Is pre-buffing neccessary?

[KisaiTenshi]

My opinion:

I wasn't playing the game for a while, and then StoneSkin II became available, but found it has one fundamental flaw: All targets must be destroyed before it can be re-deployed. What this means is that if your tanks are too eager to rush (eg no pre-buff) into combat, you won't get a chance to complete casting it. Hence tanks waiting for a pre-buff might be waiting for this, and it might not be available if you're speed running.

I'm of the opinion that if you are playing a healer:
1. Cast Protect
2. Cast StoneSkin II
3. Don't cast any heals before the Tank grabs aggro.

However, the way I play is that I exclusively play WHM as a healer, I don't throw any DPS out there unless the battle calls for it. What I have noticed is that there are quite a few WHM's that spend more of their time DPS'ing than healing with PUG's, and sure enough someone dies because they're not paying attention to the party's HP.

If you are playing a healing class, your first priority is healing the party members, including the other healer. The point of 2 healers in the 8-man parties is to heal characters in tandem (two people casting cure, vs you just spamming cure II on the tanks) to conserve MP.