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

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Yes dont think anyone is suggesting that you do what you want and people do need to compromise, pf duties though may be another type of scenario where expectation is set a bit too high for all, and rarely is communication good. So negotiation between healers is lacking. Although you can assess the situation up to a point, it is a little more difficult and therefore carries more risk to do. The expectation at the moment, I have been told is not only healers expected to dps, but dps alot, on Zurvan ex.

Right, but context is important. Why are you expected to DPS a lot? If the tank can handle it with minimal healing or your co-healer has it under control, then it's an understandable situation. They don't need additional healing from the Scholar. On the other hand, if the tank overestimates their abilities, you may need to take initiative and drop cleric early to accommodate. If that pisses them off, boop them on the head and tell them to mitigate better. I will say, PF groups can have horrendous communication and some people will jump down your throat instead of taking two minutes to figure out what's wrong. Better not to give them much thought.

[Taika]

The expectation at the moment, I have been told is not only healers expected to dps, but dps alot, on Zurvan ex. It may be a possibility that some, not all, groups are kind of expecting a little too much out of healers these days and sounds like its always up to the healer to make sure they carry the group to skip soar just wondering when this trend is going.

The damage to skip Soar is done in the first phase of the fight, during which healers literally don't need to heal anyone at all. Healers aren't asked to DPS to "carry their group" there, they're asked to DPS to do something useful. As Bourne Endeavor said above, it's about context.

[Feyona]

The damage to skip Soar is done in the first phase of the fight, during which healers literally don't need to heal anyone at all. Healers aren't asked to DPS to "carry their group" there, they're asked to DPS to do something useful. As Bourne Endeavor said above, it's about context.

Then it kind of proves whst Im trying to say as both healers dps full on at first . What was lacking was the dps's dps but healers sort of get the blame as pressured to dps and failng healing as a result. It may have put pressure on tank to dps as well to make up for the deficiency. I thing your possibly wrong that dps dont go in groups to get a carry in some cases. These days everyone seems to be watching if a healer is dpsing or not. Such is the community's attitude towards it. Some dps can get away with sneaking into a farm on an alt. Healers cant do this really as people would die if they arnt healed. Saying that though if group knows what is wrong will boot such a dps. Then again healers job is much easier in groups that 'know'. Unfortunateky most of the community probably doesnt, but so much emphasis is put on healer dps.

[Feyona]

Right, but context is important. Why are you expected to DPS a lot? If the tank can handle it with minimal healing or your co-healer has it under control, then it's an understandable situation. On the other hand, if the tank overestimates their abilities, you may need to take initiative and drop cleric early to accommodate. If that pisses them off, boop them on the head and tell them to mitigate better. I will say, PF groups can have horrendous communication and some people will jump down your throat instead of taking two minutes to figure out what's wrong.

Your right communication is bad, and so are most, not just a few of the groups, for farms on Zurvan. Most fail actually. Its the worst primal farm to go on, in my experience. Not just for people failng but for people leaving for one wipe. So you could say they had some higher expectation. I have heard of healers being booted for not dpsing enough though as well.

[Sakuraluna]

Personally, I don't consider it a healer's job to dps, but I do consider it boring to stand around as a healer when there's not much to heal outside of throwing out a regen to the tank here and there. Plus, a little extra dps speeds things up and there's no wrong in that. If I'm not on healer, I won't complain if the healer doesn't dps because I can understand there's situations where they might not feel comfortable, and those situations aren't always apparent to the rest of us.

[Makeda]

Personally, I don't consider it a healer's job to dps, but I do consider it boring to stand around as a healer when there's not much to heal outside of throwing out a regen to the tank here and there. Plus, a little extra dps speeds things up and there's no wrong in that.

I generally agree with you. But most of the people conversing here are talking about the content at level 60 and not in the levels we're at (your profile when I typed this said level 50 WHM, 53 on another server).

At the current content, they're dealing with what sounds like some kind of 'rage timer' (as they call it in WoW) - not enough DPS by some point in time means something bad happens. In an MMO like WoW such rage timers are built on the presumption that if all the properly geared DPS are carrying about 60-70% of their proper weight (if you fail a rage timer in WoW, you were really failing... they make it pretty hard to fail, but so many don't learn their classes/roles that it actually happens often enough), you will just make it through. So in WoW a healer or a tank never needs to switch to DPS unless they're getting bored by the mechanic.

