I'm done.

[technole]

That 7-man A3S had a party with some 210 weapons and all left sides, so of course there was wiggle room with DPS to carry dead weight, and both WARs were in Deliverance for almost the entire fight. The same with the 2 tank/5 dps/1 whm no-jump A1S, and the WHM still puts up considerable DPS in the opener, the first set of adds, and after the buster.

You can't just say there is a carried clear out there and point that healer DPS is completely optional. It's not only skill but party gear plays a major factor.

[Velox]

This was true in 2.0. Alexander savage changed all of it into a "always dps but don't forget to throw an occasional heal every now and then". That's especially true with scholars

Alexander didn't change this rule though. A healer can only DPS when someone's not at risk of dying. A healer's job is 100% dependent on his party mates. In fact, this can make it one of the most frustrating roles in end-game content. Not only does one have to perform a primary task, but one must recognize the opportunities for performing a secondary task as well. A team can bitch at a healer all they want about not DPSing enough, but it's that healer who must have the skill set to recognize if it's even possible to DPS and still deal with player flak.

Many will argue that this is why some of the best raid leaders are healers. Their job is to understand how the party functions more than the other roles, who focus more on the enemy rather than the ally.

[Kuwagami]

Alexander didn't change this rule though. A healer can only DPS when someone's not at risk of dying. A healer's job is 100% dependent on his party mates.

Oh that's totally true. But while the Coil didn't put stress on the healer (you can dps. Not needed. You just can), AS requires them to dps. It should put more stress on the team (less screwing things up team !) but instead most report that stress on the heal (dps more man). It's not until you overgear a bit more the encounters that you can focus less on dps as a healer.

[Serret]

@op

Without wanting to sound too rude.
Perhaps you need a bit more time to get used to the current gameplay.
Stance dancing is tricky and is a bit latency dependent. Mistakes will happen. The problem imo is not in the fact that healers can and should DPS now, but rather with the way cleric stance works and the delay it has when activating\deactivating.
That being said, I love the new bursty WHM dps capabilities. It makes the class so much more versatile.
In a raid environment you are not "required" to DPS as a healer. You can take on healing full time and give your other healer more DPS uptime in cleric stance if he\she is more comfortable with the idea.
If you like playing healer, keep trying ^^
If you don't like DPSing as a healer, that's fine but please don't blame the "meta". It's an option and a very good one that adds quite a bit of flexibility that was much needed on healer classes more particularly the WHM.

I would recommend experimenting with new keybindings. (middle mouse button for cleric stance swapping works well for me)

Never forget though, your primary role is Healer, not DPS.

[Yawnie]

I understand how you feel. At the time I first started doing As1 I didn't fully have the grasp of DPS'ing on top of the strict healing (nearly everyone was undergeared). I got bashed often for not doing much DPS and it came to the point where the static fell apart. I was bitter and angry at my static - almost made me want to quit AST lol. Though I feel like if you REALLY enjoy and like your job, you shouldn't quit it. I practiced going in and out of CS often and got better (I hope). So like I said, you often won't get the hang of stance dancing right away - for some it takes a lot of time and effort; so do your best and keep trying. Good luck with everything :>

[Alisa180]

I saw that AS3 solo-heal video...I want to BE that WHM someday (minus the time in CS). Maybe in 3.1 or 3.2.

@op
Stance dancing is tricky and is a bit latency dependent.

About that...I do have minor latency issues. I average 90-100ms using WTFast, and while that's better then most, combined with my less-then-ideal reflexes, well...Let's just say there's a REASON dodging has been such a consistent issue for me. My latency used to make dodging untenable, before using WTFast to bring it down to its current level.

That said, I have WAY too many occasions where I take an extra second or so to process 'Oh, wait, I'm standing in an AoE I should probably move' and that extra second costs me. I also, especially under high pressure, have a nasty tendency to 'hesitate'. Taking an extra couple seconds to process what's going on before hitting the button needed. I encounter this a lot when DPSing as SMN, but unlike with healing (where it can cost the party), as SMN it just costs me a couple ticks on the meter.

