Dear Healers who don't DPS

[Bourne_Endeavor]

If I wanted to do dps I'd go as a dps. We know parsing isn't discussed in the game, but from my experience, even in dungeons, healers and their extra bit of dps just isn't so crucial that it is justified to demand them to dps. Especially if it puts more stress on their healing, mana management, and in case of classes like Ast having to mange cards too, is just ridiculous.

AST can average between 800-2,000+ DPS, which is more than you had otherwise. The reason for the demand is why not? You will always have downtime regardless of the content, thus your choices are to do literally nothing or DPS. You are only struggling now because you aren't attempting to become more proficient. No one is going to perfect optimizing their job right away. The more you weave in DPS abilities, the easier it will be balance your mana.

[Jollyy5]

I consider healer DPS as another type of healing, the faster the mobs/boss dies, the less damage people will take.

[Miste]

I tried doing damage as a AST in a raid once. I did less than one-fifth the damage of an actual dps, had to struggle with mana, GCDs and my sanity for both healing, dps-ing and carding, and the whitemage still did more damage and had almost full mana. Needless to say I wasn't a big fan of dpsing as a healer in raids from then on. (The dps-focused WHM did only about a quarter the dps of an actual dps). If two healers dpsing did less than half the damage of an actual dps, I wonder, what's the whole point?

Well for example my static was trying to clear O3S with not enough item level so my boyfriend and I had to DPS on our healers (I'm AST and he is SCH) otherwise we would have hit enrage and we probably would have taken a few more weeks (or even longer than that) to clear it if we both did none.

We knew we have to try our best for the group so we did everything we can to help our group clear no matter how little the contribution is...ugh imagine wiping to enrage on a raid boss at <1% and you didn't do any DPS on your healer when you could have...that 1% might have been a clear!

Actually if you go to my youtube channel my O3S clear video is on it (or just click https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgIOxztK5XY) and you can see we were close to enrage and as per the data I have from our first clear all that DPS we both did during the fight equaled to about 6-8% of the bosses HP combined between us.

6-8% of a bosses HP is nothing to snark at (mind you that is a combined contribution from both healers we each did between 3-4% each). It is quite decent contribution and all the while keeping everyone alive except for deaths that were out of our control. We aren't even the best or top tier healers at all; those players are able to contribute even more but it is quite a bit more difficult and it depends on the party composition and the overall group proficiency.

Also for dungeons...I've outdps actual dps jobs on WHM in Experts. In a double pull you can pull off like 5k DPS. On a triple pull I've seen my DPS hit like 7-8k I am not even joking. Healer DPS is way more powerful than you think it is. (item level and skill depending though)

As Kabooa said it is still 'damage you didn't have before'.

Also you should look for Sebazy's posts, she explains how healer DPS can increase speed of dungeon runs by quite a lot. So you simply aren't seeing the potential. Also it isn't only about speed, just about helping out with whatever you can. If you can contribute then why not contribute, even if it is just a little bit. Everyone appreciates it when people attempt to give their best to help out.

[winsock]

If I wanted to do dps I'd go as a dps. We know parsing isn't discussed in the game, but from my experience, even in dungeons, healers and their extra bit of dps just isn't so crucial that it is justified to demand them to dps. Especially if it puts more stress on their healing, mana management, and in case of classes like Ast having to mange cards too, is just ridiculous.

So what do you do when you don't need to heal? Idle? If I wanted to go idle, I'd go afk.

DPS from any role is not crucial in dungeons. But I don't think it is unreasonable to ask a dps, tank, or healer to at least attempt to DPS when the alternative is being idle.

[Sebazy]

<snip>

Some of what I'm going to comment on has already been covered, but I'll reiterate it anyway, sorry =(

First up, in terms of sheer numbers, Era1Ne has it spot on, As far as the current Savage Tier goes, once you have your stuff together, you should be able to contribute roughly a full DPS slot worth of damage once you get things down in a reasonably clean run. Don't expect to get there within a few runs though as there's a lot of variables at play here.

If you want to move forward, recording and analysing yourself is a massive boon, sharing recordings with teammates, friends and peers can also net gold.

I'd argue that healer DPS in dungeons is less important yet significantly more impactful.

The recording mentioned above - And it's associated log

In this 3 pack pull I'm snapping on the heels of a RDM played by an absolute world class player and significantly ahead of the rest of the group. I really can't emphasise enough how significant healer DPS can be on trash packs.

As far as stress and mana management goes, it's important to point out that playing in the manner that I portray isn't in any way considered essential or required. There are plenty of ways in which you can still contribute decent damage without needing to be as brazen as I am there . Try to get those dots ticking early, get a feel for the damage coming in with a benefic or two on the tank and then start weaving in gravities if you find a window in which to do so. Don't sweat it about MP, if the group is killing slow, just calm your own pace down to suit. Lean more on your dots than your gravities.

[Kabooa]

I clenched pretty hard at the Dark dipping into 4k health. :P

[Sebazy]

I clenched pretty hard at the Dark dipping into 4k health. :P

It looks pretty terrifying at first glance doesn't it

Surprisingly, it wasn't nearly as close as it appears and if anything, I was more cautious than I needed to be.

@33 seconds, Raffter drops to 8444 HP
@34 seconds, he goes up to 8922 HP (I'm a dork that regens myself when I run into beams oops)
@35 seconds, I pop Bene, he goes up to 47814 HP
@43 seconds, he finally dips under 40000 HP

TLDR: I could have actually got another 2 holies in before my Bene although I suspect Raffter would have never partied with me again in the process =(

[Raqrie_Tohka]

Thanks for the encouragement everyone, but the most dps I ever did while raiding in my Ast was still only about 1k. On a side note I've never seen a WHM go below 1k dps in a raid ... it's just so disheartening, to have to clip your own healing spells to land a malefic, then clip that same malefic to rush a healing spell and still run out of mana.

Honestly, between 2k extra dps from two dps-ing healers, and having 90% raid-wide buff uptime with 2 Astrologians, I'd rather have the two Astrologians perma-buff the raid and then just sit back and heal, with only a Dot on the boss, than blow through all their mana and sanity weaving malefics, before the actual pain train comes and they wished they saved some mana to spam Helios. Of course in dungeons mana really isn't a life-or-death issue so I dps away but we all know it's the raids that really matter, and it's the raids where Ast cards are most effective as a dps increase compared to their own measly malefic every now and then. I'm actually surprised there isn't more raids running double Ast for perma-buffs.

[Seoulstar]

snip.

Considering that we can't see each other cards..I see why. It's quite honestly a pain to deal with.

[Sebazy]

but the most dps I ever did while raiding in my Ast was still only about 1k.

More is absolutely doable, if you want some high numbers to aim for, my AST co healer is over 2k on every turn except O4S now.

If you're struggling with mana, make sure you're not leaving options on the table there, it's as important to extend Lucid Dreaming as it is any cards now IMHO. And don't forget to push your casters for MP if needed as well.

As for double AST, Seoul pretty much has the right of it, my group was toying with the idea leading into savage but the chatter we needed to handle cards was to distracting. I've also got it in my head that Savage currently won't let you enter with two people on the same job? likely wrong there tho =(