How do you feel about healing?

A lot of players seem to be intimidated by healing… and I admit, I used to be that way, too. My very first character was a Warlock (a Gnome, of course), and I enjoyed playing her, even though Vanilla wasn’t exactly a great time for Warlocks. But when I rolled my first alt, I decided I wanted to play something completely different as an alt. And I couldn’t get more different than a Priest, so that’s what I rolled. It was the Vanilla days, but I still leveled her as Holy because the whole point was to be something that was as unlike a Warlock as possible.

I don’t remember exactly when I went from being the slowest leveler ever to healing dungeons, and I don’t remember the first dungeon I healed. (I do remember leveling with a particular Hunter who would always send his pet after any mobs that aggroed me and thus was at the top of my to-heal list… sometimes above the tank.) But I was a Priest. That was what Priests did. So I healed dungeons and eventually moved up to raids.

It was a unique challenge that was totally different than DPS, but I never thought it was actually hard. And at this stage in my WoW career, I honestly find it easier than DPS. As a healer, I watch the battlefield (and a myriad of health bars) and respond. I don’t have a fixed rotation, I simply respond to the situation as needed, when needed. Often, that means I’m doing a lot of nothing interspersed by frantic bursts of activity.

DPS, on the other hand, feels like nothing but frantic bursts of activity. It’s about having the perfect rotation, executed with perfect timing and enough situational awareness to always be in the right place at the right time. It’s a complicated dance and it doesn’t stop for until the dungeon (or raid) does. Honestly, I find it exhausting.

Not so with healing. Though it certainly still has its stressful moments, I usually enjoy its particular kind of challenge.

So tell me, my friends: why don’t you heal? (I mean, come on, the quick dungeon queues alone are at least a reason to try it out.) And if you do heal, just what got you started?