Is DPS'ing as a Healer Vote Kickable?

AutoWhit, how about you tell us what is good about standing and donig nothing. Please. How does this help the party?

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Originally Posted by Sylve

Being encouraged to do a thing is not the same as that thing being enforced.

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Sure, lets a do a 30+ mins run when you can do it in 15 min. In one hand you have the healer that just learned to play a healer in this game, in other hand you have the slacker that don't wanna play the game and is actually a bother for 3/7/23 other people, great.

(not gonna mention people that are least trying, they just need practice)

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Originally Posted by DinahDemiurge

AutoWhit, how about you tell us what is good about standing and donig nothing. Please. How does this help the party?

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This gonna make my day, do it please.

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Originally Posted by Watachy

If no heal is needed and nothing big is coming, you have to DPS that's all.

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Or more generally put:
Don't stand there doing nothing productive when you could be doing something productive instead.

In that form, it can be applied to tanks and DPS just as well - a tank shouldn't just build an aggro lead and then /mandervilledance until the DPS catch up. He should keep doing something in the meantime and ideally something efficient. Likewise, a DPS should not be content doing its role by autoattacking, but rather supplement that damage via skills when they become available, ideally in an efficient way.

To me, that rule is pretty much common sense and role-independent.

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Originally Posted by AutoWhit

Please, someone point out to me where it says a player is "expected" to perform abilities outside the role they signed up for:

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...in/party_play/

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It's not outlined by square enix, but it's rather outlined by the community. That's the thing about MMO's see.. the game developers do in fact make rules and guidelines.. but the community develops their own additional rules and expectations. That's part of the thing with MMO's, a massive community plays it, and shapes it. Is this your first MMO or something?

Regardless, feel free to do the absolute bare minimum. Have a tank stop doing skills once they've established Agro. Have DPS in your party just do auto attacks. That isn't fun for me, but obviously that seems acceptable for you.

Kicking players for fun for differing playstyles and getting away with it.

I'm totally not going to abuse this. At all. Ever. Maybe.

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Originally Posted by Zojha

Or more generally put:
Don't stand there doing nothing productive when you could be doing something productive instead.

In that form, it can be applied to tanks and DPS just as well - a tank shouldn't just build an aggro lead and then /mandervilledance until the DPS catch up. He should keep doing something in the meantime and ideally something efficient. Likewise, a DPS should not be content doing its role by autoattacking, but rather supplement that damage via skills when they become available, ideally in an efficient way.

To me, that rule is pretty much common sense and role-independent.

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This, exactly! :) For a healer, this means covering the healing requirements of the duty and then, when you cannot meaningfully contribute by healing anymore (without overhealing), you should contribute by doing DPS! This is the baseline. Only healing and not doing DPS does not reach the baseline. Optimal play would be taking this one step further: using your abilities in a skillful manner that minimises the time you need to use on healing (while keeping everyone alive) and pushing as much DPS as you can.

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Originally Posted by DinahDemiurge

AutoWhit, how about you tell us what is good about standing and donig nothing. Please. How does this help the party?

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It doesn't. By the same token, It doesn't hurt the party either.

Assuming all 4 members of the party are achieving their primary role, a duty will succeed. The speed at which this happens depends on how well the party does with secondary roles (except DDs, poor bastards only get to kill things).

Its a skill floor and a skill ceiling kind of system.
If a Healer is only capable of healing the party, They're standing on the skill floor.
If that Healer can keep the party alive while maintaining a steady output of damage, they're reaching for the skill ceiling.

Standard duties are designed with the consideration that 4 players standing on the skill floor can clear it. However, 4 players reaching for the skill ceiling in that same duty will be able to clear it much more effectively/efficiently.

