Quote Originally Posted by Naunet View Post
While I do tend to dps in dungeons in this game, I just wanted to respond to this...

I can guarantee you that even if I am not healing, I am alert and present in the instance. I must always keep an eye on people's health pools. I'm on the look-out for wandering pats. I'm preparing to both dodge AoEs and heal the dps who inevitably stand in them. When the class is capable of it, I'm maintaining up-time on buffs as much as possible. For tanks I'm familiar with, I facilitate pulls to keep things moving. This is how it works in any other MMO. A healer may appear to be just standing around, but that doesn't mean the healer is just twiddling their thumbs and watching Netflix. If they are, you'll know soon enough when people start dying. Healing requires constant attention even if it does not require constant button presses, and I think it's a bit silly to measure someone's contribution to the group based on how many buttons they press.
Operative words being: Any other MMO. Healing in FFXIV simply does not necessitate that type of acute awareness. In dungeons, if you aren't actively DPSing, you are next to useless. People have posted videos where they literally did nothing 80% of the full run. There just isn't enough outgoing damage in this game and until that changes, healers are essentially hybrids.