if you have downtime as a healer and aren't casting damage spells... what are you doing? What else could you be doing?
They could be healing the 99.99% HP tank with Cure II seeing as they just took a negligible auto-attack from a dungeon mob? OK, OK, might be too soon to crack out the jokes, but I've already expended most of my points across several pages here, so I'll at least try to be constructive.


The bulk of criticism isn't being aimed at Healers who |can't| DPS -- if you need to heal, you need to heal (however, 'need' is a variable - there's no need to heal a DPS'er that's on 95% health if you know there's no incoming mechanics, for example).
The bulk of criticism isn't being aimed at Healers who |do| DPS -- but aren't hitting some magical number (at least outside of progressive content)
The bulk of criticism is most definitely being aimed at Healers who |have the opportunity to do 'something'| -- and choose to do absolutely nothing worthwhile. Repeatedly.

Whether it's casual dungeons, standard raids or savage, this adds to the pool of problems arising from all sources, including Tanks & DPS, into a big ball of slowness that hinders the entirety, meaning it is a noticeable factor no matter where your team is. Waited 40mins for a dungeon, only to be grouped with 1k x 2 DPS, an emnity only Tank and a pure-Healer? Well, some may not be phased by the slow pace, but it sure bugs me when I notice that things could so easily be sped up with a little effort (but people choose not to for no valid reason).

I can't speak for every Healing class but, as a WHM, I'll say this:

I don't look at an <100% healthbar as a priority (outside of very specific situations). There's a plethora of times where the team will have taken a light-AoE mechanic so that everyone is down to, say, 80-90% health (eg. Ala Mhigo 1st/2nd boss AoEs), followed by a long period where only the tank will take damage. Do I 'have' to Medica or lash out Cures? Absolutely not. I'm going to stack those DoT's and prepare for the next mechanic phase. When I'm tanking or DPS'ing, however, I'll notice many Healers who see healthbars being under 100% and immediately react in a predictable fashion. It's nice (and part of the job), but not necessary 'at that time'. Same can be said for the tanks - I don't prioritize keeping them at '100%', I prioritize the simple concept of ensuring they have plenty of health to work with, whereas we've all seen healers who force themselves into a "Must keep everyone tip-top at all times" style that is neither necessary nor efficient. There will be moments during certain content where you absolutely have to put more attention into fixing the group up right there and then, but in most casual content this often doesn't apply.

I'll use any opportunity I have to throw a rock. If I know a situation is upcoming (such as tri/quad pull of nastiness), I'll make my own opportunities with QC-Holy, even if it's just to get one trash-wide AeroIII and one or two extra Holy's before the inevitable "now I need to focus 99.99% on the tank for the next 10 seconds" moment -- if I'm going to be reduced into a Cure-Bot, it'll always be with at least one AoE DoT ticking - and even then I'll be looking to use Benison or the next QC-Holy when the stun-immunity has faded if the fight is going on long enough, even if that tense moment isn't even close to being concluded yet. Why? I don't have to keep the tank/party at 100% to get through that mess > I just need to keep people healthy. There's a huge difference.

Again, yes, there are content types with mechanics that are designed to check the Healing specifically, to which you need to adapt, and in such cases (eg. Let's say OS1 Charybdis) - nobody of sane mind is going to say "Hey, dude, just because the entire raid is on 1% doesn't mean you should stop throwing dem rocks, we need da deeps!"

I'm perfectly understanding of, say, Healers entering a dungeon for the first time and exercising caution. I'm perfectly understanding of a Healer who notices a somewhat squishy team being a bit lax with damage intake, mitigation, or just taking forever during burst damage to get anything dead (and wanting to play it safe at those times). I'm perfectly understanding of the fact that not everyone is looking to optimize... But I have absolutely no care or understanding for those who are literally force-fed windows of opportunity to be doing something other than over-healing (and pissing that up the wall by standing there watching everyone else work while they pick their nose waiting for a healthbar to go down to 99%), especially in situations where players are clearly at barely any risk at all.

Again, I consider Poisontongue/Skalla as a good example give almost every lead-up to the bosses involves mega-pulls and the bosses themselves have vastly different opportunity windows, with Poisontongue actually being the most forgiving of the three (provided you have DPS who aren't eating tail-swipes or mouth-beams constantly). Kelpie - no need to monitor health outside of inevitable bloody-puddle and the inevitable movement-mess during orb-link. Even Torpedo (ST attack) is pretty pitiful. Of the three bosses, this is the only one that will really test to see if the Healer is awake, given a lot of the chaos is out of their control if people aren't coordinating. The Old One is only going to give you something to do if the Tank can't keep him facing away from the group at all times. Otherwise, you can DPS it 80% of the time. Poisontongue does negligible damage himself - the only intake is from the unavoidable Orb/Circles, assuming people aren't eating above mentioned beams/swipes and stacking up +Damage debuffs. 1st boss and specific trash packs aside, there is a wealth of opportunities for a Healer (especially a WHM) to shine, yet why do I see so many walk in there like they've lost function in one of their arms and can't seem to find half their spells?

Is it fear? Is it a mentality? Is it just poor play? Laziness? That is what the topic is asking. Why not? As someone above has said, just because it is asked (and discussed at length, sometimes 'pointedly' so) that doesn't make it an outright paint-brush waving assault on every Healer, much like it isn't forgiving DPS'ers doing unacceptable damage or overgeared Tanks sitting in def-stance and over-aggro'ing with emnity-combos and little else.