So I was kicked from Halatali today

[Lyzern]

Just a biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig snip

Ok, let's see:

1) If you're only partying with DF, that's your own problem, sorry. Party Finder exists, it's part of the game and since you enjoy the "But the game was designed to be this way, you shouldn't play it any other way!" argument, well, the game was designed for people to use Party Finder and Free Companies. I see DF as a training party or for dungeons, never for extreme primals and especially not for coil. You complain about the parties you find but the reasoning doesn't stand because if the tank is being too careful, maybe there's a reason to it, whether it's gear or lack of experience or he just doesn't want to, or like Cynfael said, the run would be more efficient if the healer dealt damage in small pulls than having to keep healing the tank on big pulls with a party without big AoE (And holy is one of the strongest AoEs in the game, in dungeons you can literally use it until the mobs are dead.

2) If you wanna talk about tandem healing, why not go a step further: 2 WHMs, both pop Regen on tank; one of them goes into Presence of Mind and deals damage until it runs out while the 1st is keeping the tank healed (Which he shouldn't have a problem with since tank has 2 regens on, but if he does, 2nd whm can just pop back on, no problem); then the 2nd whm turns off Cleric Stance, starts healing the tank and the 1st goes ahead and does the same. Do you know how much damage is dealt in those 30 seconds? I don't, but it's a lot! So there, any efficient play by 2 healers who communicate with themselves. Which is something you'll never find in DF, only in organized groups.

3) I make a point to ALWAYS save a little time for DPS in every run I make. If I'm new to the run, I'll tone it down, of course, do you know how good it feels to have the tank pull full rooms in Wanderer's Palace HM, you keeping him topped and then do this marvelous combination: Cleric Stance, Swiftcast, Holy. BOOM, 4 seconds of zero damage to the tank. Ok, you don't have to switch on Cleric Stance for the stun, but why wouldn't you? It's a 200 potency AoE! Then you can even go further and cast Holy until the tank is on low HP, by this time some of the mobs should already be dead, which means less damage incoming, which means less healing required, so you have enough time to heal, if you don't, just use good ol' Benediction. The same can be applied to Scholar for Shadow Flare, although not as much damage AoE-wise, the attack slow will help even without Cleric Stance and instead of Benediction you have Lustrate.

4) Amdapor's Keep has a DPS Check, you really think a party can get through it if the healer doesn't help dealing damage with bare minimum ilvl? haha. This is just an example, but it's probably the most unforgiving one, We can also mention Titan Ex, Leviathan Ex, Shiva Ex, hell, even Ifrit HM has a tough DPS check if people aren't geared. So if we're talking about Square being a square (lol) and making dungeons/raids with strict roles and ilvl in mind, your argument doesn't stand because healers will need to help deal damage on DPS checks.

5) And finally, "The way the game was designed". Have you seen the Conjurer questline? I think someone even posted here on how that girl said she didn't wanna heal, just deal damage, and that she was harming herself and others around her. *wink wink* *nudge nudge* much? I mean, how much more obvious can Square get with that whole questline? They WANT you to deal damage instead of standing around like a dummy (a combat dummy, not trying to insult you!)

[raela]

I've done daily low, main scenario, high, and extreme roulettes constantly for the past few months. My "DPS when able = <3" stance is from the majority of that being solo queued, with the exception of 75-80% of the high/ex being with a dps friend.

Yes, some DF parties are a wreck. I've had a 90 minute CC run that ultimately failed, with me adding dps because people couldn't dodge mechanics/it made more sense to kill the boss than to slowcast another res. I've also had FC roulette runs with people on non-familiar roles that were way more painful than DF runs. I still DPS - make sure to get stoneskin/adlo on the tank at the end of the previous pull, then run directly behind the tank and cleric as they near the end of pull, swiftcast+shadowflare when they stop, miasma 2 if I have time, eye4eye+drop cleric+lustrate if I don't think they'll survive to the end of my adlo cast. Small pulls? Totally have time to get 3 dots+bane before swapping to heal.

[Cynfael]

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.

In my case it's DF for most random things like roulettes,weekly Tower quest, or dungeons my secondary relic for BLM. Even when I do go with FC people, it's usually only a couple of us together, and not always as healer+tank. For FCOB I always run with a static group. The only SCOB fight I do semi-often is T9, and I sometimes jump into friends' groups to help them clear a new member.

4-man DF as SCH: The group has to be pretty bad for me not to make time to DPS. I'm usually top in AoE damage on small-to-medium sized pulls unless there is a half-decent BLM. If the pulls are extremely large or the tank extremely weak, there might not be time to do a full round of DoTs + Bane before the tank's Adlo/SS is cut down and they start taking huge chunks. As mobs start to drop, I give the tank a fresh Adlo, continue to manually force Embraces on him/her, and use the remaining mob with the highest current HP as my disease vector for an upcoming Bane. Swiftcast Shadowflare is standard for any pull, and again when it becomes available.