The reason I have the reflexes for healing is 'cause of literally years of practice back in World of Warcraft. Helps WHM has many similarities playstyle-wise to Holy Priest, which is what I used to main. This more or less means I rarely hesitate when healing even under high pressure but I still have my moments.

A lot of my crossbar set-up is designed to minimize button presses for this reason. The more buttons I have to press, the more likely I am to hesitate between them and have it cost me (and in extension the party when healing). Which is another reason CS is such a problem for me. It puts an extra button press between either my healing or DPS skills, and under the high pressure of Alex Savage and other raids I'm much more likely to hesitate and...Well, like I've said, it's asking for trouble.

(Plus that 'hesitation' is also likely to cost me what little CS time I have, so...)

If you don't like DPSing as a healer, that's fine but please don't blame the "meta". It's an option and a very good one that adds quite a bit of flexibility that was much needed on healer classes more particularly the WHM.

I feel fully justified in blaming the 'meta' when the words 'I will never use CS' makes my already low chances of getting into Alex Savage rock bottom. Its very tough to find a group when you're just getting into endgame. I fully believe I can learn to solo-heal an entire raid (Holy Priest experience again, we were the *masters* of healing the entire raid. Seriously, I could write a whole post on the similarities between HPriest and WHM...). Good luck with finding a group that will accept a WHM who won't contribute to the meters though...

Or more accurately, *can't* contribute to the meters. I'm not against healers DPSing. But I fully acknowledge my own limitations and know it's beyond my abilities. The problem is, like it or not, healer DPS is currently the 'expectation', rather than the 'nice bonus' it should be. And it's an expectation I can't meet.

[technole]

The real answer to savage WHM DPS is "as much as possible". DPS is a party responsibility. It doesn't matter what color your job icon is.

Most of the time it's practically free damage for the taking. Why take a WHM that contributes 0 when you can get one that will pop regen right at the pull, unleash PoM, go ham on DoTs, and get several Stone IIIs out before they ever heal the main tank again, dodge the protean wave, then heal the raid.

For the single hand, the main tank is going to eat one hand cleave with Living Dead and fall to 1 HP, what do you do?

You stay in Cleric Stance and keep DPSing. That is the whole reason they are eating one instead of sharing with the party, to add more DPS. Gives melee room to get positionals in, and the healer doesn't have to heal the raid for one cleave. Non-raid healers would normally freak out, but you got several seconds they can stay at non full HP. So if you want to stand there for those seconds and contribute 0 DPS, you are just wasting everyone's time because these strategies were done to help raid-wide DPS.

Then we also got healers that always believe "No i have to always save PoM for an emergency". Guess what? The cool down will be back up for what is arguably the healing test of the fight. These are just subtle differences between an end-game healer and one that isn't fit for it.

[Ghishlain]

I saw that AS3 solo-heal video...I want to BE that WHM someday (minus the time in CS).

A friend of mine was talking about this last night when he invited me to help another static practice A3S last night. The funny thing he mentioned about this that it's apparently not-optimal to solo heal A3S as you're pretty much doing the fight with 2 tanks 1 heal and 4.25DPS or something because one of the DPS will always have the damage down debuff from Digititus.

It's more of an exception than the rule in this particular case but thought I'd bring it up. I look forward to seeing a A4S solo heal in the future though.

[technole]

A friend of mine was talking about this last night when he invited me to help another static practice A3S last night. The funny thing he mentioned about this that it's apparently not-optimal to solo heal A3S as you're pretty much doing the fight with 2 tanks 1 heal and 4.25DPS or something because one of the DPS will always have the damage down debuff from Digititus.

It's more of an exception than the rule in this particular case but thought I'd bring it up. I look forward to seeing a A4S solo heal in the future though.

Yeah, it was the same thing back with the first WHM solo healing T13 pre-echo. Party wide DPS was lower because of higher than usual BRD ballad use.