Should healers now be allowed to play how they choose to play?

[seekified]

Yeah, I think this discussion usually boils down to people just having different mindsets, and I'm fine with that, really. As I said in my earlier post, I'll keep playing healer regardless of what happens with the current DPS meta in Stormblood, because I enjoy healing as well as DPSing. My personal approach is to apply the Always Be Casting approach to healing as well, and when nobody's dying, well...

[HoodRat]

Except the endgame savage mode ore the last 2 bosses of dun scaith, you always have spare time.

Even in savage content they have time to dps. There's a video of an ast solo healing a12s, and even then he threw out dps when he could.

[Juicinators]

Even before I learned about stance dancing. I would at least throw out My DPS skills in between heals. It doesn't do nearly as much damage as cleric stance but it's at least something.

[CafPow]

Even in savage content they have time to dps. There's a video of an ast solo healing a12s, and even then he threw out dps when he could.

even better O.O

[Feyona]

Well to reply to posts earlier would like to point out that if you doing 70% dps time then your not optimizing your healing spells, which some healers would enjoy doing Just adjusting this You are not optizing the utility of the ability to heal. Hope that corrects the misunderstand of what I meant. You are a healer that wants to dps 70% of the time ok well I want to use my healing spells more because I enjoy healing more than dps. Difference is that you can play that way and enjoy it but that isnt the case for all. Need to remind people here though that this is not about optimization of play its about preferred roles or playstyles

[HoodRat]

Well to reply to posts earlier would like to point out that if you doing 70% dps time then your not optimizing your healing spells, which some healers would enjoy doing

On the contrary, they can dps 70% of the time because they optimize their healing.

[Spiroglyph]

Well to reply to posts earlier would like to point out that if you doing 70% dps time then your not optimizing your healing spells, which some healers would enjoy doing

And if you're healing 100% of the time then you're most likely overhealing and that is also not optimizing your healing spells

[Aerish]

Optimizing unecessary healing spells, won't change a thing sadly

[Taika]

Well to reply to posts earlier would like to point out that if you doing 70% dps time then your not optimizing your healing spells

As others have already pointed out, optimising your healing means using as little time and other resources as possible on healing (= healing as little as possible) while keeping everyone alive. This means you're using your abilities as effectively as possible, getting the most out of them. The more you're spending time on healing, the worse you and / or your party members are doing. The better you optimise your healing, the more time you have to support your party with DPS.

[Mejingjard]

Well, You are indeed free to play how you like, Healers don't have to DPS. Nope. Nothing forces you to do such.
If you want to stand around, doing nothing while the others players in your team are playing, except for throwing one heal or two from time to time, it is up to you.

Honnestly I will never kick a heal that don't dps. As long as I remain alive, that's fine. However, I will label him/her as a low tier player. And there is a lot of chance that if I remember his/her name when seeing it pop in a party finder for something harder than dungeons/ brutal primals, I will kick that healer out of the party before even geting in the trial.

To make a comparaison, I have some nice self healing tools in my skills. Would I not use them as it is not my role to heal myself? Nah. I use all my toolkit to ensure the run is the fastest and smoothest possible for the whole party.
You will face 2 cases : either you have a low geared tank that require all your attention (got some, and it is pretty annoying, to be forced to instant cast a Cure 2 as they are dying faster than you can cast sometimes) and then it will be obvious you dont have time to throw some dots.
Or you will be teamed up with enough stuffed tanks that will barely lose any HP. In this case, just standing around will only make you being seen as lazy or subpart healer.
Again, your right to not dps, but the right to the rest of the party to not want having you again playing with them .

The better you play, the more you will be remebered well by players, and the easiest it will be to find parties for better content. It may sound silly, but when it comes to reaching high level content, the reputation you built during previous game session will change drasticly how you will be able to enjoy what lie beyond brain dead dungeons.
Still, I understand how you feel about wanting to heal more, but sadly, except when you have pretty undergeared or bad players, nothing is threatening in this game except for savage raids. Wanna have an exemple : Some bosses from the 24 players raids can be tanked WITHOUT a healer... I wasn't expecting it but I could tank and finish Fergal in Dun Scaith for 60% of his HP, without any heals as they were all dead. As a Dark Kinght. That's how weak damages received are if you know what you are doing.