Dear Healers who don't DPS

[Miste]

but don't make it look like mandatory by saying things like : "a pure healer is a bad healer..."

because they are "just" better at playing their class. And that is 1.ridiculous, 2.totally unnacceptable.

Objectively how this game is designed a pure healer is an unskilled healer since they aren't able to use all of their toolkit to their advantage. Bad? Not necessarily, but like Bourne said it is definitely not more than average and personally I think that is being generous with just how much downtime there is to DPS on healer, in every kind of content from low level dungeons to savage, that I've seen in this game as a main healer since launch.

(Keep in mind this is all for normal situations where the tank isn't squishy and is actively using cooldowns; I can easily see if a healer has no time to DPS because of their gear being too low, the tank undergeared or a problem with the tank's play style and in that situation what I said above doesn't apply. Simply being unable to DPS since a party member is going to die is not a healer skill issue. Heal first, only DPS if no healing is necessary.)

Simply put your claim that it is "ridiculous" that someone is better than someone else is very telling that your thoughts on this are a bit skewed. I've been playing since 1.0 and subbed continuously to this day. I've raided on healer (WHM main 2.0-3.4 and then AST main from 3.4-now) and despite all my knowledge and skill there are players way better at AST and WHM than I am. I can heal and DPS in savage raids, but my numbers do not reach the level of other healers out there who are simply better than I am at planning their toolkit and remembering every little detail to push out as much powerful healing at the right times and all the DPS they can muster.

As an adult in general you should know that sometimes there are going to be people "better" than you are at something and it is something you really have to accept and it is not "totally unacceptable" since it is just the natural way of life.

Objectively this is how the game is designed unfortunately so despite what you've said a healer that uses their whole toolkit to contribute as much as possible is objectively better at playing their class than someone who doesn't...which is the same for every role and job. If someone as a pure healer can do 4000 HPS (but 0 DPS) and then another healer does 4000 HPS (but also contributed 1000 DPS), then which player is better? Objectively the one who contributed more is better at their class because they kept the party alive with the 4000 HPS but also did 1000 DPS at the same time which helped the group.

Now I am not gonna go into DF and call every healer I see who doesn't DPS "bad" to belittle them (in fact I say nothing to them), but when it comes to legit discussion on the facts of gameplay... it is a fact that if you ("general you" from this point onwards) use all your GCDs on healing in most cases you are playing sub-optimally and in some instances a high level of sub-optimal. There is simply way more you can contribute and you have more room to grow and be better skilled at the game if you reach for it.

Some people refuse to even try to reach for it. It would be a-ok in a solo game to play in such a way, but since in this game you co-op with many other players, all who end up having to rely on everyone in the group to complete content, if a player comes along playing extremely sub-optimal it may annoy the other players in the groups they get into and this is true for any role that is playing sub-optimally not just healers.

No one should go into DF and only do the bare minimum just because they can get away with it.

[Kabooa]

No one should go into DF and only do the bare minimum just because they can get away with it.

Objectively speaking, any thing that isn't extreme or savage is doable with the bare minimum. That's kind of how they designed almost all of their game.

[Tridus]

Objectively speaking, any thing that isn't extreme or savage is doable with the bare minimum. That's kind of how they designed almost all of their game.

But this is the only place where people argue the bare minimum is acceptable. Some Black Mage trying to explain why they only use Blizzard because Fire spells are too MP intensive is not going to have people jumping up and down about "pure frost mages" and how the elite are being mean to them.

[Miste]

Objectively speaking, any thing that isn't extreme or savage is doable with the bare minimum. That's kind of how they designed almost all of their game.

You are missing one key thing here. If EVERYONE in the group played at bare minimum you might not actually clear the content and if you did clear the time it took could be anywhere from double to triple the amount of time. I mean why waste time just because you could all play bare minimum and get away with a clear? Mind boggling.

So you are making an assumption here that you automatically can clear at bare minimum forgetting that you are arguing that "one person" at bare minimum the party can still clear. So who do you think is making up the slack? The rest of the group.

If the whole group played bare minimum? Debatable on how far you would get even in non EX or savage content.

[AlexionSkylark]

Except that Yoshi P himself has said that the raids (Savage level) have been balanced in a way that they cannot be beaten without healer DPS when they are added in the game, and that healers need to DPS because of that

He said that during the Gordias days, the ONLY time in this game where healer DPS was actually needed. He RETRACTED that instance in later times, as he scaled down the difficult of savage content.

