Hydaelyn Role-Players

Alright!! 

PSA TIME!!!

If I am the //HEALER// in your group, and you ask me to "stance-dance"? You have thusly nearly //forfeited// your right to complain or scream at me if you lose a lot of health or end up dying! Will I still rez you and keep you healed ? Yes, but don't expect that to be a priourity. I mean, after all, I'm doing what you asked and DPSing..

Am I saying that I won't stancedance? No I'm not saying that. All I'm saying is that if you expect me to stancedance, you  have fucking accepted the risks that come with it, and that you shouldn't complain if those risks and fears come true.

I find chill indifference is the best way to deal with being asked to play in a way you don't enjoy.

I usually whip out the old:


Folks usually get the picture that I'm confident in what I'm doing and leave me alone about it.

If they push it, I usually make small talk about my shitty attention span and the fact I'm more comfortable DPSing out of Cleric Stance than potentially accidentally healing in it. With good humour and a friendly attitude, folks usually back off, and/or share their own stories of how they totally get it because they once made this similar dumb mistake, and so on.

And then they leave me alone about it. Or that's my experience so far, anyway.

Beyond that, I think it's easy to mistake what people are trying to communicate when they ask you to stance-dance. I think usually what they're saying, especially if it's the tank, is "I got this; you can focus on doing something other than babysitting my ass if you want". Tanks who are proud of their ability to survive pulls without much healing (through mitigation, large HP, or usually a combo of the two) are gonna want to flag themselves up as not being like that DRK who queued for 50 roulette in 30 gear and isn't using Grit, so they say "hey you can use Cleric Stance if you want" in order to do that.

It does come across as patronising, and it does annoy me too. But I try and take a step back and remember that they're just trying their hardest at the game too, and whether their ~advice is coming from a place of genuinely trying to notify you or of actually being patronising, at the end of the day it doesn't benefit anyone for me to verbally snipe back. Even if I do sometimes go off about it in my linkshells, lol.

So I make my lil Parks & Rec reference, then either keep doing what I'm doing, because if no one is dying then I'm sorry but I'm doing fine; or I try to decide if it does look like the tank's HP and mitigation is okay, good enough that it's a good 3-5 seconds between needing to cast a healing spell, in which case I'll see if I can't remember to throw Cleric Stance up when chucking Stones around.

The annoying one is when you end up in, like, Sastasha NM, as SCH, and you only have 1 cross-class slot and everyone will throw a tantrum if it's not Protect, and also get mad if you cast Protect and then stand still for 30 seconds while your skills cooldown from swapping your cross-class ability, but then they still ask you to stance-dance likeeeee... what do you want from me, lol. It's Sastasha, me having Cleric Stance or not isn't going to make much of a difference to my sick level 18 Scholar deeps. Just simmer down and do the damn run.

I find a simple "no thanks brah" usually suffices.

I wanted to post an elaborate reply

But



Does this really have to go on a roleplaying forum? You could have posted your whining in the bag pugs whine section. Yeah it is irritating to see people ask it of you, but more then often, people who get told to stance dance are the folk who stand there picking their noses in Tam Tara normal mode, refusing to DPS while the tank takes zero damage.

Ah yes, the timeless argument. Personally, I'd rather have a healer who forgets to turn Clerics off and causes a party wipe than a lazy sack of shit level 60 Scholar that just stands around with his thumb up his ass in Tam-Tara NM.

But that's just my opinion.

There's really no winning this "debate" because someone, somewhere always feels they know how to do your job better than you do, regardless of whatever personal play style you have or limitations you might be playing under (i.e. lag, personal health, RL distractions, etc.)

If you go Cleric Stance and DPS, if anyone dies you're a terrible healer that needs to do their job.  You should have been healing, you terribad.

If you stay out of Cleric Stance, still DPS /and/ heal, you're a terrible healer that needs to do their job.  You should turn on Cleric Stance, noob.

