Healer DPS - enjoyable or a chore?

[Maeka]

I've seen this sentiment echoed several times in this thread and I'm curious - what would be more engaging about spamming heal spells instead of dps spells?

Edit: Not just aimed at you of course, I'm curious why anyone feels this way.

Well, for one thing, if I wanted to be a DPS, I would show up as DPS which would have actual rotations, and more variety in their attacks.

Now, when you are actually healing, as a WHM, you got Cure, Cure 2, Regen, Medica, Medica II, Cure 3, Assize, Asylum, PI, Benison, and probably 50 more heal buttons I'm forgetting, and each have their own purpose (even if some of them lose practicality later, like Cure). It's infinitely more fun to have to decide which heal to use when, and maybe you can build strategies for different bosses and which heals you decide to use when. Or, maybe for S&G, you could try to do it with style, try to see if you can somehow weave in a Confession x3 PI or something just to say "hah, I did it!", or try to time a Medica 1/2 to go off a split second after the group-wide damage hits so that it doesn't even look like you got hurt at all. Or maybe you want to make that annoying group member nervous and let them go down to 10% before you Bene them at the last second before they take unavoidable damage just to watch them squirm (not something I'd do, but I wouldn't be surprised if some healers do this kind of junk).

That's 100x more thought than "Stone Stone Stone Stone Stone Stone Stone Stone Stone Stone Stone Stone Stone" all day long.

[Jade3173]

I've seen this sentiment echoed several times in this thread and I'm curious - what would be more engaging about spamming heal spells instead of dps spells?

Edit: Not just aimed at you of course, I'm curious why anyone feels this way.

because I find healing more rewarding than dealing damage. If you boil it down it's all just pressing buttons on a keyboard either way. The end result though, watching that HP bar of allies go up, is more of an enjoyment than simply watching the HP bar of the boss go down. Also healers in other MMOs, as you have pointed out, do have some support skills to play around with and that's why I picked AST of the 3 healers but it's still lacking that "healer feel" that I'm looking for

[MoroMurasaki]

I appreciate all your answers to my question!

Honestly I just don't get how specifically getting HP bars up is more interesting than making different hp bars go down. It boggles my mind that people feel this way but I do appreciate the attempts at explaining it. You humored me and that's cool.

[IanFrench]

I miss what WOW does with healing jobs, making healers have fun of comparing hps

[Maeka]

I miss what WOW does with healing jobs, making healers have fun of comparing hps

Eh, the thing about WoW I hated was the whole 100% -> 40% -> 80% -> 20% -> 60% -> 20% -> 100% thing every 2-3 seconds, where you have to machinegun heals like crazy and if you miss a beat someone's dead wholesale.

Or at least that's how it was during late Mists/Early WoD. I haven't checked it since, but no freaking thanks. That is NOT fun whatsoever.

Honestly I just don't get how specifically getting HP bars up is more interesting than making different hp bars go down. It boggles my mind that people feel this way but I do appreciate the attempts at explaining it. You humored me and that's cool.

Again, it's simply the fact you got 1 direct damage and 1 DoT for Single-Target and AoE for a total of 4 damage buttons, only 2 of which you care about at any given time.

Compare that to where you have all kinds of different buttons for healing, different amounts of healing, MP conservation, whether or not you want/need a HoT, bubbles/shields, Esuna, oGCD heals, etc.

It isn't "target enemy, use DoT, and spam the direct damage spell over and over again".

It isn't about "make HP bars go up", it's more "I have 50 ways to do that, which do I need/feel like doing at this moment?". With damage dealing, you got 2 and only 2 buttons per the two situations (single-target and 3+ targets).

Surely you get where I'm coming from with that?

EDIT: Well, ok, I guess WHM has 3 AoE DPS buttons if you count Assize. But meh, you get what I mean.

[Maltothoris]

TO each their own. Personally, I do like to dps as much as I can on as a healer cause it really helps with runtimes. Dungeons could be as short as 13 minutes if everyone does their part and some of the more tedious bosses (like Guardian or God Kefka, you can skip annoying mechanics and not have to worry about them. Like killing the guardian in 9:30 and not having to worry about the biblio add that shows up. Of course, I can understand why people see it like that.

