Healer DPS - enjoyable or a chore?

[DaulBan]

My own feelings aside, it brought to mind the question, is healer DPS actually enjoyable in its own right?

Is it something healers generally like doing, or feel compelled to? To healers, given the option - would you keep it as is, prefer more of a focus on actual healing, or more expansive DPS options?

Is the current method a fair way to judge healer skill?

Personally, yes,

This is on a person by person basis, but I personally love DPSing while healing,

Kinda. I often see people have their DPS hard carried by solo healing but that's always going to happen.

With the removal of cleric stance healing and dpsing has gotten way easier, and while I think that's a good thing it has in a way dumbed down healing and dpsing by quite a bit by removing any forethought for when you DPS. It's a good thing because it makes OGCD heal usage way more powerful and interesting because you now have ways to DPS and Heal concurrently, which didn't really exist before outside of 30% heal lustrate and benediction. The trade-off is that DPSing feels less engaging to me, but I think that's a really good trade in the end.

If they were to keep current healing loads the same and add more in-depth DPS rotations I'd be glad. Something more in line with what the casters have to up the DPS ceiling a bit and make the dps part of the job more engaging would be neat!

[BroodingFicus]

As a WHM? It can be pretty satisfying to bubble the tank, pop Thin Air, and then just go to town with Holy during a big pull but single target? DULL. SO DULL. Dot and then Stone spam of some nature. For me, that isn't helped by the fact that I find the whole spell set for all our Stone variations to be ugly so there isn't even anything pretty to look at. While I do actively DPS in my down time, I would much prefer to have a focus on healing and support rather than an uninspired, tacked on set of DPS skills. I know we need it to level but of all the healers, WHM feels like the least thought and attention went into it. We don't have cards like Astro or share part of our DPS rotation with an actual DPS job like SCH so I'm left feeling like I /want/ people to screw up or be undergeared or pull huge groups because I don't want to stand there and use Stone.

[Mutemutt]

Although I know this wasn't to me... perhaps I can offer a different perspective, that might or might not be similar to mutemutt's feelings.

Just popping in to say, yes, that's essentially the feeling I wanted to convey.

[Sharko]

This is the opinion of a raider that usually plays in organized settings.

Some (MOST) healers don't even know how to do an opener properly, let alone even heal. Most just get offended when offered advice.

To me, healing is all about micromanaging your resources and the team while being an active contributor to overall DPS.
Yea sure, your job is to heal, but how can you just stand there and do nothing while simply waiting for your party's healthbars to decrease.

That is what I call an AFK healer, basically useless in my eyes. Sure you're doing your "intended" job, but you were given a myriad of abilities to utilize
in any given setting, maybe you should use them and improve your skills as the class you intend to play.

[Sharko]

I never considered my "healer classes" as healers. I refer to them as what they are. White Mage, Astrologian, Scholar.

Each with their own niche style of gameplay, each with their own optimization, gimmicks, and all very engaging to play depending on your style.
These are "healers" yes, but only because they have the ability to heal? Yes and No. Many tools were given to each class to appeal to varying playstyles.

These guys can already heal a shitton, what else do you plan to do with your time? Be a useless sitting duck?
My "Healers" philosophy : You stop DPS when you are required to heal.

[Sharko]

If you want to feel "engaged" then start doing harder content, enter a savage raid, join a static and learn to push your limits with these classes. Do more with it.
You feel good when you are able to push yourself to accomplish certain milestones as your respective healer class. You don't get alot of good healers nowadays.
Its no wonder some think healers are boring, a chore. They only play them to get Grandmaster of Magic.

To me, they are fun as hell.

[Lapisluzili]

To me, personally, it's a chore. A chore and stressful.

No, not because I mind pressing more buttons, but because I constantly worry whether or not I'm going to be yelled at for "not dpsing" as much as I "should"

I was already bullied into dpsing more than I am comfortable with as a healer, I don't need randoms to yell at me even more.

And by bullying, I don't mean "hey you should dps"
I mean literally being called names, useless, worthless, retarded, stupid, and other 'nice' things over and over again until I broke down to the point I suffer panic attacks if I miss a single Stone/Broil/Malefic cast.

And No, blacklisting them didn't solve the damage done.

I also suffer from Carpal tunnel Syndrome, so sometimes I will get hit with random bursts of insufferable pain in the middle of a dungeon, making it extremely hard to even continue just pressing healing buttons.
Which makes it even more of a chore. A painful one.

I do agree however that it's better than standing around and waiting for HP bars to drop; yet, I won't ever force it onto anyone.

Really wish SE would make things actually healing intensive, so that only healing wasn't basically picking my nose and waiting for HP to go down (assuming the group knows what they're doing)

This or that way, it's simply boring to constantly spam a single AoE/Single target spell over and over and over again, and shiny numbers don't make it any more fun.

It's just boring and dull to me either way; I'd rather be constantly rotating buffs and shields through the group than spamming Holy/Stone/Broil/Gravitas/Malefic the whole time.

Not that we healers actually HAVE buffs to rotate through the party in this game. (I'm talking about things like haste and stuff, not AST cards)

[IanFrench]

YES!!YESS!!YESSSSSS!!!! Thank you so much for speaking out what has been bothering me so long!!

[Tharnor]

My view on the matter is rather simple, it is something to do while not healing. As a white mage holy spam feels right with weaving heals in. I just wish there was more to the single target part of it. Not as in more abilities to do damage but more integration with healing. Like hitting an enemy with stone having a small chance to cause the target the enemy is hitting to get a stone skin like effect and aero 2/3 a very small chance to proc a lily.

[KDSilver]

(Don't yell at me, I'm not blaming the new system and it's my personnal opinion and feeling).

For me, it used to be enjoyable with Cleric Stance and in HW.
Switching to Cleric meant more than just healing and dpsing. It was engaging because you had to have good memory for mechanics and analyze where it was safe to switch. You had to be far more reactive that now, you had to have a a strong self-confidence in your knowledge of your toolkit, your party buff.
And also, it was more about dot to maintain than the single button spam we have now. If you could safely switch to Cleric, dots were top priority, and you knew you were still dealing a good amount of damage thanks to it.

As for how it is now, i'd honestly prefer to have more to heal, but we got strong new skills that allow to dps even more... so that's weird.