Has anyone quit healing?

[Renathras]

...

Anyways, Olive Branch time:

IF your position is that you agree with me that ARR Healers and the game mechanics, encounters, and Dev intent was not for Healers to be required to do damage, but rather they could freely choose to deal damage (or NOT to deal damage) during times that did not require it, nor involve them compromising their healing, which at the time was GCD based, and that this damage was merely a bonus when done, not a requirement and not expected or intended by the Devs (or the wider community at the time)...

...then we can drop this line of tit-for-tat and discuss what that entails, since we will agree on the position I've held this entire time...and clearly stated that was my position multiple times... (and if you've also held it this entire time, we can simply chalk this up to a..."misunderstanding".)

Namely, that people playing the game from before SB (and arguably some from before ShB even including SB) who enjoy that form of gameplay that doesn't require DPS from Healers and which does not view Healers as "Green DPS" (which, so we're clear on the term, means "A paradigm where Healers are expected and required to be focused on and contributing to DPS, and where that DPS contribution is required for clearing content, such that they aren't Healers so much as they are Support DPS that only incidentally manage health bars while focusing on their primary DPS duties of dealing damage and being damage dealers - hence 'Green DPS' instead of 'Green Healers' or 'Healers'.") had a place in this game, and as loyal players, should still have a place in this game. Thus, any solution to the current issue with healers should include them and their way of playing - not modifications to it to make the Green DPS side happy while giving these "grandfathered in" players something they can merely stand/stomach/accept rather than enjoy, or only allow them to continue playing that way at a penalty.

.

But anyway, as regards this discussion and the OP, I'll say it again:

No, I haven't quit healing and have no intentions to do so unless they force the Green DPS paradigm.

[ForsakenRoe]

Namely, that people playing the game from before SB (and arguably some from before ShB even including SB) who enjoy that form of gameplay that doesn't require DPS from Healers and which does not view Healers as "Green DPS" (which, so we're clear on the term, means "A paradigm where Healers are expected and required to be focused on and contributing to DPS, and where that DPS contribution is required for clearing content, such that they aren't Healers so much as they are Support DPS that only incidentally manage health bars while focusing on their primary DPS duties of dealing damage and being damage dealers - hence 'Green DPS' instead of 'Green Healers' or 'Healers'.") had a place in this game, and as loyal players, should still have a place in this game. Thus, any solution to the current issue with healers should include them and their way of playing - not modifications to it to make the Green DPS side happy while giving these "grandfathered in" players something they can merely stand/stomach/accept rather than enjoy, or only allow them to continue playing that way at a penalty.

.

But anyway, as regards this discussion and the OP, I'll say it again:

No, I haven't quit healing and have no intentions to do so unless they force the Green DPS paradigm.

Again for the probably hundredth time at this point, they have indeed forced the 'green DPS paradigm' as you describe it, and have done since partway through HW. Enrages have been factoring in healer damage for going on for 8 years. Stone Sky Sea and it's later variants have DPS measurements for every raid since 3.0, and Healers have a value assigned. And it's a different value for each healer Job, meaning they're expecting slightly different amounts of personal DPS from each (which makes sense, since some don't have raidbuffs and some do), but the fact the values are different means they've tested and balanced the outputs, and come up with an 'expected value'. You're free to disagree ofc, but the fact of the matter is that we're already 'Green DPS' in terms of responsibility, just not so in rotational complexity as much as previous expansions. Here's a spreadsheet of (apparently) the old DPS values required for each fight, from A1 to A8S.

If you were in content that expected damage from the healers, and you didn't provide damage, you were griefing your team (or were overgeared as hell). If you were in content that DIDN'T expect damage from the healers, well, everyone would still think you were griefing but it's just an EX roulette so they just bit their tongue and sucked up the +8min run length cos it's not worth the risk of falling foul of the TOS. This was as true in HW as it is now in EW.

[Renathras]

Again for the probably hundredth time at this point,

Again for probably the hundredth time at this point, no, they have not. Certainly not "since partway through HW", a time where they outright said they were NOT using such a paradigm.

Even as late as 6.0, they weren't balancing that way - if they were, Misery would have been DPS neutral, and they wouldn't have reduced the DPS kits in ShB and outright removed Energy Drain. Only from "community" backlash did they reinstate Energy Drain in ShB (and half the complaints weren't ED being removed, they were that there was nothing to spend AF on if everyone was at full health - if they had given a AF spender shield like Divine Benediction or Celestial Intersection - that would have allayed a good chunk of those complaints), and didn't make Misery DPS neutral until 6.1. They literally are not, as Developers, paying attention to that or focusing on Healer DPS. It's ridiculously clear that they are not at this point.

Most encounters do not actually demand Healer damage for beating enrages. The only case this is true are early ilevel Savage clears and "Go play Ultimate" Ultimates. With a team of 99 DPSers, your Healers could probably only cast heals and your team clear the encounters with a healthy margin to spare. The Devs outright said in HW they did not balance around Healer DPS contribution, which means you can't claim they did so since 3.0 unless you're going to argue they were outright lying.

We aren't Green DPS. But I honestly don't get why you respond to someone saying "I'll quit healer when..." with effectively a "Well, that condition's met, you better quit now, then!"

