Valence

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.

I don't think that because healing is only healing on other MMOs you should automatically expect that it's the same in XIV. Well, I don't think that point stands. It's FFXIV, not another MMO. I think you may more have a problem with how the game is designed rather than the people that actually ask you to do your job, and yes, I do think that adding a bit to the DPS as a healer, is part of the job. You may not like it, but that's more an issue of not liking something specific to the game itself (the same way I refuse to play MCH anymore due to that stupid Gauss Barrel, I can't deal with that, so I just stay away from it). Granted, there is the argument that offensive spells for healers are only for solo play with cleric. That... could make sense I guess. I think I actually believed that when I started playing. And believe me, I used to think the same at first, that my job was only healing. I didn't want to stance dance. I still don't like it. It's clunky and awkward and can seriously destroy your reaction time, especially when in PuGs someone starts dying quick just when you just went to cleric, and you have to wait the 3sec cooldown + the 1sec latency to get back to healing him properly (unless you have a benediction still up for WhM). But... after all that time I grew accustomed to it and it comes pretty instinctively to me as a reflex. It's a bit like any DPS role that is not using all its tools, like dots or party buffs (GOAD motherfucker). They are not doing their job properly, and as said above, if people have a problem with the speed the dungeon is being run, then maybe it would be best to complain to the DPS before attacking the healer. Not that I support anyone complaining that other party members are shit at the game, or mediocre, or not just up to their standards. Oh I get it, it's annoying when things are going so slow, but I believe that when queuing for PuGs, then you automatically sign up for potential issues and people not up to your standards. I say, to people unhappy with PuGs, then deal with it, or just don't take part in them if you are unable to get your mouth shut. I myself have a lot of trouble with some PuGs, but those are mostly the kind of ending up in the PuG vent thread due to their absolute facepalm ranking. In short, I do think: - To the people not happy with players performing less optimal than they think they should, then, deal with it. - To the people not happy with players not using their whole skillset, then I agree, but there is something called tact and politeness to point it out. Give advice. And if that leads to a wipe, then deal with it. Everyone is not a professional cutting edge hardcore progression raider. - Using all of the skills and toolset of each class, is an ideal to strive for. It's certainly not something you might get totally right at first. It's also why leveling dungeons exist in the first place. To the people disagreeing with that, then just don't come being the toxic idiot in leveling roulettes where people are supposed to be learning. And to the people unwilling to learn, then... What to say except that it's sad and not necessarily fun for everyone else involved?

I think that summer + Legion are somewhat to blame... I'm most of the time alone in the game now, when my friend list and everyone is always offline. It's going to get back on track in September I guess.

It's lot less easy to see when tanks and especially DPS are doing that. You don't exactly have an eye on their rotation, or at least it's rather hard. Sure you can see that some BLM are not using enochian or whatever. It's just harder. And I find that most people are hypocrites when it comes to point the finger at lazy healers when most of the DPS out there are not even able to do more than spamming a single button. And suddenly, when you want to point it out, well you can't because pointing out bad DPS out of parsers is not super tolerated (which is understandable). How can people deal less than 300 DPS at lvl60 content? Even by spamming the basic attack skill they should do above... If only they weren't expecting perfection... And that's where I'm coming to. I have seen so many players being absolute asses in dungeon runs, being more than just bossy and telling people what to do and how shit they are or whatever. And most of the time, when they do it that way (meaning, rudely), they are actually the first ones to be totally shit at the game themselves. I see people spewing so many inconsistent arguments or random bullshit they heard here or there and took for the absolute truth no matter what, without even understanding the mechanics behind... Oh yeah I get it, most people are really bad at that game (gasp, I said it, I'm so arrogant!). Well yeah, it's true. Just have to see parsing results really. But I don't mind that that much. Can be annoying but I came to the understanding that everyone has different levels of proficiency and asking everyone to be raid ready is as silly as asking your average joe running as fast as Usain Bolt. What I find ridiculous is the amount of self appointed experts that actually know nothing and are actual shit at their roles. Those spread like mushrooms.

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).

I'm totally up for backstory ties. My character grew up in Gridania. They might be friends, foes, whatever you fancy! I'm GMT though, so that might be hard to catch each other except on week ends maybe. Feel free to reach me out if you wish!

No amount of extra healer DPS from a few more seconds of Cleric Stance is ever going to outweigh a Warrior in Deliverance. Fell Cleave crits are just that large a burst (pre-VIT change, a FC from a i210 Warrior back during Gordias Savage would rival Fire IV from a BLM for biggest single burst from a crit - approximately 11k, iirc, outside of Ravana Vuln Up scenarios). This is still the case post-VIT changes. I can't speak for DRK or for PLD, but I know this to be the case for WAR. For a warrior, possibly. Although warriors are even more annoying to heal in that regards considering that their mitigation is atrocious and they have huge amounts of HP to compensate. The problem is mostly when you are trying to pop your own cooldowns like Presence of Mind and don't want to be disturbed at any cost. When your warrior is dropping like a fly while you are casting all you have, it wastes the whole thing. But yeah, I can guess that deliverance warriors are probably better that way.

