Dear Healers who don't DPS

[Elamys]

Content is tuned at ilvl 330

Groups start attempting content at ilvl 320.

Healer DPS will be required for the later turns usually until you have a month or so of tome gear under your belts. More so if your DPS aren't top notch

I'm sorry if you really can't grasp this.

Do you realize how few people push raids at minimum ilvl? A few hardcore statics using healer DPS to push fights in the lowest possible gear does not constitute "fight is designed for healer DPS" which is a fact that is literally addressed in that quote. I'm really sorry if you can't grasp that.

[Lyrai_Celestine]

Things are different in savage. If your group needs the DPS to pass, than it needs the DPS to pass. But you also need to analyze more than just the numbers, you also need to look at the environment: is the WHM doing most of the healing?

My WHM's doing most of the healing, yet my SCH heals at almost the same rate. Still, you're right. I guess I should really tell the healer to improve DPS, but only when we die at enrage even with our best efforts and with no deaths. Healer DPS will be last scenario for me.

Thanks for the advice.

[Sebazy]

Do you realize how few people push raids at minimum ilvl? A few hardcore statics using healer DPS to push fights in the lowest possible gear does not constitute "fight is designed for healer DPS" which is a fact that is literally addressed in that quote. I'm really sorry if you can't grasp that.

A few statics?

Lets see now. Logs has 1114 unique groups listed with an O3S kill and 261 groups with O4S, that's not including successive kills, pugs or groups that just don't bother uploading, not to mention that's merged some FC's with multiple teams into one.

Let me make this as simple as I can for you:

The encounters are designed around a DPS baseline, if your group doesn't meet that, you may need your healers to help you get there.

Your obsession with 'THIS ISN'T DESIGNED FOR HEALER DPS' is a narrow minded viewpoint that is entirely missing the point. Healer DPS, Tank DPS, DPS DPS, it's all irrelevant. What matters here is the combined DPS of your entire group.

Does your group hit the check? If so, fantastic, GJ, heres hoping for good drops.

If you don't hit the check, you've got options. More casual groups might wait for more gear via tomes and early turn drops. Whereas more progression orientated groups (And there's more than a few) will turn to their healers and tanks to make up the gap rather than waiting until they have more gear down the line.

Are encounters designed for healer DPS? No, the caveat here of course is the level that the encounter was tuned to vs what you'll have when the content patch hits. Gordias was the most standout example of a tier with a bar that was set too high, whereas many would argue that with Creator, the bar was set too low. Where an individual's static sits in relation to that bar is what defines their healer dps requirements, not you, not I, nor anything anyone else preaches on this thread.

Do I need to DPS as a healer in my savage group? Yes? No? Both are the wrong answer. In reality the correct answer is much more complex.

The days of Gordias and Midas are long gone, early progression rewards flexibility as much as it does raw skill and gear. Stop thinking in hard black and white terms and look at the big picture for a minute.

Does that make sense to you?

As a side note, I'll also add that ironically, I think it was Yoshida refusing to factor in healer DPS that caused many of the issues with Creator and Zurvan in particular. Being able to push a phase early and skip key encounter gimmicks and in some cases, entire phases is one thing when you're overgearing an encounter. But it's entirely another thing when you're doing it within the first week or two because your group is putting out significantly more damage than the designers planned for. Thankfully it doesn't look like SE made the same mistake with Omega (Or my group sucks).

So, I encountered a case where one of my healer (WHM) deals way less damage than a melee LB3 in a Savage raid, at around 1/3rd of an LB3. The other healer (SCH) deals twice the LB3 damage. I heard that the O3S and O4S will only have tougher DPS checks.

Things are different in savage. If your group needs the DPS to pass, than it needs the DPS to pass. But you also need to analyze more than just the numbers, you also need to look at the environment: is the WHM doing most of the healing?

As above, look at more than just the raw DPS numbers, if the WHM is carrying the healing then the SCH may need to help more for the WHM to start pushing out more DPS. Sometimes you may need to get your tanks to play a little more cautiously to help things overall as well.

Lastly, it's do keep in mind that by pressuring them to do more DPS, you'll likely be upsetting and shifting their flow of play. If your group is hitting enrage and needs the extra DPS then it's something that'll need to be done. If you haven't hit enrage yet then putting pressure on them is just as likely to cause additional mistakes and wipes as they readjust and get comfortable again. You guys need to be sure that it's even going to be needed in the first place and that the initial fallout will be tolerable.

If they themselves want to try to push a bit more DPS, suggest they focus on getting into the habit of maintaining dots. Aero II can be thrown during movement with very little thought, and once you've got that down, it's pretty easy to start finding windows to keep Aero III ticking away as well.

Looks like you've got the right idea on it tho, good luck with O3, it's fantastic encounter imo.

[Kanitezz]

Everytime you guys talk about faster runs, it ALMOST makes playing the game sound like a chore.

[Ghishlain]

Speaking of the thread, I have a question that might be useful to all of us:

So, I encountered a case where one of my healer (WHM) deals way less damage than a melee LB3 in a Savage raid, at around 1/3rd of an LB3. The other healer (SCH) deals twice the LB3 damage. I heard that the O3S and O4S will only have tougher DPS checks. The problem is how I should approach this problem. Should I really tell this healer to output more DPS at this point? On a base scale, how much DPS does a healer need in Savage raids in order to be more passable in terms of team contribution?

Any help would be appreciated.

My rule of thumb with my group is "mechanics first, DPS second". You won't even get to enrage if everyone is dying left, right, and center to mechanics. However, with understanding of the mechanics you'll also have an understanding of the best ways to optimize for DPS and healing and coordinating mechanics in such a way to minimize DPS loss as best as you can.

