There are a few instances where I'll start caring when playing as a tank.
1. The rate that I'm dying at is slower than the rate you can kill them at if you combined your healer dps in Cleric Stance with everyone else.
2. You're sitting there and overhealing me the moment I take 2 trash mob hits. Every time. Then you wait and repeat.
3. You have a lot of mana and are still keeping me topped off on health.
4. Raiding.
5. PvP.
There's also the argument where you're not using most of your abilities as a healer. It'd be like a tank who uses no defensive cooldowns or the DPS who refuses to follow a rotation made painstakingly by Samuel L. Jackson. I could see a thread covering a very similar topic on both tanks and DPS and you'd get mostly the same types of responses seen here. One example? Look at the people pulling 300 dps by using their skills... while others pull 400 dps by spamming a single skill instead.
My opinion though? Sure, you can play a healer how you want. The moment you prove really incompetent though? That's when you'll receive a stern talkin' to.
(08-14-2016, 02:56 AM)Charity322 Wrote: [ -> ]I have no problem DPSing; I just don't like switching in and out of Cleric Stance. I can still sling offensive spells while not in CS and I don't need to worry about forgetting to turn it off or fumbling to do it while I should be doing something else.
When I'm focusing on enemies or on people I need to heal I don't notice what I have on sometimes. I did half a dungeon once before I noticed that my Rogue had never turned Kiss of the Wasp on. XD
If your character level is 1-49 then this is probably fine, because at those levels most gear is generically "Disciple of Magic" and provides stats for both healing and offense. But starting at level 50, the gear is class specific and healer gear doesn't do much at all for offensive stats. That's why it becomes kinda vital to start dancing eventually... and that ends up applying even when scaled down due to level sync, because your stats scale with you (so even though you had okay offensive stats when you were actually level 40 in level 40 gear, if you're level 55 and synced to 40, you won't have any offense to speak of).
As a tank, I prefer DPS to do the DPSing, I prefer my healers to heal. I watch the MP bar of the healer as well as my TP bar. If you WANT to stance dance, do it, I will adjust my style to match. I will not demand it of you because if you don't comfortable do that we will wipe. I watch the aggro list and when in higher level areas with a geared party I expect the DPS to be able to know what aggro is and to attack accordingly. (If you are a ninja and bumped your head and think you are a tank and run three rooms ahead while the healer has no MP and the tank has no TP you were not DPSing enough and you deserve to die by those mobs you just pulled, we will wait for you to respawn.) On my first pull I gauge how fast the mob was killed to base whether I pull larger or pace each mob. If you don't want to wait three seconds to go from one mob to the other, don't suck on the first pull because if someone waited 45 minutes to get in that dungeon and doesn't know their rotation or buffs I am not going to force them through larger mobs and wait for the pissing and moaning between players to start. I do notice healers don't quite understand why I will put up a ready check. If a healer died or others died and rejoin the party I will ready check before that boss fight so the healer knows I am giving them time to recast their defensive spells, I am shocked by how many will not cast protect on themselves because they think I will run ahead without them. This was appreciated by some but others would get upset thinking it was sarcasm. :/ In all. I don't like to modify the roles we are playing because I won't blame people for failing at doing something they are not comfortable with, because I don't like being made into a role I am not practiced in. Such as being made a solo tank on Leviathan EX on my first time playing. Well why can't I tank the head and tail and the cluster of water bombs along with the adds? Hmm.. Maybe because this is my first freaking time doing this and I am the only tank in the party?? >< I've had enough instances with dps calling out healers for not DPSing in boss battles and either the healer taking blame and being confused or the healer knowing their shit and calling out the DPS for not deep-ing enough. It's this kind of stuff that makes me hover over the duty finder dreading to start that new funky fresh instance with a bunch of randoms. Let the tank tank, let the healer heal, and dps, do the dps. If you don't like that you aren't getting your way gtfo, because I can cue in seconds and the poor other people who waited almost a half hour don't deserve to suffer because someone isn't being a freaking adult. Some of us are working professionals who don't have the same free time as others and that time-slot for gaming is limited. Playing nice in a video game with other adults who are paying to play in their free time should not be rocket science. But those are my preferences and my opinions and nothing more.
