Dear Healers who don't DPS

[Ghishlain]

Who is saying a healers who don't DPS are causing their groups to fail (outside of Savage context where it may be true)?

I too am advocating acceptance and understanding of all levels of play skill and comfort, for all jobs. The only thing I have an issue with is when people (again, on any job) are flat out refusing to be helpful for their group - when they would be able to do so (when they are comfortable with the content, skilled and experienced, no one is in any danger and so on). What is asked from healers here, and what is asked from everyone else, is to try to be helpful to put in some effort for the party. This has been repeated in these discussions again, and again, and again:

You may feel like you're being enlightened and having a good time playing the devil's advocate, but to me it looks like you're just blindly swinging a sword against a strawman you have built yourself.

My example is indeed hyperbolic but there would be a handful of people on both sides of the fence that would boot for zero-DPS and doing-DPS as a healer, unfortunately. You just need to look at that quote I linked in an earlier post and the quoted "oragami tank" earlier to see examples of both.

My argument comes out as a Strawman because I am focusing on that point intentionally and not for the sake of attacking the weakest point though.

For example, let's say arbitrarily by design of the developers a player can be successful at the following skill level percentiles:

Healers - 20 percentile
DPS - 40 percentile
Tanks - 50 percentile

With this design in mind, 80 percent of the healer players can play at a level deemed acceptable by the developers.

By expecting everyone to play at the 50th percentile, you've effectively labelled everyone within the 20-50 mark as "unacceptable" which runs contrary to you advocating acceptance and understanding.

This is the point I'm trying to make with my assessment.

I believe in player growth but I also believe in accepting everyone plays at a specific level and shouldn't labelled as unacceptable for not playing at someone's expected level. Once again, this runs both ways with healer-DPS players believing players beneath them are bad and no-DPS players believing optimal healers are the scum of the Earth.

That's my point.

You are conflating two different arguments. No one here is mandating healers DPS indifferent to what happens around them. Someone saying, "Sorry! Someone came to the door" is far different than someone standing around doing nothing. If you aren't communicating, I have no way of knowing your extenuating circumstances nor do I care. You haven't given me a reason to. All I see is your lack of contribution. Likewise, I have more patience with low level players or those new to content than I would someone with multiple 70s and/or 320+ gear. If you're stepping into Ala Mhigo, you should have a good understanding healers DPS in FFXIV. That is hardly a lot to ask of someone at max level. Once I again, I direct you to my post, which you didn't address in your response to Taika.

why must a healer DPS?
why must a tanks use cooldowns/maintain tank stance?
why must DPS avoid unnecessary damage when it won't kill them?

You cannot defend one without simultaneously acknowledging the others. If there is no argument for healer DPS; there isn't one for proper tank mitigation. I can take Halicarnassus' Critical Hit with just Awareness, but doing so puts a massive strain on the healers. I make your job easier yet you won't reciprocate with DPS when possible, which may allow us to push passed mechanics. In the case of casual content, healer DPS contribution allows for a faster run.

Equality relative to the respective roles. I certainly wouldn't care if a healer has less casts overall than a Samurai, but it is annoying if they spend all those casts on pointless Cure Is when I have 90% HP and am in no danger of dying. These healers are bad because they are refusing to improve and accept FFXIV is not WoW. You have considerably more downtime and easier time healing. No one is asking for you to top the FFlog charts, we're asking you throw out a Holy, Gravity or some dots. If you cannot be bothered to do that at level 70, you aren't a good healer in FFXIV. At best, you're decent at half the job. Will I kick them from casual content? Rarely. I'll just pull more and/or drop stance to make up some of the damage. When it comes to savage, I won't join statics where healers aren't DPSing. This is assuming, of course, everyone knows the fight already. Conservative play during prog is perfectly understandable.

Tanks not using CDs or maintaining tank stance and DPS who take avoidable damage are directly stressing the healer role. However, a healer not DPSing only stresses the healer themselves directly as they have to the deal with the additional damage that occurs as the fight goes on.

