What the term "healer" means to me

[Deathroes]

There is a lot of discussion going on around the forums on what the proper healer gameplay should be. Some people say it should be mostly healing and not much else. Others say it should be played with the utmost efficiency and utilize every GCD(spent on damage). I also constantly see the arguement: "Well you\\'re a healer, so heal! If you want to dps then there is a different role for you." This specific one is what made me post this thread.

I personally don\\'t believe that being a healer means that healing is what defines your whole existence. Rather, it is the role of keeping the party alive. As long as the party can get through the encounter, it does not matter what you do as a healer.

Maybe you contribute enough dps to take down a certain hard-hitting mob faster so your tank does not get overwhelmed during a wall-to-wall pull. You are being a healer. Maybe you stun things with holy as WHM to mitigate as much damage as possible. You are being a healer. Maybe you just lay back and only heal when damage happens and sit idle while watching the symphony of damage animations coming from your group. You are being a healer(although your place in the team can\\'t be guaranteed when in a progression team, at the end of the day dps is helpful in clearing difficult bosses.)

What I am getting at is "the ends justify the means." As long as the group as a whole passes an encounter, the healer(s) did their job. No matter if they slung 100 dps skills or 10, the job is done right once the victory music plays.

Tl;dr: Being a healer does not mean you only heal, it means keeping the group alive. While healing is the best way to do so, there are other tools available to keep the group up. A dead enemy does no sustained damage to a tank, after all.

[Lodi]

What I am getting at is "the ends justify the means." As long as the group as a whole passes an encounter, the healer(s) did their job. No matter if they slung 100 dps skills or 10, the job is done right once the victory music plays.

Tl;dr: Being a healer does not mean you only heal, it means keeping the group alive. While healing is the best way to do so, there are other tools available to keep the group up. A dead enemy does no sustained damage to a tank, after all.

This, so much this. As long as you can keep your team alive, it means you're doing your job well. If you can keep your team alive AND deal damage, then you're greatly helping the team by making fights shorter.

Unless you are running brand new content, there's a high chance most of your team did it already, and they probably don't want to spend half an hour on a single dungeon or trial because healers aren't attacking.

[Hysterior]

As a healer your job is to keep people alive. If you did, job done.
But like at work, you can either just do the job and be ok or go the extra mile.
When healers talk about optimizing their dps it because they want to better themselves as players, going the extra mile.
You dont have to do that, being completely average is fine.

[Kemiko]

To get this out of the way: DPS tools are part of a healers kit and I firmly believe that getting the most out of your entire kit the biggest difference between a Novice and a Veteran. That said...

Everyone has basics of their kit that shines better than other roles, though not necessarily better than others within their role. Tanks mitigate dmg and control enmiity better than all other roles, healers restore hp of the party than all other roles and DPS deal enemy damage better than all other roles. Those are the basics and while jobs dip into other areas with dmg, healing or mitigation it is not a real substitute for the role intended for it.

If everyone is healthy, by all means DPS. Please. It's part of your kit and I'd love to see your kit put to use. And at the same time, heal people who need healing and raise people when they die.

I've seen healers straight up refuse to raise people for several minutes and instead broil/glare/malefic spam. I've personally died to only raidwide dmg and stacking mechanics because the healers flat out refused to ever cast a healing spell my way - a single aoe healing didn't even happen.

I'm not in the "healers shouldn't DPS" camp. You should, it's part of your kit! But at the same time, it should never be a higher priority than the basics of the role. If someone dies that could've been saved from your healing but you were too busy DPSing that's where I take issue. Even if it takes away a precious GCD from you.

I'm not going to fault you for deaths outside of your control - you can't heal stupid and I'm not expecting you to. But the deaths that are in your control are. Not raising a dead DPS out of spite just because they died at no fault of their own doesn't do anything other than show incompetent you are at the role.

[miraidensetsu]

I've seen healers straight up refuse to raise people for several minutes and instead broil/glare/malefic spam. I've personally died to only raidwide dmg and stacking mechanics because the healers flat out refused to ever cast a healing spell my way - a single aoe healing didn't even happen.

I've seen healers that says "I don't raise more than once or twice" or "I just use one or two GCD heal specifically on someone". All of this just to use every GCD on DPS.

