What's healing like in MoP?

[Omoidaseba]

I'm considering leveling a healer atm. Now I have a lvl 85 druid, with which I've tried healing in cata, and that didn't really work out (7k hps in T11 raids in 378 gear with a lower second healer for example). I'm not sure if this is fixed in MoP, though.

So what I want to know is:

-what are the main heals of each class?
-what is/are the fun mechanic(s) of each class?
-what does each healer suck at compared to others?
-how dependent is each class on other players? (things like lightwell)
-anything else I should know?

*I haven't found any other thread on this, but if there is, please redirect me, thanks

[Rivelle]

This is going to be somewhat biased depending on what the main class is of the people who reply, I would think.

I have and have played every healing spec and class in the game at end game levels at some point. Right now my monk is my main, although I have a paladin and disc priest at 90 I haven't raided with them yet (just the monk).

Therefore I'll just answer in as best I can on mistweaver monks.

Main heals: Renewing mist, uplift, spinning crane kick
Fun mechanics: Chi-based healing and healing through damage...able to get in there and do melee, never bored
Suck at: Tank healing, utility (tank/raid cooldowns)
Dependence: Mistweaver mastery produces orbs which heal when other people run through them, which requires other players to actually pay attention if they need a heal and run through the orb...may require moving a foot or two instead of parking themselves in a stationary position which can be difficult to get people to do
What else: Mistweavers have absolutely amazing aoe healing output, which is balanced by their horrible tank healing and lack of utility...sometimes other classes fail to realize what they're weak at and just scream OP when they look at the healing meters and focus solely on those

I did see a healing comparison post over on the priest forums last week, you might do a search over there and see if it answers some of your questions.

[Omoidaseba]

Thanks for the info Will check the priest forums, then.
And yes, I know it will be biased, I'm just looking for biased posts on every class And really, everyone who loves their class probably knows what they want to have buffed

[Altam]

I'm considering leveling a healer atm. Now I have a lvl 85 druid, with which I've tried healing in cata, and that didn't really work out (7k hps in T11 raids in 378 gear with a lower second healer for example). I'm not sure if this is fixed in MoP, though.

I'm not quite sure what your point was regarding what needed fixing, but resto druids were pretty powerfull throughout Cata so it can't have been the class. There is no magic class that turns you into an imba healer. Healing is also not (primarily) about being at the top of the meters.

From what I understand (I haven't played priest, pally or monk healers yet, but I read a lot about healing classes) it's not very different to what it was. Shaman can still do very decent single target healing, paladins still rock at that (and at healing without mana), they both aren't great at sustained AoE healing especially when the raid is spread out, but for stacked phases they are still very powerfull. Shaman have turned into a cooldown machine though, many totems and personal buffs to deal with.

Druids are still very mobile and have their hots doing most of the work, some nice cd's extra compared to Cata. AoE healing is still quite strong. Disc is looking pretty good, holy is very powerfull and probably most versatile. Monks rock at AoE healing especially at stacked phases.

The healing concept is the same for all classes. You have a reasonably expensive single target heal you can spam without running into mana issues, you have a quick expensive lifesaving heal, you have a large expensive single target heal with longer cast time and a few AoE healing abilities. Discs still have shields, paladins still have beacons and a ton of cd's. The biggest change is probably the fact that your mana pool doesn't increase from int anymore. Just your int (and therefore spellpower and crit). Triage is more of a thing than it was later on in Cata. It's not as bad as it was at the start of t11 in heroic blues though.

Monks are nice and fast to level, they will get some balancing nerfs though. Priests are getting a bit of a boost.

There are no terrible or great healing classes really, except for monks in 25 atm but that will be set straight soon. I guess it depends on what you want to do with your healer. For 10 man raiding, don't pick a shaman. For doing normal mode dungeons you can roll balance druid or shadowpriest and still keep everyone alive aswell.

[Didactic]

All of the heal specs have been homogenized somewhat; they all have a medium spam heal (Heal, Healing Wave, Nourish, Holy Light) a slow, strong heal (Greater Heal, Divine Light, etc.), and a quick expensive heal (Flash of Light, Flash Heal, Regrowth, ec.) All of the specs still have their strengths and weaknesses though; for instance, Holy Paladins are still mainly single target healers, while Holy Priests tend to be more raid-oriented.

There is not really that much of a disparity in terms of throughput, but in the case of mana-efficiency and longevity Restoration Shamans and Holy Paladins tend to be the most efficient, with Disc and Holy Priests at the bottom due to a severe lack of mana regeneration, probably owing to low spirit levels.

Lightwell has been fixed so that you can glyph it to automatically heal other players if they get lower than 50%; while this is good in pugs, in a premade raid the glyph reduces its healing output as well as its interactivity making it up to you whether to sacrifice utility and power for convenience.

