Dps As Healer

[Gemina]

This has been an ongoing debate on the healer forum. Someone made a video where she did Xelphatol with FC members and literally spent 80% of the dungeon jumping around the map and spamming emotes. Her contributions were that low. Does this sound like a good player?

I'm surprised, but also not so surprised that this subject made it here. Anywho, I believe that video was made to showcase how little healing is needed in that dungeon. I don't believe this person was doing it to deliberately be a jerk. But in either case, the point was established that there are instances where a healer literally has nothing to do but contribute to the damage pool. While that video proved a strong case of healer downtime, there is something else to take into consideration: The group still got the clear, and did so under 20 minutes.

To counter, I posted a video of my own to show how unpredictable damage can be, and casting two holys instead of just one literally made the difference between a wipe and successful trash clear. Granted, the tank did not use any cooldowns, or anything really to save his own ass, but the point was we would not have wiped if I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. Everyone was doing the elementary basics of their role. The tank held agro, the DPS were pushing it, but the healer (me) was too focused on DPS and the result was a wipe.

Those pushing their arguments, no matter what side you're on, seem to see healing as a one-given scenario when it is nowhere near that black and white. There are situations where the tank is literally taking no damage, and the healer is left with nothing to do. There are situations where the tank is taking so much damage that not one gcd can be spared to contribute to DPS. There are also situations where incoming damage is so erratic and unpredictable that a GCD used towards damage is a risk.

In short, there are as many valid reasons for a healer to contribute to DPS as there are for them to stay out of Cleric. A truly good healer assesses the situation they are given and responds accordingly. And that is it. Sometimes you get good healers, and sometimes you don't. Same with tanks and DPS. We are actually fortunate that a healer can be subpar and still get clears. Would you or anyone else prefer the opposite?

[Fernosaur]

Can I use this excuse to not keep BotD up? I'm having a bad day and it's just too much effort to manage all my oGCDs. What about defensive cooldowns? I just want to Fell Cleave for days and blowing Vengeance and Raw Intuition means more Fell Cleaves or Decimates.

Tbh I wouldn't give someone crap if they were having a bad or an off-day and behaved like this, specially in content as facerolly as anything you can do through DF. If someone was really stressed out by wtv thing and they didn't wanna play super optimal, that's fine by me. I mean, it might get annoying to have your DF expert run take some more minutes, but wtv. I do care more about a person's emotional stability than their lack of optimal play affecting my casual faceroll run.

If this was in a raid group doing endgame content, then yeah, I would maybe have a problem, because efficiency matters much more there. But then again, a raid group usually also involves companionship, so I'd, again, be more concerned about their emotional well-being instead of pushing them to stress themselves further. I would probably suggest a break in that situation, though, instead of letting them play sub-optimally, cause it could be a potential waste of other 7 people's time.

As an addendum: I personally go into DF as SCH to DPS the crap out of everything as a way to relief stress when I'm not feeling well, mostly because I can p much play the class with my eyes closed for most DF content. BUT I do know a lot of healers who get very, very anxious about DPSing. So long as they don't the defend the "healers shouldn't DPS!" ideology, I'm fine if they're having an off-day and don't want to feel pressured.

[DamianFatale]

Can I use this excuse to not keep BotD up? I'm having a bad day and it's just too much effort to manage all my oGCDs. What about defensive cooldowns? I just want to Fell Cleave for days and blowing Vengeance and Raw Intuition means more Fell Cleaves or Decimates.

You DO NOT know other people's mental states. For some people doing all these things on a bad day is fine, but when you're like me, and you struggle with depression, and chemical imbalances in your brain, a simple bad day can feel unnavigable. Those of us in that situation don't want to just drop everything and not do what they love, but it doesn't mean that we can always handle it. Honestly because of this, healing is the best job for me. It's much easier on my head to learn how to heal properly, then worry about learning a dps class, which focuses on the mathematical side of my brain. Try and realize that there is more to life than just yourself. If it were all about you, it'd be a single player game.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

You DO NOT know other people's mental states. For some people doing all these things on a bad day is fine, but when you're like me, and you struggle with depression, and chemical imbalances in your brain, a simple bad day can feel unnavigable. Those of us in that situation don't want to just drop everything and not do what they love, but it doesn't mean that we can always handle it. Honestly because of this, healing is the best job for me. It's much easier on my head to learn how to heal properly, then worry about learning a dps class. Try and realize that there is more to life than just yourself. If it were all about you, it'd be a single player game.