[Maeka]

TO each their own. Personally, I do like to dps as much as I can on as a healer cause it really helps with runtimes. Dungeons could be as short as 13 minutes if everyone does their part and some of the more tedious bosses (like Guardian or God Kefka, you can skip annoying mechanics and not have to worry about them. Like killing the guardian in 9:30 and not having to worry about the biblio add that shows up. Of course, I can understand why people see it like that.

I don't think anybody in this thread disagrees with this.

What we're talking about, is whether or not the actual act of doing DPS is fun. We DPS because yes, it makes the fights shorter. But is it actually FUN to do nothing but cast Aero and Stone at a boss? I don't think it is. It's insanely boring.

[Canadane]

Would giving healers DPS combos and rotations make the job more fun? Or less fun?

[MoroMurasaki]

Eh, the thing about WoW I hated was the whole 100% -> 40% -> 80% -> 20% -> 60% -> 20% -> 100% thing every 2-3 seconds, where you have to machinegun heals like crazy and if you miss a beat someone's dead wholesale.

Or at least that's how it was during late Mists/Early WoD. I haven't checked it since, but no freaking thanks. That is NOT fun whatsoever.



Again, it's simply the fact you got 1 direct damage and 1 DoT for Single-Target and AoE for a total of 4 damage buttons, only 2 of which you care about at any given time.

Compare that to where you have all kinds of different buttons for healing, different amounts of healing, MP conservation, whether or not you want/need a HoT, bubbles/shields, Esuna, oGCD heals, etc.

It isn't "target enemy, use DoT, and spam the direct damage spell over and over again".

It isn't about "make HP bars go up", it's more "I have 50 ways to do that, which do I need/feel like doing at this moment?". With damage dealing, you got 2 and only 2 buttons per the two situations (single-target and 3+ targets).

Surely you get where I'm coming from with that?

EDIT: Well, ok, I guess WHM has 3 AoE DPS buttons if you count Assize. But meh, you get what I mean.

I don't think you're necessarily understanding my question - I understand there is more variation to healing than dpsing as a healer, my question was aimed at someone who said they would rather spam Cure/Benefic than Stone/Malefic, a sentiment that I've seen echoed by a few other people.

To the others who responded to that post apparently they recieve some kind of different satisfaction from healing hp that they don't get from dealing damage. This was never about healing as a healer being inherently more engaging because you have more options on how to accomplish the task, what confuses me is someone literally have a preconceived preference for making hp bars go up instead of making other hp bars go down. It seems arbitrary and shallow to me, like why would casting Cure make someone feel better than casting Stone on an individual level?

You're saying it isn't about making hp bars go up more and that's cool, then you and I are on the same page. Jade and Mutemutt are saying something entirely different than what you're saying, they actually are reducing it to which direction the hp bars are moving which is what I find baffeling.

For clarity...

Because at the heart of it, I feel pressing cure II is different from pressing stone IV

The end result though, watching that HP bar of allies go up, is more of an enjoyment than simply watching the HP bar of the boss go down.

This is what I have an issue with. I can't wrap my head around it.

Would giving healers DPS combos and rotations make the job more fun? Or less fun?

I don't think a full rotation is really possible with as reactive as healing is. I think the only way to make dpsing as a healer more engaging in this game now is to add back in something like pre-SB Cleric Stance or to integrate our dps and healing abilities to augment each other. I would prefer the later but I also find it less likely to come to fruition because SE doesn't want to alienate the forum princess healers that don't want to dps.

[Mutemutt]

To the others who responded to that post apparently they recieve some kind of different satisfaction from healing hp that they don't get from dealing damage. This was never about healing as a healer being inherently more engaging because you have more options on how to accomplish the task, what confuses me is someone literally have a preconceived preference for making hp bars go up instead of making other hp bars go down. It seems arbitrary and shallow to me, like why would casting Cure make someone feel better than casting Stone on an individual level?

The decision making between damage and healing is just different.

I can't understand how you can just equate them as just being, essentially, a button press. At that point every role and job in the game is exactly the same and choosing any of them is entirely arbitrary.