All I'm trying to point out is that there is nothing inherently wrong with a Healer who doesn't throw down DPS during downtimes. Just as their isn't anything wrong with a Tank who isn't dancing in and out of tank stance to maximize their damage output balanced against their enmity generation and damage taken.
They're not going to be the best players, but as long as they're not failing your duty, why does it matter that it took you 5 extra minutes to clear? If you want speedruns, make your own parties and set your own rules.

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Originally Posted by AutoWhit

Also, I still haven't gotten an answer as to why we queue as tank, or dps, or healer.

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Originally Posted by Sylve

Assuming all 4 members of the party are achieving their primary role, a duty will succeed.

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Ok, so you think a healers job is just to heal and do nothing else? This means, 2 buttons are enough for almost every 4-man dungeon.
Let's take cure for single heal and medica for aoe heal. He's job is done.

Now we have a tank. He's job is to keep enmity. Warrior as example. he can just spam overpower and butcher's block. 2 buttons are enough to keep enmity.
Sure he makes no damage and receive a big amount of damage, but he keep the mobs. He's job is done.

And the damagedealers? Well, they don't need to do special rotations or skills or dps. Their job is just to do some damage, which amount doesn't matter.
Lets take a summoner and blackmage. Summoner only cast ruin is entire life, and the blackmage does only ice.
They do some damage, but it's nothing compared to a full rotation. But they are doing their job -> damage.

Now you have a full group and everyone is doing his job. But instead of 15-20min, they need about 40-50min for a dungeon, or can't even beat it.

Is that what you want? Is this your expectation of "just do your job"? Cause everyone is doing is job, if it is good or not doesn't matter for you? :)

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Originally Posted by Vhailor

It's important to distinguish between 'ideal MMO design' and what is currently present in FFXIV. I think healing should be intensive enough that it's a full-time job, but that's not how FFXIV is designed.

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This needs to be emphasized so much.

When you refuse to dps as a healer in this game you are being willfully ignorant of how this game is designed.

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Originally Posted by Cinno

It's not outlined by square enix, but it's rather outlined by the community.

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Thank you. This is exactly what I wanted to hear.

I never said once that I'd complain if a healer is dpsing or not. I am pointing out that I won't complain, or call out, any healer that isn't dpsing. Would I prefer to have a healer dps? Sure, who wouldn't? Do I care that they are not? No.

I am a part of "this community," and I choose to focus on my own play, and be as good as I can be in any situation. If that means picking up my dps when the group seems slow killing things then that's what I do....that is my job as a dps....to adjust. I am accountable to myself as far as being the best I can be at what I do. I do not, and cannot, expect anyone else to think the way I do, or play the way I do. This is how I choose to "shape" my community.

I don't understand this. I am leveling a white mage on the side and it's just like, how do you sit there doing nothing? Shoot, half the time I don't even change stance to throwa rock at someone. It's the least I can do instead of tossing heals at the tank when he drops below 90%

Maybe I should play Scholar instead

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Originally Posted by Sylve

Assuming all 4 members of the party are achieving their primary role, a duty will succeed.

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I don't think that successful duty completion is a very good standard. Consider, there are 90 minutes on the clock. If successful duty completion was the only criterion that mattered, it would be perfectly okay for DPS to deal so little damage that it takes 85 minutes to complete the dungeon. They do their primary job (dealing damage), even if not very well, and the duty does not fail, so according to that criterion, it would be acceptable.

I think it is obvious or should be obvious that this is of course not acceptable and consequently think that this is not a suitable standard to measure by. A suitable standard should not lead to undesirable results if applied to other roles.

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Originally Posted by Clethoria

What is this 2007? Or are you still at a young age where you think being the prettiest social butterfly is what you should absolutely prioritize?

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Did I hurt your feelings, butterfly?

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Originally Posted by Bixillarla

Better not get in a group with me then. I am there not heal and keep people alive not dps. I do not dps on my healers, if I want to dps then I will go on a dps job.

There is no requirement to dps as a healer, our job is to keep everyone alive so they can do their job.

