If you ask me to stancedance one more fucking time..

[Koro Dotharl]

I do stancedance if the tank can take it but I chose to be an healer, not a DPS. If people are too entitled to respect my pace and play-style I just leave the instance. Good luck finding a new one. Maybe you would have cleared it faster if you didn't have to wait another healer to bark at.

 

If you can't clear the dungeon at an acceptable pace without the healer going cleric you should complain to the DPS people, not to me.

 

When pugging with strangers, nobody cares about what you want or enjoy, so don't worry about them either. Do these amazing heals and if people want -more-, give them less. Let them die or leave the instance, not your fault for healing like you're supposed to.

 

People that force others to play as they do really grind my gears. Especially when the guy's already doing his job but nope.. They want MORE.

[Teadrinker]

You can't tell me what to do.

[Lamiaris]

What my point really is to all of this, is the following.

 

If you ask me to DPS while I'm a healer, and I'm stancedancing, please , please, please don't expect a miracle. Will I try my best? Yes, yes I will! And I will try my best! But please don't expect me to be able to bring you from the brink at just a split-second's notice!

[Valence]

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?

[Warren Castille]

Every role has something they could be doing that they might not do.

 

Healers can DPS, but it takes a lot of familiarity and comfort to do without letting people panic or die. Similarly, tanks don't have to pull more than one group at a time in dungeons. You don't see it as much in leveling dungeons, but in the 50s and 60s it is entirely possible to grab multiple sets of enemies at once. It's also not necessary, and people WILL flip the fuck out if you pull something "wrong."

 

DPS don't have to AoE on big packs, either: They can single target one thing at a time when the tank has brought a dozen enemies to a boss barrier.

 

Everyone's got a comfort zone. I've had healers drop ten seconds into a dungeon because I had the audacity to cast protect as a paladin while they were... not buffing the group. Instead of seeing it as assistance, they took it as me undermining and making a statement.

[Leggerless]

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.

[Lydia Lightfoot]

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.

 

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).

[Mitzer The Mighty]

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.

[Valence]

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.

[Faye]

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.

[Xerintha]

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. 

 

There's always room to improve and believe me, I am in a constant learning mode.

[LiadansWhisper]

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.

[LiadansWhisper]

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. 

 

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.

[TheLastCandle]

Uhhh.. oh, hi.

 

Count me in with the tanks who just want to live.

 

AH WANT TO LIVE MAH LIFE

 

[video=youtube]

[Dat Oni]

Uhhh.. oh, hi.

 

Count me in with the tanks who just want to live.

 

AH WANT TO LIVE MAH LIFE

 

[video=youtube]

 

 

IT'S MY LIFE

 

IT'S NOW OR NEVER

 

I AIN'T GONNA LIVE FOREVER

 

I JUST WANNA LIVE WHILE I'M ALIIIIIIIIIIIVE

[Gegenji]

Uhhh.. oh, hi.

 

Count me in with the tanks who just want to live.

 

AH WANT TO LIVE MAH LIFE

 

[video=youtube]

 

 

IT'S MY LIFE

 

IT'S NOW OR NEVER

 

I AIN'T GONNA LIVE FOREVER

 

I JUST WANNA LIVE WHILE I'M ALIIIIIIIIIIIVE

 

JOfOjXywdbo

 

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.

[Jana]

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.

[CrimsonMars]

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.

[Valence]

 

(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.

 

Healer DPS is pretty minimal in most cases. Most of the time' date=' 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 [i']don't[/i] 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.

 

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' date=' 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.[/quote']

 

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.

[LiadansWhisper]

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.

[Sunwins]

I main a WHM and an AST, and I don't stance dance on either of them. I've also never been asked to DPS when I wasn't in cleric stance, tanks don't really seem to care - or maybe I've just had crazy good luck in getting tanks who don't mind one way or another.

