Mages are nukers. They don't need to just heal. If you're the only Mage, you do need to be a bit more careful to stay alive and prevent a wipe. But you don't have to stand back and do nothing.
Sounds like you're running with bad groups. My suggestion would be to host your own game and invite any friends you know who could help. Communicate before you start anything. Tell everyone what you plan to do and ask how if you're not sure. Communication is incredibly important when you're not a seasoned farmer or just playing with people you don't usually run with. Once you've gotten used to each boss's strategy, and have some good friends you can depend on, it will get a lot easier and you'll be able to do VL runs in your sleep (with a good team).
It's a lot of fun learning it with others who are just learning. The friends I learned with ended up being the ones I stuck with most of the time. You learn each other's strengths and weaknesses, and know how to work with each other. It's so much better than running with random groups where everyone just does their own thing.
So, to sum it up:
-Host your own game
-Invite dependable friends
-Communicate at the start of each game. If anyone is ignoring you, I would give them a warning that they need to communicate or get booted.
-Learn from the players that know what they're doing. Try to teach the ones that don't.
-If you work well with someone, add them to your friends list. If someone is just making your life harder and simply can't learn, remove them from your friends list.
-Befire you know it you'll have a group of friends you can count on, so you can create only LOCKED games and keep out all the riffraff.
Hope that helps
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