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Stop playing Scholar

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Originally Posted by Sylve

The fact that they're clearing content makes then a minimally good player. Just good enough to get by. If they tried, they could become a great player. Maybe even an excellent player if they really put effort in.

A bad player is one who fails duties, dragging down the players they're grouped with. There is no grey area with that. You can be 'good' enough to clear basic content. But any kind of 'bad' is enough to fail duties.

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I believe you should revise your definition of what makes a player 'good'. I would agree with your version, ONLY if we were discussing solo content. I'm not even talking about Healers DPS'ing/not DPS'ing but clearing content is in NO way an indicator of skill. Horrible, horrible players clear content every day because they are burdens that are carried by better players.

As an example of this, at any given time I can go into party finder and find FCs advertising to get you any clear on any content for a price... By your definition that player who paid for the clear and died in the corner at the start of the fight would still be classified as 'good' because the content was cleared.

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Originally Posted by Cinno

It's not outlined by square enix, but it's rather outlined by the community.

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Not taking you out of context here, merely using you to debunk this:

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Originally Posted by Watachy

DPSING as a healer is part of their job, as i already said the game has been designed this way and if you want an ingame-clue try the hall of novice.

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The devs have straight up told us that they did not design healers to be used as damage dealers in party play, but were happy to let players do it because it was just creative use of ingame mechanics.

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Originally Posted by Cinno

Regardless, feel free to do the absolute bare minimum. Have a tank stop doing skills once they've established Agro. Have DPS in your party just do auto attacks. That isn't fun for me, but obviously that seems acceptable for you.

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Except no one does this. No one. Nor is anyone advocating it.

If a Tank actively stops hitting things, they're plain bad. If a DPS stopped using skills, they're no longer fulfilling their primary role. If a Healer stopped healing, theyre no longer doing their job. A party of people behaving as such will not clear the duty.

Why do you equate a Tank that doesnt stance dance to maximize damage or a Healer that isn't slipping in and out of Cleric Stance to people that are literally afking?

The ONLY thing the party gains from a skilled tank and healer maximizing their damage outputs while also fulfilling their primary role is a faster clear time!
What you are doing is crying about random groups not being super efficient.

You said yourself that it is the community who decided that Healers must contribute damage at all times. Yet there are members of the community who clearly disagree on what makes a player acceptable to party with.
If you're using the Party Finder to make your own Parties, set your own damn rules and what roles you expect of Healers and Tanks.

In the DF, where you will encounter random players of varied skill and confidence, you have no right to enforce your own opinion of how others should play there. You're demanding they change their playstyle to suit YOU. Thats what the Party Finder is for!

Maybe Healers should be given something else to do when there isn't anyone to heal, rather than DPS to be honest. I would not be opposed to healers having a selection of buffs/debuffs with cast times to eat up a bit of that downtime but provide some utility to tanks/dps. Not unlike what AST has currently, just less gimmicky. Something to increase survivability or decrease enemy survivability.

If I have nothing to heal, what else am I supposed to do? I can run around in circles, jumping and being a distraction all day, but I suspect helping to kill things faster is more constructive. Besides, that's very much in line with healing. By reducing the amount of time the mob is alive, you reduce the amount of damage it deals to the tank. You're helping to prevent a need for healing! DPS is basically an absorb effect. In conclusion, if absorb effects are not allowed for healers, then kick all the scholars and nocturnal sect astrologians, regardless of what they're doing. :^)

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Originally Posted by Sylve

If a DPS stopped using skills, they're no longer fulfilling their primary role.

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What if he smashes just one button / one skill?

He does damage - what is his job - but it tooks a lot more time to clear the dungeon. Is this acceptable for you?
Or tanks which aren't using their defensive cooldowns?

For reasons we have a big amount of skills, and each skill can and should be used for maximum potential.
Why should this only count for tanks (enmnity, survivability, damage) and dd's (damage, supportbuffs, def-cd's) and not for healers?

