DPSing as a healer

[Gemina]

I can't play badly on purpose. I'm leveling a Scholar solely because healers are so bad of late. It's level 45 now. It'd be 60 if not for Yo-Kai.

Yesterday in Void Ark (READ VOID ARK FFS) we had TWO healers do ZERO damage the entire run (one had 4.44 DPS one fight, the other's highest was 1.2 DPS pretty they just did it by accident) and they still let FIVE people die from completely preventable deaths (the towers on Cuchalaine for example-took over 15 seconds for me to die). These weren't standing in the stupid either, these were just regular damage deaths. Healers are just becoming worse and worse because people keep defending terrible play on the forums and in-game.
At this rate, end game will eventually be impossible as the healer skill drops like a rock.

I don't think anyone is defending a healer who isn't healing. Not from what I have seen. If these healers were letting people die and also not DPSing, then what were they doing and why weren't they kicked? Allowing a shit player to play shitty is going to do far more damage and a lot more to promote horrible play than anything you read here. And trying to beat it into a healers head that they are shit if they don't DPS isn't going to help either. I would also wager that more than capable healers stay away from raid/EX content simply because they don't want to deal with the attitudes from either side of this argument.

When you boil things down, it's about playing a caster class, and while engaged a caster (unless OoM or avoiding damage) should always be casting. This is what the heals-only healer needs to realize along with the detriment of overhealing. If they are worth their salt, they will undoubtedly conclude that (no heals needed + I should always be casting something) = DPS

[FunkyBunch]

I don't think anyone is defending a healer who isn't healing. Not from what I have seen. If these healers were letting people die and also not DPSing, then what were they doing and why weren't they kicked? Allowing a shit player to play shitty is going to do far more damage and a lot more to promote horrible play than anything you read here.

I was just using a recent example that players who don't use Cleric Stance are just worse healers, as they never learn to be good, and as such, let people die.
I never said anyone was advocating that, but I am giving an example of the ACTUAL outcome of those arguments stating no DPS is fine. You just make bad healers who can't keep up in what some would consider moderate content.

[technole]

That's because they're just bad, not because they were not DPSing. If people are dying to towers, your party has lack of heals or lack of dps numbers from DPS classes. And I think you're just unlucky. I run VA 5 times weekly and 99% of the runs no one comes close to dying.

I haven't healed a Void Park in forever and I'm a healer main. Not even weeping on healer since maybe the second week. But it's not out of ordinary I have died to to big tubby's bleed as another role.

Nowadays people running that joint or even Weeping are doing it as alt jobs to gear, or are newer players. So their gear isn't optimal either. It doesn't mean they excel at it nor does it say the healer job community is bad either. A lot of times people think since they cleared an instance as one role they think they can heal or tank it easily the next time. Only to realize there are job mechanics they probably were not aware of.

You see it all the time like that example in Void Park, no regens going out during big tubby's towers. Healing is stupidly easy in dungeons as-of late that just turning up the difficulty knob just a tad bit for a 24-main raid is enough to cause an alliance wipe. God speed if you don't use a big tank cooldown during Hell Wind in weeping because healers aren't paying attention. If they only see what healing in Alex Savage consists of, their eyes will get big real fast.

[Parawill]

God speed if you don't use a big tank cooldown during Hell Wind in weeping because healers aren't paying attention.

I love Hell Wind :-) It teaches prioritisation and precasting, but is sadly overlooked by some when it comes to applying said lesson to other scenarios.

[Fevelle]

I still think you guys are just unlucky. No one in my party ever died to Hellwind, not even on day one. While I love the mechanic because I have a raid damage fetish as WHM, it's one easy mechanic, managable by only one healer.

That goes back to the first thing I said: if you're dying to "heal checks" (can they be called that? I think not), the reason is because your healers are bad, but it has NOTHING to do with them DPSing or not, and I don't see how this has anything to do with the thread.

Let me be more clear: I DPS a lot. Void Ark is nearly full CS. Weeping City also full CS save for two Forgall mechanics and Ozma. If, let's say, I choose not to enter CS and not DPS, my healing capabilities will stay the same as if I was DPSing. Healing skill does not come with stance dancing but with party awareness, something you get by (figures) healing content.

[Gemina]

I was just using a recent example that players who don't use Cleric Stance are just worse healers, as they never learn to be good, and as such, let people die.
I never said anyone was advocating that, but I am giving an example of the ACTUAL outcome of those arguments stating no DPS is fine. You just make bad healers who can't keep up in what some would consider moderate content.

