Stop queuing for PotD if you don't intend to DPS at all.

[Rennies]

Just gonna fix something in the title:

Stop queuing for anything as a healer if you don't intend to DPS at all.

You seem to know what I want more than even I do.

[kazeandi]

It's a bit of an intrinsic problem with the game mechanics as such vs players coming from other games where a healer heals, a tank tanks and DDs do damage.
I feel comfortable with dealing damage as WHM, but others might not and personally, I don't care either way. When I'm the tank and the healer just heals, fine with me. It's not like my Pally would contribute enormous DPS either and I'm busy enough already to even notice.

[Watachy]

You seem to know what I want more than even I do.

"You think you do, but you don't." - Blizzard 2016

[EaMett]

It's a bit of an intrinsic problem with the game mechanics as such vs players coming from other games where a healer heals, a tank tanks and DDs do damage.

This 1000 times over.

To add to what was already said it also does not help that the dungeons you do while leveling are with players at max ilvl while you're in all grays. The end result is that your heals feel extremely weak and you're pushed towards the classical healer only role.
My experience has been that people really do not expect you to stance dance during your leveling phases. But as soon as you hit 60 it's another matter and I can understand that some struggle with the somewhat sudden change

I personally feel that a healer should not have to dps unless there's a dps check that needs to be met. Your job is to keep people alive, if you can't do that you're a bad healer, if you can you're an average healer and if you can also dps you're a good healer. That's all there is to it

[Taika]

I personally feel that a healer should not have to dps unless there's a dps check that needs to be met. Your job is to keep people alive, if you can't do that you're a bad healer, if you can you're an average healer and if you can also dps you're a good healer.

The issue with this kind of a standard is that it requires so much less from healers than any other role. If "keeping people alive" only requires 20% activity (or less!), and you say that's an "average" healer, it just doesn't make any sense. For an "average" DD, they're active much closer to 100% of the time, use all of their abilties and do average DPS. Why should the standard expectation be so much lower for a healer?

I think minimum expectation for any role should be trying to be as active as possible in a meaningful way that contributes to the group's goal. For a DD it means following your rotation and taking advantage from all your CDD and OCD slots to boost your DPS as much as possible, for a tank it means establishing and holding the enmity and then contributing to the DPS as much as possible while reducing the damage with cooldowns, and for a healer it means covering the healing requirement and then contributing to the DPS as much as possible. There are individual differences between players in how well they're able to meet this goal, which is ok, but it's not ok for anyone to refuse to try.

[Cynfael]

Taika is spot on about the double standard where healers and the other two roles are concerned; healer is somehow the role for which players feel it's okay to make excuses for low activity.

Somehow healers who idle while waiting for damage or who spam unnecessary heals get a pass when a DD or a tank who takes a siesta mid-fight or who spams skills mindlessly is invariably perceived as being bad.

[EaMett]

... and for a healer it means covering the healing requirement and then contributing to the DPS as much as possible. There are individual differences between players in how well they're able to meet this goal, which is ok, but it's not ok for anyone to refuse to try.

Don't get me wrong. I whole heartedly agree that doing anything is better than sitting around doing nothing. And as a team based game it should be everyone's duty to try and participate as best they can.

I think the sticking point with this "double standard" is mostly that healing is in and of itself quite different. You can't really compare stance dancing to just adding some damage rotations. Also people have a number of circumstances.

I myself am a new player, I will admit to knowing nearly nothing about the tank classes, they're damage mitigation, cooldowns etc... I find it at times really hard to make a good estimate of how many GCDs I will have in Cleric.
Sometimes your tank seems crazy solid and then just melts infront of your eyes. Also people make mistakes and one aoe in a 80-90% HP group can make things shift real quick. And although we're pre-expansion and almost everyone's gear is maxed out which means things are usually pretty stable, I can definitely understand that some might not enjoy stance dancing for these reasons.

