The "To DPS" vs "Not DPS" Debate

[Lovemonster]

I don't know where you get the idea that people pressure healers to DPS because I've never seen this happen in dungeons, trials or raids (duty finder and party finder). You're only expected to heal and in some special cases like plumes in garuda ex, to DPS because it makes the fight so much easier for the party. The only "pressure" I think is that you are being categorized as either bad or lazy.

Some healers like to contribute more to encounters than just healing. Not doing so is just being lazy and you really can't deny it. Trying to justify not doing damage with how classes are designed or what their primary role is supposed to be just paints the picture that you're just too lazy to contribute more.
The same applies to warriors who take off defiance while off-tanking during tank swaps. This not only helps reduce your enmity generated but also you inflict more damage. They're not expected to do it, but good tanks usually do.

[Algin]

From a tank point of view:
Yes, sometimes it's irritating, especially in low roulette, when you see healer just standing and dropping like one heal per fight, and then doing nothing. But according to my rule - if the mobs are dead, and we are not, I don't mind But on the other side, when we are doing something like BF SR, and I pulled everything in first map, am on 400 HP, out of my cooldowns and healer just spams holy, which ended in wipe, that's wrong too.

I do understand that people are different, some do not want to DPS - yes, I know people who are healers, just because they like to heal, not to damage mobs. And that's fine with me. Some are learning, some are struggling. But, if the team survived the fgith, I'll never blame the healer for not attacking monsters. But yes, I'm that strange tank, that when coming to BF, always asks healer with how many pulls he/she is comfortable with.

Now from my WHM point of view (got two characters from RP reasons :P). It really depends on the party. If tank is taking damage, DPS pull whatever they can, and general chaos ensures, then my job is to keep them all alive, and I won't even have time for dealing damage. But, in the low roulette (I'm still before 50, so no other roulettes nor the best gear), it's sometimes enough to drop two or one Cure per mob pack, and you don't even have to switch off cleric stance.

I only struggle at bossess. They hit harder, sometimes cure in cleric stance is not enough, also if I dps too hard, then I have mana problems. Thus, during boss fights I prefer to just focus on healing.

[JonBigwood]

For WHM, in low level dungeons, if circumnstances allow it, helping to kill the mobs makes things go faster, it's not required but if you can, why not help. A high level WHM in Cleric Stance hits hard, so there are places in which he can help a lot, like Castrum Meridianum or second boss of Wanderer's Palace (there's a lot of difference between having a WHM holy the adds or not.) But what should not happen is losing control on the health department because you are dealing damage in Cleric Stance. The more you know a place and control what is going to happen, the more possibilities of dealing damage now and then.

For a SCH it is much more expected to help dealing damage, you don't imagine a SCH just healing and never dealing damage after having leveled the ACN all the way up to 30 and having all the damage abilities there ready to use. And a fairy there to help.

[Ashkendor]

CNJs still have to get used to offense to do their solo quests, so they should have practice.
You still have a fairy casting while you're doing dps, so you at least know the tank won't drop without at some healing first. But WHMs have a smaller window of opportunity for DPS. Stance on for six seconds, and then ~2 seconds of Cure cast time after. Eight+ seconds of a tank taking damage.

Yar, this plus the fact that Lustrate ignores the penalty to my healing is huge. I can actually keep DPS'ing and drop a Lustrate every so often if I choose to. It makes it a really fun class to play. I actually leveled WHM to 50 first, then started leveling SCH to get Eye for an Eye. I totally fell in love with SCH's play style, though.

[Mjytresz]

I've played a ton of MMOs over the last decade and the commonly accepted rule is that there's three kinds of healers:

1) The "I'm a healer so all I do is heal" mentality.
2) The "I'm a healer so I heal but DPS when I can" mentality.
3) The "I'm a DPS that just so happens to have heals" mentality

None of them are wrong but all of them have their place and uses. The key to being a healer that's anything more than generic is finding the balance and working around it. Just doing Brayflox HM runs on my Scholar, there have been times where I'm screaming at Aetherflow to get off CD because the tank is about to die and other times where I'm blowing Bane on every pull for extra DPS.

Also lol @ those tags: terribul healers

[Onyxium]

This isn't a debate. If you have the time and the mana to DPS, you should be doing so, except for very specific situations where you don't really want to push phases of various fights any faster.

Obviously, keeping people alive is the priority. But if you're doing 0 DPS and nobody is dying, that means you could be doing more to help your party. Learn how to do both - your party will thank you.

[Ashkendor]

I've played a ton of MMOs over the last decade and the commonly accepted rule is that there's three kinds of healers:

1) The "I'm a healer so all I do is heal" mentality.
2) The "I'm a healer so I heal but DPS when I can" mentality.
3) The "I'm a DPS that just so happens to have heals" mentality

None of them are wrong but all of them have their place and uses. The key to being a healer that's anything more than generic is finding the balance and working around it. Just doing Brayflox HM runs on my Scholar, there have been times where I'm screaming at Aetherflow to get off CD because the tank is about to die and other times where I'm blowing Bane on every pull for extra DPS.

Also lol @ those tags: terribul healers

I DPS whenever I'm given half a chance; I just don't allow it to interfere with my healing.

I fit one of those two, I'm sure. xD

[Benolan]

There's no set answer to this, you have to decide from group to group, fight to fight, stage to stage... Is the tank taking too much damage to let up? Is the DPS staying out of the fire? Are you staying out of the fire? Is the DPS too slow on the adds? Are you low on MP?

Just like the decision of who to heal and when is not always black and white, neither is this. If you are having no trouble healing and are getting bored, then test the waters... Just don't forget what you are there for.

[ZhycranaDranix]

I base it off the dungeon when doing my daily I will run through DPSing everything regardless of party since Cure pretty much pops everyone back to Full HP w/o the high cost of Mana

Higher dungeons probably 40 > I base it off of my party with Warriors I DPS they have more health etc don't require much healing usually , and If I have a bard I will spam holy and stone II

I DPS in pretty much every dungeon healing is probably the best job seeing as what you get to do and dictate somewhat the flow of the dungeons a GREAT healer can Maintain MP and also throw out some DPS not even switching through cleric though because sometimes you forget and what not

[Okashii]

They significantly boosted WHM DPS with this patch! I'm super pleased!! It's a lot of fun spamming Holy in ST on the trash pulls. Pull that shit all together for me!
Our team really pushed T6 phases now that all our DPS had their i110 weapon and both healers were DPSing too.