Current state of healers

[Azaile-]

Hi,

Ive recently come into a position of leading my raid, im alright with just about everything for taking control of the raid except for setting up/assigning healers.
Im looking to find out whcih classes/specs are best for Raid heals or Tank heals so i can assign appropriately.


I am running a 10m atm with a Druid/Shammy/pally combo, however we are only running 10m as we lost a few core raiders and will be looking to move up to 25m asap.

Any advice on healers would be appreciated.

[makominami]

Stack resto shaman and spam chain heal like TBC and you won't go wrong *not even kidding here*

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Shy away from priests in all roles atm , they have fallen to bottom.

[Deleted]

You always want a balanced Healingsetup.
Resto Shamans look strong but in the end no class currently is really bad or op... in contrast to T15 Content where Monks + Disc Priests were OP and Druids + Shamans were shit. Now all healers are quite equal with Shamans maybe a little bit ahead but not OP.

For 3 Healing Bosses you basically always want a Disc Priest. He wont do so much HPS but the strong absorbs are still really good and they can do quite some DPS.
Then a pure HPS Healer like Monk, Shaman or Druid. And then you can add a Paladin or another pure HPS Healer depending on the Fight.

[Deleted]

Shamans and druids are stupidly strong. Holy priests are stupid in 25m
Priests are fine. Paladins are ok in 10m and bottom of the pack in 25. Monks are ok but probably bottom of the pack in 10.

[Spotnick]

Stack resto shaman and spam chain heal like TBC and you won't go wrong *not even kidding here*

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Shy away from priests in all roles atm , they have fallen to bottom.

You must play with very bad priests.

[Adhemar]

You must play with very bad priests.

He's not entirely wrong. Disc has the worst available throughput in the game. DPS and shielding abilities still make them worth having in 10 man, in my opinion, but they really aren't effective in 25. Holy is kind of the reverse. Better throughput that really comes out in 25s, but not particularly helpful to a 10 man that has either resto spec available.

[Lumiair]

Shamans and druids are stupidly strong. Holy priests are stupid in 25m
Priests are fine. Paladins are ok in 10m and bottom of the pack in 25. Monks are ok but probably bottom of the pack in 10.

I guess I'll agree to disagree with the Monk comment. In 10 we're just fine and still one of the best when played properly. 25 is where I'd say it gets iffy.

[Deleted]

This might be entirely unrelated but I really wonder where this "I can put whatever healer I want to in my team and he'll hit a theoretical best". You should just happily accept whatever good healers you can fight. Your post implies that you're doing 10 man normals. Just don't pull off something silly like playing with 3 disc priests.

[Azaile-]

Thanks for the tips everyone. for the record i had no intention of replacing my healers for others classes, i just wanted to put people in a healing role that would be best suited to their class / playstyle.

[Deleted]

I guess I'll agree to disagree with the Monk comment. In 10 we're just fine and still one of the best when played properly. 25 is where I'd say it gets iffy.

Might be wrong on the monks tbh! Ours does fine, but they cry about being really weak so ;p

[Docta]

Shy away from priests in all roles atm , they have fallen to bottom.

You must play with some very bad priests. Priests are doing just fine, even at the highest level if you take a look at some of the first kills for Thok/Blackfuse/Spoils, etc. This is even more ludicrous if you include shadow in "all roles" (as you should)... stacked fights a shadowpriest with dstar can be 1/2 to 2/3 of a healer. On Nazgrim our Spriests were only beat by warlocks (~300k vs ~315k).

[Deleted]

Running Disc/Druid/Monk atm and while the difference between our Disc and the 2 others aren't any where near what it was in T15, they're still really strong in 10 man. Don't know why anyone would say, that Priests in general are bad - that's just not true imo.
Same goes for Monks, no idea what you're talking about. Week one, our Monk solo healed Siegecrafter and got a rank 1. Our Druid and Monk are pretty equal with our Disc slightly ahead depending on the fight.

But what others have said as well, you'd want a balanced setup.

[XyroN]

Current state of healers.

10 man: #1 is disc + holy pally. (for almost all fights)

25 man: #1 is a healthy mix of each class. (depends heavily on fights)

[Adhemar]

10 man: #1 is disc + holy pally. (for almost all fights)

Completely disagree. Disc can't manage to compete with either resto spec for throughput and neither can a paladin in most situations. And if you're two healing (as your comment seems to be advocating) you really take away any need for the best niche disc has (adding damage). I'd much rather have a Druid than either of the two classes you picked for 10 man. And I'm pretty sure a 25 would do just fine without any healing priests at all.

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Running Disc/Druid/Monk atm and while the difference between our Disc and the 2 others aren't any where near what it was in T15, they're still really strong in 10 man. Don't know why anyone would say, that Priests in general are bad - that's just not true imo.
Same goes for Monks, no idea what you're talking about. Week one, our Monk solo healed Siegecrafter and got a rank 1. Our Druid and Monk are pretty equal with our Disc slightly ahead depending on the fight.

