DPS is the job of DPS.

[Shurrikhan]

I know! It was one of the first edgelording lessons I learned when I kept swapping between them before reading the tooltip. All the guides I read were 3.0 DRK, so for the first 5 levels or so, I actually played DRK like 3.0 DRK Luckily, those levels were spent with my squadron, which is precisely why I chose to only tank with them or FC mates in the beginning. []...I am not trying to provide situations where DS should not be active. I'm only stating why I don't/didn't see it as a penalty. But I am also factoring overall group DPS, and whether or not dropping Grit truly benefits this DPS if healer DPS is sacrificed as a result.

To be fair, it would be neat if there were situations where Darkside could viably be dropped. In Heavensward I used to do so before huge speedruns pulls if sudden adds had forced me to overspend mana a bit to recover, meaning I wouldn't have my mana at or near cap before the next mass pull, but with the changes to it and Grit - Syphon Strike, at most I just refresh Grit just before my last couple Syphon Strikes. The button seemingly exists only to be able to be clicked off during long jump mechanics now.

Of course, I am talking about any content where the instance can't be facerolled, and when all participants playing optimally, DPS is shifted between the offensive/defensive mindset of the healer and tank.

Unfortunately, those are far and few between, and take a lot of job knowledge, understanding of conventions, and tracking in order to spot. You essentially want to be able to track your healer's CDs just as you do your own, at least to the effect that you know when they'll refresh to within the duration of whichever of your own buffs you'd be counting on in the meantime.

Luckily, you at least don't seem to be falling for the idea that healer dps and tank dps are directly interchangeable. The windows and rates by which your health will fall into levels that demand a global of healing, and what can be gained during that time depends entirely on what damage is newly allowed by reducing that rate and thereby stretching those windows. As as rule of thumb, though, if they don't have to pop abilities to keep you up, and they can maintain their highest per-execute spells (like Aero III) so long as they play well, lean towards your own damage. Its easy to assume that healers can make more out of that mitigation than they actually can, or are more diminished without it than they really are.