Question to healers

[Kaurie]

Why are SCH talking about remaining in cleric so much? As if it's their priority? Is it different in 8-man content? I definitely dance a lot less on SCH, due to fairy. But I see her as a partner. She takes care of most of the healing. I assist her with adlo and succor, and cleric needs to be off. They also allow you to DPS more since it will take longer for your members to reach your threshold.

Well, first, Eos/Selene can 100% solo heal expert dungeons atm. So she is a partner, but why not just let her do her thing?

Second, why are SCH talking about remaining in cleric so much? Because, dungeons in FFXIV have become a chore. They're designed to be easy, quick, boring and provide high rewards. Thus, the desire is to do them as quickly as possible - so you can get on to things you actually want to be spending your time doing. The longer one can stay in cleric stance, the faster the run.

[Nora_of_Mira]

The only hit point that matters is the last one.

I did not expect a deep and profound response here.

[Gemina]

@Karie, if Eos and Selene can't solo heal in these "easy" dungeons, can you explain to me how they are able to in expert content? Is it because I am forced to be main healer in four-man? Even if that's the case, why would my mitigation responsibility change? Like ever?

Please don't tell me shit hasn't hit the fan as sch during your time. These easy, boring, chore of a dungeon you speak of don't always go so smoothly. How fast is your run when someone drops while you're in cleric, and your 100% solo healing fairy didn't do her job?

I get the chore of grinding, but I'd like to know if sch wants to leave healing up to someone else while they dps, why play it at all. Almost sounds like a desire for quick queues, but I'm a cynical person.

[Kaurie]

@Karie, if Eos and Selene can't solo heal in these "easy" dungeons, can you explain to me how they are able to in expert content? Is it because I am forced to be main healer in four-man? Even if that's the case, why would my mitigation responsibility change? Like ever?

I am not sure if I am reading too much in to it, but your tone feels overly offensive. Moving on though...

Eos and Selene can more easily solo heal the current experts than the past 5 dungeons. Neverreap, Fractals, Arborteum, Aetherochemical Research Facility and Pharos hard all required a higher heals per second than the current two. Believe me, I have run these on my SCH many times while letting Eos/Selene solo heal. I often throw adlo/stone between pulls, but it isn't necessary - as when the pull is over the tank is often 70%+ on their HP. Now that said, there have been times that I do need to heal, and I've done it as such. It's just not usually/always the case.

Please don't tell me shit hasn't hit the fan as sch during your time. These easy, boring, chore of a dungeon you speak of don't always go so smoothly. How fast is your run when someone drops while you're in cleric, and your 100% solo healing fairy didn't do her job?

As for deaths, the only deaths I have witnessed in Expert so far has been 1. myself only when the DPS failed to get both of the wind aoe thingies in Lost City hard when I had the wind debuff - and 2. everyone died because the DPS did not kill the light thing on the 2nd boss in Lost City. Neither times did it have to do with Eos not keeping up with heals.

Other than that, shit hasn't hit the fan during the expert runs. It has during Seph EX and Savage - but I am actively healing and DPSing in both of those.

I get the chore of grinding, but I'd like to know if sch wants to leave healing up to someone else while they dps, why play it at all. Almost sounds like a desire for quick queues, but I'm a cynical person.

I am not leaving the healing up to another player during Expert. However, it is inefficient to heal when Eos could be doing it. Otherwise Eos will just sit there and do nothing - or I will sit there and do nothing - so I DPS. In most runs, I contribute ~30% of the DPS. Where the DPS breakdown is 900 top dps, 850 me, 800 bottom DPS give or take for a total of 2550 DPS. I could go on my SMN and it will be 1500 me, 800 other DPS and the healer doesn't for a total of 2300 DPS. So I go on SCH to make up for the other scrub players, and not for the quick queues. In fact, my healer queues have been pretty long lately (like 10+ minutes often). Further, I generally queue as a SCH as it the job I find the most fun. It's not always throwing out the same rotation of damage, and not throwing out the same cure 1 spell over and over - it feels the most dynamic, so it is the one i gear up and play as my main.

In regards to leaving heals to someone else, in my Savage and SephEX runs - I contribute (between Eos and I) 45% of the heals generally, while my AST co-healer does 53% or so (2% is with self heals on the tanks). I also contribute anywhere from 150-600 DPS while in the main fights. I feel that I do a fairly good balance of both healing and DPS when it matters. The issue is in expert, it doesn't matter, so I DPS 100%.

[Lemuria]

My golden rule is 50%. When the tank tips that low, I'll switch out of stance and heal them. There are a few exceptions, such as mobs which I know can hit for 60%+ but those are thankfully rare. The main reason I choose 50% is because if I'm caught on timer for Cleric stance (5 seconds recast) or otherwise between skills it gives me some time to heal before it gets critical. Trying to quick-swap when the tank is in dire straits is never a good idea, since even the best of us can be caught short.

Eos and Selene can more easily solo heal the current experts than the past 5 dungeons.

As a scholar myself, I can tell you that this is absolute tripe. No scholar worth a damn uses only their pets to heal in anything except <50 content. For a start, Eos and Selene only start healing when the tank is around 80%, secondly Embrace's healing strength doesn't even match up to a basic cure/physick spell.

Even assuming you micro-manage every single skill in addition to being a perma DPS, unless your tank only pulls one group at a time (which realistically never happens unless they're new), there will be more damage than your pet can keep up with. It'd be like a weakened WHM that never uses Cure II and relies on Medica II regens instead.

