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Nevertheless, it doesn't mean you should be standing still. People fuss over it due to that reason alone. Take Zurvan EX. There are only two instances of heavy damage throughout the entire fight: the second add phase and Tyrfing. If both Healers exclusively heal, one or both of you will find portions of the fight where you're waiting or simply doing nothing. Now this obviously does not account for potential mistakes along the way, but you should adjust to the mistakes as they happen or anticipate where someone might mess up. If we don't skip Soar, I'll drop Cleric on the chance people will screw up positions. Otherwise, whenever I off heal, I only drop Cleric to toss up secondary heals (Medica II) or if someone gets a bleed debuff, couldn't get into position for Biting Halberd and etc.
I've played this game a considerable amount of hours, hell I've been playing since FFXIV 1.0 beta, but since that's besides the point I want to talk about how I've never witnessed someone literally doing nothing. There are moments where a Healer "stands still", but you literally cannot get away with that for too long unless you are doing unsynced content. You have to Cure eventually, or use Cure II, watch your MP, watch the people in your party, watch the mechanics. I feel the "standing still" thing people say often is rather cynical. They are doing their job, they are healing you and the party. There may be brief a gap of seconds where an action isn't taking place, but Healer is something you play in real time or else the party whipes. The focus is there regardless if this occurs or not.
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Refusing to DPS is not a play style anymore than a Bard refusing to sing or a Dark Knight keeping Darkside off to converse MP is. The game simply doesn't deal enough damage to warrant consistent healing nor is it reactionary to incentivising waiting for the next "big hit" as it's entirely predictable. Impatience isn't necessarily a factor. Once you start approaching higher level content, the expectation from players increases for everyone. Higher damage output allows for mechanic skips. Without healer DPS, it requires a higher ilvl and near perfect performance from your damage dealers and tanks to skip Lapis in A11S. People want to push those phases because once you've beaten the fight a couple times, that's where the enjoyment comes: seeing what you can skip and optimizing. Something to keep in mind is my emphasis on tanks and damage dealers. They have to perform optimally to skip Lapis. Is it not fair they expect the same from their healers?
You say that the game doesn't do enough damage to warrant it, but what if that is also by design? What if that is there as a threshold so that more people can play the Healer class and not be overwhelmed?