If this is your first time healing, I would recommend either a Holy Paladin or a Restoration shaman; their mechanics are relatively easy to learn, and they are relatively forgiving to play because of their high mana efficiency and broad array of cooldowns.

[Rivelle]

Actually now that I've seen some of the other posts, I forgot to mention that monks don't fit the medium spam heal/slow strong heal/quick expensive heal model that the other classes have. They were designed completely differently in that respect.

Surging mist fits the quick expensive heal, enveloping mist could technically fit the slow strong heal however it requires three chi to cast it, and there is no medium spam heal. Some might argue that soothing mist could fit that but I'm not sure I'd agree...soothing mist is a fairly weak channeled heal that is mainly used in order to channel a surging mist or enveloping mist cast through it (like a pulse kind of) and make it instant cast instead of having a cast time.

Monks are being balanced somewhat with the patch today, with some nerfs but also a few buffs to make them more well rounded.

[MrWilson]

For 10 man raiding, don't pick a shaman.

Why not? I am playing shaman in a 10 man group and enjoy it pretty much. Quite challenging until I figured out my riptide glyphe drained all my mana, but after that I went really fine. You have Healing Tide Totem which is awesome in heavy dmg phases, earthshield, riptide and can even heal while moving (spiritwalkers grace). I am a bit low on tank healing, but my other (or two, depending on the fight) healer(s) can compansate that

[Blackeyecycle]

Who's best at AoE style healing in a BG setting? Also, does anyone know if AoE healing only effects the people in your "group" in a BG like AV. For example, Wild Growth

[dryankem]

I tried all 5 healing specs in Cata and really it's just flavours of ice cream, and it's really the flavour you enjoy most. In MOP I've only tried 3 so far but I'll get my other healers up and a monk eventually.

You can look up the spells yourself (guides here or icy-veins) but I can tell you what I found fun with each class/spec.

Druid - Mobility. Love that you can basically move non stop, plus they make great raid healers (plus I find them really fun in random BGs)
Disc Priest - Love adding some DPS, just make sure to macro your HF and smite to hit target of target and you never have to take your focus off your healing assignments
Holy Priest - Lightwell has been improved and they have a lot of options (however it's the spec I enjoy the least)
Holy Pally - Some big heals, love beacon and the self heals on top of healing your target. A fair number of instant spells too.
Shaman - Love chain heal, such a cool spell (even if sometimes it doesn't work as well as you hope). Good all round healer and I like the element healing (water based healing is such a cool concept) IMO

[Altam]

Why not? I am playing shaman in a 10 man group and enjoy it pretty much. Quite challenging until I figured out my riptide glyphe drained all my mana, but after that I went really fine. You have Healing Tide Totem which is awesome in heavy dmg phases, earthshield, riptide and can even heal while moving (spiritwalkers grace). I am a bit low on tank healing, but my other (or two, depending on the fight) healer(s) can compansate that

I'm not saying it's not enjoyable If you'd have to pick one based on power though, what I think the OP wants to do, shaman aren't the most logical choice for 10's because raids are hardly ever stacked up enough to benefit from healing rain and chain heal, which are some of the more powerfull tools we (yes, we) have. Healing tide is extremely powerfull though, that's for sure. I was just pointing out that for 10 man other healers are more powerfull.

Also, tankhealing should be one of your stronger points as shaman, especially in 10's. Are you weaving spells to benefit from tidal waves? A decent amount of crit (not very easy to get) and mastery (quite easy to get) combined with tidal waves and greater healing waves make for some insane tankhealing. Sorry for the offtopic stuff

[dryankem]

Who's best at AoE style healing in a BG setting? Also, does anyone know if AoE healing only effects the people in your "group" in a BG like AV. For example, Wild Growth

Prayer of healing is about the only spell that hits just the 5 main group you target, all the other AOE spells (at least that I can think of) will hit your entire raid, however a lot of them have position requirements; healing rain, HW: Sanctuary, Holy Radiance, Light of Dawn, are all better when raid is stacked, where as Wild Growth and circle of healing spread out from the target you select.

Personally I love my druid for AOE healing in random BGs, but resto Shaman are fantastic PVP healers, as well as holy pallys. Not sure about monks but I assume they are good as well. Disc is good but Prayer of Healing isn't fantastic unless the majority of that group are close enough to receive the healing, but you can DPS and shields are always fantastic in PVP. Never enjoyed holy priest in BGs but they really aren't that much different from Druids and I love my druid in BGs, so they may be alright.

[Blackeyecycle]

Prayer of healing is about the only spell that hits just the 5 main group you target, all the other AOE spells (at least that I can think of) will hit your entire raid, however a lot of them have position requirements; healing rain, HW: Sanctuary, Holy Radiance, Light of Dawn, are all better when raid is stacked, where as Wild Growth and circle of healing spread out from the target you select.

