Someone told me today to stop using DPS spells like Stone

[AnotherPerson]

... Because they were fire-chained to me in that one dungeon where you have to run away from your linked party member to avoid death.

... He didn't help me break the fire-chain so we both died... and then when we respawned, he said, "Are you using DPS spells?" To which I said "Yes" and He replied "Well then don't. Don't use anything but heal."



I have always kept my party members up at 90% health or higher, used my DPS spells on adds and boss, and never struggled with my mana. I rarely have to revive anyone unless, like in that scenario, they ignored a boss mechanic.

I think I am a pretty good healer, as it is such a simple class and you can do no wrong if you've played MMOs for a long time. But hearing him blame me made me feel so defeated

I had this happen to me earlier today. "Just DoT and heal" - DPS and tank. This person is also the one who doesn't really mitigate damage. It was at that point I knew they didn't really play healer and doesn't understand how much DPS a healer can output.

It's completely fine to leave them at a lower health. In fact, as you get more accustomed to healing, your baseline of keeping everyone at a certain point generally gets lower and lower for regular content runs when you have strong oGCD heals or powerful GCD spells that can be instant cast on the fly. All you really have to do is be aware of possible mechanics that hit heavy and be ready to heal before it hits and let the regen do its thing after. The other times you can be using that to spam your attack.

In fact, some jobs actually require your other characters to suffer to get the max possible benefit. That's right AST, I'm staring at you (Essential Dignity scaling to 1100 at 1 HP). So yeah, don't listen to people who don't tell you otherwise.

Just ensure your baseline isn't too low where if they die, it isn't your fault and it's all good. If it's a mechanic they didn't respect, that's entirely on them. A Healer's mana is too precious to be wasted on someone who doesn't respect the mechanics.

[Crushnight]

This whole thing reminds me of a time I was asked by this random tank in a Saint Mochian's run I had 1st pull with just the morbol+2 things i treated as normal then tank stands there, wondered why, then they message could I not dps it makes them uncomfortable, I was like ok, but I snuck what I could where I could and at bosses I just went ham, I know what I can do, when things are appropriate, me not dps is wasting my time, their time, and more importantly the other two random dps time, said as much to them apologise that I dpsed but I have to, it would be like they got aggro and stood there not doing anything.

Ultimately trying to say so long as your doing mechanics, healing when you feel you need to and not killing people for 1 extra stone, go ham, you can try to heal through stupid but end of day stupid will die eventually and you shouldn't blame yourself for their mistakes.

[Saefinn]

Reminds me when we lost a DPS in a dungeon probably around HW or ARR time and people were waiting for a DPS because 1 dropped, I said "its fine, besides I Green DPS anyway" . They told me don't and just focus on healing. I insisted they carry on pulling, as you will expect dungeon was fine, I Green DPS'd, nobody died and thus at the end I had to say "I told you so".

At the end of the day as long as you fulfill your top priority, keeping people alive, you have plenty of room to DPS and people who tell you to focus only on healing don't understand how healing in XIV works. XIV is very scripted and there's also no constant stream of healing, meaning damage is predictable and not constant, so that creates periods where if you aren't DPSing, you are doing nothing.

[Rongway]

The three most important rules of a healer
1. In terms of keeping people alive, you are the most important followed by your mt and co healer

This is untrue. The most important person keeping anyone alive is themselves, regardless of their role. That is to say, people need to do mechanics so that they don't make unnecessary extra work for the healers.

It's not the healer's job to heal avoidable damage. The healer's job is to heal unavoidable damage.

If the healer and other party members know each other well enough, someone might eat an avoidable hit in order to do a significant amount of extra damage, if it won't create extra work for the healer. But if you don't know the healer personally, don't assume that it's okay to take avoidable damage.

Again, it is not the healer's job to heal avoidable damage. The good ones will heal it because a dead DD does less damage than an irate healer who had to waste a GCD on someone being selfish. But it is not their job to do so. People need to do mechanics.

[Limonia]

Some players just insist on healers to just afk between heals, I don't even know why.

During SB when I leveled AST I got into Bardam's Mettle. The tank was VERY undergeared, used no defense CDs and pulled everything. The only damage I was able to do was my DoT while the tank was pulling. After that even spam-healing them didn't help. After the wipe I politely asked them if they could use CDs, they just replied in broken English "you heal, no dps", their DPS friend agreed to that. They admitted they didn't use them because I did dps and that they will play normally if I don't. I asked them if they wanted healers to just stand around and wait for their HP to drop when there's nothing to heal. While I was typing he pulled all again. I even tried to get after them to heal again, but we wiped again of course and afterwards I was kicked. So... people like that definitely exist unfortunately.

[Claire_Pendragon]

Just look at trusts and squadrons. SE programs the healers to DPS if your HP is above 50% (or the tank) and to start healing, if your HP is below 50% (or the tanks).
Pretty similar to what its like in normal 3 mob, single group, trash pulls.
This is also why they suck at healing double group pulls, since you need to start healing at 60-70%+HP depending on factors. (plus the AI is roughly 1 second slow to decide what action it will take next. It really should be adjusted to 60% at the bare minimum.)

[Deceptus]

Just look at trusts and squadrons. SE programs the healers to DPS if your HP is above 50% (or the tank) and to start healing, if your HP is below 50% (or the tanks).
Pretty similar to what its like in normal 3 mob, single group, trash pulls.
This is also why they suck at healing double group pulls, since you need to start healing at 60-70%+HP depending on factors. (plus the AI is roughly 1 second slow to decide what action it will take next. It really should be adjusted to 60% at the bare minimum.)

Hell, often times in trust I'm UNDER 50% hp and dropping and still don't get healed.

Looking at you Alphinaud you pathetic excuse for a healer.

[Videra]

People are dumb. This is completely normal. Keep stoning, broiling, and maleficing my child.

[Mindiori]

Sounds like you did nothing wrong and you just bumped into one of the endless disasters in the park. World is full of people who are a good few sandwiches short of a picnic. Nothing is their fault and if you happen to be nearby it's going to be yours. Yey \o/

Do ignore them dear. You need a thick skin and some liberal use of the slap emote. Or my personal favorite just irritating them even more with a ridiculous level of polite antagonism. Healer or not, there ain't no cure for someones stupid.

[Raiya]

... Because they were fire-chained to me in that one dungeon where you have to run away from your linked party member to avoid death.

... He didn't help me break the fire-chain so we both died... and then when we respawned, he said, "Are you using DPS spells?" To which I said "Yes" and He replied "Well then don't. Don't use anything but heal."



I have always kept my party members up at 90% health or higher, used my DPS spells on adds and boss, and never struggled with my mana. I rarely have to revive anyone unless, like in that scenario, they ignored a boss mechanic.

I think I am a pretty good healer, as it is such a simple class and you can do no wrong if you've played MMOs for a long time. But hearing him blame me made me feel so defeated

Let me guess who it was you wiped to....



I'm all for Heal DPSing but as a healer you do have to be alert to this guy as he can do some rather nasty damage spikes. That being said if people die because they dont run away from each other to break the chain's its their fault not your's and if they're blaming you then your only response to them should be "why u no do mechanics?" DPSing as a healer is a good thing, being alert as a healer is a good thing, your primary role might be to heal but your heal insurance doesnt cover "death by stupidity"