A summary of healer issues

[ty_taurus]

I disagree.

If you are playing as a non-healer support in a game, your focus is maximizing the value of the utility you offer. You are playing a class or a character with limited offensive potential. While dealing damage is still a part of your responsibility, whether you are a healing support or a non healing-support, if you are not taking advantage of your utility, you're doing a disservice to the rest of your party. Obviously, what's important is that you're doing your best, but if you're playing a character like Thresh in League of Legends, your focus is not specifically attacking--it's snaring and trapping opponents. You want to do as much damage as you can while doing that, but the objective of your gameplay is to lock other players down so your team can land kills. The same is true for a healing support character. Nami is not only trying to top people off with her heal, she's trying to also poke and harass enemies and lock them down. This also applies to Final Fantasy.

While we don't have a designated support role, we have jobs like Red Mage who are capable of providing a small amount of situational utility that you should be prepared to take advantage of when needed. As a Dancer, I communicate with my raid group's to establish where my healing cooldowns best help them conserve resources. I don't want my Curing Waltz and Improvisation to go to waste if a healer is just going to overheal around my cooldowns anyway, so I try to establish when I can take extra weight off their shoulders. And if you're playing as a healer, you need to ensure the safety of the party, and that takes priority over attacking. Most of the time these days, that doesn't mean you stop attacking because 90% of all healing actions are OGCD, but you need to be ready to stop and hard cast a heal if it's needed.