Why should healers just do 1 cast and then stand 30secs afk around?
Sure, the healers main job is to hold the group alive. but this doesnt mean he should stay afk and on auto-follow the whole dungeon...

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Originally Posted by Zojha

I don't think that successful duty completion is a very good standard. Consider, there are 90 minutes on the clock. If successful duty completion was the only criterion that mattered, it would be perfectly okay for DPS to deal so little damage that it takes 85 minutes to complete the dungeon. They do their primary job (dealing damage), even if not very well, and the duty does not fail, so according to that criterion, it would be acceptable.

I think it is obvious or should be obvious that this is of course not acceptable and consequently think that this is not a suitable standard to measure by. A suitable standard should not lead to undesirable results if applied to other roles.

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If it wasn't acceptable to take 85+ minutes to clear a dungeon, SE would set the bar lower.
Once again, if you cleared it, even if it took you to the very last second to do it, makes you minimally good. Or perhaps 'viable' would be a better word? Your party produced enough damage and Healing to kill all the things within the allotted time. Congrats. You've achieved the minimum possible standard to finish the duty.

Its only unacceptable to a community who demands a dungeon to be finished in the fastest possible time, even if that means vote kicking players that are doing their jobs but not at a level deemed "good" by the random overgeared tool who just wants his tomes as fast as possible. Nevermind the circumstances of the poor bastard who suddenly finds himself without a party and bereft of an explanation as to why.

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Originally Posted by Syll

As an example of this, at any given time I can go into party finder and find FCs advertising to get you any clear on any content for a price... By your definition that player who paid for the clear and died in the corner at the start of the fight would still be classified as 'good' because the content was cleared.

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Actually, by my own definition, that player who died in a corner failed a mechanic and got carried. Thus i describe him as being bad. My previous posts (That no one ever seems to actually read) allude to that. Failing mechanics makes you bad. Even if you did it intentionally to secure an easy victory on the backs of overgeared mercs.
If you failed, but are willing to learn to beat the mechanic, you are not bad, you are learning.

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Originally Posted by Syll

I have to disagree with your assertion, because the post you made JUST before this one:



you JUST wrote this. The problem is, as I was trying to articulate, your PARTY produced enough damage to complete the duty. A DPS producing 1/3rd the DPS of the other DPS in the party, less than the Tank or the Healer is not 'minimally good' they are disgracefully bad.

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In one example, the player is failing the mechanic and not participating while expecting others to clear it for them. That makes them bad.

In the other example, Those players are actively participating (unskilled or undergeared, combination of both, it doesn't actually matter), it's just taking them a long time to clear, as their combined output is only just sufficient to clear the duty before time out.
This makes them minimally good, as in, the absolute minimum of skill/gear required to achieve a clear in which they actively participated.

I'm sorry if the distinction wasn't clear enough.



Wonderful, I've hit post limit. Lol.

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Originally Posted by Zojha

I don't think that successful duty completion is a very good standard. Consider, there are 90 minutes on the clock. If successful duty completion was the only criterion that mattered, it would be perfectly okay for DPS to deal so little damage that it takes 85 minutes to complete the dungeon. They do their primary job (dealing damage), even if not very well, and the duty does not fail, so according to that criterion, it would be acceptable.

I think it is obvious or should be obvious that this is of course not acceptable and consequently think that this is not a suitable standard to measure by. A suitable standard should not lead to undesirable results if applied to other roles.

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Despite never concerning myself with what other players are doing as long as we aren't wiping, I've managed to never have a dungeon take anywhere near 90 minutes. Something tells me your concerns aren't very realistic and I sincerely doubt there is anyone out there who just wants to auto attack the entire the dungeon, unless they're trying to troll the group.

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Originally Posted by Nixxe

Despite never concerning myself with what other players are doing as long as we aren't wiping, I've managed to never have a dungeon take anywhere near 90 minutes. Something tells me your concerns aren't very realistic and I sincerely doubt there is anyone out there who just wants to auto attack the entire the dungeon, unless they're trying to troll the group.

