General Community Resistant to Healer Damage?

[SamRF]

I am an ABC healer. I always have been, even when CS was a thing and I was learning SCH and stance dancing made me nervous. If I'm not healing, I sneak in some DPS.

But this is what I don't get about everyone complaining about healers who stand around doing nothing. The only runs I have where I spend the majority of my time DPS-ing as a healer are runs I do with my Trusts. If I'm in a dungeon with people, the tank pulls loads, the DPS take damage, I count myself lucky if I manage to throw in any DoTs. I mean I Holy as much as I can, but that's only effective for mitigating damage the first few casts; after that everything gets a bit hair-raising. I really don't get all that much opportunity to use Art of War on SCH. Yeah on bosses I can DPS more, but I don't spend anything like 60% of my time with nothing to do (if I don't DPS). Even more so on AST.

So my question is, where are all these amazing dungeon runners that only need a minimum of healing and why are they never in my parties?

I get them all the time in DF groups (probably not the majority though). SCH especially probably has easiest time not casting a single GCD heal even for big pulls considering how many tools they have availible.

However, at least in Duty Finder, I'm fine with healers who at least don't waste their GCD with overhealing or doing nothing since it means they are putting in some effort and aren't watching TV on the side. I wouldn't mind having you in my party in DF by a long shot.

[Liam_Harper]

So can i apply that to Red Mages then? I will now expect them to cast Vercures on the regular so that they're "Efficiently" using their toolkit.

I expect Summoners to hardcast Raises and spam Physik too, because I'm busy "efficiently" using my toolkit.

Tossing a Glare or Malefic while everyone is full and no healing is required should be encouraged. The problem is the mentality from the general community that every GCD ever has to be a DPS spell otherwise you're "holding the team back". New Healers try to do that, fail miserably, get yelled at and quit Healing. Or staunchly refuse to toss a Glare out because theyve only had bad experiences trying in the past.

I would also like to point out that I've had dungeon runs be faster with a non-DPS Healer compared to subsequent runs where the Healer is near matching the Tank on DPS.
Healer DPS is negligible compared to whether or not the DPS are playing to the best of their ability.
They've said on multiple occasions that Healer dps isn't factored into clear requirements. I'm not even sure if they've ever confirmed outright that Savage requires Healers to DPS.

What's truly hilarious to me is that the Community complains that Healing is too easy and they spend so much time DPSing, yet any time a suggestion is made that would tune up the Healing requirement so that we spend more GCDs on Healing than DPS, it becomes "too stressful to healers" or they don't want to cast Cures instead of Glares.
Also, the response to my sarcasm in the first two lines will no doubt be along the lines of 'No because the DPS aren't there to Heal'. And yet the Healer has to do the damage dealers job while also doing their own job or they're bad. OK.

What? ...You do know what efficient means, right? It doesn't mean wasting GcD's on unnecessary baby-heals or hard-casting raises outside of an emergency. However, using swift raises when the healers Swiftcast is down, or using Vercure when both healers are dead, the boss is at 1% and a fatal raidwide is incoming is certainly efficient use of that toolkit and marks a good player.

No one is telling new healers that every GcD must be dps. There's no point twisting what we're saying into something ridiculous so you can defend playing poorly. You even quoted me, where I specifically stated spam healing is perfectly fine if the situation requires it. No one is going to kick the new guy for not spamming dps in dungeons either, but if they want to be a better player they'll try to fit some in where they can.

If you've never had a dungeon where a healer doing dps is faster than one doing 0, you've been running with terrible healers. Do you know how much we can do with Holy, Assize and a well time Afflatus Misery on a large pull? Healer dps certainly isn't negligible. Having 2 good healers on a raid team compared to 0 damage healers is like adding a 5th high end dps for free. It's extremely valuable.

We've actually proven multiple times and done the math, Savage 100% requires healer dps.

I'd like to know where you're reading that the community would find more healing requirement stressful. I love high healing fights. Messy runs and early progression are where I like healing most. Many of us are begging for more to heal, we have a powerful toolkit and we want to use it to its full potential. We're bored to death of spamming 2 buttons, but we'll still do it because we want to contribute as much as possible to our teams.

