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]

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.

[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.

[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

[Ghishlain]

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.

[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.

[Ghishlain]

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.

Then this is just a matter of you hashing that out with your healing partner. You two need to build a trust and relationship and you two will need to communicate that and learn what boundaries you two can push together.

If they refuse to listen - well, maybe it's time to find another group then.

[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.