And I'm asking the community to accept that yes, there will be zero-DPS healers and they will exist. You need not to embrace them but you shouldn't go around belittling them either. They're not playing at your expected level of skill but they're not causing a failed run either. If you really wish to avoid them, and of course them to avoid you, all parties looking to avoid these potential risks should just run PFs / with FCs and friends.

These attitudes are why many who are viewed as "non dps" advocates are, I feel, actually aiming for a middle ground, like myself and Ghishlain.

It's actually funny because I am advocating understanding for both the zero-DPS and healer-DPS side of the equation but because of my position I'm fairly certain I'm labelled as a zero-DPS advocate despite the fact I absolute love playing at the highest optimizations of play as a healer.

C'est la vie? /thnk

[Taika]

For example, let's say arbitrarily by design of the developers a player can be successful at the following skill level percentiles:

Healers - 20 percentile
DPS - 40 percentile
Tanks - 50 percentile

With this design in mind, 80 percent of the healer players can play at a level deemed acceptable by the developers.

By expecting everyone to play at the 50th percentile, you've effectively labelled everyone within the 20-50 mark as "unacceptable" which runs contrary to you advocating acceptance and understanding.

So if I'm understanding this correctly, you are arguing that the base standard for healer play should be set significantly lower than for DDs and tanks, and that asking healer players to contribute at similar (skill / activity) level than others is being unreasonable? That doesn't make any sense to me and also reads as more than a little condescending towards the players who are choosing this particular role.

[Sebazy]

If anything, I'd say the percentile requirements for mainstream content are actually the opposite way round. DPS only really get held to account once you hit Savage. I've never seen enrage on Lakshmi (granted I also very rarely bother pugging it) and I've maybe seen enrage on Susano once? As I noted in another thread here, you almost need to be trolling to cause a genuine issue in a dungeon as a DPS now.

By comparison, a fresh 60 healing SB's current expert dungeon needs to have a pretty good idea of how their oGCDs and cooldowns work if they want to keep up with a tank intending to pull more than a pack at a time.

Whilst my sample size is too small to draw any real conclusion from, if I look back over my logs, the standard of DPS seems to be going backwards again, whilst most pug healers I get have actually been pretty decent.

[Miste]

you think putting them on blast because they aren't speed running things for you is going to make things better or faster?

So...what about just requesting politely for the healer to DPS some to help the group if you notice they are standing idle with nothing to heal 50-80% of a fight or run?

I don't think anyone here is advocating "putting them on blast" just because they aren't DPSing. (at least my definition of "putting them on blast" means you'd basically be verbally harassing them for it. I don't think anyone here is saying you should open up a swearing and rude tirade rant on the healer...simply asking though I don't see how there is a problem with that.)

[Ghishlain]

So if I'm understanding this correctly, you are arguing that the base standard for healer play should be set significantly lower than for DDs and tanks, and that asking healer players to contribute at similar (skill / activity) level than others is being unreasonable? That doesn't make any sense to me and also reads as more than a little condescending towards the players who are choosing this particular role.

You said it yourself in your HW video - healers have something like 17% active uptime while purely healing. Which means they only need 17% activity to be successful at a baseline level. I never set the base standard that low, the developers did.

By stating that you feel healers should play at the same base activity level as everyone else, you're effectively also stating everyone playing below that level is playing at an unacceptable level despite how contrary that runs with developer design.

Is it wrong for the bar to be set that low? Perhaps so. I would never play at that low caliber of skill, but I can also accept not everyone plays at an equal skill level as well.

Put bluntly, I am basically condemning people who believe that, despite being in a party that would successfully clear content, would also openly state that a player is "bad" and "terrible" because they don't play at level acceptable to themselves.

Stop thinking of my argument as a means of belittling the higher skilled players - start thinking of my argument as me giving a universal condemnation to players who openly belittle other players for not playing at their level. This is a two way street and applies to both no-DPS healers who antagonize healers who DPS and healer-DPS who openly provide condescending remarks towards their lower skilled peers. Both are equally as terrible in my mind.

I understand your point and the people who agree with you clearly and I disagree with it on the premise that if you're bringing forth expectations that run contrary to the developer's design, you're effectively showing a lack of acceptance and understanding towards players who don't play like you.