8-man DF as SCH: Outside of FCOB, the majority of 8-man content is not that intensive for tank healing. I've done purely DF ST runs, for example, where both the WHM and I are camping CS 90% of the time, dropping it for a split second only to pre-shield, to heal up from a room-wide AoE, or to spot heal people who derp. Same goes for WoD unless your tank is the MT at a fight like CoD where the boss can actually inflict constant, heavy damage.

4-man DF as WHM: There's almost always time for a few Holy bombs. If the pulls are very large or people appearing to take a lot of damage, I'll prep the tank, go CS, Swiftcast Holy, cast 2 more of them, and immediately swap back out of CS and proceed to heal until more of the herd dies. If no one is in imminent danger, I'll Holy spam, Shroud, Benediction the tank when it gets low, and Holy some more for good measure.

8-man DF as WHM: I'll automatically assume primary healing responsibility if my partner is a SCH since their GCD management is much more flexible, but I'll Holy groups of trash if they are pulled together and tanked properly. Against bosses I'll DPS while no significant AoEs are going out after applying any necessary Regens. Since fights are scripted, you can generally tell when it's safe to take a handful of seconds to refresh Aero II and Aero at the very minimum, and I'll often scoot closer to the boss so that I can work Fluid Aura into my DPS rotation.

Coil (as SCH): I push heavy DPS as SCH during phases with particularly specific and scripted healing requirements. Aside from letting my WHM partner handle things like early Preys in T10 and MT healing while a Bennu is up in T12, I drop Cleric Stance for a moment to pre-shield for tank busters and for large room-wide AoE, and I constantly spam fairy heals on whichever tank is under fire at the time. The WHM will assume Cleric Stance and assist DPS in transitions where raid damage is minimal or non-existent, like when Imdugud charges up after each add phase in T10, assuming that no accidents happened earlier that consumed a lot more MP than usual.

[KisaiTenshi]

1) If you're only partying with DF, that's your own problem,

If you notice, I'm on Excalibur , the one with the Something Awful and Reddit, and the 4chan people, and it's a Legacy server with almost no "new" people that aren't bots. I picked the server way back in V1 for different reasons before becoming aware of this. This is what you see everyday today:

The only parties people make are to farm things.

2) If you wanna talk about tandem healing...

You know what the most common thing people do in "Castrum Meridianum" ? Let one healer do all the healing and the other healer spams Holy. Given when most of the party is ilevel 100 gear, the tank is usually going to last more than 5 seconds today. When people PF/DF farmed it around launch, people who weren't doing their job got kicked.

3) I make a point to ALWAYS save a little time for DPS in every run I make.

You have a strategy that works for you then. I'm telling you that you're more likely to get a Tank to over-pull and not give you a chance to do that, than to pull enemies one at a time.

4) Amdapor's Keep has a DPS Check, you really think a party can get through it if the healer doesn't help dealing damage...

I got through it back when people were being kicked for not having full darklight gear in 2013. If the party is weak then do whatever you must, but I haven't needed to DPS in that dungeon even with the less-than-stellar parties. I had one recent run where the wipes kept happening at the final boss and the Tank went "I've never seen those Orbs before" , while a more recent run the boss was killed just as the Orbs spawned. I did nothing different in both of those parties, and honestly it seemed like the party that kept wiping wasn't paying attention to the adds.

5) And finally, "The way the game was designed". Have you seen the Conjurer questline?

Have you paid attention to it? E-Sumi-Yan said that Sylphie was using her own lifeforce instead of drawing from nature to heal people, and her mother died from doing that. The point of that storyline was to show you when to use those skills you had acquired up to that point. That's the entire point of all the class storylines. None of these are done in a party. And as I've stated repeatedly, the DPS skills the healer classes have were designed so that a healer can get through the storyline without having to roll a DPS class like in other games. Prior to getting Holy, everything in the storyline is a chore, which is why I did the main storyline with my Bard, but I picked up the Conjurer/WHM only after my frustration with waiting an hour between DF runs back when the game launched. It was much easier to level up my Conjurer/WHM through the DF because the waits were less than 2 minutes, and runs generally went better than when I played a DPS class and the healers were trying to join-in with their DPS.

The low-level DF rarely has speed-pull tanks. I don't need to, but the option is "get overwhelmed by adds (tank not holding aggro)" or "overheal (thus attracting aggro)", the most ham-fisted runs the tanks and DPS ignore the adds and just attack the boss.

A lot of my POV on this subject comes from how the Healer generates hate faster than the tank when healing. I don't throw out healing spells to proactively heal the tank, nor use the party healing spells when it's not necessary. It wastes the Tanks time in having to generate hate faster or run around to get hate again. Go look at threads from people who Tank, their complaints? "Needless healbombs." If it wasn't for the wanton overuse of AOE DPS, the Healer would be sleeping the adds. That is how the game's dungeons are designed. Overgearing should only make the battles faster, not ignoring the game mechanics for the sake of pressing X to win.

Anyway I think this thread has said just about everything that was needed to be said. DF PUG's != FC Members. DPS only when you feel there is a need for it, but you are never required to DPS if you DF queued as healer.

[Cynfael]

you are never required to DPS if you DF queued as healer.

Strictly speaking, this is true.

