Where are all the healers?

[Penthea]

However, in the majority of other situations, having little or no room to DPS is the exception rather than the norm.

I'm increasingly finding out that this is the norm for trash wherever chain pulling is possible. Usually only on bosses do I get to do more than token dps.

[HoodRat]

I'm increasingly finding out that this is the norm for trash wherever chain pulling is possible. Usually only on bosses do I get to do more than token dps.

From my perspective, even when I give healers as much time as possible, they rarely use it. I usually get those that will idle/jump around, or more commonly ones that spam heal when I get to 90% hp. And then on those pulls with 3+ groups I always tell them I'm using Living Dead, and yet they continue to spam heal me. I even had a whm that used benediction as soon as I got walking dead, as if he didn't even want the ~8 seconds of heal free time.

[Cynfael]

But DPS skills - besides Assize, Energy Drain or Earthly Star - is not intended to help healers to heal. Gravity will keep tank from dying? No. Aero III will also cast Regen on the party, like Medica II does? No. And the side effects of some skills, I'm sure that some DPS can pull something that do the same.

It's this kind of feedback that blows my mind. I feel like I'm trying to explain that water is wet when I'm explaining to people how bringing targets to 0% HP is how you win virtually every encounter in the game and is thus a shared responsibility.

There isn't a role or a single combat Job that does not or should not deal damage as it is able. The distinction of the dedicated DPS role is that its primary consideration is attacking, while tanks control and healers restore HP as needed. While control is established and healing requirements are satisfied, the default state should generally be "hitting something."

I don't understand what is unreasonable or even undesirable about this.

[Sebazy]

Those cooldowns will help tankers to do their work. What's the tanker's work? Tank monsters. And what he must do?

Hi

You may have noticed that from time to time, you get 3 other individuals cramping your little party bar in the corner of your screen over there, perhaps on rare occasions, you might even have to share that space with 7 other individuals, the indignation of it all!

Fret no more tho! These are what's called teammates. Yes, you're part of a team now Harry.

One of the most fundamental aspects of being an effective and efficient team member is to share responsibilities and to be considerate towards those you're working with.

Going back to the Tank thing, for example, it's purely the tanks responsibility to keep agro right? So it's fine if I pre cast Medica II and regen everyone surely? It's not my problem! Naturally this is very very wrong. Agro is your responsibility to some degree as well as the DPS' also.

A Tank's core role might indeed be tanking, but it's also just as important for them to position, face and hold mobs considerately and thoughtfully. Once they've got that down, it's entirely possible for more advanced tanks to literally double their damage output with some thought and planning! Crikey!

A DPS' core role might indeed be hitting stuff, but they're also responsible for resource regeneration, important mitigation abilities, being considerate with their agro and switching between aoe or single target rotations wisely as well as the all important avoiding telegraphed damage!

A Healer's core role is indeed healing, but you'll go places if you think of yourself as more of a support. You've got many tools beyond your basic cures at your disposal to help make dungeons and raids go smoother, safer and more efficiently. Some of those tools are fantastically under utilised cooldowns, and if you look really hard, some might even involve DPS. I appreciate that that's it's whole scary new world out there buttercup, but let's not forget now. A dead mob does 0 damage.

[Tridus]

I don't understand what is unreasonable or even undesirable about this.

Well, people who signed up as healers thinking they'd be healing can take issue with how the game is designed, because they wanted to be healing and not be glorified DPS with absurdly simplistic gameplay (you can't even call it a "rotation"), and occasionally toss some heals. It's pretty easy to find other MMOs where healers are healing almost all the time as there simply isn't capacity for them to do significant DPS, and lots of people expect that when they see "healer".

But, they're talking about the game design they want, and not the one we have right now. With the one we have right now, you're going to wind up either doing DPS or standing around waiting a significant amount of the time. In that case, I'm not sure why it's more fun to stand around waiting. I don't tend to care a ton if people do stand around because I don't get that worked up about this stuff, but I don't really understand it aside from people new to playing healers. Those folks tend to be very worried about letting someone die and don't have the confidence & experience to push yet, and that's fine.

I think it's pretty easy to argue that this state of affairs is undesirable, given how dull healer DPS is and how it deemphasizes the healing aspect of healers, but it's an academic argument. The changes required to do anything about it are so big that it wouldn't be until the next expansion that we'd see it change, even if SE wanted to change it (and I haven't seen anything to suggest that they do).

[miraidensetsu]

In the end it's all very simple. Ask yourself: can I be helpful to my party by using this skill, and do I have the opportunity to do it in this situation? If the answer is yes, use it. There's really no sensible reason not to.