Personally I love my druid for AOE healing in random BGs, but resto Shaman are fantastic PVP healers, as well as holy pallys. Not sure about monks but I assume they are good as well. Disc is good but Prayer of Healing isn't fantastic unless the majority of that group are close enough to receive the healing, but you can DPS and shields are always fantastic in PVP. Never enjoyed holy priest in BGs but they really aren't that much different from Druids and I love my druid in BGs, so they may be alright.

Great response, thank you! Trying to decide if running a druid from scratch for strictly PvP is worth it. Looks it is

[Rivelle]

Prayer of healing is about the only spell that hits just the 5 main group you target, all the other AOE spells (at least that I can think of) will hit your entire raid, however a lot of them have position requirements; healing rain, HW: Sanctuary, Holy Radiance, Light of Dawn, are all better when raid is stacked, where as Wild Growth and circle of healing spread out from the target you select.

Personally I love my druid for AOE healing in random BGs, but resto Shaman are fantastic PVP healers, as well as holy pallys. Not sure about monks but I assume they are good as well. Disc is good but Prayer of Healing isn't fantastic unless the majority of that group are close enough to receive the healing, but you can DPS and shields are always fantastic in PVP. Never enjoyed holy priest in BGs but they really aren't that much different from Druids and I love my druid in BGs, so they may be alright.

I haven't pvp'd yet this expansion so I'm not speaking from experience but from what I've read on the other various forum sections, right now:

PvP healing: shaman/pally>druid>monk/priest with priests dying very quickly because they're apparently very squishy right now

PvE healing (if you were to base it on raid healing strength/meters): monk>disc priest (buffed within the past two weeks)>shaman/pally>druid>holy priest

However, monks are getting nerfed today and holy priests are getting buffed. It's just hearsay anyways, will have to see after the patch.

[Omoidaseba]

So far I've looked at the pala and shaman healing, as Didactic recommended, out of which the shaman wins imo. From what I hear, druids are about the same (and yes, I suck at hots, mainly I guess) as they were. I forgot to mention that I tried disc, and drowned in abilitiess a bit (very bad at picking the right heal).

When I read about shamans being a cooldown machine I got biased until I read the icy-veins guide on them (which is, the second reason I read icy-veins).

As far as monks go, I don't really like the idea of healing a target and instead of doing enough healing an orb spawns, which means that I only heal optimally when that target moves through the orb. Not sure how dependant monks are on orbs, though. I'll consider leveling one after my first choice, tbh.

I believe I have a bit of a broader view of what healers are like now, if I'm wrong, I don't dislike knowing why I'm wrong and/or changing my opinion based on that

That said, thank you all for the information/views on the different healers, and I'll be lurking here for in case I'm wrong ^^

---------- Post added 2012-11-27 at 06:18 PM ----------

If you'd have to pick one based on power though, what I think the OP wants to do, shaman aren't the most logical choice for 10's because raids are hardly ever stacked up enough to benefit from healing rain and chain heal, which are some of the more powerfull tools we (yes, we) have. Healing tide is extremely powerfull though, that's for sure. I was just pointing out that for 10 man other healers are more powerfull.

Going to clear this up a little. It's not power I was after, it was just that I was very bad with druids. Druids at the gear level I tried would've done 2 times as good as I did, so I was looking for a fun to play healer that I could actually heal the best with, play-style wise. (being good at my class is quite important to me)

Glad you just said that, though. Prevented a good part of contradictions/arguments (though arguments always bring good points up as well, this went better imo).


Also, the reason I didn't mention my priest being weak is that in cata, I couldn't really keep groups up, which meant for me, that disc was not the way to go in cata. (it's still lvl 85, on my previous realm)

[dryankem]

Great response, thank you! Trying to decide if running a druid from scratch for strictly PvP is worth it. Looks it is

It is for me. I used to run my disc priest a lot in BGs (in cata at least), which was awesome but there is just something about druid healing I find fun. They have great mobility (I'm worgen so I have 3 sprints), stealth, plus fantastic raid healing and most of their spells are instant so you don't get interupt that often. Their emergency heal (regrowth) isn't as good as some of the other classes (flash of healing and binding heal for priest or LOH for pally) but still not horrible. Glyph of Lifebloom is nice and I can't wait till I finally level my druid (level 88, got my DK and priest up first but now I'm wishing I just stuck with the druid first) and abuse heart of the wild.

[Tziva]

Like someone else mentioned, healers are pretty homogenised now, so they are all similar. What makes them different is really their unique class flare -cooldowns, utility and style. Although some healers do have different strengths and weaknesses depending on class and spec, they are relatively minimal and any class can be a "tank healer" or a "raid healer" and what have you now.