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I've seen a SCH /follow tank and drink coffee.

http://i.imgur.com/t2h4Cav.png

But yeah I guess they were doing their part good enough, right...

The example of 90 mins was about if DDs and tanks would play at the same level than the SCH here in this example. But somehow only healers get defended when they decide to do something like this.

I main a healer so I don't have a ton of experience running with other healers in dungeons... but on the rare occassion I dps I don't really care what the healer does (I do wonder what they are doing... or not doing but I wouldn't kick someone over it). THAT SAID, honestly.... how can you stand it? I would be bored absolutely to tears if I just stood there casting a heal every 30 seconds or so... how do you keep from losing your collective minds just standing there for 90% of the time.

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Originally Posted by Sylve

Actually, by my own definition, that player who died in a corner failed a mechanic and got carried. Thus i describe him as being bad. My previous posts (That no one ever seems to actually read) allude to that. Failing mechanics makes you bad. Even if you did it intentionally to secure an easy victory on the backs of overgeared mercs.
If you failed, but are willing to learn to beat the mechanic, you are not bad, you are learning.

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I have to disagree with your assertion, because the post you made JUST before this one:

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Originally Posted by Sylve

If it wasn't acceptable to take 85+ minutes to clear a dungeon, SE would set the bar lower.
Once again, if you cleared it, even if it took you to the very last second to do it, makes you minimally good. Or perhaps 'viable' would be a better word? Your party produced enough damage and Healing to kill all the things within the allotted time. Congrats. You've achieved the minimum possible standard to finish the duty.

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you JUST wrote this. The problem is, as I was trying to articulate, your PARTY produced enough damage to complete the duty. A DPS producing 1/3rd the DPS of the other DPS in the party, less than the Tank or the Healer is not 'minimally good' they are disgracefully bad.

You should not expect your allusions to be countenanced when your explicit text (posted immediately prior) affirms my argument.

Pages and pages of the same back and forth argument that's been done several times over.

It's either this, casual vs hardcore, general whining, or booty butt cheeks. Whenever I see Dev Tracker, the most activity seems to come from the JP/EU side. I wonder, just what it is they're talking about over there that can garner more attention or is this a sign that the English speaking devs are saying they don't care, nothing will change and all this trash talk should be put to rest.

Forward and back and forward and back and then go forward and back of "No I'm right you're wrong!" and since nobody wants to read 16 and counting pages of it, it starts anew with someone who skimmed the first and decided to post. Can anyone not just come to an understanding that the vocal minority of the forums isn't going to affect the people having fun in game? There is no push for it, so the same 4-5 people chasing each other's tails in a circle is going to remain as such.

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Originally Posted by Xlantaa

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It is not the frist time I've at 5% HP when healer notice it an heal me because was too busy DPSing.
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Well.
For AST in particular, they've got a skill on a 40(60) second cooldown that heals more the less hp the target has. Essential Dignity.

There's been many times I've let the tank drop low, and with how the server works, casted a Benefic 2 and weaved in Essential Dignity as Benefic 2 finished.

The server sees the Essential Dignity trigger at the health value before Benefic 2's effect.
Thus there's a very large burst heal.

When doing this, I typically dps until the point I feel the incoming damage is enough to drop their hp below the threshold I feel safe at depending on how the tank is doing.
At which point I drop off cleric, benefic 2 and essential dignity. I typically follow that up by refreshing my regen/shields and see how their hp is doing.

If it seems good enough, It's time to get back to dps.

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Originally Posted by Sylve

If a Tank actively stops hitting things, they're plain bad. If a DPS stopped using skills, they're no longer fulfilling their primary role.

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No-one has a "primary" function. Everyone is there to work together to ensure the run is as smooth as possible. Why would tanks have any stance, if by default there are always to stay in tank stance, spamming aggro combo? Why do DDs have any abilities to reduce aggro or offer support, if they are never to use them? Why would brd have any support songs?

