/WoD, to die and stay that way. The problem only gets worse as these players receive consecutive rezzes and get the Brink of Death debuff, making them even more prone to dying again.

My favorite is DPS that get doom and then complain that the padd is moving ... "-_- Don't get hit in the first place...."

[KisaiTenshi]

Everything you say is just full of randomness and confusion lol, you make zero sense and your arguments don't stand. I'm starting to think you're a troll, but I'll reply once more:

Nobody said WHM's or SCH's are DPS classes, what we're trying to say is that they do decent damage, decent enough to be noticeable and help the runs go faster and smoother..

No that is not what is being said by the Pro-DPS side in this thread at all. What is being said by people like you is "DPS or GTFO and play some other game"

I do not belong to a FC, I have never joined a FC. Everything I've played is DF. PUG's are awful because new players don't pay attention and old players just want to zerg rush through the dungeon like it was a FPS game. Perhaps you should go play in the DF exclusively for a month and see how people actually behave, and then maybe you'll believe me that the healer class is NOT supposed to "help" DPS in a dungeon, because they don't have time for it. If you have time to DPS, then your party is too weak or doesn't know how to DPS in the first place.

This is an example of a bad healer, that I keep seeing in the 8-man mainstream scenario and 24-man Raids:
1) Opens with Medica II or Regen before the Tank pulls - Because now you just sent the aggro to you instead of the tank.
2) Does not tandem heal with the other healer - Two healers using Cure I is more efficient than two healers alternating between Cure II's.
3) Enters Cleric stance, and never leaves it, even when healing. It has a 5 second cooldown. That's 5 seconds of either mediocre damage or weak healing.

During all the 8-man and 24-man fights, if you already know the fight you know exactly when to hit Medica II (eg right before the big AOE) and at no other time since it's a waste of MP.

But then you get these kinds of people
a) The Tank that pulls all the mobs on the floor straight to the boss room. I do Regen->Cure II->Cure II until their HP is back near the top, but these guys don't even have 5 seconds to live, so I'll fire Presence of Mind, and try to top them up, but oh look MP is now out after a single pull if they survived. Then they just run into the boss room and pull it without waiting for MP to charge, so if we didn't wipe outside the door, we wipe inside the door.
b) The Tank that doesn't know what Flash is. So I'm the one who's actually doing the tanking TYVM by healing myself.
c) The DPS (BLM seems especially bad about it) that decides that the tank doesn't have enough mobs, so they pull more, and out of my reach to heal them when they they die in two hits.
d) During the Raid's you get Tanks that fight over who's Main Tanking so instead of everyone working together, one or two teams are being flattened.
e) During Raids, nobody waits for all the players to get into the boss room. So you get Tanks and Healers locked out.
f) The DPS who stands right where they will be thrown off into certain death in the boss room (Primals, Demon Wall)

The entire argument in this thread (go all the way back to the OP) is that there are people saying "If you don't DPS you aren't helping" when it's more likely that if you have time to DPS, then either your tank is too cautious, or your party is overgeared. Once again, look at the OP. Halitali. The average DF run in that (and there is far too many) dungeon consists of level-synced Healer paired with "new" DPS, or a "new" Tank. So a lot of mistakes are going to be made. Your average run is not going to be 4 people wearing ilevel 135 gear. The average party two level 21 DPS wearing dungeon trash. As a healer in that dungeon you only get to use cure, aero and stone.

This is the perfect example of where the Healer has the option to DPS because it makes their job easier. In both the Firemane and the Tangata boss, there's a bunch of weak adds that you can hit with Aero (without switching to cleric stance) faster than the melee DPS can get to them all. If all the adds get eliminated quickly, you won't have to heal the tank/party as much because everyone won't get hit with the room-wide AOE.

There is an identical scenario with Sycrus Tower. During the Meteor Fall (where you have to attack the small targets and then the center target otherwise it's a wipe) your party should already be at full health and your (healer) DPS may make up for weaker DPS in your or someone elses party. Last saturday was the first time I saw a Raid-wipe to that (after multiple runs where no party wipes at all,) where on the second round too many DPS were dead (the second Alliance was down both a tank and a DPS) and I saw it coming as the amount of HP it had remaining was not going to happen. As it was, that ST run was pretty awful (it started out with the tanks fighting over who MT's, and every boss up to that point had plenty of deaths.) Including the tank in my party who for some reason insisted on MT'ing and running to the other side of the floor mid-heals. I couldn't have healed him better unless I was standing on top of him the entire time.