If you stay out of Cleric Stance and do nothing but heal, you're a terrible healer that needs to do their job.  So friggin' lazy, you should uninstall.

No matter which way you slice it, you're going to be bad no matter what you do, so just do you and enjoy the game in whatever way you prefer.  Whenever people bitch at me about not doing one of the above, I just reply with:  "I do what I'm comfortable with, thanks."

I'm sorry, but there is no good reason NOT to learn how to do this. Stance dancing is a valuable skill, so valuable in fact that the new Hall of the Novice teaches you to do it. It helps meet dps checks in later instances, and it makes lower level instances go by much faster. You learn things like Holy as a WHM and Gravity as an AST so you can spam them during pulls. 

 It's a perfectly reasonable expectation of your party that if healing is not a priority, you contribute to the overall dps with those abilities of yours that would otherwise sit there stagnating. This is your job.

(08-13-2016, 04:05 PM)Syranelle Ironleaf Wrote: [ -> ]There's really no winning this "debate" because someone, somewhere always feels they know how to do your job better than you do, regardless of whatever personal play style you have or limitations you might be playing under (i.e. lag, personal health, RL distractions, etc.)

If you go Cleric Stance and DPS, if anyone dies you're a terrible healer that needs to do their job.

If you stay out of Cleric Stance, still DPS /and/ heal, you're a terrible healer that needs to do their job.

If you stay out of Cleric Stance and do nothing but heal, you're a terrible healer that needs to do their job.

Nothing you mentioned wasn't an actual mistake. A good healer knows when to dps and when to heal and for how long, swapping between stances at a moment's notice and appropriately using their CDS and procs to ensure their tanks and dps stay alive.

Heh.
I used not to use cleric much when I started playing. In lower level dungeons, I just DPSed out of cleric, even if now it makes me cringe. It just took me a bit to adjust and get a bit more comfortable with the job is all. Now I even got commended and invited into raiding (which I won't do), so I think I'm doing something right.

I don't really like when people curbstomp novices for that. I'm all for advices and telling people that they progressively should try it because it's part of their actual job, that those skills are not here just to be pretty but to be actually used. Yeah. There is a way to say it, and there are different expectations to be had from novices to experienced healers.

But then again, people are easy to take potshots at heals not in cleric because it's the most easy thing noticeable. But considering the amount of bad players, especially DPS, or even tanks at times, that barely use 20% of their hotbars... Those are not better. Especially since they don't even risk a party wipe (unless confronted to DPS checks, where their lack of competence eventually shines for all to see).

Nowadays I just refuse to healer DPS out of spite because it's funny to watch people scream about it.

As a tank, I'll quit a group if I get an "honest healer" who doesn't contribute to DPS. I won't even say anything, because most of them have a bad attitude about any effort made to try and help teach them about their potential contribution to the group. It's like when you honk at somebody who cuts you off on the freeway and instead of waving at you as if to say "sorry, my bad", they flip you off, because you're the bad person for notifying them about their poor driving.

Higher DPS = faster kill time = less incoming damage = less healing is needed = higher DPS. It's circular. Not only that, but the quicker you can down the mobs and move on, the quicker you can finish the dungeon and move on with other things you have planned.

It's not hard. I've played healer. My brother's normal role is healer, too. If the party isn't familiar, then you start off cautious for the first couple of fights to get a feel for the general competence and gear potency of the party - if the tank is apparently wearing a paper bag to battle, then duh, obviously you just aren't going to be able to DPS very much. You can figure that out within the first couple minutes of the dungeon. If they're reasonably geared and competent, then you're doing a disservice to the party by not contributing to the DPS of the group in an effective manner.

Consider:

Tanks don't have to strive for DPS either. The core purpose of the tank is to keep enemies on themselves, just like the core purpose of a healer is to heal. 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.

