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

[Feyona]

Its so terribly toxic towards anyone having a different opinion, or a different view, Or even to suggest enjoying yourself. Wow thats not allowed weve all got to play how some dictate . Well I go to work and if play is like it as well ,shoot me now please.And kokon above is right there is no comparison but your still giving ice mage and bards. You are the ones who are so tunnel visioned in your pro healer dps stance that your now bending facts to support it.

[Deliciou5]

Its so terribly toxic towards anyone having a different opinion, or a different view, Or even to suggest enjoying yourself. Wow thats not allowed weve all got to play how some dictate . Well I go to work and if play is like it as well ,shoot me now please.

Having standards is not bullying, you have no middle ground. You just think you can impose your way of thinking onto entire party and they are not allowed to do anything or say anything about it without them being considered bullies? How ironic.

Furthermore, like almost all things in life if you want something from a person or persons then you need to negotiate in some form with them. Negotiations are usually won with charisma and compromising attitude. In the end you need to promise what they want if they are going to even begin considering your proposition. What they want sometimes maybe to simply clear, so you need to find a way to make that work. You cannot force your way on most people, if you do not meet their standards than you better be sure they personally like you or else your negotiation will fail.Toxic people are more often than not a result of failed negotiations.

[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.

[Neela]

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.


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 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.

i... just wanna thank you for this summary – this one post just said it all. cleric shouldn't be compared to dps-utility skills, it covers the intention of cleric in the first way, the problem of the misinterpretation or better the way we got used to it, the Devs opinion about the current status of cleric and the fact that everybody can but MUSNT dps if they are bored or not confident enough to do so.

thx Koko, thank u very much ^^

[Zojha]

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.

Well then he should finally have the guts to nerf healing to the point that people can't be DPSing "generally almost all the time". The current situation is a thing because healers can get someone from low to full in a handful of casts and then just twiddle their thumbs until the next nuke hits. Mechanics like Photon-Whirlwind combos, double Whirlwind or double Mega Holy shouldn't be possible to heal, end of story. ONE of those should keep healers busy for a long while and beg for downtime to get people back up.

If Yoshi wants healers to only/mostly heal, he should finally make healing a full-time job. In many other games with healers, people don't urge them to DPS, despite the metagame being no different and healer DPS optimal. The reason is simple: Because only really damn good healers are even able to add DPS in those games, the rest is taxed out with just healing. If Yoshi wants that, he's in the position to make it so. If he keeps healing a part-time job however, he shouldn't be surprised if people want healers to do more than just heal >_>

[Neela]

well true and fair enough ^^

[CreinCrein]

I guarantee that if they shift the 20% - 80% heals to dps ratio meta that we have going on to 80 - 20 people are going to complain that content is too hard to heal. If you aren't using near 100% of your capacity now trying to optimize healing and dps what makes you think you can handle a situation where you have to optimize 100% towards healing.

[Neela]

that healing will get a profession in endgame too - not just tanking and max dd rotations.
and I wonder how many Schs will show their "skill" if they can't hide beyond their "I have to dps" argument without relying just on their fairy ^^

after all every 8/24 content was designed for 2 healers - although nearly everything can be solo healed 2day. maybe its not the badest thing if healing gets harder with SB again.

[Seoulstar]

snip

I read everything but this is truly what people don't understand. A black mage not using fire skills is not the same thing as a healer not dpsing. The black mage is solely a dps, their jobs is to put out as much damage as possible. The healers job is to keep their party alive, the game suggests that you can dps as a healer. But never states its mandatory.

Yes, it is good to play your class at it's full potential. But you have to respect others way of playing too unless they are just trying to ruin the game which honestly a healer not dpsing shouldn't even come remotely close to. And also enough of this precious time nonsense, I am so sick of that little phrase that so many use. A healer dpsing will make the dungeon not much more faster so honestly their "precious" time wont suffer much from it. And if people get a headache over this..wow thats sad. It's a minor thing that truly does not even call for such a negative reaction to. As long as they are doing their primary role which is keeping the team alive. That should matter in my opinion, then again I guess it's a good thing I'm not super judgmental over small things.

[Lambdafish]

snip

I may have misjudged you, because what you are saying is actually mostly correct, and I agree with. The thing is my stance is summed up here:

[When talking about Feyona running with a SCH]

Then you shouldn't be DPSing, the SCH should. That is the pro DPS argument in raid, one person handles healing, one person DPSes and heals when they need to. If you find yourself not healing in certain phases though, then you DPS.

This isn't a black and white conversation, and is completely different in raiding than dungeons. Having two healers means that you can play with one healer primarily healing, but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't DPS when they can, only that they won't get many opportunities too.

Co-ordination is key to playing a good healer, and healer DPS should be a natural question when planning how you will beat content. As I said before though, Healer DPS is literally irrelevant until you hit enrage or clear, so focus on whatever helps you clear the content.

To answer your question, WHM is better suited to main healer than off healer (similar to PLD and DRK being better MTs), though you can still create gaps using regen effects, and by co-ordinating with the other healer. I answer the Healer DPS argument below though:

[In response to Hoodrat saying that both healers should DPS equally]

What you are describing is pro level optimal play (the difficulty of achieving which is subjective, but we can at least concede that this is how expert healers play), and it is not essential that healers at all levels conform to this to be a valid member of the party. My idea of MH/OH wasn't intended to represent the best way to heal, but rather to give inexperienced raid healers like Feyona an idea of how raid DPS can be co-ordinated easily between the two healers. The type of healing you are describing comes with experience, muscle memory, and knowledge of fights and there is no way that it can be achieved as an ameteur healer who doesn't know the fight.

As an example, I would compare this level of play to WARs and DRKs who can MT in DPS stance, something which is not essential, but will mark you as a good tank. On the flipside, a tank who OTs in tank stance, and doesn't utilise their full toolkit (WAR not using storms eye/path, a DRK not using darkside/dark arts, and a PLD not using goring blade) is the equivilent of a healer who idles when they should be doing something. There is a middle ground, in fact there is a whole spectrum of middle grounds that label you as anything from an average healer to an amazing healer.

I should add to my above statements "and the more someone knows the fight, the more opportunities you will find", however this should not be forced on a healer by another member of the party, and even less someone on the forums, as these moments are found through practice and an in depth knowledge of their role.

The thing is, I know that healing is more important than DPS, and I also know that cleric stance isn't the perfect solution. You mention that Yoshi P "hates cleric stance", but neglect to mention that he followed that exact quote by saying that "he knows that they can't remove it because it would be a terrible idea". Yoshi P hates cleric stance because it makes healers harder to play, that is the only reason. Nothing about incorrect playstyles or community forced meta, rather a change of heart on the way a mechanic is designed, due to "casual" and inexperienced players complaining and refusing to play their job correctly. The only thing the devs can do in this situation is either tell them to get better, or treat it as feedback to improve. Also, Yoshi P has said some blatently incorrect things, justified bad design decisions, and has had the aura of not really knowing how the game works anymore recently, so I am not treating his word as gospel anymore.

My issue is not with people not DPSing, my issue is with people who refuse to DPS on principle, and won't even acknowledge it as something that is part of their toolkit.