Assistance for picking a Healing Class/Spec

[romz]

So I want to get into healing for raiding. But I have 0 clue of where to start. While I have a some basic understanding of healing classes/spec, but I was wondering what are some suggestions to a person who is new to the role that they can easily pick up and do decently with?

And please no "pick whatever healer you think would be fun" type of answers cause they all look fun. ;-;

(Expansion is WotLK)

Thank you!

[thepleven]

And please no "pick whatever healer you think would be fun" type of answers cause they all look fun. ;-;

This is true you know ? :)

I will try to help you with my personel opinion, i've played all healers in wotlk at end game and i will rank them for you :

rank 1 : Resto shaman - good aoe heals , good single target heals , HEROISM !!!, totems and like 95% of the groups on wotlk don't even start the raid without a shaman.

rank 2 : Resto druid - good aoe heals , good single target heals , combat ressurect, like +50% mana for you or someone else in the party and very important for some fights like syndra on hc for example without regrowth there is very hard.

rank 3 : Priest disc - not good at healing but the shielding is awesome and very fun to play.

rank 4 : Holy paladin - good single target heals, not so much aoe heals. ( i don't have much exp with thisone )

rank 5 : Priest holy - good aoe heals , good single target heals, very good healing cd ( guardian angel ) important for some fights.

I personally play with resto druid because it's most fun for me.

[Mrutyunjay]

I play as a holy priest.. and with the short experience at being a healer at lvl 80..

i enjoy it a lot.. but i would say.. having a restro shaman is a BIG help you and obviously to a raid.. they way i see it.. HPriest a awesome at "oh **** he's gonna die" things :P (guarding angel )
and have good buffs which help a lot and deal our massive AoE heals ..

but yes.. 90% people will tell you to switch to a disc and may be you will too, seeing the mana issues at start.. but once you have good enough gear.. that should not be much of an issue..

so just decide whether you want to be a single target healer or AoE .. and then you can choose from the list " thepleven" has given.

[MagnusD]

healing is my jam

paladin heal: probably the worst, because it pretty much has to longcast (as opposed to instant cast) everything and it's aoe heals are terrible, meaning you're only really good at healing when only the tank takes damage, which, while optimal, is really never the case. what you can do other classes can do WHILE healing the rest of the party. you will be stuck being 1/many heals in a raid scenario, parked on tank, or not invited at all (everyone already rolls pally tank and ret O_O) really a no go overall, in my opinion.

shaman hea:l seems good at first but really excels in the 5 man max and pvp type scenario. having to long cast almost everything is a drag anytime you're really needing to heal alot is, it's really not good in big groups. chain lightning only heals within the party it's cast at, really doesn't work in ten man or greater. shoutout to the era when it made sense. shamans are excellent for group composition overall due to the blinding excellence of totems, excellent passive raid buffs from talents and heroism but you can do that while you dps, and they really stand out there compared to healing. shamans are dope in pvp cuz they're tuff as nails with great tools. stack dat haste, tho.

dic priest: excellent for tank healing, just barely acceptable for group healing, amazing for pvp. bubbles work for tanks and party mates in pvp, not really the best for trying to keep a whole squad up, acceptable for dungeons usually, just need the right spec and glyph for it. fun, effective and easy to gear.

holy priest: is pretty terrible at everything except picking up the slack where the tank-only healers lack; healing the rest of the party. even still they need so much haste - due to all relevant spells being longcast AND especially long to cast even specced for it - i wouldn't recommend trying to play this spec unless you're very close to BIS with an emphasis on haste according to your level, or else everything just going to die on your watch, either cuz you're too slow or cuz you're ****ing OOM. this tree does no favours.

