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

[KokonoeAiyoko]

Actually, it is worse for BRD. Cleric stance's drawbacks can be mitigated through proper preparation: using adlo, then rouse, swapping into cleric stance, throwing up DoTs and shadowflare, then going back out of cleric stance is good DPS for not much healing loss, and you would only ever do this if the healing requirement is low, meaning nothing at all is lost. The difference is that there is a cap on how much healing should be done. If everyones HP is full then any extra healing is a waste. There is no cap on DPS meaning that any amount of time spent playing paeon or ballad is a DPS loss for the BRD, and there is no mitigation for this at all.

SCH gets away with it in general due to the pet and the easily castable shields. What about WHM, though? Something where you have to heal in real time and have longer cast times? That's far more manual work than merely toggling a song on.

And there's another thing you're forgetting-- you don't often need to use songs anywhere NEAR as often as a healer would be DPSing with Cleric Stance. It's generally almost all the time at this point whereas MP song is honestly for niche moments and generally applies mainly to raid content or the DPS whiping to the point the healer actually runs out of MP.

Let me ask you, if healer DPS and cleric stance should not exist, then A) what the hell are you doing when you don't need to heal? and B) What would you change the system to, because removing it would make healers both overpowered, and more dull to play for many people who are serious about the role.

I don't think healer DPS shouldn't exist nor have I ever said that, I just think your comparison doesn't add up. There is nothing you can outright compare to healer DPS in this game.

I don't think I've ever seen a NIN protest when asked to use shadewalker, or goad. It seems to be only healers that complain when asked to use their full toolkit (oh, except for BRDs that refuse to sing, but they get the same lecture, and honestly are just bad players)

I doubt many would protest to an easily clickable move like Shadewalker. People protest to something that requires a lot more effort/stress in comparison in a game that awkwardly has you go DBZ on mobs more often than heal when your title is "healer" and the game is not designed with its DPS in mind.

You can even tell by Yoshi P's consistent clarification that healer's DPSing as much as we do were def not what they had in mind. Why else does he have to mention several times that

1. Content is not designed with Healer DPS in mind
2. He "hates" Cleric Stance
3. He wants us to mainly focus on healing cause we're healers.

And when you look at how Cleric Stance is designed, to penalize you for actually wanting to DPS and mix healing at the same time. Where would you be healing, anyway? A dungeon with other people. What do you need to be able to do the Main Scenario and FATEs (if solo)? DPS. I feel as if this move was designed so that we wouldn't be using it in this way, and Yoshi P's statements have lead me to believe this.

With that said, you can DPS, I DPS all the time cause It's fun and it makes the dungeon go by faster, but it's very easy to see why people do not want to partake in it compared to any other mechanic in the game.