Sad experiences of a newbie

[Vaer]

Still you cant harass anyone over their dps because that stands for parser harassment.

Only if you bring up numbers... there is a difference between "omg why r u doin x dps" vs "why are you not casting anything and jumping around". One is actually related to parsers, the other one you don't even need a parser to see. The game gives you this information.. if you watch their cast bar you can see almost exactly what they are doing (other than the instant casts but if you know enough about the game you can spot the animations or check enemy debuffs/party buffs in the UI, too). Big difference.

As for the OP, I feel like we are not getting the entire story here. Most people don't care if you DPS in < 53 dungeons. Everything melts anyway unless half the party is AFK. So unless the EU datacenter is different something is weird about this whole thing. A healer not dpsing in most cases is not going to lead to wipes... (the op mentions wiping) in <53 dungeons.

[Nedkel]

OK, maybe it's an unpopular opinion, but I kinda feel OP is being a spoiled brat about this whole situation. Like "boohoo, I'm getting a lot of hate, so I'm just gonna complain in the forums about it and let my sub run out".

Like, what a crappy attitude to have. How about instead of being a crybaby, you either figure out what it is they're complaining about it and try to fix it, or grow a thick skin and ignore the hate. You don't have to put up with anyone in this game if you don't want to. As a healer, if they kick you, you can find another party fast. So there really isn't anything you have to worry about. Do whatever you want, but honestly if you get yelled at repeatedly in every party you're in, you might want to figure out what you're doing that's making them want to kick you.
Now if you're definitely tired of getting yelled at, I'm gonna teach you a trick that will allow you to minimize the amount of hate you get, regardless of your healing abilities. It's very simple: as soon as you step inside the dungeon, don't - say - anything. Just literally follow the tank around from a safe distance and spam heal. You don't have to DPS. If they yell at you for not DPSing, just ignore them. Don't answer questions. Just heal. If the party wipes, doesn't matter if it was your fault or if the tank pulled too much. Respawn, use Protect, and try again.

A lot of people are just looking for a confrontation but if you stay silent and don't give in to them, they'll just go back to doing the dungeon.

You're free to quit the game if you want, but you're gonna get this sort of situation in real life as well. Except in real life you won't just be able to wait for your subscription to run off. You're gonna have to learn to deal with shitty people sooner or later, so my advice is you might as well start now. Don't let toxic people stop you from enjoying a game you seem to be liking.

The OP probably is playing one or two hours a day, getting 53 lvl with x2 exp is super easy and fast, probably played 10 dungeons in total, he has a sprout next to his nickname, but call him a spoiled brat for a reason, wtf XDD
Get a break from the game real.
You expect a player with maybe 40 hours total, of which 90% was the storyline and quest doing, to perform as a healer on a 70 lvl, what the hell.

Only if you bring up numbers... there is a difference between "omg why r u doin x dps" vs "why are you not casting anything and jumping around". One is actually related to parsers, the other one you don't even need a parser to see. The game gives you this information.. if you watch their cast bar you can see almost exactly what they are doing (other than the instant casts but if you know enough about the game you can spot the animations or check enemy debuffs/party buffs in the UI, too). Big difference.

Support team knows it and they are analyzing the context of the run and the other runs of the player to judge him over if he is using or not.
You can easly see if the person is using it, if he is complaining about dps every second dungeon.
Few reports on the same person will drive support team to reconsider action toward specific player.
Its just the number that makes it instant ban, but few reports for harassment will lead to get him banned also, gms have a report record of each player.

[Taika]

Support team knows it and they are analyzing the context of the run and the other runs of the player to judge him over if he is using or not.
You can easly see if the person is using it, if he is complaining about dps every second dungeon.
Few reports on the same person will drive support team to reconsider action toward specific player.
Its just the number that makes it instant ban, but few reports for harassment will lead to get him banned also, gms have a report record of each player.

Can you say what you're basing this on, or is this just speculation from your part? I have never ever heard anyone getting banned in this game for parsing, even when they have quoted numbers. Not that this has much to do with the topic of healer DPS, since it's really easy to tell if a healer is doing any from checking DoT icons from monsters and glancing at the healer's cast bar every once in a while.

