Dear Healers who don't DPS

[Moogly]

Moogly, what you're doing here, is putting words into people's mouths and using strawman arguments. You're not really reading other people's arguments but arguing against something that you say some random "most people like this" are saying.

strawman arguments.... again ditching out any possibility of debate even though :

I'm saying how the game actually works and is actually played is different from how it's talked about, and the latter is not relevant to the former. I also said you should consider Yoshi P and his team are the ones who have enforced healer DPS playstyle with their design. They have all the power to change it if they wish to do so, but instead they've been increasing its significance throughout the years - an even encouraged it in Novice Hall.

There are a bunch of SB interviews in which YoshiP clearly states that he and his team do not like healer focusing too much on DPS. They did remove the stance dance to make it easier for those who wanted, but clearly double pointed out that it was not mandatory.

I said the logic behind your interpretation is far-fetched, I did not say personal or social aspects of the game are insignificant. Also, your premise was that people don't care if players are inexperienced and feel insecure because of that, but I already showed you several posts proving the opposite.

I'll try with an analogy : won't be sure if it'll fit in, but that will give you the general idea.
Cars can easily go faster than 55mph. If you want to be efficient with your car, you better drive it at 70mph, since it can go that fast. State patrol could arrest you if you went above 55mph, but who cares, they're never watching, and actually won't even say a thing if they do happen to catch you speeding. Hell, even state patrol is driving way above 70mph... So it's a common thing for everybody to be driving at 70mph on that 55mph road. Then, you encounter someone who is driving at 55 mph... because there was that one sign that was saying so : would that be considered as bad driving ?
If you happen to stop that driver and start arguing with him, it will be the same thing as in this thread.

Is it also selfish to ask a tank to use cooldowns, or do DPS? If there's a PLD who is inexperienced and only wants to use Flash and nothing else? Is it selfish to ask for a BRD or MCH to give some TP or MP to the party, even though they are inexperienced and want to focus on keeping up their DPS rotation? Is it selfish to ask for a DPS to Goad the tank or other DPS, or ask them to Stun something? Why would healers be the only ones whose feelings matter?

You didn't understand what I consider selfish.

Asking a player politely to try doing some DPS is OK. I am for any constructive behaviour in this game.

But the way some people here are belittling others, or automatically making the assumption that pure healer are bad healers will only fuel the hate. And in the end, you get that feeling that those rude people only ask lots from others for their own benefit. I mean I don't know how to explain it better, even those kind of situations are pretty common IRL, doesn't only happen in games... In my country, we call those people sharks : ready to destroy or pressure anybody just so they get their promotion or extra-bonus...
This is the selfishness I am talking about.
Now why would some pro DPS try so hard to make pure healer do some DPS to the point of belittling them ?
I cannot find any other reason than this one...

edit for Tridus
As a former web-dev, I also know that you cannot listen to your customer every dreams and wishes as your project might very well fall to the ground.
Specs were defined : stick to it. It is even sometimes your job to impose your decision on what can be done and what must be done, no matter what the customer may say.
And in a project of the scale of FFXIV, you cannot rely only on the top tier suggestions as they are a minority in the game (in any game actually).
Look who won in wow... was it the hardcore raiders ?

Also, SB was definitely tuned for zero healer DPS : YoshiP's interview by Mr Happy.
So I am in no way imagining things or speaking in their stand : they actually did say it and even wanted to make sure that people knew it was their point.
The 2nd community would then be the pure healer group standing behind YoshiP and his team.

Finally, I am only talking about DF - though even for savage fights, healer DPS isn't mandatory. I can't find the interview again, but YoshiP explained that to determine the health pool of savage bosses, they would take the mean performance of all tank and dps in the superior tier and lower that by 10-15%. I actually think this was part of his explanation of why healer DPS really wasn't mandatory as it wasn't even taken into account in the tuning of the fight. This also explain why top tier group manage to push bosses and skip phases...
FFXIV, unlike Wow, do not push the players too far. They want to give players some challenging content, but also want people to be able to enjoy all the content while not necessarily being a hardcore raider.
But then most savage fights are formed through PF - in which clear rules are stated by players - and valid in this case. So in this case there is no complaining possible from anti-DPS.

[Taika]

Asking a player politely to try doing some DPS is OK. I am for any constructive behaviour in this game.

