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

[Taika]

It is not defined by the label it is defined by what you are able to do in the circumstances. Priority is healing, priority is not both. You heal first as the situation allows, it should not be expected in all cases

No one who supports healer DPS is arguing for anything but what you just said here. You first keep your party safe, then (1) if the situation allows, and (2) you would otherwise either do nothing or do something useless, you should DPS. This is all that's being asked for.

[Lambdafish]

It is not defined by the label it is defined by what you are able to do in the circumstances. Priority is healing, priority is not both. You heal first as the situation allows, it should not be expected in all cases

That is correct, and the content does allow you to DPS. In raid you have two healers, and at most you only need 1 1/2 healers, and in dungeons the damage is tuned so low that healers either feel like terrible DPS classes or afk and waste everyones time. This isn't going to magically change, in fact - I fear that content is only going to become easier, so I would recommend that you learn more about how your role is actually designed to avoid the "bullying", as you call it (I'd call it people requesting that you play your job the way it is designed)

Taika is right about your expectations. Yes, Healer SHOULD be designed the way that you expect them to be, but the fact of the matter is that what we have in the game promotes healers dealing damage when they are not needed to heal.

[Judge_Xero]

No one who supports healer DPS is arguing for anything but what you just said here. You first keep your party safe, then (1) if the situation allows, and (2) you would otherwise either do nothing or do something useless, you should DPS. This is all that's being asked for.

There is a grey area though based on player skill, about creating those situations to DPS where I can see it being difficult to gauge.

Like A9S where me and my co-healer can contribute almost 3k DPS to the Raid (85% combined average activity) while the tanks are pushing over 4k DPS combined. Then you could look at another group where the combined healer DPS is maybe 600, with the MT sitting in Tank stance the whole time, and each healer is only actively DPSing maybe 30% of the time. How does one just simply create an extra 55% more windows to DPS under harsher conditions of tank damage. (being DPS stance VS Tank stance etc)

It does make things difficult when looking at group performance to see other healers contributing 5x or more damage while still meeting healer checks.

Duty finder dungeons I could really care less how people perform. That's why I rolled healer is to get fast q's and carry people.
But anything extreme or savage there is a certain skill level I would expect for my groups, and a bit lower expectation for PF groups, since there is a major difference between PF and a group you run with week after week.

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I do hope that SE doesn't increase healing checks, simply because it would be bad for heal only healers. The skill difference between two healers that can coordinate to the level of DPSing 80% of a fight VS two healers that don't DPS at all while still struggling with healing checks is so massive, that a harsh increase in the required healing for fights would utterly destroy most "heal only" healers as far as any type of progression.

[Taika]

But anything extreme or savage there is a certain skill level I would expect for my groups, and a bit lower expectation for PF groups, since there is a major difference between PF and a group you run with week after week.

Yes, I definitely agree with you. What I meant was that the minimum standard for healer play in stuff like leveling dungeons and DF stuff is keeping your party safe and then DPSing if there's an option for it. Of course when the content gets more challenging the expectations will also rise, and static groups can and will usually require much more optimisation from their members.

[KokonoeAiyoko]

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 >_>

Tbh, I actually believe it's something else entirely. It's not the potency of our heals, but when you look at FFXI and how Healer's were there, there is one vital difference I feel is far more different than anything else, this game has significant "Auto Refresh".

I know WHM barely had any DPS tools in FFXI, but that alone isn't the reason. If you restored MP the way you do in FFXIV, you could get away with casting Banish moves and other offensive moves throughout the fight. However, because FFXI didn't have Auto Refresh on the same level of this game, you had to conserve that MP for your actual healing. Then, if you wanted MP after running out, you had to sit down and rest and thus couldn't even DPS. It was better to heal then proceed back to resting and constantly managing your MP consumption/heal ratio VS free DPS throughout the fight.

Am I saying make FFXIV like this? Not necessarily, just trying to show that I feel the reason we can get away with DPS like this is because of how much MP we restore natively and the lack of resting.

[Deliciou5]

I have seen posts stating healers being harrassed to dps and have experienced this ostrasization myself, and it continues covertly. It Is bullying people to do it in circumstances they feel uncomfortable. I may not like dps that doesnt mean I dont try but its something that could drive people off the game. And to be honest Ive found things to be the other way round you are the one forcing your views on other people because you think its easy and you are expecting all healers to think do and say how you do things

Iv'e been taught by the community what is acceptable, because of the way i try my best to research fights and try my absolute best to never make excuses even when i fail i think i earned a lot of people's respect. No matter what comes out of your mouth, i always believed that you need to try your best to make everyone else in the party happy, not the other way around. My way is the way of making as many ally and friends as possible and be the least selfish as possible...my way has earned me a lot of friends and success who showed me infinite patience when i was learning. I don't even know what "your way" is anymore, you say you dps but then what are you even arguing on behalf of? That Some people are toxic so that justifies laziness? My way is to simply do your best and not hold yourself back unless the party asks you to.