(08-14-2016, 12:10 PM)Leggerless Wrote: [ -> ]There's also the argument where you're not using most of your abilities as a healer. It'd be like a tank who uses no defensive cooldowns or the DPS who refuses to follow a rotation made painstakingly by Samuel L. Jackson.
I wouldn't say so. A tank not using defensive cooldowns is not using the core skills they have to use to do their basic job: staying alive while keeping aggro. It would be more akin to a healer not using half of their healing spells (and yes, a lot do that sadly).
A healer not using offensive spells is more like a tank not using the offensive stance against bosses or single targets for example, when they could actually do it without losing aggro.
Kilieit, Arrelaine, Syranelle, and some others made some very good points. Not everyone is comfortable stance-dancing and not everyone is able to do it well. Yes, "good healers" can do it, but I think it's really shitty to imply that someone who's not a "good healer" isn't allowed to heal unless it's with friends who tolerate them. As long as you're not shooting for the really difficult, endgame content, I think everyone is allowed to play the game and their class of choice, even if they aren't "good." As long as you can clear the content with little hiccups, it's content you should be allowed to do without ever feeling guilty about not doing as "good" of a job as possible.
(Take it with a grain of salt that this post is mostly pertaining to WHM, since I main a WHM and I'm not as familiar with the other healing classes.)
Ultimately, you don't know what's happening on the other side of someone's monitor. Maybe they have RL distractions because something popped up or they have distractions 24/7 and don't have time to play without them, maybe they have lag issues or low FPS rates thanks to their internet or computer, maybe they have health issues that makes it difficult for them to focus or react quickly or move their fingers nimbly. I think these people should still be allowed to play the game, and still play the class of their choice if they can still perform its primary role (in this case, healing) and aren't causing wipes left and right. It seems so incredibly callous to me to brush these people off with an attitude that boils down to "well sorry go play something else then lolz."
Healer DPS is pretty minimal in most cases. Most of the time, it's not going to save your party from a wipe and it's not going to shave a huge amount of time off your completion time. In a party with good DPS, they'll blast through trash mobs in seconds before you can hardly switch to cleric stance and pop off a single Holy. In a party with bad DPS, it's great if the healer can help, but it's so bizarre to me that people scream at the healer to work extra and pick up the DPS's slack rather than chastise the DPS for not doing their own primary role well and that this is a widely accepted attitude. Most people choose to play healers because they don't want to DPS. We want to heal, so a good chunk of us really don't find "just healing" to be terribly boring. It's all just pressing keys either way, though DPSing is admittedly more mind-numbing than healing.
I think every job needs to focus on their primarily role. Tanks helping with casting stoneskin and protect or popping self-heals or even DPSing extra is great, but I don't want the tank of my party doing that if it leads them to lose aggro on something. DPS helping with raises or heals is awesome, too, but I don't want them doing it in the middle of a tight DPS check or when healers have things covered and the boss is taking forever to die. Healers DPSing or swapping into cleric stance to help speed up a dungeon or beat a DPS check is helpful but it will only make the dungeon even longer or fail the DPS check if they end up letting DPS die or even causing a full party wipe. In the rare event I tank or DPS in the dungeon, there's nothing more frustrating than watching the party's HP drop as the healer is laser-focused on DPSing or forgetting to swap out of Cleric Stance to heal us and we end up dying/wiping or wasting all our self-heals and "ohshit" cooldowns when we shouldn't need to pop them.
Imo, cleric stance and attack skills were put in the game largely for solo-leveling (and if you have solo-leveled, say, a WHM, you know exactly how much damage these skills put out for you: not very). Sure, the game teaches you how to use them in instances and parties, because that's a thing you can do and is super helpful if you're able. But ultimately, you're the healer. Your primary role is to heal. If you can help outside of your class's primary role and outside the main task of what's expected of you, great, but don't do it if it's more likely to hinder your party than help them. If you aren't confident going above and beyond--because that's exactly what it is--do what you know and focus on your main job. If you're a bombass healer and your party is running smoothly, though, by all means don't sit around doing nothing, swap to Cleric Stance and help DPS, but don't feel pressured if you're struggling with just healing alone or if you know that stance-dancing does not work well for you.
