Should Cleric Stance be disabled in party instances?

[ErdrickLoto]

I have the unpopular opinion. I think they should both disable cleric stance in party instances and increase the necessary healing or status clearing mechanics that we have. The only reason we have ability to be supplemental dps is because Square's bad dungeon design isn't giving us enough to do.

I don't see why you'd need to disable Cleric Stance if dungeons hurt more.

If you removed Cleric Stance, then it means that healers would still have a lot less to do in old instances (since I somewhat doubt they'd go back and retrofit all the old dungeons to increase the damage mobs dealt). You could still throw out damage spells, yes...but they won't be anywhere close to effective.

[TaleraRistain]

I don't see why you'd need to disable Cleric Stance if dungeons hurt more.

Because unfortunately while stance dancing remains an option, then it's still going to be expected. I've been harangued in heavy hitting dungeons or with groups who would NOT stay out of the stupid for not swapping over to CS to "do my part" so we could finish in their expected 15 minutes. Of course I'm not going to in that situation. I have to babysit their health too much. So it's kind of a "this is why we can't have nice things" because there are so many ignorant non-healers who don't understand our reasons for not using it that would require the option to just got away.

[Cynfael]

Because unfortunately while stance dancing remains an option, then it's still going to be expected. I've been harangued in heavy hitting dungeons or with groups who would NOT stay out of the stupid for not swapping over to CS to "do my part" so we could finish in their expected 15 minutes. Of course I'm not going to in that situation. I have to babysit their health too much. So it's kind of a "this is why we can't have nice things" because there are so many ignorant non-healers who don't understand our reasons for not using it that would require the option to just got away.

That's not an issue with Cleric Stance; that's a more basic issue with players not understanding other roles or the game in general. Sometimes it occurs on the part of the healer who doesn't know how to use their tools correctly to create and/or take advantage of opportunities to use their DPS skills, and sometimes it's like you describe, where the party doesn't realize that their failure to play well is relegating the healer to full-on babysitting duty.

Eliminating Cleric Stance and essentially forcing healers to stand around wasting time in an average or better run does not sound like any kind of solution. If anything, general sentiment towards healers would likely become more toxic as the role became universally regarded as the lazy one out of the three. Overhealing to look busy doesn't fool anyone who knows how to heal, and DPS without Cleric Stance is cute, but so ineffective as to be virtually worthless.

[TaleraRistain]

Eliminating Cleric Stance and essentially forcing healers to stand around wasting time in an average or better run does not sound like any kind of solution. If anything, general sentiment towards healers would likely become more toxic as the role became universally regarded as the lazy one out of the three. Overhealing to look busy doesn't fool anyone who knows how to heal, and DPS without Cleric Stance is cute, but so ineffective as to be virtually worthless.

You've missed the other part of my proposal on my previous comment. They can't remove CS unless they give healers more healing and status curing and other healing-focused activities to do. The only reason it's even an option is because the game lacks very much in the essential healer functions.

[Taika]

Yesterday I did some testing on how it really is like to only heal in expert roulette, which I think is a good example because it's content probably ran by majority of player base this discussion is relevant to.

I queued to expert roulette as WHM and we got Xelpathol. In addition to me, the party consisted of a WAR who had never tanked the dungeon before (no endgame experience as WAR), a BLM (his Savage job, currently on A11S progression), and a DRG (no endgame experience as DRG). So quite a random party composition with people more or less familiar with their roles in that dungeon.

The WAR pulled as much as he could at the time (not knowing the dungeon as tank he failed this a couple of times) and I would only use my healing abilities. This was the result, my every single heal cast for the whole 21 min dungeon run:

- Regen x24
- Medica II x16
- Asylum x7
- Assize x4
- Cure II x5 (between pulls, not during them)
- Tetra x4

So in addition to Medica II, the only thing I actually had to cast in the whole dungeon was Cure II, which I did a total of 5 times (between pulls, not during them). Everything else was instant cast abilities. I also used Eye for an Eye on tank and sometimes Esuna, and I cast stoneskin on everyone between pulls.