druid: healing perfection. what it lacks in tools like shaman's amazing totems, priest control and dispells, and paladin's toughness it makes up for with one thing: being the best damn HEALER in the game. you barely need to hardcast anything. on my favourite raid/dungeon healing spec i only cast nourish, the rest is just instant hots and other instant cast spells. which means you have the ability to move around, can't be interrupted or "pushed back" easily and react quicker without being stuck in spellcasting. also if you spec correctly you come out very tough, with protection close to what a shaman's is with a shield. there's really nothing wrong with this spec, you basically have infinte mana especially compared to other healing classes.
Another excellent thing is that druids are the only class in the game to do 4/5 possible roles that any character could potentially play; ranged magic, melee dps, tank and heal. the only thing they're lacking is ranged physical, which only hunter does anyways. this lets you play ONE character, and as long as you're keeping gear around for it, be a part of any raid in any needed role. not to mention that they're healing, tanking and dps (when properly geared) is arguably some of the, if not THE best choices in the game. you won't need to reroll a new character if you want to play another role, just hit up the trainer and reset skills and buy new glyphs. congratulations: you've saved yourself hundreds of hours.
and, for icing on the cake: as healers you have a specific niche in gear that absolutely zero other classes utilize: spirit-casting-leather, which makes it extremely easy to gear compared to shaman and priest.

go druid, you won't regret it.

[staccobainforum]

I have a holy paladin as a healer so I will give you feedback for it. As mentioned above - no mass heals which is a problem. You can heal up to 2 targets at one time with a beacon active on one of them. This is good for some bosses like Emalon where you have the boss on one tank and the trash on the other but he casts mass spells so there you can't be that much of assistance.

Flash of light is one of the most mana-efficient spells in game, you can spam it as much as you want but it doesn't heal that much even when stacking spell power and even with high crit rate. However, for raiding you will want to heal with holy light, holy light cast is faster with 0.5 sec after the first cast so your problem won't be casting speed but the mana that it costs. Even when stacking intellect, even with spell like divine plea (that is really hard to time correctly when to be casted), you will still be very very mana hungry.

For utility - you can provide buffs for your party but most times there will be another paladins too so you are not irreplacable for this. Sacred shield absorbs nice damage but is more viable for trash fights rather then boss ones'. For some battles you can provide the nice effect of DS (divine sacrifice) but this is something occasional.

In my opinion - Hpally is one of the worst PvE Healers and mb the best PvP one.

[magaginho]

healing is my jam

paladin heal: probably the worst, because it pretty much has to longcast (as opposed to instant cast) everything and it's aoe heals are terrible, meaning you're only really good at healing when only the tank takes damage, which, while optimal, is really never the case. what you can do other classes can do WHILE healing the rest of the party. you will be stuck being 1/many heals in a raid scenario, parked on tank, or not invited at all (everyone already rolls pally tank and ret O_O) really a no go overall, in my opinion.

shaman hea:l seems good at first but really excels in the 5 man max and pvp type scenario. having to long cast almost everything is a drag anytime you're really needing to heal alot is, it's really not good in big groups. chain lightning only heals within the party it's cast at, really doesn't work in ten man or greater. shoutout to the era when it made sense. shamans are excellent for group composition overall due to the blinding excellence of totems, excellent passive raid buffs from talents and heroism but you can do that while you dps, and they really stand out there compared to healing. shamans are dope in pvp cuz they're tuff as nails with great tools. stack dat haste, tho.

dic priest: excellent for tank healing, just barely acceptable for group healing, amazing for pvp. bubbles work for tanks and party mates in pvp, not really the best for trying to keep a whole squad up, acceptable for dungeons usually, just need the right spec and glyph for it. fun, effective and easy to gear.

holy priest: is pretty terrible at everything except picking up the slack where the tank-only healers lack; healing the rest of the party. even still they need so much haste - due to all relevant spells being longcast AND especially long to cast even specced for it - i wouldn't recommend trying to play this spec unless you're very close to BIS with an emphasis on haste according to your level, or else everything just going to die on your watch, either cuz you're too slow or cuz you're ****ing OOM. this tree does no favours.