 

In low level dungeons, generally I'll try a bit more to shift stances when everyone's fully healed to help DPS, but especially on my AST (who has awful DPS anyway so rlly what's the point), I generally only throw up a few dots before I shift out of cleric stance again.

 

I dunno, I didn't pick a healing class to DPS. If I wanted to DPS, I would've gone Bard, or Summoner- and honestly sometimes when you get bot tanks or new players who are still learning their classes, I find it safer just to sit back and heal. But that's what I think!

[Valence]

. 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?

 

Well, for a WhM, the fairy is regen, really. And regen with divine seal is like the fairy with rouse or something.

 

And you should have Bane from ACN right? To spread the dots?

[Kage]

. Totally wish we had SMN's "PUT ALL THE DOTS UP" ability, but what're you gonna do?

 

And you should have Bane from ACN right? To spread the dots?

I haven't touched SMN since like a year ago but iirc 60 SMN can refresh all its dots like BRD with 1 action. I dont think he is referring to Bane. has tri-disaster at lvl 58 that inflicts the dots with certain durations (better than a refresher).

 

Anyway, a healer who is doing nothing while I am not taking damage with my big hp and is dancing away or jumping around is the same as an ice mage as well as a DPS sitting in aoes all the time or a GLA in Praetorium or a DRK in lost city normal with an i44weapon that doesn't use unleash, or a lvl59 tank in gubal library who has shit health because he is wearing a cp earring and nothing in his choker slot in my opinion.

 

I won't berate you. I may say something encouraging or give you a tip. But I will most likely bitch and vent about it somewhere.

[Enla]

Honestly I've been trying to weave in stance dancing more now that I'm turning Odile into my main and am thus re-leveling all the classes again, but I've always been a fairly cautious healer. First and second time through an instance I'll likely keep to only throwing out Aero I, II, and III dots for the vast majority of the content - peppering in a Cleric Stance'd Assize here and there both as an MP regen and as a high powered stab. Third time is usually when I start getting comfortable enough to DPS for most of the instance, barring a near wipe, and after that I do it as needed. If I'm in a raid and the other healer wishes to DPS, I'll stick to purely healing. If the other healer wishes to stick to pure heals then I'll take on the roll of mixing in my DPS stance. Etc. Etc.

 

I will say though that if I'm having issues with the rest of the party, be it the tank or the DPS not using cooldowns and standing in the damage puddles then I tend to reign myself in and stick to healing exclusively. I'd rather be accused of slowing the dungeon down by keeping to my Aero dots exclusively than blink into Cleric's Stance only for the problematic party member to eat a cleave and a damage puddle before I can successfully pop off a non-Cleric'd Tetra.

 

All in all I very much think it's up to the comfort of the person involved and the situation they find themselves in. I'm not going to begrudge another healer for failing to DPS outside of specific circumstances. In fact the only time I ever get annoyed is when I'm running the first few dungeons and the healer literally just occasionally throws out a cure while otherwise picking their nose... If the healer has the job above thirty, and thus should know the instance by now, I expect them to at least throw in an Aero rather than Hildebrand the night away between heals.

[Gegenji]

. Totally wish we had SMN's "PUT ALL THE DOTS UP" ability, but what're you gonna do?

 

And you should have Bane from ACN right? To spread the dots?

I haven't touched SMN since like a year ago but iirc 60 SMN can refresh all its dots like BRD with 1 action. I dont think he is referring to Bane. has tri-disaster at lvl 58 that inflicts the dots with certain durations (better than a refresher).

 

Yus, that's the ability I'm referring to. Being able to throw up all three DoTs at the push of a button is delightful. And Garuda-Egi can extend them so you can often spend even less time keeping them up. While I don't expect the latter at any point on SCH, I wouldn't mind if they provided a similar function to the former. :lol:

 

But yeah. As long as you LOOK like you're doing your job as a healer, I likely won't tend to bother you. It's if I'm dying to simple stuff or I see you actively making your "boredom" known that I start to get irritated.