So, I mostly play DPS in this game because I'm not comfortable enough to do anything with healing or tanking in it yet. I've tinkered with them in the past though so I know a little bit on how they work. I used to play other games in a far more hardcore manner, and kind of "retired" here to get the hell out of that scene simply because of how toxic people can get in both PVE and PVP.

That all being said, I ended up bringing my boyfriend with me. He had played the trial for some time and fell in love with WHM, and even though this was kind of his first MMO he ended up sticking with it once I bought him the full game. We're currently working on his reaction times and general fight mechanics, but all in all he's a decent healer and has only a couple "bad habits".

Or so I thought.

I remember back in the day when Cleric Stance was a thing (I'm ignoring the presence of the cooldown at the moment because it's kind of weird to me for some reason lol), but outside of that I don't see healers hitting things now. I did some research and found some intense conflicting opinions on healers damaging things in dungeons or anything of the matter, but a friend of mine that has played this game since it launched swears up and down that healers have to hit things or they're all around useless. I read through the passives and all that and I can't find anything that would point out to that being a good thing (outside of applying Heavy), and I don't know how that hurts or helps the MP later on because I don't play a healer. Now, when I've seen them hitting things, I've been noticing some really low damage, so I'm assuming healers are just supposed to...heal, and reserve the MP for that alone unless they're just that bored. I need this clarified though, in case I'm missing something and I don't want my poor man to get kicked from groups or anything because he does seem to love dungeoning. Has anyone even tracked how much damage the healers can do to see if it actually matters as much as some assume?

Secondly, last night in one of his groups (he was solo queuing), someone told him not to directly heal any DPS outside of tossing them a regen here and there and to only direct heal the tank. We were both beyond confused at the idea. He hasn't really had anyone die on him yet, but we're wondering if this person was trying to give advice for him later in the game. If so, that's not really what I've been seeing people doing in trials and anything else I've been doing. The friend that I spoke to about the healer doing damage agreed with that person, so now I have no idea what to think on it.

Can I get someone to clear all of this up with some proof to back it up? Like some up to date examples in video or text format? I want to help him as much as possible by figuring this out and explaining it to him.