And if you aren't comfortable stance-dancing, sure, you can say it outright and let your party know. But it's grossly victim-blamey to see a few people imply we need encourage healers to apologize for not stance-dancing as soon as the dungeon starts rather than discourage people from screaming obscenities at healers who aren't DPSing or stance-dancing. Sorry, nah, I'm gonna keep advocating that people not be assholes. Chances are that with the terrible attitude that leads people to yell at healers for something so asinine, letting that sort of person know you're uncomfortable with stance-dancing won't chill them out, it will just lead them to scream about it even earlier in the instance than it would have taken for them to notice you aren't using Cleric Stance on their own.
Budding healers, please don't let all this negativity and pressure scare you away from healing classes or PUG's. Nowadays, I typically steal my boyfriend's PC for dungeons and live in a city with decent internet, but when I was stuck on my own laptop I got an average 4 FPS in instances on lowest settings (that's not an exaggeration, it was legit 4 FPS on average) and froze/overheated often, had subpar internet due to living in a fairly rural area, RL distractions weren't uncommon, and I have some anxiety that can give me sloppy fingers when I get stressed. Suffice to say, I didn't stance-dance or even DPS much. I never knew when I might get a lag spike or DC, so I just focused on keeping the party topped off at all times. Despite all that, only a couple times has anyone in my party ever bitched at me about me not DPSing or stance-dancing. Maybe I'm just lucky, but it seems like most of the yelling is contained to tumblr, the official forums, and now the RPC. If you do a kickass job of keeping the party topped off and buffed and toss out your aero DoT's, chances are no one will have any complaints.
While I have played MMOs for eons (and other games too), I am only now going the route of a healer (WHM). The reasons are two fold. First, I'm a DPS freak and adore DPS classes and second, I've been terrified of the pressure and anxiety I relate to being a healer (or a tank).
I'm forcing myself to step out of my comfort zone and into the healer role this time around so being a healer in a group takes all my focus. I only just made level 50 and admit that I'm anxious about healing from here on out. Eventually I'll get comfortable enough that I can do the stance dance but, for now, it's really all I can do to heal and remember to use the abilities that I have.
Does this make me a bad healer? I don't know to be honest but I do know I'm working my rear off to be better and to understand the finer points of how to play this role and this class. I love tanks who pay attention to my pace, maintain agro, and make sure they don't over pull. I love my DPS who don't run ahead and smack things down without yanking everything away from the tank.Â
There's always room to improve and believe me, I am in a constant learning mode.
(08-13-2016, 06:47 PM)Sena Varont Wrote: [ -> ]Would you be frustrated with a Paladin who just sat there spamming Flash and occasionally quaffing an Ether or using their MP restore combo (but only the 1-2 combo of it, for the most rapid cycling)? Of course you would. Is that tank technically fulfilling the role of a tank, though, if no enemies escape their threat? You betcha - yet you'd be likely to be rather unhappy with them.
Nope.
It wouldn't bother me at all. In fact, I would
prefer that to Tanks who are trying so hard to DPS that they neglect their tanking skills, the skills that keep the mobs off
me.
The
only thing I expect of Tanks in my dungeon groups is that they keep threat on themselves and off the DPS and the Healer (unless, of course, DPS or Healer pull
for the Tank, in which case I decide that the DPS or Healer are terrible, considering what complete ass it is to try to get threat back in that situation) and that they properly use their CDs so they don't drop dead.
That's it. That's literally all I expect of a Tank in a dungeon group. I don't expect them to kill the mobs for anyone else, and I don't expect them to offheal, or any other idiotic thing armchair warriors can come up with to saddle an already shit role with.
And when I am a DPS or a Tank in a group, the
only thing that I expect of the Healer is that they keep the Tank up, and any DPS taking unavoidable damage (I do
not expect them to keep DPS up who are deliberately pulling threat or making small tent cities in giant pools of fire).
That's it. That's literally all I expect of a Healer when I'm a DPS or a Tank. As a DPS, I don't expect DPS from a Healer because that's not their job - that's
my job. And as a Tank, I don't expect the Healer to DPS because, again, that's the job of the DPS. If they
want to contribute damage, fine - but only if they are comfortable with it and have the desire to do so.
These are PUGs we're talking about, not organized groups. I do not expect raid-level play from random pugs, and no one else should, either.
When I pug in FFXIV (which I have not in a very long time), I choose whether or not I'm going to DPS while healing based on the Tank's actions. If the Tank is pulling huge amounts of mobs, I'm not going to be able to DPS - not even get a Holy or two off - because their healthbars usually look like ping-pong balls, and
ultimately my
primary job in a dungeon is to
keep the tank up. If the tank is undergeared and is taking massive damage from mobs that would otherwise be no big deal, I'm not going to DPS - because,
again, my
primary job is to
keep the tank up.
