Should Cleric Stance be disabled in party instances?

[Lambdafish]

But if you want to touch CS in raids? No way, never want this to happen!!! I love my SCH and I love being able to contribute a fair amount of dps to burst the boss even faster.

People will counter with "Healer DPS isn't counted when designing boss fights", and I want to respond to that before they even get the chance. The reason that DPS isn't counted when designing boss fights is that they are designed to account for MINIMUM DAMAGE OUTPUT. That is not to say that healer DPS isn't a normal part healing, it is that the content is designed so that players don't have to min/max to clear. What healer DPS does is it allows damage to be spread further across teammates meaning that if a DPS fumbles (read: "fumbles", not "is terrible", we all have those moments) then the extra damage from a healer helps the party get one step closer to clearing. And as you said, there is plenty of time for it.

Then there is healer accuracy. The reason for this is in response to gordias, where the community made Healer DPS a requirement in order to even be able to clear the content, and the devs responded by making an extreme statement about it not being a requirement in order to beat the content (to not develop a generation of terrible healers who don't heal). I am firmly of the belief that this was a temporary measure to allow the community to recover from Gordias, and in SB they are evaluating accuracy in general. What I'm trying to get at is that healer DPS is not a requirement IF you are planning on playing on the lower end of the damage output (remember that the fights are tuned to minimum expected damage output), but what that does is it puts unnecessary pressure on gearing the DPS in order to clear the content for the sake of your own laziness.

Also, I gave up ever responding to Thunda_cat, it's like talking to a brick wall.

[AmeliaVerves]

snip

I am totally with you! Let me make one thing clear: I never had to DPS in order to kill A9s or A10s, because our DDs were totally fine taking care of this on their own in our first kill. Me and my best friend were still a little insecure and because of safety both of ous stayed out of CS the whole fight. Not a single Dot were made by us healers and we cleared absolutely fine. But when we got better, both of us decided to give it a try with (almost) solo healing it, except for some critical moments when I have to leave CS and help, but that barely happend after gaining more experience with each fight.

Btw, while I am going to cap my Acc to 600 (including buff-food) soon with my relic, my friend is not going to meld one single Acc materia, therefore she doesn't even need to bother entering CS in A12s, because eventually she wont be able to place a hit anyway. xD But! And there we go with personal playstyle and preferances: She loves healing more than anything and is really pationate and skilled in raw healing, but also likes having a few seconds to plan the next steps during the fights.
I am the complete oposite. I don't plan, but I react. Of course I know when to place an Adlo and when to spread it or use Eos, but I love being in a hurry. Jumping in and out of CS, while running around following mechanics and telling Eos what to do. The more stressful the situation the more focused I am and the better my gameplay gets.

And I do know for 100% there are many others out there just like me. Taking CS away from us would destroy the positive experience of a complete role for many people and might even lead them to leaving the game and finding another one where healers are able to dps properly, instead of throwing a 900 crit Broil where it could be a 4000 crit Broil...

[Cynfael]

People will counter with "Healer DPS isn't counted when designing boss fights", and I want to respond to that before they even get the chance. The reason that DPS isn't counted when designing boss fights is that they are designed to account for MINIMUM DAMAGE OUTPUT. That is not to say that healer DPS isn't a normal part healing, it is that the content is designed so that players don't have to min/max to clear...

Unfortunately people have and will continue to set up the dev article about minimum DPS calculations for end-game raids as a strawman to attack Cleric Stance and healer DPS expectations in general. They read only what they want to read and completely ignore or skew the context to support their position, which is usually "I hate to DPS as healer and wish I had excuses not to do it" or "I am a special snowflake who chooses not to DPS as healer and am looking to explain why my playstyle is not actually selfish or lazy." We've been through this dance at least once or twice already in this same thread.

[Feyona]

Unfortunately people have and will continue to set up the dev article about minimum DPS calculations for end-game raids as a strawman to attack Cleric Stance and healer DPS expectations in general. They read only what they want to read and completely ignore or skew the context to support their position, which is usually "I hate to DPS as healer and wish I had excuses not to do it" or "I am a special snowflake who chooses not to DPS as healer and am looking to explain why my playstyle is not actually selfish or lazy." We've been through this dance at least once or twice already in this same thread.

Sometimes you guys talk like healing is unnecessary on its own. It is not being selfish or lazy when you find playing two roles simultaniously too difficult.The fact that it is more and more expected when its not understood that only the more skilled that can do it well in current content that is the problem

[Cynfael]

Sometimes you guys talk like healing is unnecessary on its own. It is not being selfish or lazy when you find playing two roles simultaniously too difficult.The fact that it is more and more expected when its not understood that only the more skilled that can do it well in current content that is the problem

- Please see one of many other posts where I and others have specifically acknowledged that players who are trying to learn the role should not be pressured to meet instantly the expectation applied to more skilled, experienced players. The majority of complaints are leveled against players who refrain from contributing DPS due either to a misguided notion that it's not part of their Job or a selfish reluctance to go beyond the bare minimum gameplay required to stay alive. I'm not sure how many different ways I need to say the exact same things before the overall message is understood. It's possible that the disconnect just can't be bridged, I guess.

-No one has suggested that healing is unnecessary. However, healing beyond what an encounter requires is completely unnecessary, which is why players who are learning should be trying to improve their efficiency of healing, which frees up their time and resources to support the group effort in other ways (usually this means putting those DPS skills to good use).

-And, for perhaps the third, fourth, or twelfth time in this same conversation, the Healer role is more complex than simply healing. It is not performing two roles simultaneously if you are both healing and attacking in the same encounter.

In the end, players who truly want to pretend that using their DPS abilities as healer is unnecessary and unreasonable are welcome to run out into the field by themselves, summon their chocobos, and stand around healing them while they slowly kill mobs. Perhaps this experience will give them some insight into the opposing viewpoint.

[HoodRat]

Idk how true this is for everyone but I've often noticed that when people claim they can't find times to dps because they have to heal so much, their overhealing percentage is absurdly high.

[Rennies]

Idk how true this is for everyone but I've often noticed that when people claim they can't find times to dps because they have to heal so much, their overhealing percentage is absurdly high.

Yup, they always think that two Cure IIs are necessary when a Regen would've done more than enough to keep the tank alive. People need to learn to heal efficiently before Cleric Stance dancing is possible. A lot refuse to do that though.

[magnanimousCynic]

Yup, they always think that two Cure IIs are necessary when a Regen would've done more than enough to keep the tank alive. People need to learn to heal efficiently before Cleric Stance dancing is possible. A lot refuse to do that though.

I can't count the number of times I see a WHM cast Medica II and then follow up with Medica I, not allowing the HoT to do any work. Talk about wasted MP.

Though I'll admit to doing it sometimes when everyone's health gets low suddenly. >.>

[Cynfael]

Yup, they always think that two Cure IIs are necessary when a Regen would've done more than enough to keep the tank alive. People need to learn to heal efficiently before Cleric Stance dancing is possible. A lot refuse to do that though.

These are the players who think that the object of the game from a healer's perspective is to keep all players' HP bars at 100% at all times and that overhealing is just more of a good thing. Why settle for a Regen when Cure II spam produces big numbers and makes it look on the player's screen as if they're doing something important, I guess. God forbid they heal reasonably, allow regens and mitigation to do their work, and take advantage of the time between heal casts to hit something.

Maybe there should be low-level quests where you fail if you restore excessive HP to the target so that new players don't learn this bad habit.