Regarding healers acting as DPS

[WolfKid]

As a main healer i learned to DPS and heal during dungeons, but i'm never confident at it. As an WHM or AST, I would top my tank first, (pop a healing buff if up) put the regen on the tank or party, THEN i'd start DPSing, i barley let the regen fall, i dont want the tank dying to spike damage. Besides i panic easily, as long as the regen is up, and or the tank is above 40%, ill be DPSing. Unless mobs have some bullshit move like final sting >_>

[RuleofThree]

Having Taken every healer class to 60, and having done healing classes in other MMOs (Not that this matters, as every MMO is different), I can say that not only do I hate using DPS as a healer, I simply won't. The only circumstances that change this are in situations in which taking damage is a guaranteed minimal (The Crystal Auras in Dhamelzel Darkhold) to non-existant (Killing the balls of fire in The Vault). In those situations, I will break out Cleric Stance and Stone II (III).

I'm a healer. When I queue up for Duty Finder, I take up a green box. That green box is for a healer. If a tank signed up in Duty Finder and went pure DPS, he'd be gone in a flash. If A DPS signed up as a wanna-be tank and leveled nothing but Vitality, he'd be laughed at. I am a healer...let me heal.

I am of the opinion that - if you need your healer to contribute to DPS...then your real DPS is doing something wrong in the first place. Not my problem.

[RuleofThree]

Now...on the flip side. As a person that has leveled every tank job to 60...I can not stand it when my healer starts attacking the enemy. If I drop to 25% because they wanted to get in that extra Gravity/Holy, my mood for the dungeon is greatly soured.

Look, I understand that this will never change. DPSing as a healer is a thing in this game, it's not gonna change because I want it to. If I do die, I just smile inwardly, knowing I'm right, and move on. In short, if you want to DPS...do it. I can't stop you...but I'm not gonna like it.

What DOES piss me off, are the healers that spend all their mana DPSing, then yell at me before a boss because I didn't stop and wait for them to get to full mana. 1) Shut up. You decided to waste your mana before the boss fight, now learn to manage it properly. 2) Shut up. Every healing class has a way to regen mana. 3) Shut up. I leveled all three healing classes, and know for a fact that you can keep me alive on the mana you have now. 4) Shut up.

[WolfKid]

What DOES piss me off, are the healers that spend all their mana DPSing, then yell at me before a boss because I didn't stop and wait for them to get to full mana. 1) Shut up. You decided to waste your mana before the boss fight, now learn to manage it properly. 2) Shut up. Every healing class has a way to regen mana. 3) Shut up. I leveled all three healing classes, and know for a fact that you can keep me alive on the mana you have now. 4) Shut up.

What kind of tank doesn't let their healer recharge their mana before a boss? Yes they have a way of getting their mana back, but regarding AST and WHM, I see it more as a CD during battles. Also why do think healers DPSing is a bad thing? A whole bunch of people would disagree with you there. Now if tank was constantly dying due to lack of heals, that would be a different story.

[EZ5902]

Im sorry, as a healer you shouldn't be letting them drop below 50% like that. It's stressful on a tank because they dont know if you just suck or dont know what you are doing.

You are probably one of those healers who are scared to let the tank drop below 95% hp. I totally disagree with your comment. And totally agree with Atoli.

[Hunky]

it's good to dps as a healer!

i dps as white mage all the time in random party finder groups. the more you play the game and become more familiar with each dungeon and trial the more you'll learn how much you can get away with dpsing before you gotta start healing again. it's fun activating presence of mind while casting stone 3 after stone 3

you just gotta learn how to time your cleric stance and how to anticipate incoming damage. although i rarely let the tank drop down to as low as 50 percent. i like to keep everyone at about 75 percent at the least. if you have mana issues you can pop shroud of saints whenever you hit 70 percent mana. that's what i do and it helps a ton

you probably got booted for that reason. the tank saw you were letting him/her drop to a low number and he/she panicked. don't let that discourage you OP. you clearly knew what you were doing. my advice would be to just let them know ahead of time so they don't freak out lol

edit: i just realized you're playing astrologian and not white mage. my bad XP

[VanilleFang]

snip

First, I would just like to tell you that you don't need to post twice in a row. You can edit your post to bypass the dumb 1000 character limit.