If you were in content that DIDN'T expect damage from the healers, well, everyone would still think you were griefing

They literally changed and then removed Cleric Stance because of how much of the community was NOT saying this. That damage WASN'T expected from the Healers in most content and it WASN'T seen as griefing by most of the community. So much so, those insisting on it were causing a great deal of friction in the community, to the point the Devs removed the "stance dance" tool to shut them down.

No, we are not "Green DPS" yet. As I said, some people have just convinced themselves of that and want to try convincing everyone else for some ungodly reason.

EDIT: Though as an aside - I find it kind of amusing that link you posted indicates higher Healer DPS than Tank DPS. An interesting inversion on the present...

[ty_taurus]

Ultimately, the whole origin story of the debate was about whether or not it was expected that healers would engage with their DPS actions outside of solo content when the game was in development and during the launch of ARR, which the content of ARR makes clear was expected. "Expected" in this context referring to whether or not the community would engage with it and NOT in the context of whether or not the content demanded it. ARR didn't really have enrages in the same way that we have enrages now, and healer DPS was not required. I believe this indicates healer DPS was perceived by the designers as a reward for good healing. HW was not really a part of that train of thought.

Back during that time, I wasn't really invested in Savage, moreso because I didn't really have a group of people to do it with and I wasn't super invested in trying to find a group, so my knowledge on the finer details of Savage gameplay was more limited. That said, I do know that the combat team royally fudged the testing of savage fights during HW, and it was a big deal that led to an apology and a promise to do better moving forward. I wouldn't put it past them that healer DPS wasn't intended to be required but might have been on week 1 unintentionally, but I can't say from experience. SCH parsed higher than NIN at the time, from posts I've seen in the past, so required or not, I can't imagine healer DPS not being of significant value to raid groups especially since SCH was largely viewed as a required job regardless of whether or not it was required to get clears. Even if the design team attempted to balance fights around healers not contributing damage, I imagine the raiding community would aggressively pressure healers to do so anyway. You no doubt would be skipping mechanics with it anyway, but that of course is the community view and not the design view.

Perhaps that's even why Savage content began expecting healer DPS, because the amount of mechanics that you could skip by having healers attacking was significant enough that the combat design team may as well have been forced into taking it into account, and likely contributed to the decision to axe old Cleric Stance.

They literally changed and then removed Cleric Stance because of how much of the community was NOT saying this. That damage WASN'T expected from the Healers in most content and it WASN'T seen as griefing by most of the community. So much so, those insisting on it were causing a great deal of friction in the community, to the point the Devs removed the "stance dance" tool to shut them down.

I recall forum conversations from HW, and it would very commonly refer to statements that effectively can be summarized as either "As a healer, you should be DPSing. If you aren't DPSing, you're griefing your team." or the other side of the fence that would go "Healers aren't supposed to DPS and I'm not going to." One of the two would go first, followed by the other. Then after both those statements came through, it would be followed up with more genuinely concerned players who'd say things like, "I try to DPS when I can, but sometimes I'm afraid of going into Cleric Stance, or if it's a new fight, I prefer to get comfortable with the mechanics before I try to DPS. It's not griefing." Then you'd have the first camp reassure those players saying "It's okay if you're learning a new fight, or you're trying to get better at healing. What matters is that you're trying your best to help your parties, but it helps to practice getting a few hits in now and then to get comfortable with it." Then the arguments would die down, and then start back up again.

[Renathras]

Ultimately, the whole origin story of the debate was about whether or not it was expected that healers would engage with their DPS actions outside of solo content when the game was in development and during the launch of ARR, which the content of ARR makes clear was expected.

This is either irrelevant since neither of us have been talking about that and it has no bearing on the discussion (if by "expected" you mean "could do if they wanted to", as we've both said this already and it doesn't alter how Healers should be designed since it's only a bonus and not a requirement or expectation - which makes the use of the word "expected" strange...) or it's wrong (if by "expected" you mean "required" and/or "the Devs expected it and balanced around it" - as we've both now said, that wasn't true).

So I'm not sure why you're saying something that's either irrelevant (based on what we agreed on) or wrong (based on what we agreed on)...

"Expected" in this context referring to whether or not the community would engage with it and NOT in the context of whether or not the content demanded it.

No, that's not what it refers to in this context. As we've been discussing this entire time, "expected" in this context means "the Developers intended it and balanced content around a demand and requirement for it"; which we've both now said was not true, something we agree on.

Further, even if we use that definition, for much of ARR, the community (as we've also both said/agreed on) did not expect it as people were playing FFXIV like WoW early on anyway. The community was still fighting over the topic as late as SB. I believe you were the one who said in ARR this was true because people coming from other games brought those expectations with them, which as we can see from clear videos of that period was at the very least very prevalent in the community, if not outright the majority position for most of ARR and still was into HW. It was the majority of the playerbase (non-Savage players) for all of HW, too, as I'll discuss below relating to Cleric Stance.

ARR didn't really have enrages in the same way that we have enrages now, and healer DPS was not required.

Agreed.

I believe this indicates healer DPS was perceived by the designers as a reward for good healing.

Agreed with the caveat that this train of thought was still prevalent in HW, and based on Yoshi P's interviews even recently, still seems to be - something we both agreed on (as likely how Yoshi P himself feels - that he's an old school gamer and doesn't seem to hold the "Healers are Green DPS" mentality) the other day.

