Pretty Green and Blue Bars.

Ahh, being a healer in an mmorpg. As groups we clear enemy citadels and kill monsters. As large groups/raids we slay dragons, travel to other dimensions, or even kill gods. Some truly amazing sights to see and experience. Well, that's more of a guess on my part, kinda busy as a healer watching all these little green and blue bars and keep them from turning red.

They go to all that trouble making these games pretty and filled with flashy effects, your typical healer really doesn't get to see much(if any) of that. We're busy making sure that everyone doesn't die and waste all of our time and money. So instead of getting to shoot fireballs at a dragon or shove my sword through some monster's throat, we get to be the responsible ones so everyone else can do those things.

I'm not saying that healing is awful, but it's quite unrewarding. There aren't a lot of cases where you hear "that was great healing" or "wow, you saved my ass" though not totally unheard of. But everytime someone dies or there is an entire raid wipe, the healers are(normally) the first to be blamed. It's a pretty rough job since there is so little positive reinforcement.

A lot of "damage dealing" people just don't understand the complexities of healing. They swing their axe or send bolts of dark magic at the enemies and just basically do their best to do as much damage as they can, pretty straightforward. As a healer, every single thing you do could save or kill the group of people you are with. If a person shoots their bow a second too late, no real loss. If a healer is a second late on their heal, potentially everyone could die...no pressure...

When a person takes any damage, here is what typically goes through my mind(though not all apply for every situation, I'll try to keep them somewhat chronological):

• Why is this person taking damage and from what.
• How much damage did they just take in from one "hit" from whatever.
• Who else is getting hurt also.
• Who else is already hurt.
• How much healing will they need immediately.
• How many more times will they get hit and how quickly.
• How much mana do I have to cast more heals.
• Who else might need attention more than said person.
• If there is another healer, try to guess what their response will be also.
• Check mana for other healers.
• Check enemy health to estimate how long fight will last.

And those are basically just what I can think of right now that might fit, they have to be assessed nearly instantly, though some are more afterthought and overall situation analysis. About 95% of that is staring at those same green and blue bars.

Each healing class has their own style of managing their casting times, mana, actual healing output, and various special tricks that they can use only on occasion. Plus they have to factor in who is with them in the group. Luckily it's easy to remember who is with you, those bars also have names above them.

ps. I was going to mention a healing class from another game I've been playing lately, but decided to save that for another topic one day about just that game itself.