[Doc309]

my prot warrior was my first toon. long before i found this site ... i got my second a hunter to 60, and then 70 first. warrior got to 70, then a frost mage ...
there was MUCH GUILD DRAMA... right before wrath came out, so i ended up soloing to 80 - hunter, tank, frost farmer
having taken 7 months away from game ... army moved me to germany ... my kit isn't really up to the GS standards the PuGs seem to require these days.. so maybe i'll do a heroic on an 80, now and then ... my new guild is very helpful, but time differences make raiding with them impossible. so i end up on alt runs/pugs...
But now my favorite toon to play is a disc/shadow priest ...BY FAR... and i'm still lvling him. got him from 50-72, in about two weeks. he's my first dual spec toon. shadow for when soloing, and disc to group with a friends mage.... a mage with a pocket healer can complete some grind quests in record time ... LOL
i've healed some instances ... find it challenging, ... and exciting? exciting as tanking, and as exciting as min/maxing my dps.
on my realm aggramar... healers are in great demand ... dorenini will probably out gear my 80's in no time.
(i love the renaissance sound of that name.... )

that's why i play a healer .... and once he gets to 80 his dual spec will probably be disc/holy.

why do you play a healer?

Doc

[Libicocco]

Same reason I play a tank. Or a DPS, for that matter. I can't see someone screw something up without wanting to find out if I can do it better. I keep alts around for everything. If I could, I'd play all 30 specs.

I've let every guild I've joined pick what they needed most. The latest two have picked healer.

[Ollin]

I started playing a healer because I figured it would be the easiest type of character to gear once I got to the cap and my friends and guild were always complaining about not having enough healers.

Then I found I actually liked healing as a Disc priest (I hate resto shammys).

I can't wait for 3.3. I should have my full T9 set in under 3 days with the cross realm LFG queue.

[Strit]

I have a level 80 priest with Shadow/Holy dual spec. I play him because he is a healer. I've always wanted to try a healer class, so I thought I'd go to the classic healer class. Priest. I also have a shaman, but I have never seriously healed on him, he's my way to have fun (as enhancement spec).
But right now, I have a healer, a tank and a dps at level 80, so I can pick whatever the group needs.

[Bashal]

I was a complete and utter nubcake for about the first year that I played WoW. I had several toons, leveled to about 30-35, and zero clue what I was doing with them. I didn't even know that I didn't know, lol.

My fiancee joined a guild, and they needed a shaman. So, I got the shaman in the guild. I guess you could say at the time it was a "leveling guild", which (sometimes) is a way of saying nobody in the guild really knew what they were doing either.

We ran, tankless, healerless, into Zul Farrak (not unusual at all for us back then). As the only class in the group that had healing spells, I healed pets (which were tanking...sort of), and we didn't wipe as much. Someone said "nice heals" and I thought to myself: Maybe that's what I should be doing, then.

Then began the slow process of figuring out how to do it without being clueless.

[WarTotem]

Always had a tank alt (warrior) at lvl 60. At lvl 70 our guild needed tanks, so I switched to him as main for a while.
Due to guild drama I had to leave and got into a raiding guild on my Ele sham alt. Later switched to Enhancement, with Resto offspec. Went into WotLK, started having to switch to healing more than I could DPS, so I'm a main resto sham now and I like it more than enough to stay it

[Aliena]

I've always played healers in all of my MMO career, that's a good 8 years now. I think that means I really don't know what I'm doing here! /outofplace

[Odene]

When I rerolled in early wrath after my old guild fell apart, I went with a healer as that's what my the guild my friends were in needed most. Picked a paladin so I could tank as well.

[Doc309]

Source: Libicocco Same reason I play a tank. Or a DPS, for that matter. I can't see someone screw something up without wanting to find out if I can do it better. I keep alts around for everything. If I could, I'd play all 30 specs. I've let every guild I've joined pick what they needed most. The latest two have picked healer.

i have all classes lvl 35 or higher ... lol
except for DK ... lvled him once and deleted him, everyone has a DK, and m'eh.....

pretty good responses so far. interesting...

Doc

[Nicki]

I rolled my priest to heal but was rapidly drawn to shadow in pre tbc (yes it sucked but it was fun for me then). I proceeded to play shadow right up until the ssc attunements were lifted I stopped playing my priest shortly after that, I had healed and had been in healer chat but was in no way a full time healer.

I rolled paladin which lead me to tank spot in TBC eventually I went ret and rolled warrior for wrath, lots of issues got in the way and i went back to my paladin as dps. After much drama, guild switches etc. I ended up playing and healing on my priest (which i had only leveled because shadow didn't seem that bad) so I applied to a guild and got in due to their lack of priests . So I heal now but dont have much WoW time currently...

[Tierax]

I was my guilds Warrior MT. Played Warrior since WoW's launch, was my only 60, then my only 70.

It was actually the trend I saw of no Warrior tank love, and all Pally tank love, that spurred me to level my first non-warrior past 20. I made this Paladin to tank at 80, but incidentally while leveling found out that healing was both A) Relaxing compared to tanking (for me) and B) an incredible amount of fun.

Instead of speccing Prot at 80 like I expected, I switched to full holy and respectfully bowed out of my MT role. Everytime I raid it feels like a new game; I like to heal because I find it both challenging and fun as I did MTing, but at the same time less of the 'pressure' thats expected of a guilds #1 tank. A breath of fresh air, so to speak.