I would happily swap a "healer" that thinks like that for a RDM. RDM has verraise, vercure and does much more DPS than that green DPS that refuses himself to heal. For those specific healers, the phrase "if you like so bad to do damage, there is an entire role for you" is absolutely right.

Yes, healers can - and should when no one needs healing - do DPS. ABC does apply to healers. But to keep everyone alive should always be the healers number one priority. Ultimately, a dead DPS is a heavy DPS loss and a sure step towards a wipe.

[Deceptus]

I've seen healers that says "I don't raise more than once or twice" or "I just use one or two GCD heal specifically on someone". All of this just to use every GCD on DPS.

When a dps has hit the 50% penalty it's not worth the mana to raise them. Especially now that mana is capped and a rez is 25% of our total mana. That gets drained quick with multiple raises.

And healers will generally wait for a swiftcast so they're not spending 10s on a raise cast time. Time they could be healing other players, healing the tanks, or doing more damage than said dead team mate on the floor.

[Sebazy]

<snip>

There's limits to everything.

The lack of an enrage in Normal Eden is a small mercy <3

[Xiaoki]

To get this out of the way: DPS tools are part of a healers kit and I firmly believe that getting the most out of your entire kit the biggest difference between a Novice and a Veteran. That said...

Everyone has basics of their kit that shines better than other roles, though not necessarily better than others within their role. Tanks mitigate dmg and control enmiity better than all other roles, healers restore hp of the party than all other roles and DPS deal enemy damage better than all other roles. Those are the basics and while jobs dip into other areas with dmg, healing or mitigation it is not a real substitute for the role intended for it.

If everyone is healthy, by all means DPS. Please. It's part of your kit and I'd love to see your kit put to use. And at the same time, heal people who need healing and raise people when they die.

I've seen healers straight up refuse to raise people for several minutes and instead broil/glare/malefic spam. I've personally died to only raidwide dmg and stacking mechanics because the healers flat out refused to ever cast a healing spell my way - a single aoe healing didn't even happen.

I'm not in the "healers shouldn't DPS" camp. You should, it's part of your kit! But at the same time, it should never be a higher priority than the basics of the role. If someone dies that could've been saved from your healing but you were too busy DPSing that's where I take issue. Even if it takes away a precious GCD from you.

I'm not going to fault you for deaths outside of your control - you can't heal stupid and I'm not expecting you to. But the deaths that are in your control are. Not raising a dead DPS out of spite just because they died at no fault of their own doesn't do anything other than show incompetent you are at the role.

Ive seen/had these scenarios happen to me as well. Previous Eden Titan clear had a wipe because people kept dying to raid wide damage because both healers were so focused on DPS, Healers got yelled at and then we cleared it just fine. Ive also been the healer working overtime and going OOM constantly because the other healer was focused on DPS.

Yeah, people on the message boards will say "well, they were just bad, you're supposed to DPS only when people are sufficiently healed" but its a completely different story in game.

Its obvious the developers are aware of the "Green DPS" problem so will have to see if they take additional steps towards fixing it.

Ive also been seeing this same problem with tanks neglecting all defenses and focusing only on DPS but thats a different topic.

[Misutoraru]

I agree as a healer we should dps as we can while keeping everyone alive, because we have the ability to do so. However, I also believe being a healer role, our major focus would be in healing side. Yet, in current setting, I found myself spending most of the time dps and very little time healing. It is not the player fault, but I seriously doubt the developers need to think about their content design. We are healer not dps with healing spell on demand. I don’t mind dps while I can but I do mind why am I spending more time in dps our 2nd job and less time at our primary role

[ColaSama]

I love this kind of thread.

Some people will say "healers should use their whole kit to protect their team", while some people will say "bu- but don't forget to prioritize the healing aspect of your toolkit guys ! A dead dps is a dps loss for the team ^^".

It's like a giant echo chamber of obviousness.

Don't try to intellectualize this too much really : the game was made with huuuuge healing downtimes for healers, the obvious way moving forward is to press the dps spells while nobody takes damages. That's just... obvious, no need to write a book about "doing your dps part makes things die quicker and therefore the group takes less damages". The only people who are going to argue about this fact are lazy/bad players, like it or not.

Again, it's not rocket science, just common sense.