The reason we healers DPS

[Shurrikhan]

Exactly what I'm talking about. In these scenarios the DPS can be blamed if they don't use AoE's or the tank can be blamed if they don't use CD's. But if they're putting forth the effort then the healers should be putting forth the proper effort as well.

The biggest thing to me is that, unless running an all-physical party as of Shadowbringers and thus having essentially infinite AoE, you simply cannot sustain an AoE in many a full pull without healer DPS or badly outgearing the instance; there's just not enough MP (or, formerly, TP).

Such a snide comment. Do this while I am in your party and not only will I not cast a single offensive spell, I won't cast any restorative ones either so hate isn't transferred over to me the moment you start tanking the floor.

You're missing the point entirely, and I don't really know how this has evolved into a discussion where we gather all the heals only healers and start stomping on them.

That would be because heals-only healers are very different from those who

in general don't have a problem DPSing during their downtime.

The latter are literally cannot be called "heals-only healers" because they clearly do not solely heal.

The reason for anger, too, is obvious; no one playing a toolkit to its full potential, or attempting to do so, likes hearing that what you do is impossible or out of scope by principle of some mistakenly rigid belief as to what your role entails. It's like being told to be intentionally useless and unambitious, despite having all you need to be of value right there at your disposal.

The advice, then, for such mistaken role definitions: Jobs make clears. Best use of jobs makes best chance and speed of clears. All else is irrelevant. Making our HP not hit zero (outside of sacrifices which increase the chance and/or speed of clears) is a thing everyone does. Making enemy HP reach zero is a thing everyone does. There are no unique tasks in this, only best fit optimizations at a given point in time with future events (potencies, duplication, and modifiers) in mind. No task or responsibility ends for one "role" where another "role" begins. Don't worry so much about what is and is not your duty or fault, but rather merely what is wasteful and all that is not. Or, more simply -- Just. Play. Well.

They are going to have to stop allowing for ilvl sync to be double that of which is feasible to clear the content. They are going to have to change up encounter design.

If they are worried that players can't handle the increased requirement, then they either need to grow a pair and just do it, or embrace the current aggressive healing culture and replace GCD heals with more offensive tools.

This is all good and well but ultimately will not change the outcome of "heal-only" play unless healers are wholly reduced by damage intake to heal-bots, which I doubt would create any more compelling of play.

I'd like to see healing take up the majority of my time as it might have at minimum ilvl situations back in certain pre-nerf ARR dungeons. That does not mean I want to just be spamming heals under the threat that if the tank isn't topped off the next cast-less special attack may wipe them out. That does not mean I want such sustained damage that my only option is to chain Cures with a Cure II only being spliced in to recover from casting Regen. And, so long as that's the case, you're still going to have this principle split between those who refuse to understand gameplay from beyond solely a healer-centric point of view ("I can just... heal more, no matter what happens to tank and DPS CDs or that 50% haste buff those mobs cast after 40 seconds...") [heal-only healers] and those who are willing to know exactly what their toolkit can do or best fit a given situation [everyone else]. So, no, the point is not outright missed; the changes just aren't likely enough to circumvent the current "tip-of-the-iceberg" issue, either.

[Shurrikhan]

If mobs are still alive after a healer has exhausted all their ogcds, I think schitty DPS killed you in this situation, not a heals happy healer. The tank also doomed the party by pulling more than what they can handle. Yet, you are blaming your death on a healer who wasn't DPSing? I can't make an logical sense from this at all.

The person you quoted is correct. I can't even think of one time I've died or wiped because a healer wasn't DPSing, but I can think of numerous where players died or full on wiped because a healer tunnel visioned and did not wake up in time.

I could take personal experience from any SB leveling dungeon spammed ad nauseum to speedlevel where the DPS and my own tank dps performed just fine, but we'd eventually TP out from running caster-physical DPS instead of double-physical or we'd be narrowly overwhelmed because healer oGCDs were spent too early or unambitiously and little to no healer damage was dealt. Literally dozens of times over the course of leveling 5 tanks or 14 DPS in total across characters. Or I can take personal experience from leveling my healers, again 5 in total, whereby even relatively effortless damage weaving resulted in the enemy packs dying before they could become an overwhelming heal drain.

When it works easily when X happens, consistently, and does not when X does not happen, consistently, I tend to find X a key factor.

Let's say I'm in Bartam's first pull with two physical DPS, a PLD, and an AST. Each hypothetical DPS is doing a ballpark 3.5k (not quite optimized, but quite decent for their level and gear) and the PLD's doing some 2.5k with TE spam. We can sustain this for some 11 GCDs, about 26 to 27 seconds, and about 15 GCDs before DPS AoE plummets. Let's say each mob has 250k to 320k HP. My CDs will make sustainable, then, some 240k of enemy HP. If a healer adds even just 1.5k DPS to this, all mobs are dead by the time the tank would otherwise run out of TP and CD coverage. The tank and DPS each doing their job gives a decent chance to survive against multiple tiers of mob HP when every cooldown is present. Adding even just easily-woven healer DPS to this makes for easy survival against every HP tier in that pull.

