How scared should I be about DPS?

[Shurrikhan]

He's correct. You should be focused on three things, in order:
1. Not dying
2. Healing
3. DPS

This is true. That said, I've consistently seen people improve far more quickly by working backwards from the final goal (dps).

As a healer, you shouldn't be thinking "When can I dps?" Not only is it the overwhelming majority of GCDs, but also tends to feel more ambiguous in such terms.
Within a given window, the question should be "How much damage will I have to undo?" (This will depend on your cohealer, tank, and idiocy of any and all players among AoEs only if such would otherwise kill them.)
Likewise, you shouldn't be thinking, "When can't I move?" so much as "Where do I need to be next?"

[Vyriah]

"When (or, for how many GCDs over this time) can't I dps?"

When you end up with phrasing as ambiguous there is sure something wrong with how you see the game. To me there's two only moment I can't DPS : I'm dead or the boss is impossible to target. Outside of this, I can just press that Stone IV/Broil II/Malefic II all I want.
More likely it's from "when can I DPS ?" to "how much do I have to heal ?" that will land you better success. Healing isn't just casting, all classes have a lot of OGCD now so it isn't really strictly about casting heals vs casting DPS. Planning ahead is much more important than landing two more cast, wich is only a matter when you know the fight perfectly and try to get a better performance.

And all this vary depending and the other healer. No only depending their performance but more simply with how they use their CD.

[Shurrikhan]

When you end up with phrasing as ambiguous there is sure something wrong with how you see the game. To me there's two only moment I can't DPS : I'm dead or the boss is impossible to target. Outside of this, I can just press that Stone IV/Broil II/Malefic II all I want.
More likely it's from "when can I DPS ?" to "how much do I have to heal ?" that will land you better success. Healing isn't just casting, all classes have a lot of OGCD now so it isn't really strictly about casting heals vs casting DPS. Planning ahead is much more important than landing two more cast, wich is only a matter when you know the fight perfectly and try to get a better performance.

And all this vary depending and the other healer. No only depending their performance but more simply with how they use their CD.

I meant to imply quite heavily that those were the same thing. How much do I have to (do something other than DPS) --> How much do I have to heal? I should have done another pass over for semantics.

Thank you for the reminder. I've reworded for precision while trying to maintain brevity.

[MPNZ]

You'll be ok if you just cast a few dots occasionally if the damage to your tank permits it. And you also need to communicate with your tank to recover your MP. Casting attack spells will always be a risk, and it can really drain your MP significantly if you're not careful. So, don't feel pressured to beyond your current comfort zone. If things become unconfortable: plz speak up. It's better than wiping while trying to speed run an instance, ok.

[IttyBitty]

Go into every encounter intending to DPS as much as you can, even if it's your first time. There's literally no reason not to. Your tempo will adapt far better than if you sit there doing nothing until mechanics happen.

[VanilleFang]

Simple answer: you shouldn't be scared at all.

Not so simple answer: already covered extensively by others. Don't really feel the need to go over it all again. Not really in the mood to be part of this old debate again either.

[winsock]

How stressed should I be about putting out top DPS as a healer?

At the end of the day, healer DPS is mostly a participation issue. There may be higher requirements if you want to join specific groups, but they'll let you know what those requirements are.

You shouldn't feel stressed at all about dpsing if you need to cast your strongest heals back to back to keep people alive.

You should feel stressed if you're casting nothing, spamming your weakest heals even though you don't need to save mp, or spamming heals on targets that don't need healing. Tanks and dps would face similar criticism if they were to sit idle, not use appropriate skills, or spam skills that had no value.

[KuroShinra]

form not a good healer/healer dps's POV

Is healer dps require? For me, it's yes and no
For the normal dungeon, healer dps is not needed to clear dungeon but it will make clearing speed much faster.
For savage, healer dps pretty much require to clear the fight for most group in the early patch (well, if dps can cover 3-4k dps, sure no need for healer to dps)
But of course, if DPS is not enough, first thing is to look at DPS's damage first rather than tank/heal since it they main job.

Ps. To start dpsing maybe keep it a bit more each time in the dungeon. Don't force all dps in the first place since you still not comfortable with it
Pss. you can /dance most of the time if you only heal anyway

[Taika]

well, if dps can cover 3-4k dps, sure no need for healer to dps

Sorry to derail the thread, but even Sigmascape 1 Savage requires 23k group DPS without LB (based on the group DPS of the worst group to have a recorded kill on the fight on FFlogs). If the tanks in the group do 5k total DPS, that still leaves 4.5k for every single DD. And this is the fight with the lowest DPS check, floor 2 requires 28k, floor 3 29k, and God Kefka over 31k.

Editing here because I don't wish to derail the thread further:

The raid DPS requirement are indicative, nothing in the game is that clear decided. [...] Lining up numbers menas nothing by itself, the only thing that matters in that specific case is "did the boss enrage".

[...]R-DPS also kind makes every one forget that the boss have an HP bar. It dies because its HP reach 0, not because R-DPS is 23k for 12 minutes.

Group DPS requirement is a thing very much set in stone: it tells the amount of DPS required for the group to beat the boss from pull to enrage timer. There is no variation to it. To make that boss HP bar reach 0, you will need to meet the group DPS requirement, there simply is no other way.

Basically "DPS all doing 4.5 DPS" doesn't even exist in the game, it's specific abstract reasoning tailored to get to a concrete conclusion. Wich makes your reasoning false even though the conclusion isn't. Because the same abstract reasoning could lead to "better team composition leads to better R-DPS".

The reasoning isn't abstract, it's in fact based on very concrete numbers. Of course I didn't literally mean to say that the DPS requirement has to be evenly split between DDs (it pretty much never is), but that does not change my point: the group DPS requirement is set in stone and has to be met by the party members' combined effort for them to be able to clear the fight. If your healers aren't taking part in this effort, the burden on the DDs and tanks will increase, since healers refusing to take part does not magically make the requirement any lower. And I was particularly commenting on the claim that 3-4k DPS is enough from DDs to not make your healers do any DPS and still beat the enrage timer, which isn't likely to happen in any of the current Savage fights.

[Vyriah]

The raid DPS requirement are indicative, nothing in the game is that clear decided. Statistics always lie in a way or another and that why parse and such are tool you use for yourself, not something that could tell how anyone should play.

Lining up numbers menas nothing by itself, the only thing that matters in that specific case is "did the boss enrage". If it did more DPS is required.
You can use a parse to try out what does more and what doesn't, but it all comes down to what you do in the game, not some abstract number ceiling. R-DPS also kind makes every one forget that the boss have an HP bar. It dies because its HP reach 0, not because R-DPS is 23k for 12 minutes. And this illustrate why "throwing a DPS spell is always a gain" much better than you ever did all your hundred of post on how healer DPS is a necessity.

Basically "DPS all doing 4.5 DPS" doesn't even exist in the game, it's specific abstract reasoning tailored to get to a concrete conclusion. Wich makes your reasoning false even though the conclusion isn't. Because the same abstract reasoning could lead to "better team composition leads to better R-DPS".