Suggestion as to how to get people to become healers.

[Yeol]

People are still talking about healers dps. Healer dps is not the reason people are not playing healers in the first place.
Even 0 dps healers are still causing wipes because of healing issues.

Anyone wanting to pick up the healer role should:

- Be patient. They will deal with lots of bad players who make silly mistakes.
- Prepared for everything. Unlike the other roles, you cannot be lazy while playing a healer.
- Use their brain. At some critical moments your decision will either wipe the party or save the day.
- Learn about all three tanks. Each tank is different and has different CDs.
- Learn about enmity. Over healing and Regen before pulls makes things hard for your tank.

When I do my mentor roulette as a healer, 90% of the time I'll be thrown in progress with parties who's healer left them. Not kicked, left on their own.
Either because the group have a bonus or wiped. My first thought is the party must be pretty bad for their healer to give up on them but guess what? I found the party to be completely fine. Never had issues healing any party I joined. It just made me realize that healers are just bad. Either they were the reason wiped happened or they are not confident enough to heal a bonus.

[Synrin]

People are still talking about healers dps. Healer dps is not the reason people are not playing healers in the first place.
Even 0 dps healers are still causing wipes because of healing issues.

But the latest tier of raid content has made it a must to DPS as a healer. Somehow, at some point, changes made it possible that in casual content healers have the luxury of standing around doing nothing as well.

Yesterday I tanked The Vault (lv57). Our SCH first made snarky remarks about my gear. They had Eos out on SIC. So Eos was popping everything whenever. Last mob on 10% hp? SURE THING, let me give you defense in between pulls, but not during pulls.

They just stood around LUSTRATING ME every time I was below half hp. And that was it. They did NOTHING. Now imagine standing there, keeping a track of your rotation and trying not to be a bother for the whole party, the DDs doing their thing killing things, while the 4th person, a healer, is just standing around doing NOTHING. It pisses me off, least to say. They could alt tab and browse and just tune in and lustrate every now and then. That's it. Not to mention they got all defensive when me and the other DD explained what to do to THE OTHER DD on the last boss, after a wipe.

Being there doing their job 'only healing because I'm a healer' is what I am seeing way to often, and is not only a bad party member, but also a bad healer. Here's my 5 cents. When I am healing I am always doing something. If everything's dandy and fine, I'll do damage, if the group seems risky, then I will be in cleric stance a lot less. But discussing changes that can actually make people attracted to healing do basically concern just the cleric stance and rotations in general.

[technole]

You really shouldn't be surprised. The "I will only heal and not dps" healers are actually the lower skill level players. Not only does their discomfort in DPS show, their healing is just as bad. Usually involving overheals, and not using skills correctly. Like White Mages that don't manage their shroud even in normal content, it's telling enough they couldn't survive a savage encounter.

Don't be surprised if you die to a tank buster either, they can't even figure out when those hit they are standing around while you dip 90% of your HP. I've seen that with helping A12S parties.

Someone will probably pop their head out and said they cleared A12S as 0-DPS healer, and yes that is possible. But they probably did it with echo and their party carrying quite a carrying load on their backs while making them see void puddles.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

You really shouldn't be surprised. The "I will only heal and not dps" healers are actually the lower skill level players. Not only does their discomfort in DPS show, their healing is just as bad. Usually involving overheals, and not using skills correctly. Like White Mages that don't manage their shroud even in normal content, it's telling enough they couldn't survive a savage encounter.

Don't be surprised if you die to a tank buster either, they can't even figure out when those hit they are standing around while you dip 90% of your HP. I've seen that with helping A12S parties.

Someone will probably pop their head out and said they cleared A12S as 0-DPS healer, and yes that is possible. But they probably did it with echo and their party carrying quite a carrying load on their backs while making them see void puddles.

The amount of conjecture in this post is stifling.

Also, 9 times out of 10, a tank dying to a tank buster isn't a healer issue. It's a failure to properly mitigate with a cooldown issue.

But anyways continue painting with that broad brush. Let's see how ridiculous this topic gets before the 22nd.

[hynaku]

If they do away with cleric stance better have damage done same amount that had with cleric stance. I main story quest you can't have others help you. Most have to solo with worthless npc's. For ones dyeing most time its because there out of site or to spaced apart where can't target them.

