Just when I thought healing was soooo last year...

Just when I thought I was happy with my DK... I suddenly feel like healing again. Bah. It's not necessarily a bad thing. I can imagine why, too.

My current theory is that I've hit the "roof" with my DK. The only thing left to do with him is serious raiding - which I can't do because I can't meet any raid force attendance requirement - and arena PVP - which I can only do in limited amounts due to the same limit. So, I run my daily random heroic and some pug raids, but generally, there's not much more to do with my DK.

So, I've reasoned a bit. Obviously I can't heal as a DK. However, I can tank as a DK. What's more, I like it a lot.

If I could, I'd prefer to have only one character to rep and gear up. Originally, the plan was to get a character that could both tank and heal. In effect, a druid or a paladin. However, as noted in the last post, I've come to dislike the druid spam-tanking, thus they are no longer an option. That leaves paladins. I've never liked them too much... which is an elitist opinion I'd rather rid myself of. They are still an option. I even leveled a paladin once to 71 on a different server. It's an option to pick her up again. I'm seriously considering it.

Anyway, since I joined the dark side, I've thought that I no longer need a healing class; I'm happy being tank in PVE and dps in PVP. Worked for me for a while, too... 3 months? That's quite decent for me.

Now, I want to heal again. Apart from the paladin option, that means I have to keep up two characters. Still possible.

The question, which of the characters to pick up? My priest (72), druid (80) or shaman (80)? Obviously I make it much easier for myself if I go for either of the latter two.

The character I want to heal with need to work for me both in PVP and PVE. "Work" is a relative term. It means they have to be effective enough to not annoy myself to death in PVP, and have a playstyle I'm comfortable with in both PVE and PVP. Every healer class works in PVE, as a matter of fact.

So, I ran through heroic Pit of Saron with both my druid and my shaman as healers to gauge how well I liked them. Then I ran a few random dungeons with my priest. I need to test PVP later.

Okay, the comparison between my druid and my shaman wasn't quite fair. I got a crittable, slightly underequipped, and less experienced tank with my druid. I still liked him, though, he was willing to learn. My shaman got an ICC equipped pally tank. Talk about difference.

First thought: Addons make a hell of a lot of difference. Having Grid set up to tell me exactly what hots/buffs were on each party member and how much damage they had taken made all the difference in the world. Without addons, healing is a lot harder, in my opinion.

Second thought: I'm rusty. It know the classes as I've healed a lot with each of time. However, it took time to put myself back in the healing mindset again. In fact, I found tanking a lot less stressful than healing. With a bit practice, it'll come back again.

This post was getting awfully long, so I chose to split it into more than one post.