Do i need to DPS?

[Iriri]

I was looking at other threads and i seen people talking about healers being "lazy" for not dpsing any. And I am not being lazy just don't want people to die also I want to save as much mana as I can. So I want to know am I just being a bad healer or people just being upset that things are not dying a few seconds faster?

[SpookyGhost]

You don't need to DPS, it isn't a requirement outside of high end progression raids. However, if you ever find that you spend a few seconds not casting any heals, those seconds could be spent DPSing instead of waiting for damage to happen. That's the basic mentality of healer DPS - there's a bit more to it, including pushing the limits of your tank's health and all that, but that's a bit more risky and takes a lot of skill/know how of your job to pull off. Again, you don't need to DPS but if you ever find that you're not spam healing the tank, throwing in some DPS won't hurt anyone.

[zcrash970]

Basically what Spooky said. Healer dps is like sprinkles on a sunday. Completely unneeded but nice to have.
With the exception of Savage raids

[FoxyAreku]

Short answer is yes. Long answer is you don't "Need" to, but there's also no reason not to and anything is better than standing there doing nothing, there's no content where DPSing should hurt your mana management significantly so throwing some spells is nothing but a good thing.

Just don't ever dps in situations where it will get the tank killed, healing is your first and foremost job, but you have damage spells for a reason, and healing needed is so minor in dungeons you can get away with a LOT.

Just earlier today I did a Fractal run where Selene solo healed the whole thing except the last boss, only getting an occasional rouse from me. Now it could have been because my scholar is just really geared, but that spoke wonders to me of how pathetic dungeons are these days when it comes to healing lol.

[Sida]

Gonna vouch for what others have said. You don't need to damage as such and groups that require it are silly, unless it is some hard dps check, that is, high end raid suff as mentioned, where there is high performance expectation from everyone.

Won't hurt to try your hand on it a bit though. Maybe start just by casting some DoTs in Cleric Stance if you happen to have moment when no one is particularly hurt and you are near full mana. But again, as others have said, healing comes first. Adding to damage is mostly to avoid own boredom as much as helping the group.

[Akyio]

normally i would say you should dps, not in situations where you don't know what's going to happen. i dont dps in dungeons only if tank pulls the entire dungeon, otherwise you can always DPS and stance dance decently.
you don't need to though, but it will make everything more smooth, and as i see you are AST, its just very easy to jump out of cleric stance and throw ED if things get tough on tank.
i wouldn't dps more than throwing DoT's in savage though, because of mana issues.

[Selli]

If you're not doing hard end game content (specifically Savage), then no you don't need to. However, most healers do like to DPS as it adds a flare to the play style (and a sense of danger, I guess?).

You need not worry (that much) about your MP when you're doing trash pulls in a dungeon. I'm OCD so I always do 3 Holy's per trash pack, which is 7.8k of my 13.6k MP pool (I'm excluding Aero III's cost and Assize's MP return for simplicity sake), that seems like a lot, but popping Shroud after the final Holy makes sure I have more than enough MP for the next pull. Running between trash pulls, you will usually recover almost all of your MP anyway (even if the tank pulls big, as you won't suffer the combat MP refresh penalty unless you heal them).

As for people dying, most tanks will be fine for a couple of GCDs without a direct heal. Healers have a few tricks for lessening the incoming damage; Holy (stun, can reapply ~3 times), Shadow Flare (slow), and CO (stun). As well as mitigation (I consider HoTs mitigation as the tank is being healed back damage nearly as frequently as its coming in); Sacred Soil (reduced incoming damage), Asylum + Regen + Medica II (this ticks for more than 2k on my WHM), Aspected Benefic + Aspected Helios + Wheel of Fortune HoT from CU (I'm not including the reduced damage for CU, as you have to channel it for the effect). These skills, using them solo, all together, or in a various combination, are what give healers the flexibility to DPS.

Bosses are slightly different. Bosses are mostly just... cast DoTs, reapply DoTs. XD

So, as you asked, are you a bad healer? No. A healers main focus is to keep people alive. Are you a lazy healer? I don't think so. What I gathered from your post is that you've never really dabbled into DPS in a party situation or you had bad experiences with it. But, if you are not comfortable with DPSing, that is 100% okay, you shouldn't force yourself to do something that makes you uncomfortable or stresses you out. Not being able to handle both doesn't make you lazy, it just means you have a different play style, and that's okay. However, not being phased by the idea of DPSing, and simply not trying at all is laziness.

[Iriri]

Thank you all for the very helpful feedback i will try and get better at this. If anyone has helpful tips or anything i will be more then happy to read them.

[AskaRay]

If you aren't comfortable DPSing don't do it. I do recommend practicing of course, but take it slow.

I love to DPS when healing..mostly because I hate standing there with nothing to do. Usually what I do on each healer, if it's my first time healing a piece of content with that job, I won't DPS. I'll stand back and watch how just my healing affects the flow; if the first few pulls go smooth then I may add a bit of DPS here and there. '

As for MP, I play SCH enough to know when I'm going to need more. Usually, unless I know I'll need the aetherflow stacks for something, I'll just use Aetherflow whenever it's ready. On my AST I'm still getting a feel for my MP usage, but I use Luminiferous Aether the first time around 80%, then whenever it's ready...

It also took me a LOOONG time to stance dance comfortably, I recommend practicing stance dancing in lower level dungeons if you need that practice.

[DarkerOrange]

I DPS heavily on my SCH, both in end-game progression (A3S is hard, haha) and in ex roulette level stuff. I find that as long as the tank isn't awful, I can sit in cleric stance for the whole of Neverreap and Fractal, and manage my fairy for any healing needed.

Basically, you don't need to DPS, but healing non end-game stuff in this game is so pathetically easy that DPSing gives you something interesting to do.