But...I...I don't wanna DPS, I'm a healer...

[Jamillion]

As a stance-dancing scholar, I get slightly annoyed when my tank pops HG at 30% HP on trash. It would drive me nuts to have some summoner struggling to top people off constantly when I'm pouring out DPS. If I was worried about a pull I wouldn't have swiftcasted shadowflare ffs.

[Fourbestintoner]

My DPS suffers enough when I'm running SMN because I usually end up having to help heal, so I'm worried about actually playing my SCH which I'm avoiding now because I'm intimidated completely by the whole healing thing here. I'm thinking I'll just stay SMN and not be a healer, just cause right now doing everything is a scary concept. I don't actually enjoy DPS, but oh well, it's either that or stop playing and I don't really wanna stop playing.

I had a thaumaturge like you once in Sastasha, he wouldn't stop healing the tank with his 50hp cure because I would let the tank drop to 15-20% hp before instantly healing him with swiftcast+cure. I was laughing so hard, it was hilarious.
You should definitely start healing to see how easy it is and have a little more confidence in your healers.

[Ashkendor]

My DPS suffers enough when I'm running SMN because I usually end up having to help heal, so I'm worried about actually playing my SCH which I'm avoiding now because I'm intimidated completely by the whole healing thing here. I'm thinking I'll just stay SMN and not be a healer, just cause right now doing everything is a scary concept. I don't actually enjoy DPS, but oh well, it's either that or stop playing and I don't really wanna stop playing.

Don't do this. Please don't do this. Trust the healer to do their job. If they've proven to be incompetent, vote kick is a thing. If you queued as SMN, you need to be DPS'ing. Having a SMN playing at being a healer just bogs things down even more.

In any case, you aren't required to DPS as a healer but it certainly does give you a lot more to do. The way this game's healing is set up, there will inevitably be times when you are either spamming cure on a tank that's at 99% hp to keep them topped off or you will simply be standing around for short periods of time because nobody needs heals. Overhealing is an awful way to go about things because it generates massive amounts of aggro, and if you stand around while nobody needs healing some people will assume you're watching Netflix or something. As a healer, I routinely let the tank drop to 30-40% while I DPS but I keep a close eye on how fast they are losing hp. The tank doesn't need to be at 90%+ hps all the time; as long as they don't die, it's all good. :3

It's understandable that you'd be hesitant with DPS initially. I think most of us were. Just focus on your job (healing) for the time being and as you get more comfortable with your class/role, you'll find that DPS comes naturally. Scholar is a wonderfully set up class!

[PriestAlseid]

"As a healer you SHOULD be DPSing otherwise you're lazy, but if you're a DPS trust your heals and don't help them out."

Kind of a double standard there guys, don't you think? If I don't DPS as a healer I'm lazy, but if I help heal when I'm not a healer, that's bad. I don't really get that, but okay, I guess I'll just find my own little niche, whatever and wherever that is. Thanks for all the input guys, but I really think I should find somewhere else to play. Enjoy your gaming guys, I had a kinda fun month here. :-)

[SecretCrowds]

"As a healer you SHOULD be DPSing otherwise you're lazy, but if you're a DPS trust your heals and don't help them out."

Kind of a double standard there guys, don't you think? If I don't DPS as a healer I'm lazy, but if I help heal when I'm not a healer, that's bad. I don't really get that, but okay, I guess I'll just find my own little niche, whatever and wherever that is. Thanks for all the input guys, but I really think I should find somewhere else to play. Enjoy your gaming guys, I had a kinda fun month here. :-)

[Cynfael]

"As a healer you SHOULD be DPSing otherwise you're lazy, but if you're a DPS trust your heals and don't help them out."

Kind of a double standard there guys, don't you think? If I don't DPS as a healer I'm lazy, but if I help heal when I'm not a healer, that's bad. I don't really get that, but okay, I guess I'll just find my own little niche, whatever and wherever that is. Thanks for all the input guys, but I really think I should find somewhere else to play. Enjoy your gaming guys, I had a kinda fun month here. :-)

Good luck with whatever you do.

