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

[GraumSenpai]

IDK... Guess healing comes easy for me cause I don't relate to anyone who says Healing is a stressful job... The only stress I get is from having to heal people doing stupid stuff in Savage Otherwise healing is very straight forward with minimal comboing.

I understand the intent of this thread tho, so theres nothing more for me from here, so I'll just excuse myself now... really no reason to be continueing this when you can see the whole topic discussed to death in the first 50 posts lol.

[Skatedudeguy]

I'll throw this bit of advice for players who are new to doing DPS as a healer:

If you can, start with a group you know, or at least a tank you know well. Besides not have any pressure if you wipe, it can help you learn how to read a tank and when to stance dance if they know you are new to it.

I usually do NOT DPS the first pull if I don't know the content and/or the tank. I want to see if they are using their cool downs, what stance they use, if they keep hate well, and how long I may have to DPS before I have to heal.

Oh, and and the party doesn't have to be fully topped up always. Remember that! Instead of spending time taking C.S. down, casting a heal, and redoing C.S. each time they get hit, think about your other tools. Asylum can get regen on a group without a cast time (still have to take off C.S.) and you can just rely on the HOTs. Your tank may just be good enough with a regen and you can go crazy.

[spagthetapdancer]

disagreed. anything less than full heal is that much less HP for them to work with the moment their stupid-proofing wears off and starts leaking. And 9-12s with the group not taking damage? by the time I finish stacking dots(assuming mechanics even give me that much time) I'm going to have to go into overdrive because they'll constantly fail. why risk being in the middle of something and not at the ready to react to damage? that extra second of delay coming out of cleric stance is just going to make healing them back up before they faceroll into something else and die less secure.

a safe, secure run is my only objective. I don't care if I have to heal moar as long as the chance of a wipe is as close to 0% as possible. you can't count on people to keep themselves alive, and even if they promised you that you could, they'll wind up breaking it.

[Cynfael]

disagreed. anything less than full heal is that much less HP for them to work with the moment their stupid-proofing wears off and starts leaking. And 9-12s with the group not taking damage? by the time I finish stacking dots(assuming mechanics even give me that much time) I'm going to have to go into overdrive because they'll constantly fail. why risk being in the middle of something and not at the ready to react to damage? that extra second of delay coming out of cleric stance is just going to make healing them back up before they faceroll into something else and die less secure.

a safe, secure run is my only objective. I don't care if I have to heal moar as long as the chance of a wipe is as close to 0% as possible. you can't count on people to keep themselves alive, and even if they promised you that you could, they'll wind up breaking it.

The key flaw in that logic is the word "react." Most of what you do as a healer (or as any role in this game, really) is plan for what's going to happen and use your skills accordingly.

No, your best-laid plans will not 100% cover the occasional party member who seems determined to die to mechanics, but when you know what is coming down the pipeline and what your party is expected/supposed to do about it, your mental flow chart will be pretty reliable. Having to weave in an "oh crap" instant heal or having to swap to Plan B (i.e. "drop everything else and help the party member who screwed up badly") doesn't mean that you need to remain on standby or that you need to keep everyone 100% full 100% of the time.

Also, there is no delay coming out of Cleric Stance. You sacrifice nothing by using it correctly, and that goes back to learning the fights while keeping your emergency options on your mental backburner in case something does go horribly wrong. Personally I deal with this by thinking of what mechanic is about to come up and how likely it is that someone could die from it if they screwed up and didn't get my immediate help. If there's a fair chance of death, I'll make sure I'm ready to drop CS if I have to; if there is no risk, or if it's one of those modest raid-wide AoEs that kills no one and is followed by nothing immediately after, I'll finish whatever I'm doing and then patch up the boo-boos. If I feel particularly fancy, I'll drop CS to shield up and then go back into CS to keep pushing while the AoE does little or no damage.

[spagthetapdancer]

The key flaw in that logic is the word "react." Most of what you do as a healer (or as any role in this game, really) is plan for what's going to happen and use your skills accordingly.

planning and randoms are conditions at complete odds with one another. you cannot plan for when they're going to screw up next because there's very little consistency.

sure, the fight itself is more or less scripted. but healers don't fight the boss. they fight their party members. how are you predicting something that has no rhyme or reason behind it? Facerolling by it's very nature has nothing to do with a plan.

