Umm, is it "bad" to switch to a healer because of the lower dungeon queue times?

[Slick]

I have ALWAYS been an elf-archer type in all fantasy games I have played, including this one. I thought it would be interesting to try a healer role and also experience the shorter queue times.

After running five dungeons as a new healer, I will say this--the queue times are WAY quicker...I have not waited more than 60 seconds for a dungeon.

Healing is interesting...I have always been DPS and been attacking the monsters. The healer mentality is different--you are like the catcher in baseball--you oversee everything, but you really (for the most part) don't attack the monsters. You are just "managing" the fight. I am still not sure if I love that or hate that. More time will tell.

Anyways, I love the "power-leveling" I am doing--the rested XP bonus I have, the Armoury bonus, and the quick dungeons due to low queue times.

I wonder how many others started a healer or tank due to the low dungeon queue times...?

[DoctorPepper]

Nope, I use healer for dungeons myself even though it's not my main. The difference in queue times is huge, on DPS I wait 10-30 minutes, on healer I can queue up and usually have the dungeon completed in the time it would take for just the queue to pop.

My first job to 50 was smn but I changed to sch pretty much right off the bat in order to beat the queue, I had a much more fun experience because of it.

Healing is actually pretty challenging and fun which will be a nice change of pace from any DPS job without the headache of having to lead the charge like tanks do.

Also, don't feel like you need to quit one job in order to play another one, this game really gives you the opportunity to play/gear multiple jobs simultaneously with the exception of maybe fcob due to dps requirements/lockout.

[Slick]

Also, don't feel like you need to quit one job in order to play another one, this game really gives you the opportunity to play/gear multiple jobs simultaneously with the exception of maybe fcob due to dps requirements/lockout.

I agree, but don't most people "main" one job? I love how you can do multiple jobs on one character, but don't most people have one role they enjoy the most? I am trying to figure out if healing is my new love or not. Heck, maybe I will try tanking. The problem is I don't know the dungeons all that well haha.

[Nyalia]

I agree, but don't most people "main" one job? I love how you can do multiple jobs on one character, but don't most people have one role they enjoy the most? I am trying to figure out if healing is my new love or not. Heck, maybe I will try tanking. The problem is I don't know the dungeons all that well haha.

Leveling up multiple classes is actually totally sensible because of cross-class skills. If you're healing, you'll likely want to level up the other healer class at some point (for Stoneskin and Eye for an Eye - both nice, neither necessary) and you'll definitely want to level up BLM to 26 as soon as you can (for Swiftcast - make any spell instant-cast once per 90 seconds, a must-have at endgame). If you're running BRD, you'll likely want to level up DRG and MNK (for Blood for Blood, Invigorate, Internal Release, and Mantra).

Also, you get a +50% experience bonus to all DoW/DoM classes that are not your single highest level class. Even if they are the same level, if one has less experience than the other, it gets the +50% bonus. This makes leveling up multiple classes much less painful. And, don't forget about Challenge Log and Daily Roulette exp bonuses - once you have one class at 50 and unable to gain experience, you can get the daily/weekly bonuses on other classes so as not to waste the free bonus experience. (Speaking of the Challenge Log, if you're a new player, be sure to do the level 17 quest "Rising to the Challenge" in Limsa Lominsa asap. It unlocks a feature that gives you weekly bonus exp and gil for doing specific things, like running 5 dungeons in one week.)


Regarding choosing a main, well, at endgame, you have limited resources for acquiring the current endgame gear. Like, right now, you can only get 450 Allagan Tomestones of Poetics per week, and it costs 375-850 for a piece of Ironworks (item level 120) gear, making it hard to buy Ironworks for multiple classes. When the latest iteration of the Crystal Tower raid is the most current content (which is not true right now, but will be in 2.5), you can only loot one piece of gear per week from the dungeon. When the latest iteration of the Binding Coil of Bahamut raid is the most current content (which is true right now, but won't be in 2.5), you can only beat each turn of the Coil once per week. So, you have to work out with your static raid group who will be getting what gear (or if you PUG it, you're only going to have a shot at the gear for whatever class you're running at the time). Also, the Zodiac Weapon quest is extremely long, grindy, and expensive. While you can get multiple Zodiac weapons, it's almost prohibitively time consuming to do so, and for most steps, trying to do the same step for two or more weapons at once either can't be done or will slow you down immensely.

Those are the only ways of getting current endgame gear, and the lockouts/weekly limits pretty much force you to pick one class to gear up to the highest level. But, there are people like me who really don't give a crap about being the absolute highest ilvl you can be. I like switching up what I do, so I've spread out my Poetics between many classes (I have the caster, tank, melee dps, and healing rings, tank gloves/legs, caster pants, etc). Most serious raiders don't do that, but many more casual players like me do.

In addition, you can do almost all endgame content (all except the Final Binding Coil of Bahamut) with the second latest gear (ilvl 110 instead of ilvl 120-130), and getting that for multiple classes is totally doable.


EDIT: Also, on the question in the title - no, it's actually "good" to do that. It lowers queue times for everyone. Even though I play BLM in most content, when I queue solo, I always queue as PLD. That gets me both instant queues and a 4,500 gil "role in need" bonus. The "in need" bonus on my datacenter is always Tank for everything right now. It's kind of sad, except in that it means I always get the bonus, which is rather nice. More people should switch classes for quicker queue times, because if everyone does it, queue times for everyone will become nearly instant.

[DoctorPepper]

I agree, but don't most people "main" one job? I love how you can do multiple jobs on one character, but don't most people have one role they enjoy the most? I am trying to figure out if healing is my new love or not. Heck, maybe I will try tanking. The problem is I don't know the dungeons all that well haha.

That's entirely up to you really, personally I play about 4 of my jobs frequently and they're all pretty well geared.

Of course I have one that is a bit more geared up than others but that's only because I've been spending all of my poetics tomes on that job for the most part. You end up getting lots of soldiery tomes while you're collecting tomes of poetics so you can gear up your alt classes in i100 gear from soldiery and then do ST/SCOB to gain sands/oils for upgrading that gear to i110 and will also see i110 gear drops in SCOB.

At i114 I've pretty much gotten all of the poetics gear for my first job that I actually want so I'll be moving on to my alts for poetics gear this week.

[Kuolema]

There is nothing wrong with switching to healer to beat the queue times. In fact all i did was spam dungeons from about level 16 all the way to 50. I think it took me about 2 days to hit 50 that way.

[Freyt]

If a lot more people followed your example, DPS queue times would be short.

So no. It's not bad.

[Jamez82]

I use my warrior for my dailies even though I main blm..

[Tiggy]

Why would it be?

[Slick]

Why would it be?

I meant that was my primary motivation for doing so; it was not because I actually LOVED playing a healer role.