[Aside: We honestly do agree on a lot of things, just we draw rather different conclusions from the points of agreement...]

That said, I do know that the combat team royally fudged the testing of savage fights during HW, and it was a big deal that led to an apology and a promise to do better moving forward.

Agreed. In simple terms, Alexander was overtuned, which explains why the Devs said they didn't balance around Healer DPS in content that, at launch, essentially required it to clear. As Mr Happy once said, Gordias almost killed the game a second time. We also saw this (to a FAR lesser extent) with P8S on release. 1% goes a long way sometimes.

I wouldn't put it past them that healer DPS wasn't intended to be required but might have been on week 1 unintentionally, but I can't say from experience.

Agreed. This would make their on the record statements make sense, the Job design make sense, and the still pretty fresh ARR paradigm extend logically to HW. Like with SCH in ARR and like NIN's optimal rotation on release not being what the Devs intended, these appeared to be accidents rather than desired.

[Aside: Note that, as far as FFXIV's history goes, Gordias marked a pretty hard paradigm shift - or the start of one, anyway:

ARR and HW Savage raids were kind of designed to be elite content, and had a lot of wonky mechanics and such in them. But after Godias nearly killed the raiding community, it seemed to cause an internal reevaluation. The results of which led to the shift in the later HW content and, really, the establishment of the modern paradigm in SB. The Omega raids seem to flow directly into Eden into Pandaemonium. Note how they all have similar forms.

There's no weird trash fights like Coils or Alexander, no 5 fight sequence like Coils, trash fights were done away with, the reward structure was cemented into the modern day form, and they removed wonky fights like Gorilla transformations to punt bombs and the like. This is what leads to what I've been saying and my position that SB was really the birth of the modern paradigm.

It's also why WHM was really left in the cold because it still adhered to the ARR/HW paradigm in the "changing world" of SB around it until it was given its own hybrid update - the Lily system of ShB/EW - with 5.0 and 6.1 really ensuring that, while sticking to that older style GCD healing feel, it was hybridized with the newer form GCD damage with oGCD healing weaves to create a GCD Healer that used GCD damage spam but with GCD healing weaves that refunded damage to be roughly neutral in outcome. WHM retains a GCD healing focus, but it's merged with a GCD damage one (unlike AST/SCH which fully embraced the oGCD healing paradigm instead)]

and likely contributed to the decision to axe old Cleric Stance.

The reason Cleric was axed was because there was a schism in the community as a whole - outside of Savage Raids, I mean normal 4 man dungeon runs - about Healers doing damage or not. And unlike the Savage space, the bulk of the community seemed opposed to the idea. The reason was everyone knew a run that failed or wiped because a Healer was in Cleric at a bad time. I still remember running the level 50 dungeon in HW, Dusk Vigil, the first time. All these years later. The reason is I was in Cleric while doing solo stuff and quests and didn't realize it or think about it when I zoned in. The first trash pack, I was borderline oom blowing CDs (Divine Seal, Presence of Mind, Shroud of Saints for MP) and spamming Cure 2. I was rather "Holy cow, how am I supposed to heal a whole dungeon of this much damage?! Surely my gear from all these quests isn't that out of date!"...until I realized Cleric was on and turned it off. Had a mini heart attack that I still remember 7-8 years later, lol

Thing is, to slightly lesser Healers (once who didn't use CDs...), that would have been a wipe. And a micro version of this often existed if a Healer went into Cleric at the wrong time. So a lot of the non-Savage community saw GOING INTO CLERIC as griefing - not doing no damage as a Healer - because it increased the chance of wipes due to mistakes or poor timing or a DPS/Tank standing in bad at a poor time and so on. And the gap between Healers doing damage (applying DoTs and spamming their damage spells) with Cleric vs without was rather great enough many felt doing damage outside of Cleric was somewhere between weak and pointless.

So the pro-damage side was upset at Healers that did use damage spells but didn't use Cleric, or didn't use it enough, while the larger part of the community - again, not Savage raiders, which at the time was probably 5% or less of the playerbase - were upset at the Savage people demanding Healers do damage and do so in Cleric.

So the Dev solution to all this mess was to first change Cleric to essentially a DPS burst CD (like how Presence of Mind is used today), and then when ShB came out, to outright remove it since it had more often become a "use on CD" button anyway, and was still causing a gap between high and low skilled play that made encounters difficult to balance.

The idea was that by changing it (and then removing it), Healers could deal damage at their own pace, without trying to do things like pop Cleric to snapshot DoTs and so on, which Yoshi P also hoped would encourage casual Healers to feel better about throwing some damage when they felt up to it and hoped that it would reduce Savage raiders harassing other Healers about not having high Cleric uptime. (A similar argument existed regarding Tank stances, which were also removed at that same time going from SB into ShB)

That is why Cleric Stance will never return.

