I have been following these forums for a while now and I've not seen a thread like this, but if I've missed it then feel free to shit heap this and call me nasty names.
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I have been playing a druid since release, most of the time as a resto specced and for the most part I enjoy healing. However, one of the most blatant flaws in WoW in my experience is that as a healer, I'm dependant on finding someone that I can heal. Without that person, my gaming experience is essentially pointless. I cant heal mobs to death. When a horde jumps me I can run around and keep myself alive, but without the ability to *hurt* that horde its basically just a matter of time before I go down. There are few things that I can do well as a full fledged healer out on my lonesome.

In TBC, in theory the increased dependance on five mans (to rep up and whatnot) makes this not so much of an issue. However, while other classes can go farm for motes / scraldor rep / honour while waiting for their five man groups to form, I find myself as a healing class either flying around looking for herbs or sitting in Shatt. How are other healers dealing with this problem?

This is becoming more and more of an issue for me and I'm constantly considering changing to make my mage my main / respeccing feral just to give me something to do when I log on. Its not that I dont enjoy healing, I do, and I've been collecting more and more +heal gear that a reroll or respec now would probably put a dent in my guild - but at the same time I find myself not wanting to log on unless I have a raid / heroic planned with people ready.

Thoughts?

I am not playing a healer myself, but can tell you what my friends do about this. Many gather a complete set of dps gear and it seems to work. It's also not bad for switching in some instances between healing and dps.

I don't have any numbers, but with a decent amount of gear they don't seem to have problems in solo play.

As for honor farming - why don't they heal in the bgs ?

Just because your farming will be less efficient than a DPS class farming doesn't mean you can't do the exact same thing.

Get your cat gear out (you *do* have cat gear still, right?) and go farm some shit. Just because you're resto specced doesn't mean you can't DPS. It just means your DPS will be lower.

Claw dps, oh man that must be painful.
No seriously, I believe next patch will partially fix the problem by introducing quests you can repeat for a certain amount of gold (the ones that give you netherdrake rep). As far as I know some of those don't require mobkilling (but mining some weird silver?).
Other than that I'd say just roll an alt for money farming, or spend some time outside of wow (I know, blasphemy). Trying to make a resto char work for soloing will just be frustrating in my experience.

As a full prot warrior it's really hard to feel sorry for you Your best bets are to level an alt to farm for you, if you want bg's then stick with your strong suit and heal. If you are just after money then you can simply spend time gathering resources to sell.

Any time you're standing around in shattrath, log to your double-gather alt.

Thanks for the replies

You would understand the feeling then, I'd imagine. Prot spec warriors would be the same sort of thing, although I think that devastate is being buffed to help a bit after the patch? I'm not a warrior though so I might be wrong. Anyways, I would say that the thread applies to prot spec warriors very much the same - how do warriors deal with it?

While it is possible to simple grind in cat form gear as a resto spec druid, I'm someone who really enjoys efficiency (That's probably why I'm full resto, otherwise I'd go a hybrid). I know I *could* go out there and grind on mobs in my cat form gear, but I also know that its incredibly slow and really, its a terrible waste of time. I know this is something that's thrown around a lot, but I am quite busy irl and when I log on I need to make the most of my time. That's probably another reason that this whole issue annoys me because I'm forever dependant on someone elses schedule. But yes, you're right, it *is* possible to grind in catform gear as a resto druid, its just not very clever

This is the option I'm currently following and my mage alt is nearly 70. However, as I said above, I like to be efficient. I start to think to myself, perhaps I should gear up my farming alt a bit to farm more efficiently. I start to think, hell if I'm putting in all this time into an alt, perhaps I should just make it my main and all the work I put into this character can also work towards achieving goals in raids. And thus the dilemma snowballs from there

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My precise problem this week, is that I've changed back to full resto from a balance / resto hybrid. Now I cannot farm the rest of the aldor rep I need anywhere near as efficiently. However, in a few weeks I'll be exalted and that will be done with. I *still* feel, though, that this is really a much bigger problem than my aldor rep.

When I log on I'm almost entirely dependant on other people in order to enjoy my gametime. Perhaps I've worded this as too much of a whinge, I hope not. I do enjoy healing hehe, I hope I'm not whinging too much - I just think that this issue as a concept is worth discussing and I'd really like to hear what some other resto shamans / prot tanks / holy priests / holy paladins (who dont often grind on demons and undead) think about it.

(obligatory smiley face to hopefully come across as less of a whinger - )

Except that sometimes, you can't rely on a alt for your farming, per example for BoP quest items for Reputation (Consortium) or BoP recipes.

Now, having an alternate set of gear may greatly help for those, but, as said Greenexile, it is not as efficient as a true DPS spec.

