Healers and Dragon Soul (10-man): Who Comes Out On Top?

[Cathbad]

I play a Resto. Druid on Aggramar EU and am an officer in RDH, one of the top four 10-man guilds on the realm. I have really enjoyed playing my Druid for over three years, but I am beginning to become a little bit tired of it. The main purpose of this topic is to help me in my reroll decision, as I need to make sure whichever healing class I choose will be the right one for the remainder of the expansion (at least).

Since the release of Dragon Soul I have been feeling as if I'm not contributing as much as I could be if I were to play another healing class, specifically, a Shaman or a Priest. I put out a lot of HPS, but I just don't feel as if I can compete when I look at the tools available to the other classes, i.e. physical damage reduction effects, raid cooldowns, and other niches that Resto. Druids seem to lack. I am not complaining, nor am I saying I'm underpowered, but I just don't think my guild will get as far with me playing my Druid as it would if I were to roll a different class.

What I'd like to know is, from your experience and knowledge, which class(es) are performing well in 10-man heroic mode content, and for what reasons?

Anyway, thanks in advance.

Cathbad.

[Ferali]

Only shaman is falling behind imo, Holy paladin is really strong with rdruids still having a massive output too.
On a 2 healers scenario i would choose holy paladin + rdruid/priest.

[Deleted]

All classes are balance atm i guess, shamans have very nice cds and a good shaman cant easily compete with a druid/pala.

[Cathbad]

The more I look at Resto. Shamans, the more I think they'd be really pretty good. If you consider the number of encounters where the raid is stacked up pretty closely in no more than two areas (Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Ultraxion, Spine, and Madness), theoretically, they look REALLY strong.

[Ulvhedner]

If you want to stay competetive on the HPS shaman is not the class to roll, but healing is not about HPS. Shaman is probably the most difficult healer class to heal with when people are not properly stacked, but you will have a lot of utility, not in the form of healing cooldowns though. Interrupt, purge, best dispell in game if specced, lots of buff, long term and short term and unlike other healers, you won't suffer by DPSing. If you want a challenge, go roll shaman

[DetectiveJohnKimble]

The more I look at Resto. Shamans, the more I think they'd be really pretty good. If you consider the number of encounters where the raid is stacked up pretty closely in no more than two areas (Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Ultraxion, Spine, and Madness), theoretically, they look REALLY strong.

Healers are actually pretty well balanced right now in terms of throughput- even Holy works well, although many priests seem to be staying disc.

The problem with druids is like you said, there aren't many utilities that a resto druid brings. This seems like more or less a flaw, because resto druids are supposed to bring output and they got nerfed this last patch. Now they can still do pretty good HPS, but others can match them and also bring things like Spirit link, increased tank HP, guardian spirit, etc.

Druids still have utility, like Stampeding Roar and a full health Brez (and more specifically, helping tank stomps on H Morchok), but the only utility move exclusive to resto druids among healers is replenishment, which you might already have in your group through a DPS. Tranquility is simply another throughput cooldown, and is beat out by a Holy Priest's divine hymn anyway.

Just play something that is a combination of what you like and what you think would be the most help. Priest/Pally is a pretty good combo. Ultimately you'd only be playing this class for one patch and then everything resets and you can re-choose what you want to play for MoP, so you aren't stuck with whatever healer you decide to play for 4.3 for too long.

[Daetur]

We only run 2 healers for our 10m, except for Spine, where we add a 3rd.

It's absolutely stupid the throughput and sustainability our resto druid and holy pally have-- the pally usually ends up on top, though. However, this is just a single example of two players playing different healing classes. In LFR, I usually see resto shamans and druids on top.

Based on the setup of the fights this tier, and the changes to druids and pallies, I would imagine that pallies and shammies are some of the strongest, with druids and priests being more than viable, but slightly less amazing than pallies and shammies.

[Deleted]

I can confirm that Priests and Paladins work amazing well in a 2 man heal situation. Our guild has moved away from the pala/druid team to pala/priest combo. Druid at the moment just cannot compete with equally geared/skilled players. Plus like its already been said the extra CD's available from this combo is pretty mean too. For those who also saying shaman's are weak I think you may need to look again. My shaman alt pulls more healing then ever before and I think ill be picked over our druid to heal with the pala in the alt run