1) Off spec DPS gear is usually sub-optimal because we healers use much of our healing gear and therefore enchants, gemming and reforging will favour our primary role, I know my DPS gear has me at around 21% hit because of the way priests get spirit to hit conversion;

2) On top of the lower DPS we also make more mistakes when DPSing because we have to try harder focusing on rotations and DPS cooldowns where when healing we do things instinctively;

So while off-spec DPS is an option it is sub-optimal and it can work well in the low to mid tier raid groups and is great for farm content but on progression fights it sucks as it decrease your raids overall chances of success..

I dunno, this tier of content has really eaten my desire to raid. I don’t know if I’m coming back, and I’ve been playing to raid since BC. :-\

I’m in a casual, 10 people normal modes raiding guild (we do 2 days a week, total 6 hours).
I had to be away from the guild for a few months while my fiancé and me were moving houses, and when I came back they had abviously more people into their ranks, including healers.
There was a bit of a “too many healers” situation, which we decided to overcome by taking turns at healing (my suggestion). All of a sudden I had to learn to dps… I’ve always been a healer ever since I started playing 6 years ago: Druid for the first year, Holy Priest after that.
I was forced to learn how to play Shadow during WotLK because it just wasn’t possible to do quests otherwise (no people to help a healer in the hope she’ll come with them in dungeons anymore :p). However, questing is very different from raiding…

Not only do I rarely go over the 12k mark (average iLvl 372, mind you), I honestly don’t have the money nor the willingness to spend thousands and thousands on gold on aquiring optimal off-spec gear, gemming and enchanting it. I still did my very best (spending most of my savings) because I believe in team effort and I want to be an useful asset to my guild, but I still do way much less damage than I should be doing with that gear, spec etc., no matter how much I practice.
The only reasonable explanation to me is that happens because I JUST. HATE. SHADOW. DPS. And no, I don’t have the time to gear an alt, and honestly I don’t want to. I love my space goat. I want to raid with her, not with my troll hunter (which ironically, does amazing dps at dps even though she goes BM :p).

However, the rest of the guildies doesn’t seem to care, so everything should be good and dandy shuoldn’t it? Alas, no such luck.
See, in the opinion of 2 of the 4 “council” leaders of the guild (and definitely the most hardcore among our roster), I should really try and switch to Disco because it’s s (supposedly) so much better in FL. T___T
I tried Disco. I honest-to-the-Naaruu loathe it even more than I hate Shadow. I can’t stand playing in it.

Now the question is: why should I?

I play to have fun.
I play to relax, to socialize with likeable, even loveable people and to work as a team to overcome a challenge. Working as a team, however, doesn’t mean to me I should do it at the expense of having fun at all. It’s not a job. I don’t get paid to do it.
I’d rather be benched, or even never raiding anymore than to do something that makes me hate a game I love.

It has not come to that of course.
Luckily for me, the people in my guild really are both nice, respectful individuals and they don’t want to lose me as a player or as a guildie, not to mention another officer doesn’t care one way or the other and the last one is fiercely opposed to me switching if I don’t want to) so I get to play Holy on my “healing weeks”.
I still get the occasional gentle “suggestion” from time to time, either from one of the officers of from new recruits that don’t know yet where I stand.
I resist the pressure. I kindly explain to my point of view and move on.

…But still deep down, I have to admit, I hold my breath in wait for patch 4.3, when Holy will be buffed and 3 healers should be “the norm” again.

This is exactly how I feel. I’m in a raid where I’m being forced to either DPS or not raid at all and I hate it. I feel like I’m doing the doggy paddle in a pool with Olympic swimmers. I’ve been a healer since I started this game and it pisses me off so much that there are HEROIC fights where you only need 4 healers. It makes no sense to me and it’s really killing any will I had to keep playing because I don’t like feeling like a detriment to my raid or feeling like I’m a bad player when I know that I’m not.