After capping my rogue

[Hedon]

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.

[nobbie]

Healers = a necessity for raiding, vs. DPS = fun all the time.

That's why I still stick to my Warlock for raiding ;)

As Bolty said in a "Which 2 chars would you pick?" thread last year: (Dwarven) Priest for instance raiding, (Undead) Rogue for solo play.

[Bolty]

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.[right][snapback]104000[/snapback][/right]

If you play a pure healer as a main, you must play a DPS class as an alt or you'll go insane.

Now, I find that I don't really need to raid with any DPS class; I just need to log on as a mage, warlock, rogue, whatever from time to time and just BEAT THE LIVING HELL OUT OF THINGS as a change of pace. I capitalize in the previous sentence to point out what a gigantic difference in gameplay it is between a disc/holy raiding Priest and a DPS class.

When "farming," soloing, or PvP'ing, playing a raid-healing Priest is like watching paint dry. Sure, I kill things with no real chance of me ever dying, but it takes me three to four times as long to kill something as an equivalently-geared rogue. Farmers in greens outpace me - I know this just from trying to farm Essence of Water for my +healing power enchant on my Benediction. It's sad.

Maybe the only joy I have is seeing people's reactions when they:

1) Claim that disc/holy Priests can't PvP, and I should spec shadow, and
2) Watch as I WTFPWN them in duels outside Ironforge. Victory through superior survival!

As you said, all the UBER LEWTS you pick up only serve one purpose - to help you heal better in raids. Which means, ironically, that the more decked-out you get, the worse you become at farming: the damage you take from mob hits costs you more and more gold to repair, yet your killing speed never changes. You still kill the same number of mobs per unit of time, but the cost of doing so goes up and up. When I first started realizing this, I was very glad that the first thing I did when I turned 60 was go for my epic mount - because I'd never get a chance to do it now. Mere farming costs too much money and takes too long.

So you sit there and watch as every other class picks up loot that will help them completely own mobs and other players faster and better, while you score another +50 healing! WOO HOO! NOW those mobs are gonna get it! Yeah!

Get a DPS class to 60 and use it to farm when you need to. Or just to burn off steam.

It does sound to me though that one of your sources of burnout is that you are/feel forced to play your healer as a pure healbot. I see it all the time when guilds are recruiting - "Looking for Dwarf Priests with disc/holy and Resto-speced Druids with Innervate." These kinds of guilds expect you to be their healing b**** and would yell at you for ever taking anything with +damage/healing, for instance. Nothing can burn a healer out faster than being told they're not allowed to roll on something because they're a healer.

I'm lucky in that I belong to a guild that doesn't force me to play a certain way. If I WANTED to turn into a shadow priest, I wouldn't get kicked out of the guild, and just KNOWING that makes a huge difference. I don't feel used. I hear stories of Priests getting kicked out of guilds for rolling on a +damage/healing item, and I just shake my head. Meanwhile, nobody thinks twice about warriors spending lots of points on Uber Epic Weapon of Doom. There's a reason why healing classes have such high turnover...

1) People only generally notice you when you make a mistake, and a healer's mistake is 10 times more obvious to everyone than a DPS class' mistake.
2) As mentioned, "gearing up" as a healer helps you not a whim anywhere but raids. If you actually want to gear up to let you do more damage, people think you're a loot whore and you're screwing over the DPS classes.
3) You never, ever hear people cry "where was the tanking!?!?!" You will always hear "where was the healing!?!?!"
4) God forbid you want to play another class when someone's looking for a healer to join them.
5) E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E E-L-S-E thinks they can play your class better than you, especially "tunnel-vision" players (usually DPS) that only notice one thing during a raid encounter: they, individually, were taking damage and you didn't heal them. Never mind that the entire raid was getting blasted, especially the tanks, and if the tanks died it would mean a wipe.

Again, I don't belong to a guild that goes through much of this - just occasionally, it does, but I'm in a pretty cool group of players who either understand the above points or else pretend to. :) So it helps. The only recommendation I can ever make to healer players is that if they find themselves being treated this way in a guild, LEAVE. Find a guild that respects its healer players. You'll have a lot more fun.

-Bolty

[Mavfin]

[points to Bolty's post]

Yeah, if you're being treated like a healing b****, find a new home. For your sanity. We *have* a raiding full shadow priest, who spends 90% of his raiding time in DPS/Shadowform, and will come out to heal if stuff goes wrong. Not all guilds that raid are inflexible.

[castille]

[points to Bolty's post]

Yeah, if you're being treated like a healing b****, find a new home. For your sanity.  We *have* a raiding full shadow priest, who spends 90% of his raiding time in DPS/Shadowform, and will come out to heal if stuff goes wrong.  Not all guilds that raid are inflexible.
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Holy crap, we do?! SIGN ME UP.

Oh, wait.

[Mavfin]

Holy crap, we do?! SIGN ME UP.