This just leads back to my original train of thought a long time ago - encourage sprout healers to grow and play better, don't force your expectations upon them and expect them to be happy with the situation you're putting them under.

If anything, I'd say the percentile requirements for mainstream content are actually the opposite way round. DPS only really get held to account once you hit Savage. I've never seen enrage on Lakshmi (granted I also very rarely bother pugging it) and I've maybe seen enrage on Susano once? As I noted in another thread here, you almost need to be trolling to cause a genuine issue in a dungeon as a DPS now.

By comparison, a fresh 60 healing SB's current expert dungeon needs to have a pretty good idea of how their oGCDs and cooldowns work if they want to keep up with a tank intending to pull more than a pack at a time.

Whilst my sample size is too small to draw any real conclusion from, if I look back over my logs, the standard of DPS seems to be going backwards again, whilst most pug healers I get have actually been pretty decent.

I'm not too surprised about your observation, to be honest. We're probably seeing less of the good DPS run EX since they're either running with friends / FCs or have everything they would like at this point in the patch cycle and have no desire to run as a DPS anymore and potentially running as a tank and healer instead. This leaves those who might be leveling DPS as a secondary role or those playing catch up and still trying to learn the kit left which would mean an overall decrease in average skill level for DPS.

I do feel the stress a healer feels is more exponential during mass pulls versus their DPS and tank counterparts but if they focus on purely healing, they'll be able to get through it too with not so many issues with the caveat being the tank is capped in gear.

[Trunks]

The healer role is always going to have more stress placed upon it because you are directly responsible for the survival of the group. The only way this will ever change is if you eliminate healing as a role or if there's a problem-solving Renaissance.

A good example is mid-phase OV3S when the Apanda spawns and there's a lot of movement/mechanics happening simultaneously with both heavy tank damage and raid damage. Okay, so if the DPS are not pushing their buttons and the Apanda lives too long, the offtank takes a beating, healers get behind, and people start to die. The first instinct is always going to be "OMG WHERE DA HEALZ??" because people aren't topped off for Dimensional Wave, but the real problem is the DPS are failing at their roles.

The average player's limited awareness causes them to misattribute causes to effects ("no HP must mean no heals"). Healers will always get the short end of the stick, and this is the result of factors far outside the realm of gaming.

[MoroMurasaki]

If 17% healing uptime is the baseline for healing uptime and we are saying that is an acceptable level of play then what happens when tanks and DPS match this? A dungeon becomes impossible.

Why do you guys think it is alright that a healer is performing 1/3 to 1/5 the actions of a tank or DPS and then recieving the same reward at the end of the run?

This is not a conversation about helping new players. The pro-DPS side of this argument has said 10+ times that DPS can and should be expected from healers when the party is healthy, they have mp to spare and they are familiar with the content... If all those things are true why would you not DPS? Your alternative is literally standing there doing nothing in that situation or helping your party.

I feel like the other side has this image in their heads of a brand new player who is undergeared for a dungeon and inexperienced at healing in general getting some kind of ahole tank who pulls huge with no warning in his DPS stance and eats every AoE with his two DPS cronies then those guys all berate the new healer for not contributing enough DPS to the group.

This is not the argument of anyone who is advocating for healer DPS here and I bet that all of us would sympathize with that poor new healer. This is not what we are saying. We are saying after you run a dungeon a few times and get the hang of things you should have your dots up so long as the tank/DPS players aren't draining your MP by playing in a suicidal manner. Maybe even help burn down the trash on an AoE pull when Lucid is off CD and the tank is properly mitigating.

If you can find fault with that I'm sorry but you aren't looking at this from a logical or objective place.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Tanks not using CDs or maintaining tank stance and DPS who take avoidable damage are directly stressing the healer role. However, a healer not DPSing only stresses the healer themselves directly as they have to the deal with the additional damage that occurs as the fight goes on.

And I'm asking the community to accept that yes, there will be zero-DPS healers and they will exist. You need not to embrace them but you shouldn't go around belittling them either. They're not playing at your expected level of skill but they're not causing a failed run either. If you really wish to avoid them, and of course them to avoid you, all parties looking to avoid these potential risks should just run PFs / with FCs and friends.

