Play it for the challenge! I find it more difficult keeping people alive than trying to kill them. This is especially true in PvP.

Plus. you get a warm feeling inside from watching a DPS class whacking away at you while your health bar never falls below 50%... 

 Heh , what kind of a question is that? We play healer so your rear end can actually kill something. Without healers you'd still be playing ball in a cup.  And just for asking such a question I ban you from my hunting parties.

Originally posted by PukeBucket

Games moving away from dedicated healers isn't going to be the death of this type of gameplay. Support roles have many more iterations than +500 text popping up on the game field.

Ha, yeah! That's really all it takes.

Oh, and I started playing support roles back in FFXI for the very reasons TheHavok stated.

I like playing support roles, pretty simpily. And over the years, the support classes have been merged into the healer classes(or completely disapeared in most cases).  I like being the clutch player in the group that saves other peoples asses lol... the pressure is fun.

God complex

I've observed several different psychologies and reasons behind choosing the role of healer:

- Some choose to be healers for the power and influence it gives them in group play.

- Some because it is often much easier to find a group in the first place.

- Some just enjoy helping teammates stay alive more than killing stuff.

- Some lack confidence in their ability so they take the unpopular role of healer to compensate.

- Some choose their specific healer class because they perceive it as the most powerful or interesting class.

- Some choose to play healer only because someone has to.

i personaly like playing a healer simply because of the survivability, it's definately a very defencvie playstile. i also like the fact that healers are usually a battle turner. those with more or better healers usually win.

as a dps you are always begging people to take you in the group. as a healer everyone is always happy to have you in groups pvp or pve. even a bad healer is preferred to a decent dps :)

i just find that the most effective way to help your team the most it's usually healing especially in pvp which is what i like to do most of the time. i've always for some reason taken more pride in most healing done then most kills just because you know that you've pretty much helped every single one on your team to preform better.

Funny, I always find DPS roles to be the most boring. Every other role has some important part to play, DPS just sits in the back and goes pewpew, or stands behind going stabystaby while trying to stay out of the fire. It's very static, whereas the other roles seem more dynamic - probably because you not only have to react to the encounter and game, but also to those playing around you.

For me it's normally the most challenging class to play. And the fact that you hold the lives of others in your hands also helps! lol

And RIFT is perfect for me, as I love DPSing too, so a build of Shamicar - passively heals group and tank through DPSing is great fun, adds another aspect of challenge.

Because it's harder than dps for me but less difficult than tanking.  A good, middle of the road, have to pay attention but not quite as stressful as keeping aggro job.  It's also a matter of, if I want something done right, sometimes it's best to just do it myself.

Originally posted by Granrey

Just curious, I 've been playing MMO for couple years and as weird as it sounds. I have never asked the question to the healers.

 

edit:

why do they find it fun?

 

It's a challenge.  Like playing whack-a-mole with life or death.  Often times a single error in timing can wipe a party.

Heal a speed run of players in crap gear who insist on pulling 2, 3, even 4 pulls at once.  It isn't boring heal-bot gameplay.

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Originally posted by Granrey
Just curious, I 've been playing MMO for couple years and as weird as it sounds. I have never asked the question to the healers.
 
edit:
why do they find it fun?
 

---

Then I started healing others and found it to be a totally different game from hack and slash fighting. I was playing a mini-game with the monsters with the players in my party. I have the philosophy, if they die, I fail. No longer did I concentrate basically on the one health bar of the main monster, but the 5-10 health bars of my teammates. (I never played a healer in a raid setting.)

When all is said and done, I just get a good feeling by helping others stay alive :) I guess it is more of a passive game than the usual fighting mode.

It's a power trip for me actually. The Healer is the most powerful character class in any game. Healers truely hold life or death in their hands for every encounter. When you save the day you're a hero. When you let the party die you're the villian. When you piss a healer off and then do something stupid we get to stand there and laugh as you go down when we could have saved you. Being a Healer is as powerful as it gets in a multiplayer game. Whether you live or die is truly in our hands so you'd better be nice to us! Muhahahaha!

Bren

I like it because it matches how I am in real life. I like being the secret boss that really determines how things go, and when everything goes wrong the co-boss (tank) gets the blame 90% of the time.

I find it fun for a few reasons. One is I enjoy being a valuable member of the group. I also enjoy pretty much making a decent group with whoever I group with.

Also I find the whack-a-mole gameplay of being quite like a form of meditation. That is.... The reactionary style of healing from some games (You see the health go down..... You heal the health - like whack whack-a-mole) I don't really enjoy the pre-emptive anticipation style of healing for Clerics from EQ2 though for example (anticipating who will be damaged and how, and then doing something about it before the damage happens)

I once heard that meditation is about focusing the mind on a simple and ever so slightly brain engaging and mundane task....... Then the rest of the mind achieves peace.

That is healing for me. It pretty much helped me quit smoking 5 years ago.

I like feeling wanted and valued.  I also found it easy where others found it difficult, letting me feel special. 

Then at a certain stage my ego gets huge and I demand compliments at every turn, and blame the tank and the dps for the failure and make sure they know it.  Then the "developer" changes the healing mechanics completely and I have to re-learn everything just to become #1 healer yet again. 

The raid might blame the content on our failure because its too "hard" but as a healer, I have the luxury of just blaming the raid hehe.

Originally posted by Granrey

Just curious, I 've been playing MMO for couple years and as weird as it sounds. I have never asked the question to the healers.

 

edit:

why do they find it fun?

 

I've always played a healer as my main in WoW since the very beginning back in vanilla, I like having the option to be able to replenish my HP with heals and also do some damage aswell. The main reason i rolled a healer to begin with though was i enjoy been chased around in PvP and have 3-4 players all beating on me trying to take me down.

I enjoy utility roles, where I can do multiple things to help my group. In DAoC I played as a Bard often and while healing I would also twist my songs for the buffs it provided. In WoW, I hate the healing model, staring at bars and filling them up, so I tend to play dps specs where I can do some things to help out the group.

I hate the healing model of WoW where you seem to just mostly stare at bars and fill em up while using a defensive cooldown to save others. Although, Monk healing might be fun.

GW2 looks to be up my alley, where I can switch up weapons and "role" on the fly to best support my team.

Originally posted by Granrey

Just curious, I 've been playing MMO for couple years and as weird as it sounds. I have never asked the question to the healers.

 

edit:

why do they find it fun?

 

I enjoy it because I know that everyone else in the party is relying on me to perform.  Without a healer, or me, they can not continue their raid/group/pvp.