I recall forum conversations from HW, and it would very commonly refer to statements that effectively can be summarized as either "As a healer, you should be DPSing. If you aren't DPSing, you're griefing your team." or the other side of the fence that would go "Healers aren't supposed to DPS and I'm not going to." One of the two would go first, followed by the other. Then after both those statements came through, it would be followed up with more genuinely concerned players who'd say things like, "I try to DPS when I can, but sometimes I'm afraid of going into Cleric Stance, or if it's a new fight, I prefer to get comfortable with the mechanics before I try to DPS. It's not griefing." Then you'd have the first camp reassure those players saying "It's okay if you're learning a new fight, or you're trying to get better at healing. What matters is that you're trying your best to help your parties, but it helps to practice getting a few hits in now and then to get comfortable with it." Then the arguments would die down, and then start back up again.

This is mostly true, except for the last part. Often the first group would still be mad at the third group and would only marginally soften to "Well, as long as you're ONLY doing that while learning - we still expect you to go balls to the wall Cleric once you've gotten a few clears..."

It was an unhealthy and unstable armistice, which is why it would keep flaring up.

It still hasn't gone away, but at least now we don't have the Cleric hurdle anymore. So I suppose that's an improvement of sorts.

[ty_taurus]

This is either irrelevant since neither of us have been talking about that and it has no bearing on the discussion (if by "expected" you mean "could do if they wanted to", as we've both said this already and it doesn't alter how Healers should be designed since it's only a bonus and not a requirement or expectation - which makes the use of the word "expected" strange...) or it's wrong (if by "expected" you mean "required" and/or "the Devs expected it and balanced around it" - as we've both now said, that wasn't true).

So I'm not sure why you're saying something that's either irrelevant (based on what we agreed on) or wrong (based on what we agreed on)...

Stop putting words in my mouth. You hate when others do it to you, so stop doing it to others. Literally since the first post, all I've been saying is that if you asked the devs back in ARR times if they thought healers would use DPS spells in group content, the response would be "Yeah, most will probably use them at least a little bit." You misunderstood the context and made it your mission in life to be right about something you read incorrectly. If you want to want to have a cordial discussion, stop trying to open up conflict for no reason. The FFXIV designers EXPECTED that most healers healers would DPS on some level back during ARR but didn't build around that just like Hoyoverse EXPECTS that some players will whale on Genshin Impact, but didn't build their game to require that. The point of me saying that was to reiterate that this was a statement about ARR and not HW.

The reason Cleric was axed was because there was a schism in the community as a whole...

I said "contributed to" not "is the only reason why." The big reason was probably because of that schism, but healer DPS could cause fights to be cleared far more quickly than they may have wanted for savage fights, and either needed to start considering it to ensure the average party experiences those mechanics, or heavily frontload the mechanics they want a savage fight to deliver.

This is mostly true, except for the last part. Often the first group would still be mad at the third group and would only marginally soften to "Well, as long as you're ONLY doing that while learning - we still expect you to go balls to the wall Cleric once you've gotten a few clears..."

You have an incredibly bias perspective. This is an MMO. In an MMO, all players are expected to contribute to shared gameplay experiences, like running a dungeon or doing a raid. Actively choosing to not help when you otherwise can is rude and disrespectful behavior on any role, because you are literally wasting the time of other players. Your time is not more important than everyone else's. In FFXIV especially, most people are far beyond understanding for those that are new or learning healers. If you are genuinely trying your best, then most of us are more than happy to help take your time and practice, offering any advice that you ask for, but if you don't attack because "I don't want to" then you're disrespecting all the other players who are forced to queue with you. You're no different than a BLM only using blizzard spells because "I want to be an ice mage." If you want to roleplay as a healer that never attacks, then find a roleplay group to do your dailies with. None of us signed up for your RP session. It's no different than respecting others in a public space, like not taking up more than one parking space, or not being on the phone while you're speaking to a cashier.

[Renathras]

Whatever the reason, the Devs need to find and address the issue or it will get worse.

True, but the issue is tricky because of all that. If you make Healing more damage focused, you alienate and lose the people that don't like DPS rotations. If you make it less, you lose the people that do. If they aren't sure of what the problem is (as Yoshi P's most recent, exasperated "I thought we were doing what you guys want; what DO you want??" kind of indicates), they risk making it worse if they make sweeping changes since they could do more of whatever it is people don't actually want. And the issue is, there are a lot of different Healer player types, so what some may like may alienate others, meaning the solution needs to be a wide net to catch as many as possible. Going full in any direction doesn't help the situation if you pick up 10% more Healers but lose 30%, for example.

What they also really care about is player behavior.
Anything that causes exclusion or anti-social tendencies is a big no-no.

Definitely this. It's come up enough times and it's specifically why Cleric was removed and Healer DPS kits were stripped down.

Just cos the devs say something, doesn't make it true.

It doesn't mean they get it right or do what they're intending, that's true. But if they state their intentions, they likely aren't lying - so they're being truthful about their intentions (most likely), they're just failing at them. Also, need to do some more up to date calculations. You're using the most overtuned content in the game's history. So overtuned the Devs even apologized for it.