When I do parties/raid's I stay silent, because the last thing I want to do is tell someone off that they're slacking, and then have it turn into a troll party. Take what you're dealt in the DF, and work with it. Most of DF's can be worked with even if everyone is awful as long as they are sticking to their role. It's been pointed out here and in multiple threads that way too many people just want to be DPS (and be carried through hard content).

Please review how to use Cleric Stance properly by toggling on/off at appropriate times. I think all of this confusion on your end stems from a lack of understanding on how any of this is supposed to work.

Also consider that MP management, while not an entirely unrelated issue, often has no bearing on whether or not a healer can or should contribute DPS. Hell, a WHM can Holybomb themselves down to virtually nothing in any 4 man dungeon and still retain sufficient MP and base MP recovery to heal through just about anything.

P.S. Consider that all of the people telling you that healers don't work the way you think they do are not crazy and are actually giving you good advice. Ask for clarification on specifics if you don't get what we're saying. I personally don't write posts like this simply to be contrary; I would actually like to help others improve.

Oh I certainly know how to use Cleric Stance, but you're ignoring why people have having a slap-fight over "healer must DPS"

Up until I bought all the iLevel 100 gear, I was running the low-level roulette and mainstream roulette, over and over, because I don't want to be carried through hard content. I've seen a lot of awful players. When I started running the hard roulette after I cleared all of them, it's a completely different pace with everyone wanting to rush through content. In most of these, the opportunity to DPS is never available because that 5 seconds spent not healing results in the tank dying.

Square-Enix has set up both the Storyline and the Dungeons with specific roles and gear in mind when they are new. If you can't beat them with all the gear you progressed through the storyline with, then you grind a bit by going back to the easier content and getting more dungeon gear, or you buy better gear/get-from-levequest. Back in 2013, a full set of iLevel 70 gear was "not enough" to get through the dungeons that people wanted to farm/speed-farm (WP specificly) and we were having the same argument in this thread, except it was "gear check", wear all the expensive-tomes gear or get kicked from the very dungeons that drop them. That is NOT how the game is designed.

And that is why we're having this argument at all. People seem to not care how the game is designed, and just want to faceroll through the content as a DPS, even though the content is designed specificly to have a party do the roles given. If you fail a dungeon run, it's because your party is trying to play the dungeon in a way that it was not designed. That could mean weak gear, people not understanding their roles in the party, or just sheer laziness.

How long is your average dungeon run? 15 minutes? 30? There is a reason why you have 90 minutes. The last "The Stone Vigil" run I went through in the DF had people still wearing level 5 gear in some slots. It took an hour. The temptation to DPS was great, but it was the Tank and one of the DPS that had the weak gear. The tank liked fighting on top of the traps. It's was probably the second longest that dungeon took since launch. If let the tank go 5 seconds without healing, it was dead. If I didn't alternate between healing the tank and healing the weak DPS, it would be dead with every pull. There is a reason why all the Bots prefer BLM... and I was almost certain this BLM was a bot with how bizarre it acted.

I know this post is just going to get TL;DNR'd by those that are still firmly "WHM must DPS or they aren't a contributing" argument, but I'm telling you from experience, if you have time to DPS, then the content you are doing is way too easy, and you're living in a comfort bubble. I'd rather a tank pull larger than "need" to DPS in a dungeon, because my MP is better used for healing the tank, not adding tiny bits of damage.

[Cynfael]

I know this post is just going to get TL;DNR'd by those that are still firmly "WHM must DPS or they aren't a contributing" argument, but I'm telling you from experience, if you have time to DPS, then the content you are doing is way too easy, and you're living in a comfort bubble. I'd rather a tank pull larger than "need" to DPS in a dungeon, because my MP is better used for healing the tank, not adding tiny bits of damage.