Because it is implicit that everyone should try to use everything at their disposal, as efficiently as possible, to get the clear. healer dps-ing is just another thing that falls under this umbrella. You can argue all day long that you shouldn't HAVE to help out with dps, as it isn't your primary function. The same way I could argue I shouldn't HAVE to apoc someone that's about to take unnecessary damage, a smn shouldn't HAVE to rez someone, brd shouldn't HAVE to play ballad for a healer that hasn't maximised their mp efficiency, or whatever else. But we do, because we are working together.

Your team will still be able to clear expert roulette (they really need to change the name of this roulette, it is still laughably easy without anyone bothering to do much at all), but for any more coordinated content, you are forcing your team to carry you by not utilising all of the support available to you. Healer's support is in the form of a small, but not insignificant, amount of dps during healing downtime.

Honestly... how hard is it to pop cleric and chuck out three dots lol. even that is far from what a healer CAN achieve, but me, personally, I would never say a healer is doing too little dps, but one doing none at all just gives the impression they cba

remember that vid of that ast solo healing a12s... even he managed to chuck out a few dots here and there, making the feat even more impressive than it already was. and people here defending it is too difficult to use a dot in expert roulette smh

Yes and No...

If the healer is failing at healing because they're too busy DPSing, and it happens multiple times, I'd say there's valid reason to start thinking about a kick...

But just for throwing in some DPS while healing isn't required, nobody should be mad at that.

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Originally Posted by Nixxe

Something tells me your concerns aren't very realistic [...]

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I'm merely pointing out the flaws in other people's criteria on what is acceptable behavior and what is not. And all I did to that end was to apply it to DPS as well. Nothing more, nothing less. And doing so leads to results I find undesirable.

Luckily, most people I meet in the game actually do not use that criterion but rather use the one I personally proposed, which is that you should always strive to do something productive and ideally efficient regardless of role. As such, my dungeons thankfully do not take anywhere near 90 minutes either. Naturally, I find that criterion vastly superior to the one of duty completion as a result. But for some reason, other people don't, which I find both surprising and disturbing.

Pro-tip: stop taking DF seriously and stop stressing over people's playstyle.

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Originally Posted by AutoWhit

Thank you. This is exactly what I wanted to hear.

I never said once that I'd complain if a healer is dpsing or not. I am pointing out that I won't complain, or call out, any healer that isn't dpsing. Would I prefer to have a healer dps? Sure, who wouldn't? Do I care that they are not? No.

I am a part of "this community," and I choose to focus on my own play, and be as good as I can be in any situation. If that means picking up my dps when the group seems slow killing things then that's what I do....that is my job as a dps....to adjust. I am accountable to myself as far as being the best I can be at what I do. I do not, and cannot, expect anyone else to think the way I do, or play the way I do. This is how I choose to "shape" my community.

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It is actually outlined in Hall of the Novice, but this person is pulling up info that gives a very very brief description of their primary role. Most of the info is wrong in the Q and A guides i.e 14 day free trial and the caps for it.

Most have pointed out this but he has waited for the one response to agree with him and say community. All the way through story/class quest instances you have to fight and heal, yet as soon as someone hits a dungeon it's the I heal only mentality. Why have all the actions on your hotbar if you are not going to use them.

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Well.
For AST in particular, they've got a skill on a 40(60) second cooldown that heals more the less hp the target has. Essential Dignity.

There's been many times I've let the tank drop low, and with how the server works, casted a Benefic 2 and weaved in Essential Dignity as Benefic 2 finished.

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Lol I do this all the time in DF with randoms and friends. I can hear the tank on discord go "mase" "mase"while I chuckle on the inside.

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Originally Posted by Fevelle

Pro-tip: stop taking DF seriously and stop stressing over people's playstyle.