Now, the last statement in your quote is very insteresting: "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"
That is very important. You know why? because the vast majority of us DO NOT fall into that category. I actually noticed that in my post, that this was originally devised by world first runners who used healer DPS to offset their undergearing. But we're talking here about people who are EXTREMELY keen into grasping and learning how to avoid mechanics, even in progress they're much less likely to take avoidable damage than most midcore AND hardcore statics, giving healers a much larger window to do damage. It's a completely different reality, one that we don't (AND SHOULD NOT EXPECT TO) experience.

[Seoulstar]

Something tells me this debate will go on until the XIV servers are shut down..maybe even after that.

[Taika]

He said that during the Gordias days, the ONLY time in this game where healer DPS was actually needed.

He was specifically using Coil as an example, though. Also, it's not the only time when healer DPS has been needed. It is needed right now for O4S (at least! I would claim OS3 too). And it's been almost two months from the release of the raids.

What he's saying is that even the world's best players will need healer DPS to beat the raids when they're released. You do realise it means that the groups who aren't the worlds best will need healer DPS for a long time after, even with gearing up? And that if your group would happen to have two healers who would refuse to DPS, they would be asking for at least that "world's best" standard from their tanks and DDs, while they themselves would be playing at half efficiency - at best?

Edit: I don't really agree with your description of how healer DPS windows are created, either. You can check my logs and see I've played healer through Alexander Savage in casual / midcore groups, far from the world's best, still having very large DPS windows in all content I've done (I did not clear AS4 or AS8 when they were current). And, in more casual content, such as expert dungeons and even extreme primals, the DPS windows are even bigger (and easier to create), so your logic is pretty backwards.

[Tridus]

Something tells me this debate will go on until the XIV servers are shut down..maybe even after that.

Or until they change how healing works to be like some other MMOs where it's wholly impractical to do any real DPS in group content as a healer. One of the two.

[Moogly]

Miste,
lots of misunderstanding here, maybe I didn't make myself clear enough.

First, as it has been said many times, the game content was tuned without healer dps in mind. Here's an interview of yoship by Mr Happy dating from SB release : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5la_...utu.be&t=3m36s
Yoship even insisted on that particular detail, and made Mr Happy reinforce that point.

Simply put your claim that it is "ridiculous" that someone is better than someone else is very telling that your thoughts on this are a bit skewed.

I never said that !
What I find ridiculous is using one's position as a better player to belittle another player, which isn't the same thing at all !!!
As I said, it is a behavior problem, not a gameplay problem.

I quit wow because the community was horrible (the game started to suck too).
I was impressed by how friendly and helpful the ffxiv community was when I first started playing. We were actually discussing strats in a dungeon !!!
But now lately, all that elite harassement has began to become more and more common. And young people will often emulate what they find "cool". And how youngsters look the "coolest" nowadays on the internet is sadly through harassement... So if more and more people give the impression that healer DPS is mandatory, it will more and more become a reason for those little toxic players to yell at any healer that isn't DPSing.
Of course, it's far, far from what you could experience in wow, but it is dangerously starting to.
I am not judging each and every one of you personnaly : I am talking about the effect those kind of discussions are having on the community as a whole.
Because, yes, I'm quite the old fart - that is why I find it unnacceptable when I see harassement happening right under my nose. Feels like I'm guarding a bunch of kids :/

Now about a player's involvment in a group.
Since it is co-op, yes I definitely agree : you should put some effort out of respect for the other players in your party.
But that notion of effort greatly varies from one player to another.
While for some players mastering all the subtility of healing and dps will take a day, some will barely manage to only heal (difference in skill, free time, young age...)
So a player with its mind hardset on "healer should dps" will have a harder time to accept a pure healer, even if that healer is struggling and actually trying his best...
A healer having done its best at its skill level to maintain the tank alive (even though the encounter wasnt that tense), and who felt like he did his job, will be flabbergasted to hear someone in the group suddenly tell him : "you suck, you could have done some DPS"

And just to make it clear, I am definitely DPSing as a healer - but as a tank or a dps, I do not care at all if my roulette healer doesn't dps : just keep me alive.
What about a full tomestone geared healer semi-afking ? I don't care, but he surely won't get my commendation.
Some players aren't that good or as involved for many valid reasons, it is a fact. But that is also what mmos are all about.
It is also our job as better players to be constructive and not just take the "git gud" shortcut.

[Seoulstar]

Or until they change how healing works to be like some other MMOs where it's wholly impractical to do any real DPS in group content as a healer. One of the two.

Or until people just accept that not everyone is going to play the exact way they want them to. This argument just does a complete circle every single time to the point it's becoming rather pointless.