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

[Deliciou5]

In a way Im new to raiding, well, actually Ive only just started serious raiding. Im just learnng to play scholar this way. And now Im learning wmg as a raider. I think thats why I made the points cos some dont give you chance to learn the expect you to know, if they expect you to if not they want you to so your not given alot of chance cos people dont alwys have the time to invest in people learning stuff we cant always get good groups to play with plus I may not be able to play as well as you, not cos I dont try though.

Good groups are hard to come by, try your best in all forms of content like expert of 50 dungeon roulette to practice your art. The game is designed to rely heavily on dps, its just the design choice SE went with unfortunately, very few types of content reward heal only play style, like any job in the game you just need more practice at dpsing. That's all you gotta do, practice. As i stated before, as long as you don't make excuses and you try, your alright in my book.

Sorry if i am late to the party with the following statement but i have been reading pages of what feyona had to say and this is my response.

Do not constantly use emotions to make points and fling the victim card around(don't pretend you didn't do this either), i can only imagine what you would be like in game if some offered genuine constructive criticism to you. Your behavior in this thread hasn't really been stellar, you should really try to learn from your mistakes in this thread and acknowledge what people say more instead of constantly pointing the finger at others, yes there are arse-holes who only want to hurt you or make a fool of you but you just gotta deal with it like an adult and make your case in a mature manner as possible. If you don't, even if people agree with you they won't come to your defense out of embarrassment, you don't make your side of things look good. In fact you end up hurting your arguments rather than helping them. On some level you need to gain the respect of others to get them to listen to you. IF you want the perceived hate to stop then you need to give them something to respect, whether its on the forums or in-game.

You seemed to come around somewhat in the last few pages, but in the end your behavior overall needs serious improving, if you acted this way in the forums what would you say and do in game? Everyone has a chance to explain themselves on the forums, everyone can carefully write out their thoughts and be be more mature. Not the case in game, i notice in a lot of toxic parties that people will single out your mistakes because they don't like personally you, even if other players in the party has had made mistakes, even serious ones that wiped the party.

[Judge_Xero]

In a way Im new to raiding, well, actually Ive only just started serious raiding. Im just learnng to play scholar this way. And now Im learning wmg as a raider. I think thats why I made the points cos some dont give you chance to learn the expect you to know, if they expect you to if not they want you to so your not given alot of chance cos people dont alwys have the time to invest in people learning stuff we cant always get good groups to play with plus I may not be able to play as well as you, not cos I dont try though.

You know I think we're finally getting somewhere. While it does suck to get kicked from a group because you are not good and let's face it, according to that log you may have been a fresh Level 60 Scholar. That group was good and they deserved a decent Scholar so don't take it to heart that you weren't at that level, "yet". Take time to practice your class, read some guides. You can even test your spells, see how they work with your buffs (because Tetra and Asylum don't get the Divine Seal Buff etc). Check the range of your spells, especially for your AOE toolkit. Once you have a decent grasp of the toolkit then you can work on fitting in DPS and working on healing without healing and see how long you can DPS etc.
Even if you dont' want to DPS since you will now be a White Mage, then at least work on not making your Support Healer heal unless required. Then you can slowly build up your confidence to be able to do both.

Definitely work some DPS into your Dungeon runs though to practice doing as little healing as possible while keeping everyone alive. Eventually things will just click and you can join us back here in 4.0 to tell off the new group of anti-DPS Healers.

[Assirra]

Honestly i am of the opinion that the content in this game is waaaay to light on heal requirements bar the very top.
Now i am going to do what people hate and compare it to wow and there if your healers have as much time to dps as here it means either of the two things:

1. You are straight up overgearing the content
2. You have too many healers, switch a healer for a dps

I love to heal and while i switch to cleric stance whenever possible, it is not why i chose the role to begin with.

[Deliciou5]

Honestly i am of the opinion that the content in this game is waaaay to light on heal requirements bar the very top. Now i am going to do what people hate and compare it to wow and there if your healers have as much time to dps as here it means either of the two things:

1. You are straight up overgearing the content
2. You have too many healers, switch a healer for a dps

I love to heal and while i switch to cleric stance whenever possible, it is not why i chose the role to begin with.

For things like expert i find them way too easy anymore, i ran expert last night with the party full of 250/260 gear some 270, and i barely needed to heal through 90% of the dungeon, just throw my HoT's up and your practically good for almost the entire boss fight as long as everyone doesn't take unnecessary damage. The reason you throw up cleric stance a lot is because of how imbalanced the design of these dungeons are how wide the level gap is for them.

