Dear Healers who don't DPS

[Sebazy]

I was able to take the whole "Your a DPS that heals a little bit" until I got to O4S. There, I found that I have to do:

1) Keep DPS numbers above 1,800 <snip>

I don't believe that figure for one minute. That's a comical number to be aiming for given the (perfectly reasonable) numbers you hit on 1-3.

And pls, being old school doesn't mean you can't move with the times.

[Miste]

Miste:
Well a healer not dpsing is not comparable to a dps spamming one attack. More like a dps with a subpar rotation.

Well I was going by what you said. You said minimum for your role. The minimum for each role is different based on role, but it is still the minimum so in that case it was comparable. A DPS only using one button, like Dragon Kick, is still doing DPS just as a healer only using Cure II is still healing.

A different comparison would be active uptime. If a healer doesn't do DPS then they can possibly only be active around 20% (minus simply a healer spamming heals on people who are full HP because that is just wasted overheal and not contribution). If a tank or DPS did that....yeah I know you can see that would be pretty bad, not to mention imagine if everyone in the party was only active 20%. /shudder

[EaMett]

Moro:
That comment was about Taika's response, and he/she was responding to me.
Also sure you can set the bar where you want. You can offer advice all you want as well. I do too (though tbh it seems to be received negatively as often as it is positively which is a bit of a turn off. Doesn't matter how polite you are).
I'm playing devil's advocate here and am just questioning what the real gain is. In practice it's hardly significant. So it's about courtesy or gaining time by skipping some mechanic. These are all comfort points for the most part. What makes your comfort more valuable than their own?

[EaMett]

A different comparison would be active uptime. /shudder

idk, maybe I'm a little oldschool here but healer uptime has never traditionally been on par with tank/dps. And I'm looking at this from an oldschool point of view where I can understand some people sticking to the traditional role rather than the ff14 optimized one. So I don't find it shocking. Un-optimized for sure but not shocking.
And to add to that I fail to see how the upside outweighs that player's fun. I mean if you're not meeting a dps check sure. But shaving off a few minutes off of a dungeon because you aren't comfortable with a player not playing the meta... shrug

Also as a side note, some DPS have terrible rotations and awful dps (I'm talking sub 2k single target at lvl 70 in 310+ gear). Calling them out on it seems to actually be a banable offence. I find it hard to believe that you have a legitimate claim against healers that don't dps.

[era1Ne]

The best players wouldn't do that. They would, however, advice you to DPS because there isn't a reason not to. If the response from said player was "I'm a healer. I shouldn't have to DPS," then you cross into kick territory. Of course, this isn't universal. Many will grudgingly carry such a player through content, others won't. That has no bearing on a thread discussing how healers should play in FFXIV.

This was just an example and i don't think most good players would kick people that easily. Imo most very good players are helpful as you said.

I'm playing devil's advocate here and am just questioning what the real gain is. In practice it's hardly significant. So it's about courtesy or gaining time by skipping some mechanic. These are all comfort points for the most part. What makes your comfort more valuable than their own?

It really depends on the content and the group how important healer dmg is, but the least you get are shorter fights/dungeons. At best you can the hardest fights in the game faster, because the first kill of an savage fight is rarely smooth in the sense, that nobody dies. Technically healer dmg is NOT needed to clear them, since the devs don't calculate with them in mind. But i don't think they calculate with 1-2 deaths for example either and then healer dmg can help those groups to dodge the enrage.

[MoroMurasaki]

What makes your comfort more valuable than their own?

Courtesy (like what is often lacking in response to advice offered to new players) is what keeps the game social. If we lower the bar on expected courtesy below "doing something useful with the majority of your GCDs" I feel like that is setting us up for failure.

My "comfort" may not have more inherent value than that of a very poor player but I rank it above most other people's. That's why I offer advice to help things along and (in extreme cases) have no problem kicking someone or leaving a group I don't like. I don't think that is a bad thing. This is a game, if you aren't having fun it's just an expensive chore.

To me it's not fun to watch a healer stand there doing nothing while I'm juggling a complicated BRD rotation.

[Miste]

idk, maybe I'm a little oldschool here but healer uptime has never traditionally been on par with tank/dps. And I'm looking at this from an oldschool point of view where I can understand some people sticking to the traditional role rather than the ff14 optimized one. So I don't find it shocking. Un-optimized for sure but not shocking.
And to add to that I fail to see how the upside outweighs that player's fun.

Well oldschool or traditional isn't what FFXIV is. So assuming it would be would be erroneous anyway.

In other older games maybe, but in this game healer uptime can be just as much as the other roles if you play it that way and this game is designed to let you play it that way and that is the point.

If we are getting into the my fun versus your fun examples then why is that player's fun more important than the rest of the party? What if the rest of the party has fun by doing content faster?

I mean we can argue all day about that, but in the end it comes down to "if you don't care about my time, then I don't have to care about yours" and then a kick happens.

I mean it is all about compromising. If you show you are willing to try to respect the time of the people in your group by offering whatever you can to speed the run up then they are going to give the respect right back.

I don't kick people like ever except for harassment reasons or obvious trolling/griefing, but this is just simply how it works when dealing with other people in DF. You can't expect people to care about your time by not kicking you out if you show you don't care about their time by making excuses like "oh it only saves a small amount of time so who cares. I don't have to put that kind of effort in for you", but maybe the rest of your group cares about that 5 mins because they don't get a lot of time to play.

If everyone's "fun" matters, then everyone has to compromise when in situations where there are opposing ideas of "fun" and your idea of fun isn't the majority opinion in the group you are in. Give a little, get a little.

[Tridus]

Miste:
Well a healer not dpsing is not comparable to a dps spamming one attack. More like a dps with a subpar rotation.

A healer not DPSing is equivalent to a tank not DPSing, except that you will never see a tank not DPSing (despite the fact that Paladins are absolutely capable of holding packs while doing zero DPS) because this is a uniquely healer argument. I mean, the discussion on the tank forum is about just how hard you can push DPS, not if you *should have to even attempt it*. That's just assumed.

Honestly, on a sociology level, it's fascinating how unique healers are in this regard.

[Tridus]

Meanwhile, I wonder if the reason so many RDMs are trying to 'help' (i.e. needlessly keep people topped off) with their Vercures is because someone put them in healing stance for a thing and forgot to take it off afterwards >_>

But that's offtopic-ish.

LOL!

Some of them are probably unsure how to use Vercure because they have no healing experience and don't know if they should be helping or not. The ones who never use it fit into the same category with a different outcome.

Some of them, like me, still have the healer mentality despite being on a DPS class and will jump in at the drop of a hat if it looks like the healer might need a hand to catch up. The same thing happens when I tank (because Clemency is wondeful). That mentality must be how I ended up having my favorite tank and DPS class both being the one with a usable heal.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

maybe they have something else irl taking their attention, or are on voice with fc mates, maybe they even have high latency or low fps etc...

I am going to be blunt here and say outright, I don't care. Your personal life and problems aren't my concern. If you are so overwhelmed by outside factors, perhaps you shouldn't be queuing into group content and expecting random people to cater towards you. Even worse, some of your examples reek of entitlement. You're on call with FC mates? That's a good excuse to slow down the dungeon for three other players? Really?