I am telling you from experience that this is not true. I can't speak for other people in this thread, but I actually am reading what you write and am not ignoring your arguments; I simply disagree and do not want inexperienced players to read them without context and opinion to the contrary.

I'm not sure what your concept of healer DPS is, but I'll reiterate this point yet again in case it didn't pop out in the previous 11 pages: DPS is what you contribute when you can safely do so. Yes, there will be times when the healing workload is too great to safely DPS, and that is perfectly fine (note that this includes "there are still several mobs left, but tank is using cooldowns, so I should begin to stance-dance" as a logical next step in the huge pull process). However, there are many occasions where you can't pull the entire dungeon due to doors or other obstacles. There are also occasions where the DPS in party simply can't kill fast enough to make big pulls at all efficient; you are better off with smaller groups of 3-5 mobs that a productive SCH or WHM will help burn down quickly.

I'm not sure where the bit about "game design" and "faceroll DPS" comes from. You make many, many assumptions about game design for someone who is not a developer. Rather than interpreting roles literally, I would reference other games in this same genre and conclude that a cookie-cutter system is rarely by design and is almost always less efficient and less fun than a more "natural" playstyle that leverages all of the strengths that each role brings to the party. Hence why the healer role, just like the tank and DPS role, shares a responsibility to contribute directly to objective completion to the extent that they are able while still carrying out their primary "role."

In any case, I don't get the logic train here...

Are healers supposed to stand around picking their noses when healing requirements are low or can be mitigated? ----> Well, the tank should be pulling more so that we are forced to spam heals.

What if huge pulls cost the group more time due to inefficient AoE DPS in party? --------> It's better to be inefficient because my MP is too good to DPS with....?

This is what I'm understanding from what I read, and I don't get how in any world it's more fun to strictly adhere to some arbitrary concept of what roles are supposed to do when there is potential for so much more in a variety of situations. If healers aren't supposed to DPS, then you might as well strip utility, crowd control, and defensive skills from DPS, because they shouldn't be able to provide team support? This game is so much more enjoyable when you embrace all aspects of each role.

[Skyhunter]

Ok I have to laugh, because there is so much truth to both Cynfael as well as KisaiTenshi, but it all seems to depend almost entirely on whether I am mostly running DF, or running with my clan members, that is to say a predictable environment (or so it seems to have been the case so far). This being said, as KisaiTenshi has already stated that she almost always runs DF... Cynfael, do you mostly run DF or with clan members? I don't ask this in an arrogant tone either, I simply am curious for comparison's sake. I'll say that everything Cynfael says almost always applies when I am running with my group that I know.

That being said, I literally laughed because I have experienced A, B, C, E, and F on Kisai's list of different kinds of people (Only D was missing) in the past week alone through the DF, and each more than once. I also had to laugh even more when I hear her reference players who are grossly undergeared even as low as level 5 armor. Just today I was doing my daily low roulette and I had a tank who was clearly in the process of leveling (had not been synced and was level 18) running Haukke Manor, and unless there were less than three adds, I was using Cure constantly, needing it enough that one Cure, a Cleric Stance swap followed by a Stone II was not enough to keep him alive.

I also have this DF related story I experienced a good two weeks ago, but it is such an example of the PUGs I get in so often that I had to tell. It was yet another low level roulette and it was a fight against Titan Normal Mode, and our Tank was horrible... I almost thought he was trolling. We got into the fight, and he was naked. Not glamour-naked, ACTUALLY naked. I was a healer and I had 300 more HP than he did. We explained to him that he needed armor and he didn't understand why, saying that lots of players tanked like this... the guy had seen players tanking who had glamoured little to no clothing on, but he didn't know what the glamour system was, and actually thought he could tank in his boxer shorts, no shirt, and sunglasses.

I mean these are real experiences I have, and I don't know if the DF is just not gifting me with good groups or what, but these are genuine experiences. Kisai's logic almost all applies to most of my DF groups, but it should also be said that a lot of Cynfael's logic has pulled through in a group that I know and can predict. All that said, I AM getting better at DPS'ing while healing, yet even so, it's still proving to be highly impractical in many of my DF runs.