I leveled a resto shaman from 1-80 in wotlk, healing through heroics and having fun. Would have raided if it were my cup of tea. In Cataclysm I initially had fun healing reg 5-mans, but quickly got burned out and never saw heroics for two simple reasons:


1) healing as it played out in Cataclysm just didn't work. I agree that wotlk was too mindless, in that one could simply spam OP heals when they were off cooldown. But much of Cata healing itself was a mindless spamfest, as you really only had one option (spam generic heal forrreeevveerrr). Spamming generic heal over and over is much more boring than spamming overpowered heals that actually put up big numbers and are cool. Additionally, the really crucial design error is that the fight encounters were not synergized with the new healing philosophy. The healers were designed with the philosophy of "make heals count, make them expensive so that players must carefully select which to use", while the damage done to the players during boss encounters was "ZOMG AOE".

2) the few number of regular 5 mans at launch ensured rapid burnout. Running the same 5 mans on reg, then redoing it all on heroic just wasn't inspiring. Additionally many of the dungeons themselves were simply not that exciting.


To summarize:

The cata healing model just traded one spamfest for another.

The above was coupled with aoe-heavy damage bosses which made healing miserable.

Endgame content was lacking and uninspiring.


Healing was my favorite role in the game, and I've stopped completely. All I do is tank, and my two tanks are capped at 70 and 80. (It's worlds more fun reliving the 70 and 80 end-game than trying to push through cata's uninspiring content).

I see nothing coming in future designs that could make me want to start healing again.

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