I am guessing that here, at the top content - the DPS might need to pull about 80-90% of their potential... so anyone getting a 'carry' is going to put a LOT more lead onto a group's shoulders... in such a situation, a Healer DPSing can fill in whatever slack that 'subpar DPS' is leaving... it's actually pretty easy to 'under-perform' by only 10-15% or so... a little bit of lag, a moment of confusion, etc... will do it... so a healer filling in the gap will likely make all the difference if your team isn't 'amazing'...

That said, if somebody noticed the healer isn't DPSing, that is 'eye-time' not spent looking at their own actions. That alone will drop their DPS by a good 5-10%... So if you wipe because "the healer wasn't DPSing" it is more likely you wiped because half your DPS were watching the healer's cast bar rather than their own...

[RopeDrink]

You know, it doesn't take much to glance a little to the left/right during GCD's - most players won't be losing 5-10% DPS by checking their surroundings. That's like saying they can lose DPS by watching for mechanics, which is on everyone (inc. Healers & Tanks). Any player with familiar keybinds doesn't have to be looking at the same place to actually perform. They WILL be losing DPS if they stop what they're doing to type out a jolly good rant mid-fight at whatever they've noticed. Secondly, it's not about filling gaps (not entirely). DPS can and will drop from max potential by default, eg. when forced to move away from targets due to mechanics et al. You can point out not everyone will be rocking BiS items and maintaining a flawless rotation 100% of the time, but a Healer DPS'ing isn't to remedy the gap that grows from it - it's to speed things up in general.

I know low level examples aren't entirely suitable, but the whole thing reminds me of my first foray into Urth's Fount (Odin). I never actually got to complete it via DF because 90% of groups I had failed mechanically and didn't have the patience for wipes. Those who surpassed that point typically had too little DPS to beat the one-shot DPS race, and more often than not, I saw plenty of Healers who were just standing there watching it happen waiting to heal people (and nobody actually even takes damage in this phase). That's a problem with inexperience, but you get the point. Every little helps, so it's not a question of making up for the DPS, it's a matter of punching above your own weight when you're not healing. No healer is healing 100% of a fight, so that downtime should be contributed towards helping in other ways.

[Lambdafish]

That said, if somebody noticed the healer isn't DPSing, that is 'eye-time' not spent looking at their own actions. That alone will drop their DPS by a good 5-10%... So if you wipe because "the healer wasn't DPSing" it is more likely you wiped because half your DPS were watching the healer's cast bar rather than their own...

As a PLD main tank, my DPS rotation isn't difficult, neither is positionals, so I can get a good view of what everyone else is doing a lot of the time (especially the healers).

Your right communication is bad, and so are most, not just a few of the groups, for farms on Zurvan. Most fail actually. Its the worst primal farm to go on, in my experience. Not just for people failng but for people leaving for one wipe. So you could say they had some higher expectation. I have heard of healers being booted for not dpsing enough though as well.

This is a problem with Zurvan. The whole soar controversy was an oversight from the devs, and the reason why healer DPS is so clamoured for in that fight is because skipping difficult mechanics is the difference between faceroll and challenging fight. If you do not pass the DPS check then people are going to quit/kick.

[Feyona]

I generally agree with you.

At the current content, they're dealing with what sounds like some kind of 'rage timer'



That said, if somebody noticed the healer isn't DPSing, that is 'eye-time' not spent looking at their own actions. That alone will drop their DPS by a good 5-10%... So if you wipe because "the healer wasn't DPSing" it is more likely you wiped because half your DPS were watching the healer's cast bar rather than their own...

I think the only thing that there is to worry about being on a rage timer is the people that go in the farms and want to skip most of the mechanics and rage quit if they dont and, I find that last paragraph quite funny. Seriously though yes there is rage timer, but beats me why everything got to be skipped or rushed. I mean really games can be so boring if they are too easy I have most fun with abit of a challenge. Its sometimes people that spoil the fun with their not so nice attitudes

[Lambdafish]

beats me why everything got to be skipped or rushed.

farm

You answered it yourself. If people are doing repeat runs for loot, the faster/easier the runs, the more runs can be done, its not a very difficult concept to understand. I don't really understand your "its more fun with a bit of challenge" mentality on the subject of farm, challenge is fun when you are clearing the content, but on farm you want to make the fight as a quick and efficient as is within the partys ability.