(06-25-2014, 11:34 AM)Garryson Wrote: First, to the whole "Healer DPS" thing, I'm going to advocate more of the other side. I'm a full-time tank, and I have died because the healer chose to DPS then couldn't get me back up. (This is due to big pulls, I don't have crappy gear or anything) The most common I see is "Oh, I'll Holy until they're low then use Benediction." Dead.
On a lot of pulls, yes, tanks take little damage and throwing in DPS is fine and hey makes it go a little quicker. But at the end of the day, DPS is not the healer's job. If I have PUG healers that don't DPS, its usually because they're still learning. This game has become needlessly hostile to people actually learning their roles who have the audacity to run without a full pre-made party.
Not that I'm against healers ever throwing in DPS, I just don't really care how much they do it or not.
But, back to the question of the original post, I can't really decide since the fights are so varied. Like people have said, some early dungeons you can get away with not having a tank. But you can do the same without a healer. Our healer d/c'd and I BLM Physick'd us through the dungeon. A lot of content can be out geared and out skilled without having to fit into the trinity.
I think I would have to go with tank, though. The sole purpose being that I find it easier to invest in healers and teach them how to heal more efficiently. Healing isn't easier than tanking, or vice versa. In my experience it just seems harder to teach someone this game's aggro mechanics. I am constantly explaining to newer tanks that Provoke isn't an enmity boost that can be used alone, but most healers get the basic concept of their abilities even if they're bad.
So tank, but barely.
That's why I said "silently"Â ^^ ;Â Â I wouldn't dare comment on that and tell someone what to do. I am very shy in that respect. I don't even like to bother random people with unnecessary macros and sound effects. If someone is new and learning the role and that is fine but perhaps I came off a lot worse than how I intended. There is a sole example that still lingers in my head of a well-geared healer just jumping on the spot over and over and then casting a heal on me every ten or so seconds and that is the image I always return to when I think of healers not helping with DPS.
I don't expect them to, especially if they are uncomfortable with it, but I mean if they are clearly well experienced and have nothing better to be doing(i.e a tank that isn't being challenged) then I don't see why they wouldn't. Unless they were half afk then it seems like a boring concept in fact.
Perhaps I am guilty of immediately defaulting to the idea that someone isn't new if they don't announce it right away at the beginning of a dungeon but its not something I would bring up directly unless it was for the player's own benefit. I remember tanking a dungeon before and some black mage was pulling every single group and it started to annoy me a little. I said nothing in the end but I was getting more and more agitated though at some point the thought returned to me about my first Copperbell run, where a tank scolded me for attacking a group first. Being that FF was my first real MMO of this kind I had no idea about the enimity/trinity aspect and how difficult it was for them and thought that I was merely helping pick them up from a distance.
![[Image: ecec20e41f.png]](https://puu.sh/xvMxb/ecec20e41f.png)
Characters: Andre Winter (Hy'ur) / K'nahli Yohko (Miqo'te)
