For those who main/semi-main a DPS (e.g. DNC, RDM) but like Healers...

[Renathras]

God that sucked...

/sigh

Okay, palate cleanser:

Your point about how DOT management rewards fight knowledge because you don’t want to have to need to heal when the DOT falls off is an interesting point

I do agree with this. It's one thing the "stacks up to 60 seconds" would make work. Right now, if there's a mechanic you need a heal for at 30 sec, your options are to clip your DoT early or let it fall off for a few seconds. While neither is a terrible DPS loss, it doesn't reward fight knowledge. If you could extend it to 60 seconds, you might refresh it early (since it's not a dps loss to go from 3 second duration to 33 sec duration), and thus this rewards fight knowledge.

Also agree that MP management (or lack thereof) is an issue.

...

This is also a MP issue. When MP was an issue, it makes alternate healing resources not work. TP for example, or MP-less/free healing would generally be prized over MP costing cast time heals (e.g. in ARR healing). But the thing is...we haven't had that for years. Most healing now is done MP-free with oGCDs.

So something like DNC or SWTOR's Imperial Agent/Scoundrel healer kits (which worked on Rogue-Energy instead of mana, I think?) could entirely work in the present system since the difference is kind of irrelevant other than for Raise, and since most healing is done with either CD abilities or resource consumers (Lilies, Aetherflow, Addersgall), the difference between that and a DNC using CDs is...well...not a difference. Again, Raising is the only issue, but I'm pretty sure there's a way to fix that problem, either with the Raise just having a CD instead or consuming their Job gauge resource.

I get that.

Not saying this to be snippy, but I think we have to agree to disagree. As I say, I think of mistakes as "based on the knowledge you had at the time" not "based on what a skilled player would assume is the knowledge you should have had at the time".

That aside, something I would enjoy exploring more with you:

I remember the Regen days. As a person that loved Resto Druids in WoW, I always saw ARR WHM as more of a Resto Druid than as a Holy Priest. Granted, it was more of a hybrid of the two (Resto Druids didn't have very efficient direct heals where WHM had both direct heals and HoTs), but I still like HoTs. I remember playing Resto back in an era where the Druid's job during raids was not to deal damage, but to keep near-100% uptime on Rejuvination (their mana efficient instant cast single target HoT), along with that one three stack HoT. Don't remember the name, but could only be on one target, stacked to three, and refreshing it before falloff would refresh all three stacks; letting it fall off would grant a big heal at the end. The goal of that one was interesting to me as you kept it up on the tank, but if you needed a big heal, you could let it expire. You'd have to manually 3x refresh it after, but it would give you some big healing. That and that one spell that consumes all your HoTs on the target to give them a really big heal. Use that on a tank which has Rejuvination, Regrowth (the short duration AOE HoT), Regrowth (the Dia-like "initial heal + HoT"), and the three stack one, and you could make some big healing with that little CD in a pinch.

This is also why I talk up making GCD heals acceptable; ARR WHM didn't chain cast Stone unless you were bad. The things today you use Rapture/Solace/Asylum/Lilybell/Divine Benison/Tetragrammaton to heal? You didn't have ANY of those tools, and Benediction was largely considered for emergency use only. You used Medica, Cure 2, Medica 2, Cure 3, Regen, even Stoneskin (which was a cast time GCD unlike Benison), or even Cure 1 (if somewhat low on MP). If you raised someone, you used Protect in battle so they wouldn't get plastered by the next raidwides due to their Weakness debuff. For every WHM "dancing" in Cleric to DPS, there were plenty more than busy doing GCD healing, which was both accepted (not ridiculed like today as a "Sylphie" or "Cure 1 spammer" or "healbot") and was the norm.