Idea to fix controversy about healer dps.

[Laladyn]

Well some say so, some say otherwise. Its propabily save to say its intended but not necessary for a healer to use his/her damage spells.

So why not make it so damage spells actually give buffs to healing spells?

Here is an example on WHM: If you have Aero-3 up on an enemy you gain a 2% healing buff if you have aero 3 and aero up you get an 5 % healing buff. Also stone, hitng and enemy with a stone spell reduced the MP cost of you next healing spell by 1% and this can stack up to 10 times and 10%.

Would that not be a good way to incentive players to use all their tools and helping to fix the issue?

[Lambdafish]

You can put as many buffs on the DPS spells as you like and you will still have players saying "I'm a healer not a buff DPS, I'd play BRD if I wanted to buff and do damage". The only way would be to make every spell like assize.

[Seraphor]

I wouldn't change any of the existing healers for this, but it could be a good idea for the next healer class if done right.

[Ghishlain]

I don't personally mind the idea of DPS spells giving benefits to a healer's restorative tools, but I imagine the developers have avoided doing that as it's already been recorded in a few interviews that Healer DPS isn't factored into DPS checks when designing their raid tiers - though I imagine Ultimate being the one exception to that rule given the design of that particular piece of content.

I think as a healer community the best thing we can do is just keep encouraging players to adapt and use more of their buttons in appropriate situations. You can partially flow-chart healer skill usages based on fight mechanics and situations but overall the best advice to give any healer in 95% of the situations is Always Be Casting (ABC) with an caveat of "ABCing Effective Spells" since "ABCing healing spells 100% of the time" is extremely inefficient given content design.

[Limonia]

If you have Aero-3 up on an enemy you gain a 2% healing buff if you have aero 3 and aero up you get an 5 % healing buff. Also stone, hitng and enemy with a stone spell reduced the MP cost of you next healing spell by 1% and this can stack up to 10 times and 10%.

I don't think that this would help at all. It would only be a benefit to those healers that already dps a lot anyway.

Most healers I see who don't dps at all (or only very little) also don't use their buffs. I've seen many heal only healers who never use Largesse, Presence of Mind, Synastry, Fey Illumination - so far that some of them even never use Assize or Earthly Star.
One reason for that may be that because they don't cast any dps spells, they don't need healing buffs or MP restoration.

If so little healing is needed, where would the incentive for someone who only presses like 5 of their ~30 buttons to cast Aero all of a sudden just to get a 2% buff to their heals?

[Tridus]

I mean, the best way to fix the issue is to fix the healing end of healers so that you need to spend more time focused on it. With the amount of content that can be healed with 25% uptime, it's not surprising there is an issue.

But yes, if we assume that healing will remain a part time job for healers and that we need something to fill the void, having DPS spells do something for your healing spells isn't a bad idea.

[Godofhealing]

I like this idea for another healer maybe a healer that heals through damage yeah a battle healer wow im a Genius.

[Saefinn]

My experience with this problem and I suspect is the case for others.

I heal and DPS, people moan.
I heal and don't DPS, people moan.

But I can your logic,thinking back to when I started playing it out on 2.0, I thought of the DPS moves being helpful in mitigating damage, as it what SCH does. Shadowflare = slow, Miasma = less healing taken + slow move, Ruin II = blind etc. They weren't that potent, but I thought a good idea for keeping damage mitigated and in turn, creating damage. It is something I hoped would get developed into the role as I think of SCH as a damage mitigater and weakening your enemies seems a sensible way of mitigating.

But I don't think it is just a lack of incentive (and I don't think people would be incentivise by it), there are the two types of mentality to deal with ("healers are support only" and "always be casting"), apathy, confidence, experience and groups that make their healer "work for it" and no doubt other points.

[Tint]

this will fix nothing, the gap between dpsing healers and non dpsing healers will just widen.

people just don't want to dps, they choose to play healer to get a different experience. a experience wich isn't centered around dps. sadly, the game design, the healer design, doesn't allow this.

i have thought about this issue too and my idea is the implementation of a new healer job, wich isn't centered around doing damage. so it can only heal and has party buffs for the meantime (yeah i know we have AST already).
of course this healer would have huge issues when solo'ing and to compete with other healers for a spot. that's why this new healer job will have a pet - a dps pet!
see? problem solved. the healer don't have to dps and gets the heal only experience he is searching for, and the party don' have to carry a dead weight, since the pet is contributing for the missed healer dps. \^^/

[S0laire]

What more can you expect the devs to do to incentivize your average healer to throw more damage spells? All the risk of doing damage was eliminated once the removal of old cleric stance.

At this point I wouldn't be surprised if someone pitched the idea that all regular healing spells do damage as well, as a poor man's Assize.