The problem with your "weave" argument is that Tank mitigations aren't GCDs. The closest to that is Passage of Arms. There's no "Press this GCD to do mitigation; it locks you out of dealing damage" button in the game. And the only Tank GCD that isn't damage related is Clemency. By contrast, Healer Jobs have at a bare minimum (SCH) three (lolPhysic, Adlo, and Succor), and at a Maximum, WHM has 7 (lolCure 1, Cure 2, Cure 3, Regen, Medica 1, Medica 2, Afflatus Solace, Afflatus Rapture). So there's not really a good comparison there other than we can say that the only Healer with more DPS GCD buttons than healing GCD buttons is SGE with 5 vs 4 (Dosis, Eu Dosis, Plegma, Toxicon, Dyskrasia, and Pneuma vs Diagnosis, Eu Diagnosis, Prognosis, and Eu Prognosis); SCH is equal with 3 vs 3 (Broil IV, Ruin 2, Art Of War vs Physic, Adlo, and Succor). WHM is 4 vs 8 (Glare, Dia, Misery, Holy vs the 8 above), and AST has...what, 3 DPS GCDs? 3 vs 5 (Malefic and Combust vs Benefic, Aspected Benefic, Benefic 2, Holos, and Aspected Holos)

[Much as I generally dislike the aesthetic, I might have to play with AST a bit more. I hate the way Cards as oGCDs work, though. If they were GCDs, maybe...just make Draw deal a Malefic's damage to your target, if hostile (abilities like Holmgang can judge whether targeting an enemy or not...), and Play a GCD that doubles the damage of the next Malific and said buff stacks up to 3 times...]

Cleric was removed because some people were harassing Healers for not DPSing, not because "healers were meant to DPS", and because the Devs thought Healing was too taxing of a role driving people away from it and needed to be made more friendly to attract and retain a stable Healer population.

As for Tanks: Agro was the intent in ARR. That's why they had a Tank Stance and Agro combo. It was literally to manage Agro - something that was stripped from THEIR role going into ShB as well.

And be careful with absolute statements: People were getting mad at Healers back then. Again, this is why Cleric was removed. Further, people do now. I've seen more than one Reddit post complaining about Healers in low level dungeons not dpsing "because they don't even need to heal". So clearly, some people are and have.

They said that, indeed. And people love repeating their statement again and again

Probably because when you're trying to figure out what someone intends to do, and they say "I intend to do X", it pays to reference that.

Note the discussion was about what the Devs intended at the beginning of the game (ARR and HW), not what they do now, nor even if they succeeded at their ARR/HW intent. The fact of the matter is, they said that their intent was Healers not to be expected to do damage and they even apologized for the content that was overtuned to the point of requiring it. Meaning their intent was for Healers to not have to do damage and any they did be a bonus, not a requirement.

Stop putting words in my mouth.

What words did I put in your mouth?

You and I have both now agreed that the Devs likely intended Healer damage (if any) to be a bonus, not a requirement, and did not balance or tune around it, and that they could do it if they wanted to or not. Which words did I put in your mouth in that quote?

Literally since the first post, all I've been saying is that if you asked the devs back in ARR times if they thought healers would use DPS spells in group content, the response would be "Yeah, most will probably use them at least a little bit." You misunderstood the context and made it your mission in life to be right about something you read incorrectly.

Okay, I genuinely have to ask...this was your first statement, the first lines of it, in this discussion stream:

That said, this is my guess as to what they wanted.

When ARR released, they wanted healers to dance between offensive windows and healing windows.

Maybe you forgot what your first post here was. But that's not saying "Yeah, we figure they'll use some damage buttons here and there". That's you saying they expected - wanted - Healers to be dealing damage, not just "use them at least a little bit" unless you have a VERY different meaning behind "dance between offensive windows and healing windows" that is "just toss out the occasional Ruin or Stone and not really do it much". Most people wouldn't define "dance between offensive windows and healing windows" as "use 5 Stones per encounter or so". You went on to say:

the actual content doesn't really create an environment for that playstyle to thrive, and I think the design team can't really do that without creating a schism between new and old content,

...which is you saying that the content has always been this way - not merely post HW.

As I said before - and offered you an olive branch over you're spitting in my face right now instead of taking - maybe it was just a misunderstanding where you could tell your message wasn't getting through and you could have said, at any time "I'm not saying the Devs expected healers to DPS, I'm saying they thought of it as optional". Instead you referenced the CNJ questline to say they intended for them to do it, and you insisted several times the game and encounter design has always been this way, even though it clearly was not. You even later said (agreeing with me) that it was different back then, in ARR particularly, with no Enrage timers and few oGCD healing options.

Maybe you meant this entire time "The Devs just thought people might toss the occasional damage spell on Healer and gave them the flexibility and freedom to do so, but didn't intend for it and realized many Healers wouldn't do it."

Since you won't clearly state your opinion, I'll ask you now, since I don't want to put words in your mouth but what your mouth is saying keeps changing:

Is that your position?

In this thread, you've said all of (Paraphrasing) "The Devs intended for Healers to deal damage", "The Devs EXPECTED Healers would DPS", "The Devs just gave Healers the freedom to deal damage as a bonus if they wanted to", "The Devs just thought Healers might throw out a damage spell here and there", and "The Devs (and players at the time) didn't know what they were doing regarding Healers and damage". While some of these can be true at the same time (namely any of the first four + the last one, or the first two may be true together), many are not compatible (1 and 2 aren't compatible with 3 and 4). So which is it?

I need you to make up your mind and pick one so I know which I'm arguing against. You've "danced" between them so often, it shouldn't surprise you I'm accidentally "putting words in your mouth" because your mouth has said all of these in at least some form.