To address your point briefly, the double standard has justification: unnecessary healing is useless at best, detrimental at worst. However, there is rarely such a thing as unnecessary damage.

Further, GCDs spent on DPS casting their extremely weak heals = GCDs not spent doing damage. Healers DPS far, far better than any DPS can heal.

[Twilite]

I only have to heal on BLM if the healer drops, and I'm confident I can heal the tank through it. This VERY RARE and requires certain things to fall into place in my favor, because physick is horrendously weak...(450ish at lvl60, when true healer's heal spells are racking upwards in the 3,000s..)

[Cynfael]

I only have to heal on BLM if the healer drops, and I'm confident I can heal the tank through it. This VERY RARE and requires certain things to fall into place in my favor, because physick is horrendously weak...(450ish at lvl60, when true healer's heal spells are racking upwards in the 3,000s..)

I won't lie...this is the only reason I even bother to have Physick on my BLM's bar. Every once in a blue moon a situation like this can pop up.

[Sida]

Kind of a double standard there guys, don't you think? If I don't DPS as a healer I'm lazy, but if I help heal when I'm not a healer, that's bad. I don't really get that, but okay, I guess I'll just find my own little niche, whatever and wherever that is. Thanks for all the input guys, but I really think I should find somewhere else to play. Enjoy your gaming guys, I had a kinda fun month here. :-)

One reason is stats. When you pop on your cleric stance, if you had reasonable healer stats, you now have reasonable caster stats. Also, healer role naturally has downtime, nothing to heal -> free time. So healer can damage mana/time efficiently with proper stats.

Damage trying to heal however. First of your healer stats are scrub so the heals you can toss out are pitiable comparing to the time and mana they take to cast. Also damage role doesn't have downtime. If there are mobs to kill, kill the mobs.

If your tank keeps dying because lack of heals from your healer (or healer dying), -then- you might consider adding into the heals (or raising the healer. SMN are good for that) but if the healer is up and fine you just hamper everyone by not making sure the stuff dies quickly.

[Shurrikhan]

"As a healer you SHOULD be DPSing otherwise you're lazy, but if you're a DPS trust your heals and don't help them out."

Kind of a double standard there guys, don't you think? If I don't DPS as a healer I'm lazy, but if I help heal when I'm not a healer, that's bad. I don't really get that, but okay, I guess I'll just find my own little niche, whatever and wherever that is. Thanks for all the input guys, but I really think I should find somewhere else to play. Enjoy your gaming guys, I had a kinda fun month here. :-)

It actually follows the exact same logic. You should be doing in each GCD whatever provides the most output for the group. However, dps healing is so weak compared to healer dps that dps helping out really isn't a viable option past SMNs at level 40 (where we can actually be considered the preferred healer for Stone Vigil, because we're only losing out on Ruin [80p] filler casts to keep the tank alive with Physic [400p]. A SCH retains Ruin time where he could be using a move over 4x the strength because he carries a perma-heal pet who could otherwise be dpsing at over 100p/s on Ifrit as compared to Eos/Selene's 100p/s healing and raising your combined potency/s average significantly).

If you had equal still had about as much Mind as you do Intelligence, then as a SMN it wouldn't be a bad idea at all to take up direct heals, which you could do about as well (just lack the traits), while the SCH puts out his DoTs. Heck, SCH filler dps is better than SMN's at 54. But since, due to the lack of healing primary stat, you're only going to produce from about a seventh of the healing per potency that a real healer was, you'd sadly contribute about as much spamming Ruin or Blizzard II... It will likely seem restrictive and counter-intuitive, but that's just how it is right now. Healers have Cleric Stance, which gives them 10% bonus damage atop (SCH DoTs stronger than SMN), but dps lack Cleric Stance (where they'd be automatically debuffed by 20% in healing anyways) entirely.

I have had to save lives sometimes as my BLM in dungeon runs, especially while leveling. But you can bet I was questioning the healer's attention span afterwards in party chat.