Dear Tanks and DPS

[Tridus]

Dear Tanks and DPS,

You guys rock. Lets go beat up some bad guys and get some loot.

Sincerely, Healers.

[Kacho_Nacho]

Dear Tanks and DPS,

You guys rock. Lets go beat up some bad guys and get some loot.

Sincerely, Healers.

Best "Dear... " post of the year.

Thanks, Tridus, for posting it.

[Taika]

It's very different to ask for optimal performance and to simply ask for doing something useful. As Bourne_Endeavor pointed out, the only reason threads like that exist is that there are people actively defending sub-par performance in the first place, which doesn't happen for tanks or DDs (look for example a recent thread where a RDM wrote about getting kicked for refusing to AoE - no one defended them (at the point when I read the thread anyhow, haven't checked it since then)).

[Blanchimont]

I find it ironic how the blame is always shifted to the Healer. Then again, I don't expect much since this has been the trend for almost 15 years. If the Tank is not popping CDs optimally, your Healer cannot optimize their DPS either. Most of the time, it is the failure of other classes to avoid damage. In the age of wall to wall pulls, this is unavoidable as the Healers have to focus on your HP bars and sudden drops as potentially 8 mobs hammer on your tank and you watch their HP spike up and down all the time.

What most other players fail to understand at this time is that the only way a Healer is going to get any major damage off, its probably going to be from a Swiftcast of a damage spell. There is already a high risk of letting the tank die if there is a cast time on the spell. There's literally no reason to risk it and the only time a Healer should be doing DPS during a mass pull is when the Tank uses a skill that literally prevents death or near the end of a pull when the number of mobs declines. Otherwise, it's not worth the risk of a wipe and forcing a reset.

tl;dr - if you want Healers to DPS, stop mass pulling and give them a chance to cast something besides heal and stronger heal

[Sebazy]

the only time a Healer should be doing DPS during a mass pull is when the Tank uses a skill that literally prevents death or near the end of a pull when the number of mobs declines. Otherwise, it's not worth the risk of a wipe and forcing a reset.

Actually, scrap that, I'm going to solo queue and as soon as I get a dungeon that's not Kugane (Aka it has a decently dangerous large pull) and a tank that's not got a broken controller, I'll upload it tomorrow.

[Sebazy]

So my plan didn't quite pan out, I got nothing but Kuganes on roulette and frankly couldn't be bothered to just queue for Temple or Ala Mhigo again after that.

Instead, have a short clip from a recording I got a few days and a log relevant to it. It's not perfect (Ooops at eating the aoe on the stairs and regening myself instead of the tank!) but it's decent enough.

https://youtu.be/fdU4tRrX984 - Ala Mhigo first 3 packs - 1:13 - 3.6k DPS

And the corresponding log is here

A few little side notes some of which are rather WHM specific:

For those that want to maximise their sprint time, note how I queue sprint after my opening Aero 3, this nets me the full out of combat 20 seconds with no waste from precasting it.

Get dots up whilst you're on the move. Not only am I throwing Aero IIIs where I can, I'm hoping along throwing Aero IIs where I can't. It all adds up!

Understand the timing and delay on Holy's stun. This is absolutely paramount, in that clip, once we get the gate, I stabilise the tank with a Cure II, get a feel for the pace at which damage is coming in and start the Holy bombs appropriately. The first Holy (Aka the one which did the crowd control work) landed at a smidge over 50% HP on the tank, much lower and I would have just Tetra'd due to the delay on the stun effect. Things panned out perfectly in that case tho, the stun kicked in as the tank went down to about 15% and whilst that might look rather sketchy at first glance, note how the Benediction hits at 35 seconds and the tank promptly doesn't take another hit until 39 seconds. If I wanted to be risky I could have thrown a 3rd Holy in before the Benediction!

Lastly, it's often worth sacrificing a bit of personal DPS to try and ensure even out damage across a pack of mobs to avoid one dieing significantly after the rest. The Centurion in that pull is a classic example that has a bunch more HP than the rest of it's pack.

[Fernosaur]

Snip.

None of this is quite true except on the most extreme of cases, ie. an undergeared tank not using absolutely any CD and double/triple pulling, which tend to be less frequent unless you'r queueing for Bardam's Mettle. In most average DF parties, however, you can open up DPS windows for yourself fairly easily even if the tank is bad or below average. Sebazy's video is a good example. WHM also has Asylum and Largesse+Regen to keep the tank steady after the first stuns from Holy wear out, not to mention Benediction and Tetra.

AST doesn't have absolute mitigation like WHM's holy, but popping Largesse+Asp.Ben + Collective on the tank gives you a 335 potency per tick on the tank. Extend these two with Time Dilation and Opposition and you can DPS for an absurdly long time, specially considering the safety net of Earthly Star and Essential Dignity.

SCH has Fey-Illum+Roused Whispering Dawn, Excog, at least one Lustrate to weave in in-between Miasma IIs, and also Fey Union for some pulls, which coupled with a buffed WD will heal the tank for no less than 9k HP per tick at level 70.

Every healing job is packed to the brim with very strong passive healing tools. There's literally no excuse for healers to refuse to DPS, and this silly justification that tank and DPS HP bars are going up and down all the time is just ridiculous and false. Please stop this fear mongering other healers and start spreading facts instead!

[Astral145]

Honestly there is no reason for a healer not to dps. The devs went out of there way to adjust mind so healers no longer have to stance dance. They want healers to dps... if a healer is just standing there with a full mp bar doing absolutely nothing except an occasional heal then they are being extremely lazy. And this goes for the dps who cant take the time to learn a descent rotation.

As for tanking i rarely ever go out of tank stance because I have trust issues when it comes to DF... but that doesn't stop me from doing all i can to take full advantage of the skills in my toolkit.

[miraidensetsu]

Honestly there is no reason for a healer not to dps.

Even without stance dancing, perhaps s/he is just standing there with a full mp bar doing absolutely nothing except an occasional heal because s/he that expects the DPS will be standing on the crap, the tank will do a wall-to-wall without any defensive CD, that RDM or DRG that insists on jumping outside the platform, that other DPS that ignores insta-kill mechanics... Maybe, s/he is not DPS'ing because s/he must be thinking that he will need every CD and MP to heal through stupid. And you can't blame him by that decision; he saw it so many times that he prefers to play extra safe. If a healer do DPS in a PUG, it's most likely because s/he turned on the f*** you.

Remember: Healers can DPS. But they can't take the place of a bad DPS.

[MoroMurasaki]

If a healer do DPS in a PUG, it's most likely because s/he turned on the f*** you.

Remember: Healers can DPS. But they can't take the place of a bad DPS.

I'm not going to debate healer DPS with you just those two completely illogical and inaccurate sentences.

First off you say that a healer DPSing in a PUG has "turned on the f you." If you had paid attention the most common argument for healer DPS is that it helps your party. We do it so everyone gets the faster clear that is virtually universally desired. We certainly don't do it in an effort to kill people; why would we when we are stuck in that same party? Just complete nonsense.

Secondly I'd like to address your insinuation that a healer can't do as much damage as a bad DPS. It just isn't true. While DPS have a much higher damage ceiling (as they should) I have seen healers outDPS actual DPS many times in both 4 and 8 man content. I know this because a friend of mine caries around a magic crystal ball that tells him so.

Just stop these completely false claims. You're lying to people and if you actually believe this stuff you're lying to yourself as well.