Will Healers Still be Forced to DPS in 4.0 Due to Lax Content?

[Lastelli]

Still, there must be something about the df system in this game that causes people to obsess over the concept of "role", rather than look at their job's toolkit to see what they bring to a party.

There are many people that stress the importance of role and job identity. I suppose it's kind of a philosophical thing. If you choose to be a healer because you want to heal, being dissatisfied because in casual content healing is so easy and you can dps as a healer 80% of the time is understandable. On the other hand one can't simply ignore how this specific game is designed. And this game is designed in such a way that doing damage as a healer is the optimal thing to do under the constraint that you must keep your party alive.

[Marcu18]

I dps as a healer: Sch-little to moderately, whom and ast- a little. Not everyone is comfortable with. We healers can go above and beyond and I do. I'm not giving healers the legitimacy to be lazy for God doesn't condone laziness. However be understanding of other people

[Crewman]

I say people just should get over the idea that healers must DPS all the time. If the job was meant to be a healer, then let the damn job heal. Where this idea of "only healing is boring or lazy" came from is beyond me, but some of us actually enjoy being the person to keep a team rolling and feel that we did enough. If you have time to throw in some damage attacks between healing then go for it, but those that would call it a requirement, I say prove it. If your under geared that's your problem, not the healers. If you can't finish before the timers without your healer(s) applying DPS, I'd say the root of the problem isn't the healer. If players these days just absolutely cannot stand the idea of not playing a job that has DPS with it, then why not just let everyone do their own healing and phase out healing classes entirely. That seems to be what people are rooting for.

[LegoTechnic]

I say people just should get over the idea that healers must DPS all the time. If the job was meant to be a healer, then let the damn job heal. Where this idea of "only healing is boring or lazy" came from is beyond me, but some of us actually enjoy being the person to keep a team rolling and feel that we did enough. If you have time to throw in some damage attacks between healing then go for it, but those that would call it a requirement, I say prove it. If your under geared that's your problem, not the healers. If you can't finish before the timers without your healer(s) applying DPS, I'd say the root of the problem isn't the healer. If players these days just absolutely cannot stand the idea of not playing a job that has DPS with it, then why not just let everyone do their own healing and phase out healing classes entirely. That seems to be what people are rooting for.

It is only a requirement in progression raiding, specifically in tiers like Alexander Gordias and Midas that had excessively restrictive DPS checks, but also in the second coil of Bahamut, and even then it was only required if pushing for the earliest possible clear at lower gear levels. It is never "required" in other gameplay, but standing around and being inactive is lazy and not encouraged. To healer's detriment when a healer plays lazy it is very noticeable whereas one might need to pay direct attention to notice a DPS "phoning it in" or to check whether a tank is bothering to use their cooldown abilities, but the same tenants stand. You can get through an encounter with bad players, but you'll get through it easier with good ones.

As long as healable damage is the punishment for failing mechanics you will always need healers, and that need will continue to diminish the more competent the group becomes at avoiding them. Thus the better the group, the more free-time a healer will have, and that's just part of the game design. I can spend entire fights just healing and ressing in Weeping City sometimes, and others the most I'd have to throw out is an indomitibility here and there, as it's very dependent on what you have to work with. The alternative to this is to have fights with punishment mechanics where failing an AoE gives you weakness debuffs, but I don't expect anyone wants this type of game design. Even Guild Wars 2, a game specifically advertised as to not require healers in group content, requires healer-specced classes in group content because of the damage model.

[Crewman]

I will just hang up my healing jobs then. I have no will, nor want, to be looked upon as lazy because a healing class is healing. If I have to do damage in some manner, I'd rather be effective at it with a DPS job rather than pseudo DD because that makes sense. So in their efforts to make the healing jobs more "interesting" or "fun", they've lost all interest I've had. These are personal opinions, but if I miss a heal because I was busy DPSing with WHM, I will be frowned upon for that as well. So why bother..

[AlphaSonic]

I will just hang up my healing jobs then. I have no will, nor want, to be looked upon as lazy because a healing class is healing. If I have to do damage in some manner, I'd rather be effective at it with a DPS job rather than pseudo DD because that makes sense. So in their efforts to make the healing jobs more "interesting" or "fun", they've lost all interest I've had. These are personal opinions, but if I miss a heal because I was busy DPSing with WHM, I will be frowned upon for that as well. So why bother..

Wow ok werk.

[Crewman]

Wow ok werk.

I fail to understand your humor. To me it's a sad excuse for poor design. Played many years of FFXI without the need of this kind of involvement and that's when I enjoyed it. If you enjoy your job being a mix of healing and damage good for you. Not all of us agree nor will we.

[Cynfael]

I will just hang up my healing jobs then. I have no will, nor want, to be looked upon as lazy because a healing class is healing. If I have to do damage in some manner, I'd rather be effective at it with a DPS job rather than pseudo DD because that makes sense. So in their efforts to make the healing jobs more "interesting" or "fun", they've lost all interest I've had. These are personal opinions, but if I miss a heal because I was busy DPSing with WHM, I will be frowned upon for that as well. So why bother..

If the previous thousands of pages of discussion on the theory and practicum of the effective weaving of DPS and healing actions haven't helped people get the idea, I got nothing else to offer.

[Crewman]

If the previous thousands of pages of discussion on the theory and practicum of the effective weaving of DPS and healing actions haven't helped people get the idea, I got nothing else to offer.

It's not my idea of what a healing class should be, and as I stated it's a personal opinion. No need to offer anything.

[MoroMurasaki]

It's not my idea of what a healing class should be, and as I stated it's a personal opinion. No need to offer anything.

But isn't it just less fun? With all this talk around healer DPS I even think about this debate while I'm playing and one of the conclusions I came to is if I wasn't doing any damage I would be just kinda standing there waiting for my team to take damage. Is that what you do? I don't mean to offend you but the requirements for healing are just so light I can't help but feel that has to be so boring. Especially (ironically) when you have a good group who kill things fast and don't eat avoidable damage.