How to have fun healing in normal content?

[Valence]

Play another role

Unironically, we’ve been fighting a losing battle around healer design since ShB

I've tried but they all feel equally bad. And I don't even play healer. I used to back in HW though.
So by now I just stopped doing pve altogether for the most part except when I really have to. It sucks.

[Asari5]

yesterday in expert.

went in as healer. there was that redmage healing himself up everytime he hits around 75% life.
yes in a lvl 100 dungeon.

dude you've got like 30 other buttons to use... let me use a few of mine

[Chajii]

Fortunately my main healer job I play, Scholar still does a decent amount of auto-attack damage (well at least when compared to other healers/casters), keeping my auto-attack active as much as possible is part of my enjoyment in normal content.

Also since Scholar has Energy Drain to spend unused resources on damage, it keeps me awake throughout the duties as you know sometimes there are players accidentally taking avoidable damage and I have to adjust my heal plan for better aetherflow usage.




(Fun Fact: In Porta SCH's AoE, Art of War is a gain on 1, and if everyone plays well, you can heal without casting a single GCD heal, feels satisfying to me when things go smoothly.)


And yes, I do miss Miasma, Miasma II, Bane and Shaowflare but yea...

[aiqa]

I would say the latest alliance raid is quite fun normal content for healers. It does depend a lot on the group you're in, since the completely unavoidable damage is still fairly minimal. Only a 1 or 2 attacks per boss that really need a healer. But there are enough mechanics that people don't all avoid, so you're generally kept busy.

[Gullis]

Not much you can do. You just have to hope people eat stuff and die, for you to play your role.

[AmiableApkallu]

I often find myself falling asleep during boss fights where no damage is going on until next raidwide and whm is my favorite aesthetic in the game but im not always doing high end so im wondering if anybody does anything special to make healers more fun in there

Putting aside the systemic issues others have already mentioned… Try AST or SCH, because WHM has by far the most anemic and boring kit of the four healers. /two cents

[Supersnow845]

Putting aside the systemic issues others have already mentioned… Try AST or SCH, because WHM has by far the most anemic and boring kit of the four healers. /two cents

Both of them are very much context dependent

SCH’s modern design relies completely on its healing kit. So it’s really only better in casual content if you were already healing but want to heal in a more interesting way which doesn’t seem to be the problem OP is having

AST is also arguably less complexity more pointless busy work that doesn’t feel engaging. Like is it engaging to have 12 single target heals when all of them together barely actually contribute more than WHM’s 4. At least SCH can claim to a feeling of nebulous “impact” that really only applies to expedient and spreadlo

I’d really say the other healers don’t make casual content better, there is arguments that contextually they can actually make the experience worse

[Kohashi]

I often find myself falling asleep during boss fights where no damage is going on until next raidwide and whm is my favorite aesthetic in the game but im not always doing high end so im wondering if anybody does anything special to make healers more fun in there

Probably San D'oria is slightly more challenging and the newest released stuff, but if you mean strictly dungeons, there aren't many alternatives.

You can do the Older Savage tiers on MINE. I did find that most of them are vastly less mechanically complex compared to what we have now.

[Absurdity]

You can do the Older Savage tiers on MINE. I did find that most of them are vastly less mechanically complex compared to what we have now.

Because they literally are.
Old savage fights were made at a time where their design philosophy wasn't so lopsided. Jobs were more complex, so of course they couldn't make the fights as difficult mechanically.

So if you do them now with jobs that are incredibly simplified but also perform better DPS-wise (due to the potency creep every expansion) the older fights look like a joke in comparison.

[Kohashi]

Because they literally are.
Old savage fights were made at a time where their design philosophy wasn't so lopsided. Jobs were more complex, so of course they couldn't make the fights as difficult mechanically.

So if you do them now with jobs that are incredibly simplified but also perform better DPS-wise (due to the potency creep every expansion) the older fights look like a joke in comparison.

which is why OP should try doing them.

Imagine actually not whining for a second and not transforming the thread into old design vs new for once. Can, never.. *rolls eyes*