[Doc309]

Source: Tierax I like to heal because I find it both challenging and fun as I did MTing, but at the same time less of the 'pressure' thats expected of a guilds #1 tank. A breath of fresh air, so to speak.

interesting... i find healing more "pressure" ... but with a bit of stand off. like when i was Raid leading with a DPS toon....

not end game content yet, so maybe i'll be busier when i get there...right now i can bubble the raid through most encounters... and most of my healing is "over healing".

Doc.

[UncleLurn]

I've raid-healed, I've tanked, I've even done some DPS.

Every time I do anything other than heal, I go right back to healing.

There's a certain level of... passive control that you have over the instance that's very different from the active control you have as a tank. I found tanking very stressful, especially in Mount Hyjal and the earlier parts of Black Temple, so when the opportunity arose to go back to healing, I jumped at it.

I still tank on my paladin, and every now and then on my druid, and enjoy it still, but not to the same level that I enjoy healing.

[Coro]

I started gimp healing as a druid in Everquest. I moved to WoW, and started as a rogue but the guild was desperate for healers, so I tried out a priest (or cleric as I called em for nearly a year).

I switched back to rogue, switched to a tank, and keep coming back to my healer. My second favorite is tank. I like to be relied on, and I enjoy responsiblity. That's why I'm a healer, guild leader, and raid leader.

[povoden]

While watching my girlfriend play WoW on her dinky little gnome rogue, (no she didn't have pink ponytails) I finally decided to start an account. Knowing absolutely nothing about the game, I created a Druid in BC. The concept of gathering energy from nature to cause damage and heal struck me the right way. She started a hunter and we were on our way. I leveled Resto to keep our pet "tank" alive and really enjoyed the role.

In BC, he was my only character and he was never anything but resto. DPS seemed like it was fun and all. Beat up on the boss till it dies.( I know it's a BIT more then that) What truly has driven me is out-healing the beat down the boss is dealing to the group. --You may be able to hit for 10k Mr. Boss, but I can heal the tank for 15k....is that all you got, sucka!?

I stopped playing for a while before Wrath. When I returned, I picked up a DK and played him months straight. My poor Tree sat around growing moss. Tanking was nice and gave me a good perspective on the other side of the fight, but it just didn't feel right. After meeting some really great trees on my server, I couldn't help but feel that healing itch again. I leveled my Druid as fast as I could, got him into Naxx the day he turned 80 and haven't stopped since.

I heal because...

Negating damage is more fun then causing it to me.
How else is that 24k health Tank going to make it through Her ToC?
It is nice to feel needed. ;-)
I'm not very good at doing much else.

I heal because I dream of full raid frames.

[Maèl]

I'm just in it for the power over life and death.
Plus it beats ramming a dagger up a monsters anus. Thus the proctologist rogue got shelved and my reign of terror began.

[Reev]

Source: UncleLurn I've raid-healed, I've tanked, I've even done some DPS. Every time I do anything other than heal, I go right back to healing. There's a certain level of... passive control that you have over the instance that's very different from the active control you have as a tank. I found tanking very stressful, especially in Mount Hyjal and the earlier parts of Black Temple, so when the opportunity arose to go back to healing, I jumped at it. I still tank on my paladin, and every now and then on my druid, and enjoy it still, but not to the same level that I enjoy healing.

I get the whole "passive control" thing, and I think it's a lot of fun. I have a level 80 priest I play, and I like Disc more than Holy, because again, there feels like there's more control. I can shield the appropriate people and control how damage goes around, for example. I really like how there's not a set rotation, but rather your mind is actively engaged the whole time. I love it, yet sometimes find it stressful.

I still love tanking more. I really like the active control of the fight. I don't ever have to think about my rotation, so I can devote all my thought and energy to controlling the fight, proper positioning and survival, and to leading my raids well. It's just looking at the fight from a different viewpoint, and one in which I feel more like an orchestra conductor. I love both.

I also love DPS, but that's more because I find it a bit more relaxing. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy seeing what I can do to eke out that last few hundred dps, and I challenge myself to do so, but I don't feel like the raid is resting on my shoulders the way I do when I'm healing or tanking.

[uglybbtoo]

I heal (badly) to get revenge on my dps guildies :=)

[eeva]

Source: Maèl I'm just in it for the power over life and death. Plus it beats ramming a dagger up a monsters anus. Thus the proctologist rogue got shelved and my reign of terror began.

i love this answer! i switched my main from a rogue to a holy priest when the ulduar patch came down. now when anyone asks me why i switched, i will "borrow" this reply.

in reality, though, i switched to healing because the competitive nature of dps was stressing me out IRL. now there are no more dps meters in my nightmares! woot!

i also finds that healing suits my creative/intuitive nature a bit better. if that makes any sense...

[Amallthia]

I started playing almost two years ago when my then boyfriend picked the game back up (casually) with his friends. We were alliance and 110% noobs, I pulled and tried to tank mobs with my lvl 21 rogue, then made a warrior who I dps'd on in prot spec... >.<

The darkside finally got to us and we rerolled horde (mainly because I wanted to trade in my "thunder thighs" for a sexy little BE) and I picked a priest. I could not wrap my head around tanking and dps...

All of his noob friends stopped playing and I continued onto 70 in sexy shadow form (not really, I healed instances more than I dps'd) and joined a progressive raiding guild. O_o It was a big wake up call. I was in this habit of dropping heals while I was supposed to be DPSing...

We were lacking heals for our SSC raids so I respec'd and dropped a ton of gold on a full primal mooncloth set. I am holy/disc now and have no desire to move to another class.