In the case of your healers, I would look first at how much they're both healing for and how much of it is overheal and how much healing is split between the two as well. There are two important things here: (1) making sure both healers are comfortable doing what they're doing and (2) ensuring there isn't wasted GCDs on overhealing so both can focus more attention to DPS if you need that extra umph to hit the DPS check. It's important to work towards both healer's comfort level. While it's more optimized to have both DPS hard and heal equally, it might not be the most beneficial way to run your particular pair of healers.

For example, in my static the AST I'm partnered with would rather heal more than DPS. This leads us to have more of a 40-45% split of me healing and 55-60% of them healing which allows me to focus more DPS uptime which in turn also means our DPS difference is fairly high - especially when you compare WHM personal DPS versus AST. What's important for me here is this works for us, we're both comfortable, and we've made it to O4S and going through that too.

What I'm getting at is you don't necessarily have to tell your healers "Man up and git gud" but you may have to coach them to work together and see what they can do together and optimize together. Minimize overheal and maximize healing CDs to meet the healing checks then spend the rest of the time burning GCDs for DPS to help the group meet the DPS check. You can still work within the confines of the WHM healing > SCH healing, you just need to minimize "waste" as best as you can.

[Leigaon]

I do everything in my power to give you breathing room. I use my Def GCD's liberally, rotating them...

You do, but others do not. You're making this out as an issue that can be pointed to a single thing. Unfortunately, it's not. Take into consideration the other things besides healers being lazy.

* Tanks who run and don't use proper cool down management

* Tanks who don't stay in their stances at the right times. (Switching from DPS to Tank stance is fine but only if you're able to maintain yourself for the opening)

* DPS who stand in harms way. Low DPS also can contribute to needing to heal more if some of the other conditions apply.

* With taking in consideration one or more of the above, there's also some mobs that in a pack make things harder and need to die and they're ignored making some things harder.

The list goes on, and yes some can be lazy by nature. Also some have played way too much and that encourages laziness. You should deal with this per healer in your party. Also consider helping others out to make the healer have that gap like you do. You shouldn't be facing just healers. Turn around and look at your tanks. Don't worry, I took up WAR for my main for 4.0 so I'll slap on my banana hammock, lather myself in oil and grab my g.axe and will help teach the world too...except DRG's they're a lost cause.

[Elamys]

snip

the argument we're posing here isn't about the group's overall dps. it's if, when the fight is being balanced, that the devs say "okay, the amount of dps you need can't be reached by dps alone, so do we include healer dps in here as a requirement to meet the minimum, or do we lower the requirement so that it can be reached with only the dps doing damage?" And the statement we've been given is that, no, you do not NEED your healers to dps unless your group is cutting edge, at minimum ilvl. For the vast majority of the game's players, you do not NEED healer DPS to pass because by the time you reach it, you've already passed the minimum ilvl.

[Taika]

the argument we're posing here isn't about the group's overall dps. it's if, when the fight is being balanced, that the devs say "okay, the amount of dps you need can't be reached by dps alone, so do we include healer dps in here as a requirement to meet the minimum, or do we lower the requirement so that it can be reached with only the dps doing damage?" And the statement we've been given is that, no, you do not NEED your healers to dps unless your group is cutting edge, at minimum ilvl. For the vast majority of the game's players, you do not NEED healer DPS to pass because by the time you reach it, you've already passed the minimum ilvl.

They don't mean you need healer DPS at the minimum item level requirement of the content. They mean you need healer DPS until you are higher item level than what's available to you when the content is released. For example, when Omega Savage came out, the item level available for players was around 320. But the fights are balanced to be beaten at let's say (because they haven't given us the specifics) i330 (or higher), and even then only when your DDs and tanks are pushing 85-90% of their maximum possible performance. Those are the circumstances in which the fights are balanced by developers to be beaten without healer DPS.

Yoshida: Yes. Since all DPS jobs will be increasing up through level 60, it makes sense to have the white mage's DPS extend by a proportional amount as well. For development, such as with Bahamut's Coils, the development team assumes what the item level should be for general equipment on players when they clear a raid. They sum up the basic DPS for four DPS and tanks at that assumed item level and cut that by about 10-15% for the minimum clear DPS. Healer DPS is not taken into account when this is set.

Certainly for people who are at world's first level, their goal is to clear it at as low an item level as possible, lower than the one assumed during development. So if you look at the fight and figure out that if it's not numerically possible to clear with four DPS and tanks, you'll need to make up the gap with DPS from healers.

Source: https://www.bluegartr.com/threads/125732-Game-Watch-Translation-Yoshida-Interview-on-Heavensward-%28EU-Media-Event-5-19%29

Currently, the great majority of the players doing that content are below the designed item level. And even at that item level, it's really not fair to ask your tanks and DDs to push for 85-90% optimal performance while the healers are somewhere below 50%.

[Elamys]

Right, but this discussion wasn't really about Savage to begin with. It's just the idea if the fights are overall designed with the intent of healers to DPS, and they aren't. If your group needs the healer DPS to clear, by all means they should be DPSing, but that's a different animal than DF, where 99% of the "why aren't my healers DPSing!!!" complaints come from.

[Taika]

It's just the idea if the fights are overall designed with the intent of healers to DPS, and they aren't.

It doesn't matter if the fights are designed to require healer DPS or not. Healers, as all other party members, should do their best to be effective team members and help their group, no matter if it's absolutely required for the win or not. And healer roles in this game are designed to include strong DPS abilities, and the content is designed in a way that healers will only need to use limited time on healing and have a lot of free time to DPS.