[Yeol]

...

Oh my.. that run was terrible.
/pet


If we have players that don't know how to heal and use their CDs properly, how the hell do you want them to dps and heal at the same time?
All i'm saying making dps easy on healers won't make them good healers if they don't learn to heal first.

So OPs suggestion will only benefit those who already know how to heal and dps. But won't encourage people to play a healer role.

[Alynn]

Really good post

I want to speak from personal experience. I started out as a DPS class because that's all I ever played in MMOs. I started playing healer because AST looked so cool (hello gravity and celestial opposition). I was extremely nervous because I've never healed before. What do I do if a tank dies? At any rate, I ended up accepting the responsibility and now I can't see myself playing any other class. Like Yeol said, removing Cleric Stance won't encourage people to play healer. Worst case scenario, it'll might dissuade people to stop playing healer. I know personally I'm not a healing bot. I don't want to stand there and press the same Helios, Benefic I+II, etc, etc, for a whole 15 minutes.

Cleric stance is not something you absolutely need to start out as a healer. You're given that choice when you CHOSE to cross class cleric stance. If anything, cleric stance is there to help you supplement your healing class to its fullest potential possible. If people want to play healer they will. As much as I dislike it when healers don't dps, I will acknowledge the fact that healers are given a choice to dps or not.

[Venjenz]

But the latest tier of raid content has made it a must to DPS as a healer. Somehow, at some point, changes made it possible that in casual content healers have the luxury of standing around doing nothing as well.

Doesn't really go to what Yeol was talking about. A lot of healers NEVER GET TO THE RAID CONTENT where DPS is a must. Yeol's bullet list explains why. #1 (be patient) and #2 (be prepared for everything) sum it all up rather well. The community is not patient, and even more than the tank, healers have to be laser focused, johnny_on_the_spot just for healing, with the added expectation of proper DPS in between making sure nobody dies/wipes and they are managing MP. And oh by the way, the job is thankless.

DPS is not the problem. Cleric Stance is not the problem. How much DPS you parse on 24 player raids is not the problem. Yeol nailed the reasons people don't heal by listing those responsibilities of the role. Again, pay close attention to the first two.

[TristanBlane]

GIVE US EXCLUSIVE MOUNTS >:3

[JunseiKei]

Remove the need to cleric stance.

Have the damage scale of MIND similar to how tanks got the VIT buff.

One of the first games I played did this with the healing class, sort of. Both healers and casters used INT, with healer DPS spells having [generally] less potency than the caster. I actually found it to be a fair balance, healers could DPS (as many of their attack spells came with debuffs, so they wanted to DPS to help debuff targets) and then throw heals out as needed. First time I saw cleric stance, I thought, 'Okay, that's cool, I guess? I don't mind if it will give me a chance to do as much DPS as a blm or smn for a short time.'

Hahaha. Not even close, so I've always wondered why the double healer DPS nerf: cannot sustain DPS for long periods because of the need to heal the team and spell potencies already being far lower and lack of buffs to increase the output (Raging, Internal, etc.). Triple nerf when you consider MP management is not equal across all three healers and is probably the crutch holding WHM back (highest DPS output of the three, worst MP management).

However, back on to the real topic at hand. The best way to get people to start playing a role, like healing, is to stop forcing ideas onto them they would not like. Example: needing to DPS. Actually, healers don't need to DPS in this game. It's been mentioned multiple times. Healer DPS (and tank) is not configured into DPS requirements to clear fights, as mentioned by Yoshida- this includes Savage. Healer spells do not come with debuffs and only Holy comes with a utility that can be immensely useful on large pulls. All a healer needs to do is heal and be alert. Necessity and efficiency are not the same. Harassing people to start DPSing while on the healer role is a great way to turn people hostile and not want to explore. I also don't know how new a person is to healing (you can easily be level 60 and still be 'new' to healing, leveling is not hard in this game).

Don't get me wrong, I will always love the healer that can and does DPS, but I will love the healer that knows their limits. If they aren't able to DPS because of fear or some other judgement call, I'll appreciate that as well- I hate wiping more.