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

[Feyona]

Feyona, please stop being hyper defensive.

People aren't ganging up on you because of some sheep mentality, it's because you spew idiotic drivel, then when people call you out on it, you spew barbs and promptly cry foul when people fire back.

There isn't even any kind of valid debate left in this thread since you keep stomping it out with your immature little routine. I genuinely can't work out if you are a bit dim or just a troll. It's a proper head scratcher at this stage.

Thanks.

maybe you think so its really up to you maybe 'dimness' comes from people not understanding what is said. but from what you said earlier you are older then why did you resort to having another personal barb about me? Instead of looking at others posts that vould be considered far more irrelevant to the discussion than mine

[Feyona]

And as I stated, because english is a wonderful language and you should read it some time, that the intention of Amelias kick was not "because they weren't DPSing", rather their detriment and disrespect to the party.

The fact that I have to explain this is tiring ok? We may come across as patronising but that is because every little thing has to be explained to you, you don't pick up on subtext and fuel every post with your own narrative, and still think you have the higher ground even though you have still yet to back up your opinion with any kind of meaningful.... well anything really at this point

yes its tiring you keep trying to explain stuff that I already know and keep twisting the facts why on earth cant you see that you do that? I will give evidence later if you like people said no one is kicked for not dpsing full stop factual stop twisting it

[Sebazy]

Because there's actually been some genuinely interesting conversation from time to time in this thread coupled with useful and well researched data. Everytime without fail you've derailed it.

This thread has gone from potentially interesting debate to arguing about the finer details of what someone said 50 or so pages ago.

Having an opinion is fine, but leave the agenda at the door please =(

[Lambdafish]

people said no one is kicked for not dpsing full stop factual stop twisting it

Lets see shall we, I guess I need to do another one of these (not that it will help in the slightest)...

who is "they"? Nobody here has condoned that, and that is not normal behavior on at least my server, and I bet others can vouch that this is not normal or accepted behavior on any other servers.

Toxic people exist, but we move on from that and find better people, that is the way MMOs work.

This thread and quote you are talking about... don't expect others to find it for you, it makes for an incredibly weak argument and doesn't put your point in a very good light. The quote (?) that you just posted is also so out of context it hurts. Does that mean in casual content? in raid content? does it mean if they are idling? You don't see these factors, you just ASSUME that the standard attitude is DPS no matter what, which is simply untrue.

If you can give me concrete evidence that anything but the sheer minority of players that you come across expect DPS no matter how intensive the healing, then I will concede defeat and I'll even eat my hat. So far you have used the word "them" and given out of context, unsourced quotes that even if they were in context and sourced is merely anecdotal and doesn't represent a wholesome view of the issue.

Your so wrong and you obviously dont understand my points your the one always trying to argue with me and you dont main heal, so why cant you just accept this is the game experience there is alot of expectation for healers to dps and with no offence to amelia verves above that she stated above that she kicked a non dpsing healer. There is your pressure. Its up to amelia if she doesnt want that in her group but the rest of some people would like to heal without that pressure

There you go.
No stance dancing. No heals needed. Not. A. Single. One. From. Him.
How is that pressure? He literally just had to go into cleric and put/renew DOTs and throw ruin/broil.

I went as WHM because I know what I am capable of and because I know I can solo heal it. So I chose to be the main-heal in that group and wanted an off-healer that is basically just there if people mess up.
Noone messed up. It was a super smooth run, with incredibly high DPS, everyone was giving their best. Except SCH, who just idled around or casted unnecessary physicks which ended up in 100% overheal. -> Nice!

The sad truth is: everyone is on her side when it comes to learning parties and unexperienced healers. Noone here would even want them to stress too much and just get used in their own pace.

No I had no intention of attacking you at all, in fact the opposite where people are saying that there was no evidence of non dps healers being kicked. If there were no heals necessary its a different thing. I will apologise though for stating it. In my experience some do need both healers to heal often if tank is in dps stance. Or people fail mechics alot. I did not have any bad intentions in it, was just statement that it happens. I think where Im coming from is I feel people may be uncomfortable with going in cleric, full stop, especially in new content. I do realise that maybe none of you have this attitude that consciousy puts pressure on I just think people may exprience what is demanded in different ways.