I'll admit, unless otherwise notified beforehand, getting a healer who doesn't contribute any DPS can be incredibly frustrating. In my experiences, you can generally tell between those giving an honest effort but are merely nervous compared to the lazy players. What usually gets me is when said healer is jumping around or using emotes because they clearly have nothing else to do. It'll forever baffle me how they find this fun, but to each their own, I suppose. 

The part that irks me though is whenever you hear the "that's just their playstyle" arguments. Oh, so your playstyle consists of ignoring half your abilities? I sincerely doubt those same players would appreciate if the tank and DPS did the same.

This is an interesting thread for me, as this is apparently the first game I've come across where the healer is expected to DPS. I play healers because I specifically don't want to DPS. So I guess I'm screwed then.

(08-13-2016, 08:00 PM)Qwynn Wrote: [ -> ]This is an interesting thread for me, as this is apparently the first game I've come across where the healer is expected to DPS. I play healers because I specifically don't want to DPS. So I guess I'm screwed then.

FFXIV isn't really a true "holy trinity" roles game. The discussions been had on here, likely the official forums, and all over tumblr multiple times, but about 1/3 of your healer abilities are DPS related. They're not just there for solo content!

Of course, as others have already said in this thread, if you're struggling to keep people alive, or the people you're healing are struggling to stay alive, nobody's going to expect you to to use your DPS skills instead of heal. (Though a swiftcasted holy for a quick stun or a shadow flare can help out a party without you needing to switch over to cleric stance).

It's also definitely a balance of priorities. If you haven't already, I'd recommend going through the novice hall for some example gameplay of when it should seem appropriate. If you know you'll have a lot of idle time, like in the starter dungeons, that's a good time to use some DPS skills. As things get more difficult, you'll naturally spend more time healing.

But it's also very party dependant. Have a tank who doesn't use their cooldowns or mitigation skills? Have DPS who seem to enjoy running into AOEs? As the healer, your priority is still keeping them alive. Just like it's the tank's priority to keep enmity, and the DPS's job to kill things. Every role basically has cross-class skills to help take on another role though, whether it's through defensive cooldowns, self-heals or damage increases!

I feel like this is really a big part of why I don't play healer. Literally everybody goes after you if anything goes wrong or somebody dies, even if you did nothing wrong. But I'm gonna compare this to tank stances because I can and it's the only comparison I have enough personal experience to make.

If you're a DRK, you have grit on while you're tanking. Obviously, you should because it's your tank stance. But let's say you're not tanking, or the boss you're fighting has no aggro table and just hits who he wants, what then? Grit is useless, and it's better to leave off. But if you're fighting a boss which requires frequent tank swaps, will you turn grit on and off depending on whether it's your turn to tank? You can, if you feel like you're able, and should! But if you know you probably can't do it easily enough and keep up MP, or if you imagine it will hinder you in some other way, nobody will badger you too hard if you keep it on, and it may be better to ignore swapping stances altogether. Only if you know it's a bad idea for you though. It's the DPS' job to deal a boatload of damage after all, not the tank's, and they should not be whining if the tank is not making up for their bad damage. 

I feel the same way about cleric stance. If you know that you won't be able to stance dance easily, and trying to do so will only hurt your progress, don't. But during periods of time where you can easily go without healing for a few seconds, or in earlier dungeons, you can turn it on and probably relax. As always though, once you get into later game stuff- especially HW content- you'll be expected to know how to swap stances easily no matter what, and you have nobody to blame but yourself if you do. And late game raiding? Hoo boy, if you don't stance dance you will not be welcomed into any statics and probably be kicked. And at that point, who can blame them? You've had Cleric Stance available for a long time now. 

Don't feel pressured to be a master of your class, but at the same time, try to get better at it as you play. If you're not going to try and be good at your class, play a different class. Hopefully that makes sense and doesn't come off as too harsh.

Remember kids, no matter what you're doing in this game, pve, pvp, RP? If you're a healer and anything goes wrong.. it's YOUR fault!