Be clear on which it is and I won't misunderstand you.

I'm not trying to open up conflict, I'm trying to pin down what the heck you actually think and are arguing about here, since you've agreed with everything I said (while saying I was wrong - clearly not getting that you were restating my position) and also attacked that same position.

In an MMO, all players are expected to contribute to shared gameplay experiences, like running a dungeon or doing a raid.

And.
They.
Do.

"Contributing" isn't "dealing damage". That's one form of contribution, but not the only one. If it was, no MMO would have any role besides Damage Dealers.

but if you don't attack because "I don't want to"

It's amazing how often you trot out this straw man dead horse that's been beaten to where there aren't even molecules left in the dirt pile where once was blood and before that the corpse of straw.

You love arguing against a point no one has ever made in this discussion.

Maybe if someone was making the argument that they wanted to never ever under any circumstances press a damage button while healing, you'd have a point. But who has argued that point?

I'll do the mature thing (again) and ask you (again) because you didn't answer any of the last times I did so:

What do you think my argument is?

(And, btw, this IS the difference between us and why I don't put words in your mouth as you do with me - if I think I misunderstand you, I ask you what you mean. You don't ever give a straight answer, but I make the effort. You not giving a straight answer is what leads to the "putting words in your mouth" since you refuse to clarify what words you actually mean to come out of your mouth. And likewise, when I think you're misunderstanding me, instead of making my argument several different ways with you obviously (to me) misunderstanding every time and then trying to "gotcha" you later for it by calling you wrong and saying you misunderstand me, I ask you what you think I'm saying so I can clear up the misunderstanding. Your goal seems to be the gotcha, my goal is fostering discussion and understanding of my positions and why I think they're important. Though, again, you don't give a straight answer. It shouldn't be hard to answer the question "What do you think I'm saying/arguing?", yet you've consistently refused to do so.)

I even offered you an olive branch that maybe we've just misunderstood each other and are actually in agreement but didn't realize it. You didn't quote or reply to that post, instead you continue to attack and insist I'm misunderstanding you (while not admitting it's you that are misunderstanding me), even when I already beat you to that punch by saying maybe we just had a misunderstanding.

All you had to do was say "Yeah, I guess we just misunderstood each other. We do agree the Devs did not design or intend Healers in ARR to be Green DPS that did damage."

That's it!

You've even already said this, you just wouldn't do so without attacking me as being "wrong" for holding the EXACT SAME POSITION that you stated was right when YOU said it.

You could even say it right now!

All you have to do is stop insisting I'm wrong about something you literally agreed with my position on and the argument's over.

Here, I'll even quote it again for you in case you missed it the last time:

Anyways, Olive Branch time:

IF your position is that you agree with me that ARR Healers and the game mechanics, encounters, and Dev intent was not for Healers to be required to do damage, but rather they could freely choose to deal damage (or NOT to deal damage) during times that did not require it, nor involve them compromising their healing, which at the time was GCD based, and that this damage was merely a bonus when done, not a requirement and not expected or intended by the Devs (or the wider community at the time)...

...then we can drop this line of tit-for-tat and discuss what that entails, since we will agree on the position I've held this entire time...and clearly stated that was my position multiple times... (and if you've also held it this entire time, we can simply chalk this up to a..."misunderstanding".)

Namely, that people playing the game from before SB (and arguably some from before ShB even including SB) who enjoy that form of gameplay that doesn't require DPS from Healers and which does not view Healers as "Green DPS" (which, so we're clear on the term, means "A paradigm where Healers are expected and required to be focused on and contributing to DPS, and where that DPS contribution is required for clearing content, such that they aren't Healers so much as they are Support DPS that only incidentally manage health bars while focusing on their primary DPS duties of dealing damage and being damage dealers - hence 'Green DPS' instead of 'Green Healers' or 'Healers'.") had a place in this game, and as loyal players, should still have a place in this game. Thus, any solution to the current issue with healers should include them and their way of playing - not modifications to it to make the Green DPS side happy while giving these "grandfathered in" players something they can merely stand/stomach/accept rather than enjoy, or only allow them to continue playing that way at a penalty.

.

But anyway, as regards this discussion and the OP, I'll say it again:

No, I haven't quit healing and have no intentions to do so unless they force the Green DPS paradigm.

And note that was me replying to this post:

Oh, that explains why you're so wrong. You completely misinterpreted what I was saying since the beginning. I never said the design team balanced content around healer DPS. ARR didn't have modern enrages, and while it did feature some DPS checks, it was certainly balanced without healer DPS initially. I was talking about the general gameplay loop the design team was crafting--something where healers had the freedom to attack, and would do so at times, and this extra damage would be a bonus, not the standard. That was definitely a part of ARR design.

It's okay though, now that you know why you're wrong and you can accept that, I think we could move on to a more fair discussion, yeah?

I also think AST is the right healer to move forward with a healer who disguises their DPS contributions as healing. I've done no shortage of pondering over how exactly to get it just right. I think I have a good core concept, but the details are always finnicky. It's a tough concept to work out on paper without having access to a build to test any ideas in.

Also, I wasn't trying to lie. I hadn't seen your suggestion of that previously.

