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

[LegoTechnic]

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..

No one should criticize you for healing. If you overheal with reckless, spammy abandon, then yes, that's wasteful, and if you stand around and do nothing while watching the health meters then that is also wasteful. While waiting for a need to heal, go ahead and throw out a DPS spell or two, and be free to interrupt those casts if you have to redirect your attention. Be proactive when not reactive.

FFXIV is built upon a design precept of "avoidable raid damage", with giant telegraphs and mechanics-dances that when done properly severely reduce the amount of healing required. While there is always unavoidable raid damage, most of the time even mistakes can be healed. In World of Warcraft's earlier expansions this wasn't the case, as moves had no telegraph. When Al'ar dropped a circle of fire, the only indicator you got was the active fire under your feet, and even if you moved the second you noticed you still took a tick of damage. Other fights were structured like the Black Temple Council where you could mitigate damage with strategy by assigning specific tanks to decrease aspects of the fight, but damage was otherwise unavoidable and constant, with an untankable boss hitting random raid party targets while the other three kept constant damage on their tanks. FFXIV doesn't go this route though, and prefers to reward being able to dodge mechanics, making it play quite differently from MMOs of old.

That is most certainly not a bad thing and it makes for much more enjoyable encounters, however the downside is that with better play comes less healing need, at which time a healer has to ask themself "what could I be doing at this moment other than waiting for the next tank buster?" Fortunately in FFXIV you have decent options that won't either do negligible plink damage like heal-specs in WoW or run you dry of mana unless you go excessive with it, so you can freely throw out some damage to help the encounter along when things are going well and you aren't immediately worried about someone keeling over.

[Lildragora]

Follow the ABCs of any spell slinger. Always Be Casting. If you have downtime to deal damage do so. Who cares what people say, we were never forced to DPS. No one can FORCE you to DPS. They can ask you heavily or lightly or preassure you but it is ultimately healer choice. That being said, I always dps when I can and usually run on the riskier side of healing (ie party hp drops and no immediate heals) but if you are familiar with the fights, and you know when you need that HP to be up then oh well. I dont remember the last time i've had a wipe in a dungeon despite this (not counting bad tanks). Play how you want and if the party fails the dps check and you didnt dps it's still the DPS responsibility to put out the numbers.

Of course some fights come to mind where the above does not apply in HW even though officially thats not the case. Some of the Alex duties in particular. Just my perspective on the whole deal.

[Crewman]

To answer the previous questions directed at me, this is nothing more than drastic change I do not like. I know this change isn't new (WHM had damage spells in 1.0 as well) however it wasn't anywhere near the caliber it is now. I can understand the need to contribute to the party, but as I stated, I do not want to do it as a healer even though I find healing to be fun. I know a lot of these design changes carried over from the late years of FFXI where soloing had more importance and they wanted to do the same in XIV, but being able to dish out the damage and heal at the same time is just unappealing to me. I may sound brash and apologize, but I do not like what they did to WHM, and I never will. I will say, I've had plenty of complaints coming back from 1.0 about how I conduct my WHM, and it's just been nothing but a turn off. I appreciate the constructive criticism from a few of you, but I have plenty of DPS jobs I enjoy and a lot of people just have sucky attitudes anymore.

[Aquaslash]

Friendly neighborhood DD here just saying that I have seen a marked increase in DPSing healers, specifically White Mages. Stones and Holies EVERYWHERE, and I've yet to die from anything aside from tanks pulling what can only be described as the population of Balmung.

Guess it isn't so bad after all

[MoroMurasaki]

Friendly neighborhood DD here just saying that I have seen a marked increase in DPSing healers, specifically White Mages. Stones and Holies EVERYWHERE, and I've yet to die from anything aside from tanks pulling what can only be described as the population of Balmung.

Guess it isn't so bad after all

I could not like this post more. Thank you!

Point blank if you don't DPS as a healer in SB (and aren't fresh off a leveling potion) I feel like healing isn't for you. Be a multitasker or go DPS where at least you can focus on one thing and do it well. Lore is not an excuse. RPing is not an excuse. There is no excuse (beyond being in the awkward period where you're training up a healer now who used level jump and still need to get a hang of things) that exists outside of your tank/party taking too much damage to heal through to not put out reasonable healer DPS.

If you are standing there doing nothing you are doing a bad job.