Biggest disappointment as a Scholar.

[Krissey]

There has literally never been an MMO where healers weren't expected to do DPS in downtime, the only thing that varies is how widely accepted healers not DPSing is.

I'm sorry but it's a team game where the goal is to kill the enemy, and if you're ever just standing there doing nothing and not contributing to the goal in some way, then you're either completely out of mana, or you're lazy. There's no in between.



Also this.

I think early on, in my experience, from BC to Cataclysm WoW healers mainly just spent time healing. In fact, due to changes of the game, in Cata there was no spare mana to DPS. And healers had around 2 offensive spells. Literally.

[FoxyAreku]

I think early on, in my experience, from BC to Cataclysm WoW healers mainly just spent time healing. In fact, due to changes of the game, in Cata there was no spare mana to DPS. And healers had around 2 offensive spells. Literally.

Discipline priest passive converts damage into healing and they spent all their time DPSing and still do to this day. They've been widely considered for most of the games life as the best healer due to this and their shields.

WoW is more healer intensive, however, so if you didn't have a discipline priest in your group for some reason it was more common there to not need to because you were busy with other things, but it was a fight-by-fight basis, and even on my holy priest I was able to keep Holy Fire on cooldown and smite spam here and there (and it was expected as well).

[HPDelron]

There has literally never been an MMO where healers weren't expected to do DPS in downtime, the only thing that varies is how widely accepted healers not DPSing is.

I've already addressed this point my post that you're quoting. I'll re-quote myself and bold for empahsis in case it went overlooked:

Sure depending on the exact class in the exact game you’re playing you might expect to DPS, Crowd Control (if that's a thing in a given game), use some kind of active buff system or do any number of things in addition to healing. However you could not at all be faulted for assuming those things would be secondary considerations to healing.

The key desire here is for healing to be the primary role, while DPS and other things are secondary considerations. The desire is not for "No DPS ever, Chain Heal all the time 4 ever" but rather for something other than: DPS 90% of the time, heal only when the other (read: "Real") healer dies or for very short sections of specific fights. I've seen multiple posts for some encounters saying that if the scholar heals at all at any point during the entire fight something has gone terribly wrong.

A healer that primarily heals but spends time debuffing, DPSing or working envriomental mechanics is fine that's a healer a diverse set of responsibilities. A Healer that spends 90%+ of their time DPSing is not a healer, healing is not their primary role. Such a class is fine class, it's an interesting and compelling role. It's a good thing for it to exist. It's probably not a good thing for it to be unambiguously grouped with more traditional healers.

EDIT:

I think early on, in my experience, from BC to Cataclysm WoW healers mainly just spent time healing. In fact, due to changes of the game, in Cata there was no spare mana to DPS. And healers had around 2 offensive spells. Literally.

In vanilla, healer DPS didn't even scale with gear. You could have spent 100% of the time chain-casting damage spells and not have contributing anything meaningful to damage. Which is not to say that is a great design but rather it's to point that the narrative of "There has literally never been an MMO where healers weren't expected to do DPS in downtime, the only thing that varies is how widely accepted healers not DPSing is. " is just incorrect and takes only a narrow and very recent view of history.

[FoxyAreku]

snip

yes, I read that, and my point still stands.

DPSing is secondary here as well so I'm really not sure what you're getting at anymore. If you look back at my post...

Though I will say, as an endgame scholar who did all of coil and has done up to A6S, the ONLY fight I've ever had where I had to DPS 90% of it is A5S, only because there's like barely anything to even heal in that fight. I still keep my dots up in all fights, but this is the only one where I'm literally spamming broil with an occassional succor and nothing else just because there's nothing else to do. I'm not sure why they put so little healing in this fight....

Though I did edit this in about a minute after posting, so no shame if you missed it. I think you've heard some wrong information, as normally DPS and healing go hand in hand on scholar, DPS isn't more important, because if that was the case I would just play summoner and let my white mage partner do everything....like really, who's saying this 'if a scholar has to heal at all something's gone wrong"? Sounds ridiculous to me. XD

[HPDelron]

Though I did edit this in about a minute after posting, so no shame if you missed it. I think you've heard some wrong information, as normally DPS and healing go hand in hand on scholar, DPS isn't more important, because if that was the case I would just play summoner and let my white mage partner do everything....like really, who's saying this 'if a scholar has to heal at all something's gone wrong"? Sounds ridiculous to me. XD

This is a narrative I've seen put forward very consistently on these forums, reddit and other sources. That your scholar there is primarily for two things outside of DPS.