[GrimGale]

So my question is, where are all these amazing dungeon runners that only need a minimum of healing and why are they never in my parties?

You can go to FF Logs and get a huge sample of healer performances (more than 5k) both in endgame dungeons and savages. Even the average ones have 150+ casts of dps skills and around 50+ uses of healing skills (Which most are OGCDs).

[Billythepancake]

I am an ABC healer. I always have been, even when CS was a thing and I was learning SCH and stance dancing made me nervous. If I'm not healing, I sneak in some DPS.

But this is what I don't get about everyone complaining about healers who stand around doing nothing. The only runs I have where I spend the majority of my time DPS-ing as a healer are runs I do with my Trusts. If I'm in a dungeon with people, the tank pulls loads, the DPS take damage, I count myself lucky if I manage to throw in any DoTs. I mean I Holy as much as I can, but that's only effective for mitigating damage the first few casts; after that everything gets a bit hair-raising. I really don't get all that much opportunity to use Art of War on SCH. Yeah on bosses I can DPS more, but I don't spend anything like 60% of my time with nothing to do (if I don't DPS). Even more so on AST.

So my question is, where are all these amazing dungeon runners that only need a minimum of healing and why are they never in my parties?

I've never needed an amazing tank or DPS to be able to DPS as a healer, I just know my kit well enough to know how to get the most out of it. I also know a tank doesn't need to have every booboo kissed away, same for a DPS. If a DPS is missing 50% HP, but they're not taking damage and won't for awhile, why bother wasting the time to heal, just let natural regens and fairy handle it. I've had plenty of window lickers in my dungeon runs, and I'll still find the time to DPS. SCH is probably one of the best at dungeons, you can cast an oGCD heal in between every single art of war. WHM holy spam will stop a pull for at least a third of their casts, if not more.

[Awha]

I am an ABC healer. I always have been, even when CS was a thing and I was learning SCH and stance dancing made me nervous. If I'm not healing, I sneak in some DPS.

But this is what I don't get about everyone complaining about healers who stand around doing nothing. The only runs I have where I spend the majority of my time DPS-ing as a healer are runs I do with my Trusts. If I'm in a dungeon with people, the tank pulls loads, the DPS take damage, I count myself lucky if I manage to throw in any DoTs. I mean I Holy as much as I can, but that's only effective for mitigating damage the first few casts; after that everything gets a bit hair-raising. I really don't get all that much opportunity to use Art of War on SCH. Yeah on bosses I can DPS more, but I don't spend anything like 60% of my time with nothing to do (if I don't DPS). Even more so on AST.

So my question is, where are all these amazing dungeon runners that only need a minimum of healing and why are they never in my parties?

It comes down to pushing your own limits and making mistakes along the way. What I did when I started healing was I worked on letting people get as low as I possible could before using a heal. Many people died in the process but it is a learning curve sure I got a lot of shit for it at the start but I ignored them and kept going against my basic instinct to keep people topped off or even start healing when someone drops below 50%. I learned when I needed to heal and when I didn't based off the situation and even group. Now even with a horrible tank I can still spend a large percentage of my time doing damage. Unless I run into a horrible tank with horrible gear, doing large pulls and standing in everything. I personally am not good enough to heal through that while still being able to do damage but I have seen healers that can, and it is amazing to watch.

[Deceptus]

In reality it's not the amount of healing required that needs to change but the damage distribution. You would need to spread damage in more random damage spikes as opposed to the choreographed encounters we currently have. The problem? SE are going the exact opposite with their design. They've removed critical hits from bosses, etc. etc.

I've played MMO's where random damage spikes were a thing and let me tell you, it's not fun. Never knowing when someone is going to be hit super hard based on RNG is stressful as hell. Predictability is important for both healers and tanks.

So can i apply that to Red Mages then? I will now expect them to cast Vercures on the regular so that they're "Efficiently" using their toolkit.