Now we have circled back to coddling healers while showing no such leniency to the other roles. It's another form of entitlement only healers are allotted. "Don't stress out the poor healer! They might not be as skilled!" Where is this sentiment for tanks or DPS? It's nonsense. By level 50, you should be learning how to efficiency use your entire toolkit. No one is expecting top tier parses and 3,000 DPS runs. We're asking for a little effort. Look no further than the person I quoted, who immediately chastised the notion people might not like a healer standing around. Once again, why is one role given a built in excuse to play sub-par? And yes, it's playing sub-par. Sugarcoating it won't change the fact you can't call yourself good at any job if you aren't utilizing half its abilities. I couldn't care less if you parse 90% on Red Mage. You're a sub-par Red Mage if you let the party die because you can't be arsed to use Verraise.

And now we're back to this. It applies both ways. If you only want to heal and not deal with the potential stress(!), queue with mates or form a PF. I, personally, don't care to avoid them. I'll just pull more or drop stance to make up as much as I can. I only use tank stance because it's a DPS loss for the group if a White Mage to spam Cure II on me instead of Holy. Pure healers aren't going to use Holy, thus I don't need the extra mitigation.

[Starflake]

Yesterday I did a Kugane Castle on my WHM as en expert roulette with friends from the FC. The tank said he maybe used one Rampart (and Blackest night of course) over the whole dungeon run. He is fairly well geared and pulled big. We cleared it in 13 minutes and my overall DPS was almost 3000. My DPS was probably a good 20 percent of all the damage done as a healer. That's what every healer should aspire to rather than be iddle and stand there doing nothing but cast cure II every three minutes. Actually, on my mentor roulette I had Kugane Castle with a terribly geared tank and terrible cooldown management and I'd still comfortably have over 2000 DPS. Heck, it would even come to the point that I was close on getting agro from the tank on bosses.

All of this discussing is meaningless and people who are against DPS as a healer, in my experience, just don't want to get out of their comfort zone. You are not fooling me when you only heal in dungeons. I rate your contribution very lowly, especially when I'm tanking and I have a solid rotation of cooldowns at your exposal making your job even easier. The truth is, the majority of tanks aren't even that bad. I never get stressed out healing any of them because I know my class, I know my cooldowns and I have a good eye for what's coming and how to deal with iti swiftly. If you don't, it's up to you to step up your game and get out of your comfort zone rather than trying to justify your laziness.

[Taika]

You said it yourself in your HW video - healers have something like 17% active uptime while purely healing. Which means they only need 17% activity to be successful at a baseline level. I never set the base standard that low, the developers did.

The developers have set the healing requirements for certain content that low, but it doesn't mean they're encouraging that level of play. That is why the hall of the novice encourages healers to move to DPSing when there's nothing to heal. And, on the other hand, in some content the developers have also set the DPS requirements so high that, by their own admission, healer DPS is required to beat them. The healer jobs and content in this game are designed with low healing requirements and strong DPS abilities, some of which also directly support their healing activity.

The logical conclusion to make from these facts is that healers in this game are designed to DPS, not that they're designed to be active for only 17% of the time. You can't really watch that video of me doing /mandervilledance and /icam throughout the dungeon and say "that's how healers are meant to be played in FFXIV!"

Stop thinking of my argument as a means of belittling the higher skilled players - start thinking of my argument as me giving a universal condemnation to players who openly belittle other players for not playing at their level.

I am not belittling players who are below my personal skill and experience level, that's definitely the kind of behaviour I aim to avoid. But I am against players who, once again, are intentionally playing way below their own level, who are refusing to work as hard as the rest of their team, who are intentionally playing lazily and badly just because they think they should get away with it because their job icon is green instead of blue or red (and of course, I am also against intentional lazy and bad play and making your team work harder than you are on any other job as well). Intentionally throwing yourself there to be carried by your team mates, only giving the minimum effort is a very selfish, inconsiderate play style that should never be promoted as acceptable in team content.