Dear Healers who don't DPS

[Alisi]

In S/NES Era final fantasies where you had one character be a dedicated healer, you didn't just have them stand there for a turn when healing wasn't needed.

Why are we treating this game any different?

Except this isn't true at all. You absolutely did let the healer do nothing for a turn if there was no healing needed. Healers had no offensive spells, besides maybe holy. Back in the day, your MP didn't regen back. LOL. You didn't waste MP on spells. You either had your healer block or you had them beat the monster with their sticks (which would be like 1 damage so there was no difference.) Ethers were hard to come by and places to sleep/tent and save were rather rare too. The only dedicated healer that had offensive skills was probably Rose and who honestly depended on her DPS? LOL

[Archamgel]

Except this isn't true at all. You absolutely did let the healer do nothing for a turn if there was no healing needed. Healers had no offensive spells, besides maybe holy. Back in the day, your MP didn't regen back. LOL. You didn't waste MP on spells. You either had your healer block or you had them beat the monster with their sticks (which would be like 1 damage so there was no difference.) Ethers were hard to come by and places to sleep/tent and save were rather rare too. The only dedicated healer that had offensive skills was probably Rose and who honestly depended on her DPS? LOL

Except the part where you can solo FF1 as a Whm, and from then on you got some decent damage casters, such as in FF3 when you gave them the elemental staves to do damage when no healing was needed. Rose...eh...she was decent.

[Xtrasweettea]

Except this isn't true at all. You absolutely did let the healer do nothing for a turn if there was no healing needed. Healers had no offensive spells, besides maybe holy. Back in the day, your MP didn't regen back. LOL. You didn't waste MP on spells. You either had your healer block or you had them beat the monster with their sticks (which would be like 1 damage so there was no difference.) Ethers were hard to come by and places to sleep/tent and save were rather rare too. The only dedicated healer that had offensive skills was probably Rose and who honestly depended on her DPS? LOL

Your post reminds me of those "fake geek girl" memes. It doesn't sound like you have played the older games... you only looked up stuff on Final Fantasy Wiki.

FF1 NES: "Block" (defend) didn't exist. The closest thing you could do to wasting a turn in FF1 was using an Item that had no combat effet. WHM weapon damage was respectable at lower levels with their Hammers and some of the staves. Most of your damage as WHM came from items with combat effects (such as Thor's Hammer, Mage Staff, etc.) RDMs, which could also be used as full time healers, had very respectable weapon damage and could equip almost all of the best swords in the game. You didn't have to use any damage spells from RDM, it could be all saved for healing.

FF2 Famicom: Minwu, the White Wizard, melee damage was very respectable, and possibly was higher than Guy's damage, counting on how much grinding you did prior to acquiring Minwu. Guy would be the equivalent of the "brute" character archetype; high weapon damage, high defense, high HP, low agility, terrible at using spells. Also FF2 Famicom didn't have the Defend action...

FF3 Famicom: White Mage -> Devout weapon damage was "meh" but it was still better than wasting a turn (I don't believe Defend was still an option in FF3 on the Famicom, but I know the DS version did). Again, RDM had respectable weapon damage, especially in the DS version (who I chose over WHM and Devout). You could also supplement WHM/Devout damage with items that had combat effects.

FF4 SNES: You mainly used bow and arrows for Rosa's damage. You didn't use her spells for damage... which Holy was her only damage spell and she got it towards the end of the game. For Porom, she was gimped since her weapons couldn't produce damage abilities when used in battle, it was terrible melee damage or Defend. Even though these two aren't "healers", they are hybrids, both Tellah's and FuSuYa's damage could be supplemented with combat effects from Rods.

FF5 SNES: WHM damage was bad without any abilities from other jobs set. Though, in that game, you didn't stick to a job all the way to the end of the game, you rotated jobs to acquire different skills. It is possible to have a WHM with the ability to do good weapon/bare hand damage with the right ability combinations.