As a healer, is it my job to DPS? A new perspective.

[Ariyon]

The problem isn't whether healers 'should' DPS, because there's too many things to take into account when making that statement: healer's skill, how well tanks manage their cooldowns, size of the pulls, difficulty of the content (DF versus something like Midas Savage), connection speed, gear quality, etc.

Can they DPS? Absolutely. The problem is how people try to convey this point, because I see so many people on forums and in-game stating it as if healers must do damage or they're playing incorrectly, and that's as ignorant as it gets. Is it less than optimal? Sure. But it's not a requirement. If it were you'd think SCH and AST would have been given their own DPS stance instead of leaving it as an optional cross-class ability, or they'd make healer spells scale to MND instead of INT.

A healer that doesn't DPS isn't playing wrong, they're just not playing the way you want them to.

[Supersun]

A healer that doesn't DPS isn't playing wrong, they're just not playing the way you want them to.

Yes, because a Scholar auto-following a tank in Satasha while going AFK and letting his fairy do all the healing is an acceptable form of playing and I'm such a horrible person for expecting the bare minimum of ABC and not overhealing.

If you are ABCing and not overhealing and you aren't ever casting DPS spells...your tank sucks.

[Ariyon]

Yes, because a Scholar auto-following a tank in Satasha while going AFK and letting his fairy do all the healing is an acceptable form of playing and I'm such a horrible person for expecting the bare minimum of ABC and not overhealing.

If you are ABCing and not overhealing and you aren't ever casting DPS spells...your tank sucks.

Ignoring the fact that a SCH who does that is susceptible to the inactivity penalty and getting automatically removed, any party who willingly allows that to happen is just as much to blame as the healer who did it in the first place. We have the option to vote players out for a reason. While the healer in your example is obviously lazy, I'd say the problem there lies with people who allow SCH to get away with that kind of nonsense in the first place. But we're talking healers in general. Can they DPS? Sure. Is it useful? I think that goes without saying. Is it a requirement that they DPS? Not at all.

[FunkyBunch]

Ignoring the fact that a SCH who does that is susceptible to the inactivity penalty and getting automatically removed, any party who willingly allows that to happen is just as much to blame as the healer who did it in the first place. We have the option to vote players out for a reason. While the healer in your example is obviously lazy, I'd say the problem there lies with people who allow SCH to get away with that kind of nonsense in the first place. But we're talking healers in general. Can they DPS? Sure. Is it useful? I think that goes without saying. Is it a requirement that they DPS? Not at all.

You're a little late to the party. We've already gone over, with evidence brought forward in the game text and debunking the healer double standard (why are they the only class where it's acceptable to literally do nothing for most of a run), and how if a Healer does zero DPS they're a bad Healer.
I go one step farther and say if they cannot even follow that bare minimum, they should play another class or another game.

[Dogempire]

You're a little late to the party. We've already gone over, with evidence brought forward in the game text and debunking the healer double standard (why are they the only class where it's acceptable to literally do nothing for most of a run), and how if a Healer does zero DPS they're a bad Healer.
I go one step farther and say if they cannot even follow that bare minimum, they should play another class or another game.

If you're not being lazy with the DPS and your rotations, you'll be too busy to care about whether or not the healer does DPS.

Is healer dps helpful? Yes.

Is it your business whether a healer dpses or not? Not really.

People do a lot of things for a lot of reasons. Don't jump to conclusions about people you never met.

[FunkyBunch]

If you're not being lazy with the DPS and your rotations, you'll be too busy to care about whether or not the healer does DPS.

Is healer dps helpful? Yes.

Is it your business whether a healer dpses or not? Not really.

People do a lot of things for a lot of reasons. Don't jump to conclusions about people you never met.

Again, no. If I'm running out of TP or we die because the Healer was being lazy they absolutely should either learn to play the class, play another class or play another game.
Just because I'm doing my rotations doesn't mean I can't notice that Cleric stance is off and everyone is at full health.
It is my business because they're affecting my DF run and that of 3-7 other people.

What I really, really don't understand is that you, and other people think that playing terribly, but only playing terribly as a healer, is okay.
If a NIN didn't use an ninjutsu or Death Blossom on groups of mobs (or poisong), it wouldn't be okay. If a BLM only used ICE spells it wouldn't be okay.
If a Tank only spammed Flash until he was out of MP isn't okay either.
It's the same with a Healer, if they're just spamming Cure or Physick it's not okay either. By level 60, it's definitely not okay for any of those to still be happening.

[Masekase_Hurricane]

The problem isn't whether healers 'should' DPS, because there's too many things to take into account when making that statement: healer's skill, how well tanks manage their cooldowns, size of the pulls, difficulty of the content (DF versus something like Midas Savage), connection speed, gear quality, etc.

Can they DPS? Absolutely. The problem is how people try to convey this point, because I see so many people on forums and in-game stating it as if healers must do damage or they're playing incorrectly, and that's as ignorant as it gets. Is it less than optimal? Sure. But it's not a requirement. If it were you'd think SCH and AST would have been given their own DPS stance instead of leaving it as an optional cross-class ability, or they'd make healer spells scale to MND instead of INT.

A healer that doesn't DPS isn't playing wrong, they're just not playing the way you want them to.

This is like saying DRK and WAR don't need provoke because it's an optional cross class or SCH and AST don't need to use protect. Some actions exist on the cross class to prevent them having to make the same skill for each individual class. Also by your logic WHM should dps as they were given Cleric Stance through CNJ.

If you was solo I'm sure you would use Cleric stance and why do you you do this? To make the fight go faster and save having to cure yourself more. Same thing in party's you DPS where possible to aim to push past mechanics making the fight go faster and smoother.

End of the day though you are right you don't have to dps as healer, but don't complain when another healer who can use every skill available to them gets chosen for content instead.

[Dogempire]

Snipity snap

1. Protect isn't REQUIRED, it's HIGHLY RECCOMENDED and people would think you're a scrub if you don't have it.

2. Provoke is REQUIRED because some content needs tanks to have it, last I checked there's no mechanic that requires the party to have protect on them. Yes, it mitigates ~5% damage on tanks, but it's not an essential cross-class skill.

3. A healer who doesn't dps will only make the run longer if everyone else does their jobs, yes, I know. It's bad to expect everyone to perform optimally while the healer is only doing the bare minimum, but people have to carry others all the time in DF. Make your own party if you don't like the fact that sometimes PF will match you up with someone who will just end up being dead weight you have to carry.