Rant on healers acting as a dps role

[Risvertasashi]

A healer who refuses to heal in general (regardless of circumstances) when require is just a bad and/or ignorant healer. That's more of "this player is terrible" versus why we have "main" and "off" healing dynamic.

There will always be bad players. It's just much easier to notice terrible healers because... people die.

And yet I do see this attitude creeping into endgame linkshells. Some healers, if they have to step out of cleric, it's basically "wtf".

As in, the other healer might have made a mistake, or a tank might have, or a DPS might have stood in something. Either way, someone screwed up and they need to git gud/be repped.

I also see my FC teaching SCHs that they are the "off/support" healer in 8+ content should be spending the vast majority of their time in cleric. Seems that's still the general meta in endgame groups as well...

[Saseal]

And yet I do see this attitude creeping into endgame linkshells. Some healers, if they have to step out of cleric, it's basically "wtf".

Had this with a DF'd SCH in A3, a while back, with a party that stood in everything. I was the main healer and DPS was so low, we nearly hit enrage... with a million cascades that were filled with medica spam with our lives depending on DS/PoM/whichever was up at the time.
At the end, the SCH left a biting remark about having to drop Cleric/stop DPSing somewhere in there (not that it felt like they did, at all).
I wanted to scratch their eyes out. :|

[Ashkendor]

Had this with a DF'd SCH in A3, a while back, with a party that stood in everything, I was the main healer and DPS so low we nearly hit enrage with a million cascades that were filled with medica spam with our lives depending on DS/PoM/whichever was up at the time.
At the end, the SCH left a biting remark about having to drop Cleric/stop DPSing somewhere in there (not that it felt like they did, at all).
I wanted to scratch their eyes out. :|

See, that's just not right. I love to DPS as SCH, but if there are things that keep me from doing that it's not the end of the damn world and I'm not going to yell at the other healer for it, especially since it's very likely that it isn't their fault at all. Whether it's an undergeared healing partner, DPS standing in the stupids, low damage, whatever, the fact of the matter is that I queued as a healer and I accepted that as my primary role when I did so. With a partner that's willing and able shoulder the bulk of the healing, I can put out some decent numbers (better than the DPS in some cases but that's a different story entirely...) but the second I see that things are getting out of hand, I drop cleric stance and go back to healing until the situation stabilizes. If things are really going south, I just never go back to CS at all. The way I see it, everyone in the instance queued up with the common goal to clear the content. Me pushing my own personal numbers (as fun as it is) is secondary to that goal.

I can't disagree with your first point. Some content does require it. But... Well, for example, I got into an argument with an LS person about Thordan. That fight, a lot of mistakes are recoverable, but the person I argued with just thinks recovery should not be part of a healer's job description at all. If someone makes a mistake (of any role), they're on their own.

Obviously I don't agree with that but I have to be careful about where I voice that opinion. And my perception (might not be the same across all servers and colored by the people I associate with, I know) is this is an upwards trend.

Thordan is very recoverable at a lot of points in the fight, especially early on. A healer that's not willing to leave cleric stance to help someone recover from a mistake is basically deliberately wiping the group IMO. Repeated mistakes, that's an issue where you may need to look at replacing someone, but everyone screws up once in awhile no matter how long they've been farming the content.

I wonder how that healer would feel if the BRD/MCH told them they were on their own for mana management.

[ruskie]

I wonder how that healer would feel if the BRD/MCH told them they were on their own for mana management.

Considering that some threads mentioned heal priority with basically:
me > tanks > good dps > bard/mch > bad dps

It's obvious most don't care much for external mana mangement.

[Judge_Xero]

I also see my FC teaching SCHs that they are the "off/support" healer in 8+ content should be spending the vast majority of their time in cleric. Seems that's still the general meta in endgame groups as well...

Yeah, that's a point I don't quite agree with as well. I mean, SCH is awesome as a DPS/Sub Healer but there's also points where WHM really shines as well for Burst DPS, where SCH should take over temporarily and on the flip side with SCH's new tool kit they can dish out some solid burst AOE heals.