The "evidence" that you provided was also selective and wrong, which you yourself apologised for misreading, I genuinely wanted to see the evidence that the community as a whole is toxic towards healers (implication being the "expects dps no matter what type"), thats why I asked for it, it just so happens that you yourself invalidated your "evidence". I haven't really been denying what you have been saying, I actually said (you can find the quote) that I would concede defeat and agree with you if you found me the evidence, so I'm not sure why I need a reality check.

no, people asked for evidence of people unfairly (read up about toxic behavior) kicking people for not dpsing (that was your entire point wasn't it?). Amelia didn't kick them "because they weren't dpsing", they got kicked because they were being lazy, unhelpful and detrimental to the party, and expecting a carry is rude and disrespectful to the other 7 people in the party.

Yep, thats a whole lot of... not... twisting anything.

Edit: bolded for clarity

[AmeliaVerves]

I do respect that and said so.

Thanks, so let us leave that aside by now.

But so far I still would like to know what you referred the parataxic distortion to, because I still can't figure that out. I don't want to pick on you, it's just that I am interested in how my words reached you in a way that you think this applys to me.

The way I put it maybe confused but it was saying that I havent called anyone a burden in the context that I was saying it was reflecting about what people have called me . Its very awkward on here with a controlker to precisely put things across the right way. It doesnt matter about it was innappropriate

I am not native english myself so I find it hard to understand what you are trying to say here. I'm sorry.
Of course I understand that the context of the burden-thingy was not related to my post, but it's more guesswork than actual understanding. ^^'

[Sebazy]

But so far I still would like to know what you referred the parataxic distortion to, because I still can't figure that out. I don't want to pick on you, it's just that I am interested in how my words reached you in a way that you think this applys to me.

It's pretty much a running theme in this thread unfortunately, you aren't the first to be on the receiving end of this behaviour by any stretch.

Here's a good example, maybe it'll help Fey appreciate why so many people are getting tired of this now:

On savage once I was 95% active just healing , not overhealing either. I was told I was a shit player for not dpsing. If you understand what Im saying thats why Im against healers being expected to dps. If they want to its fine, it shouldnt be forced.

Oct 26th activity 86.18% overheal 48.65%
Nov 2nd activity 93.07% overheal 33.87%
Nov 9th activity 58.02% overheal 37.43%

Either you're reading the numbers wrong or you're lying.

Not all my fights are posted. Show me a healer that has 0% overheal. Why are you so pedantic? You seem to dislike anything outside your thinking box. Im not hard core watch the numbers meticulous player. Im just an average player that does their best in the situation Im in. Just because I didnt meticulously, state there was a little overheal it doesnt mean Im a lyer. Please dont bother responding to that with 40% is not a a little. Ive done mnay clears since november, and Im well aware of what the hardcore mentality expectations are.

@Feyona: I've bolded the bits where I object to what's being said for clarity. Get rid of those and frankly, it's a pretty reasonable debate that's hard to fault. As is tho, you just give off the impression that you're trying to project your own failings on other people in an effort to protect the little bubble you live in.

TLDR, As ever, stop being hyper defensive, and stop throwing your toys out of the pram when someone confronts you. You might not like it, but reasonable debate and thoughtful confrontation is a very important part of life.

[AmeliaVerves]

snip

I get what you are trying to say and I totally agree this discussion is running in circles since several pages and I get it's frustrating and I do think Feyona is a bit overly sensitive about people just calling out their oppinions. But I do wonder:

Was that really necassary of you now? ^^'

I mean, we all got, more or less, what Feyona is like and how she handles situations, but you don't need to trigger her even more, you know. :/
For me, I realised she does not answer to very long postings completely, but takes just parts to talk about, that is why I let down parts of the discussion, but focused on the very thing I would like to get an answer to.
It is kind of annoying and it streches conversations, but if it is the only way things might be leading into a slightly productive direction we should try to go that way.

[Sebazy]

Frankly, yes.

Multiple people myself included have tried short and swift responses, long well researched answers and very reasonable replies. The end result always gets ground down into a petty he said/she said mush.

