what healing class to choose?Follow

I personally settled on the priest for several reasons, and your mileage will vary on all of them:

1. I like the flexibility and the variety. While the other healing classes tend to be known for a particular thing (druids for awesome HOT's, shaman for powerful group healing, paladins for strong single target heals), priests have a little of everything: single heals, HOT's, group heals, and panic buttons a-plenty. We've got a spec for multi-target/raid healing and a spec for tank healing. There's really no healing role we can't fill.
2. I enjoy this class's DPS spec for solo activities, so that allows me mix things up sometimes.
3. I couldn't be an undead druid.

Yet another bullseye from Teacake, that's exactly how I feel about it.

I've healed as a druid up to 68 and a paladin up to 38. While the way other classes heal can be fun, it's just really not my thing. Paladin healing feels way to 'reactive' to me. It's like playing a priest who can only cast greater heal. Playing a druid is exactly the opposite, to me it feels more like I have *only* weak HOT spells and lack heal'bombs'. Priests simply seem to have it all.

The thing is, as a priest, I react to every bit of damage differently. If the tank loses ~18% hp I will use penance. If the tank loses 25% hp and there is no real other burst in play I will use penance and renew. If the tank loses 30% hp and there is no burst in play I will use greater heal. If the tank loses 5% hp I will use renew and possibly cancelcast greater heal. If the tank loses between 30% and 50% hp I will use shield, penance and renew.
As a druid, if the tank loses 18% hp I will use regrowth and rejuvenation. If the tank loses 25% hp I will use regrowth and rejuvenation. If the tank loses 30% hp I will use regrowth and rejuvenation. If the tank loses 5% hp I will use rejuvenation. If the tank loses between 30% and 50% hp I will use regrowth and rejuvenation. Occasionally I'll mix in Lifebloom, but that's it.
As a paladin, if the tank loses between 10% and 20% hp I will use flash of light. If the tank loses more than 20% hp I will use holy light.

I realize it might not be that blunt, but that´s how it feels to me. Priest healing requires a little more thinking about what heal to use. Is the tank going to get hit again? Will the borrowed time bonus from Power Word: Shield help me here? Since the tank is blocking so much, might simply casting renew be a good idea? And after an AOE, should I use Power Word: Shield on low hp target A or low hp target B?

Simply said, I think priest healing feels more 'secure' to me. When healing on my druid or paladin I have a lot of those moments where I go "Right, what heal to use here? X will probably overheal and Y might not be enough to counter the upcoming burst". As a priest I've got so many abilities at my disposal that work in so many situations that very plainly said, there's more thinking involved to do it right.

In the end however, I think it's all personal preferrence. I can see very well how somebody could find druids more 'secure'; if an unexpected burst comes up, you will have 3 HOTs running on the tank and he should be able to hang in for a bit anyway.

You want to be an awesome healer or just a healer? Priests are incredible. Hands down the best healers. Sure druids, shamans, and paladins can heal. But that doesn't mean its to be done. You get a plethora of heals, its incredibly easy to bail out of sticky situations, and you have multiple (ok 2) healing specs. Priests aren't a hybrid class. They are THE healing class.

Penance and prayer of mending, best heals ever. Throw prayer of mending on someone and AoE damage becomes your friend. And penance? A quick burst of 3 heals (mine average about 2400hp each with 3400-4000 crits) in 1.5 seconds? Combined with inner focus and grace (and divine aegis to boot) you have a heal with the power of a G heal with half the mana cost. And its instant! Plus if you go discipline you never find yourself low on mana.

I went the route of discipline as a healing spec because I haven't started lvl 80 raids yet and I mostly PuG 5 mans. Plus discipline is much easier to level. Go holy if you are in a good guild that doesn't have to PuG. If you plan on running mostly 5 man pugs, go discipline. I'll give you the best advice for priestin'.

First of all, don't level shadow spec. Please. Level whatever spec you plan on staying with. You learn so much valuable knowledge by leveling disc or holy. You become familiar with your heals and you learn to use your "Oh ****" features. I've seen so many priests who level shadow and respec for end game dungeons etc. who where terrible healers. Take your time with your priest. Heal every chance you get. And regardless of what anyone tells you, priests are the best healers. Beware though, they do take alot of skill to actually master. So if you want easy mode I wouldn't recomend one.

Arrogant and completely wrong. You need to open your eyes and see what has happened around you while you were focusing on YOUR class.



I think it's commonly agreed upon that HOLY is the way to go for 5-mans due to moronic Pug-People eating massive AoE when they shouldn't. This doesn't mean however that you couldn't do it as a Disc Priest. It's certainly more challenging, though.

I'm playing a druid AND a priest. I didn't start the priest because of thinking that the druid wasn't powerful enough. I did because playing a priest healer is DIFFERENT. Now that I have both healing styles available to me I feel complete...

Spot on, I leveled to 71 as shadow and loved it. I healed nearly every single instance I stepped into during that time (and I am an instance junkie, always have been, they are what I love in this game). During this time the only time I had any trouble was when I had genuinely moronic groups.

Since 71 (now 76) I have done some time as holy and have just gone disc. The healing specs almost make it too easy. Honestly if you level all the way as a healing spec you are never going to challenge yourself and when the sh.. hits the fan you are not going to know what to do because you have become complacent.

Honestly, thank you for that post. I've been looking to name a couple of downsides to shadow levelling for quite a bit but just couldn't wrap my head around it. Well, there you have it, it's up to you *points* to decide what spec you want to level in the end.

You can't really deny that doing something the hard way makes you better in it then when you're doing something the easy way.



That's all cool, but at the moment paladins are the only exception; every other healing class can heal every encounter. All you're pointing out is that priests are less specialized than other classes. Which is true. That's also the main reason why I consider priests "the" main healing class. But it doesn't make them the "best" healing class. There is no best healing class.

Most of it in the end depends on personal preference, it's just that there is no definite "best" class/spec/cake.

Seeing as both of you don't seem types to let go easily to me, I just want to get one thing in before the thread explodes =P



The reason I was careful with wording this in my own post is because it's not true; Paladins are an exception here. It is nigh impossible to kill Sartharion if you have only paladin healers, for example. While you're right about them getting beacon and the likes, they are still mainly single target healers. But yes, your point is right.

Ok I suppose to an extent you can't really say what is the best healing class because there are too many variables. I've seen a ret paladin that did a better job healing than a T6 holy priest. Its all based on the skill of the player. In fact that T6 priest was the worst healer I had ever had. And he was in the realms best raiding guild. How could this happen?

The healers most important job is to turn a mess into a successful run. Its much harder to find a good tank than a good healer. I've healed good groups, and I healed really really bad groups. The difference? The good groups I did absolutely nothing. The tank took all the damage, DPS stayed out of trouble and all I had to do was spam renew. The bad groups? Well lets just say I usually use every heal available during each pull. And before the patch, I rolled discipline. No one seemed to notice or care. And yes I healed heroics and kara long before the patch.

The fact of the matter is that priests have a heal for every occasion. Problem is, most players don't have the mind capacity to use them properly. Priestin' ain't easy. Yeah there are many classes than can heal. And most quite well. But I'll stick by priests being the best. And the OOM comments? I never run out of mana. Disc spec+ alot of spirit+alchemy= You get the idea.

I'll tell a shadow priest he should of rolled a warlock if DPS is what he had in mind.

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FTFY



That means that they can do everything in one talent tree that priests need 2 for.



Yet priests are the only healer class that you can very well live without.



I have yet to see proof of that.

Edited, Jan 5th 2009 6:50pm by Kanngarnix