[Vidu]

@Vidu:

I see your point, and agree with some of it, but as i'm hovering over a new player(she's made a char on my account), I told her the exact same things.
The game has taught her everything she needed to know (with the exception of temple of qarn, she asked me to finish it for her).
Anyway, the game teaches you your skills and flashes combos if you have them.
Not doing them removes from your own experience, so there is no logical reason you wouldn't automatically do it.

Perhaps I just have more faith in new players, than I do 'experienced' as they aren't jaded yet, like us lot.

You can't run expert roulette at 50, been a long time since you could.
And 50/60 is old content, so someone trying to learn is bombarded with people refusing to do mechanics, shouting at them they need new gear and they suck.

It's like a lucky dip depending on what sort of people you get in any dungeon, at any point in the game.

(quote was too long for word count so cut it down)

Its not true that the game flashes all combos in your face - thats only true for melees and tanks. Casters and bards need to figure out how to do their rotations. A bard needs to realise how important their DoTs are. A BLM needs to learn how to handle their ice/fire-mechanic. Healers need to figure out which spell to use in which situation - for example that cure 3 isnt simply a stronger heal than cure 2 but rather an AoE-heal. The game has tutorials for this and tooltips but a lot of people dont seem to read them or bother to learn how to play.
I'd agree that there is no logical reason for someone not to read tooltips and tutorials and learn how to play their class because that normally adds to the enjoyment of the game for themself. However that seems to be our stance - "Playing how I want" means for me: Playing to the best of my ability and the ability of my class.
To someone else it can easly mean "Jumping around in a swimsuit" or "Pressing the button that gives the most flashy animation".

Its not that I dont have faith in new players - I've encountered a lot of great ones! Those who didnt needed advice at all, those who were open to it and took it and even those who asked for advice and were happy to get some. I've got very fond memories of those kind of runs.
I have however horrible memories of runs with people with the "You dont pay my sub" and "I play how I want"-attitude. I am not going to explain why thats so bad again.

I also mentioned that my example of a tank not using flash in expert roulette was extreme. It wasnt supposed to be taken literally. But I shouldnt have to ask a tank to use flash (or their respective other move) in any content after Haukke Manor.
I agree that no one should be yelled at - but no one should get a free pass at everything either. If someones gear isnt up to the content, there is nothing wrong with poiting that out. If someone needs to improve, there is nothing wrong with pointing that out. But honestly both are things that shouldnt happen anymore at somepoint - that point being somewhat past level 50. Even if they're a new person, even if they're new to MMOs even... they should grasp basic things like the need to gear up and understanding their skills.

Ask yourself: If everyone "played like they wanted to", aka: if everyone played subpar, not in appropriate gear, not using the right skills... would you get through the dungeon? In most cases you would not. And thats why no one gets the free pass of "Play how you want".

I have a lot of faith in new people. I also have a lot of faith in people offering advice in a decent manner.
I dont have any faith in people yelling - wether thats yelling "You suck!" at a new person or yelling "You dont pay my sub, I play how I want!"

(also: editing your post lets you get around the 1000 character limit)

[Metalwrath]

Can you say what you're basing this on, or is this just speculation from your part? I have never ever heard anyone getting banned in this game for parsing, even when they have quoted numbers. Not that this has much to do with the topic of healer DPS, since it's really easy to tell if a healer is doing any from checking DoT icons from monsters and glancing at the healer's cast bar every once in a while.

As far as i know you cant be banned for parsing but you can be banned for harrasing a player based on info given from useing a parser as its a 3rd party programme and as such not supported directly by SE.
As for where it was stated i cant remember.It might have been brought up when messaged by an admin over reporting someone or in the report UI.

