Healer pulling?

[HyoMinPark]

Is it okay for a healer to pull mobs in a raid/dungeon with an ability that heals and damages?

Last week, my FC & I were doing Orbonne. An AST set Earthly Star in the midst of a group of mobs before anyone had pulled. It eventually went off before the tanks pulled, causing the mobs to attack.

Being an AST main, I disagreed with the AST setting it before the fight began, since it could (and did) pull mobs before tanks were ready. My raid leader, also a healer main, said it was excusable, since it was in anticipation of healing a tank.

I’d like some opinions from other players of varying roles and raid experience. What is your opinion on the matter? No matter your stance, please try to be respectful of everyone else here. Thank you! ^.^

I play AST in generally all content outside of Savage (because I BRD for my group), and I disagree with what that AST did. It’s one thing to preplace a Star if a countdown has already started (to heal for any sort of raid AOE that comes out within the first 10~15 secs of a fight—I time mine in Seiryu Ex at -10 seconds left on the countdown so I don’t have to heal the first Fifth Element and can just continue to DPS, for example), but it’s another to just place it before there’s been a Ready Check/Countdown/any indication that a tank is ready to pull the mobs. That’s incorrect play.

I supposed it depends on how long they waited to place it. Meaning:
—Did they enter the room and immediately drop it?
—Did they wait about 20~30 seconds and then drop it when people had come into the room?
—Had a full minute or longer passed before they dropped it, and was there no indication that the tanks were willing to pull (i.e., all of them sitting in DPS stance waiting for another tank to put on tank stance)?

Yeah that's unnecessary - a tank shouldn't have taken enough damage on an initial pull to warrant earthly star anyway. That's a skill better used to cover group damage like aoes or things like Cid's cleansing strike. Sounds like just a showoff healer.

To be fair, most good ASTs use Earthly Star in their opener for the damage, even if there isn’t a raid-wide in the very beginning. You don’t want to end up losing a cast of it throughout any given fight. Sure, not all have raid-wides in the first 10~15 seconds, but it does still deal 200 potency under Giant Dominance (and, if this was trash, it’s 200 potency per mob with zero falloff). Earthly Star is something ASTs have to think about using if they want to get the most out of it in a fight—its timings are still something that I am working on myself, and I play it more than I play BRD now.

That being said, placing a Star before there’s any indication that a tank is about to pull (ready check, countdown, everyone’s within the room, etc.) is improper play and just impatience. I can only sympathize if everyone had been standing around in the room for a full minute and there was no indication of a pull coming up (tank stand-offs come to mind here)—and, at that point, if a healer isn’t going to pull after standing around for a full minute, a DPS will.