I usually am the healer, so I can't really say. I only have one healer build, and it's the same I use for Vet Trials. So, yeah, when I pug, I heal as well as I would in a trial.

I used to PUG with my healer, but it's Russian roulette. I met so many bad DD's that my healer often did more DPS.

If I'd use the queue nowadays, I'd be a fake heal because of all the fake DD's using groupfinder. I can't be bothered though so I befriended actual DD's.

Every time khajiit has pugged vet dungeons as dps he has always have skilled an pleasant healers who have kept him alive despite his best efforts at dying. This has been staggeringly consistent over the past 5 or 6 years. Kind of frightening - is almost as if queue understands "oh no, it's -that- khajiit again, put best healer on it!"

When this one pugs vets as tank, he almost always gets cp 50-140 folks who are wearing prophet's gear and not sure which direction to run.

This one does not know if he should be insulted or flattered.

As someone who pretty much only queues as a healer (mostly in vet dungeons) I'm not really qualified to answer the question.

That said, a major challenge when queueing as a healer is that something like 50% of PuGs don't really need a healer at all (usually because of sky high unbuffed DPS), 30% mainly need a 3rd DD (because their DPS is so low buffing won't help), 10% need a whole bunch of actual healing (because of standing in stupid), and a final 10% want (but don't really need) damage/sustain buffs. This makes it really hard to have a build that's good for everyone.

I tend to compromise by running a DD/healer hybrid build, but I'm sure that disappoints some people because I have fewer group buffs than they're used to in their organized trials runs.

I guess many people in PUG can miss the healer's work because they don't look at it specially.
It is close to the job of computer server administrator: nobody knows about your work when it is nicely done, people notice the difference only if it is failed

I usually can see how a healer works while working as a tank.
For normals and nonDLC vets: More than a half of them are just fakes. Many of the rest limit their work with a few hots and just do damage in spare time. About 5% summary put synergy on tank. The same 5% buff dd with something.
For DLC vets the % of buff and synergy providers is about 60%. Many of them used ults in time, were situatonaly aware and could save the group in critical moment if necessary.

Interesting fact: many of dedicated healers with synergy and buffs in normals were 30-49 lvl, not champions. Maybe vets upped their alts or something like that IDK.

Actually, if you want to meet a good healer in random group - queue to vet DLC. You'll find gold. Sometimes not

Stop pugging normal and you'll see plenty of healers.

I only play veteran, and most healers there range from decent to top notch.
The occasionnal fake healer scum is there too, though, sometimes.

But yes, in veteran, the lack of quality healer/tank is less of a problem. I do my random in vet, now, for that reason.

I initially felt called out by this, as a true healer.

Then I remembered that nobody sees me in the queue because I stopped running group content since U35. I still think of myself as a healer and I really need to let go of it.

I think a 'good healer' means different things for different groups; for eg., I prefer healers that do more buffing/debuffing than actual healing and also have damage skills slotted for off-dpsing (which is how I play my own healer characters as well), and generally having a rotation and decent APM, and I don't see many healers like that at all in random PUGs, only in organized groups. To be fair though you only need healers like that for pushing harder content, which is not usually the case for PUGs, so it makes sense you don't see them often in these groups.

Absolutely. I ran into one the other night in Vmf. I see it a lot it vet dlcs. Not much in notmals though.

usually me, unless i'm tanking or dps lol

I stopped pugging dungeons because when I queued as a healer or tank (in "appropriate" setups for the content) I would usually be doing 30-50% of the group damage, using 3 or 4 skills that do damage in total.

They were painful, slow, and a complete turnoff from queuing. I'll run 1/10th the dungeons, but do them with friends for an enjoyable experience.

And the second you even think about mentioning to a "Damage Dealer" that actually using skills instead of just bow light attacking will do more damage... you're either going to get a forum thread, falsely reported, or both... and I'm just not frankly risking my account for players who have no intent on actually improving at their role.

The last time I pugged on my tank, we had to kill 12 Daedroths on the final boss of BCII... and there were still 8 alive when he finally died. I was doing 40% of the damage. Group damage was 12k.

Never again.