[Kaldaka]

Its not true that the game flashes all combos in your face - thats only true for melees and tanks. Casters and bards need to figure out how to do their rotations. A bard needs to realise how important their DoTs are. A BLM needs to learn how to handle their ice/fire-mechanic. Healers need to figure out which spell to use in which situation - for example that cure 3 isnt simply a stronger heal than cure 2 but rather an AoE-heal. The game has tutorials for this and tooltips but a lot of people dont seem to read them or bother to learn how to play.
I'd agree that there is no logical reason for someone not to read tooltips and tutorials and learn how to play their class because that normally adds to the enjoyment of the game for themself. However that seems to be our stance - "Playing how I want" means for me: Playing to the best of my ability and the ability of my class.
To someone else it can easly mean "Jumping around in a swimsuit" or "Pressing the button that gives the most flashy animation".

Its not that I dont have faith in new players - I've encountered a lot of great ones! Those who didnt needed advice at all, those who were open to it and took it and even those who asked for advice and were happy to get some. I've got very fond memories of those kind of runs.
I have however horrible memories of runs with people with the "You dont pay my sub" and "I play how I want"-attitude. I am not going to explain why thats so bad again.

I also mentioned that my example of a tank not using flash in expert roulette was extreme. It wasnt supposed to be taken literally. But I shouldnt have to ask a tank to use flash (or their respective other move) in any content after Haukke Manor.
I agree that no one should be yelled at - but no one should get a free pass at everything either. If someones gear isnt up to the content, there is nothing wrong with poiting that out. If someone needs to improve, there is nothing wrong with pointing that out. But honestly both are things that shouldnt happen anymore at somepoint - that point being somewhat past level 50. Even if they're a new person, even if they're new to MMOs even... they should grasp basic things like the need to gear up and understanding their skills.

Ask yourself: If everyone "played like they wanted to", aka: if everyone played subpar, not in appropriate gear, not using the right skills... would you get through the dungeon? In most cases you would not. And thats why no one gets the free pass of "Play how you want".

I have a lot of faith in new people. I also have a lot of faith in people offering advice in a decent manner.
I dont have any faith in people yelling - wether thats yelling "You suck!" at a new person or yelling "You dont pay my sub, I play how I want!"

(also: editing your post lets you get around the 1000 character limit)

I completely forgot about bard, much to my shame since I've played it for years now :S
I can't speak about melee, I have an honest hate for them, and can never judge if someone is doing it badly or not. As a healer, I figure if I'm not tanking, and the dps arn't tanking - the tanks are fine. DPS, well, as long as they dodge AOE's (yes, I'm looking at you, dragoons!) then I again don't have a problem with them.
Casters however, namely blackmage and redmage, the game is very thorough with its self explanatory way of going about things (with the exception of maybe the use of enochian).
Ah... I just remembered they implemented jump potions... yeh... our games ruined for good :/ those guys don't read... (i'm stereotyping, don't judge lol)

All this speed run mentality, and demand that you have the best gear based on your level rather than where you are at in the game, seriously bothers me.
Just yesterday, my mother (it's her playing the character) got snickered at for having i90 gear in crystal tower.
As long as she meets i-level requirements, she has as much right to be there as everyone else, not to mention she won't get tomestones without DOING the dungeons in the first place in order to upgrade.
The game was designed to be all inclusive, a lot of problems are with the players themselves, demanding people play like they do or not at all. That isn't how the game was designed.
Heck (i'm guilty of this too on a few occasions), people demanding others skip cut scenes so they can get out of their as quick as possible, or locking people out of boss fights, it is quite unfair, and a bit brutal. Waiting 10-30 seconds isn't going to ruin anyones day, unless they put a chicken in the oven, then it's their own fault.

(Thanks for that! I'm fairly sure this limit never used to be here, wonder why they added it... spammers maybe?)

[Ceasaria]

I admit, I'm a slow learner, and learning how to juggle healing, dps and buffs (I decided to focus on astrologian) is tough for me, since I don't get a lot of time to play in general.

Astrologian is the most complicated job in this game.
I don't recommend any new healer to to play it before to to be used to heal/DPS with White Mage or Scholar (even Scholar can be difficult to play, but at least the fairy is a good help).

