I don't think I'm cut out to be a healer. x_x

[ManaBanana]

Ah, I did not know this. Will things get a bit better once I'm 70 and end game tanks are in full 300+ gear or do the damage monsters do scale so that the jump in defense is only enough to ensure tanks are still taking the same relative amount of damage they were taking in the previous dungeons?

Yes. That's the benefit of gearing at endgame, though some of the dungeons will have an ilvl cap. But the ilvl caps are usually really generous, like I think the final storyline dungeon is 310. The first few times I did the EX primals undergeared it was a non-stop healfest but now that I'm geared it's easy to weave DPSing in between critical healing periods.

[Renryuu]

Healing is all about experience and confidence.

Oh, I appreciate the motivation. My confidence in healing was shattered back in 2.0 or so when I was maining as a Whm/Sch and my whole FC essentially fell apart after my 65 or so attempts at Titan HM to get my relic weapon at the time. Well to be precise, I was trying to do it via Duty Finder and had went through 60 or so groups that all failed to down him and when some members of the FC stepped in to help and things got heated between my real life friends and the other members of the FC cause I kept blaming our failures on myself and my friends defended me and the other members were mad at my friends for constantly dying. After that the FC basically fell apart aside from it now just being me and my real life friends and I swapped to dps and stayed as such ever since. Now I'm easing back into healing and trying to restore my confidence that I had lost those years ago.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

DPS as much as you can, you're there to kill everything first and foremost. If you aren't dpsing as hard as you can, you're a liability and will promptly be kicked for afking. /meta

Real talk, don't stress too much about dpsing or not dpsing. Clearing content with no/1 wipe is always preferable to wiping constantly. Play according to your group.

[Tridus]

I dunno, I just keep seeing talk on other forums how healers are expected and have to dps to not be kicked that I worry that I'm not up to snuff when I'm going through a dungeon doing nothing but casting heals with dps coming in the form of a byproduct of other abilities.

As many big talkers as the forums and social media have, this is a great example of why they're terrible as a gauge of what the actual playerbase thinks. This talk about kicking is all the rage in the forums. It's extremely rare in reality, in that I've never seen it. I've seen a healer kicked for DPSing too much and letting people die, though.

If it does happen? It will probably annoy you for a while, but its best to try to shrug it off and try again. Some people in game (and lots on the forums) love to think everyone has been playing for four years straight in savage content and is a master at everything. Most of us are not.

Your primary job is to keep everyone alive as much as possible. If you're succeeding at that, you're fine. As you gain experience & confidence (and people around start taking less damage due to gear/knowing the fights), you'll find it gets easier to weave in more DPS. Every healer goes through this phase, you're not alone in it.

You can also help yourself to add more DPS by using your other cards. Bole is a nice draw on trash, as less incoming damage = less time required healing. Arrow will give you more casts (and thus more chances to add some DPS spells). Keeping a pocket balance is great, but use the others too.

Really, the only question you need to ask is if you're having fun healing? If you are, then keep having fun and your skill level will naturally go up. Don't worry about being an expert today.

[Zaresin]

The current top DPS healer is WHM. What WHM can do is top off the tank, use DB, then Holy spam to stun the enemies a couple times, letting you fit in a few casts. You can also use oGCD heals between these casts after the stuns wear off.

I've started to find holy spam to be too risky with this new generation of tanks that don't know how to use damage mitigation buffs and are acc.

[Shurrikhan]

Bardam's Mettle is tough to DPS in if the tank wants to do big pulls.

When leveling WHM, I'd usually only pre-pop Regen and maybe do one C2+DB for the first pull up to the bear. The rest was DPS and just a few of the oGCDs. It's much less the dungeon than your group. Heck, I've no-healed the trash between the 1st and 2nd boss on PLD.

In the end, you're stuck being a crutch for poor DPS and their tank if it comes down to it. But there's nothing about the dungeons themselves, given at-level gear, that would noticeably decrease your percent of casts spent on DPS.

Side-note: The meta-talk is real talk, but idiocy is unpredictable, and marginally more healing may save a need for a rez, which in kind saves 25% output for (albeit a likely already underperforming) tank or DPS. If you know their class seemingly better than they, and no two people who are likely to be sore are paired together for a guaranteed kick against you, feel free to offer advice. (Heavy Thrust is good. Cooldowns are good. AoE is good.)

[KDSilver]

Don't bother trying to dps if you're a beginner to the healing job.
This is something you think about once you have a really good knowledge of your healing toolkit.

If you're still not confident with what you're doing, read again your healing skills description and make some test, watch some guides, pov...
And then later after that, you can think about dpsing.

But indeed, if you see that no one is taking damages for 10s, if you want to minimize risk but still do something : use your dots.
It'll be a small contribution at low risk, its instant and have a 30s timer.

Don't worry.

[Renryuu]

But indeed, if you see that no one is taking damages for 10s, if you want to minimize risk but still do something : use your dots.
It'll be a small contribution at low risk, its instant and have a 30s timer.

Don't worry.

Oh, when it's that long of a duration, I can manage healing and dpsing easily. I start to fret when a tank takes chunks of damage every couple seconds or so. I'll cast Aspected Benefic for regen and cast Benefic 2 and I instantly have to cast another Benefic 2 because they just took a chunk of damage. This is how most pulls go, me playing catch up with my heals just to ensure the tank is at least staying in the 50-60% range as the damage slowly overpowers how fast I can heal. When that isn't the case, it's dps standing in any and every aoe possible so I'm spending time healing them instead. Every gcd is spent on a heal and leaving me no downtime to even rest, much less dps.

[ManaBanana]

As many big talkers as the forums and social media have, this is a great example of why they're terrible as a gauge of what the actual playerbase thinks. This talk about kicking is all the rage in the forums. It's extremely rare in reality, in that I've never seen it. I've seen a healer kicked for DPSing too much and letting people die, though.

This is exactly it. If you believe reddit or forums you'd think everyone in this game expects healers to be doing DPS role level damage in fights, and that's why you tend to see a lot of people in full parties that are just spamming stone or whatever and not actually group healing which puts undue pressure on the other healer. DPSing in between healing is fun, but first and foremost we're healers. That's our main priority. And TBH I don't care if I'm in a trial or whatever with another healer just focusing on healing. It means there's more of a buffer for me to do my own DPS when there's time for it.

[bloodSp3c]

I know healers are supposed to heal and dps, but I'm having to spend so much time and MP on healing that I don't get any real chance to dps and I'm feeling like a failure of a healer.

errrr that is incorrect. your job is to heal, once your comfortable with that and think u can handle all that dungeons/trials/other team members etc throw at u, then have a go at casting a few dps spells here n there. u do not have to dps and don't let anyone tell u otherwise

if u enjoy healing, keep at it