No, your best-laid plans will not 100% cover the occasional party member who seems determined to die to mechanics, but when you know what is coming down the pipeline and what your party is expected/supposed to do about it, your mental flow chart will be pretty reliable. Having to weave in an "oh crap" instant heal or having to swap to Plan B (i.e. "drop everything else and help the party member who screwed up badly") doesn't mean that you need to remain on standby or that you need to keep everyone 100% full 100% of the time.

Occasional? where are you playing, that people only occasionally take that much damage? "drop everything else and heal the screw-up" is a state I have to near constantly be in to save them. I'm sorry that not all of us can count on our statics so that we don't have to babysit them all day, but PuG's are the baseline, the entry point and standard. not the exception.

and yes they need to be at 100% as often as possible. even A12N's second half is basically nothing but the healer being targeted by mechanics and the dps taking damage every 3-6 seconds. if they aren't standing in sacraments, they're getting hit by the bleed mechanic.

Also, there is no delay coming out of Cleric Stance. You sacrifice nothing by using it correctly, and that goes back to learning the fights while keeping your emergency options on your mental backburner in case something does go horribly wrong. Personally I deal with this by thinking of what mechanic is about to come up and how likely it is that someone could die from it if they screwed up and didn't get my immediate help. If there's a fair chance of death, I'll make sure I'm ready to drop CS if I have to; if there is no risk, or if it's one of those modest raid-wide AoEs that kills no one and is followed by nothing immediately after, I'll finish whatever I'm doing and then patch up the boo-boos. If I feel particularly fancy, I'll drop CS to shield up and then go back into CS to keep pushing while the AoE does little or no damage.

how long is it going to take you to press the button? better yet, how long is it going to take you to cancel what you're casting and then press it? about a full second. and they can and likely will get themselves killed within that time.

The problem is that all the stress-heavy phases that cause these scenarios aren't just one AOE or tank buster and then nothing for a while. they're 2-3 different effects going off either at the same time or in rapid succession. anyone can dps during blasty charge's dps check(or hell, adds phase in sophie ex), but the example(a12n's second half) above offers nothing of the sort. 2 dots and a few malefics isn't worth a wipe so I'm going with the safest and most paranoid assumption, the one that has the least chance of being wrong.

and that assumption is that none of them will afford me the luxury of dpsing.

[Cynfael]

On my phone, so I'm skipping the quotes.

- There is no contradiction in what I wrote. Your plans include options for salvaging player error, but you don't play exclusively around the possibility that someone might screw up, especially since many mistakes are not fatal.

- I haven't played in a static since clearing Coil, and I rarely even queue with friends for duties. My advice is based on playing in PUGs.

- Of course a fight like A12N will have a higher healing requirement, much higher if your party's skill and coordination is poor. It's hardly representative of the average PUG healer experience.

[Taika]

There is no contradiction in what I wrote. Your plans include options for salvaging player error, but you don't play exclusively around the possibility that someone might screw up, especially since many mistakes are not fatal.

Yup, it's a really depressing thought that as a healer one should just focus on standing by and waiting for others to screw up...

[VanilleFang]

Healers aren't around to fix mistakes. Sure we can help, but our job is to not make sure every mistake is salvaged. That kind of mentality puts a lot of pressure on the healer(s), when it should be a shared responsibility.

We can't heal stupid or lazy, and trying to do so will only cause you unneeded stress.

[Keikun]

The answer is No, its not our job to DPS, simple as that, if someone ask the HEALer to dps, well, their dps is trash and it needs to be improved. Its ok if the healer wants to dps its everyones choice, but a lot of people is starting this not so new rule about healers MUST dps, wich is of course, stupid.

I´m gonna say it again for everyone who believes they are the proest person in the game, if you ask the healer to dps, you sure need to fix that weak dps of yours =)

Oh, btw, if you are asking the healers to dps, next time dont complain about how POWERFUL the healer is, and ask to be nerfed =)

[Taika]

The answer is No, its not our job to DPS, simple as that, if someone ask the HEALer to dps, well, their dps is trash and it needs to be improved.

I´m gonna say it again for everyone who believes they are the proest person in the game, if you ask the healer to dps, you sure need to fix that weak dps of yours =)

Everyone knows this to be completely untrue. You can prove yourself the opposite simply by checking FFlogs and seeing that the highest DPS DD players also have their healers doing DPS. If I'm doing an expert on my DD jobs and doing my best to push as much DPS as I can I will also ask for my healer not to slack.