How to have fun healing in normal content?

[Miradelle]

I think you've gotten good enough at the game that it's time to try out extreme, savage, or ultimates. Normal content is no longer designed with you in mind.

[Elephantality]

Queue up for Dzemael Darkhold. I enjoy that for tanking and healing.

[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...

[Minarisweet]

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...

I tried this and it didnt really work it just felt like added tedium for no reward... i was even using up all my aetherflow in energy drain and purely healing with the other ogcds i got and it still didnt feel rewarding.

[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

[AmiableApkallu]

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

In the context of current jobs and current casual content, and presuming that we're sticking to healers, I'd argue that just about the only avenue right now for having more fun is to simply give yourself more generally-considered-okay/viable options so that you can simply do whatever you feel like in the moment.

It's not about whether a million single target heals are especially useful or necessary. It's that it might just be fun to pick a button based on VFX and SFX.

It's not about whether Expedient and Spreadlo are especially useful or necessary. It's that it might just be fun to give people the zoomies or to try to zero out an incoming raid wide.

It's not necessary, but you could try throwing out two DPS cards under every Divination, or seeing just how much Aetherflow you can dump into Energy Drain (and under Chain, for bonus points).

None of this addresses the core issues, but in this context, I don't think WHM does any favors here.