As a healer, is it my job to DPS? A new perspective.

[Nekotee]

The primary function of the healer is to keep the party alive, if they're doing it correctly then don't nitpick their play style. Also don't throw the hall of the novice excuse at me because that didn't exist 6 months ago.

During ARR yes it was true
At HW it's less true

The upgrade of the healing toolkit and power only require 10% (20% on squishy tank) of your capabilities to keep a group alive
Savage content will require more attention due to high damage and short healing window

Otherwise i don't see why a heal should not try a bit to dps
I don't require a dps level of damage
Just a bit

Because of 2 rules :
ABC - Always be casting
Keep the overheal to the minimum

[Dogempire]

During ARR yes it was true
At HW it's less true

The upgrade of the healing toolkit and power only require 10% (20% on squishy tank) of your capabilities to keep a group alive
Savage content will require more attention due to high damage and short healing window

Otherwise i don't see why a heal should not try a bit to dps
I don't require a dps level of damage
Just a bit

Because of 2 rules :
ABC - Always be casting
Keep the overheal to the minimum

I'm not really talking about savage, it's kind of a given that people should be playing at 100% on savage and ex content and that not dpsing isn't playing at 100% for healers.

[Lambdafish]

I'm not really talking about savage, it's kind of a given that people should be playing at 100% on savage and ex content and that not dpsing isn't playing at 100% for healers.

if you are talking about dungeons then only healing involves 90% idling/overhealing anyway because the barrier to entry is so low. I honestly don't care about this subject, because I don't care what other party members are doing unless they are getting me killed (and even then, that somehow makes it more fun). The point is though, you SHOULD be DPSing while healing if the content permits it, as I said before: a healers job is to do whatever is most relevant at the time, that means that you plan your next GCD around your party's health, and if they don't need a heal, throw out a DPS spell (doesn't even need to be in cleric stance if you struggle with stance dancing). I feel like the gap of expectation is whether cleric stance should be used rather than if DPS spells should be used, because DPSing as a healer should be normal, just as using non tanking combos should be normal for a tank if they have a good amount of aggro.

A raid healer will most of the time make dps sweat because of numbers and tank tighten their pant with life drop to the extreme XD

A raid healer is a whole different subject that isn't even considered when making this argument. When raiding, you typically have a main healer and off-healer. The main healer will maintain heals 100% of the time and will never ever DPS unless there is a phase which allows for it (no damage going out, DPS check push), an off healer gauges through practice when and when not they are able to DPS and on less intensive/overgeared fights, they may find that they are in cleric stance for over 50% of the fight. This DPS output is worked out through strategy and group practice, whereas dungeons and trials work as outlined above, where the partys health dictates what skills you use at any given time (a fact not relegated to pro-healers, but also should apply to standard healers as well)

[Dogempire]

Snippity snap.

I agree with you there, I personally almost always dpsed while healing because I get bored standing around and doing nothing, and you should DPS instead of standing around

Still, I'm against forcing people to play a certain way on dungeon content, some people are uncomfortable with dpsing using cleric and you shouldn't force people to do so

However, I do like dungeons like the vault that force bad players to evolve. I was alright at healing but I wasn't using all my skills at the time, and that had to change during the dungeon.

Well that and I had a crappy computer that would lagg during Sir Cherry Burp's aoes to the point I die, so I couldn't finish the dungeon as a healer. It's amazing how much harder a bad computer makes the game.

[FunkyBunch]

Still, I'm against forcing people to play a certain way on dungeon content, some people are uncomfortable with dpsing using cleric and you shouldn't force people to do so

I think your are equating something no one here is saying. We're not saying Healers should always DPS and maximize their rotations in dungeon content.
We're saying PLEASE DPS A LITTLE BIT.
A Healer DPSing makes the difference between a wipe or running out of TP on large pulls.

EG:
My friend and I were running Neverreap/Fractal for the TTCs yesterday.
As a NIN, I would run out of TP before the second full pull died if the Healer was standing around with his thumb up his butt. It adds about 2-3 minutes to that stupid pull having to single target 5 mobs 0TP. Multiply that by 6 pulls and it makes the dungeon take 50% longer.
And I would have around 300-400 TP left if he was in Cleric Stance.

On Fractal, the pull from the first boss to as far as you can go is literally a WIPE if the Healer doesn't DPS. When it shouldn't be.

Healers who ONLY heal are literally a problem. They can, and DO cause WIPES. If ANY other class caused a wipe it would be unacceptable, I don't understand the "it's ok cuz healers."
If you can't Heal and DPS, either learn, or don't bother to play the class. Learn a class you can do.

[Lambdafish]

Still, I'm against forcing people to play a certain way on dungeon content, some people are uncomfortable with dpsing using cleric and you shouldn't force people to do so

While I appreciate you agreeing, I still feel like you are missing my point, as FunkyBunch pointed out. To quote myself, I mentioned specifically separating the arguement away from the need for cleric stance:

a healers job is to do whatever is most relevant at the time, that means that you plan your next GCD around your party's health, and if they don't need a heal, throw out a DPS spell (doesn't even need to be in cleric stance if you struggle with stance dancing)...

...I feel like the gap of expectation is whether cleric stance should be used rather than if DPS spells should be used, because DPSing as a healer should be normal, just as using non tanking combos should be normal for a tank if they have a good amount of aggro.

What I mean here is that the expectation to throw out a few DPS spells during downtime is valid, and not doing so makes you a bad healer and in extreme examples causes problems for the party. This is no different to a BLM casting only blizzard, or me only doing a 1, 2, 3 combo on WAR (missing maim and storms eye entirely), it is bad practice and slows runs down drastically, not because of skill, but because of laziness (generalizing slightly, but it does not take skill to use a stone spell when the tank is at full health, especially if the tank knows what they are doing).

Nobody is asking dungeon healers to stance dance, as much as we shouldn't expect dungeon tanks to stance dance (especially PLD), but we should expect players to use their full standard rotations and for healers to use the DPS skills that they have (at least in some capacity if they are unsure) even at a casual endgame level.

Example: for SCH you can adlo the tank, put up 3 dots, shadowflare, and broil forever in a dungeon, your fairy will do most of the work, and aetherflow and occasional adlos will do the rest (I suck at healing and still manage to do this easily, an even better healer would stance dance while doing this). WHM and AST have regen spells that achieve a similar scenario