[Melichoir]

You might do well to find an FC and party with them until you get a better grasp of dps/healing. But its going to be rough fo ryou for a while if this is your first toon for a few reasons:

1) Veteran players do dungeons to get creation and the like, and are looking for fast clears. Healers, being crucial to dungeon clearing along with Tanks, will get an extra serving of salt if theyre not geared or underskilled.
2) You are going to be by default 'undergeared' for a while. While you may have the appropriate ilvl for dungeons, you wont have the 'max' stats that would be afforded to you if you were 70 in 340 gear. The dungeon sync lowers your stats by a certain rate, so being geared in 340 gear will serve you better in lower content thatn being in 260 or 130 gear. As a result, youre going to struggle harder to be a healer in a dungeon where tanks are speed pulling and pulling huge huge mobs.
3) A lot of tanks and DPS are 'bad'. This is a bit more controversial, but the truth is a lot of tanks and DPS are not great at the job they are playing. SOME ARE, yes, particularly if they main that class and know the ins and outs. But the chances are youll either end up with people who dont Main 'tanks' or DPS who are playing DPS that theyre not accustomed too. This is going to result in either slow kill times (which will end up with you running out of mana) or tanks who take to much damage because theyre not properly using cooldowns to mitigate damage and are pulling TO much. Mixed with the previous ones, they tend to assume its YOUR fault cause theyre to used to getting good healers who are geared and know how to babysit bad tanks.

I know you get a lot of salt, but if you still want to give the game a good try, then yeah, I recommend trying to find a server with an FC willing to pull you in and run things with you. Also, posting here helps, and there are discord groups dedicated to learning classes and things, so joining them and talking with the veterans there is a big deal as most of them are pretty damn friendly.

Lastly, this is a big deal that a lot of beginning healers dont undestand but...

Fight Mechanics>Class Mechanics> DPS. Dead Healers heal no one. And if youre not familiar with your class, DPSing is a moot point. So while people may berate you for 'not dpsing' tell them to screw off. Get a solid understanding of how your class works from a support perspective before really worrying about DPS. It will serve you much more long term to be a amazing healer who never dies to mechanics but eh DPS, than to be a so-so healer with ok dps who dies half the time to cleaves or AoE. And in dungeons, just go ahead and let teh Tank know youre not super geared healer and to try to take it easy on pulls if possible. Some people will try to kick you, yes, but most tanks will go "Ok, Healers not super geared, but atleast I know that."

[Vaer]

Support team knows it and they are analyzing the context of the run and the other runs of the player to judge him over if he is using or not.
You can easly see if the person is using it, if he is complaining about dps every second dungeon.
Few reports on the same person will drive support team to reconsider action toward specific player.
Its just the number that makes it instant ban, but few reports for harassment will lead to get him banned also, gms have a report record of each player.

That's my point though, context matters. If they are literally saying something regarding actual numbers, they might get banned obviously but if they ask something in passing like "wow this is taking a while" or "we hit enrage dps is kinda low, can everyone push a bit more? (this is like an obvious conclusion, does not require a parser, it is how the enrage mechanic works)" I really doubt they would get banned.

Maybe for general harassment which would be warranted (nothing to do with a parser, just someone being a jerk multiple times) but I really doubt they are going to assume you are using a parser just because you say "why are jumping around?" or "why are you afk?" and ban you for parsing, that would be hilarious and mostly pointless. By the way, asking someone why they are afk isn't harassment.

[Kisagami]

As someone who has refocused the majority of her time to GW2, I have to agree. In GW2, their commander system is a LOT better than our mentor system. I’ve joined a lot of Hero Point trains and META groups, and all of them have been encouraging. In fact, if we fail just a little bit short nobody throws insults or rages. They all say “aw” and try again. Lots of support from people I don’t even know, people reviving me out of charity and good will rather than getting anything back. Commanders are optional, get a nice shiny marker on the map for people to follow and gather, etc.

I’m hoping 4.2 reinspires me to the game again, but with the fights over parsers and the “I play how I want” guys, there’s very little happy medium. Hell, some of the worst offenders of the parsers aren’t even good themselves, they just want everyone else to “get gud” to carry them through content.

It’s a pitty this community is driving new members away. Not all of us are like this, but gosh... first impressions are important and so far tge impressions for new players aren’t good.