You realize this statement is inherently hypocritical, yes? Why does your personal problems supersede mine or anyone elses? I don't know nor do I particularly care. That may sound blunt, however we all have personal gripes in some form or another. I dealt with depression too. I don't expect random people I meet in a game to cater to my potential problems or appreciate my decision to stand around and only heal, thus slowing them down. It's an entirely different scenario if you're new or inexperienced. Communicate that, and most people are receptive. How you factor a healer should contributed just as much as everyone else (i.e. not stand around doing nothing) is self-centered... makes no sense. There are three to seven other players besides yourself. Which is the crux of my point. The many outweigh the few, so to speak.

[LunaFaye]

I've seen newer players at least trying. What I mean by that is, that some people are not comfortable with turning on cleric stance, in most cases nothing happens for a long time but the moment a healer turns on cleric stance, all hell breaks loose. Most players feel very overwhelmed when that happens and just panic, leading to wipes that could of been avoided if that person would have trusted their skills a bit more.

However, while leveling alts, I find lots of healers that are new to the game, and experiencing exactly what I just explained, but instead of just standing around and waiting for s... to hit the fan, they are dps'ing without the cleric stance. Not saying that's a great thing, but I rather have people throwing their dots, aero's, stone's I/II/III, whatever the astro skills are called, than just standing around doing nothing, and if that makes newer players more secure till they fully learned the fights then I am all for it.

One thing I can't and won't tolerate so, are veteran players, that can't even do that or refuse to just do that. If a new player can do it, than veterans should be more then willing to throw their "dps" abilities without cleric stance on some mobs. I do agree that the first priority of a healer is healing, but if there's nothing to heal then please do something instead of just standing around, no matter how good or bad the group dps and tank is.

If he would see what's going on in DF/PF/RF lately he would change his mind real quick and would agree. I am still keeping my hopes up that in 4.0 we have a better solution for cleric stance.

[Keydah]

Healing has never been required. However, you've ALWAYS had ample time to do it, except maybe when you're all new to Ozma or an EX primal or something.

If you don't dps, you are contributing nothing for, in casual content, literally 50-70% of the instance. There's no reason to heal the tank when they're above ~70% health, they don't drop to that for like 20 seconds at a time, so why would you just stand there? That's not fun, you're not contributing anything except hitting a button every 20 seconds to keep someone alive, and you have completely ample time and ability to be doing something. Obviously we are there to heal, that doesn't mean we shouldn't do other stuff when there's absolutely no reason to be healing.

I'm all for healers having to heal a little more, but I thoroughly enjoy being able to dps here and there. I don't want to be a healbot. I get that some people do want to, and that's fine, but because you don't have to heal constantly in this game, you're doing nothing while everyone else in the party is hitting something every 2.5 seconds. It just doesn't work here. :\ I'd be happy if they amped up the healing enough that we still get to dps if we're good, but "omgz I'm just gonna heal cuz I'm a healurrr" people have to do something more frequently too.

Am I going to kick someone for it? No. Am I going to comment on it? Only if it's a sprout. But it's absolutely doing the bare minimum and that's rude to your party members. Tanks don't have to use cooldowns. Bards don't have to play MP songs when the healers are rezzing people left and right. But doing so makes you better at your job, because you're going above and beyond and there's really no reason for you not to do so except that you want to pay more attention to Netflix.

[Ilenya]

For what it's worth, is there anywhere we can actually see this conversation being talked about?

[alimdia]

For what it's worth, is there anywhere we can actually see this conversation being talked about?

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/127955803

[Ilenya]

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/127955803

Thank you.

[alimdia]

Thank you.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/127955803?t=27m35s the actual time, 27 mins 35 secs.