Astrologian Speculations! How will it fit in?

[Ghishlain]

I find it bizarre how certain people on the forum are insistent that there is enough time for a healer to DPS during any of the dungeon instances, because it seems like they're in bizzaro land. I've yet to run into an PUG DF instance where the Randoms played well enough from the start that they actually avoid taking damage. Like 2 in maybe 100, and they're usually tank+dps pairs from the same server/FC.

I pretty much have the exact opposite anecdotal experience to you. In other words:

I find it bizarre how certain people on the forum are insistent that there is not enough time for a healer to DPS during any of the dungeon instances, because it seems like they're in bizzaro land. I've yet to consistently run into an PUG DF instance where the Randoms played well enough from the start that they actually avoid taking damage. Like 2 in maybe 100 are bad at dodging, and they're usually tank+dps pairs from the same server/FC.

And this is from someone who has built both healer Zodiacs and solo queued about 75% of those runs on said healer.

Hence my comment, I'm glad I'm not on your data cluster. Apparently your data cluster is just bad (probably why there's a guy on the same server as you who has spent 8 hours trying to clear the Steps of Faith and hasn't been able to yet). Anyone from Behemoth, Brynhildr, Diabolos, Exodus, Famfrit, Hyperion, Lamia, Leviathan, Malboro, or Ultros can confirm?

Regardless, this leads me to pretty much say:

Welp, I guess we're at a stalemate, mate.

We're clearly going to have different opinions as we've have extremely differing duty finder experiences. *Shrugs*

[Asheilin]

Anyone from Behemoth, Brynhildr, Diabolos, Exodus, Famfrit, Hyperion, Lamia, Leviathan, Malboro, or Ultros can confirm?

Regardless, this leads me to pretty much say:

We're clearly going to have different opinions as we've have extremely differing duty finder experiences. *Shrugs*

on Levi (also played on Diabolos, lamia and Malboro but have since deleted the alts) I'm one of the ones who commented back a few pages that Healers shouldn't be expected to dps because we're too busy! I actually dont main heal anymore simply because I am constantly running into the tanks/dps who prove KisaiTenshi is right. Data center full of trollers, who knows, but the end result.... Healers spend 98% of their time trying to keep their parties alive.

On a side note, alot of people came to FFXIV from other mmos; mmos which DISCOURAGE healers dpsing because thats not their job and will cause people to wipe. Healers have dps spells to level when they're not in dungeons.

[Ghishlain]

on Levi (also played on Diabolos, lamia and Malboro but have since deleted the alts) I'm one of the ones who commented back a few pages that Healers shouldn't be expected to dps because we're too busy! I actually dont main heal anymore simply because I am constantly running into the tanks/dps who prove KisaiTenshi is right. Data center full of trollers, who knows, but the end result.... Healers spend 98% of their time trying to keep their parties alive.

If it truly is a Data Cluster issue in terms of bad players, I feel sorry for all of you. When players are i120+ and taking much too much damage in WoD / random 4-mans, that truly is just bad players.

But I guess that explains some of the debate going on too (to a degree).

On a side note, alot of people came to FFXIV from other mmos; mmos which DISCOURAGE healers dpsing because thats not their job and will cause people to wipe. Healers have dps spells to level when they're not in dungeons.

I don't disagree with this as most MMOs tend to have some sort of "spec system" and you're generally doing some sort of DPS spec while leveling / soloing and I don't see Cleric's Stance implementation to be any different from that.

What makes Cleric's Stance unique is the fact that you can activate at any moment, where as every other MMO I've played to date that does this usually has some sort of restriction. This makes your healer a fantastic DPS and thus you should be making use of this when opportunities present themselves.

Keywords: when opportunities present themselves

If you're healing 95% of the time because of derpy players, well, you're healing 95% of the time because you just cannot afford to DPS.
If you aren't DPSing when the tank is an i130 tank doing single pack pulls in Snowcloak, well, prepare for something like 80% idle time (or even 100% in the case of a SCH). So, why not DPS? <<< This is where comments about lazy come in.

Here are my metrics for healers:
Terrible - Full time DPS, or just letting me die ALL THE TIME to things outside of my control
Average - Keeping party health full, doing nothing more and nothing less to contribute
Excellent - Making effective use of cooldowns to help maintain party health, using idle healing time to produce additional DPS for the party to help defeat trash/bosses faster, adapting to unforeseen situations as they occur

I personally don't like to call people lazy, but I can appreciate where the comments themselves come from and respect the opinion.

[KisaiTenshi]

If it truly is a Data Cluster issue in terms of bad players, I feel sorry for all of you.

Reddit, 4chan, Something Awful are all on my (Legacy) server and therefor the Data Center. So maybe it's just tilted towards derpy trolls or something. Also just about everyone I know outside FFXIV who is playing FFXIV somehow managed to create their characters here.

Back on topic: I'll probably give AST a try, but I'm of the opinion that unless SE finds a way to give us more inventory space for the Armory, we're going to have some epic whine about not being able to to share gear between AST/SCH/WHM.