If you thought the healer DPS debate would change with the change...

[Melorie]

Healers are not required to dps, fin, fim, finito, ende, koniec.

If you want to contribute to your party and bring your job to it's full potential in this game, you need to DPS, therefore, healers are required to DPS to be a good healer. Summoners and Red Mages aren't REQUIRED to ress people, Bards weren't REQUIRED to give tp/mp before ShB, yet those that refuse to do that are seen as players that are just playing bad. If you refuse to DPS you're being a bad player. So it's not surprising that people will expect you to play your best.

I absolutely adore Yoshi-P, but his views towards healing clearly do not show how healing really works in the game, and we can see how the team also doesn't understand how to really push healing after ShB. To be good you're required to DPS, you can't really feel like you're done and are okay if you just heal. That's ok, no one can force you to try your best but again, don't be surprised or offended with people not liking this.

[RionRequiel]

Perhaps I am of the old school mindset here when it comes to this Game's "Class Triangle/Holy Trinity" System but having played all 3 class types (I have what I consider to be a Main in every role. Gunbreaker Tank, Red Mage DPS, White Mage Healer.) I personally believe each class should focus on what their Role implies they need to be doing. Or rather if you are in one role and not doing what that Role SHOULD be doing then you simply either are far too used to Soloing in Games or you simply have an issue and need to switch your class. Please note the following is more a suggestion rather than dictation. By no means do I mean to come off as telling you how to play but I am giving my Opinion and Suggestions in a quite honest fashion.

Tanks: Mates, if you are tanking, then tank. Your job is not that much different from a Healer. You NEED to keep people alive. Our DPS is too low to 'Clutch' a win in most cases and even our Self Heals/Invulns are pretty useless without a Healer around. You want to live? Treat your Healers with respect and keep the Aggro all to yourself. Stop with this "Healers need to DPS" mindset.. You're about two Tank Busters away from eating dirt and their job is keeping your beefy butt alive. Don't try to dictate how they play.

DPS: If you guys rush in to attack well before the Tank draws aggro.. At that point you deserve to die to be honest. You should know darn well by now that attacking makes a monster Aggro and that doing so before the tank means there is a chance you could die. Yes, things dying faster means game goes faster, but a bit of patience and airing on the side of caution could save more time than having to wait for Swiftcast so we can Res your sorry butt for rushing ahead thinking "I am beefy enough to pull some monsters" and then finding out those monsters have some heavy hitting attacks that kill you before you get back. Just.. Wait a moment, let the Tank grab aggro, then slam away with your rotations.

Healers: For the love of all that is good and holy try to keep your Tank's HP above 35%. Doing some DPS is fine and all, it's not required mind you as I personally only chip in DPS if the Tank isn't having their health eaten up like Pecan Pie at Thanksgiving Dinner, but at the same time don't feel pressured to do DPS. Healers are only really given DPS Attacks solely to allow us to progress through the game. If we could gain XP every time we healed people or some alternative chances are we wouldn't even have Stone or Aero. Healers are more valuable for the fact that they can heal. DPS? Can't heal very well. Sure Red Mage and Dancer have some healing skills but the potency is nowhere near that of actual healers. Tanks? Healing is an Emergency Pop after using our Invulns especially as Gunbreaker (Aurora is not reliable) so let the Healers do the healing. If a Healer wants to DPS then cool dungeons will move faster. If a Healer wants to focus on healing instead? Sweet, let them. I would personally rather see the Dungeon go by smoothly without Wipes that could have been avoided.

[Granyala]

Healers: For the love of all that is good and holy try to keep your Tank's HP above 35%.

Now where would be the fun in that?
I love these heart-attack moments when the tank suddenly drops. These are the moments in which you realize that content is actually dangerous. If the tank stays above 35% it indicates that the content is a snoozefest.

[LegoTechnic]

It's not that healers are required to DPS, it's that every player and every class is incentivized to remain active at all times, because otherwise they are not playing at their best and are wasting both their own and their parties' time.

You don't see this brought up a lot, but it's not just healers we talk about here. There are plenty of DPS who "phone it in", who don't use viable rotations, who don't play at their best, or who literally AFK during a pull because the little Suzy Q cakeroll isn't going to stuff itself into their mouth on its own. These are DPS playing badly, and if they do it excessively then it can make a dungeon run insufferable. We've all seen it happen somewhere down the line, but a DPS that either isn't playing its best or isn't using its DPS tools properly out of laziness, like a MCH that never uses Wildfire or a SMN that doesn't understand when to DoT, are not fun to play with. But unless they're going for a stand-out theme gag like a blue-wedding dress BLM named Elsa who only uses ice spells (seen it), then they aren't going to be noticeable most of the time because while DPS have an obvious responsibility, it's not normally a visible one like it is with Healers and Tank. DPS are there to bust down the mobs and get you through as best their able, and the one thing you never want to see on a DPS is idling. Assuming they aren't bypassing the tank's aggro control you want them to be as proactive as possible.

This proactivity is also desired in the other classes. You want a constantly active tank to keep the run moving at a steady clip. You want them vigilantly watching for runners or new spawns to maintain control, and you want them actively mitigating serious damage with their toolkit as they play. You don't want a half-assed tank that just Flashes and sits there hitting each enemy in tandem while watching Netflix, even if you sympathize with their love for Orange is the New Black. That's not actively playing a game, it's asking for a carry while you "do the daily rounds", which is admittedly an ever-present issue of the MMO daily grind.