Setting aside how I'm trying to be conciliatory and find some manner of peace while you...were not...

...if this post was your actual position, then we have nothing to argue about, because WE AGREE! Congratulations!

"I never said the design team balanced content around healer DPS." + "it was certainly balanced without healer DPS initially." + "where healers had the freedom to attack, and would do so at times, and this extra damage would be a bonus, not the standard." = LITERALLY MY ARGUMENT THIS ENTIRE TIME.

In reply to you saying this: "What part of those examples prevents you from DPSing? "

You're asking the wrong question.

I didn't say any of that prevents people from DPSing.

I'm saying it didn't require people to DPS, from which we can infer the Dev intention was not to require Healers to DPS. It's really that simple.

And in reply to you saying this: "If the game design didn't want you to DPS "

Where did I ever say the game design didn't what you to DPS?

What, exactly, do you even think my argument here is?

I said the game was not designed around an intent on the Dev's part that Healers would be DPSing (or DPSing meaningfully) during at the time high-end encounters. No where did I say their intent was that Healers never be allowed to hit a single DPS button in their entire gameplay at any point. What is it you think I'm arguing, because you've made this strawman several times.

I swear, it's as if you don't even read my posts before replying to them.

...which...WOULD explain the misunderstandings...

[ForsakenRoe]

Again for probably the hundredth time at this point, no, they have not. Certainly not "since partway through HW", a time where they outright said they were NOT using such a paradigm.

Even as late as 6.0, they weren't balancing that way - if they were, Misery would have been DPS neutral, and they wouldn't have reduced the DPS kits in ShB and outright removed Energy Drain. Only from "community" backlash did they reinstate Energy Drain in ShB (and half the complaints weren't ED being removed, they were that there was nothing to spend AF on if everyone was at full health - if they had given a AF spender shield like Divine Benediction or Celestial Intersection - that would have allayed a good chunk of those complaints), and didn't make Misery DPS neutral until 6.1. They literally are not, as Developers, paying attention to that or focusing on Healer DPS. It's ridiculously clear that they are not at this point.

Most encounters do not actually demand Healer damage for beating enrages. The only case this is true are early ilevel Savage clears and "Go play Ultimate" Ultimates. With a team of 99 DPSers, your Healers could probably only cast heals and your team clear the encounters with a healthy margin to spare. The Devs outright said in HW they did not balance around Healer DPS contribution, which means you can't claim they did so since 3.0 unless you're going to argue they were outright lying.

We aren't Green DPS. But I honestly don't get why you respond to someone saying "I'll quit healer when..." with effectively a "Well, that condition's met, you better quit now, then!"

Just cos the devs say something, doesn't make it true. Yoshi infamously has said in the past that MCH is perfectly playable at 200 ping. It wasn't, hence people asking for hypercharge and wildfire to get a stack system, which it only took THREE years to get. And not even in the same patch where they did it to DRK's Blood Weapon, which had the exact same problem re: ping. The SSS Dummy values fairly clearly (imo at least) that there's a certain value of Healer DPS expected. You're not hitting that 900ish DPS in Gordias by just 'DPS when you can', you'd have to change your healing plan around to forcibly make more time to DPS more. The Sac strat of A4S bought a lot more healer DPS uptime, as they would be able to ignore the Nisi DOT damage, gaining them GCDs to throw rocks with.

Yes I'm using early Savage and Ultimates, because that's the content the classes are balanced around? Nobody's been saying 'damn PLD is 11% behind DRK' because of parses of Lapis Manalis. Yes, you 'can' clear some previous savage fights with zero healer DPS. But iirc it was calculated that in order to do so, you'd need the other 6 players to be at least 75-80% players, AND be in BIS, that is, with the weapon that comes from the fight you're trying to clear. Taking the example of a 3rd fight eg P3S (so, unupgraded tome weapon, since upgrade comes FROM 3rd fight), I'd estimate the DPS/Tanks would need to be bordering on 90% gameplay to make up the difference. It was also found that Ultimate is mathematically not possible, even with 100% gamers it'd be too much missing damage.

When someone says 'what is the responsibility of this role', I think the best way to define it is 'what does the role primarily weave between it's damage filler?' For tanks, it's tank stuff like Mitigations. For healers, it's healing skills or mitigative effects like Kera/Soil. For damage dealers, it's... more damage, be it selfbuffs or OGCD attacks. But that's the 'in between stuff', we all have the 'filler', and that 'filler' is damage for all roles. We ARE Green DPS. The signs could not possibly be clearer, you're just burying your head in the sand to avoid seeing them. Just because you can zero-damage your way through your EX roulette runs doesn't mean it's the intended gameplay.

Cleric Stance was a clunky obstacle to allowing healers to DPS. It was not removed because 'it was making healers think they need to DPS', it was removed BECAUSE healers were meant to DPS, and the fact they could accidentally get themselves and their party killed, with a mistimed CS swap, was perceived to be a huge barrier to entry. By removing it, the barrier went from '5 seconds of lockout before you can heal effectively again' to 'you can move to cancel your DPS cast and go back to healing immediately'. I'm glad CS is gone, I enjoyed the dance, I got good at the dance, but I don't want it back. It's the illusion of 'complexity', with a very high margin for error while practicing, leading to people getting stressed and giving up on trying to learn it. SB had the right balance of 'accessibility' and 'complexity' for a launchpad to add to going into SHB. But it wasn't a rocket, it was a submarine, we expected it to go up up up over the expansions, and instead it's going down down down.

