Originally Posted by
Saefinn
This I feel is THE most important point. As long as the party aren't struggling to stay alive then the rest is for you to freely DPS to your heart's content. Your primary role is to keep people alive, your secondary role is to contribute to overall DPS. The secondary role is not wholly important for most content but can make things go quicker/smoother. So long as you're achieving your primary role before your secondary role, then you're doing it right. The game is scripted, the damage is predictable and people don't need to 100% health all the time, they just need to be alive.
Sadly people are sometimes wrong. I recall getting Halatali and having a DPS drop, I said "let's continue I can help DPS" and they resisted and argued healers shouldn't DPS. We ended up doing the whole dungeon without a second DPS and I ignored them and DPS'd between heals, nobody died, it was quicker than it could have been and they didn't like my "I told you so" (this was back in ARR when the debate whether healers should DPS or not was more prevalent)
But healing in general can sometimes be thankless because your best healing will be done when everybody else is failing and everything is falling apart and you could have carried a suicidal group by a hair, but it's rare they'll thank the healer for the miracle because they don't necessarily see the feat you just pulled, they just see a failing party, I mean sometimes they do - I make sure I do when I've witnessed it, but you'll feel pride in those carries regardless (and probably frustration).