Why you should play a healer!

[Sebazy]

The only complication with any DPS rotation in any MMO is just the initial memorization.

DPS and healer 'timers' and rotations are very different beasts, I'm surprised you seem to think that they are so similar?

Healers are not bound to rotations and combinations in anything like the same way DPS jobs are. If I need to throw a GCD Cure II during my PoM opener window, it's a minor DPS loss and nothing else (It costs me a GCD and very little else). If a PLD needs a throw a Clemency part way through a combo or leading into their Req/Holy Spirit phase, it's a far more significant DPS hit as it not only costs them GCDs, but potentially enmity, dot uptime or outright costs them a nukes worth of MP. DPS have it worse still, drop a combo or buff at a bad time due to a mistake, distraction or even just a failed positional and it can have a very significant impact on the raids DPS. If I delay a card for 10 seconds because I'm dealing with mechanics, it's no big deal. If a Nin delays Trick Attack for 10 seconds? That's massive.

Saying it's all just a script is well and good, actually executing it like such is a whole different matter and you know it.

[Jerichai]

DPS and healer 'timers' and rotations are very different beasts, I'm surprised you seem to think that they are so similar?

I'm surprised so many people seem to think DPS rotations are some how rocket science...

And most of your examples are normal consequences in any game of someone screwing up. Paladin having to cast clemency, wtf is the healer or the Paladin doing or not doing to cause that? And DPS loosing damage due to a mistake, shudder the thought.

Then again no encounter in the game requires someone to hit the theoretical maximum of their total damage they could do to complete. So people are often overstating how much DPS mistakes impact the ability to complete content. Sure, you may not have a top ten log, but that's a completely different beast.

[Vyriah]

Saying it's all just a script is well and good, actually executing it like such is a whole different matter and you know it.

Actually not that much.

I did kill O3S with a RDM the week I leveled it up to 70. I played it safe as hell and certainly lost a lot of DPS but mission clear is mission clear no matter what. I already knew the whole fight, it was just a matter of applying the knew boutton press to it.
The result wasn't amazing, but it was enough.

Also, I'm pretty sure you all misunderstand what Jerichai is trying to say, I'm not sure why every seems so eager to argue against his post. Espcially from someone playing SCH, a very busy job whithout clear routine but time restricted abilities. Out of the three healers, SCH really is the partition playing robot with all its CD and 3 time every minute 45s skills to use.
Except when you mess up, everyone die horribly.

[Sebazy]

You're either missing or ignoring my point, great job.

And no, it's not purely mistakes that cause this at all. There are plenty of encounters with a wide variety of forced disconnects that can require different very approaches from the standard target dummy rotation. But I assume you know this right?

So people are often overstating how much DPS mistakes impact the ability to complete content.

Gordias called and said hi btw. DPS checks and enrage timers are a thing, it might not be 3.0 anymore, but O4S is still a notable hurdle for most, let alone Faustania.

I did kill O3S with a RDM the week I leveled it up to 70. I played it safe as hell and certainly lost a lot of DPS but mission clear is mission clear no matter what.

That's pretty much my point, if it was effortless to execute, you'd have been able to face roll your rotation for the full fight no?

[Vyriah]

I'm not.

Even if applying it to the fight is different than the dummy, there's a basis for it and the only question is "how can I find my way arround it ?". The optimisation get really steep at some point, but knowing the fight and knowing your job is already a really good start.

Also, you wouldn't even do dummy if you wern't up for a fight anyway. The way to tackle the fight is the fun part of DPS, not the hurdle. The hurdle is everyone thinking you're 12 years old because you play SAM.
Or playing BLM.
Then forget what I said, DPS is hell.

Edit :

Ah, it wasn't for me.
I'm pretty sure no one saying that DPS is faceroll. FF XIV DPS are pretty busy in their own way. But it's because they don't have funny UI with shiny new bar and count down that they have less restriction than others. they just tend to work the other way : they timers when their tool isn't up. Thing is, those are often life or death bouttons.

If messing that wildfire would explode are your tank face and kill hom giving you all its aggro, i sure as hell you would consider pressing that as something much, much more than "eh, it's just a cooldown". One time I casted earthly star on the wind III tank buster instead of the start of the second grand cross delta. That ended up in a agonizing wipe where almagest's DoT slowly killed everyone and I completly knew this would happen 30 second beforehand.
Those cooldowns are serious buisness, you have to pay respect to them.