druid: healing perfection. what it lacks in tools like shaman's amazing totems, priest control and dispells, and paladin's toughness it makes up for with one thing: being the best damn HEALER in the game. you barely need to hardcast anything. on my favourite raid/dungeon healing spec i only cast nourish, the rest is just instant hots and other instant cast spells. which means you have the ability to move around, can't be interrupted or "pushed back" easily and react quicker without being stuck in spellcasting. also if you spec correctly you come out very tough, with protection close to what a shaman's is with a shield. there's really nothing wrong with this spec, you basically have infinte mana especially compared to other healing classes.
Another excellent thing is that druids are the only class in the game to do 4/5 possible roles that any character could potentially play; ranged magic, melee dps, tank and heal. the only thing they're lacking is ranged physical, which only hunter does anyways. this lets you play ONE character, and as long as you're keeping gear around for it, be a part of any raid in any needed role. not to mention that they're healing, tanking and dps (when properly geared) is arguably some of the, if not THE best choices in the game. you won't need to reroll a new character if you want to play another role, just hit up the trainer and reset skills and buy new glyphs. congratulations: you've saved yourself hundreds of hours.
and, for icing on the cake: as healers you have a specific niche in gear that absolutely zero other classes utilize: spirit-casting-leather, which makes it extremely easy to gear compared to shaman and priest.

go druid, you won't regret it.

This was one of the worst posts I've ever seen in a while. DO NOT spread false information please.

[Deathmastered]

This was one of the worst posts I've ever seen in a while. DO NOT spread false information please.

This.

Every healer has a smaller or bigger spot.
Holy paladins - for tank healing or at times saving somebody if have time.
Disc priests - absorbing incoming damage, if have free time (mostly in 10mans) healing up tank OR helping tank healers in non-aoe encounters (fester when no gas)
Resto shams - best flexibility wise, depends on do you stack haste or sp and what balance do you find with it, it is possible to balance it so you would be able to do both - decent tank healing to help discs/hpalas and decent or high aoe healing.
Resto druids - imo are good only in non-bursty ocasions or when they are not rapid. Since most druid heals are HoT, they need time to tick. So fester gas phase, bql, sindra is where that is the best. With bad dpriest maybe lk.

Before I finish, all 4 mentioned above have the capability to soloheal at least icc10n and part if not whole of 10hc.

Lastly, holy priests. Tbh I have no clue at which encounters they might be very good. Their main heals are cast aoes mixed with some instant ones and Renew, if I recall correctly... If you stack everything to empower greater heal maybe can work as vdw healer, but dont think so, especially since most raids can find a holy pally or rsham both of who are better at this job.

Ofc, all of it is my personal opinion.


Also, regards "go druid, you wont regret it", every role has many playstyles. I do like melee dps, as I main retpala and frost dk, but I do not like the combo point stuff and bleeds, so feral is definetly not for me. Also, I love random proc things, like fire mages, ret palas (2t10), arcane mages, such. Balance have constant procs, so this doesnt apply. Again, not liking it. Based on what I've heard about feral tanks (dont quote me on this therefore) they have mainly like 3 spells they use, besides those that have effect for a minute. Nothing to pay attention to besides your health and boss. Ok, I kinda do enjoy the resto druid playstyle, altho I prefer shams. But for the reasons stated above I know from myself that if I'd go with such hype in druids, I'd be VERY disappointed.

[Jakkre]

paladin heal: probably the worst

Paladin is the best tank healer in wotlk.
Beacon of light makes it possible to heal MT and OT at the same time.

dic priest: excellent for tank healing, just barely acceptable for group healing

Disc are excellent grp healer. They shield the whole raid and save low hp players while other healer such as resto dudu heal the raid up.
Resto druide and disc priest have the perfect synergy when it comes to raid healing on 25 man.

druid: healing perfection.

Every healer has its pro and con.
Druide might have the most healing per second when it comes to raid healing but its one of the worst tank healer.

[thepleven]

Lastly, holy priests. Tbh I have no clue at which encounters they might be very good. Their main heals are cast aoes mixed with some instant ones and Renew, if I recall correctly... If you stack everything to empower greater heal maybe can work as vdw healer, but dont think so, especially since most raids can find a holy pally or rsham both of who are better at this job.

They are very good but it strongly depends who is the player behind. Here is a video of holy priest solo icc 10 hc before 2-3 days from udba guild.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmWJviQtLSI