But...I...I don't wanna DPS, I'm a healer...

[PriestAlseid]

"As a healer you SHOULD be DPSing otherwise you're lazy, but if you're a DPS trust your heals and don't help them out."

Kind of a double standard there guys, don't you think? If I don't DPS as a healer I'm lazy, but if I help heal when I'm not a healer, that's bad. I don't really get that, but okay, I guess I'll just find my own little niche, whatever and wherever that is. Thanks for all the input guys, but I really think I should find somewhere else to play. Enjoy your gaming guys, I had a kinda fun month here. :-)

[SecretCrowds]

"As a healer you SHOULD be DPSing otherwise you're lazy, but if you're a DPS trust your heals and don't help them out."

Kind of a double standard there guys, don't you think? If I don't DPS as a healer I'm lazy, but if I help heal when I'm not a healer, that's bad. I don't really get that, but okay, I guess I'll just find my own little niche, whatever and wherever that is. Thanks for all the input guys, but I really think I should find somewhere else to play. Enjoy your gaming guys, I had a kinda fun month here. :-)

[Cynfael]

"As a healer you SHOULD be DPSing otherwise you're lazy, but if you're a DPS trust your heals and don't help them out."

Kind of a double standard there guys, don't you think? If I don't DPS as a healer I'm lazy, but if I help heal when I'm not a healer, that's bad. I don't really get that, but okay, I guess I'll just find my own little niche, whatever and wherever that is. Thanks for all the input guys, but I really think I should find somewhere else to play. Enjoy your gaming guys, I had a kinda fun month here. :-)

Good luck with whatever you do.

To address your point briefly, the double standard has justification: unnecessary healing is useless at best, detrimental at worst. However, there is rarely such a thing as unnecessary damage.

Further, GCDs spent on DPS casting their extremely weak heals = GCDs not spent doing damage. Healers DPS far, far better than any DPS can heal.

[Sida]

Kind of a double standard there guys, don't you think? If I don't DPS as a healer I'm lazy, but if I help heal when I'm not a healer, that's bad. I don't really get that, but okay, I guess I'll just find my own little niche, whatever and wherever that is. Thanks for all the input guys, but I really think I should find somewhere else to play. Enjoy your gaming guys, I had a kinda fun month here. :-)

One reason is stats. When you pop on your cleric stance, if you had reasonable healer stats, you now have reasonable caster stats. Also, healer role naturally has downtime, nothing to heal -> free time. So healer can damage mana/time efficiently with proper stats.

Damage trying to heal however. First of your healer stats are scrub so the heals you can toss out are pitiable comparing to the time and mana they take to cast. Also damage role doesn't have downtime. If there are mobs to kill, kill the mobs.

If your tank keeps dying because lack of heals from your healer (or healer dying), -then- you might consider adding into the heals (or raising the healer. SMN are good for that) but if the healer is up and fine you just hamper everyone by not making sure the stuff dies quickly.

[Shurrikhan]

"As a healer you SHOULD be DPSing otherwise you're lazy, but if you're a DPS trust your heals and don't help them out."

Kind of a double standard there guys, don't you think? If I don't DPS as a healer I'm lazy, but if I help heal when I'm not a healer, that's bad. I don't really get that, but okay, I guess I'll just find my own little niche, whatever and wherever that is. Thanks for all the input guys, but I really think I should find somewhere else to play. Enjoy your gaming guys, I had a kinda fun month here. :-)

It actually follows the exact same logic. You should be doing in each GCD whatever provides the most output for the group. However, dps healing is so weak compared to healer dps that dps helping out really isn't a viable option past SMNs at level 40 (where we can actually be considered the preferred healer for Stone Vigil, because we're only losing out on Ruin [80p] filler casts to keep the tank alive with Physic [400p]. A SCH retains Ruin time where he could be using a move over 4x the strength because he carries a perma-heal pet who could otherwise be dpsing at over 100p/s on Ifrit as compared to Eos/Selene's 100p/s healing and raising your combined potency/s average significantly).

If you had equal still had about as much Mind as you do Intelligence, then as a SMN it wouldn't be a bad idea at all to take up direct heals, which you could do about as well (just lack the traits), while the SCH puts out his DoTs. Heck, SCH filler dps is better than SMN's at 54. But since, due to the lack of healing primary stat, you're only going to produce from about a seventh of the healing per potency that a real healer was, you'd sadly contribute about as much spamming Ruin or Blizzard II... It will likely seem restrictive and counter-intuitive, but that's just how it is right now. Healers have Cleric Stance, which gives them 10% bonus damage atop (SCH DoTs stronger than SMN), but dps lack Cleric Stance (where they'd be automatically debuffed by 20% in healing anyways) entirely.

I have had to save lives sometimes as my BLM in dungeon runs, especially while leveling. But you can bet I was questioning the healer's attention span afterwards in party chat.

[Eloah]

"As a healer you SHOULD be DPSing otherwise you're lazy, but if you're a DPS trust your heals and don't help them out."

Kind of a double standard there guys, don't you think? If I don't DPS as a healer I'm lazy, but if I help heal when I'm not a healer, that's bad. I don't really get that, but okay, I guess I'll just find my own little niche, whatever and wherever that is. Thanks for all the input guys, but I really think I should find somewhere else to play. Enjoy your gaming guys, I had a kinda fun month here. :-)

I hope you give things some more time, this game is fun and since you just started there is still so much to do and try. What everyone is telling you is general concensus, but not a standard. You have to do what is comfortable for you. I've seen plenty of healers still getting their bearings; at this stage of the game you're right where you should be so no worries. Just remember to take what everyone says as advice, not as fact, and to use your own judgement. If you are playing Scholar and arent comfortable dpsing yet don't, maybe practice out of cleric stance. If you are playing summoner and feel the heals might need a hand or two, throw out a physick every now and again. Ultimately, this is your playing experience, you may run into the occasional dick, but most people are patient and understanding.

Also the best advice I could give is to ask someone in game, who plays scholar and summoner, preferably someone in your FC. They can see how you play first hand, so their advice would be better than anything you read on the board; since they can actually see how you play and give you advice right then and there.

Just remember "keep moving forward"

[Dyvid]

"As a healer you SHOULD be DPSing otherwise you're lazy, but if you're a DPS trust your heals and don't help them out."

Kind of a double standard there guys, don't you think? If I don't DPS as a healer I'm lazy, but if I help heal when I'm not a healer, that's bad. I don't really get that, but okay, I guess I'll just find my own little niche, whatever and wherever that is. Thanks for all the input guys, but I really think I should find somewhere else to play. Enjoy your gaming guys, I had a kinda fun month here. :-)

I think you are missing the point. The goal of the party is to defeat monsters, plain and simple. Healing party members that need health indirectly helps with the goal, over healing and stand around doesn't. If you are standing around for 2.5s without needing to heal, you could have cast some kind of dps that helps with the over all goal, killing monsters. Alternatively if you are dps that is just curing other people you aren't helping with killing monsters are you.