Kilieit, Arrelaine, Syranelle, and some others made some very good points. Not everyone is comfortable stance-dancing and not everyone is able to do it well. Yes, "good healers" can do it, but I think it's really shitty to imply that someone who's not a "good healer" isn't allowed to heal unless it's with friends who tolerate them. As long as you're not shooting for the really difficult, endgame content, I think everyone is allowed to play the game and their class of choice, even if they aren't "good." As long as you can clear the content with little hiccups, it's content you should be allowed to do without ever feeling guilty about not doing as "good" of a job as possible.
(Take it with a grain of salt that this post is mostly pertaining to WHM, since I main a WHM and I'm not as familiar with the other healing classes.)
Ultimately, you don't know what's happening on the other side of someone's monitor. Maybe they have RL distractions because something popped up or they have distractions 24/7 and don't have time to play without them, maybe they have lag issues or low FPS rates thanks to their internet or computer, maybe they have health issues that makes it difficult for them to focus or react quickly or move their fingers nimbly. I think these people should still be allowed to play the game, and still play the class of their choice if they can still perform its primary role (in this case, healing) and aren't causing wipes left and right. It seems so incredibly callous to me to brush these people off with an attitude that boils down to "well sorry go play something else then lolz."
Healer DPS is pretty minimal in most cases. Most of the time, it's not going to save your party from a wipe and it's not going to shave a huge amount of time off your completion time. In a party with good DPS, they'll blast through trash mobs in seconds before you can hardly switch to cleric stance and pop off a single Holy. In a party with bad DPS, it's great if the healer can help, but it's so bizarre to me that people scream at the healer to work extra and pick up the DPS's slack rather than chastise the DPS for not doing their own primary role well and that this is a widely accepted attitude. Most people choose to play healers because they don't want to DPS. We want to heal, so a good chunk of us really don't find "just healing" to be terribly boring. It's all just pressing keys either way, though DPSing is admittedly more mind-numbing than healing.
I think every job needs to focus on their primarily role. Tanks helping with casting stoneskin and protect or popping self-heals or even DPSing extra is great, but I don't want the tank of my party doing that if it leads them to lose aggro on something. DPS helping with raises or heals is awesome, too, but I don't want them doing it in the middle of a tight DPS check or when healers have things covered and the boss is taking forever to die. Healers DPSing or swapping into cleric stance to help speed up a dungeon or beat a DPS check is helpful but it will only make the dungeon even longer or fail the DPS check if they end up letting DPS die or even causing a full party wipe. In the rare event I tank or DPS in the dungeon, there's nothing more frustrating than watching the party's HP drop as the healer is laser-focused on DPSing or forgetting to swap out of Cleric Stance to heal us and we end up dying/wiping or wasting all our self-heals and "ohshit" cooldowns when we shouldn't need to pop them.
Imo, cleric stance and attack skills were put in the game largely for solo-leveling (and if you have solo-leveled, say, a WHM, you know exactly how much damage these skills put out for you: not very). Sure, the game teaches you how to use them in instances and parties, because that's a thing you can do and is super helpful if you're able. But ultimately, you're the healer. Your primary role is to heal. If you can help outside of your class's primary role and outside the main task of what's expected of you, great, but don't do it if it's more likely to hinder your party than help them. If you aren't confident going above and beyond--because that's exactly what it is--do what you know and focus on your main job. If you're a bombass healer and your party is running smoothly, though, by all means don't sit around doing nothing, swap to Cleric Stance and help DPS, but don't feel pressured if you're struggling with just healing alone or if you know that stance-dancing does not work well for you.
And if you aren't comfortable stance-dancing, sure, you can say it outright and let your party know. But it's grossly victim-blamey to see a few people imply we need encourage healers to apologize for not stance-dancing as soon as the dungeon starts rather than discourage people from screaming obscenities at healers who aren't DPSing or stance-dancing. Sorry, nah, I'm gonna keep advocating that people not be assholes. Chances are that with the terrible attitude that leads people to yell at healers for something so asinine, letting that sort of person know you're uncomfortable with stance-dancing won't chill them out, it will just lead them to scream about it even earlier in the instance than it would have taken for them to notice you aren't using Cleric Stance on their own.
Budding healers, please don't let all this negativity and pressure scare you away from healing classes or PUG's. Nowadays, I typically steal my boyfriend's PC for dungeons and live in a city with decent internet, but when I was stuck on my own laptop I got an average 4 FPS in instances on lowest settings (that's not an exaggeration, it was legit 4 FPS on average) and froze/overheated often, had subpar internet due to living in a fairly rural area, RL distractions weren't uncommon, and I have some anxiety that can give me sloppy fingers when I get stressed. Suffice to say, I didn't stance-dance or even DPS much. I never knew when I might get a lag spike or DC, so I just focused on keeping the party topped off at all times. Despite all that, only a couple times has anyone in my party ever bitched at me about me not DPSing or stance-dancing. Maybe I'm just lucky, but it seems like most of the yelling is contained to tumblr, the official forums, and now the RPC. If you do a kickass job of keeping the party topped off and buffed and toss out your aero DoT's, chances are no one will have any complaints.
