How does someone chose to heal as his main role, what is the thought process?

Community General Discussion
1

I always thought that we have natural tendency to pick DPS or even tank because doing damage feels a lot more interactive (you see the boss or the mob health lowering), and it gives this psychological feeling of power and being in control.

Many people main healers and they obviously truly enjoy the game just as an dpser.
All I wanted is to hear is - Healers, what is your thought process and motivation to main that role? Everyone can heal from time to time - what is strange to me is that there are people so dedicated that they only heal and that is the only way they enjoy this game.

I hope you can understand my questions. Thanks!

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I am not a healer, but the friend I play with has been having heaps of fun playing Holy Paladin because he is able to not only heal, but even DPS really well because of the build he uses. He also enjoys Restoration Druid in M+.

If you have friends healing can be a blast of its own. It may seem like a whack-a-mole game but, not unlike damaging, you can get used to other roles at some point and not stress about it.

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3

Some people just like to be helpers but mainly comes from already being a healer in other games and that becomes their main role across all games.
Not sure if this game works like this but healers usually have to be social with the community or they won’t get very far in the game so quick(since they are supports), so usually healers are people who also engage a lot with community in the game

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4

^ This for starters

2nd, As a healer main i find dpsing boring, the way you look at healing as boring slave role as most is how i see dps

Dpsin borin

I do go tank purely to be supportive though, not that i dont like tanking but tanks feels alot more like a dps in the current season in terms of gameplay … the only difference is that i do the pullin instead of some dps :b:oi

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5

As a Healer main, I can say healing is NOT an easy job. The feeling of keeping my friends alive is a main part of why I choose it. But… you need to have the Best gear, you need to be buffed, and stuff like that.

It’s pretty easy for low level dungeons, but once the legion/BFA ones come, boy does it get harder because you Have to move every 1 second which stinks as a caster/healer. If your health goes low and you only have a few mana you need to decide fast wether to heal yourself or the tank, and ooof the panic attacks. Meaning If you die they blame you, if the Tank dies they still blame you.

That’s why I keep switching between DPS and healing. But as a healer you get accepted faster.

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6

See, that feeling of control is why I play healer main with a tank offspec. I decide who lives, and who dies. I can even save the boss, and let everyone else die!

To be more serious, the reason I enjoy healing is because I find it more interactive and engaging than DPSing. Apart from tasks everyone needs to perform (avoid fire, handle mechanics, etc), as a DPS your only task is to dish out damage. Perhaps throw in some shroud or stun or interrupt or whatever. As a healer, on the other hand, you’ll need to keep the entire group alive - you pay attention not only to the mechanics, you also pay attention to the rest of the party. And ideally, you also squeeze in some damage too.

But if you want to relax a bit, you just stand at the back and heal people. In many cases, your DPS won’t make or break the encounter, so there’s plenty of opportunities to just… lay back. Can’t do that as DPS, nor as tank.

Personally, I just don’t enjoy playing DPS. It doesn’t give me the overview of the whole party and the enemies we’re fighting the way healing does. Making those health bars go up gives quite a bit of oomph.

Hi. I’m very much not a social person. Yet, I main healer, and do just fine. Every PuG needs a healer.

Were I a DPS, I’d be in a lot more trouble, there’s an abundance of those.

The first - and only - MMO I played healer in is WoW. I started as DPS main, had a two-expansion tank stint, quit, came back as healer, and gonna stick with it (with a tank offspec, because tanking is still fun). In any other MMO or cooperative game, I never played healer, unless I could play a tank+healer hybrid (like a tank/healer Templar in ESO). When I played roleplaying games, I very rarely was in a support role. When I played classes that could heal and play support, I usually played those aggressively.

Not really fitting the stereotypical support role, am I? :wink:

I know a lot of healers who are in similar shoes. We don’t see ourselves as support. We see the tank and the healer as the core of the group, who control how the run goes, with DPS supporting us with damage.

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7

I main healers because there is so much freedom and opportunities for getting better. I love dealing dps while healing, this role has never been this much fun! It brings another layer of depth to the role - balancing healing with dps is trickier than it seems at first.

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8

Healers rock !

