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

[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.

[Sephirian]

The way I see it, the idea of a healer only needing to heal is in the same mindset of a tank only needing to hold aggro. It's doing the absolute bare minimum and how this idea continues to be debated is mind-boggling. How would anyone feel if the tank just held aggro? I spammed flash or unleash enough to get an aggro lead and then stopped attacking. After that, only used enough skills to ensure I had an aggro lead over everyone else, only using the skills that gave me the largest aggro generation, because that's all I have to do as a tank. Hold aggro.

That's how ridiculous the healer only has to heal argument is to me. Nearly everyone would lose their minds at a tank that does that and yet we're debating whether the healer equivalent is an acceptable form of play?

[VraeliaValkyria]

I play as both WHM and SCH. SCH being my main. And I accept people who wishes to play a certain way. If healers don't want to DPS, they shouldn't have to. They shouldn't be kicked just because they don't DPS. Or be degraded upon. I qued for level 60 roulette and got ARF a few weeks ago. I didn't DPS, because the tank was taking WAY too much damage, and the DPS wasn't dodging. So, how am I to DPS if other people don't do their job right? Us healers get bitched at so many times, it's freaking disgusting. Even though tanks/dps are wrong as well. If a tank takes too much damage, and the DPS isn't dodging, it is not my responsibility to DPS when healing is obviously more important.

Don't get me wrong. I DPS like a sailor drinking his ale. I love to DPS on my healer jobs. But, people needs to understand, we can't do anything if other people don't know how to use CDs, dodge, etc.

[Lambdafish]

I play as both WHM and SCH. SCH being my main. And I accept people who wishes to play a certain way. If healers don't want to DPS, they shouldn't have to. They shouldn't be kicked just because they don't DPS. Or be degraded upon. I qued for level 60 roulette and got ARF a few weeks ago. I didn't DPS, because the tank was taking WAY too much damage, and the DPS wasn't dodging. So, how am I to DPS if other people don't do their job right? Us healers get bitched at so many times, it's freaking disgusting. Even though tanks/dps are wrong as well. If a tank takes too much damage, and the DPS isn't dodging, it is not my responsibility to DPS when healing is obviously more important.

Don't get me wrong. I DPS like a sailor drinking his ale. I love to DPS on my healer jobs. But, people needs to understand, we can't do anything if other people don't know how to use CDs, dodge, etc.

First of all, I think you read the title and not anyone's arguments. In the run where you didn't DPS you were busy healing, i.e. doing your job, you were actively engaging in the content and performing your role. This is not the argument, we all know that heals > dps on a healing job. The ISSUE comes when people idle and over-heal and do not engage in the content. If I'm playing WAR, I am expected to use my full rotation and keep maim and storms eye up as best I can, but I can't do that if there is a tonne of AOE and I need to overpower and flash lots (doing my job), which is completely different to spamming butchers block combo and not using berserk or any wrath stack at all (but im keeping aggro right?). Relevant healing > DPS > idling and over-healing is the argument people are making, and while I personally wouldn't kick anyone or even care about it, the mentality that it is acceptable is not ok.

[Sephirian]

I play as both WHM and SCH. SCH being my main. And I accept people who wishes to play a certain way. If healers don't want to DPS, they shouldn't have to. They shouldn't be kicked just because they don't DPS. Or be degraded upon. I qued for level 60 roulette and got ARF a few weeks ago. I didn't DPS, because the tank was taking WAY too much damage, and the DPS wasn't dodging. So, how am I to DPS if other people don't do their job right? Us healers get bitched at so many times, it's freaking disgusting. Even though tanks/dps are wrong as well. If a tank takes too much damage, and the DPS isn't dodging, it is not my responsibility to DPS when healing is obviously more important.

Don't get me wrong. I DPS like a sailor drinking his ale. I love to DPS on my healer jobs. But, people needs to understand, we can't do anything if other people don't know how to use CDs, dodge, etc.

Being unable to DPS because you have to heal is not the same as choosing not to DPS when you don't have to heal. Your situation is completely different than what is typically debated. You had to heal because the other players were either undergeared or playing really poorly, resulting you in having to spend the majority of your time healing. It happens. Sometimes group DPS isn't up to par or the tank isn't doing enough to mitigate the damage. You performed your job admirably considering the circumstances, and you did what was needed.

But the issue arises to what happens when you don't need to heal at the moment. The frustration lies in the healers that once they are done healing, they sit there and do nothing until it is time to heal again. It's like a tank just grabbing aggro, and then do nothing until it is time to grab the aggro back. The idea of a tank doing such a thing is absurd and yet people make arguments in FAVOR of the healer doing the equivalent. As a healer, healing comes first, then DPS second. Like as a tank, aggro comes first, dps second. But it should never be healing only, just as it is never aggro only.

[VraeliaValkyria]

Relevant healing > DPS > idling and over-healing is the argument people are making

My apologies. I was only adding my two cents. And yes, I agree. Healers who are sitting at full MP not doing anything, bothers me. If the party is safe, then Cleric Stance and DPS. Help speed things up. Don't just do nothing. It is why Yoshida/SE gave us DPS tools. To use. Not waste.

[AlexysKitty]

Just to correct, all DoTs tick once every 3 seconds on a global timer. Aero III thus gets 8 ticks for the full duration.

Thank you. I updated my post with more accurate damage point calculations.

[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.

[Dogempire]

My apologies. I was only adding my two cents. And yes, I agree. Healers who are sitting at full MP not doing anything, bothers me. If the party is safe, then Cleric Stance and DPS. Help speed things up. Don't just do nothing. It is why Yoshida/SE gave us DPS tools. To use. Not waste.

Just my personal experience, but I'm too busy trying to burn down mobs/the boss to really care about what the healer does aside from their main job of making sure nobody eats dirt. If the healer dpses, then great! If not, then w/e, I'll just spend a little longer doing the dungeon.

Now if we hit an enrage timer and I see the healer isn't dpsing, then I would encourage them dps to boost the party's overall damage, not force them. At the end of the day the fault of hitting the enrage timer lies with the dps, not the healer.

[Gallus]

The only problem about this whole new mentality about healers DPSing is that it has created a bad trend of healers that mostly neglect their healing duties and just stand there spamming Stone III/Malefic II/Broil, which, in my book, is far worse than a healer that only heals but does it well.

Too many times I see myself debuffed, or very low in HP, or even dead, and I swear I see my healers' bars casting offensive spells over and over again.

Don't get me wrong, a healer that can both DPS and heal and does it correctly is far better than one that only heals, but assuming they can only do one thing at a time, they should focus on healing.

Too many times I see healers boasting about their DPS when the DPS rotation of a healer is 3 buttons for single target and 2 for AOE damage, some people should realize DPSing as a healer isn't hard, it's actually the easiest thing to do in the game, what requires some skill is stance dancing while keeping your party alive.

I swear I'd put all these scrub healers that only DPS in Sephirot EX playing as a BLM and I'd grab my popcorn while I count with all the fingers of both hands how many times they lose enochian and how many times they hit the floor before noticing that keeping Enochian or BotD is slightly harder than broiling a boss for the next 40 seconds.