dungeon helpers

[KisaiTenshi]

You know, whenever I'm on my SCH in a lower level dungeon, I find that other players (generally DPS) think that because I'm DPSing, I must not also be healing. I'm not sure if it's because Eos doesn't show what she's doing (as in, all they see is me DPSing.) I finally asked in my last dungeon where a DPS was healing (an arcanist.) Her answer was because I wasn't, despite no one going below 90% HP at any point. I keep my fairy on obey and just fill in with phys whenever a party member's HP goes below 80% or so as needed.

So, do you diplomatically point out that you are, in fact, healing with your fairy or do you just let it slide in dungeons? Is it just not worth looking like a jerk in a dungeon group or does it not matter in the long run?

The fairy doesn't show up as a party member, so it IS difficult to tell if a SCH is doing anything in pre-30 dungeons because the SCH has no SCH-specific skills to use. Hence using DPS skills more than healing skills gives that impression. Though it should be pretty obvious that you're healing people if they aren't taking a dirt nap.

That said, it is also obvious when you aren't healing them because they won't hear the "targeting" tone or the line that shows up when a cast starts.

--- in regards to my example situation (and just to further explain the situation before anyone thinks I'm one of those healers that cure when 10% of a tank's HP is gone...) - the person could have just tossed a CSed heal and it could have been fine.

I'd rather healers not try to heal with CS on because it just makes them look incompetent. DPS'ing without CS, fine, because you might not have CS as a SCH in the cross-skill set. SCH is far far easier to do DPS and just straight up ignore healing requirements, which is partly why other players might think the healer is being lazy or incompetent.

That said, if a WHM is DPS'ing and not healing, it's VERY obvious. Because the tank will fall over in 10 seconds. SCH's Eos/Selene will never let the tank die, so the only way the tank dies with the fairy summoned is by the tank being farther than 21yalms away, or the tank standing in every AOE without stunning the boss's powerful attacks. In harder content, clearly the fairy can't solo-heal a party because you don't have control over who she targets without micromanaging.

What I find is that if you play SCH, DPS players (particularly SMN and BLM) will heal themselves more frequently than when I play WHM. That's all fine, but that just shows how inefficient healers DPS'ing really is, because it brings down the total DPS of the party if the party members are stopping DPS themselves to heal. If SMN and BLM's are doing this because they always think SCH's are incompetent, what does that really say?


As WHM, unless I get a really good tank, it's usually cure I/cure II on the Tank, and cycling to the DPS if they happen to take more than 10% damage. There's usually no possibility of DPS'ing unless the entire party is avoiding damage and not speedpulling. On SCH however it's Aldoquium/Psysick when the target has taken at least 30% damage otherwise adloquium is wasted. Eos/Selene however won't let most of the party lose that much HP. So the SCH dpsing is simply "doing something" other than standing around waiting for someone to take enough damage to actually heal efficiently. Since they can recover 20% of their MP every minute from Aetherflow, there's minimal risk in running out of MP unlike WHM.

If players are playing the dungeons like they are designed, healers would not be DPS'ing at all except when the party is taking no damage. DPS and Tanks would never heal themselves or cure themselves of debuffs if they were playing the game as designed too. But that's rarely the case. As WHM I've seen tanks cure themselves if I waited until their HP lost was enough to justify Cure II during normal pulls, but when speedpulling, I've seen more tanks wipe because they lose 6000hp in a single hit. Even Divine Seal+Medica II+Regen+Cure II doesn't recover that much damage continuously without relying on crits.

When in doubt, don't step out of your role unless you're taking ownership of the party failure for doing so. It's far easier for the healer to not DPS and just save their MP until someone needs a heal than it is for them to DPS and cause an overall net DPS loss because the DPS players think the healer is incompetent and are healing themselves. You will have people that will complain either way, so justify what you're doing instead of just letting the DPS walk over you.

[Saseal]

I'd rather healers not try to heal with CS on because it just makes them look incompetent.

It does - but I was referring that they could have done so in the very very least. But they didn't.

[AskaRay]

What I find is that if you play SCH, DPS players (particularly SMN and BLM) will heal themselves more frequently than when I play WHM. That's all fine, but that just shows how inefficient healers DPS'ing really is, because it brings down the total DPS of the party if the party members are stopping DPS themselves to heal. If SMN and BLM's are doing this because they always think SCH's are incompetent, what does that really say?

I have literally never seen this? Especially if they get to the job stage... I have seen ACN heal but usually they are new...

[Cynfael]

What I find is that if you play SCH, DPS players (particularly SMN and BLM) will heal themselves more frequently than when I play WHM. That's all fine, but that just shows how inefficient healers DPS'ing really is, because it brings down the total DPS of the party if the party members are stopping DPS themselves to heal. If SMN and BLM's are doing this because they always think SCH's are incompetent, what does that really say?

