Dear Healers who don't DPS

[Foxkid]

But that omits the following:
1. Peanut Butter and Banana
2. Peanut Butter and Jam
3. Egg Salad
4. Tuna (depending on your definition of meat).
5. Nutella

To be fair. Egg is technically in the same definition of "meat" as tuna.

[ChameleonMS]

To be fair. Egg is technically in the same definition of "meat" as tuna.

If we are going down that road be sure to remove cheese too.

[Tridus]

If we are going down that road be sure to remove cheese too.

Now that's just crazy talk. Stop the madness!

[Hunky]

And that is why 'you' are an avid proponent of DPSing as healer - It's not coincidence. Congrats on realizing stereotypes are stereotypes by the by. While we're clearing those up: Black people aren't all evil either, neither are muslims categorically terrorists, fancy dresses and miniskirts are neither male or female clothes no matter how much bigots want them to be, they're just clothes, not every man who likes supposedly feminine things is gay and not every catholic priest is a pedophile. What you should be disgusted about here is that to this day and age, Stereotypes of all kinds perpetuate society. There's no point in being disgusted at any in particular, there are tons more where that came from.

That said, fantasy still is a factor you have to consider. A lot of people pick up ninja in the hopes of satisfying their stealth fantasy, only to get hit by a naruto style ninja with a boobhole in the chainmail and get unsatisfied as a result. Some people pick up bard to play pretend they're a musician and play a more supportive role, others just want to be a ranger and kill (and those were 'those guys' who never used any songs before SB). Summoner has tons of threads about how it doesn't live up to its fantasy and people being unsatisfied with that by now and red mage got complaints about that as well.
Fantasy is a big motivation for people to pick up one job or the other - even you say that the power fantasy you get from playing a healer was part of the appeal. And when the current iteration of a job doesn't live up to what people hoped for, people aren't satisfied. For healers in particular, that means that some people simply don't want to deal damage on a general principle because it disrupts their fantasy. And no amount of arguing is going to get through there, because all reasons people put up for not DPSing are rationalized after the decision not to do it, not before.

Why else do you think healers in particular are so stubborn about the topic? Because they're just lazier on average? Because they're worse at math? Less smart? I don't think so. I think many people simply picked up healer because they explicitly didn't want to deal damage, as that's not what they identify with.

That doesn't change the fact that these people are SOL in this game due to its design. But it explains why the healer debates in particular become endless, while they don't for other roles.

The thing is that trying to "live out your fantasy" can be detrimental to the rest of your group. This isn't like Skyrim where you can head into a cave full of bandits and kill them all without ever getting noticed. The game just doesn't work that way. You can specialize in ice magic in Dragon Age and be just fine that way. But trying to be a pure ice mage in this game is going to be ineffective.

Same thing with healing. You can try being a pure healer but you are going to slow your group down. If you want to roleplay a fantasy or certain style of play, there are plenty of single-player RPGs out there that allow you to play how you want.

That's what these players have to realize.

People want to play this game like it's a single-player game, and play however they want. But in this game, you're part of a group. It takes team effort to beat content, and if you're playing subpar because playing optimally gets in the way of your "fantasy" or whatever, then you're not pulling your weight.

It's like a college group project. Everyone's expected to contribute. Someone might slack off and you'll still get a passing grade, but people are going to be mad at the person who slacked off, and probably won't want to group with that person again.

[hydralus]

It'd be nice of the squad healer could be my buddy on dailies. That guy's a beast.

[NintenPyjak64]

Curious on this, but with 4.1's Steel Cyclone change, how do you healers feel with one in the team now? Is the SC Life steal enough to just throw regens on and mostly ignore? (if they're still popping CDs ofc) does it make you feel that you're more enabled to do DPS with one in the party then before?

[dotsforlife]

Curious on this, but with 4.1's Steel Cyclone change, how do you healers feel with one in the team now? Is the SC Life steal enough to just throw regens on and mostly ignore? (if they're still popping CDs ofc) does it make you feel that you're more enabled to do DPS with one in the party then before?

AST main here.

Nearly all dungeon runs (and in some cases trials) I still do more dps than the tanks. Even if they're big/pulling large groups. I haven't noticed a big change even after the update to SC. Just double regen and time CDs/heals properly and you can do what you've always done. It's not really any different now in my eyes. Maybe one less heal from time to time, but that's about it. Doesn't feel any easier/worse to dps now vs then.

[Sebazy]

Remarkably, I know a few warriors that can actually out DPS me on expert roulette now.

It's not a huge gap, I'm typically pulling ~3.8k DPS whilst the warrior is right on the cusp of 4k and of course, the caveat is that the warrior needs the DPS to be good and stuff to die before their cooldowns are done. If large pulls die slowly, I only lose a few hundred DPS, whereas the warrior will lose 1k+.

[miraidensetsu]

Funny to see how much there are experienced healers (even those who only heals their static and don't have the guts to heal anything else) by here that is demanding healer DPS, but I see no 4.x healer guide on this forum, no topic sharing rotations for WHM, SCH or AST to help them to optmize their DPS while healing... Just complaints, impositions and some more shaming.

No wonder no one wants to heal anymore.

[Sebazy]

<snip>

Hiya, that's a bit of an unfair assessment IMHO.

I've personally put a wealth of advice including break downs of my priorities, timings and the thinking behind it alongside clear video replays and highly detailed logs to dig into. And I'm certainly not the only one here who's done so, others have put some great forward advice and information as well.

There are a ton of guides on these boards but naturally they get buried rather quickly due to the lack of stickys. Thus unfortunately you may well have to dig a bit for it.