(Take it with a grain of salt that this post is mostly pertaining to WHM, since I main a WHM and I'm not as familiar with the other healing classes.)
Ultimately, you don't know what's happening on the other side of someone's monitor. Maybe they have RL distractions because something popped up or they have distractions 24/7 and don't have time to play without them, maybe they have lag issues or low FPS rates thanks to their internet or computer, maybe they have health issues that makes it difficult for them to focus or react quickly or move their fingers nimbly. I think these people should still be allowed to play the game, and still play the class of their choice if they can still perform its primary role (in this case, healing) and aren't causing wipes left and right. It seems so incredibly callous to me to brush these people off with an attitude that boils down to "well sorry go play something else then lolz."
Healer DPS is pretty minimal in most cases. Most of the time, it's not going to save your party from a wipe and it's not going to shave a huge amount of time off your completion time. In a party with good DPS, they'll blast through trash mobs in seconds before you can hardly switch to cleric stance and pop off a single Holy. In a party with bad DPS, it's great if the healer can help, but it's so bizarre to me that people scream at the healer to work extra and pick up the DPS's slack rather than chastise the DPS for not doing their own primary role well and that this is a widely accepted attitude. Most people choose to play healers because they don't want to DPS. We want to heal, so a good chunk of us really don't find "just healing" to be terribly boring. It's all just pressing keys either way, though DPSing is admittedly more mind-numbing than healing.
I think every job needs to focus on their primarily role. Tanks helping with casting stoneskin and protect or popping self-heals or even DPSing extra is great, but I don't want the tank of my party doing that if it leads them to lose aggro on something. DPS helping with raises or heals is awesome, too, but I don't want them doing it in the middle of a tight DPS check or when healers have things covered and the boss is taking forever to die. Healers DPSing or swapping into cleric stance to help speed up a dungeon or beat a DPS check is helpful but it will only make the dungeon even longer or fail the DPS check if they end up letting DPS die or even causing a full party wipe. In the rare event I tank or DPS in the dungeon, there's nothing more frustrating than watching the party's HP drop as the healer is laser-focused on DPSing or forgetting to swap out of Cleric Stance to heal us and we end up dying/wiping or wasting all our self-heals and "ohshit" cooldowns when we shouldn't need to pop them.
Imo, cleric stance and attack skills were put in the game largely for solo-leveling (and if you have solo-leveled, say, a WHM, you know exactly how much damage these skills put out for you: not very). Sure, the game teaches you how to use them in instances and parties, because that's a thing you can do and is super helpful if you're able. But ultimately, you're the healer. Your primary role is to heal. If you can help outside of your class's primary role and outside the main task of what's expected of you, great, but don't do it if it's more likely to hinder your party than help them. If you aren't confident going above and beyond--because that's exactly what it is--do what you know and focus on your main job. If you're a bombass healer and your party is running smoothly, though, by all means don't sit around doing nothing, swap to Cleric Stance and help DPS, but don't feel pressured if you're struggling with just healing alone or if you know that stance-dancing does not work well for you.
And if you aren't comfortable stance-dancing, sure, you can say it outright and let your party know. But it's grossly victim-blamey to see a few people imply we need encourage healers to apologize for not stance-dancing as soon as the dungeon starts rather than discourage people from screaming obscenities at healers who aren't DPSing or stance-dancing. Sorry, nah, I'm gonna keep advocating that people not be assholes. Chances are that with the terrible attitude that leads people to yell at healers for something so asinine, letting that sort of person know you're uncomfortable with stance-dancing won't chill them out, it will just lead them to scream about it even earlier in the instance than it would have taken for them to notice you aren't using Cleric Stance on their own.
Budding healers, please don't let all this negativity and pressure scare you away from healing classes or PUG's. Nowadays, I typically steal my boyfriend's PC for dungeons and live in a city with decent internet, but when I was stuck on my own laptop I got an average 4 FPS in instances on lowest settings (that's not an exaggeration, it was legit 4 FPS on average) and froze/overheated often, had subpar internet due to living in a fairly rural area, RL distractions weren't uncommon, and I have some anxiety that can give me sloppy fingers when I get stressed. Suffice to say, I didn't stance-dance or even DPS much. I never knew when I might get a lag spike or DC, so I just focused on keeping the party topped off at all times. Despite all that, only a couple times has anyone in my party ever bitched at me about me not DPSing or stance-dancing. Maybe I'm just lucky, but it seems like most of the yelling is contained to tumblr, the official forums, and now the RPC. If you do a kickass job of keeping the party topped off and buffed and toss out your aero DoT's, chances are no one will have any complaints.