1) To put up shields to mitigate hits that would be lethal without them.
2) To apply extra healing during the sections where the primary healer can't keep up, and these sections are the exception rather than the rule.

As one long time Scholar player I know described it to me "Don't think of Cleric's stance as something you put on when you have to DPS, think of it as something you take off when you have to heal".

Perhaps these voices are incorrect and simply exceptionally loud. However they certainly are there and very good at making their case. Otherwise you wouldn't have posts like the OPs or mine apparently confused on the matter. If we've got the wrong impression it is because people are out there actively spreading misinformation. If I were to ask you honestly:

A) When you push a button to use ability, how often it is a DPS vs Healing ability? EDIT: ( Just a feel/estimate, I'm not expecting a number derived from parses here)
B) Where would you put the line between "DPS Class that also heals on the side" and "Healer that also DPSes on the side" in terms of that rate of Healing vs DPS button pushes?

[Rawrz]

General duties of a scholar (to me):

• If Immediate AOE after pull, Spread Crit aldoquiem if possible with Deployment Tactics to give the WHM/AST and yourself some time for a DPS opener, (if not just try to shield the tank with the crit adlo.)
  
• Micormanage Selene (Placing, Manually Embracing and CD usage. Her skills ARE your skills. Also, I say Selene, because most content can be done with her, which is why recovery can be a little harder on the SCH, since his Steriod healer is locked behind a summon)
  
• Handle any mechanics that do not need the Off Tank, that can be done by you effectively, (Example: Bombs in A5s)
  
• Watch your cohealer. If you see them Medica-ing and a tank buster is about to land. Get the tank topped off. Virus. Shield. Heal.
  
• DPS whenever you can. contributing 5% of the raids damage on the boss is 5% off of the enrage for everyone else.

Your role is to make the healing portion manageable. You are watching everyone's health and going:

Can we survive the upcoming AOE without my help AND make a recovery before the next? If Yes, let the regens get it. If no, pop indom or succor.

A large physical AOE is coming up. The Black Mage looks about the same health as the other DPS, but typically have less defense than other classes. I should lustrate them before the impact of this AOE to ensure their survival.

Calculating survival and necessary healing is how you play a Scholar. Survival is worth more than your own DPS, but your own DPS is worth more than overhealing.

[DarkmoonVael]

I got a selene/eos on AST..... To bad its a cooldown but does not give a pet

(Talking about synasty)

Sadly synastry doesnt come with whispering dawn or fey illumination .

(I still love synastry, its such a filthy good cooldown ).

[Chione]

I follow the meta even though I wish SE would change it...

Removing our accuracy was their attempt at changing the meta I think, but it only made playing a healer more frustrating because the meta remained. Short of taking away our offensive skills completely, the die has been cast. Players of all roles are now judged by how much damage they dish out.

Stance dancer, myself. I'm constantly casting if mp allows, and what I decide to do always depends on whether my team is shielded when they need to be and healthy. If so, then I fire away, if not I fix it. Unfortunately this probably makes me a bad scholar to most these days, since I don't allow my tank's hp fall under 50% and I'll even let dps have a ss or two in 4-man content.

Scholar is my favorite job, but lately I wonder if I shouldn't just play a dps main instead. When a player's merit is decided only on dps numbers, might as well play a job that was primarily designed to bring them, no?

[AriKitae]

Perhaps I am not understanding OP's aim with this thread. If you want to play a class like WHM and AST, play WHM and AST. It is easier to buy a horse than it is to try to cover up a zebra's stripes and attempt to ride it.

As demonstrated by other posters, there's still plenty for SCHs to do in raids and all Healers are expected to DPS when possible. Do you want content to require more healing?

[Powe]

You could ask to be the main heal and see if you can handle it.