I don't care if this makes me bad. If you can't clear a dungeon on the damage output of your DPS, your DPS suck and you should get new ones. I know from bitter experience that I cannot carry a group with damage as a Healer, and yes, I have tried on more than one occasion when it has become clear that one or more DPS are incapable of doing their jobs. So, no, it's not on my shoulders as a Healer. And it's not on the Tank's shoulders as a Tank. Damage is on the shoulders of the
DPS, plain and simple.
(08-15-2016, 05:24 PM)Xerintha Wrote: [ -> ]While I have played MMOs for eons (and other games too), I am only now going the route of a healer (WHM). The reasons are two fold. First, I'm a DPS freak and adore DPS classes and second, I've been terrified of the pressure and anxiety I relate to being a healer (or a tank).
I'm forcing myself to step out of my comfort zone and into the healer role this time around so being a healer in a group takes all my focus. I only just made level 50 and admit that I'm anxious about healing from here on out. Eventually I'll get comfortable enough that I can do the stance dance but, for now, it's really all I can do to heal and remember to use the abilities that I have.
Does this make me a bad healer? I don't know to be honest but I do know I'm working my rear off to be better and to understand the finer points of how to play this role and this class. I love tanks who pay attention to my pace, maintain agro, and make sure they don't over pull. I love my DPS who don't run ahead and smack things down without yanking everything away from the tank.Â
There's always room to improve and believe me, I am in a constant learning mode.
No, that doesn't make you a "bad healer." A bad healer lets their party die when they could have saved them. That's the measure of a bad healer - that you didn't do everything you could to keep your party up, or that you got yourself killed by doing something stupid. Watch your feet, watch your bars, eyeball your party, make sure you use the right heal at the right time and you don't OOM yourself.
Everything else is gravy. And anyone who tells you otherwise is quite frankly being pretentious.
Uhhh.. oh, hi.
Count me in with the tanks who just want to live.
AH WANT TO LIVE MAH LIFE
(08-15-2016, 09:01 PM)TheLastCandle Wrote: [ -> ]Uhhh.. oh, hi.
Count me in with the tanks who just want to live.
AH WANT TO LIVE MAH LIFE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx2u5uUu3DE
IT'S MY LIFE
IT'S NOW OR NEVER
I AIN'T GONNA LIVE FOREVER
I JUST WANNA LIVE WHILE I'M ALIIIIIIIIIIIVE
(08-15-2016, 09:49 PM)Edgar Wrote: [ -> ] (08-15-2016, 09:01 PM)TheLastCandle Wrote: [ -> ]Uhhh.. oh, hi.
Count me in with the tanks who just want to live.
AH WANT TO LIVE MAH LIFE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx2u5uUu3DE
IT'S MY LIFE
IT'S NOW OR NEVER
I AIN'T GONNA LIVE FOREVER
I JUST WANNA LIVE WHILE I'M ALIIIIIIIIIIIVE
[youtube]JOfOjXywdbo[/youtube]
Getting back to the point, I can definitely understand the concern about not being able to put out enough healing. So, focusing on that until you feel you're comfortable doing it is perfectly fine in my book. I'm still a bit tentative on new dungeons and stuff, wanting to make sure I understand how the mechanics work before trying anything fancy.
Everything else, though? I just... I dunno. I like throwing on the additional deeps. Granted, it's a bit easier as a SCH, since you have your fairy helping to cover healing and it's more a matter of tossing up your dots and then switching back to Lustrate and Adlo and some other topping off before refreshing dem dots. Totally wish we had SMN's "PUT ALL THE DOTS UP" ability, but what're you gonna do?
But the definite no-no is to show that you're basically entertaining yourself while you
wait for damage to happen. I've run dungeons as a tank and watched the healers run around and dance. If you have enough time to do nonsense like that? Do some damage and help speed things up rather than be an irritating nuisance.
That really gets me, healers who just sit around with their thumbs up their asses while everyone else is fighting. I don't care if you don't switch to Cleric Stance because you're new (though this is rarely the case with these people who're just lazy/leeches). Throw out a Stone or something.
