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

[Feyona]

Sorry I didnt reply to all of your posts, there was a limit. Honestly, the scenarios you are describing of healers having lots of space, is not my experience at all except in low instances. Dun Scaithe today most of the group were being killed by this or that mechanic, had to rez several times and had no mana left to do anything else with except physic while waiting for my aetherflow cd. This is my experience of end game content with random groups and I am being completely honest here. All you who have the space are either in good groups are In the top 3% of skill level. Well, if instances are monitored by SE then they know Im telling the truth of what the majority of the players skill level is, and what most groups are like. Yes I do dps when Ive got the space as Ive said in other posts, but not when learning a fight. This was about wanting to have a playstyle choice, just but to enjoy the game without having to be an athlete, yes we may all want to be athletic, but we cant all be.

[Feyona]

Athlete being a metaphor for those that want to win medals, theres only a very small proportion of the population that can do it, but here your expecting everyone to have the same levels of skill. I really dont know what my skill level is, except that I was 97% for healing with scholar, and 4500 hps on Fuast before I got my 270 gear. i did about 2 thirds more healing than the other healer, but scholars meant to dps right? Well its sad Ive had to give up my main in order to heal now I play ast. This I dint consider fair but its ok just would like to heal, love healing, hate dps. But I do do it cos of the consensus, and I understand completely that pro healer dps want to, just dont want it forced on me.

[CafPow]

Oh no when your heal is needet, you heal. That is clear.
But, besides dun scaith, what about void arch? Or wheeping city?
What about expert roulette or 60 roulette?

As i said, yesterday i had to heal nonstop in the lvl51 dungeon (forgot the name) due to my low levle (115 ishgard gear) ... but even there, i had time to at least put dots on the boss (trashgrps i had no time either)


I think....
What you want is a mechanics, that focus on the aspect that there must be heal somewhere at any given time of the fight, maybe with later content?
I mean, i can totally see that, as a healer, one wants to heal. ^^

[DreamWeaver]

If you want to be a "healer that just heals", please be aware your skill ceiling is extremely low, and people will hold you to a lower regard compared to healers that heal + dps.

[RaizeGraymalkin]

I will never yell at a healer to switch to Cleric Stance and DPS. Your primary job is to heal. You do that and I'm all good. You wanna throw some damage in there. Go for it. You don't? I don't care, so long as we're all still standing.

[Yasuhiro]

Healers are designed to heal, not DPS.

You're half right, but I'll believe the other half of that statement when Square Enix stops giving me DPS skills but for now I'll keep using my Aeroga's and Holy's making full use out of the abilities given to me.

[AmalonStar]

When I first started playing this I didn't dps much if at all and had to adjust and become comfortable with it.

Previously I was playing ff XI where I mained whm, on there I was used to straight healing and when I didn't need to be healing I was in the rest position recovering mp. So coming over to XIV was a big change for me, after a while I did start to dps more but healing was and still is my top priority. It's taken me a few years to get comfortable with switching onto clerics stance without worrying that I need to heal right after switching and being stuck with weakened heals due to clerics.

I've said before things would be a bit easier if the cool down for using clerics was removed.

[vigioX-Sun]

I've said before things would be a bit easier if the cool down for using clerics was removed.

But is only 5 sec CD.

[Limonia]

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.

So in a battle where there is not much incoming damage, how would optimizing your healing spells look like, so that you are not idling but also not overhealing? You would not be allowed to use regens or shields, because then you would have time to be idle if you don't want to overheal. So it would come down to equipping gear with lower item level, so your cures wouldn't heal the tank too much so that you would have to chain cast cures to keep him topped off without overhealing. If you would use regens and stronger heals, the tank would be at max health and you would only stand there.

And if you would even go so far to cast something like Synastry + Diurnal Aspected Benefic + Time Dilation or if you would Rouse your fairy and use Adloquium and Eye for an Eye on the tank, you would have to stand around for the next 20-30 minutes if you don't want to overheal by spamming Benefic/Physick like crazy.

So that means optimizing your healing spells in low incoming damage fights would mean NOT USING ANY BUFFS or stronger heals if you don't want to be half-afk/spamming.

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.

Why? WHY...? So many people have said it before. It is NOT that we do not WANT to heal. But why would we heal, where there is no need for heals? What we want is not to be idle. I enjoy healing too but in instances where it is not necessary to heal all the time, I enjoy to dps a lot. Because the game has so much healing downtime that I would just stand around 90% of the time if I would not dps.

Need to remind people here though that this is not about optimization of play its about preferred roles or playstyles

THERE ARE NO PLAYSTYLES YOU CAN CHOOSE FROM. At least not if you respect the people you play with; if you don't want to be unfair to them. Really, what do you think about a Black Mage only using ice spells? He wants to be an ice mage, it's his "preferred playstyle", but by doing that he would not use over half of his skills and drag down the group by a lot. What about the Paladin that rather would not use a shield but wants to only be a sword fighter? He couldn't stun the enemies and wouldn't have a ranged attack. Would you be fine with that, if it's his "preferred playstyle"?
You know, this is an MMO. We play together with other players. If I play some offline RPG and I want to try out different "playstyles", like some people who play Final Fantasy XV at level 1 or Dark Souls without gear or weapons because they want a challenge, it's fine because they don't do any harm to other players. But here? It is DIFFERENT. You can't just act like in an offline game.

Sorry but a summoner does not have to change role to raise. They remain dps and a rez takes 2 seconds they do not have to change stance and heal the group.

And after activating Cleric Stance it only takes 5 seconds to deactivate it again. You are still a healer in Cleric Stance, only that you use Aero III, Aero II and Stone III, then deactivate it again if there's some healing necessary. Also, if the Summoner already used Swiftcast but has to raise someone, it would take about 8(!) seconds.

I agree you help your group thats what heaing does. Why is it not enough for you? 3 reasons, you need help with the dps cos dps not good enough thats not healers fault, next one is wanting to clear faster. Why does it have to be 2 minutes faster?

Usually it is NOT to carry the DPS. Usually it is to NOT to make the run 2 minutes faster, because it doesn't have to. It is to NOT be idle and to NOT be unfair to the other 3 or 7 players who are doing something all the time. Yes, I do believe it is very unfair and wrong to let the other players to do all the work while the healer just stands there or spams 1 or 2 buttons. Because it's his damn "playstyle" or he just wants to relax and let others work for him.

[Kitfox]

But is only 5 sec CD.

I think a lot of the stress comes from people observing first and then switching to Cleric, meaning they lose a lot of time in the possible DPS window.

If you're used to casting constantly, and you know your next heal will top off the tank, it comes naturally to queue Cleric instantly and throw up 2 dots and observe the incoming damage while you're doing that. You might have to switch back immediately, but at least you got your DoTs up. If you constantly keep switching to Cleric stance the second your tank hits 95+% hp, and only switch back to healing when he's around 50% or to refresh HoTs, you're going to notice you're spending a lot of time DPSing.