Oh, wait.
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Go back to sleep, you variant scum! :P

[Kevin]

[points to Bolty's post]

Yeah, if you're being treated like a healing b****, find a new home. For your sanity.  We *have* a raiding full shadow priest, who spends 90% of his raiding time in DPS/Shadowform, and will come out to heal if stuff goes wrong.  Not all guilds that raid are inflexible.
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We also have feral druids who get to do the similar things, and moonkin druids who get do similar things and I don't think any of our priests have the same spec and it will be even worse in 1.1. :) Hell I keep trying to encourage some of them to become holy damage priests so we can slap them in a party with a sanctity aura paladin and then I could FORCE them to do DAMAGE on the trash mobs and yell at this holy/disc spec preist for HEALING! :) That would be fun.

So sure doiing stuff like that might slow us down so that we don't clear MC in under 3 hours, but you know what? As long as we stay under 4 hours one night clears aren't too draining for anyone and the 39 other people generally get a big kick out of knowing that someone is getting to do something new and different or that everyone else is pretty much have a blast playing their toon the way they prefer and we're still kicking ass and taking names.

Hell having feral druids made firemaw and flamegar go faster for us I think because with DPS generally being self heal and a DPS toon with mana that isn't needed for other things can now slap heals on some of those other people when they have to take care of themselves so if you have a recently bandaged low health rogue you can heal them they get back in faster and do more damage.

Even if you are learning the encounters you don't need ideal if you have people that are enjoying what they are doing and having fun they generally pay more attention and play better. I'm very glad we have people that want to play resto druids and holy/disc priests though. Hell I had a blast with my druid as resto spec all the way through 1.9 when I took her feral. And now that our priests are so uber that we don't really need anyone but about 4 or 5 of them healing on the trash but we do need more healing for some of the bosses my feral spec helps out as I can do more damage and still bring that healing and dispelling to the boss fights (as can shadow priests and frothadins).

I really don't think we are that unique in letting people play what they want to play more or less how they want to play as part of the team. Yes that is key you still have to play as part of the team but you are given as much leeway as can be given to still get the job done.

[castille]

To add a real reply on my thoughts: healer burnout is going to happen most often when the healing is taken for granted. Just once, I would love to hear about some abusive MT that had everyone just .. not heal for a pull. It might mean a wipe for them if they get thrown in combat.. but..

I think on Stormrage, we have a singularly wonderful setup. In some ways, it has its irksome moments, but it's overall very nice. The number one thing I can say, is that people respect your abilities. Some people may have gripes now and then, but everyone recognizes what other classes, and specific people in those classes, bring to the table.

Without good feedback, as well as bad, you're just going to be continuously stressing on the negative. In raiding, as a healer, I actually enjoyed seeing if I could try different things to achieve the same result. Guessing how much damage the tank would take, or tossing renews on just about the entirety of the raid and letting the 5s rule kick in ..

I think it's one of the reasons we've had so few healers on the Alliance-side throw the towel in. We have a driving force to be as good as we can be, without any pressure that we only have to do something one way.

...and yes, I am probably the raiding shadow priest Keshi refers to ;) We have a few more coming out of the wood work, though. However, I think Lum, one of the others, is going Holy Nuke with 1.10. Traitorous bastard.

[Mavfin]

To add a real reply on my thoughts: healer burnout is going to happen most often when the healing is taken for granted. Just once, I would love to hear about some abusive MT that had everyone just .. not heal for a pull. It might mean a wipe for them if they get thrown in combat.. but..

I think on Stormrage, we have a singularly wonderful setup. In some ways, it has its irksome moments, but it's overall very nice. The number one thing I can say, is that people respect your abilities. Some people may have gripes now and then, but everyone recognizes what other classes, and specific people in those classes, bring to the table.

Without good feedback, as well as bad, you're just going to be continuously stressing on the negative. In raiding, as a healer, I actually enjoyed seeing if I could try different things to achieve the same result. Guessing how much damage the tank would take, or tossing renews on just about the entirety of the raid and letting the 5s rule kick in ..

I think it's one of the reasons we've had so few healers on the Alliance-side throw the towel in. We have a driving force to be as good as we can be, without any pressure that we only have to do something one way.

...and yes, I am probably the raiding shadow priest Keshi refers to ;) We have a few more coming out of the wood work, though. However, I think Lum, one of the others, is going Holy Nuke with 1.10. Traitorous bastard.
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And therein lies some of our success. People have fun raiding with us. They're not forced into some particular spec to do 1 thing all the time. Of course, class balance comes into play somewhat, but other than those requirements, people are allowed to play their spec. All priests/druids/pallies may be required to heal at times. All druids/priests/pallies will help buff. All tanks may be asked to help tank a boss's adds. (Feral druids may get tossed in the tank mix, too) These are all part of being X class. But you're not forced to do it all the time. Less burnout that way.

[TheDragoon]

3) You never, ever hear people cry "where was the tanking!?!?!"