The bottom line is that we now have a thread approaching 170 pages that could be summarised in a simple paragraph:

It isn't fundamental to your job to DPS no, rather it's better to think of your job as being to support and enhance your party to the best of your personal ability given the tools you have at hand.

Of course the big detail that muddies the otherwise clear waters here is savage content. Simply put, progression groups going for early clears had to lean on their tanks and healers for additional DPS more than I'd ever seen before (And I sold 7 man T9 clears long before the lockout was removed). Thus the meta was born and these high expectations gradually filtered down to mainstream play.

Outside of this core discussion, there's maybe 10 pages of useful info, talking about DPS windows, considering HPS vs DTPS. Even more advanced topics are touched such as optimising healers to split the HPS/DPS load to really maximise both players potential. It's rare to see useful info like this here and it's a shame that it's so heavily buried amongst pointless arguing and tittle tattle.

[bounddreamer]

Outside of this core discussion, there's maybe 10 pages of useful info, talking about DPS windows, considering HPS vs DTPS. Even more advanced topics are touched such as optimising healers to split the HPS/DPS load to really maximise both players potential.

I wanted to expand on that a bit more, because I have personal experience there that the group might find interesting.

We have a very heavily dps oriented SCH who does what I call "surgical precision heals." As we work on progression he learns exactly how little healing is required from him, then remains in cleric stance for virtually the rest of the fight. Example: our A11S clear (BLM pov) https://www.facebook.com/chef.food.d...4168430348062/ If you watch our SCH, you'll see how infrequently he leaves cleric stance. He has very rigid control of the fairy and optimizes her actions.

This is great SCH play. On the other hand, a frequent complaint of our main healer is that he's essentially had to solo heal this whole tier, with the exception of A12S which was more healing intensive during progression. He also uses his Swiftcast on shadowflares so when a raise was needed, our SMN got in the bad habit of holding his SC for raising.

His dps is consistently around 1600 per phase. On the other hand, our main healer almost never has room to dps at all. When he's on AST (which he is for every floor but A11s) he at least likes to keep his dots up.

When we started running Zurvan, we adjusted our lineup because an off tank wasn't needed. Our SCH went MNK instead, and he's a God mode MNK who can sustain near 3k. I went off heals on AST, but aside from the opener, I let our main healer know when I was supporting heals, when I would dps, when I was using Disable, and tried to take point on raises. (Our SMN was conditioned at that point to get the first raise.) Our end parses - which we don't upload, sorry - looked very balanced from a HPS/DPS perspective for both healers. The dps numbers were almost exactly the same, for opener and overall fight. And we always skipped soar, and used LB3 at the end. :^)

This took a lot of pressure off our main healer because at that point the encounter felt more balanced. He felt like he could keep up his dps and the party and tank were still taken care of.

Later, we went back in for bird farming and alt weapons and I went main heals while he went off heals on AST. He had some trouble relaxing and letting me main heal while he went mostly dps mode but we were able to trade dps windows back and forth.

So for Stormblood we're looking at having our SCH play his God mode MNK, while one of our dps who's been healing a lot more is looking at swapping into that spot. It's awesome to have a SCH who can push that much dps but for our group, our healers are looking how to most fairly distribute the load. And our SCH really does just want to dps, so he asked us to consider his wishes to change to a dps role, and happily it looks like we'll be able to change our lineup to make it work.

[Valmaxian]

This thread has been so intense that the Game of Thrones producers should take a lesson! XD

The takeaway for me:

1. Healers who also contribute DPS are always adding more benefit to the encounter. This is purely numbers, not judgement.

2. The debate about whether or not its our "job" to DPS will never be resolved until healers have either no healing abilities, or no DPS abilities.

3. Players can, and will try to have the experience that they want for themselves at all times.

4. The vote kick/abandon features exist to provide a reasonably democratic method for serving the wishes of the many, rather than the few.

I DPS not because of pressure from others, but because I enjoy it, and I want to help my groups however I can. I may not DPS as much as some would like in high-pressure situations, but I also know that I'll never please everyone, and that's ok. Be happy with yourself, but be honest about how you play and why you play that way.