Finally, consider, Aggro is binary. You either have it, or you don't. Since this is the case, is it not theoretically possible to make the same argument for Tanks doing damage, that is, 'I dont need to do damage as a tank, as a team of 80+ gamers could make up the missing damage for me! All I need to do is use Provoke to get aggro, and the massive multiplier to emnity generation via tankstance means I will keep Aggro, even with just autoattacks!' If the OT never did damage, but the healers DID do damage (and were 80+%) it'd be just as 'carryable' as the deadweight healer example. Does this mean it was 'intended' back in ARR for tanks to just not use their damage rotation, because that's not their role? No, because 'do damage' is part of the tank role. If it wasn't, they'd have flat threat gen on their skills, like old Flash.

I recall forum conversations from HW, and it would very commonly refer to statements that effectively can be summarized as either "As a healer, you should be DPSing. If you aren't DPSing, you're griefing your team." or the other side of the fence that would go "Healers aren't supposed to DPS and I'm not going to." One of the two would go first, followed by the other. Then after both those statements came through, it would be followed up with more genuinely concerned players who'd say things like, "I try to DPS when I can, but sometimes I'm afraid of going into Cleric Stance, or if it's a new fight, I prefer to get comfortable with the mechanics before I try to DPS. It's not griefing." Then you'd have the first camp reassure those players saying "It's okay if you're learning a new fight, or you're trying to get better at healing. What matters is that you're trying your best to help your parties, but it helps to practice getting a few hits in now and then to get comfortable with it." Then the arguments would die down, and then start back up again.

Literally nobody is going to be mad at a new healer trying to get comfortable with their healing kit before dipping into damage, unless they don't know that person is new to healing. When learning a new fight, we drop insane amounts of damage to play safely, because you can't learn mechanics if people are dead. I don't mind a zero DPS healer in some content, like low level stuff in levelling roulette. But it's when we get to level 90 content, EX roulette dungeons and the like, and the player STILL doesn't use Dyskrasia or Gravity or whatever, it doesn't tell me 'I am still learning', because they're level 90. Instead, it tells me that they saw how little damage people take in most content, and rather than decide to take advantage of it productively, by throwing some damage to speed the run up, instead they've decided to take advantage 'selfishly'? 'lazily'? idk, opposite of 'productively'. Maybe I just never saw the appeal in 'not playing the game' and watching Netflix on the side, because I still don't have a second monitor in 2023

[Rilifane]

Again for probably the hundredth time at this point, no, they have not. Certainly not "since partway through HW", a time where they outright said they were NOT using such a paradigm.

Even as late as 6.0, they weren't balancing that way - if they were, Misery would have been DPS neutral, and they wouldn't have reduced the DPS kits in ShB and outright removed Energy Drain. Only from "community" backlash did they reinstate Energy Drain in ShB (and half the complaints weren't ED being removed, they were that there was nothing to spend AF on if everyone was at full health - if they had given a AF spender shield like Divine Benediction or Celestial Intersection - that would have allayed a good chunk of those complaints), and didn't make Misery DPS neutral until 6.1. They literally are not, as Developers, paying attention to that or focusing on Healer DPS. It's ridiculously clear that they are not at this point.

Most encounters do not actually demand Healer damage for beating enrages. The only case this is true are early ilevel Savage clears and "Go play Ultimate" Ultimates. With a team of 99 DPSers, your Healers could probably only cast heals and your team clear the encounters with a healthy margin to spare. The Devs outright said in HW they did not balance around Healer DPS contribution, which means you can't claim they did so since 3.0 unless you're going to argue they were outright lying.

They said that, indeed. And people love repeating their statement again and again no matter how much reality tells a different story. This statement is outdated and outright false.

We had Alexander Gordias that absolutely demanded healer dps from both healers or it was literally not possible to clear, not even past min ilvl/ entry level gear.
We also had e8s which, again, was impossible to clear even with several 99 parsing DPS players and a good comp without both healers dpsing as well if you didn't want to wait until you half-outgeared it. There was definitely no "healthy margin to spare". Then also got p8s part 2 which still needed healer dps even after the HP adjustment.
And nor should all 4 DPS players expected to perform that insanely well and make no mistake while sticking to stronger comps for an entire fight just so the healers can sit with their thumbs up their butts the majority of the time.

So yes, healer dps has been expected in endgame content for a long time now and this is not just true for 1st/ 2nd week clears.
Blindly taking their word for gospel will not suddenly erase Gordias, e8s and p8s part 2 from existence where healer dps is mandatory to even clear past min ilvl/ entry level clears very early into the tier. And I can assure you that you also need healer dps in Ultimates, even if your DPS players perform incredibly well despite Ultimates generally focussing more on survival, mitigation and executing mechanics well.
Yoshi said a lot of things that proved to be false like his infamous "WHM does all the healing while SCH brings the dps" when SCH actually outhealed and outdpsed WHM - by a mile. He's not right all the time and he sure wasn't right about healer DPS not being necessary.