Is pre-buffing neccessary?

[Tranquil]

I often find that most of the SCH's I run into are very horrible, with lazy healing/buffing. They don't do much past the first Protect/SS/Succor other than heal the tank, they just DPS and rely on the pocket fairy to heal. Those types of SCH's don't even get to glimpse at my commendation...

yeah i see a lot of these

just becuase youve got a mini cnj in your back pocket doesnt mean you dont need to pay attention

Sounds absurd to me if you guys are referring to most of the pugged content in this game (ie. content with very little or infrequent AOE-healing required, and or the groups overgearing the content by a mile).

If you have a SCH that keeps tabs on their heals as needed (ie. keeping the tanks topped off as required) while contributing to the DPS and shuffling fairy buffs as need be - what more would you want? The SCH refreshing Succors on full HP bars each time the 30s is duration up? Casting untraited Stoneskins on the party "just in case"? Being idle half of the time and then casting Physick while otherwise alt-tabbed most of the time?

Just because a healer does DPS does not mean "they are not paying attention";it could be the exact opposite, ie. they have calculated the resource usage required for the incoming damage, knowing the fight in full and having backup plans for when the shit hits the fan.

I do agree that there are tons of SCHs who don't do the dexterous multitasking thing well at all, ie. if they go Cleric Stance-mode, they can only do that like a robot but can't react to the healing required and other ever-changing variables on the battlefield. Similarly, there are also SCHs who can only do decent when it comes to their healing game but suck at their DPS-game. Now, we could get into an argument about whether healers "should" DPS or not, but instead of going there, I am just gonna say that if I am gonna commend a SCH, I always give it to the person who balances their healing game and DPS-game well at the required level.