Quote Originally Posted by lulunami View Post
The healer DPS meta is just an optimization of play.
It's not "optimization of play" to do what is expected of every other job and role in the game, i.e. to not stand around doing nothing for half of every fight. You would very rightly call a DPS or tank that only casts a spell or uses an attack every 5 to 10 seconds bad, lazy, and disrespectful to the other players in the group. The same is true for healers, we're not special snowflakes who get a magical free pass at being lazy. Always be casting.

Optimization starts once you get into maximizing Cleric uptime, not when you do the basics of your job. Contributing to damage when you have nothing to do is common courtesy, because it's the only productive thing you can do when there's nothing to heal. If someone is new to healing and really uncomfortable with stance dancing, they can still cast damage spells outside of it until they become more comfortable - that's still better than twiddling their thumbs doing absolutely nothing.