Again though, no one is advocating for anything but this: if someone is not DPSing as a healer (when they are experienced, know the fight, and have the opportunity to do so, as in there's not much healing to do and they have plenty of MP), ask them nicely. Absolutely no one here is saying that you should start shouting curses at them or immediately kick them without even giving them a chance. So this is an example of you arguing against arguments that don't exist here (if they do, feel free to show them, because I don't remember every single post from the thread).

But the way some people here are belittling others, or automatically making the assumption that pure healer are bad healers will only fuel the hate.

Can you show me some of that belittling? I'm pretty sure at least most, if not all of it, is directed to healers who absolutely refuse to do any DPS at all when they are nicely asked to, even if they could, intentionally pulling their party back and making others work harder than they are. Those healers are considered and called lazy, and for a good reason. Like this one I had in a leveling dungeon, who literally did /follow on tank, went afk ("I'm just drinking coffee here") while the fairy did all the healing. If it's belittling to call a player like this lazy and bad, then ok I admit it. But I'm pretty sure you wouldn't accept this kind of behaviour from a tank or DD either...



It's been said over and over and over again, that for people who ask for their healers to DPS, it is enough to show even a little bit effort. That is all that's being asked, to throw some DoTs every once in a while when you have nothing else to do. What's being opposed (and strangely, defended by some) is absolutely refusing to use your DPS abilities out of some silly principle. Refusing to use a part of your useful abilities does, objectively, make you bad at your job - be it healer, DPS or tank job.

Edit: to show some proof that what people really expect is just seeing some effort, to see healers try to be as active as the rest of their party members...

As for the rest of these posts, the point is that people want to see EFFORT. Nobody's expecting big dicl numbers, especially out of DF of all things. However, you're generally supposed to ASK for a sherpa instead of being lazy and trying to get a free carry.

There's also a thing called context. If you're brand new to an instance, nobody's gonna be mad at you for trying to feel it out. Even if you end up the worst at your role, most will forgive if it looks like you tried. I think that's all anyone's asking

That's the only thing reasonable people are asking, if during an entire fight you need to heal then no problem you don't have the time to do damage but if you only need to heal during 50% of the fight you should do something (not nothing) during the other 50%.

We are not expecting you to contribute the most damage output, nor ask you to abandon your primary role. When there is a wide time-frame in which no healing is needed, instead of reading about Toenail Fungus, or watching the latest episode of Log Horizon, or etc., why not throw in a few skills. . . at least some dots to help things along?

General rule of thumb: you don't have to be a pro MLG high DPS healer for people to be happy with your performance, so long as you have some awareness of when your party is taking damage and when you have downtime. You should learn your toolkit and find the skills which give you downtime (regen, aspects benefic, rouse), and at least weave in some sort of DPS just so you aren't idling, because it's the idling that people notice, not your damage numbers

When we are talking about dps on healer, we're not expecting everyone to do 1000 dps.
If every healer just use dots, the very least, it would be enough to stop yelling at those who "don't want to dps because blabla".

What people are asking for:

- Heal when healing is necessary. If your party is taking too much damage it is okay to not DPS.
- If you find yourself standing around, throw some dots on, cast a few damage skills.
- Use your time wisely. If you aren't comfortable with the dungeon no one is going to get on you, but if you can contribute please do.

[Moogly]

Can you show me some of that belittling? I'm pretty sure at least most, if not all of it, is directed to healers who absolutely refuse to do any DPS at all when they are nicely asked to, even if they could, intentionally pulling their party back and making others work harder than they are. Those healers are considered and called lazy, and for a good reason. Like this one I had in a leveling dungeon, who literally did /follow on tank, went afk ("I'm just drinking coffee here") while the fairy did all the healing. If it's belittling to call a player like this lazy and bad, then ok I admit it. But I'm pretty sure you wouldn't accept this kind of behaviour from a tank or DD either...

I actually gave you 2 examples just below the quote you made of me...

Lastelli : makes a clear difference between good and bad healers.... also throw a little lie for his cause : healer skills are no way only 1/3 of healer's spell kit :s In fact, it's more like half... duh, it's a healer's spell kit ! But better belittle those anti-DPS by saying they only use 1/3.... And the 50% active of the time... not even considering many beginners who haven't yet mastered the mp recup skills are idling for mp regen.... or because they tried something earlier in another dungeon, failed and are now scared.