This is nonsense. BLMs and SMNs attempting to heal themselves are generally incompetent (to put it more generously, perhaps they are very new and simply don't know better). The only time it is acceptable for the DPS caster to spend their GCDs on healing is when both of the following are true: 1) the healer is not healing (usually = they're dead) and 2) the DPS heals will at least keep the tank up long enough to give the group a chance of salvaging the situation.

If players are playing the dungeons like they are designed, healers would not be DPS'ing at all except when the party is taking no damage.

Many weeks and many threads of discussion later and you still don't understand how this works? I feel like this is the commercial with the elderly woman not understanding social media -- That's not how any of this works.

When in doubt, don't step out of your role unless you're taking ownership of the party failure for doing so. It's far easier for the healer to not DPS and just save their MP until someone needs a heal than it is for them to DPS and cause an overall net DPS loss because the DPS players think the healer is incompetent and are healing themselves. You will have people that will complain either way, so justify what you're doing instead of just letting the DPS walk over you.

This...doesn't...really...happen. And neither does running dry on MP due to providing support DPS. Whacking the dead horse again here, but it's indisputable that healer DPS increases efficiency when done properly (and yes, that means weaving DPS between necessary heals). Sitting on your GCDs with a maxed MP bar waiting for some disaster that won't happen is a terrible way to play.

[KisaiTenshi]

This is nonsense. BLMs and SMNs attempting to heal themselves are generally incompetent (to put it more generously, perhaps they are very new and simply don't know better). The only time it is acceptable for the DPS caster to spend their GCDs on healing is when both of the following are true: 1) the healer is not healing (usually = they're dead) and 2) the DPS heals will at least keep the tank up long enough to give the group a chance of salvaging the situation.

Do you not see the connection between #1 and Healers DPS'ing? As I said, I'm only ever seeing this when playing SCH, not WHM. I'm not going to stop every party and go "look, I'm playing a scholar, I can throw DPS DoT's while the fairy heals" The DPS can not see the fairy's cast meter, because the fairy doesn't show up in the party list. The only reason anyone knows the fairy is healing them is that cast line that shows up.

People who play DPS and never healing roles, would obviously fail to make that connection between why the healer doesn't heal at 10% or 30% damage, and why the target shouldn't heal themselves like in other MMORPG's where healers are useless.

Many weeks and many threads of discussion later and you still don't understand how this works? I feel like this is the commercial with the elderly woman not understanding social media -- That's not how any of this works.

Many weeks and many dead horse beatings later, you still think I'm going "healers should stand still with their staff up their butt and do nothing"...

Let me spell it out again...

If people were playing the game like it was designed HEALERS WOULD NOT BE DPS'ING WHEN THERE ARE HEALABLE TARGETS, which is the entire point of this:

You know, whenever I'm on my SCH in a lower level dungeon, I find that other players (generally DPS) think that because I'm DPSing, I must not also be healing. I'm not sure if it's because Eos doesn't show what she's doing (as in, all they see is me DPSing.) I finally asked in my last dungeon where a DPS was healing (an arcanist.) Her answer was because I wasn't...

That ACN in that example was likely jumping the gun because they were seeing healable targets, but not at the threshold of which need healing for Eos. Now go back to my other statement:

That said, if a WHM is DPS'ing and not healing, it's VERY obvious. Because the tank will fall over in 10 seconds. SCH's Eos/Selene will never let the tank die,

If you're in a dungeon, especially a pre-30 dungeon as a SCH, you only have a single heal skill, Psysick, which is the same potency as Eos's Embrace. You can pretty much let the fairy do all the healing until the boss room. But when you do that, the other players will only see you DPS'ing, not healing.

If they want to take over healing, offer to unsummon the fairy and see how long they last.

[Cynfael]

Snip.

Too lazy to quote everything this afternoon, so short version from me:

1. Whether it's SCH or WHM doesn't matter. Only difference is that the WHM actually has to stop casting heals to effectively DPS. Either way an effective healer is still throwing in DPS as they are able, and this requires not overhealing the slightest injuries. When I play DPS, healers only make me nervous if I remain at low HP for an extended period of time; if I'm missing a moderate chunk and know that nothing else is likely to hit me for at least a few seconds, I continue doing my job and fully expect that I'll be topped off before the next unavoidable damage spike.

2. You specifically said If players are playing the dungeons like they are designed, healers would not be DPS'ing at all except when the party is taking no damage. This is not how you do it properly. It is not an all-or-nothing proposition. You DPS correctly as a healer by gauging the healing requirement for the situation and weaving in your DPS accordingly. It may sound like semantics, but the distinction is actually important.