Second, I think you should go redo the CNJ quest line. And this time actually pay attention to the story of it. I'll give you the short version here though. The CNJ quest line is about a CNJ that refuses to DPS and complains that she is a healer thus she should only heal. She is the one in the wrong during the story. Yes a healer is a healer, but they are also part of a team and thus should be doing their best to defeat the threat that is before them.

Third, You sound like a rude tank and I don't think any healer would want to party with you. It's not your choice on what someone else does. If you don't let me replenish my MP I'll let you die. I've done dungeons without a proper tank before, and I'll do it again. You don't hold so much power as to hold people hostage to your whim. And also, if you think it's only DPSing healers who let you die then you haven't been paying attention. I've seen tanks die to healers who do nothing but heal because the healer wastes all their MP on bad healing choices. I've seen lazy healers who are late at healing who don't DPS as well. It's a ridiculous misconception that people like you (anti-DPS) seem to have. You see DPSing as the cause to your death. No. It was a bad healer that caused you to die. Or it was your fault for pulling too much. Or something else. It is not always them DPSing that killed you.

Next, a good healer shouldn't be that hard up for MP between pulls. The only spell for a WHM that costs a crap ton of MP is Holy, and you learn SoS long before you learn Holy. A healer who makes proper use of their cool downs shouldn't have many issues with MP against trash. SCH are ridiculously good at keeping their MP up, and AST learn their refresh earlier than a WHM and they have no MP intensive offensive spells pre-52. If a healer is running out of MP by spamming stone/malefic/ruin there is a major issue.

And lastly. Have you ever played any other RPG before? I'm just curious. Let's take FFIX for example. So, Garnet and Eiko are both healers (Eiko more so than Garnet). Are you saying that in this game that they should ignore their very, very powerful and useful Eidolons (summons) and only heal the party? What about a game like Tales of Xillia. Elize is the healer of the game, and she's broken as hell as one. But she's also an incredible offensive mage. Are you saying that when healing isn't needed that she should just stand around and not deal damage? Healers that can deal damage is not new. It has been around for a long time and for good reason.

[Kazumac]

If they didn't die, they shouldn't complain, if they complained they had to rotate their cool downs, they should have been doing that anyway.

If I don't dps, I'm bored. If I'm bored, I get distracted. If I'm distracted, I'm actually more likely to let someone die.

[AzureFlare]

What DOES piss me off, are the healers that spend all their mana DPSing, then yell at me before a boss because I didn't stop and wait for them to get to full mana. 1) Shut up. You decided to waste your mana before the boss fight, now learn to manage it properly. 2) Shut up. Every healing class has a way to regen mana. 3) Shut up. I leveled all three healing classes, and know for a fact that you can keep me alive on the mana you have now. 4) Shut up.

What pisses me off are tanks that insist on punishing me for being efficient. Next time, I'll handicap myself with an ilvl 85 weapon for that feel-good slow run.

Also, I smile inwardly knowing I'm right when we skip double Holiest of Holy on Thordan ex and the final Zepherin burn thanks to my contribution in DPS, but sure, healing-only's the go to way amirite.

[Syzygian]

Unless the healer spikes the ball first, I treat the ones I'm paired with in DF exceedingly well. I do big pulls and run the same dungeons the same way every time, gauge how the healer does, and as long as I survive, no harm done. Even if I die, I know that my pulls are xbox-huge (DRKs like big pulls more than anyone) and I tend not to blame the healer, or anyone really. Its just the DF. I probably won't say anything at all unless we literally wipe in the same spot 3 times, after shrinking my pulls and being more cautious.

If I *almost* die, and don't, my butthole might clench but in the end its more an indication of the healer's skill than lack thereof to let me drop that low without letting me die, certainly nothing to kick anybody over.

Healers have, imo, the hardest job in the game. Its mine to make it easier, not the other way around.

The only *2* things that really salt my onions (mainly because the offender thinks they're making the run faster when they're actually slowing it down) are:
1. facepulling.
2. ripping aggro before a pull has finished.

Neither of those two things are healer-specific anyway.