I'll remeber this for next time I play with Tal. ;)

[Tal]

I'll remeber this for next time I play with Tal.    ;)
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Quota not reached for the day? ;)

Edit: Proof I winz0rs

[TheDragoon]

To add a slightly different take to the mix, I think some groups get so hung up on the ideas like "Priests and Druids heal, Warriors tank" etc. that they don't realize that they could actually be a MORE flexible, effective group with a diverse group of classes. One of the cool things about this game is that most characters can be played in a variety of ways. The bottom line is that shadow priests, feral druids and the like are still good healers. Perhaps they don't have quite the endurance of the other builds, but those types of talent builds can trade healing effectiveness for the flexibility to do damage (and tank, in the case of the Druids) more effectively. Similarly, Fury/Arms warriors lose out on fun defensive talents like Defiance or Last Stand, but they get a lot of flexibility in their roles, being able to tank something one minute and then unlease damage the next.

These sorts of multi-role characters tend to flesh out a raid as the group can configure itself to meet a wider range of challenges. Fighting a boss where you only need 1 tank? Swap the Fury or MS warriors into damage gear and take it down faster. Facing Domo? Swap those guys into tank gear and let them control all of the lizards. Working on a boss where you need every bit of healing you can get? Have the feral and shadow priests join in the fight. Trying to clear through the Molten Core in 3 hours? Swap those same healers into their damage configurations and let them help burn down all of the trash that stands in the way.

In addition, it seems that Blizzard is pushing more and more to get away from the idea of "Tank stands in one place holding aggro while the healers heal it and everyone else kills it" and into more dynamic battles. There are more and more encounters designed where flexibility becomes key such as dealing with Majordomo's adds, kiting Buru around, having hunters tank Ayamiss or the organized chaos that is Razorgore's battle. As the game becomes more and more diverse with these sorts of encounters, flexibility will be key for many groups.

Now does this mean that there is no room for the less generalized characters like a Disc/Holy Priest, Restoration Druid or Protection Warrior? Of course not, those classes will always be very good at what they do and can provide a solid core for many encounters in the game. But flexibility is definitely not something to be ignored, especially if it can be found while also doing something that you enjoy. :)

[TheDragoon]

Quota not reached for the day? ;)

I didn't make fun of you at all, this morning!

Edit: Proof I winz0rs
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That's fun! I'm actually surprised I came up with that many references given that my screen name is actually fairly unique. :)

[Mavfin]

I didn't make fun of you at all, this morning!
That's fun!  I'm actually surprised I came up with that many references given that my screen name is actually fairly unique.  :)
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I want the last minute of my life back.

[Tal]

I want the last minute of my life back.
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No refunds or exchanges. 2 gold if you wanna stay on the ride longer.

[Treesh]

To add a real reply on my thoughts: healer burnout is going to happen most often when the healing is taken for granted. Just once, I would love to hear about some abusive MT that had everyone just .. not heal for a pull. It might mean a wipe for them if they get thrown in combat.. but..
[right][snapback]104051[/snapback][/right]

We have actually had a warrior that the healers refused to heal. Even I refused to heal this tool. It wasn't just the healers either that didn't like him so he was asked to stop raiding with us.

Edit: Plural and singular are different things. No, really. They are. ;)

[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.
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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.

[Tuftears]

Healer? What healer? (activates 'prowl') :shuriken:

This probably comes as news to some people, but Tuftears isn't feral... He's a 31 restoration/20 feral druid. I spend a lot of time in kitty form and a lot of thought gearing for kitty because, well, it's more fun than waiting for health bars to budge. Especially when tanks get better geared, they start taking a lot less damage, in prroportion to their life. This is great for the raid, but boring for the healers.

I definitely think that we'll start seeing more priests building up DPS gear. If you take a look at the Virtuous set (tier 0.5), it's not +healing, it's +damage/healing. It's half blue so it should be cheaper to repair than the raiding epics.

[Artega]

That's why I still stick to my Warlock for raiding ;)

As Bolty said in a "Which 2 chars would you pick?" thread last year: (Dwarven) Priest for instance raiding, (Undead) Rogue for solo play.
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Would be my Warrior and my Shaman, respectively. Warriors are fun to solo, but they're less efficient at it, even though worrying about Mana sucks compared to infinite Rage :)

[Artega]

And therein lies some of our success.  People have fun raiding with us.  They're not forced into some particular spec to do 1 thing all the time.  Of course, class balance comes into play somewhat, but other than those requirements, people are allowed to play their spec.  All priests/druids/pallies may be required to heal at times.  All druids/priests/pallies will help buff.  All tanks may be asked to help tank a boss's adds.  (Feral druids may get tossed in the tank mix, too)  These are all part of being X class.  But you're not forced to do it all the time.  Less burnout that way.
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While I agree that, without variation, raiding would be incredibly boring, there are times when you need to rigidly adhere to the "normal" style of raiding. If you're doing an instance for the first time, you're going to want your Priests healing (and Disc/Holy or Holy/Disc is probably the best spec for this), your Warriors tanking (either full Prot or the 15-point Arms variant, dependant on a variety of factors), and everyone else DPSing or healing with the most efficient spec for that. After you have the instance in question on farming status, then there's absolutely no reason to goof around and have fun - though I think you already know this :)