Jolly : the "need to go back to the hall of novice", "is crippled", "is lazy/stubborn", or any other little caustic comments. Belittling people won't help... especially when a lot of people making these kind of comments are probably worse players than me.... And you don't do that sort of comments if you're not thinking yourself better than your contradictor.

I will need time to read the wall of answers... But from a quick reading not much has changed
I guess in the end it's all about how much each and every one of us is involved in the game, or approach it.
Though you guys may say pure healers aren't good players because of all the reason mentionned, and I do understand those, it still has little relevance to me.
Is it because of the very low expectation I have from DF groups ?
Or is it because I'm naturally super laid back when playing that game ?
Or maybe because IRL, I'm used to much more complicated social issues (at work) ?

Anyway, I'm quite happy of the general tone of the discussion because even though we definitely do not agree, we're not jumping at each others throat.
I eases my mind knowing the ffxiv community is still quite far from the kind of annoying (and ridiculous) elitism you find in wow.
But I'm just warning you from certain behaviour in DF that could ultimately lead to that "wow" atmosphere :
- belittling/criticizing of other people based on skill
- constant push to emulate the elite (always casting healer, dps stance tanking, voke/shirk double tanking...)
Though it is of course preferable to have all players be good to excellent, remember not everybody is as involved as us : there are casual players out there, yea !
So in the end, just try not behaving like how mentionned just above, or try correcting people having that kind of behaviour when you meet one, especially when the person asking obvioulsy lacks the skill level they ask for....

Keep going like that, and in the end you will eventually have people asking for gear/ilvl check in DF, or any kind of idiotic elitist bs...
I was so glad leaving wow and its crazed epeen centered community, I really don't want ffxiv's to start becoming one...

I'll finish with a story that happened this week-end, and that illustrate very well the kind of player I do not want that elitism to create :
So running that lvl 63 underwater castle as ast : get a 70 pld tank quite geared.
Damage on him was ok... except he was trying to tank the whole thing in sword oath. As expected, each pack was joyful, with the dps and myself running around, kiting mobs and all.
At one point we ask the pld to at least pull in shield oath to build initial aggro, then just switch back to sword oath and that would work.
Answer from the elitist : "are we speed running this or not ?"
(Nobody actually did ask for a speedrun, but well...)
I answered : "but you're losing aggro !"
Answer from tank : "oh come on I just lost aggro a couple time, stop ***"
(No pal, you lost aggro on every single pack...)
To which he added : "anyway don't worry, you're getting blacklisted after that"
...
I just told him : "so are you..."
So here we have the result of that constant push for elite gameplay : people that want to emulate the elite, think they are doing very good (when they obviously aren't), and start belittling others.
That tank might have thought he was doing good, since he was using advanced gameplay techniques, but we actually carried him through his numerous mistakes... the mobs hit really hard on dps and healers in those dungeons... Hopefully I managed to keep everyone alive, except one RDM death (after which we asked him to switch stance), and DPS was more than decent so the monsters were dying fast. But boy so much healing I barely had a second to dps... In the end, if that tank would have done the stance switching as asked, the dungeon would have run even faster with me DPSing...

[Taika]

I actually gave you 2 examples just below the quote you made of me...

Can you give your examples as direct quotes instead of your own rephrasing (?) that's taken out of its context? Of posts that are "belittling" healer players who aren't healers who don't DPS at all without any reason?

[Moogly]

it was right between the post quoted and my last post.
This why I started my post with

See, in just three answers, you pretty much have proof of what I'm saying

#624, #626, #627...

And even you keep going, as if you were in a "superior sphere" :
ok [pure healers] are not doing 20%, lets say 17% (and they lol...) #631
Pal... if that healer wouldve dps to reach 50%, made a mistake and the group wiped, it wouldve been not 20%, not 17%, but 0% for everybody... All mobs HP reset and going for a second ride...

Those kind of little attacks, if you were on the receiving side, how would you take it ?
Now do you understand ?
It might not look like it to you, but this is definitely belittling coming from a feeling of superiority.
And you could say, come on that's only a little teasing...
No. Words have different strength and underlying meaning when they're written rather than spoken. Especially on the net. Be aware of that.

[Taika]

And even you keep going, as if you were in a "superior sphere" :
ok [pure healers] are not doing 20%, lets say 17% (and they lol...) #631
Pal... if that healer wouldve dps to reach 50%, made a mistake and the group wiped, it wouldve been not 20%, not 17%, but 0% for everybody... All mobs HP reset and going for a second ride...

