Dear Healers who don't DPS

[Gunnie]

I constantly see the argument that content isn't designed with healer DPS in mind. However assisting your group to the best of your abilities (this goes for all classes) does smooth out a dungeon/raid/etc. No one's in a rush to get to the end, but actively assisting your group with always casting something beneficial (heals if required, DPS if people don't need healing) seems the best way to do it.

This is in the same camp as NIN's using their Shadewalker, melee DPS in general using Goad on the correct person, bards using their songs correctly. Do what's best for your group.

[Taika]

However assisting your group to the best of your abilities (this goes for all classes) does smooth out a dungeon/raid/etc. No one's in a rush to get to the end, but actively assisting your group with always casting something beneficial (heals if required, DPS if people don't need healing) seems the best way to do it.

This is in the same camp as NIN's using their Shadewalker, melee DPS in general using Goad on the correct person, bards using their songs correctly. Do what's best for your group.

Exactly. This is the whole point: when in group content requiring team play, all party members should (at least try to) do what's best for their group. This is a simple principle, and if everyone would try to follow it, no matter what their job, we would spare ourselves from many pointless arguments. And there really isn't any sensible reason not to do this.

[Ghishlain]

If there's a healer (or tank!) who refuses to do any DPS, a BRD who refuses to use any of their support abilities, a BLM who refuses to use their fire spells - after being asked to by their party members, the party has every right to remove the party member who refuses to co-operate. I don't think there's anything extreme about removing a player from a group if the player is refusing to be helpful to their party (I do think the post you quoted was offensively worded though). And surely even you will expect these things from your tanks, BRDs and BLMs (just not from your healers...)?

If a discussion was made and people refused to change, I could see the argument go either way with my vote going towards the person who is more respectful. I can appreciate there will be differing opinions and am a person who would encourage walking away from the problem if it's clear it can't be solved in a civilized way.

For me, if a DPS is doing basic DPS things, I wouldn't care less if they used their support abilities. Sure it would be nice, but my expectation is pretty low from the overall community. I also tend to commend those players who I can see are being more active and making use of the full depth of their kit compared to the normal PuG player and just ignore those players that are performing at the baseline of success.

The comment I quoted gave me the impression that they would kick a healer by the first boss if said healer contributed no DPS to the group. To me that's an extreme decision to make.

We're not talking about some ridiculously high standard for expectation, though. All that's being asked (and, again, feel free to point out if I seem to be wrong with this) is for party members to try to be active and use all of their helpful abilities instead of refusing to be helpful. What's being asked from healers specifically is that they would try to be as active as their DD and tank team members instead of choosing to stand there doing nothing (or spamming useless abilities = overhealing). There's nothing "entitled" about asking each party member to try and be useful to their team. If anything, refusing to be helpful when you could, for no reason whatsoever other than you don't want to, and asking your party members to work harder than you seems much more "entitled" to me.

I'm not talking about some ridiculously high standard either actually. Just expecting someone to play at a standard dramatically different from your own which can apply to both ends of the spectrum (ie, someone who tells a DPS healer to stop DPSing despite the healer keeping everyone above 50% health all the time). It just so happens that because the Healer bar is so low that there's such a huge spectrum of skill and comfort levels that this discussion comes into play much more often than for tanks and DPS.

I believe each role has a different level of activity necessary to complete the content and I'm not going to expect healer's to match that level of activity knowing full well their activity floor is significantly lower than their DPS and tank counterparts. However to quote both your points below:

If anything, refusing to be helpful when you could, for no reason whatsoever other than you don't want to, and asking your party members to work harder than you seems much more "entitled" to me.

I really don't get this. I expect my healers to DPS (when they can) just like I expect my bards to sing requiem, ranged DPS in general provide MP and TP, melees to goad and so on. All jobs should be expected, not just encouraged, to use their helpful abilities, although it doesn't hurt to present this expectation to them in an encouraging manner.

I find both of these types of people to be quite entitled because you're enforcing your expectations onto others.

What's funny is I actually get madder at "raid healers" who believe they are the best things since sliced bread and actively refuse to help heal with their healing partner versus healer's that provide little to no DPS to the group.

I always do feel its important for players to continually strive for improvement but I'm not going to go out of my way to point out the flaws of your play unless you ask me for advice. There's not really a lot of time for that in a DR, unfortunately.

[Sebazy]

What's funny is I actually get madder at "raid healers" who believe they are the best things since sliced bread and actively refuse to help heal with their healing partner versus healer's that provide little to no DPS to the group.

I relish that and have always tried to pair up with the most DPS heavy healers I can in statics. The less they heal, the more I've got to sink my teeth into. For the most part it's not often that I need anything more than barriers for certain mechanics. Outside of Savage it's rare to even need that much.

[Ghishlain]

I relish that and have always tried to pair up with the most DPS heavy healers I can in statics. The less they heal, the more I've got to sink my teeth into. For the most part it's not often that I need anything more than barriers forcertain mechanics. Outside of Savage it's rare to even need that much.

At one point during a O1N spree I was in, I was paired with another WHM that had a rather heft amount of HP. I examined them and found they had VIT melded into their accessories which made me happy because to me that screams "RAIDER!" to help survive mechanics at low ilvl (this was the first week of Savage release) and would understand the dynamic of healers helping each other to optimize both HPS and DPS uptime.

What I got was a WHM partner who ended up only having something like a 30% Regen uptime and I don't even think they used their first oGCD heal until the second Charbridias (or however its spelt) came out. They just tunneled DPS so hard and it wasn't fun for me because they were making no effort to help out with their healing responsibilities and we were taking a lot of damage overall due to the party members failing mechanics pretty consistently.

I'm pretty certain even though you handle the bulk of healing your partner isn't actively trying to shirk their responsibilities either and know when and where they need to help out. I don't mind a solid healing challenge personally (I really want to solo heal some of these Savage fights) but I dislike elites who refuse to even remotely acknowledge their primary function.