But what others have said as well, you'd want a balanced setup.

Anecdotes are just that and not evidence. Disc looks better than it is when there is less to be healed because it heals pre-emptively and spams smart healing, which shuts out other healers. If healing is actually tested, disc comes in last.

[XyroN]

Completely disagree. Disc can't manage to compete with either resto spec for throughput and neither can a paladin in most situations. And if you're two healing (as your comment seems to be advocating) you really take away any need for the best niche disc has (adding damage). I'd much rather have a Druid than either of the two classes you picked for 10 man. And I'm pretty sure a 25 would do just fine without any healing priests at all.

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Anecdotes are just that and not evidence. Disc looks better than it is when there is less to be healed because it heals pre-emptively and spams smart healing, which shuts out other healers. If healing is actually tested, disc comes in last.

Im talking heroic progression for both raid sizes here. Disc+holy pally is the strongest because of how their kit works. Strong raidwide mitigation in the form of devo+barrier etc. and then absorbs from both classes to deal with oneshotting mechanics because of undergearing (read: hc Horridon). Throughput doesnt matter as much as utility in 10 man because you only have access to so many of them.

A 25 man would probably do just fine without any healing priests, but they would do better with access to divine hymn for the increased healing taken / Barrier+SS.

[Deleted]

Completely disagree. Disc can't manage to compete with either resto spec for throughput and neither can a paladin in most situations. And if you're two healing (as your comment seems to be advocating) you really take away any need for the best niche disc has (adding damage). I'd much rather have a Druid than either of the two classes you picked for 10 man. And I'm pretty sure a 25 would do just fine without any healing priests at all.

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Anecdotes are just that and not evidence. Disc looks better than it is when there is less to be healed because it heals pre-emptively and spams smart healing, which shuts out other healers. If healing is actually tested, disc comes in last.

Without knowing what context you've seen the healing classes in action in, I can tell you that we almost always prio our Disc for progress kills if it's a 2 healed fight. We've done so for the first 7 Heroic bosses so far and Disc can more than hold their ground.

I'm actually not so sure I agree with XyroN about Disc/Hpala comp but I haven't been using a Hpala in our setup this Tier, so could be I'm wrong. But with the nerf to EF and not being able to put absorbs on the entire raid, seems like a fair nerf imo. I know the Hpala we had last Tier (social now) complained how bad Hpala are doing now compared to last Tier.

In terms of throughput and utility, I'd bring a Druid or a Monk over a Hpala now and coupled with a Disc it's really strong. But going Druid/Monk on say Heroic Galakras is not something I'd wanna do tbh. Shell+Barrier in the last phase is just god mode. I mean, you can't just look at throughput. As XyroN says, utility plays such a large role and in 10 man where you don't have a lot of raid walls, having the right ones can make the whole difference. Synergy is another thing I'd like to mention.

[gutnbrg]

Stack resto shaman and spam chain heal like TBC and you won't go wrong *not even kidding here*

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Shy away from priests in all roles atm , they have fallen to bottom.

are u serious? Priests are amazing...

[Siri]

In 10man disc priests are good because they synergize well with other healers.
In 25man disc priests are good because of uncapped Divine Star/Halo. (to a large extent, at least)
Priests are not dead at all.

To answer the OPs question about assignments. Healing assignments are much less relevant these days than they used to be, especially in 10man because all healers will have to do all things. Assignments are mostly relevant when the group needs to split up so don't worry too much about it. I'm not sure when the last time I had a legit healing assignment for a boss fight (such as "you heal the tank, you heal the raid"). Heroic LK25 before the area buff went out of control probably.

Actually, that's not true, Chimaeron is probably the real answer. Point is, only very specific encounter mechanics warrant healing assignments and who you assign to what often has little to do with their class. You'd be much better off learning the strength of the different healer cooldowns so you can assign those.

[Azaile-]

In 10man disc priests are good because they synergize well with other healers.
In 25man disc priests are good because of uncapped Divine Star/Halo. (to a large extent, at least)
Priests are not dead at all.

To answer the OPs question about assignments. Healing assignments are much less relevant these days than they used to be, especially in 10man because all healers will have to do all things. Assignments are mostly relevant when the group needs to split up so don't worry too much about it. I'm not sure when the last time I had a legit healing assignment for a boss fight (such as "you heal the tank, you heal the raid"). Heroic LK25 before the area buff went out of control probably.

Actually, that's not true, Chimaeron is probably the real answer. Point is, only very specific encounter mechanics warrant healing assignments and who you assign to what often has little to do with their class. You'd be much better off learning the strength of the different healer cooldowns so you can assign those.

perfect, thank you.

[Soulstrike]

mmm i think all healers have their strength on certain fight this tier, so i cant really say who is THE best

so in conclusion all healers are viable