The thing that drives people off the game isn't asshats necessarily, but boredom of that particular patches content. I feel like you ignore every point you cannot argue against and try constantly to the play the victim card. I do not understand what exact point you are trying to justify tbh. So lets speak hypothetically that your right about toxic people and bullying? That gives you a free pass to impose your will upon a party who doesn't want you there or your methods?

I feel like we have an incomplete picture of why people get upset with you...and why they act the way they do towards you. You seem to be very entitled yourself, and probably do not prescribe to doing anything you don't want to do, which would put you at odds with a party that asks you to do something.

[Feyona]

Iv'e been taught by the community what is acceptable, because of the way i try my best to research fights and try my absolute best to never make excuses even when i fail i think i earned a lot of people's respect.

You do not know me at all, you really should not make assumptions on my character Im usually very quiet in groups unles askin question or answering them. Or negotiating with my team. Unless I'm running learning groups for people. Other than that Im pretty selfless and do my best to help anyone who asks me. That includes anyone, no matter what their skill level or how they play. Because I dont feel entitled to tell people how they are allowed to enjoy themselves. Plus iI do have friends thank you, bar the odd asshole that enjoys trying to bully others with parsers. Plus not speaking just for myself here either

[Deliciou5]

You do not know me at all, you really should not make assumptions on my character Im usually very quiet in groups unles askin question or answering them. Or negotiating with my team. Unless I'm running learning groups for people. Other than that Im pretty selfless and do my best to help anyone who asks me. That includes anyone, no matter what their skill level or how they play. Because I dont feel entitled to tell people how they are allowed to enjoy themselves. Plus iI do have friends thank you, bar the odd asshole that enjoys trying to bully others with parsers. Plus not speaking just for myself here either

I never said you don't have friends, or have people who don't like you overall. HOWEVER you clearly have been at odds with people in the past and you experienced toxic individuals. With the way you hold yourself in this thread is any indication of how you would act when someone asks you to perform your job correctly in game, i think i know enough about you to at least make a few presumptions.Even if they are not complete pictures, you can still have friends but not have a attitude conducive to making many, if not making more enemies than allies.

Also my points overall can be applied to anyone who is trying to justify the heals only position in all reality, so even though i may have been talking to you, they can still see all my points applied more generally.You just seem to be flinging your emotions about without going anywhere with it. Okay you don't like parser elitists? Ok? How does that have anything to do with the topic and the question of whether healer should dps or not? You cannot say the exceptions justify the position that "i can play however i want" in a team based game.

Just as you say you are not entitled to tell people how to enjoy themselves, you still feel like you are entitled to stop a party from playing how they want to play by you refusing to do the job they want you to do.Hypocrisy much? Play a single player game if you don't want people giving you crap about how you play a game where team based tactics are important. You cannot justify an overall selfish attitude where the individual is more important than the whole of a party.

[Neela]

This is definitely true, if you look at the way the game is designed. The issue is, which I brought up in another thread on the topic, that there are two sides in this discussion. One of them thinks the jobs in this game are defined by how the jobs look like (their name, role name, assumed developer intention etc.), and these people argue that healers shouldn't be forced to DPS because it's not included in this extrinsic definition. The other side is looking at the how the jobs actually work: what abilities do they have, how the content is designed etc. And for the latter people it's obvious that healers should DPS, because that's simply the way the jobs and the game are.

There is no reasoning to be done between the two sides, because their arguments are based on completely different things (one can of course estimate and argue about which starting point makes more sense when we are talking about playing the jobs).

well I think the whole discussion is just about "can" and "must" – no-one doubts that extra dps is good and the logical way to go if u want to give 100%. it just about the arguments the community is creating to proof their point - and most of them are sadly just not true. content is officially not designed with healer dps in mind, although it helps a lot at several dps checks - true. I can understand why Fey is so stubborn about this... because "saying" the game and jobs are designed for this manner is just not true - and even its proofed by different user with different dev-quotes the comm is still trying to find new arguments to around bush to get this discussion on...

"can" or "must" - thats the breakpoint. not more not less.

[Taika]

content is officially not designed with healer dps in mind, although it helps a lot at several dps checks - true. I can understand why Fey is so stubborn about this... because "saying" the game and jobs are designed for this manner is just not true - and even its proofed by different user with different dev-quotes

This is exactly what I said: you and some others are basing your arguments on extrinsic factors like developer comments which have nothing to do with actual gameplay. While the other side is looking at how the game actually works. And because the developers have obviously designed the game as it actually is, it's a fair argument to make that things like healer DPS is part of developers' intended design (because they have all the power to disable it), and what they say have no relevance to the discussion (since what they say has no actual impact on gameplay).

uhh if someone who build something and explained his intentions behind it - u can't say its untrue and for at least one side you mentioned it got a high relevance o.o

Once again, this is a perfect example of what I was describing, that you and some other people are viewing this as a valid basis for the discussion. While others, like myself, are not, because I don't care how the game is described to work, I only care how it actually works. It's like in FFXI, when the developers designed Ninja as a DPS job, and it ended up being a tank - because that's how it worked the most effectively. The developers could talk as much as they wanted about how it was supposed to be a DPS job, but in the actual game it was played as a tank.