A week prior to TBC I started powerleveling my priest. When I hit 70, I specced healing and started gearing up. 3 weeks later I had 1700+ healing and 170mp5 while casting.
Normal 5 mans weren't fun anymore since the only thing I had to do was throwing renews on people. Having played a mage since release shadow was just not my thing, it felt like an inferior mage. Healing in pvp was frustrating and grinding was boring. Although I liked healing in raids very much I started playing my mage again and I'm having so much more fun now.

People in pugs really are so terrible that you will more often than not heal someone through their full health bar multiple times, and they will still lose to an evenly matched opponent. Lots of people are REALLY bad at this game. Playing a healer is one of the most fun things to do in this game, IF you have good player(s) to heal.

The best advice I can give is to find good players to play with all the time when you are online (similar playtimes or just plays significantly more than you) or stop playing a healer.

Leveling my warrior alt extended my interest in BC for a little while. Heroics are a lot more fun when there's actual loot upgrades to look forward to and people always need a tank. Doing quests at 70 is by far the best way to get large amounts of gold as well.

If you need to get rep with a specific faction spec feral for a week and grind it out, then respec back before anyone notices you're not resto. That's how I did Cenarion Circle pre-BC...of course now I raid as feral but things were different back then.

Make an alt.

I couldn't imagine doing anything other than healing in a raid, but obviously it's not much fun outside raid times.

Well yes, but a PuG + one competent healer will fare far better than a PuG without one.

One of the funniest moments I've had in BGs was when someone annouced 'the healers are doing a great job this game'. Second on healing had 10k healing done.

The main problem for me in BGs and honour grinding is that there are no rewards I want. The mooncloth set is a stamina upgrade, but a huge loss in stats versus tailoring sets, and there are no healing orientated epic rewards.

DPS gear does not really help. I can call an almost complete set of blue 115 or better and Gorehowl my own, but it takes me 30 seconds to melee down a mob with drinking downtime after 10 mobs. At least I'm horde, so even random BGs work out

Hey, I feel your pain. My "other main" is a priest, and I have some friends who are healing druids in the same situation.

Our solution has been to pursue hybridized specs. My priest is...

http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/#c...gos&n=Kathnala

I think I just logged with most of my smite gear on. With everything equipped I have about 670 +dmg/heal and 25% crit on offensive spells.

Even though I have a 70 mage, I often farm on my holy priest for motes of water. It isn't bad at all (I just have to buy water instead of conjure it). I know there are some hybrid balance/resto builds for Druids that can do some similar stuff.

The main point is that going FULL holy or FULL resto is a big sacrifice in terms of what you can do well in the game. I've found the hybridized specs to be very useful for farming and light PvP, while also doing great at healing 5-mans and heroics (no raiding on the priest yet).

Maybe something like this will work for you.

I absolutely understand what you're talking about- I recently respecced resto from being a feral grinding machine of death and out of raids there's so much less to do and the game isn't much fun at all. I've been playing my alt a whole lot since I respecced but even then I find myself playing less than before.

There have been posts in the past about the disparity between healing/ gimped tanking specs and the dps specs outside of instances- mobs are just too easy and healing for non- healers via eating/ bandaging is too effective in my opinion.
The upcoming content patches aimed at small group play could easily change things by having numerous unsnareable unccable elites- then I think healers and tanks would be more desireable and find it easier to group but from what I've read that isn't really going to be the case.

I think gathering professions are still amongst the most profitable ways to grind but it's so much less fun. I can do a few laps of terrokar or netherstorm but then there's little reason to do more. As feral I can grind for longer and it felt good to rep up and get a few boe blues and interacting with mobs is a lot more fun than interacting with node spawns or even worse- fishing pools.

I still don't understand how you can say things like "there's so much less to do and the game isn't much fun at all" if you can not grind. Is grinding really THAT funny and important for you? Then i think a healing class is simply the wrong choice. No matter what equip you get, you will never be able to grind like other classes with worse stuff.

Imho the interesting part of a game is making decisions. Making decisions when the timeframe is limited and mistakes are punished. Things bots can not do easily.

Repeatable stupid work, which just consists of hitting the same buttons over and over again and without the need of thinking or doing something special, depending on the situation is - imho - just boring. Bots can do that. There is no need to waste your time with something a bot without artificial intelligence who is just repeating its simple macros over and over again can do.

From a game design point this was really the step to realize when you think about bots... the trick is not to hunt bot users, but to design a game that requires the players to make decisions frequently, so no simple script is able to replace them. I think it's poor design and a lack of innovative gameplay to require grinding from human beings and that future games will maybe reduce this aspect and make it more fun.

My decision to play a healing class was based on the fact that i dont want to do the same repeatable things in raids over and over again. As a healer you have to be aware of unexpected things and react properly. You have to see things coming and do something before it happens. You have to "feel" how much heal is needed and who to heal next. It's more than executing a bot's job to be a good healer. And if you chose to go this way, i don't understand why you would bother to be unable to do stupid grinding?

There may be times where it is funny for some minutes to just grind mobs with decent killing speed and there may be times where it is required and funny to farm - especially if you are doing it together with someone else. But i could never imagine to be able to only do this. It's like working at assembly lines "for fun". Is it only me who misses the creative and entertaining part there?