[AskaRay]

If people were playing the game like it was designed HEALERS WOULD NOT BE DPS'ING WHEN THERE ARE HEALABLE TARGETS,

I still don't really understand this... if people played the game the way it was designed, tanks would only pull one mob group at a time, thus only taking damage from maybe three-four enemies, DPS would only AOE a bit of the time, and healers would be....bored if just healing. I mean, besides a few enemies most trash pulls don't hit that hard.

Remember SE doesn't really like people to pull all the trash up to a boss and AOE them down.

[KisaiTenshi]

I still don't really understand this... if people played the game the way it was designed, tanks would only pull one mob group at a time, thus only taking damage from maybe three-four enemies, DPS would only AOE a bit of the time, and healers would be....bored if just healing. I mean, besides a few enemies most trash pulls don't hit that hard.

Remember SE doesn't really like people to pull all the trash up to a boss and AOE them down.

When I say this, people are taking it way too literately. To refresh:

a) There are three "roles", Tank, Healer and DPS. If you step outside that role, you are taking ownership of the party failure. This is not suggesting that Healers should not DPS and DPS should not heal themselves, but rather if you step outside the role, you are still responsible for your role. With healers this is far more critical.

b) A healer that is DPS'ing when there are no healable targets is adding to the total DPS. A healer that is DPS'ing while other players (DPS/Tank) are healing themselves are subtracting from the total DPS. Hence again, you do NOT DPS while there are healable targets. If players were playing the dungeon instances with the minimum gear requirements instead of maximum, they would have no opportunity to DPS period, and instead need to conserve MP.

c) There is a certain threshold at which a healable target "needs" to be healed, and the goal posts move the farther away from the minimum gear requirement is. If the entire party is minimum gear, then overpulling would not even be an option, as MP would be exhausted between pulls. People keep forgetting this because parties are often comprised of over-geared tanks and over-geared healers with minimum geared DPS in the low-level dungeons. When it's reversed (minimum geared tank) the healer has spend a lot more time healing the tank, and thus has less opportunity to DPS. A minimum geared tank may have as much as a 50% difference in HP compared to a maximum one. That changes the healing requirements significantly when the amount of damage they take goes from 5-10% per hit to 40% per hit.

d) The dungeons are not designed to be speedpulled. You do so at your own risk. Healing requirements scale linearly, where as damage in AOE scales exponentially. So if each mob hits the tank for 3% damage (3 mobs), a regular pull might incur 10% damage every 5 seconds, but a speed pull of 10 monsters takes that to 30%, and some insane "to the boss room door" pulls can easily flatten an overgeared tank with bad timing of all the mobs striking at the same time. But two DPS timing their AOE's at the same time are doing damage to all 10 monsters at the same time. The more you pull, the more vital it is to avoid AOE's yourself, especially anything that stun/paralyzes (eg Morbol's.)

e) Please play with randoms in the Duty Finder if you think healing is too easy. I assure you that the only reason healers might be bored is when the party is actually good enough to not require as much healing as a band of newbies. Take that opportunity to DPS rather than stand still. You're never required to, and anyone who throws a fit about you DPS'ing or not DPS'ing is a poor player to begin with.


A lot of misconceptions about FFXIV come from players who apparently played WoW or GW or some other MMO where basically everyone is a DPS and few people pick healer roles because the healer role is too squishy, and other healing mechanics (eg pots) are cheaper and lack penalties. The Tank who chainpulls is an example of bringing bad habits from one MMORPG to FFXIV.

If you are going to play a game, you first play it like the developers intended it, and then when you see opportunity for emergent gameplay, that doesn't break the intent of the game mechanics, you take advantage of that. Trying to go straight to minmaxing every GCD just because it's there, is not not smart or efficient gameplay, and certainly isn't fun to play with party members who expect a pro every time.

[Alisi]

A lot of misconceptions about FFXIV come from players who apparently played WoW or GW or some other MMO where basically everyone is a DPS and few people pick healer roles because the healer role is too squishy, and other healing mechanics (eg pots) are cheaper and lack penalties. The Tank who chainpulls is an example of bringing bad habits from one MMORPG to FFXIV.

Not true in the case of WoW. Squishiness is completely dependent on the healing class you play and there are tons of healers (there's six different healing specs.) FFXIV is actually way, way, way more lax on these things. WoW has so many more restrictions and penalties that it isn't funny. You have no idea how good you have it herein FFXIV.

[Saseal]

Not true in the case of WoW. Squishiness is completely dependent on the healing class you play and there are tons of healers (there's six different healing specs.)

And in RO/Ragnarok Online, Full Support/FS Int/Vit priests with an uninterruptable cast gear were near unkillable xD; (used to have to get an Asura monk to kill with Guillotine Fist, along with a mob of peeps to bring down shielding spells like Kyrie..... which is basically stone skin)
People used to use them to tank in PVP/WoE and some MVPs/bosses/dungeon mobs instead of the actual tank classes...
ME priests, though.... not so much