There are of course further optimizations to be had -- CO, for instance, is best used immediately before or after Hallowed Ground while, due to the nature of Shield Oath costing damage and Sword Oath only improving damage against a single target, it's best to use Hallowed Ground last, dropping Shield Oath over HG's duration while there are still enemies to be AoEed and I've still got the TP left to AoE them, meaning that it'd have to occur within the first 7 GCDs, or 17 seconds, which means opening with Bulwark, Awareness, Anticipation, and Rampart, and ending on Sentinel, etc. -- but, for the most part the consistent equation is that the added damage of A3 and 7 seconds of Holy-based mitigation or Bane and Miasma II or Lightspeed Grav spam makes each of these large pulls far less risky, and that the risk entailed cannot be circumvented solely by the tanks and DPS even if they're each doing their job well.

[Urthdigger]

You're right. I see people defend DPSing healers all the time even though they lead to player KO's and wipes because "at least they're trying". If healers are getting a pass, it's because they are the only role who can outright neglect their primary responsibility and get commended for it.

Nice strawman you've got there. Nobody commends healers for "neglecting their primary responsibility", they're commended for working towards being able to help the party during the whole fight no matter the situation. The idea is they'll get to a point where they can heal well enough to create downtime they can use to DPS rather than tossing out an inefficient cure and calling it good.

Nobody actually thinks healers should ignore their healing. People *do* think healers should literally cast no spells that don't increase HP. Both are examples of bad play, but only one actually has people arguing for it.

[Freyt]

The biggest thing to me is that, unless running an all-physical party as of Shadowbringers and thus having essentially infinite AoE, you simply cannot sustain an AoE in many a full pull without healer DPS or badly outgearing the instance; there's just not enough MP (or, formerly, TP).

I actually compared the effective costs of spells changing from now to Shadowbringers. Healing in general is effectively increasing in MP cost, while damage spells in general are effectively decreasing in cost. This is especially true of the AoE spells. Art of War is also actually an increase in DPS over Miasma II, not accounting for the use of Bane, which Bio and Miasma shouldn't have their full duration lapse in a basic encounter anyways. Gravity and Holy are getting MP Cost reductions (accounting for a percentage of total MP). Add to that that they have no fall off damage anymore, there's no reason not to use them in basic encounters, especially with even more ogcd heal abilities.

[Deceptus]

The biggest thing to me is that, unless running an all-physical party as of Shadowbringers and thus having essentially infinite AoE, you simply cannot sustain an AoE in many a full pull without healer DPS or badly outgearing the instance; there's just not enough MP (or, formerly, TP).

And the other great thing about all physical parties is their access to Bloodbath which would enable healers to dps more if they actually pressed it.

Like if they pressed it now. . . oh wait. They don't.

[Freyt]

And the other great thing about all physical parties is their access to Bloodbath which would enable healers to dps more if they actually pressed it.

Like if they pressed it now. . . oh wait. They don't.

You're not even going to see half the people that do use it because for the majority of encounters DPS don't need to be healed.

[van_arn]

You're not even going to see half the people that do use it because for the majority of encounters DPS don't need to be healed.

To be fair, there's little more satisfying than seeing the other DPS (or better, the healer) die to a raidwide mechanic you preemptively countered with a second wind or bloodbath.

[Ryaz]

The thing about DPS and why tanks like Warriors and higher DPS healers are preferred over others is a simple MMO rule. DPS is ALWAYS useful. You can't really overheal or overtank. You either tank or you heal and make it through the content. Anything above and beyond that is fairly unneeded. However, unless parties are killing bosses in one shot, DPS will always bring the benefit of quicker kill times which helps with mechanics (possibly bypassing some) and enrages.

I always think back to The Secret World which had three types of healers. Your classic type Fist weapon healer with direct heals and heals over time, your Blood magic barrier healers and your Assault Rifle leech healers. The leech healers weren't as strong healing wise as the other two, but could still easily clear content and on top of that brought respectable DPS along with them as dealing damage was how they healed. So guess what? Everyone played leech healers.

Its sadly the way every MMO is. I say instead of removing DPS tools, incorporate them into healing rotations. Let every Stone spell restore some health to a target or give bonuses to the next heal. I think most healers would be happier with something like that.

[Mutemutt]

Its sadly the way every MMO is. I say instead of removing DPS tools, incorporate them into healing rotations. Let every Stone spell restore some health to a target or give bonuses to the next heal. I think most healers would be happier with something like that.

I'd really rather they didn't. I'm not really interested in playing a pseudo dps.

[Knoahl]

Its sadly the way every MMO is. I say instead of removing DPS tools, incorporate them into healing rotations. Let every Stone spell restore some health to a target or give bonuses to the next heal. I think most healers would be happier with something like that.

Like how Energy Drain Gave Faerie Gauge and MP, WHM should have gotten Lilies from dpsing or a chance to and Ast perhaps get minor arcana.

They should be doing stuff like this to make them all have more identity, not the current approach.