Even with this little use of healing, my overheal was 35,9%, so the actual healing requirements for this dungeon are even lower. I was active 17% of the whole dungeon while the rest of my group members were active 72-77% of the dungeon.

This is a perfect example of the low healing requirements in the game and how it causes a huge activity difference between a healer who doesn't DPS and their group members. On that run I did not contribute nearly as much as my group members, in fact I was using /icam and doing /mandervilledance while they were actually making an effort. If it would have been the tank or a DD only being active 17% of the time and dancing and idling for the rest, they would have been removed from the party, but for me, some people would actually argue I was doing just fine.

I took a video of the whole run and uploaded it in case someone's interested. This is the final boss fight, during which the only things I actually cast were 3 Medica IIs. Other than that, I used Regen (4), Assize (2) and Asylum (2). Here's the direct link to the fight: https://youtu.be/jBgMe5uHPsE?t=17m17s

TLDR: Not DPSing as a healer means you're just being carried by your group members for over 80% of the dungeon time.

[Ghishlain]

-Snip-

I appreciate this analysis and the time it took to perform it. It would be interesting to see a similar analysis performed but with a completely ilvl synced party. Given I get the impression the game is balanced around the minimal ilvl it would be interesting to see what the "baseline" healing requirement is for this dungeon.

[Taika]

I appreciate this analysis and the time it took to perform it. It would be interesting to see a similar analysis performed but with a completely ilvl synced party. Given I get the impression the game is balanced around the minimal ilvl it would be interesting to see what the "baseline" healing requirement is for this dungeon.

Expert dungeons aren't almost ever done at the minimum item level though, even when they've just come out (with the exception of the first expert dungeons of a new expansion). And I don't think item level makes any difference on the point, which is that there is more or less room for healer DPS in all content in the game, and since the healing requirements for majority of the content are so ridiculously low, not doing DPS makes a healer useless for even 80% of the dungeon time in this kind of standard content.

[Cynfael]

You've missed the other part of my proposal on my previous comment. They can't remove CS unless they give healers more healing and status curing and other healing-focused activities to do. The only reason it's even an option is because the game lacks very much in the essential healer functions.

I didn't miss it; I've already explained at length why I don't think that simply bumping up healing requirements across the board is a better option and didn't want to go into it again.

Besides, my favorite healer classes across the MMOs I've played have involved damage skills and/or heavy debuffing. "Pure healing" classes were always in decreased demand since their exclusive focus on healing and cleansing debuffs was rarely needed even in games where basic mobs could 2-3 shot anyone other than a tank. These classes ended up being rare because of lack of demand and also because they were widely regarded as boring.

[TaleraRistain]

I didn't miss it; I've already explained at length why I don't think that simply bumping up healing requirements across the board is a better option and didn't want to go into it again.

Besides, my favorite healer classes across the MMOs I've played have involved damage skills and/or heavy debuffing. "Pure healing" classes were always in decreased demand since their exclusive focus on healing and cleansing debuffs was rarely needed even in games where basic mobs could 2-3 shot anyone other than a tank. These classes ended up being rare because of lack of demand and also because they were widely regarded as boring.

Not in all games. Clerics and druids were in high demand in EverQuest and those same pure healing classes (under many different names) were important in EverQuest II as well. Healing-focused builds were necessary in early WoW.

[FunkyBunch]

Not in all games. Clerics and druids were in high demand in EverQuest and those same pure healing classes (under many different names) were important in EverQuest II as well. Healing-focused builds were necessary in early WoW.

VERY early WoW, like the first couple months. After the first balance update you could heal just fine without a heal-centric build. Some raids required a few dedicated healers, but Shadow Priests and Feral Druids were always things that off-healed and DPS'd.
I played Feral Druid from about 2 months after release and still healed in WoW. I was constantly popping out of an animal form and healing and then switching back for DPS purposes.
In other games, "healers" were more like support DPS like in FFXIV.