Understood. But in the example you provided I am still at a loss at what the healers were doing if they were not DPSing and people were dying. From the outside looking in, it sounds like the healers weren't the only ones not doing their job. Anyone unwilling to improve, and can't even do the bare minimum to complete an instance doesn't belong there, but those willing to improve are always doing more than the bare minimum. They're synonymous.

I feel that stating 'no DPS is fine' is right on par with stating 'no DPS = bad healer'. Neither of them are true, nor do what needs to be done and that is encourage healer DPS. Not demand. Not require, but encourage. I have no idea how many players also browse the forums, but I do know that bad players don't level up on this site.

[loreleidiangelo]

Cleric stance trains people to be better healers. Sounds odd, but Cleric stance adds room for error which in turn creates disasters which gives someone the opportunity to "OH ****" healing moments.

I know recovering from "OH ****" healing moments (usually) has made me a better healer and if Healer's didn't DPS and cleric's stance didn't exist then it'd be very hard for those moments to...create themselves.

So you're saying the game basically had to invent a brand new punishment mechanic (CS) to actually make healing in this game difficult? I can't be the only person who views it as a serious issue with healing potencies and encounter design, yeah? If we need a "button" to make our lives as a healer hard, then I feel like the game has failed on more levels than just one.

[_slowpoke_]

I feel that stating 'no DPS is fine' is right on par with stating 'no DPS = bad healer'.

It's not, because the first one is encouraging lazy play, while the second is stating a hard fact. You can call no DPS healers whatever you want if you don't want to call them bad, but they're not good either. At best, they might be mediocre, and I don't think encouraging mediocrity is a good thing.

Not demand.

I very much demand healer DPS, because I also demand all other jobs to not stand around doing nothing constructive for extended amounts of time.

[MidnightTundra]

So you're saying the game basically had to invent a brand new punishment mechanic (CS) to actually make healing in this game difficult? I can't be the only person who views it as a serious issue with healing potencies and encounter design, yeah? If we need a "button" to make our lives as a healer hard, then I feel like the game has failed on more levels than just one.

You see it as a punishment and I see it as an investment. It's no different than tanks. They trade tankiness for higher damage while you trade healing power for high magic attack power. Admittedly, yes healing per GCD is incredibly high in this game but in much harder content, this isn't really a concern until you outgear it. When you begin to outgear it, you can put more GCDs towards damage. The developers don't want you to be doing nothing in a fight.

If cleric stance was removed and healing per GCD was reduced, they have to balance around that. As you outgear the content, there's less you have to heal. If there's less for you to heal, you'd be standing there doing nothing for an extended period of time in fights unless they overtune the healing checks.

Also, the first sign of failure in several savage groups is the healers not being able to heal and mitigate damage properly. Healers didn't top off the tank during brawler phases or they didn't use a healing cooldown for uplander doom in a7s. Constant flow of issues with healing are why groups fail, it's not because they didn't cut on cleric. If cleric was removed and healing per gcd was made to be weaker (to keep you more active I guess), you'd probably see even more groups failing.

Healing anything outside of savage is easy if everyone is performing their roles correctly. If you want healers to only be able to heal, you're asking to make healing in general harder. If you want healing to be harder, healing in savage will become more inaccessible to many "average joe" healers.

[loreleidiangelo]

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but aren't healers in Savage content STILL expected to do both healing and DPS during the progression phases, when they're new to the fights (sort of) and undergeared to boot? I mean, I don't think any Savage parses have both healers sitting at 0 DPS. If that healer DPS is what "enables" groups to push world firsts, then like it or not it has a trickle-down effect to the rest of content, and I find that personally objectionable. If you "can" DPS even a little bit while pushing the hardest content if the game WHILE being undergeared for it, it probably means something is out of whack with the encounter design.

Fact is, no content in this game requires both healers to tunnel shields and HP bars and HoTs...whether that's good or bad is why this subject is frankly so often debated.

To clarify further, what I mean is more that DPS should only come AFTER you have better gear, and have the content fairly on farm. My issue is that even CLEARING the content requires one of the healers to perform optimally at a secondary function (DPS) rather than a primary function (healing/shielding). I can respect that others may like this aspect of healing in the game, but it's kind of off-putting to me. Yes, I'd rather they uptune healer checks and tune down DPS checks - if all the devs have got are tight hard enrages then I feel like that's a problem on the development end.