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

[Feyona]

There is a thing about quantity and quality. If you bring enough statements in the same line in a large enough sample

But how do you bring that evidence? Yet people can see here the attitudes towards it that it isnt a choice any more like ill vote kick etc. Isnt that evidence of what is happenning? Unless our thoughts, feelings and experiences arnt valued or credited because they cant be measured. Several people on this thread have stated it shouldnt be forced, some have said they dont like dps. Minority or not it still exists. Plus theres not many kind of brave enough to bring an opposing view here. Its quite aggressively put down, just like the force to dps is aggressively enforced. some dont want the confrontation of it. Aggressively enforced like, exclusion, threats not overt ones no, but you know if you dont do it what will happen. Subjective experience is valued btw in study just to say. And with that reply Im done cos it is a loop

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

But how do you bring that evidence? Yet people can see here the attitudes towards it that it isnt a choice any more like ill vote kick etc. Isnt that evidence of what is happenning? Unless our thoughts, feelings and experiences arnt valued or credited because they cant be measured. Several people on this thread have stated it shouldnt be forced, some have said they dont like dps. Minority or not it still exists. Plus theres not many kind of brave enough to bring an opposing view here. Its quite aggressively put down, just like the force to dps is aggressively enforced. some dont want the confrontation of it. Aggressively enforced like, exclusion, threats not overt ones no, but you know if you dont do it what will happen. Subjective experience is valued btw in study just to say. And with that reply Im done cos it is a loop

For this controversy in particular it is quite simple: You don't.

Prior to the introduction of the Hall of the Novice neither end of the spectrum had any form of evidence. Be it an abstract or concrete one. But ever since and with that the hinting towards damage contribution as a healer, the debate went heavily in favor of the "Healer can and should DPS" side of the argument. While the devs did not make any form of statement directly, the introduction of the Hall of the Novice with the line in question hints towards doing damage as a healer. After all; the Hall of the Novice is a feature that teaches players how to handle the game for their role in particular.

Of course, since you've mentioned that healer damage "isn't intended by the developers", find a source where they explicitly mentioned this. If you're entirely confident on this matter, it's your job to back it up with sources (as evidence). You can try browsing through the translated Famitsu interviews, for example.

I've also mentioned a few posts back that this topic hit the wall before it even started. Simply due to the community adopting healer DPS as a meta. It takes the majority for a meta to settle and, in a sense, a democracy. And for the minority democracy is, or can be experienced as, a dictatorship.

Best advice I can offer you on this matter is to plant the seed of idea into new players before the meta mentality sets in. Become a mentor and, well, mentor novices. But please do so without poisoning them yourself by being entirely against healer DPS. Which would be the other extreme end of this controversy.

[Seoulstar]

snip

Don't you think it's a little childish to be kicking someone over something as minor as not using offensive spells as a healer? They are not causing a wipe, they are not trolling the party, they are just not using offensive spells. If they're kicking someone over something that minor, maybe it's them who should be taking a look at themselves.

[HyperiusUltima]

Don't you think it's a little childish to be kicking someone over something as minor as not using offensive spells as a healer? They are not causing a wipe, they are not trolling the party, they are just not using offensive spells. If they're kicking someone over something that minor, maybe it's them who should be taking a look at themselves.

There's always a few babysteps when it comes to finding the windows where DPS for your job(AST/WHM/SCH) is applicable, considering you're also keeping the raid alive. Once those windows are found, you'll be able to contribute better DPS. But honestly not using offensive spells is not a problem; it's just people want faster runs(which Healer DPS DOES indeed contribute to) and also phase skips. Healer DPS also helps clears at times when at an iLv lower than what's required(pre-made 1st week Alexander Savage).

[IttyBitty]

But once again, you can argue about developer intent, what a healer is or "should be", or whether people should be "allowed" to play without DPSng all you want. It changes nothing. DPSing is the only way you can meaningfully contribute to your party outside of your incredibly light healing duties. The developers have done nothing to increase the healing burden (and they seem very unlikely to change that) and despite having methods to do so, have not done anything to stem the flow of healer DPS (heck, they encourage it).

Saying that healers should get a free pass to forgo DPSing tells me that you hold healers to a much lower standard of contribution than any other class type, which just doesn't jive. If you're okay with healers not DPSing, then you should be equally okay with ice mages, dragoons who only use their jumps, or ninjas that only throw daggers and fuma shuriken. They too can play how they want, and they're doing the minimum "requirement" of their role (ie contributing damage. Nobody ever said it had to be high!), right?