I think as a game design problem it's actually quite grave

The OP is basically right: if you don't have tons of time to play and want to be effective dps classes offer a much better package. One spec for pvp/arena/grinding/instances/raids; one set of gear for pvp/arena/grinding/instances/raids; and basically one set of player skills

Tanks and healers require more gearing up, gain rep slower, are much less effective at developing their character solo

What we have going for us is groupability but that stems from the fact that most people don't want to play tanks or healers. On the face of it if 3 dps plus tank plus healer is viable then dps should be more sought after and that would be true were it not that the role is more than three times as popular

My own compromise is to play alts while keeping an eye open for groups. I basically don't want ever to have to play my Pally as a soloer if I can possibly help it. And of course it's nice when soloing with a hunter to see "lf1m (tank)" and think "I can do that!"

But long-term I think most people will drift out of tanking and healing. The main draw is a negative (you get groups because most others don't want to play one) and that is not sustainable in the long-term. People will always reach this point of healing raids effectively and looking at the guy next to them and thinking "when he gets loot it allows him to make a ton of gold and own in pvp as well as rock in raids. When I get loot I raid better and that's it"

Possible solutions are places to grind gold in a group that are clearly more lucrative than soloing or doing away with the respec cost gold sink or players charging other players for tanking/healing instances (some tanks have started to try this on some EU servers)

But it's clearly a very fundamental flaw in the end-game that for some of us we're just bored when we log on and have nothing worthwhile to do until the raid starts

While mostly true, I'd wager tanks and healers have it a bit easier grinding (instance based) reputation compared to damage. Damage is damage for the most part and pretty interchangable save a few specific circumstances, but as you said in the post "lftank/healer" is extremely common.

Can't recall how many random tells I get asking to tank instance X, but it is a hell of a lot and makes for easy reputation grinding.

Mote farming sucks as a warrior in most any case though. The only ones that are decent are Primal Earth as the source mob does physical damage. The rest all do elemental damage which greatly reduces farm rate needing to replenish health far more often (and not on Humanoids/Undead, <3 Cannibalize, best grinding skill ever!)

I play a Holy Paladin. I have a healing set, solo set, tanking set and shock pvp set. In my solo set, I can take a mob to 50% in the first 1.5 seconds of combat. Needless to say, that takes up over 20 bag slots, get big bags asap.

I enjoy playing a healer, but the main thing that separates healing from soloing is gear. If you take the time to find the right gear, you will be able to enjoy your character much more.

The only problem that I run into is rolling need on 3 different sets of armor, one being mail (if no one else needs the item of course) but my main goal is to be the best at healing that I can be and I try to keep that in focus first and foremost.

Hope it works out for you, good luck!

Your experience mirrors my own. I leveled a horde druid to 70, respecced from balance to resto, and found myself only logging on to raid. I had no farming alt on the server that the druid is on, and leveling a new character to 70 for farming purposes isn't an attractive option.

Even if I respecced to farm for primals or scraldor rep I'd have to farm an extra hundred gold to cover the cost of the two respecs. I was already doing that on my warlock, where I'd respec 3 times a week (once to raid normally as affliction, once for ilhoof tanking, and once for the arenas).

I wish I had a solution to the healer solo viability dilemma without investing more time or money than other classes have to. If blizzard allowed us to have two permanent specs that we could change into at no additional cost, perhaps that would solve the problem. Visit the trainer, and choose your raiding/farming spec at will.

As a Holy paladin, my experience mirrors Venos'. Unless you're attached to the ToL spec, couldn't you be a Balance/Resto hybrid, and still have an amazing amount of healing power while also having decent damage output for grinding?

Alternately, respec for a weekend between raid nights. The added efficiency will easily offset the cost.

It is a little frustrating to see DPS specced people be able to easily farm the multitudes of things that are needed for character progression (rep, primals, recipes, etc.), but Blizzard has done a decent job of mitigating that to an extent.

For example there's a lot of patterns that only come from 5mans, herbalism and mining are both lucrative, and in 2.1 there are quite a few repeatable quests that do not involve killing things solo (bombing runs, gathering prof. quests, courier stuff, quick group quests etc). Hopefully this helps to solve the dilemma somewhat, since making healing/tanking specs equal to DPS specs in terms of damage output simply won't happen. There's a lot of other creative things I could think of to expedite farming/questing for healers and tanks that doesn't involve directly buffing healer DPS, and I'm hopeful that Blizzard will continue to add things like that in the future.

Edit: the other solution is the oft-repeated free respecs. Whether it's only swapping between two different specs, or with a cooldown of some sort, this would solve a lot of the problems. It doesn't seem likely, but with the structure of TBC it seems more important than ever before with people needing to potentially farm, raid, do 5-mans, and PVP in arenas & battlegrounds, so who knows.