I did leveling roulette recently and i was taken aback about how much harder it was to keep the tank up for something like lv 35 temple of qarn compared to level 60 expert. I actually had to spam heal and only do some dps. The lower level stuff has more precise level gaps in which the content is balanced for so the way you approach and play them are different. In the end most end game content is not tuned high enough, whereas leveling content remains consistently challenging but not too much.

[Feyona]

[QUOTE=Deliciou5;3992537

Do not constantly use emotions to make points and fling the victim card around(don't pretend you didn't do this either), i can only imagine what you would be like in game if some offered genuine constructive criticism to you. [/QUOTE] My ' behaviour' when given constructive criticism has been mostly listen then trying to apply it. And I can tell the difference between constructive and destructive I wasnt trying to be emotional or play victim either it wasnt where I was coming from. I felt I had to give an example of how someone could be treated, and how it feels. From the moment I began making points, which were actually in the defence of healing and healers I was up against alot of opinions that differed from mine. You cannot also pretend that alot of these were constructive. I take your points but It feels a little personal

[Deliciou5]

My ' behaviour' when given constructive criticism has been mostly listen then trying to apply it. And I can tell the difference between constructive and destructive I wasnt trying to be emotional or play victim either it wasnt where I was coming from. I felt I had to give an example of how someone could be treated, and how it feels. From the moment I began making points, which were actually in the defence of healing and healers I was up against alot of opinions that differed from mine. You cannot also pretend that alot of these were constructive. I take your points but It feels a little personal

Sorry, sometimes things are not easy to say without sounding harsh, and maybe i typed everything in a bit of annoyed state just having read multiple pages of of this thread, i try to be as objective as possible but in this case it seems i have failed. I don't hate anyone in this thread, but i do not want to censor how i feel either to spare people's feelings, i do not believe that gets us closer to the truth...only hides us away from it. The whole last paragraph of my post to you, i speak from personal experience.

Even if I was doing a good job, people would attack me and act like i was crap healer, despite how much better of healer i was compared to the other guy who was standing around half the fight, because i made the wrong joke, or comment or i offered the wrong critcism. So they would end up pointing out everything i did wrong...and/or didn't do wrong that they made up to bully me, despite the fact that many other people in the party made way worse mistakes than me and were the cause of our wipes.People like this exist, they will defend their friends endlessly, despite how horrible that person is doing, also any criticism at all is toxic to these types of people and is perceived as hate.Which is why most people won't even offer it anymore and instead just end up leaving the group after only a few wipes instead of trying to help the party succeed.

In the end it was personal, but not because i was trying to hate on you or i was trying to attack you, but rather i sympathize when it comes to toxic parties and i wanted to offer you a better perspective on how to handle it.If you don't recognize how badly your behavior is being perceived then you will never change yourself or understand the other person's point. It doesn't benefit you to get discouraged due to others,it doesn't benefit you to portray yourself as the victim of hate. Keep trying your best and ignore the haters.

[VanilleFang]

I disagree Ive seen tanks drop from 100% to 0% in 2 secs frequently. and your judgement is that 'Im one of those healers' that has to keep everyone at 100%? I am raiding, yes surprisingly so. Just doesnt always have to be in an elitist way.

You've seen it happen, but that in general is the exception and should not be the expectation. A tank dropping from 100-0 in 2 seconds only occurs in some very specific situations, and most are not do to a fault with the healer(s).

And RivxKobe never said you were like that. That seems to be one of your biggest issues when debating someone. You automatically assume they are berating or insulting you. Riv made a hypothetical response in case you were one of the healers they mentioned. Nothing more.

[Cynfael]

I disagree Ive seen tanks drop from 100% to 0% in 2 secs frequently.

You've seen it happen, but that in general is the exception and should not be the expectation. A tank dropping from 100-0 in 2 seconds only occurs in some very specific situations, and most are not do to a fault with the healer(s).

Just to second this, tanks do not drop from 100% to 0% in the blink of an eye unless the circumstance is a scripted hit (read: tank buster) that was not properly prepared for and/or healed through or unless the tank made a mistake like trying to bite off way more than his/her ilvl could support or standing in a mess of overlapping, high-damage AoEs.

The perception that damage pours in and is overwhelming is common and understandable when the healer doesn't know what to expect, but the goal is to memorize your part of the dance so that the only surprises are mistakes that your party members make. The last time I raided consistently with a static was during Coil, but I distinctly recall the occasional need to provide constructive criticism to party members, including tanks, if they got themselves blown up by not using CDs or by being out of position.