Sure it sucks when your members aren't doing their max but so long as you clear in acceptable time then we should let everyone enjoy their game.

We're also mostly in a farming phase and people should imo be allowed to take things down a notch. If you want to help an fc member or novice via chat during your dungeon, by all means do it even if your dps takes a hit. If you want to test a new rotation, or just spam ice while netflix binging, be my guest. Just make sure things are running smoothly and at a good enough pace.

I had this rule while leveling where my first discovery runs in dungeons would be heal only so that I could get a feel for the packs, the damage, the boss mechanics and just enjoy the environment. Several times people have asked me to dps. They did so very nicely and in circumstances where I could definitely afford to, so I was more than ok and obliged. The thing is, between that and the fact that the current gear allows a lot of boss mechanics to be skipped in exchange for heavier healing. I'm now still only discovering some mechanics I had no clue existed (after like 10 runs). Things I would have picked up if I were left alone to enjoy things at my own pace. It's kind of sad really.

I think my bottom line is. Should we encourage healers to DPS? Yes absolutely. Should we call them out if they don't? Not unless it's required or you know them and their circumstances.

[Blonde_Huntress]

I was sympathetic to the "heal only healer" until I really starting doing dungeons as a DPS. I would always DPS when I was a healer, so it was just natural to me because I like being involved. Which brings me to a point:

I was playing Sunken Temple earlier today (as DPS). First time we got wiped because our healer(AST) who was obviously new, did not know the mechanics to the first boss (Doom tiles). So healer goes down, followed by other DPS, then myself, and tank. That's fine--but I noticed the healer would literally just idle during mobs if no one needed healing. Irked me. Our tank apparently wasn't having it, because she disconnected after the wipe and we had to abort.

Second go round, we get another healer (WHM this time), who does THE EXACT SAME THING. No DPS, died on first boss. Thankfully we had good Tank/DPS synergy and I revived her afterwards.

Stop lowering the bar, healers. ;P

[loreleidiangelo]

The issue with this kind of a standard is that it requires so much less from healers than any other role. If "keeping people alive" only requires 20% activity (or less!), and you say that's an "average" healer, it just doesn't make any sense. For an "average" DD, they're active much closer to 100% of the time, use all of their abilties and do average DPS. Why should the standard expectation be so much lower for a healer?

I think minimum expectation for any role should be trying to be as active as possible in a meaningful way that contributes to the group's goal. For a DD it means following your rotation and taking advantage from all your CDD and OCD slots to boost your DPS as much as possible, for a tank it means establishing and holding the enmity and then contributing to the DPS as much as possible while reducing the damage with cooldowns, and for a healer it means covering the healing requirement and then contributing to the DPS as much as possible. There are individual differences between players in how well they're able to meet this goal, which is ok, but it's not ok for anyone to refuse to try.

Even I can acknowledge that in the current state of the game, there's no reason not to be able to contribute DPS as a healer. Tons of our heals are instant-cast, or powerful spammable HoTs, or if things get really bad we have totally bonkers throughput cooldowns to pull people out of the danger zone...there is no conceivable way that one healer in faceroll 4-man content or two healers in even challenging 8-man content would be able to just "keep everyone topped off" and maintain even 50% activity throughout a fight. I think it's okay for people to speak out and say they don't like the healer DPS meta (I don't), but it's not okay to just not do it because "I shouldn't have to".

[ddreth_coamenal]

Ah still new to the game myself. But using all of your resources should be a goal man. If you constantly have 80% of your MP and nothing to do between heals then you have 80% of your mana wasted. Its there to be used, if im not a competent enough healer to heal and throw some DPS in raids and i get kicked its my own fault for not learning my class. I want tanks to use CDs for agro, and DPS to use CDs for damage, and me for heals. But when im getting hit and the tank is currently busy id like the DPS to tank the mod off me, and in turn i do DPS inbetween heals. It might not be out qued in roll but the faster they die the less healing needs to be done.