[Sebazy]

Aye no I can agree with that.

Whilst SSS has it's uses, you'll rarely see progression raiders bothering with it because it's not really relevant to the content it's 'pretending' to be. As you say, it's the optimisation that wins the day.

Makes me wish my group was willing to run Bahamut more, relevant end game content that's not been spoilered optimised to death is a pleasant rarity but finding pugs capable of both maintaining enough DPS whilst also being able to survive twisters with a reasonable degree of reliability is challenging to say the least =(

[Jerichai]

Snip

No one is talking about target dummies. The fact is there's an optimal script for each Job on each encounter. Things like where to use CDs, where to position, etc. it varies from fight to fight, but nonetheless it's a script and it usually follows core concepts inherent to the Job.

[Sebazy]

Indeed, which leads us neatly back to my original point in that healers are not bound to the script in anything like the same manner as DPS (or tanking jobs to a different extent).

I can shuffle my opener around in all sorts of ways and bar a catastrophic mistake or just doing something really stupid, it'll make little difference outside a few hundred DPS. Damage dealers on the other hand don't have that luxury. They need to follow that script as tight as they can and of course, even the slightest deviations can start to add up very significantly and this is before we start thinking about the additional complexity that raiding with 7 other meatbags brings.

Whilst I agree that DPS rotations certainly aren't rocket science, I feel that your argument is built on the thinking that it's significantly easier to apply said rotations to an encounter than it often actually is. Thus where the disagreement with Cyn comes in.

[Ghishlain]

I feel part of the divide stems from the fact one faction is talking about Encounter Design and how a player interfaces with that encounter with their job and another is talking purely about Core Job Design without consideration for Encounter Design.

It goes without saying that when you compare kits some jobs have an easier time doing their core function than others and there are some complexities between roles. IE Healers can do their core job just by hitting Cure / Benefic / Physick on whomever is injured but melee DPS have to perform combos that have positional requirements and also have buff maintenance up time that is part of their core DPS kit.

Once you slot individual jobs into a specific encounter than those jobs have to start optimizing for those particular fights where players have to start considering fight mechanics and the "how" and "when" to use their cooldowns and abilities to maximize their output for the fight. Everyone has to do this. But this doesn't change the core knowledge each player has to have of their job, which is different from job to job and either simpler or more complex depending on the comparisons.

[Vyriah]

I'm not sure how it ended up that way but I'm pretty sure it the other way arround : Cyn stated that healers have more simple mechanic. But everyone agree that pulling of that NIN out that INV properly is nothing to brush off.

If you don't have a rotation, every single cast is a decision. I'm not found how FF XIV handle and I wrote a wall of text somewhere else about that, but it's doesn't matter, you can't brush off that either as simplier than, let's say, melee DPS routines (that have the reputation to be really daunting at first but get more and more mechanical as you get the hang of them).

DPS is about consistancy, but healers are about adaptation. It's funny because I see the opposite as describer before : DPS need flexibility to get their partition going despite the bullshit but healer answer mechanic upfront with either "player live" or "player die" as a result. Any means is good, but you have to get that "player live" every time. And that require proper planing and to be 100% sure that when you press that boutton, it's for a good reason.

You talked about DPS check like Gordias or TwintwinsterFaust, but healers are also concerned by this. The thigher the DPS is, the more healer have to contribute. And the more they have to get that on point heal, those DoTs refresh between mechanic and raid heal and their constant filler spamming that can get 500 raid damage increase that DPS couldn't possible make in normal circonstances.
And that require a huge awarness on everything that happen and just the target switching that go with it add a stress that DPS will mostly ignore.

But then, I can imagine people having more ease at doing that than other. Personnally, I'm in the backline strategy team and I'm pretty confident in my capacity to understand how things work but when too much thing go off at the same time I have extremly hard time to follow everything. Exdeath and Shinryu are pure hell tier for me and I too die tenth of time during Grand Cross Omega before I finally understood that it was barking than it was biting. In that regard, MNK focused and straighforward gameplay is much more simple to me than SCH scattered four layer of casting.

Oh, and you should try SCH opener. It last 15 sec and you have to fit 6 OGCD inside it, potion not included. It's super thigh and does land pretty good numbers when it's well done.
And somehow I did another wall of text.