I expect Summoners to hardcast Raises and spam Physik too, because I'm busy "efficiently" using my toolkit.

If both healers are dead or one healer is dead and the other is struggling and if you have SMN or RDM in your party:

Then yes. I absolutely expect them to help out. It's a team game. Everyone is supposed to play to the best of their ability.

I would also like to point out that I've had dungeon runs be faster with a non-DPS Healer compared to subsequent runs where the Healer is near matching the Tank on DPS.
Healer DPS is negligible compared to whether or not the DPS are playing to the best of their ability.

This is just a factually untrue statement. Any extra damage makes runs faster if everyone is contributing.

They've said on multiple occasions that Healer dps isn't factored into clear requirements. I'm not even sure if they've ever confirmed outright that Savage requires Healers to DPS.

This is an old statement that they have since reverse course on. Healers are expected to do some damage now.

[EaMett]

40%? Maybe in a properly coordinated run where people only take the absolute minimum necessary damage.

I think you're overestimating the value of a healer and underestimating optimized settings. As a reminder, dungeon speed runs have often been done without a healer at all.
I don't even do optimized runs but when I go in with players from my static all the healing I need to do in ex roulette is basically an excog on tank for trash and a whispering dawn on the bosses.
Likewise when I run expert roulette by myself in the duty finder I still don't use a single gcd in combat. It takes a really under-geared tank not using any CDs pulling wall to wall to get me to cast an actual heal. Everything else is ogcd. Of course everyone's mileage will vary, based on skill, comfort, gear, etc... But the idea that spending 40% of your time healing in dungeons is a normal average is just incorrect. You would have to be topping everyone up always to hit those numbers and at that point you should really focus on sharpening your skills. hence all the "healers should dps" threads.

To get an idea of how much time is spent healing in content in semi-optimized to optimized settings you're looking at about 20-10% healing in savage, 30-20% in ultimate. That's a lot of time doing nothing.

Normal duty finder raids(8-24)/trials when content is new and mentor roulette duty finder extreme trials are pretty much the only places where healing becomes a significant part of your gameplay. But those are very limited situations.

I've played MMO's where random damage spikes were a thing and let me tell you, it's not fun. Never knowing when someone is going to be hit super hard based on RNG is stressful as hell. Predictability is important for both healers and tanks.

Yeah, people have different takes on it. The gameplay becomes less about timing heals and more about spamming heals and managing your mana cleverly. I found that once you make that abstraction and forget about the actual healing to focus on the actual mana management it became pretty fun. But alas, I'm sure it's not for everyone, just as dpsing as healer is clearly not for everyone.

[Sylve]

snip

So what you're telling me is that in a perfectly optimized run, with members of your static with whom you play regularly and have full trust in are able to power your way through a dungeon that you are fifty item levels overgeared for with oGCDs.

Its almost like being grossly overgeared for content reduces the Healing requirements to a negligible level. Whodathunkit.

Also, when i speak of constant party damage not on a clock/timer, I mean it exactly as i wrote it. Constant. Yet somehow everyone here automatically goes to the stupid extreme of assuming the request is for the boss to basically randomly Tank buster someone in the party.
Constant, mid level damage that will be fatal if left alone long enough that happens with enough frequency that oGCDs and cooldowns will not be enough by themselves is what I'm after.

One other thing that I badly want for SE to give us is a built-in <tt> effect on Healer damage buttons. Being able to nuke the boss while scrolling the party list is a godsend that currently requires macros and their associated penalties.
That alone would assist in getting some Healers to feel more comfortable throwing the odd DPS spell out.

[Billythepancake]

So what you're telling me is that in a perfectly optimized run, with members of your static with whom you play regularly and have full trust in are able to power your way through a dungeon that you are fifty item levels overgeared for with oGCDs.

Its almost like being grossly overgeared for content reduces the Healing requirements to a negligible level. Whodathunkit.

