After capping my rogue

[Sword_of_Doom]

So I did, what almost every raid specced (i.e. focused on healing) priest eventually does: I played a DPS class (rogue) up to 60.

Raising my alt was big fun and it brought back so many things I enjoyed about WoW in the first place. Exploring the beautiful world once more, discovering new quest lines I never did on my priestess back then, the joy when you found a new green or even a valued blue on the AH to improve your char etc. All the things I have almost forgetten about in the often somewhat autistic life of a raid healer, who has nothing to do outside of raids, save for fishing up Stonescale Eels or transmuting Mooncloth.

While I leveld up my rogue (Illaria) I was still heavily raiding with my main (Melisandre) and through this time we mastered BWL and I was looking forward to AQ. Through the leveling process though, I focused more and more of my attention on (and certainly drew much more enjoyment out of) my new char Illaria, then my main Melisandre, which I play since WoW release.
Now after capping Illaria I find it more and more difficult to motivate myself to sign up for raids with Melisandre. I'm simply enjoying my new char so much more now.

-Nobody tells me how I have to "proper" spec my rogue "for the best of the raid".
-I can farm up insane amounts of money in short time, something that Melisandre has ever to struggle with, since she specced out of shadow.
-I'm able to dive much more into PvP and actually enjoy it now. A side of game that was nonexistant to me with my priestess.
-Gear upgrades improve my performance in PvE as well as in PvP as well as in farming efficiency.
Let's contrast it with what I have to expect from further advancing my holy/disc priestess Melisandre.

- I can spend insane amounts of time commited to raid duty to rack up DKP, so I can bid on heal bot equip to make me a better healer, so DPS classes can get their fancy damage boosts in form of new weapons, attack or spellpower boosts, that they can use out of raid for better farming and more fun in PvP, while my healing gear does #$%& out side of raids except for perhaps some stamina and resistance enhancement.

Raiding is fun as long as you are racing with other guilds for progression in newly published raid content, but I kinda lost the motivation to go "raid farming", as it only allows me to do more raiding and little else. So why should I bother to raid BWL for months to complete my T2 set?
I'm posting this because of all the classes in our raid alliance IFFHDS we have the highest turnover rate with priests and druids, (I'm just the latest victim of "healer burnout") and we are not the only one judging from this, as well as other posts, on the WoW Forums:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.a...p=1#post7425599
Priest changes in 1.10 may perhaps alleviate the situation, we just have to wait and see, though I dare to predict, that Shadow Priests will continue to have much more fun, than their holy/disc specced brothers and sisters  ;)

Healers = a necessity for raiding, vs. DPS = fun all the time.
[right][snapback]104000[/snapback][/right]

I would say of all the character options in the game the Holy/Disc or Disc/Holy Priest is probably the most demanding, most stressfull and highest burnout class in the game. If you look at the Stormrage forums right now i think there is 6 or 7 raiding guilds looking for HEALIING Priests. Haha! Your description of your role is spot on and its a difficult one to play night in night out in a raiding guild. I have played a Priest from March of last year until now and i have had many ups and downs with my emotions in regards to the class. I have been at the cutting edge of all encounters on the Stormrage server usually getting first or second kills in many instances but not until the last 3 months have i felt any sense of accomplishment or self worth playing a Priest. Now i feel i do make a difference and that my contribution is huge to whatever encounter i am in. I am not sure how much of AQ40 you have done but it is easily the most fun i have had playing my Priest ever in this game. Each boss is unique and forces the healers into a lot of movement. On Tuesday my guild did AQ40 (up to boss#5 Princess Hurhuran) and i had a blast. Last night we did our full BWL clear and i realized how stationary and boring each of the fights were. Only Nefarian do i have to move a bit. In AQ40 there are some fights (eg. Fankriss) where i actually get to DPS as a Disc/Holy Priest and its a lot of fun + most of the fights require a tremendous amount of movement (eg. Battleguard Sartura). Moving and healing is a lot of fun and forces me to concentrate and be on the ball. If the boss fights are like this in all future raid instances i see myself playing a Priest for a long time.

That being said, i have the priviledge of playing other characters in what our guild "considers to be "farmed" encounters. So i play a Mage in Molten Core and ZG and eventually will probably be allowed to bring to BWL (we did it in 3 hours 45 last night). See if your guild will allow alts in "farmed" encounters. I find playing a DPS class for all instances other than new content relieves the healing load on me.

Or I would suggest taking a break from healing. If that doesn't work play your Rogue full time. After this is a game and should be fun and enjoyable for you.