Are you seriously now accusing me of belittling myself? You understand the healer I was "laughing at" there was me, right?

Edit: I repeat:

Can you give your examples as direct quotes instead of your own rephrasing (?) that's taken out of its context? Of posts that are "belittling" healer players who aren't healers who don't DPS at all without any reason?

This is why we have the quote feature here on the forums.

[Jollyy5]

Pal... if that healer wouldve dps to reach 50%, made a mistake and the group wiped, it wouldve been not 20%, not 17%, but 0% for everybody... All mobs HP reset and going for a second ride...

To me it looks like you are missing the whole point of what we are trying to drive through, that being us expecting a healer who has absolutely nothing else to do than DPS, to DPS instead of standing there doing NOTHING. as in: Deal some damage when no one needs healing.

[Moogly]

To me it looks like you are missing the whole point of what we are trying to drive through, that being us expecting a healer who has absolutely nothing else to do than DPS, to DPS instead of standing there doing NOTHING. as in: Deal some damage when no one needs healing.

And as expected you keep ignoring all the arguments put in front of you by voluntarily or not, putting all non DPSing healer in the same bag.... while I desperatly try to explain to you guys that everybody has its own reason for not DPSing... And that stubborn attitude of not wanting to understand that, well, some people just aren't as good as you are...
We did say and repeat earlier, a healer idling does not mean that he is watching netflix 100%, trying to get carried or get free tomestones...
You're putting them in the same bag as new players unsure of themselves, cautious players... sometimes only healing will take all the concentration from those people.
After I told you so many times, and you're still not willing to accept any of this, how can I not think that you're being selfish in the end...? That the performance you're asking so much for, is in fact so that in the end you're the one who benefits from it ?
Then what about teamwork you'd ask ?
If you ask for performance, savage raid grade performance, make a premade, a static, a PF... I am totally fine and even ask for it.
But keep going full elitism in general, and you'll end up with a community as toxic as wow's.
I've seen that game evolve from quite friendly to horrible, and it was all because everyone tought of themselve as pro gamers when certain addons began to become popular : recount, elitist jerk, gearlevel...
I mean, did you know that the reason why FFXIV doesn't have a parser and most certainly never will, is because of a single (but sounding) harassement incident ? (koike incident)
You guys keep stepping in the grey area with the quoted caustic comments you are making...

Taika : I gave you the post numbers, the quoting thing is kind of a hassle to do... don't worry, all three posts are on page 63. As for the 20-17% thing, you're not the one that started it : #628
As the postings continue, any reader would feel that you're pulling down even more that fictious 20% efficient healer Jolly was making fun of... especially if they only read what you wrote and do not follow the link...

Cynfael : I consider asking for healers to dps systematically already being kind of elitist. I know, dps as healer is super easy, you should always be casting, mana is cheap, etc...
But some people aren't as good or involved... The latter being the hardest thing for you guys to accept I guess... casuals...
But I really tought I made it pretty clear that I am against any kind of elitism when it is out of context, e.g in DF.

[Jollyy5]

...

Please refer to my earlier posts where I made it very clear that I only want everyone in the group to carry their weight and contribute for a smooth run.

And about that tank in your story, that was a jerk who thought they knew what they are doing, which was an inconvenience for the entire group.

[Cynfael]

*Story about unaccommodating tank*

That's more specifically an issue with a particular player or party and is better suited to a discussion as to why elitism or just general toxicity is unhealthy for the game; it doesn't have much of anything to do with able, experienced healers actively choosing not to DPS appropriately.

Of course it's your prerogative to discuss elitism etc. if you like, but I personally don't see the value it brings to a gameplay discussion. The tank example you just gave is a fairly extreme one, not a situation that all or even most healers are likely to face on a regular basis.

When it comes to posts in this thread, there are very few that beat up all healers who do not DPS (including those who are inexperienced). We actually have many posts that explicitly advocate leniency towards players who are learning the role and/or scenario. It's usually rather obvious when this is the case, and some constructive communication can truly help.

That being said, I do not feel that it is elitist or otherwise inappropriate to call a spade a spade: any player, regardless of role, who knows better and chooses only to output the absolute minimum effort is making a selfish choice to be lazy. I don't believe in escalating these situations by harassing the offending players, but I certainly wouldn't choose to play with them again.