I suppose the actually-worse thing is healers who wanna heal so badly they're spamming Cures on the tank at 90% HP, ripping aggro, then running around like a chicken with its head cut off away from the tank/rest of the party.
While I do agree with what Edger said earlier whole-heartily, I don't really think not dpsing as a healer at all is a big deal in most causal content. If you can keep everyone alive then you're pretty much golden. Besides, stance-dancing as healers can be tricky especially for novice healers and you don't have too much time to dps in EX and savage content anyway.
(08-15-2016, 04:56 PM)Faye Wrote: [ -> ](Take it with a grain of salt that this post is mostly pertaining to WHM, since I main a WHM and I'm not as familiar with the other healing classes.)
Well, technically, a SCH would have less issues with stance dancing since their DPS is mostly about applying dots, and they even have Bane to spread them on AoEs. So they don't have to constantly be on cleric to deal damage in theory, unless they want to spamm Ruin too. An interesting thing with WhM though is that you can also play a bit on your dots, even if they don't compare. You still have aero II and III that can be placed without much issues before switching back to healing mode, when you are not comfortable to go to the point of using Stone/Holy/what you have.
(08-15-2016, 04:56 PM)Faye Wrote: [ -> ]Healer DPS is pretty minimal in most cases. Most of the time, it's not going to save your party from a wipe and it's not going to shave a huge amount of time off your completion time. In a party with good DPS, they'll blast through trash mobs in seconds before you can hardly switch to cleric stance and pop off a single Holy. In a party with bad DPS, it's great if the healer can help, but it's so bizarre to me that people scream at the healer to work extra and pick up the DPS's slack rather than chastise the DPS for not doing their own primary role well and that this is a widely accepted attitude. Most people choose to play healers because they don't want to DPS. We want to heal, so a good chunk of us really don't find "just healing" to be terribly boring. It's all just pressing keys either way, though DPSing is admittedly more mind-numbing than healing.
No that I disagree with your point per se (I don't have a preference between a party wipe or a constant lower DPS honestly, to me it's the same in terms of time lost). But as a WhM I most of the time account for around 20% of the team DPS. Maybe 15% if the DPS are good, 25 or even 30 if they are mediocre. And I'm not even playing a SCH, who deal insane amounts of DPS (well, technically, I would argue that WhM has a higher potency on packs of mobs if the tank is good, but SCH totally outclass us on every trial or single targets encounters due to their dots).
So, healers can DPS a lot. I'm always above tanks DPS, except on trials or if the tank suddenly uses their offensive stance.
But yeah, if there is a lack of DPS, maybe it's best to first chastize the DPS. Problem is, it's hard to measure. You can't point out what they are doing wrong msot of the time, unless you use a parser. For healers, it's super easy: are they using offensive spells? In cleric stance? Easy to check, unfortunately.
(08-15-2016, 04:56 PM)Faye Wrote: [ -> ]I think every job needs to focus on their primarily role. Tanks helping with casting stoneskin and protect or popping self-heals or even DPSing extra is great, but I don't want the tank of my party doing that if it leads them to lose aggro on something. DPS helping with raises or heals is awesome, too, but I don't want them doing it in the middle of a tight DPS check or when healers have things covered and the boss is taking forever to die. Healers DPSing or swapping into cleric stance to help speed up a dungeon or beat a DPS check is helpful but it will only make the dungeon even longer or fail the DPS check if they end up letting DPS die or even causing a full party wipe. In the rare event I tank or DPS in the dungeon, there's nothing more frustrating than watching the party's HP drop as the healer is laser-focused on DPSing or forgetting to swap out of Cleric Stance to heal us and we end up dying/wiping or wasting all our self-heals and "ohshit" cooldowns when we shouldn't need to pop them.
Not that I disagree for the tank helping do that, and I also agree that if people already do properly what their core job is, I'm fine. The thing I would like to see more though, is SMN actually doing the raising. Because that's actually way better. They have no MP issues whatsoever. It's also good when the healers all have their swiftcast already down. I don't blame them if they don't, but still.
Realistically, we're talking about dungeon pugs. You're honestly lucky if you get three other people who aren't picking their collective noses and attempting to throw themselves off the side of any unguarded cliffs. Most people are just trying to get through the dungeon without killing each other. Acting like everyone has to be playing at Extreme Primal level is just silly.