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

[Segraine]

Do you think randomized mechanics in fights or AI team mechanics (mobs that ignore tanks and attack healers or have smart healers of their own) improve or harm the play style of healers? This would impact both healing and healer dps strategies.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Do you think randomized mechanics in fights or AI team mechanics (mobs that ignore tanks and attack healers or have smart healers of their own) improve or harm the play style of healers? This would impact both healing and healer dps strategies.

I would love to see them go in that direction for overall difficulty. A better mixture of scripted and randomized mechanics would not only add an extra layer of complexity, but keep content fresh for a longer period of time. Granted, it wouldn't change much with healing potency being so overly tuned.

The reason why messing with healing potency and/or damage sustained by players without fundamentally changing game mechanics is an ineffective way to make healing more fun or engaging is that, in either case, you don't accomplish much beyond making healers hit the same buttons more frequently. I don't believe that consuming more GCDs for healing actions (rather than having the healing accomplished in fewer GCDs, which allows for more DPS actions) is a recipe for fun.

Frankly speaking, I know plenty of healers who actually want pressing their healing buttons more. Even those who DPS generally prefer to heal and only do so because the meta dedicates that is optimal. Now it couldn't be the only change, but I do think it's a step towards the right direction. Playing White Mage more myself, I cannot deny it gets a little stall in 8-man content when my co-healer decides they won't turn on Cleric Stance. I'm pretty much going to just spam three buttons and never worry about the party's health. Yes, if healing requirements were reduced or damage intake was higher, I'd only be spamming three different buttons, but it puts far more pressure on me to know what I'm doing than spamming Stone III whenever DoTs are ticking. Add some randomizing factors and things could be interesting.

At this point, I'd rather one healer and five DPS if things didn't change. They will never do it though.

[VanilleFang]

I don't really know how to explain it but I don't feel like FFXIV would benefit that much from more randomized damage output and intensive healing. It makes me think back to when I played City if Heroes and was praised for my healing. I never felt the praise was warranted because all I was doing, as an Empath, was spamming my AOE and single target skills, with the occasional Absorb Pain.
Though I was able to get some dps out, from my secondary power pool, at times still.

Speaking of Absorb Pain, that might be a nice mechanic. It was literally the one thing I actually felt required skill on an Empathy healer. You would heal an ally a huge amount, but you would take damage and be immune to being healed for a short amount of time. So there was some risk and proper timing involved.

[DaulBan]

The inevitable issue with random mechanics with high damage is that it introduces an amount of uncertainty that leads to choice paralysis. If I DPS now -- because I know there's a chance there's nothing going on -- I'm going to be contributing more to the completion of the instance. But if I'm in stance and something happens (for example if I just turned it on) everything could go to hell. This sort of thing already makes some healers nervous in the first place, and increasing the output of burst or random damage only makes it worse.

If the meta is damage and all tanks and dps follow it (at least that's what I've mostly seen from more competent groups), then healers slipping into it too isn't necessarily a bad thing. Squeenix can either shift the meta away forcibly (ejecting those who enjoyed pushing damage to make a subset which may or may not be able to handle the healing requirements), or embrace it and make it so that DPSing is easier. Sacrificing everything in the name of DPS is considered pretty bad in a lot of circles (casual players, this forum itself) but it's the simplest point of optimization that gives people an easy-to-see numerical goal. The amount you heal will always be capped off by 'nobody died' and fighting down overheal.

[Rivxkobe]

But if I'm in stance and something happens (for example if I just turned it on) everything could go to hell. This sort of thing already makes some healers nervous in the first place, and increasing the output of burst or random damage only makes it worse.

CS only locks you in for 5 seconds. Most of the time things are going to be fine in that time frame. Also all healer classes have some way to regen and/or heal while in CS. Increasing the output of burst or random damage wouldn't really change anything though, since most high damaging abilities in this game are telegraphed and are either completely avoidable, are things you can prepare for and/or are things you can see coming so you can counter.

[DaulBan]

snip

This is fair, but at what point does the extra damage become enough a burden it requires extra healing? Like, even as someone who hasn't healed much I've done A10S which has the most 'random'(ish) and usually the regen as you say is enough to keep people in the game while you get through your Aero III cast or your CS recast or whatever very comfortably. But like, random damage that you shouldn't be able to plan for should be less Chesed and more Gobsway Rumblerocks if you want it to be a surprise. But for it to be a threat, it needs to have the impact of the former with the subtlety of the latter.

In all fairness 'random damage' can be any number of different things with different effects and of different severity, so there's more than a little bit of room to tune.

[DivineIntervention]

I like to try DPSing, but sometimes I feel like it's an unneccessary risk. I don't "know" what's going to happen, when. In my head, at any moment the boss or mobs could drop 2-3 poisons on 1-4 characters, obliterating HP bars to half and if I've been blowing my mana on stone 2, well my hands are tied and teammates died. Hell, even having just swapped to cleric stance then seeing 2 status effects pop up on my tank, well now I have to wait 5 seconds to hurry up and try to cleanse him before he starts thinking about how his life sucks because he's got another terrible healer on his run.

I do DPS though when I feel it's necessary.

One thing that pisses me off though, when I'm trying to Repose additional mobs from what the tank is primarying and a machinist or a dotter feels like aoe'ing/damaging mobs I've put to sleep.

[DivineIntervention]

Yea, If I DPS a mob it dies faster and that's less healing I have to do. But on the same hand, not letting me Repose/sleep mobs because you want to see more damage ticks or watch all of the mobs HP bar drop simultaneously is just as detrimental.

STOP IT. If you let me sleep 3 of the 4 mobs, then since incoming DPS is so low, I have all that extra time to spend DPSing. Things go so much faster if you focus a primary target and let me put the adds to sleep.

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

I think this whole topic can be boiled down to: Did you do any Conjurer class quests from level 5 and beyond? Yes? Then why the hell didn't you learn the very lesson you were trying to teach Sylphie with her "I only want to heal! I don't want to cast those stone and wind spells!" stance? The game's training quests and the very story itself is telling you that the "I only want to heal" mentality is bad.

[Rennies]

Yea, If I DPS a mob it dies faster and that's less healing I have to do. But on the same hand, not letting me Repose/sleep mobs because you want to see more damage ticks or watch all of the mobs HP bar drop simultaneously is just as detrimental.

STOP IT. If you let me sleep 3 of the 4 mobs, then since incoming DPS is so low, I have all that extra time to spend DPSing. Things go so much faster if you focus a primary target and let me put the adds to sleep.

At level 45, you'll get Holy, an AoE spell with massive strength.

Also, Repose is worthless when the team is supposed to be AoEing the mobs.