The Best Healer? to PriestsFollow

Hello! I'm trying to go down the path of a healer, and I'm confused as to who to play. Depending on where I read, I hear different things about who is best. I know each has their own strengths, but I'm just looking for the class you would most want as your main healer in an instance, or raid.

From what I gather, these are the things that people look at the most:
*Single-Target Healing
*Mass Healing
*Survivability

I don't care much about the survivability as I plan to be in an instance almost my entire leveling, and not as the tank! So, if anyone could help me, I want whatever fits the best as the "healer" class. I'm posting this in the Paladin forum too, because I'm guessing there are people that look at that one that don't here, and those are my two top choices so far.

Thank you, that's a very helpful response. I want to be able to keep my entire party alive, at all times, as best as possible. I get the impression that preist will still be very useful in a raid, just not as much as paladins. That's ok with me since I hear that many of the major end-game instances in TBC are 5-man, or up to 25-man instead of the 40-mans of pre-TBC.

I think I'm going to go with priest now, and I thank you for the advice.

Priests have the best multi-target healing capacity. Paladins are terrible at more than 1 target to heal, in comparison to the other healers. Paladins however have the best single-target healing.

As far as Resto Shaman go, the only advantage over Priest I see is utility.

I would argue that the balancing act has got it almost right: in raids, there aren't "best" healers anymore... just different healers.

--Druids have a large number of HoTs that are crucial in fights like Gruul, which have silences, and other fights were healers can be incapacitated; Swiftmend allows them to combat damage spikes at instant speed. They also add a party aura to healing received and an additional battle rez. Survivability is only decent, with no anti-aggro abilities and relatively low armor. Tranquility is a splendid panic button that can be made threat-free through talents and uninterruptable with Barkskin. Their area healing, other than Tranquility, takes the form of just HoTing everyone.

--Shaman have an absolutely terrific raid spell: Chain Heal. It's an AoE healing spell that is independent of parties, seeking out any damaged players in the vicinity. It's a great spell. Single target heals are nothing special, but the utility of their totems is undeniable, with Mana Tide Totem particularly noteworthy. Everyone likes party buffs. Shaman have relatively good survivability with a bit of anti-aggro from talents and a good chunk of armor.

--Paladins have the highest survivability, with the most armor, the infamous bubble, and a passive threat reduction from healing spells. Indeed, there are actually fights in which paladins deliberately build healing aggro for tactical reasons in the confidence that they can take the hit. Paladins have the game's most efficient single-target heals and are notorious for not going out of mana. Paladins have no area heal capability. However, adding a second paladin to a raid adds an entire additional round of paladin buffs to the raid. Triple paladins are frequently desired to give paladins all the buffs a raid wants.

--Priests have medium survivability; they have armor on par with a druid's but possess Fade, a temporary aggro drop, and Psychic Scream for emergencies. Priests have the most versatile array of healing spells, with quick and slow single-target heals, a HoT, a damage shield, and several forms of area healing. They have the unfortunate attribute of requiring talents from two different trees to fill out their healing abilities, while other classes get all of theirs in one; the consequence of that is that priests must give up one of the two talents they'd really like (Divine Spirit or Circle of Healing). This is the only "stacking utility" priests get, but Circle of Healing is merely nice, not overly deserving of a raid spot. Patch 2.3 MIGHT change this by making a deep Discipline build desirable, but we'll wait and see.

PW:Shield is IMO what sets priests apart as healers. It allows the priest to give a huge buffer if a giant amount of damage is expected to befall the main tank, and allows CC a little slack in case it breaks early.

Skribs, there was a time when I harbored similar thoughts. It's not the case, though. Even heroic bosses hit for over 3k easily; a talented and high-powered shield only protects for about 1800, not even a single hit. Plus, it has terrible efficiency in terms of HP/mana. Shield has its uses, but it's nigh-useless for main tanks.

PW:Shield on a tank is that "oh **** I'm gonna lose him" spell. Once in a while it will give you that second you need to renew, flash heal, Prayer of mending, flash heal, greater heal, save him.

It's also ok for a quick toss along with renew to your clothies.

Tranquil Air Totem <<<< BoSalv

it does nothing for melee dps, does not reduce as much threat, and you have to be close enough to it to make use of it.

So it's true, but mostly.

Just want to also point out that Shamans have a godly 41 point talent in their healing tree called Earth Shield. It scales with healing nicely and will protect your tank with a shield that every few seconds upon being hit, will proc and heal him for hundreds and give him extra threat, not you. Sometimes I find myself just standing there doing nothing because of this though...

For PvP this is so awesome as well, it has an added affect of 30% chance to not interupt your heals when you're hit, raising you up to 100%. Very fun for running flag in WSG.