[Kaurie]

As a scholar myself, I can tell you that this is absolute tripe. No scholar worth a damn uses only their pets to heal in anything except <50 content. For a start, Eos and Selene only start healing when the tank is around 80%, secondly Embrace's healing strength doesn't even match up to a basic cure/physick spell.

Even assuming you micro-manage every single skill in addition to being a perma DPS, unless your tank only pulls one group at a time (which realistically never happens unless they're new), there will be more damage than your pet can keep up with. It'd be like a weakened WHM that never uses Cure II and relies on Medica II regens instead.

Eh that isn't true. I've definitely done expert roulette with just the pet healing. This is very tank dependent (size of pulls + cooldown mitigation). Larger pulls usually mean that I need to throw in 1-2 heals per pull, but this is also mitigation dependent. Embrace's cure matches well when you throw up Rouse and even moreso when you add in Fey Illum.

[Gemina]

I apologize for my tone Kaurie, sometimes things don't sound as abrasive in my head as they do to others. You say you enjoy sch and your are mitigating. I haven't reached this content yet, which is why I inquire and want to be enlightened. I will be evaluating this content though when I reach it, and will see how much of it my fairy can handle on her own. I'll be contributing heavily with such threads at that time I assure you.

However, if you're healing and mitigating as much as you say, I fail to see how you're staying in cleric for the majority of an instance. Our fairies are not equipped to handle heavy incoming AoE on their own. They need our help in these inevitable situations.

[Kaurie]

I apologize for my tone Kaurie, sometimes things don't sound as abrasive in my head as they do to others. You say you enjoy sch and your are mitigating. I haven't reached this content yet, which is why I inquire and want to be enlightened. I will be evaluating this content though when I reach it, and will see how much of it my fairy can handle on her own. I'll be contributing heavily with such threads at that time I assure you.

However, if you're healing and mitigating as much as you say, I fail to see how you're staying in cleric for the majority of an instance. Our fairies are not equipped to handle heavy incoming AoE on their own. They need our help in these inevitable situations.

It is instance dependent. As I mentioned, the 2 newest expert dungeons require less healing than previous dungeons (on the order of about 30-50%). The previous dungeons were already tuned quite lightly on healing, where I could get through a dungeon in cleric stance 60%+ of the time.

On release, I'd say I haven't experience dungeons quite as light on healing as the two new ones since Brayflox normal (level 32 zone).

To give you an idea - the total DPS to the tank over the run is around ~400 (vs ~1000 in the past 5 dungeons). Embrace, the pets heal, does 1500 unboosted, per 3 seconds - or 500 HPS. So, the pet, unboosted, can keep up with the overall damage to the tank. That said, there are spikes and lulls in damage. Some spikes do require the use of Rouse on your pet, or for me to pop out of cleric and throw an adlo.

There is also a lot more to healing than just healing - a lot of it is mitigation. Good use of things such as Shadowflare which slows enemies and does DPS + Eye for an Eye which procs a 10% damage reduction on enemies, make a huge difference. White Mages and AST both have an AoE stun which completely stops all damage for ~7 seconds.

[Kazumac]

I always thought I was being conservative by healing once they got to 20%. xD

For the record the only tanks I kill due to dpsing are those in my FC. Because then my healing threshold is down around 5%... Gotta keep the excitement somehow.

[Welsper59]

Given how the combat in this games priorities of player actions is essentially DPS > tanking/healing for all roles, I really wonder how people would take it if the devs ever did a 180 for all forms of content. I'd imagine burnout would be far more common with tanks and healers if every fight became almost Savage mode level of responsibility.

This means people have to remember in a 4man, SCH is solo healing a toned down Savage mode... DPS probably wouldn't be as much of a routine thing. Tanks having to perfect their mitigation usage even against single or small group trash mobs, since maybe each mob will be doing 1/4-1/2 tanks HP per slow auto. DPS would have to manage CC and maybe mechanics that have the mob apply a debuff focus (while still attacking tank) that will only release when the mob takes X amount of damage from its focus. Failure to break results in either massive damage (meaning a badly timed one = dead tank) or outright wipes the group. Plus, they'd probably have to rework the lack of necessity for MP management we have in this game.

Haaa... well that's more of a farfetched thought than anything. There is zero chance the devs would even remotely release something that difficult to a 4-man or non-savage 8 lol. Given how much failure among the players Cata instances first brought about by returning to those old punishing roots, I'd very much imagine players here reacting even worse. The outcry and quick change of heart regarding the role of the healer meta (DPS > healing) would be astronomical for a while lol.

I imagine for most people who claim that it's because healing isn't as important that they DPS, would quickly remove themselves from the game/role if such a change came to be. Having said that, the folks complaining about healers focusing on DPSing most/all the time just haven't grasped the idea that the devs (un)intentionally designed the healer role to be DPS with healing abilities. This is how FFXIV works, so some love it, some hate it. Unless you have a bad tank (which is not uncommon), the DPS role is actually a thing for not just healers, but tanks too.

Likewise though, a lot of healers and tanks seem to not have grasped that perspective too, despite them doing it. A well geared SCH in a fight with AoE keeping up with a not-as-geared DPS that sucks at AoE where mobs die fast? Yeah, I'd imagine the SCH would be doing quite well there. Likewise with tanks. Healers and tanks complain about any form of hindrance to their DPS because they see it as a mandatory thing that they deal almost as much as the DPS in equal ilvl gear, yet they seem to think it unusual that they keep up in some situations. It's just really funny to me when that happens.