You can't be forced to play a specific way by someone, sure, but they are well within their rights to start a votekick if you refuse to equally contribute to your party.

[Seoulstar]

Well I believe we found the root of the problem for the most part. People want everything to be fast, that will not always happen. And to the other person, you're contributing to your team if you're keeping them alive. Trying to connect a healer not dpsing to an ice mage, dragoons who only use their jumps, or ninja's who only throw daggers..basically DPS classes who are not doing as much damage as possible..that's illogical. They are DPS, they are supposed to be doing as much damage as they possibly can. Hence the term DPS or damage dealers.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

Well I believe we found the root of the problem for the most part. People want everything to be fast, that will not always happen. And to the other person, you're contributing to your team if you're keeping them alive. Trying to connect a healer not dpsing to an ice mage, dragoons who only use their jumps, or ninja's who only throw daggers..basically DPS classes who are not doing as much damage as possible..that's illogical. They are DPS, they are supposed to be doing as much damage as they possibly can. Hence the term DPS or damage dealers.

It's not quite the same for healing, though. Damage, be it low, average, or high, is still "useful damage" as either form reaches the ultimate goal: The death of the target. Healing is a whole different spectrum however:
Too little and it will have consequences (usually death)
on par with the incoming damage is ideal
Too much is simply useless (overhealing)

Overhealing wouldn't necessarily be a problem if eHP would bloat accordingly with the overhealing. But this is not the case. When not including anything else and healing alone, you'd generate time gaps between each healing spell used to stay on par with the incoming damage if your healing output ceiling simply blows away the incoming damage.

IttyBitty mentioned "equal contribution", which is also something mentioned more than a few times already in this topic. If DPS jobs are supposed to do as you mentioned:

They are DPS, they are supposed to be doing as much damage as they possibly can.

Which would mean they'd have to fill every single GCD they have with a meaningful skill in a particular order. Thus very little idle time in between each action. Should a healer have a free pass on performing half the amount of GCDs used compared to other roles then? IttyBitty's post (and every other similar before) makes sense on the premises of equality. A more extreme example would be Scholars in a low level dungeon (Totorak or earlier) and auto-follow someone and just watch Netflix. The fairy, when the scholar is sufficiently geared, is enough to fulfill the healing requirement for those dungeons. Would you accept this kind of behaviour?

[Seoulstar]

snip

A SCH afking and letting the fairy do the healing is not the same thing as a person physically being there and doing the healing themselves. While one is something I 100% understand to be kicked on because they are not even there, they are just following someone letting the AI do the healing for them. The other is just a person that decides they don't want to DPS. I have done 24 man raids where I was the only healer DPSing while the other just focused solely on healing yet I didn't care, nor did anyone else in the party. Or so it seems.

[Kitfox]

Don't you think it's a little childish to be kicking someone over something as minor as not using offensive spells as a healer? They are not causing a wipe, they are not trolling the party, they are just not using offensive spells. If they're kicking someone over something that minor, maybe it's them who should be taking a look at themselves.

So first, healers shouldn't be kicked if they don't want to use offensive spells. Hmmm.

A SCH afking and letting the fairy do the healing is not the same thing as a person physically being there and doing the healing themselves. While one is something I 100% understand to be kicked on because they are not even there, they are just following someone letting the AI do the healing for them.

But also, SCH who only heals with their fairy, should be kicked. Hmmm.

What about a SCH who doesn't want to use offensive spells but their fairy is able to cover 100% of the healing? (Spoiler: You're being super illogical in your arguments and should really rethink your approach.)

[SweetPete]

Can't believe we are still talking about this. It's your character so play how you want. I am a healer main and I dps or heal only depending on my mood. I never had someone call me out that I should be doing one or the other. Well this one time this tank said I was in dps stance to much and needed to help our AST heal haha. Anyway I think contributing with dps is fine. Just don't turn on CS and dps without it. Most healers do it. Yoshi P already stated that they don't create content requiring healer dps so if you get someone yelling at you and calling you bad just dps a little bit without CS on and I assure you those elitist will shut their mouth. Even if people use parsers as long as they see some dps numbers by healers very little they won't complain. I think people just want to see you use your entire tool kit and not just stand around. So the secret is dps a little without CS on and you will be fine take care loves!