The arrogance of some people

[Kaurie]

I've done no such thing. This thread is discussing how a healer can be most effective, so we're looking at what a healer can do. We haven't addressed what other jobs can do well or badly, because that would be too off-topic for the thread. There's just as much blame there when they do badly (as I said in that part you quoted in fact), but their blame doesn't affect the healer's.

(Besides, though Ninja's my main as near as I have one, White Mage is the one I've been leveling lately, so it's the one I'm currently focused on bettering.)

You stated that if a DPS messes up and causes a wipe, the healer is at least in part to blame for not picking up the slack. This is a very poor mentality and a way to pass off the burden of a parties success. To clarify this point, I was not saying you were saying the DPS is not to blame, but you are passing off some of that burden to the healer when it shouldn't be. I'm sorry if this wasn't clear.

The thread is focusing on a healer can be most effective, and that is when the healer contributes DPS as well as heals the party. The way you can do this is by being efficient and managing your resources, knowing the fight and knowing how your tank takes damage. You adapt on the fly and heal them accordingly. This isn't hard in the slightest. I have healed for approximately 1300 hours of game time and rarely seen a wipe in a dungeon - I can think of one time I did DPS and the tank insta died. I adapted after this event. Some people may not have the ability to adapt, they are less skilled players and they play the best they can. I don't argue against this, and think it is right for them to not DPS. That said, they are worse players. It's just a fact.

Allow me to elaborate on a few points here:

Effectiveness
Definition: the degree to which something is successful in producing a desired result; success.
Definition applied in an FFXIV context: the degree to which a duty is successful in producing a desired result; success.
Once can interpret degree in a few ways. I would say that we have 2 main ones here: a) duty is completed/not completed and b) the time it takes to complete. As degree is generally a word of scale, I would tend to think b) is more appropriate. Further, the term effectiveness is also a term of scale.
Therefore, a more effective party is one which completes the duties in a more timely manner, and a less effective party is one who fails to complete a duty or completes it more slowly.

Better
Definition: comparative of good and well.
As good and well in terms of this conversation is completely subjective, it is based on the criteria we set forth.
As I mentioned in another post, we come from a capitalist economy, which generally considers progress and productivity to be better than the opposite. In this case, completing a dungeon in a faster time (more reward/time) is better. This also fits in with the above, it is better to be more effective. Finally, I would say that it is better to be able to use all of the skills and abilities given to you to maximize your effectiveness.

Therefore a better player is one who is more effective is one who completes the duties in a more timely manner. A worse player is one who fails at these things.

All of that said, better is completely subjective and you clearly disagree. To me, that makes little sense.

Anyway, we've had many back and forths and I have written you walls of text that you completely ignored. I am pretty done with this conversation now and am exiting under the impression that you are a terrible player.

No it isn't. The burden of a party's success is on the entire party, always. Blame isn't something that can be "passed off". The blame that falls on one person for a failure doesn't impact the blame on another player. You keep acting as though it were impossible for more than one player to screw up at a time. If a tank's hp are way down and they die from standing in an AoE, then the blame for standing in the AoE is on on the tank and the blame for their hp being low enough that it would kill them is on the healer. Both of those things together led to the tank's death, so both players are to blame for it. The healer's fault doesn't diminish the tank's fault in any way.

I know I said i was out (and I actually should be, forum limit yay.)

Out of curiousity, if you and I partnered together, and for random reasons I decided not to heal you for the dungeon. Then you died repeatedly and we weren't able to meet any DPS checks. Would the failure of this be in part yours to blame, as the parties success is a team endeavour, or would it be 100% mine because I was stubbornly refusing to heal?

As for your 2nd part. I am not acting like it's impossible for multiple people to screw up. I mentioned that some healers may not be as skillful, and it's likely better for them to focus on healing as they may not be able to handle emergency situations as well.

Regardless of all of this, I feel that we may both be taking each others words to the hyperbolic extremes in order to prove our own points. This has become an extremely stupid argument. We're not swaying any opinions here. I'll just continue to play well, roll my eyes at horrible players, and queue in to expert with friends when I can. You can continue to do whatever you are doing.

I don't think anyone would necessarily argue against that.

But I have a question that's tangentially related: given two healers, both of whom DPS to some degree, one of whom focuses too much on DPS, resulting in say, a wipe in one out of every few dungeon runs (costing the time it takes to get the group moving again), and the other of whom is more cautious, DPSing less (causing lost time due to their lower DPS) but not typically having wipes in their dungeons, which healer do you think is "better?"

Clearly the 2nd is better, as I believe most people advocating that Healers DPS have been alluding too.

Most healers I've encountered don't really fit neatly into a "never DPS" box or an "always DPSes to the fullest with never a wipe" box. They're somewhere in the middle, and and the ones in the middle can lean toward risk or caution. Which do you think is better? Risk, or caution? In a perfect world, yes, every healer would DPS with every unused ounce of time they have, but FFXIV's Duty Finder is far from a perfect world in my experience.

I guess I have never thought about Risk vs Caution, I simply DPS and heal when required. I do this while trying to manage my MP. I know that as I am learning a dungeon or encounter, I will DPS less and slowly DPS more each time until I have hit my personal maximum potential.