There was a post on wow.com about healers and how they get to remain diverse while other roles are getting more and more consolidated. Someone mentioned that all this effort on healers isn't going the right way, and that they need to find a way to make healing more enjoyable, rather than focus on making purpose for each class in a dungeon or raid as they currently are.
I thought that was fair, at least a little bit. So I started thinking about what I'd want out of a healer. I'd want a couple direct and AoE heals, but I'd like the main playstyle of my class to be "heal-by-dps." It would work a LITTLE like how a spriest can heal, but there would be more healing and less dps. Sure, this would force you to be the bottom of the dps AND healing meters, but at least you'd get to change up your game a little and offer variety. Some battles might need the healing race, and you could do the direct heals. Some battles might benefit more from a dps race, so you could do heal-by-dps. This would also allow you to lvl in your healing spec. Fights might take a little longer than pure dps specs, but you'd be healing yourself at the same time, as most heal-by-dps spells would probably heal the target(s) of the mob you are attacking.
Anyway, I thought it was a cool idea. What do you healers think?
Maybe the healer class could have summons. Each summoned pet would have a very different purpose. One would add dps, one would add healing, one would add buffs/debuffs, etc.
