How to make healers awesome

Pardon me being three months behind, but I inhabit a very small part of the blogosphere. A small piece of the WoW blogosphere. It's tiny. "That's what she said." Very mature.

Mordiceius asks Why can't healers be awesome? Good question! I suggest that it's because healing is innately not very awesome. And game design makes it even less so.

Think about what a healer does. They stand there as something smashes your face in. Then they heal you up again. And then JUST STAND THERE. Maybe they heal you again and again, but the main action of a healer is just standing there doing absolutely nothing to prevent your head from being removed.

Think about a tank now. They are the ones preventing you from losing your head. They scream their heads off and make the enemy so mad that it can attack no one else. They pull out shields and deflect the enemy attack. They turn into bears and just take the hit. Just like that. Or they dodge it because we all know bears have moves. They surround themselves with frost and use their weapon as a barrier, deflecting attacks and turning them right back (parry haste ftw? maybe?). Point is, tanks are fucking badasses.

DPS aren't quite as much. After all, they won't do much to keep you from losing your head, but they will potentially remove the enemy's head. They'll stab them. They'll swing a hammer that just knocks it right off. They'll set them on fire so their heads cease to exist. DPS aren't as badass as tanks, but they are as badass as the huge boss trying to remove your head.

Healers stand there and wave their hands and you don't die. And that's it. You still lose ten gallons of blood. You still lose limbs. While it is kinda neat to be making all that regrow, it's so reactive. At best they'll put a glowy bubble around you that will negate a small percentage of the horrible pain that is coming.

Can this change? Can healers be badass? They could be made into something similar, but more badass. I previously imagined making DPS more group-oriented by allowing them to return attacks from enemies. But you know what? Screw them! Let's give that to the healers instead.

How about instead of Sacred Shield absorbing some tiny bit of damage every 6 seconds if it instead gives the tank the equivalent of a second shield, or a shield at all, which they can use to block more and increase their damage. Yea, let's see that, a BEAR WITH A SHIELD. You think getting mauled by a bear claw hurts? Imagine if that is backed up with a magical shield tearing across your face. This would be temporary of course, but healers would be a bit cooler if they could at least play the person who throws the gun to the hero.

Let's up the ante. How about healers healing vengefully? Ultimatums. "If you dare touch him (the tank) you will suffer the wrath of [Naaru, Elune, the elements]." Think the disc talent for a reactive shield, but times a hundred. The healer would magically contribute his or her weapon to the cause of the tank, fighting along with it. They would parry attacks and swing right back.

At the least they could play the martyr. Take the damage suffered by the group into themselves; perhaps at a 10% rate, and then recovering it over time. Healers would act in rotation; absorbing damage until near death and then recovering while the next takes over. Think of it as divine sacrifice/hand of sacrifice, but more powerful, combined with an automatic HoT on the healer when the effect ends.

I must admit, I rarely heal. I hate the reactive nature and the stress of it. I have no confidence in my ability to heal. So I leave the final word to the healers: What would make you more awesome?