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All these months of playing and I still don't get why people just dont find or form a FC to do this kind of stuff with. Hell, even a Party Finder with "Healer must DPS" will make it clear without running into the character limit.

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Originally Posted by AutoWhit

I do not, and cannot, expect anyone else to think the way I do, or play the way I do. This is how I choose to "shape" my community.

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Originally Posted by Masekase_Hurricane

It is actually outlined in Hall of the Novice, but this person is pulling up info that gives a very very brief description of their primary role.

Most have pointed out this but he has waited for the one response to agree with him and say community. All the way through story/class quest instances you have to fight and heal, yet as soon as someone hits a dungeon it's the I heal only mentality. Why have all the actions on your hotbar if you are not going to use them.

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If you choose to chastise and call people out for not going above and beyond what their role is then that is the community YOU wish to shape. I choose to worry about myself and my personal ability, not people I have no control over.

I'll DPS as a healer when I'm 100% confident that nobody is going to eat a big attack and die the moment I activate Cleric Stance.

Yes, that has happened, more times than I'd like to count. If there were no Cleric Stance, and healing and damage were both based on Mind, it might be easier for me to quickly go back to healing when someone eats a big one.

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Originally Posted by Masekase_Hurricane

Why have all the actions on your hotbar if you are not going to use them.

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I don't have the DPS skills on my hotbar.

When unpleasant people kicks me from a duty, they are making me a favor, because I will not eat penalty to be able don't stay with them anymore.

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Originally Posted by Sylve

If it wasn't acceptable to take 85+ minutes to clear a dungeon, SE would set the bar lower. Once again, if you cleared it, even if it took you to the very last second to do it, makes you minimally good. Or perhaps 'viable' would be a better word? Your party produced enough damage and Healing to kill all the things within the allotted time. Congrats. You've achieved the minimum possible standard to finish the duty.

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http://i.imgur.com/mXyupD1.gif

"Minimum standard" and "good" do not mean the same thing.

Honestly my opinion on the matter revolves around the following 3 points:

1) You are not implicitly required as a Healer to DPS in most content. Generally speaking, aside from end game Savage raids, healer DPS is not a requirement to clear content. DPS from a healer is nice, but most of the content isn't tuned to expect or require it in any form or fashion.

2) Being willing and able to DPS as a healer when you do not have the need to heal will typically make the content go faster. If you and your group are fine tacking on an extra few minutes to a dungeon run, that's fine, but most people try to get in and get out as quick as possible since that is more efficient for leveling and gearing.

3) If you're a good enough healer, no one should really even notice that you're swapping between healing and DPSing. Provided you know your role and skills, along with knowing the fights, your transitions between healing and DPS can become seamless enough that, unless someone is watching your bar like a hawk or really watching those DoTs, they should never know that you spent 10 seconds swapping to Cleric, cast a few damage spells and switched back.

In the end, 'You do you.' But you should expect that everyone's going to have their own opinion and some people will express that opinion more loudly than others.

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Originally Posted by AutoWhit

If you choose to chastise and call people out for not going above and beyond what their role is

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It's not about people "not going above and beyond what their role is", it's about all party members making an equal effort towards the party's goal and setting the bar at same level for everyone. A healer who refuses to DPS is simply not participating as much as their other party members*. If it's not ok for a tank or a DD to only use one skill per minute and be considered a "good enough" player, it should not be ok for a healer either. That's why keeping the party alive and doing some DPS should be what's considered the minimum level of participation from a healer (again, apart from certain very specific circumstances).

Expecting someone to go "above and beyond" in healer role would be to expect them to maximise their DPS while they optimise (= minimise) their healing. And absolutely no one in this thread is suggesting that should be the standard.

* I actually tried once doing an expert as WHM without doing any DPS. As a result, I was active 17% of the whole dungeon while the rest of my group members were active 72-77% of the dungeon - while my overheal was still 36%. Here's the whole story and a video of that run.