However, for players who want to play well, ignoring opportunities to help push party DPS is unacceptable. Not sure how to say it more simply than this. It's one thing if you literally can't do it because your party demands your 100% healing attention, but quite another if you fail to perform because of some entitled notion that the "healer" label means that the party's #1 priority (i.e. killing things to complete objectives) is not in your Job description.

[raela]

*snip*
Anyway I think this thread has said just about everything that was needed to be said. DF PUG's != FC Members. DPS only when you feel there is a need for it, but you are never required to DPS if you DF queued as healer.

I dps a lot in castrum.. Fairy + rare lustrates is enough for bosses (I manually rotate skills), and there's definitely plenty of time at the start of large pulls. I'm not annoyed when the other healer dpses, or when they only heal. Overgearing makes healing needs weak.

I'm pretty sure the poster meant AK hard, which has two tight dps checks. If you wipe in the demon walls, you can go back to where you left off. The final boss though is a bit more unforgiving.

FC members being the gold standard aside, I do actually agree with the bolded point. I just think there's a lot more time to safely dps than you realize.

[Edellis]

If my cure spam keeps them above 90%, or i can heal all their HP in a few Cure II's, then i see no reason to spam cure the whole dungeon. I've got Cleric Stance and a 200 potency spammable nuke. Not to mention the 4-second base stun that drastically reduces the amount of incoming damage the tank will be taking anyway.

Make sure the healing is stable, judge whether or not you can cleric, Divine Seal their tick heals and spam away!

Doesn't matter if they survive with 10,000 HP, 1000 or 100. As long as they don't die and the enemies do, you're doing your job.

[Skyhunter]

I think the biggest thing I can glean from this topic is that a lot of different people like a lot of different things. I think the best thing I (or any other healer can do) is to simply go situation to situation and take up the slack wherever it may be, since this is ultimately the job of the healer. I know what I liked and disliked from healers as I played through the first story on my DPS, and I know what has and has not gotten me hat-tricks of commendations at the end of dungeons before. If you want me to DPS in a dungeon, ask me to do so, but if no damage is being dealt I'll do so anyways. If you want me to keep you topped up because it boosts your confidence, then I'll do so, but if you look like you're taking it in the tail every time an add hits you, I'm going to do so anyways.

All I can say is there are so many different varieties of people that to try and lay one specific style of healing (let's say healing and DPS'ing at the same time) down as the "best" is no more or less silly than saying always healing is the best. I assume none of you are blatant liars, and I assume none of you are narrow-mided enough to only attempt a single style of gameplay, and yet multiple stories and reasons arise. Different people make different judgement calls. I have one acquaintance that claims he can't boss in end-game content because, according to him, the stress gives him panic attacks and makes him sick. Is it true? Maybe. Is it silly and self inflicted? Possibly, who knows. The bottom line is that due to the pure size of the game and how many players there seem to be, I think opinions are going to be all over the charts. In the end, if you finish the content successfully, I don't think it matters greatly how you got there. If you have a hissy fit because you took 5 minutes longer than you could have, then I can't help you. If we are 5 minutes from the dungeon expiring, then I will have the hissy fit and wonder why you are even trying to play this game.

Either way, there seem to be lots of good opinions, a few bad tempers, and a whole slew of different kinds of people.

[Mirakumi]

So just replying to OP even though I'm sure you've had a great number of inputs now.

Everyone has a different idea of what the ideal play style is. What matters is how you want to play it, but also taking into consideration of others.

The way I see it is, if you are able to keep your PT alive without dying then there shouldn't be an issue. However in some end-game instances, people would like if healers stance-danced because it helps. Not saying that you need to follow that but some would prefer it. Again, you really don't have to.

If someone does give you a "hissy fit" just reply that [I don't speak English] or if you have talked, say, "Today I just want to relax sorry if you can't understand that."

If they kick you.
Don't take it personally.

They are probably:
- Back seat drivers.
- In a hurry
- Have their own play style
- Don't understand this is an MMO.
- Don't have any friends, thus solo queing.
- Letting off some steam.

---
In the end, it's not you it's them.

[Cynfael]

I thought of this thread today when I did Cutter's Cry for my BLM Animus book and wound up in DF with an at-level tank and a level-synced SCH.

Things were pretty good for the first couple of rooms, but I noticed that the SCH had left CS on at some point but was healing rather than DPSing. I said nothing because no one was dying and I figured he would notice his mistake soon. I finally said something when the tank did a large pull and was dipping dangerously low while the SCH began to run low on MP, at which point the SCH decided to make a game of healing through CS.

I made an offhand comment about efficiency, and the SCH said "It's Cutter's Cry - I can afford to be inefficient?" to which I replied "Ain't nobody got time for dat in this dungeon." Thankfully he started playing normally and we finished very smoothly, but it was a good example of how one person's playstyle choices can negatively affect the experience of others. In the bigger picture this is why I think it's important to play well. Not everyone is going to have the same level of skill with each and every Job or role, but deliberately choosing to do less than what you're capable of is what gets me. If people want a gameplay experience centered completely on their preferences, there are plenty of excellent single-player games for the choosing.