I bet that MCH unleashed his full burst opener without even bothering to use quelling strikes (or even didn't even have that crossclass). MCH burst phase can be similarly as scary as BLM. I generally prefer as a heal that tanks keep their defensive stance so that I don't have to heal them besides the usual regen and a few medicas here and there for boss AoEs. I tend to think (maybe wrongly) that not having to lose so much time switching from cleric to heal actually makes me boost the party DPS significantly.

Incidentally... WhM is worth 2 DPS roles easy on Meridianum, just because of holy spamm on such huge and squishy groups of mobs. I'm always top DPS by far on those runs as a WhM. Doesn't mean you have to be a douche about it though. Most healers are cancer on Meridianum and Praetorium runs unfortunately. I have had the pleasure to deal with similar WhM (as a WhM myself), that just thought they could just aggro everything instead of the tanks, run all around and complain when they die.

Even a DRK at that level without grit and all might face troubles to keep aggro if the DPS are dealing enough damage and spreading it all over the mobs. A GLD with flash? lol.

You didn't exactly choose the easiest in terms of code though

Generally I had troubles initially by using preformated templates designed by somebody else. 1) Since I always want to do my own thing I eventually end up frustrated that I have to change too many things to suit my idea. 2) A lot of those have external wiki templates stored in template forms on the wiki. They are extremely hard to find (still no clue how you can look for them without twisting the search engine like hell), and of course you can't change them. They also puzzle me a great deal on how they work. So... I end up coding my own layout like dirty without external template styles and stuff. Which is a (organized) mess, but well. So yeah, now I do my own thing really. And I'm happier that way. 3) Damn tabs. Want to put tabs inside tabs but that doesn't seem possible with the tab wiki template I'm using, sadly. Oh yeah, that too. I have one like that in mine and it's driving me crazy. Fortunately it doesn't screw up the whole ordeal, but still seems to apply a weird font formatting by default, forcing me to reset it for every layer. I honestly can't stand wiki and HTML formatting. Most of the stuff I use is blatant CSS 1 or 3.

I can understand the absolute distate for Minuet and Gauss Barrel - I mean, I absolute loathe those things - but if you don't want to use them, then do as I do: don't play the classes. Most tanks are douches when it comes to Steps of Faith. They are part of the reason why I hate that trial so much. They don't even bother getting aggro. You spend your time dying to one thing or another for no special reason. Especially when healing. But then again, what are heals for anyway in such a trial. You can die and respaw all the time. Glorious mechanics design. If you actually died for good here, maybe people would take more care of what they are doing.

Too late for me!

Take that from someone that is really scarse on alts and tends to focus almost everything on a single character - not that I could not make more alts, I just don't have the time nor the motivation to play them, and also I feel like I would only play one for long periods of time before switching to the other when I start prefering playing the other instead, which is not super cool for my RP partners. So, while I think alts probably help for a lot of people, I don't think it's necessary all in itself. In my case, I'm doing perfectly fine without. You might find that I'm possibly weird in that I tend to actually enjoy my characters more and more over time. I grow attached to them as I flesh them out, make them evolve struggle and change. I find that the important part where everything will be decided often happens early for me, after one month or two of roleplay where I just finished polishing out the base concept and start seeing what works and what doesn't, and what I actually like and dislike. It's pretty much impossible to get a clear cut and exhaustive concept that will prove to work on the long run, AND please you. And I guess I'm extremely picky when it comes to the characters I play so the smallest thing that eventually makes me "meh" about the character tends to get reworked pretty quickly. And I feel that it's a big part why a character stops being fun to play. You have to proud of the result. There is another thing too. As said above, I shy away from pre scripted plans for character development. I'm more about doing outlines. Rather than saying that "This is what will happen to my character and I'm going there", which just puts a lot of constraints and eventually frustration when something different is trying to awkwardly force your character in another direction, I prefer to find short, medium and long run goals for the character to strive with. If they never realize? It's fine, a goal can be a success, or a failure, or somewhere in between. Goals are here to provide hooks for everyone and yourself to play around. It gives the character drives to progress and move ahead and so, creates stuff and prevents stagnation. It is also important never to rush any plot. Taking the most famous example, if you rush a long lasting romance story in 2 or 3 or even 10 RP sessions, it not only feels clunky and rushed, but it will also mean that you character will soon start living the equivalent of several lifetimes in a year. And eventually, it feels super disappointing because the amount of "ommpf" you get out of it is ridiculous compared to the expectations. ( this is also a shameless plug to playing FLAWED average and modest characters, gives you a lot more leeway in that regards considering the long lasting impact and the margin you have to work with progression wise )