You sound like is just a matter of DPS doing some damage to help the group. It's not.

Healers have now a minimum DPS quota to meet. If each White Mage don't do at least 2,200 DPS on Omega, he is crap and therefore is kicked from the party. And if enrage kicks in, its the healer's fault. I saw some healers being kicked from groups like that because of this.

And that while some DPS doesn't give a damn to the equips or rotations, stands on the crap and blames healer when he dies. Later they ask where are the healers!?

[Taika]

Healers have now a minimum DPS quota to meet. If each White Mage don't do at least 2,200 DPS on Omega, he is crap and therefore is kicked from the party. And if enrage kicks in, its the healer's fault. I saw some healers being kicked from groups like that because of this.And that while some DPS doesn't give a damn to the equips or rotations, stands on the crap and blames healer when he dies. Later they ask where are the healers!?

I have to say I've never experienced either of these scenarios, from the time I've raided as healer myself (from 1.0 dungeons and primals to AS12) or now as a DD in Omega (currently on OS4). But then again I don't do raids with pickups. I have done extremes with pickups, as a healer and a DD, in SB, and have never even seen anyone mention healer DPS.

But I do know some party finder groups tend to set unrealistic expectations to their members ("no mistakes allowed! 5k dps or kick!"), and seeing those is fairly common. I have also heard that pickup groups can get really nasty, although again I've never experienced that myself. For difficult content, it is understandable to set certain DPS expectations for all party members - since the instances have enrage timers and everyone has to pull their weight. But placing those expectations ridiculously high or placing the burden on only certain members of the party is of course just silly.

In short, to me, and in my experience, it really is about expecting healer players, like all the others, to simply try to be useful and not categorically refuse from using a part of their toolkit out of some silly principle. For difficult content, the expectations are naturally higher because of what the content itself requires from the party. There are always players who will expect even more than that from their party members, but we are all free to either choose to or choose not to play with them.

Edit: Sorry but I have to call BS on your WHM DPS expectations. That would make them rank 97% in OS1 and OS2, 98% in OS3, and 99% in OS4. xD It's definitely not a "standard" to expect your WHM to be in the top 1% in the world for DPS.

[miraidensetsu]

-snip-

Please, drop the condescendent tone when you didn't understood what the issue is. That will not help on anything. One more time: the issue is not healer DPS'ing itself. Its ALL THE CRAP he must hear because he's not meeting some DPS quota while keeping everyone topped, even when some DPS insists on standing inside the bad or go to the dungeon undergeared.

That crap is why some healers went to DPS/Tank jobs, only heal to friends/static or just don't subbed anymore. And that crap is what you're feeding while is defending that healers should DPS, even YoshiP stating otherwise.

Thanks for being the part of the problem, not the solution.

P.S.: DPS is responsible for resource regeneration? Funny. I only received MP from a RDM on just one run. If I asked some help, they most always said "but mai deeeeeeps".

[Taika]

One more time: the issue is not healer DPS'ing itself. Its ALL THE CRAP he must hear because he's not meeting some DPS quota while keeping everyone topped, even when some DPS insists on standing inside the bad or go to the dungeon undergeared.

That crap is why some healers went to DPS/Tank jobs, only heal to friends/static or just don't subbed anymore. And that crap is what you're feeding while is defending that healers should DPS, even YoshiP stating otherwise.

Thanks for being the part of the problem, not the solution.

I think the problem is you're not really taking part in this discussion, as in actually responding to people and their points, but instead fighting against your personal negative experiences (that are something that many of us, who also play healers and have played them in this game for a long time in all levels of content, have never witnessed) which have nothing to do with the people you are "discussing" with here. And it's just ridiculous for you to claim "you're part of the problem!" of the bad healer treatment you seem to have experienced, to people who actually play healers themselves.

[miraidensetsu]

-snip-

But often happens with some friends of mine (that's also healers) that have the courage to do savage content via PUGs. The value is often less, but always significant.

And I took healer class because I want to help. I like to be useful. But I don't want to receive hate just because I done below top X% damage while I was actually keeping my teammates alive.

Mind that I'm not advocating for the right of doing nothing on downtime. I'm advocating the right to do something but DPS on downtime. But if the healer have nothing to do for the next, say, 15 seconds, and doing that won't hurt his resources so bad that he can't heal when needed, then why not DPS?

For a healer, healing always comes first, then support the party (buff, mitigate, etc), manage resources (MP, cards, stacks, etc) and, for the least, DPS. And that is why I said that healer DPS is a bonus. And is on that point that I feel that I'm being misunderstood by you and Sebazy.