I'm not too sure on the AST synergy as far as DPS/Healing swaps, but I'm sure it's similar.

Both healers really need to work together with their toolkits to really get the most out of their jobs and the SCH DPS only meta while useable, doesn't really cover all the bases for party synergy.

[Risvertasashi]

Yeah, that's a point I don't quite agree with as well. I mean, SCH is awesome as a DPS/Sub Healer but there's also points where WHM really shines as well for Burst DPS, where SCH should take over temporarily and on the flip side with SCH's new tool kit they can dish out some solid burst AOE heals.

Agreed. WHM is really the better choice in some circumstances but the ARR attitude is so ingrained...

-snip-

I do not disagree with you at all. What is interesting to me-- Well, suppose you consider a healer's responsibility to be the following:

1. Heal (or mitigate, etc) unavoidable damage.
2. Fix mistakes (heal avoidable damage, res)
3. DPS

I'm seeing more in endgame LS healers that know the theory... and want to cut out #2 completely. So that's the attitude I'm referring to. The "wtf" comes not from a lack of understanding of the theory, but from the expectation of perfection.

[Ghishlain]

I do not disagree with you at all. What is interesting to me-- Well, suppose you consider a healer's responsibility to be the following:

1. Heal (or mitigate, etc) unavoidable damage.
2. Fix mistakes (heal avoidable damage, res)
3. DPS

I'm seeing more in endgame LS healers that know the theory... and want to cut out #2 completely. So that's the attitude I'm referring to. The "wtf" comes not from a lack of understanding of the theory, but from the expectation of perfection.

In some respects, I can't disagree with them. Depending on the content and the party's ilvl, the only way to clear the content is absolute perfection (A3S and A4S say hi).

But... that mentality for say... Void Ark? Well, they're barking up the wrong tree, that's for sure.

[SpookyGhost]

Agreed. WHM is really the better choice in some circumstances but the ARR attitude is so ingrained...

WHM is fantastic for burst DPS - with RoD up during a burst phase, a WHM is a much better choice to be in Cleric. However, this is an exception to a rule, not the rule itself. It's something that as a WHM you should be aware of, but it's not your primary responsibility on a given fight due to the amount of spells SCH has that won't miss. But I do agree that a good amount of SCHs/WHMs are stuck in the mindset that their primary job is their only job, regardless of the phase they're in and what tools they have available for it.

[Ghishlain]

And yet I do see this attitude creeping into endgame linkshells. Some healers, if they have to step out of cleric, it's basically "wtf".

As in, the other healer might have made a mistake, or a tank might have, or a DPS might have stood in something. Either way, someone screwed up and they need to git gud/be repped.

I also see my FC teaching SCHs that they are the "off/support" healer in 8+ content should be spending the vast majority of their time in cleric. Seems that's still the general meta in endgame groups as well...

Unfortunately, most people give advice without providing proper context to what the advice is actually suppose to entail. Advocating "100% CLERIC STANCE SCH" is akin to tanks advocating "STR TANKS OR BUST" and without properly explaining WHY this is effective will eventually lead to failures. These SCHs or Tanks feel they're doing it right but are actually doing it terribly wrong and getting people / themselves killed because they aren't (in the case of SCH) providing proper party support at correct intervals or (in the tank example) not using their cooldowns properly / not enough HP to survive tank busters and expect their healer to do the bulk of the work in that case.

Encouraging higher levels of play is important as long as the foundation for this higher level of play is created first. Telling a SCH "Cleric's 100% of GTFO" without context doesn't cultivate any adaptability and just prevents the growth of a player. I just wish more people would understand this. *Shakes head* (this isn't a knock against you directly, just my general soapboxing about the playerbase)

[AsuraFreya]

I honestly dont mind healers and tanks dpsing but if you feel you're obligated to do the hardest content in the game in cleric stance n not helping your other healer out at all I personally feel that i dont need you in my party. Schs can be forgiven a tad due to their fairy but honestly a 2k heal here n there from Selene isn't enough. Some content yes is solo healable easily but when you're a new healer learning savage and have to do 100% of the healing while the other healer is a 5th dps it can be quite stressful.