Right, forgot about the casting time in Y'Shtola's case... My bad. Well in the case of the RP I'm doing I'm always trying to wrap my head around what would make sense according to the lore, not in my own little personal RP, but in the case of the RP I'm brought up to do with other people, the FC, etc. If it was just up to me I wouldn't use aetherytes for many reasons: average character with not that much anima (might be able to travel once a day through aetheryte or something), enormous fees, and all the restraints the lore gives, but the main point is that it totally ruins the notion of journey/travel in my book. So I don't use it in my personal RP. I already lavel it in the mild part of "power level", since you have to already be an adventurer with special powers to use it. But, I also happen to play with other people so aetheryte travel is still something that makes me cringe but with which I have to compose. So, I have to explain it at least a bit rationally. How do they monitor where you go to or where you come from, is the main point of contention and full of plotholes in the lore as far as I see it, and it frustrates me a great deal. So i'm going to assume that someone can check it immediately and ask for the correct fee (like one of the explanations proposed above). Guess I'm going to keep it vague as much as possible.

You can teleport from anywhere, you don't have to be nearby an aetheryte for that, as long as the destination IS an aetheryte. That's what gameplay tells us. The lore though? It seems damn nebulous. Why didn't Y'Shtola use a standard teleport to any aetheryte somewhere else? I don't even remember the explanation they gave... In any case, that problem seems pretty nitpicky and inconsequential, but it actually is a real pain in the ass to deal with for RP everyday travel through those.

Yeah but it doesn't seem to address the problem at hand. 1) How exactly can they tell where you are going or from where you are coming? 2) You can also apparently TP out of nowhere in the desert in the direction of an aetheryte, you don't need to be close to one at first, just at your arrival.

As long as it doesn't hurt the forest in some way anyway, I doubt that Elemental would care, or even understand human concepts like that. That's what seemed to be implied in... what quest was it already?

Well, I guess we are deep into the field of speculation and I don't necessarily all your theories as truth, to be honest. Maybe they are, and they probably are in some cases. I just can't see that as a generality though. Edit: To clarify a bit, I hear your points but I feel that you are not hearing mine. I said at the very beginning that Hearers can probably get away with a lot of things indeed. Ultimately I'm not taking the opposite position, and I hope that's not what I made transpire above. I just think both cases can be made, that it's easy and at the same time really tricky to get away with that kind of shit as a Hearer. That there is indeed few checks in the gridanian society and at the same time, it's also a society where padjals (especially seedseers) and Hearers are all but fools. That there is probably a lot of Hearers acting alone, but that doesn't means they never talk to each other or discuss things to coordinate or compare their interpretations. What I'm saying is that it's right in the realm of personal interpretation and I see every point here as being arguably correct as far as the lore we are given to work with is concerned. I don't think it's possible to paint generalities out of that.

Yeah I assumed by default that Eda just allowed her beloved corpse to be possessed and bring all kinds of nasty with that. Sorry if I wasn't more accurate but I was actually wondering if there was anything shown ingame or the dungeons like Tam Tara that would show Eda to have any kind of weird void-esque powers of sorts?

Sure, it could be ambiguous. I still would love to have Sounssy's opinion on the matter and what they wrote though. There might be more behind those two quotes. Well, I think that's a logical fallacy to assume that the few instances of Hearers we see ingame (that's what? One? Two of them?) necessarily equates to all of them always acting alone and being alone. That was my point. I don't see why like any other entity holding any power they would not you know, speak to each other, debate and discuss their plans, and especially discuss about what they Heared to compare their interpretations and all. It's possible yeah. It's also possible they had many others races we don't see ingame. In any case yeah, just to say that for all those point I guess we can't have a true answer... At least until we get our hands on their lorebook they spoke about

Fair enough. Also, I was pointed out to the case of Edda. What about Edda and the Void? Is she just opening void portals out of her crazy mind, or does she actually have void powers or something? I find her case highly confusing considering what we know.

Well, we know that the mi'qote migrated to Aldenard after the Calamity that froze the seas, which happened in the 5th Umbral Era, which means, just before the rise of Mhach, Amdapor and Nym in the following 5th Astral Era. They came over from Meracydia (approx 1500 years ago). It is also said that the most recent migratory arrival besides the Aura was actually the Hyur, in 3 waves taking place over the 6 Astral Era if I'm not mistaken (approx 500 years ago). It is also during that time that Gelmorra strived under the Shroud. So technically, Keeper of the Moons got there first, but the real question is though, did they got access to the Shroud before and during Gelmorra already (which is not mentioned anywhere), or did they only get access to the Shroud once the Pact of Gelmorra took place? Also, while there was those 3 hyur invasions in the 6th Era, it doesn't mean that there was never any Hyur there in some of the previous eras, since well... Allag at least was mostly a Hyur thing and covered most of the planet or so. Hyurs just happened to disappear in the following eras to reappear in the Sixth.