Also, when i speak of constant party damage not on a clock/timer, I mean it exactly as i wrote it. Constant. Yet somehow everyone here automatically goes to the stupid extreme of assuming the request is for the boss to basically randomly Tank buster someone in the party.
Constant, mid level damage that will be fatal if left alone long enough that happens with enough frequency that oGCDs and cooldowns will not be enough by themselves is what I'm after.

One other thing that I badly want for SE to give us is a built-in <tt> effect on Healer damage buttons. Being able to nuke the boss while scrolling the party list is a godsend that currently requires macros and their associated penalties.
That alone would assist in getting some Healers to feel more comfortable throwing the odd DPS spell out.

Constant damage is a terrible idea, if only because not every healer class is designed to handle it. SCH is screwed in situations where they need to spam GCDs. They're expensive and inefficient, hence why it's better to use oGCDs unless you absolutely need to GCD heal, you'd have to completely change that class if you were to swap to such a model. Even in unoptimized runs, where I've had window lickers, I could find time to DPS. Unless the other members were literally running into orange circles on purpose and collecting vuln stacks like they were trading cards, there is plenty of time to DPS if you know your kit and you know that people don't need every booboo kissed away.

[ForteNightshade]

So can i apply that to Red Mages then? I will now expect them to cast Vercures on the regular so that they're "Efficiently" using their toolkit.

I expect Summoners to hardcast Raises and spam Physik too, because I'm busy "efficiently" using my toolkit.

Tossing a Glare or Malefic while everyone is full and no healing is required should be encouraged. The problem is the mentality from the general community that every GCD ever has to be a DPS spell otherwise you're "holding the team back". New Healers try to do that, fail miserably, get yelled at and quit Healing. Or staunchly refuse to toss a Glare out because theyve only had bad experiences trying in the past.

... you do understand what "efficiently" means, yes? A Red Mage using Vercure isn't efficient unless it's to save someone from dying because things have already gone horribly wrong. Lemme tell you, if you pull off a Vercure in E5S that saves a Dragoon when the healers couldn't for whatever reason, you'll get anything but criticism. Likewise, Physick is so laughably weak on Summoner it shouldn't be on your hotbar.

I know you're intentionally being facetious here but your mock rebuttal still needs to make sense. It doesn't because nothing you described would be considered "efficient".

As for the general community. This is blatantly untrue. You look around here, reddit or Balance—all considered "toxic" by at least a handful—and you'll still see most arguments on healer DPS boiling down to "be activate." In the overwhelming majority of cases, no one will complain if a healer contributes decent damage. Now a new healer may interpret that incorrectly, but that isn't on the community. Many people, even good players, overestimate their abilities. Or try to skip ahead instead of practicing.

They've said on multiple occasions that Healer dps isn't factored into clear requirements. I'm not even sure if they've ever confirmed outright that Savage requires Healers to DPS.

People need to stop quoting this. First and foremost, it was said in 2015. The game as evolved substantially since there. More importantly, it's factually wrong at this given time. I suspect Yoshida meant once players are geared, healer DPS won't be a factor. But as it stands, no. It was straight up impossible to kill Shiva in the first couple weeks without healer DPS. A single DPS death and you were done. While Ramuh you could certainly get away with that, it was only due to his hilariously long enrage. It also puts significantly more pressure on the party since you'll have to deal with Fury's Fourteen and Chain Lightning a second two; mechanics that essentially one-shot you if failed.

Also, the response to my sarcasm in the first two lines will no doubt be along the lines of 'No because the DPS aren't there to Heal'. And yet the Healer has to do the damage dealers job while also doing their own job or they're bad. OK.

Damage is everyone's job. The whole reason tanks and healers have a simplistic DPS kit is to accommodate for their hybrid nature. Mitigation and healing will always be finite. There is no point to casting Medica II when everyone's at 80% and there isn't any raid AoE coming up as they'll naturally tick up. Likewise, pooling 40% worth of mitigation on a tank buster you could easily take with Rampart wastes it when spacing out said cooldowns means less incoming damage overall. Damage, on the other hand, is valuable because well, you don't need mitigation or healing if the thing is dead.