Or they could integrate it more like it’s done in HotS or with disc priests; your dmg automatically heals targets marked by you previously or just allies in general. Thats a dps-healing style I like.
Is that actually true tho? You probably had a wand, Mind Blast, SW:P, Smite. I don’t think there ever was a healer spec that literally didn’t have any damage abilites.
Honestly it never occured to me that a healer would just stand around when there isn’t any healing needed, even when I didn’t play a healer. Now that I do play one as an alt, it’s sounds even moer absurd to me that I just wouldn’t cast any spells when everyone is full. Even if it’s just a dot, or just one or two casts, I just do it, because why the hell wouldn’t I?
Huh, okay. Good to know! I just don’t like using macros for “normal” spells. 
My mistweaver currently just has two different actionbars set up; one for a more offensive playstyle and one for groups that mainly need healing. I switch between those according to how the group does.
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Thanks for all the response! Now I know that if I want to play a healer the way I like it, retail ain’t the place to do it.
Btw to those talking about healers doing nothing when healing isn’t needed for a short while: those moments were bliss in early days of WoW and you needed them to have your spirit kick in to prevent going out of mana. A thing of the past I loved and will miss. I understand the frustration when your healer still has an almost full manabar and just stands there though, especially in the min/max environment WoW has become over the years.
So again; thanks for the response, it made my decision to stay clear of healing an easy one to take.
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It works just fine with macros.
Just remove m+ and this goes away aswel
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Try holy priest. They kinda suck at DPSing in a lot of weeks due to demand healing.
Inb4 links of “pog holy priests”. I’m talking your average key level holy priest not some amazing top 1 player.
But at the same time, its like inviting a holy paladin and expecting absolute pump healing. Some things are just not possible xD
Again inb4 pog holy paladin links inc. Average holy paladin for your key level doesn’t even know they need +20% haste.
It is as much player optimization as it is more modern game design. In the old days, damage spells from healers costed more mana than heals, so it wasn’t optimal to use unless you knew you wouldn’t run oom, but that changed.
Tbh, the only real dps healer is hpala, the dps the other healers do is not really worth talking about.
I removed all dps spells from my actionbar in those days because a) in instances I didn’t have any mana to spare on anything but healing and b) questing time was over, so I had no use for them outside of instances either.
Besides, all the times spend regaining mana during fights were used typing stuff to keep the spirit of my teammates high during the many tough times we had while raiding.
I never played in a hardcore raiding guild so most in the guild were undergeared, badly geared, unprepared or just not that good… sometimes a combo of all of those, yet I always managed to keep the spirits high because of those manabreaks during fights.
It’s a matter of what you prefer. Fun failures hopefully leading to success and building friendships along the way or just a quick win. Personally I’d rather wipe an evening long with a smile and good memories, but that’s just me. 
Not only you, big chunk of playerbase prefer that kind of gameplay where social aspect is priority. I wish for some MMORPG to come out and bring back oldschool WoW meta, where healers had to keep everyone alive and during downtimes they had to cast jokes in chat not dps spells.
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Monk are doing nice after there buffs, better of fistweaving too as they get mana back, do damage and better heals. Had a few MW since 9.1 doing 2k+ average.
Seen plenty of shammys doing 1.5k+ average per run.
It doesn’t sound like much, but that’s up to 10% of the damage per run and 3 mins extra you get to complete the run. It can literally make a world of difference, and be the difference between timing and failing a run.
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I know, but doing 2k as a shammy, I still feel envious of hpalas.
I dont dps unless there is little to heal… the dmg i do as resto druid is super low… and it’s more waste of mana to dps then to heal in most cases…
Yeah sure. I mean, the path to hell is paved with good intentions, right?
I certainly recall how it eventually became the norm to use your wand all the time.
And then you figured out the benefit of mp5 over Spirit and how that allowed you to weave Shadow Word: Pain into your healing, because you didn’t really need to take breaks in order to conserve mana.
And then you learned how to use lower rank healing spells to optimize throughput with minimal mana cost. And now you could maintain that Shadow Word: Pain all the time.
And slowly but surely players have just found ways of optimizing the gameplay and Blizzard have tagged along over the years and accommodated that gameplay evolution, rather than trying to stop it. So the gameplay has modernized.
The whole wand gameplay is probably the only time Blizzard have really set their foot down and put a stop to a gameplay trend they didn’t like. Same with bows and guns for melee characters.
Yeah hpally are in a league of their own. Gotta remember it’s at a cost though, they have very little panic heals or big AoE heals when it gets rough. There’s been many times on my hpally I’ve been jealous of resto shammys too hah.
Yeah, the grass is always greener on the other side xD
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I don’t think there are any healers designed to play like this, but there are definitely healers that can be up to a fairly high level. You can definitely get through M+ 15’s and HC raiding without hitting any damage buttons.
There are healing builds designed to be more laid back.
I miss MoP Disc Priest… those were the days…
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Sadly, there’s no healer that will fit your suit.
The first post said everything that has to be said. Player found themselves a super optimized way to play healer : they just don’t heal, they do damage, and heal only when needed.
Even on Burning Crusade Classic, healer DPS because sometime, there’s nothing to heal. What you do when there’s nothing to heal and you are full mana ? You can either AFK and watch full health bar for a long time … or just do damage 
. Of course, we have the Five Second Rule in Classic, that tell us to NOT cast if you want to regen more mana, but at some point you outgear the content and your mana isn’t an issue.
I don’t remember how exactly it happened, but I guess this trend started in WOTLK with the Penitence spell for Disc Priest and the enrage timer from some bosses that was probably rough to deal without healer DPS in progress.
Now, every healer on Retail is “assumed” to DPS when there’s nothing to heal, because it’s now the standard of the community.