But then you come to Healers, and you have efficiency concerns. You want to stay active as a player, because standing around just watching meters isn't helpful for the group, and since there's no Cleric Stance cooldown anymore there is absolutely no detriment towards breaking off to react-heal. You could sit there and just spam heal, but assuming your party doing mechanics (as they should be) and isn't just camping out in AoEs, then 9 times out of 10 that just leads massive and unnecessary overhealing for zero actual benefit. So what do you do in the interim? You DPS a little. If it's your first time running an encounter or with a tank/party you don't particularly trust then it's legitimately fine to play cautiously, but healing is and always has been a role that is made easier by knowing the fight, and as you run the same boss for the 10th time you tend to have a good idea of when your heals are needed and when they won't be. In which case why would you stand around?

Always try to be active and play to your best. It may seem daunting at first, but you'll get used to it quickly.

[Sebazy]

A girl quoted above stated that the game is designed in mind of healers to dps, which is false.
The game is not designed around healers doing DPS, like at all. Its just an addition and devs are not saying that healers have to dps, they could if they want to but they dont have to.

No one is saying that healers shouldnt dps, its just that they dont have to, thats all.
No one is supposed to pressure healers to dps.

The thing is, blanket statements like this are entirely wrong. I truly do understand your point, and in all honesty, it's literally a coin face away from my own. Most of the people in this thread are saying the same thing in a different way.

Whaa whaa healers HAVE to DPS vs whaa whaa healers DON'T HAVE to DPS are two extremes that are both ignoring the game that is plainly infront of us. I literally don't care what Yoshida says, he's been wrong on multiple occasions frankly that's fine. It happens in MMOs.

If a healer doesn't DPS in a dungeon, it's certainly not the end of the world.

If a healer doesn't DPS in an MSQ solo battle or early progression Savage, then it probably is the end of the world (or that attempt at least ).

This stupid argument is never going to end until people stop peddling moronic extremes like these as gospel. The reality is far greyer and more moderate than threads like these seem to be able to admit.

[Atlantasia]

A few things I'll say about this whole thing:
#1.) I've never kicked a healer for not DPSing, but I have for not healing well and constantly dying themselves.
#2.) I've never been kicked for DPSing too much, nor for lack of heals. The only times I've been kicked was for asking for large pulls or trying to get a tank to use their cds/tank stance.
#3.) I've only ever been told to DPS more in farms where I was not comfortable on the class I was on and/or I had a crappy healing partner making it difficult to do so. But it was always by people who were short tempered jerks anyway and those people are pretty rare.

So far this expansion, I've not come across any of those people. No one's complained about my heals or DPS. I have only had a few wipes, usually from both myself and the tank out of cds along with large pulls. But usually that isn't something people have gotten angry about. It happens.

With healer downtime so large, you need to keep busy. If you're not keeping busy, then you're just sitting pretty twiddling your thumbs. Even when I'm low on MP I DPS as much as I'm able to. But I also try very hard to keep my MP up where it needs to be for smooth runs.

Most of the heal only camp that I see in game, not only do they not DPS at all, they don't heal well either. They might as well be a bot. I don't care if it's healing or DPSing as long as people are not idle, but they also shouldn't be over healing as that's a total waste.

[Wiccan026]

NO I dont think they do I think you all just need to enjoy the fact that for once WHM is finally in a good place instead of pissing and moaning because they are.I dont recall any WHM players screaming for nerfs when SCH and AST put them on the bench permanantly.

I don't think WHM should be nerfed (really they should just adjust the other two healers) but when astro and scholar were stronger some whm were crying for nerfs (in fact before the media release one whm made several different threads about it in fact)

[Connor]

Not to derail this thread lol, but have we considered what things would be like if reversed?

If healer DPS was something absolutely abhorrent, we’d have this exact same thread except people would be arguing ‘but I want to deal damage I’m being abused for attacking etc etc’.

I’m not suggesting that the discussion is pointless, but I’ve seen people on every ‘side’ of the argument get, uh, passionate (for want of a better word). This might sound condescending and I don’t mean it to be, but this is just a video game. I wish healers were all no DPS and spending all their casting time healing and supporting the party, but I know that it’s not gonna happen. I’m not going get angry or quit the game over it, I’d rather just enjoy it how it is as.

(Again, not suggesting we should settle for poorly designed content or job design, just that it’s probably not health to get emotional about giving feedback on a video game).

Also, do we actually have any concrete evidence that the devs are ignoring this feedback? For all we know they’ve already fixed all the issues and are just waiting to release the patch. I’m not saying ‘wait and see’, because that doesn’t really address anything, but I do think it’s too early to assume the worst for the future of healer design

[Sebazy]

I don't think WHM should be nerfed (really they should just adjust the other two healers) but when astro and scholar were stronger some whm were crying for nerfs (in fact before the media release one whm made several different threads about it in fact)

Let's not lose sight of the fact that the WHM in question here isn't taken seriously. Don't judge a community by it's village idiot =(

[Taikugemu]

If only people would pay attention to the conjurer quest line and take it to heart.