DPSing as a healer

[Gemina]

Well, I both agree and disagree. I would hate if the only reason people praised and comm'd good healers was because they contrast with the bad ones. An objectively good player should earn praise on their own merits, not relative to anyone else.

But at the same time, it's more important to me that the community is growing and improving, challenging themselves than to recieve praise for any one person's personal achievement. In fact, if all the healers sufficiently good, we may see an increase in the difficulty of casual content, and that would really make me more happy than anything.

I'm not sure we can rely on the comm system for that. Some people are generous with them. Others, not so much. And many worthy players are out of the instance before you can even give them a comm. And my own personal gravitation towards comms is given to players who try and are respectable, even if their performance wasn't that great.

It is really important to me that the community grows and improves as well, it is equally important that it prospers and players respect each other. I definitely know how awesome it would be if we get a larger player base of skilled adventurers, but in efforts to get there we mustn't forget that everyone has different ways of being receptive towards criticism.

[Seoulstar]

Well, I both agree and disagree. I would hate if the only reason people praised and comm'd good healers was because they contrast with the bad ones. An objectively good player should earn praise on their own merits, not relative to anyone else.

But at the same time, it's more important to me that the community is growing and improving, challenging themselves than to recieve praise for any one person's personal achievement. In fact, if all the healers sufficiently good, we may see an increase in the difficulty of casual content, and that would really make me more happy than anything.

Wait are you implying that one role determines if the dev team will make something harder or not?

[KaitlanKela]

I really meant content that's more difficult to heal. If they thought healers could handle it, we'd see more content that actually required us to heal instead of stand around. But since half our healers won't demonstrate their full ability, SE is going to keep the current status quo.

[KaitlanKela]

Gemini, most of our argument is simply being respectful of people. I agree with that. But I believe there is a way to give constructive criticism respectfully. I do not advocate for just letting healer think no dps is good play just to spare their feelings. Will some people get their feelings hurt, yeah, even if you do it respectfully. That's on them. It's illogical to expect other people to cater to your emotions when only YOU can control them. At some point we have to expect people to accept responsibility for their own state of mind.

[Gemina]

Gemini, most of our argument is simply being respectful of people. I agree with that. But I believe there is a way to give constructive criticism respectfully. I do not advocate for just letting healer think no dps is good play just to spare their feelings. Will some people get their feelings hurt, yeah, even if you do it respectfully. That's on them. It's illogical to expect other people to cater to your emotions when only YOU can control them. At some point we have to expect people to accept responsibility for their own state of mind.

Nobody's feelings need to get hurt, and I don't feel it is ok to be ok with hurting someone's feelings. I know it isn't your intention to do that, and I know we shouldn't have to walk on egg shells with our healers. Getting a healer to finally get out of their comfort zone entails the player wants to learn. The ones that want to learn will be the most receptive to criticism so long as you're not barking orders at them. Not many people are going to be receptive to that, good or bad.

But I'm telling you Kait, if the healer is made to feel like they are doing poorly it is only going to plunge them further into the depths of their mediocrity. There might be some who respond in a way that has them improve as a means of self validation, but this is so rare from my experience. Give me some time to think about this. I'll come back in a bit for constructive ways to let your healer know they can add some DPS to their game.

[RopeDrink]

So, last night I noticed my DF healer was of the non-DPS persuasion. Weirdly, they would stand there and occasionally heal people on 100% HP for seemingly no reason, probably for the sake of pressing buttons. As the tank, being healed on low HP is great - being healed at max, even when out of combat (regen is in place), just boggles my mind. I just don't know how anyone could do it. I used to find some dungeons boring as DPS (Monk) who has a nice, strict rotation and mechanics to worry about... So standing at the backline staring at a geared tank and healing people already at max HP whilst refusing to press a single DPS button the entire dungeon must have been thrilling...

I've no problem if people aren't entirely comfortable -- but how much of a comfort zone do you need when people are barely taking damage AT ALL?

[RopeDrink]

So, enter Cutter's Cry norm, one of the DPS DC pretty early, leaving it three man. Me, tanking, a no DPS healer (again) who would watch every fight and wait to heal, even if it's 3v1 mob and I'm healthy, and a Machinist who seems to think spamming his AoE move on two mobs and/or using knockback for DPS on the main tanked target is a good thing. Would have tried to tolerate it if said Healer didn't blurt out 'one mo' after a pull, leaving me to run in circles kiting the pulled pack for 5mins while the Machi stands around watching (I was kite-flashing, he could have done something). Healer mysteriously returned after I gave up and died. Run would have taken forever with the two of them. Was doing some Healer runs beforehand and I love DPS'ing. Once I guage how tanky the tank is, and how good they are on enmity, it's easy to discern how much DPS'ing you can get away with. The 'trust' people mentioned shouldn't take long to estimate, so I never consider that an excuse.

[KaitlanKela]

Gemini, we'll have to agree to disagree on the hurting people's feelings accidently thing. If you're giving constructive criticism respectfully and you don't intent to offend, if they aren't receptive and take offense, how is that your fault? You can't be held responsible for their reactions, that's a completely impossible standard.

[Gemina]

I never said a person encouraging DPS is at fault if the healer gets their feelings hurt. I believe it is a good gauge for determining a healer who does want to get better opposed to one who just wants to coast, or in the worse case: is just lazy and doesn't care. The healer who wants to get better will be more receptive. For instance the poster who showed the SCH that was following his tank while just hanging out and stuffing his face. This healer (if you can even call him that) will not be receptive towards any kind of criticism. Someone like me, despite being emotionally unstable, always wants to get better and don't mind being told if I am doing something totally wrong. In fact, I WANT to know. Don't let me walk away from this instance thinking what I was doing is ok.

In short, don't change how you currently give your criticism if it is indeed constructive and respectful. That's all anyone can ask for.

A suggestion I have is to feel out some trash pulls before asking your healer to DPS. We all know that there are situations even with trash pulls where incoming damage can be erratic. If there are good sized open windows for the healer to add DPS that is when I would spring into action. Try not to make your healer feel like they are a bad player by not DPSing. I mean if you tell them, just like that, it won't be good.

[KaitlanKela]

I mean, I see what you're saying but you're splitting hairs. Couldn't everything you just said be boiled down to, "be tactful and respectful"? Okay, cool, I think we got it