The healer isn't there to make sure that everyone survives at all costs. In casual content you can help party members recover from most mistakes without too much of a problem, but in content that is tuned to require a certain level of efficiency and competent execution from the party, the healer simply can't afford to play pure defense; if you have to spend all of your time spamming heals and raising bodies, your party is already making too many mistakes to clear.

[Rivxkobe]

I disagree Ive seen tanks drop from 100% to 0% in 2 secs frequently. and your judgement is that 'Im one of those healers' that has to keep everyone at 100%? I am raiding, yes surprisingly so. Just doesnt always have to be in an elitist way.

Perfect example of what I was referring to in one of my previous posts. I never made a judgement or an assumption about how you play.

But seriously, how can you expect to go into the hardest content of the game where everyone is expected to make the most of there job and not expect it to be elitist and full of people who expect people to do as they are told? Its the main reason I steer clear of it.

[loreleidiangelo]

Honestly i am of the opinion that the content in this game is waaaay to light on heal requirements bar the very top.
Now i am going to do what people hate and compare it to wow and there if your healers have as much time to dps as here it means either of the two things:

1. You are straight up overgearing the content
2. You have too many healers, switch a healer for a dps

I love to heal and while i switch to cleric stance whenever possible, it is not why i chose the role to begin with.

I find that healing endgame content in this game only really effectively requires about 1.3-1.5 actual healers for 8-man content: not enough to get away with just 1, not without certain comps or fight strategies, but nowhere near the level where the full throughput of 2 dedicated healers is required. It's an ugly spot to be in, IMO.

There's a few factors that contribute to this.

-Kit homogenization. With the introduction of the 60 cap, SCH was given a bevy of AOE raw healing moves to supplement their previously meager offerings. This was done theoretically to ease the difficulty that a dual-SCH composition would face in a typical DF party, where matchups like that were infrequent, but still possible. AST, the newest healing class with 3.0, was pretty much an imperfect rip-off of the WHM design in Diurnal and the SCH design in Nocturnal. Further adjustments to their kit (Synastry change) only solidified this, rather than worked to give AST their own healer identity. This is important to note because it's really hard to make healer changes in a vacuum now - it's VERY easy to compare one healing job to the next because all that sets them apart now is their utility (or lack thereof).

-Base healing potencies. Frankly, these are too high. Players have a finite amount of HP, and when a singular AOE heal from both healers simultaneously is enough to top everyone off before the next incoming damage, it means there's a lot of downtime to fill with Cleric Stance. It seems like healing potencies were scaled around the concept of single-healer content (4-mans), with generous recovery capabilities and leeway for newer or less skilled players. The result, of course, is that for anyone with relative ability and content for which there is more than one healer, that extra recovery leeway isn't even remotely close to being needed. Short of a blanket healing nerf in 4.0, or healer stats scaling less linearly with player HP pools, there's not really an easy solution for this. Constant outgoing damage in raids could be a poor man's fix, but would do nothing for the simplicity of 4-man healing, which is important to consider seeing as how not everyone raids.

-Ranged support make managing resources a joke. Not an ABSOLUTE joke, but clearly it's a factor here. Once again, healers were given adequate MP recovery abilities for the chance that in pug content, they won't have a ranged support. In raids, it's a given, so healers can spend that extra mana on DPS. I don't see this changing anytime soon.

Fully-scripted encounters remove all reactionary elements of healer gameplay. Since you know what's going to happen, and nearly all raid mechanic derps are basically player one-shots if not full party wipes, there is no foreseeable reason why healers cannot efficiently plan their globals around being able to safely toggle in and out of Cleric Stance and DPS. Less memorization and more reflexes required, please! It's not fun going through the same mental list of tick boxes every raid fight. "Cleanse here, move here, pre-cast Stoneskin for tank buster, now Tetra, now move here, now Regen tank and toggle Cleric's for three globals to apply dots and Fluid Aura, now Medica II after unavoidable AOE, now move here"...zzzzzz.


There are seriously a lot of factors in play here that led to the meta being what it is, and some of them are REALLY difficult to change. And that's assuming the developers even want to, rather than letting the playerbase create their own rules about what is and isn't expected of the healer role these days. Of course I'd like to see the role change gears to something more expected of it's design, but I also acknowledge how many factors would have to be adjusted for that to occur, as well as how many players may be adversely impacted by said changes.