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9

I can only speak from my perspective in TBC when I played a Holy Forsaken priest as a main.

I had lots of reasons:

  • Healers were a role many didn’t want to pick, this deceased guild died because of lack of healers in vanilla period.
  • I always got invited to groups.
  • I had a permanent spot in my TBC raiding guild as a healer in Karazhan trial group.
  • I felt what I was doing was important, as opposed to play this character I am posting on, because everyone wanted to play as Hunter back during Vanilla - TBC period.
  • Healer required a much different set of skills, as you had to look at your players HP constantly while making sure your mana wasn’t depleted during a raid boss encounter, while avoiding mechanics and keeping yourself alive.
    I still have memories of Magister Terrace, failing miserable at keeping the group alive, being replaced after being killed during the fight, by our elemental shaman, in the boss group before Kael’thas.
    Or our guild tank having to bring his Holy priest main ditching his Druid tank in the process in order for us to kill Kael’thas, because I kept dying to mechanics.

Cheers.

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It’s a social role, I suppose.

Anybody who logs in for a few minutes a day to do WQs and click on a couple items on the ground and 2-shot some mobs, to be claimed “hero of Azeroth”…yeah playing a healing spec makes absolutely zero sense.

And these days that is probably the majority of players.

Someone who PvPs or raids would consider playing a healer if it was for the benefit of their guild and friends.

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You feel like you’re always doing something useful.
A lot of the time with DPS you just feel like you’re fulfilling your role, doing your expected DPS.

With healer in group content even when you’re just fulfilling your role too, you still feel like this group is progressing because of you. DPS is just how fast you progress, most of the time.

With that said I’d never main a healer because I prefer solo content.

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I’ve never liked playing dps and never even tried tanking. Made this shammy back in BC cause we needed healers and had no shammies, and it just stuck with me.

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In all honesty, I went shadow priest->ret pally->dk dps. A friend begged me to swap factions, so I asked for a run-down of what other classes do, and when he got to “druids can heal, but they have to be a walking tree to do it” I thought “that’s hilarious, I’ll try it”.
I hated it at first actually. No one was kind to new healers. People died to oneshots, and blamed me. Apologizing was never enough, even if I wasn’t in the wrong.
I stuck with it mostly because I thought as a woman I was expected to heal. Didn’t wanna feel like I’m less cool than all the sweet kind restodruid ladies that everyone loves. Also I wasn’t interested in committing the time to level another character, so I stuck with it and learned to enjoy it over time.

Tried dps years later, hated it. It sucked to be locked to rotations, and everyone was even more rude and ruthless than when I was healing.

Healing is unpredictable. I like saving people who thought they were dead and gripping people to safety. Managing to keep a particularly papery tank alive feels cool. Also it’s neat to be able to fulfill a role that my friends usually don’t want to do. This way we don’t have to search forever for someone else to do it and then be disappointed when they end up being one of those primadonnas that sits down in protest because one of us missed an interrupt.

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14

:rofl: i would say that good healer is waaaay more active then dps

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15

I do it for the glory, and to let DH’s die as often as possible

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16

It’s an RPG. (OR at least it was)…

So I RP as healer or as dps or as all 3 roles. :crazy_face:

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Because I enjoy it?

Healing is an infinitely less competitive role than DPS. You’re picked for groups out of availability, as opposed to the surface level ilvl of the 50 DPS all vying for the same slot. Different healing specs also have their own strengths and weaknesses, meaning you’ll always want a variety for burst healing, raid-wide healing, damage mitigation etc.

Additionally, it also comes with far more freedom. Healing, for most specs outside of Disc Priest or Resto Druid (which are more proactive in applying HoTs or prepping atonement), is reactive.

You don’t tend to mash keys constantly, only when the situation requires it (with Blood DKs or DH there has been times where I can mostly AFK). And only if you want to. If you see a DPS ninjapulling, it is completely within your power to let them die over and over until they question their life choices.

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I get to decide who lives.

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19

IDK always got forced into the support role when playing other games, at some point it just felt right I guess?

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I like it because its a little more dynamic than dps, for me its about how you react to situations and your decision making.