Rant on healers acting as a dps role

[AsuraFreya]

Okay so I started this game as a black mage. Shortly into heavensward i started really enjoying healing. But as i approach end game I am noticing this. But it would seem people are expecting one healer to do 95%+ of the healing while the other healer stays in cleric stance. Dpsing when you can is fine but in something like savage that is healer heavy its a bit stressful for me to do all the healing not being extremely experienced. If you're not gonna heal why do i need you? Because imo if you're not gonna help me I may as well replace you with a dps who will output more damage than you if I'm going to solo heal anyways. I don'y understand why people think there should me "main" tanks n "main" healers. yet all the dps do their role. Why cant tanks n healers do their role? Tanks: Your job is to be a meat shield Healers" Your job is to keep the party alive Dps: Your job is to kill shit. In any other mmo i have played tanks tank healers heal n dps .. dps. Thoughts? Any reasoning to this?

[Ghishlain]

Because the game has two things that encourage this thought process:

1) Healing in this game is far more impacting per GCD than most other MMOs on the market, allowing one healer of the pair to take up the great bulk of the healing with relative ease
2) Healers have a stance that gives them an equal amount of INT as any DPS in the same ilvl gear (it also boosts their damage by 10%). This allows healers to throw out a significant amount of DPS. It might not match a normal DPS in damage, but it's certainly nothing to scoff at either.

However, having a healer backup is still important because they can provide tools that would not normally be available in a single healer situation. For example, Galvanize via Adlo to mitigate heavy tank busters that put a spike on healing requirements (or out right death at a low enough tank ilvl). A healer backup can also provide additional healing output if tanks/DPS/other healer start to derp mechanics up and you need to dig yourself out a HP hole that a single healer may not be able to alone. The second healer also generally has tools that allow you to normalize the health of the MT to make overall healing easier (WHM = Regen; SCH = Fairy; Diurnal AST = Aspected Benefic).

All of these factors contribute to a "main healer" / "off healer" dynamic that we see now.

[AsuraFreya]

I feel that if the other healers isnt going to do their role i may as well just replace them with a dps whose going to output more damage.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

I feel that if the other healers isnt going to do their role i may as well just replace them with a dps whose going to output more damage.

Because the healing output requirement isn't constant. One moment you can manage by spamming Cure/Benefic/Physic. The next moment you'll need both healers casting Cure II/Benefic II/Adloquium a couple of times in succession. While it IS possible to manage these moments on your own as well depending on the content - And solo healing is done left and right everywhere - Risks are involved:
Mistakes from a single healer are far more punishing
Incredibly MP straining. To an extend where your bard/machinist need to cater to your MP consumption that it's not worth solo healing

There's also the fact that one of the two healers is a scholar in most cases. While you may not notice straight away, but the fairy has quite some presence. One you'll notice it's missing the moment it's a ast/ast or whm/ast combo as opposed to ast/whm with a scholar.

[AsuraFreya]

Okay but like i said why do i need you if you simply arent going to heal? Even for difficult content? Even when health bars are dropping under half? And you still continue to dps.

[SpookyGhost]

Okay but like i said why do i need you if you simply arent going to heal? Even for difficult content? Even when health bars are dropping under half? And you still continue to dps.

However, having a healer backup is still important because they can provide tools that would not normally be available in a single healer situation. For example, Galvanize via Adlo to mitigate heavy tank busters that put a spike on healing requirements (or out right death at a low enough tank ilvl). A healer backup can also provide additional healing output if tanks/DPS/other healer start to derp mechanics up and you need to dig yourself out a HP hole that a single healer may not be able to alone. The second healer also generally has tools that allow you to normalize the health of the MT to make overall healing easier (WHM = Regen; SCH = Fairy; Diurnal AST = Aspected Benefic).

Think of it this way: your group's end goal is to do as much group DPS as possible, to (in turn) kill the boss before the enrage occurs. You aren't a WHM/AST/SCH when you're a part of a raid group, you're a piece to the puzzle. If you're a WHM/AST you have really great tools to keep your group topped up, so that is your primary job. SCH, meanwhile, has great DPS abilities, shields, and a fairy. Since it can do 2/3 of those things in Cleric and only needs to come out during tank busters/raid damage for the other, a SCH's primary job is to contribute to raid DPS.

Look at tanks, for example - you have two tanks in your raid, yet how often is the OT in tank stance? Not very often, if at all. That's because his job, until he needs to tank, is to contribute to damage. You essentially have "main healers" and "off healers" in the same regard.

All that said, if the off healer is in a situation where they need to heal and they instead choose to DPS, then they aren't performing their role. "Off healer" doesn't mean you're just a DPS, you're a DPS with healing abilities that need to be utilized. So if this is what you're experiencing, I understand where you're coming from, though in that case it sounds like you're healing with a bad "off healer".

[DarkmoonVael]

Okay but like i said why do i need you if you simply arent going to heal? Even for difficult content? Even when health bars are dropping under half? And you still continue to dps.

You are confusing the meta for a bad co-healer. In raids and end game content, the healing is sufficient fr one healer to do the majority of the healing whilst the other dps's. When the healing required is more than one healer can handle, the cleric stance healer should drop cleric stance immediately and start healing. Those that stay in cleric stance and watch the world burn around them are just bad healers.

And for the second point, true end game content (ie hardest in the game), has dps checks that are so tight that healer dps is usually needed to succeed. So 2 healers are needed to deal with the healing, Alexander Savage is not usually solo helaed at all, as well as healer dps being required. Hense one healer in cleric stance.

One of the hardest aspects of playing a healer in this game (and an aspect many people you come across will lack) is being able to judge when you should and shouldn't be in cleric stance.

I dps in cleric when i dont have to heal n our party can survive. But what i dont understand is how a healer can continue to dps when their party is under half hp. And still think they're a good healer.

Yep this sounds like you have been paired with a bad healer. When it works and the 2 healers are working in synch with healing and dps its amazing. When it doesnt work - like in this situation you have described - its an utter disaster. There seems to be a trend at the moment of lots of scholars who think they just dps in a fight, which is the sign of a bad healer. I have moved over from raiding on sch for 2 years and gone to ast as main, and i am telling you, some sch i have been paired with drive me nuts when it comes to not dropping clerics when needed.

[Aurelinaus]

Okay but like i said why do i need you if you simply arent going to heal? Even for difficult content? Even when health bars are dropping under half? And you still continue to dps.

That's another matter entirely. As long as no one is dying hps getting low is not a big deal. If things are headed south and recoverable and they aren't dropping CS then that is that specific person being a bad healer.

[Gemma]

Because for some reason the mindset in endgame here is, "We're lacking in DPS, so instead of making our DPS do better, we're going to make our Healers & Tanks jobs more stressful by making them dish out X amount of damage as well to make up for our low DPS..." Even though SE tests these fights & pretty sure their Healers & Tanks aren't DPSing hardcore lol.

I don't understand it either, which is why I am glad I raid with friends & not random people from the game lol

[AsuraFreya]

I dps in cleric when i dont have to heal n our party can survive. But what i dont understand is how a healer can continue to dps when their party is under half hp. And still think they're a good healer.