I raid on a resto shaman, which is a class I have played since classic. The class is pretty similar to how it played in Cata, although mana is more of an issue now than it was in later Cata and less than early.

For Shaman:

-what are the main heals of each class?

The same basic toolbox all healers have:

Big heal, fast heal, efficient heal, and some AoE heals.

I use primarily my big heal, efficient heal, and AoE heals where applicable. Since I'm a shaman, I also use Riptide (a small instant heal that applies a HoT and gives us a buff) on cooldown and Healing Stream totem.

-what is/are the fun mechanic(s) of each class?

Totems! Ghost wolf! Actually, a lot of the stuff about shaman that I think makes it fun, aside from totems, are the utility spells and abilities. Wind shear, windwalk, earthroot/grab, mana tide.

We also have some snazzy cooldowns with Healing Tide and Spirit Link.

With a glyph, you can get do lightning bolt for "free" DPS during downtimes, if that's your thing.

-what does each healer suck at compared to others?

For a shaman, AoE healing where everyone is really spaced out. We can raid heal and tank heal, but we're just not efficient at the former if people are not grouped up. Then again, I guess most healers aren't.

-how dependent is each class on other players? (things like lightwell)

If it's a fight where you use Healing Rain, people have to stand in it. Of course, if people aren't already clustered, it's probably not a fight you use Healing Rain.

[Rivelle]

So far I've looked at the pala and shaman healing, as Didactic recommended, out of which the shaman wins imo. From what I hear, druids are about the same (and yes, I suck at hots, mainly I guess) as they were. I forgot to mention that I tried disc, and drowned in abilitiess a bit (very bad at picking the right heal).

As far as monks go, I don't really like the idea of healing a target and instead of doing enough healing an orb spawns, which means that I only heal optimally when that target moves through the orb. Not sure how dependant monks are on orbs, though. I'll consider leveling one after my first choice, tbh.

Oh yes...if you're bad at using a large heal toolbox to the best of your ability, priests would definitely be the wrong choice. For both priest healing specs their toolbox is just enormous.

Either the paladin or shaman should serve you very well in either pve or pvp right now, and while shamans now have way more cooldowns, paladins still have a lot as well just as they always had. Now that I have three healers at 90 myself my shaman will likely be the next one I level as well.

Just wanted to interject here, with monks the orbs don't spawn as a "supplement" to your current heal making your current heal weaker, they're just a side effect of the heal/mastery. Yes, the optimal healing done by the orbs is obviously when people take the time to move through them but they're not horrible by any means.

The way lightwell used to be set up required someone to click it or it'd go completely to waste. Monk orbs will certainly go to waste if they expire before they're used however since they don't require someone to click on them (just walk through them) you find that people do move through them without even seeing them often enough. My own healing done in generally 20-30% each for uplift/renewing mist/spinning crane kick depending on the fight and whether it's 10 or 25 man and then the next highest healing done is by the mastery orbs, generally around 7-10%.

[Blackeyecycle]

It is for me. I used to run my disc priest a lot in BGs (in cata at least), which was awesome but there is just something about druid healing I find fun. They have great mobility (I'm worgen so I have 3 sprints), stealth, plus fantastic raid healing and most of their spells are instant so you don't get interupt that often. Their emergency heal (regrowth) isn't as good as some of the other classes (flash of healing and binding heal for priest or LOH for pally) but still not horrible. Glyph of Lifebloom is nice and I can't wait till I finally level my druid (level 88, got my DK and priest up first but now I'm wishing I just stuck with the druid first) and abuse heart of the wild.

I hear you. I used to have a druid but at the time I got sick of Feral and barely tried the healing. I eventually deleted him for his character slot! lol looking forward to grabbing my recycled boas and going to town!

[dryankem]

Going to clear this up a little. It's not power I was after, it was just that I was very bad with druids. Druids at the gear level I tried would've done 2 times as good as I did, so I was looking for a fun to play healer that I could actually heal the best with, play-style wise. (being good at my class is quite important to me)

Glad you just said that, though. Prevented a good part of contradictions/arguments (though arguments always bring good points up as well, this went better imo).


Also, the reason I didn't mention my priest being weak is that in cata, I couldn't really keep groups up, which meant for me, that disc was not the way to go in cata. (it's still lvl 85, on my previous realm)

Agree very much that you have to enjoy the play-style. That's so much more important than relative power (unless of course you are going for world first or even server first).

Personally for DPS I find I can do really well on DKs and Hunters, everything else I can do alright but those 2 classes just seem to gel for me (even though I don't love hunters, maybe they are just less gear dependent but what they just work for me). There are just certain classes that you mesh with and it isn't always the one you wished it was. Trying the different classes help, even if you run the shaman as your main, then roll a pally alt and just heal from time to time on them to level them up and you'll at least get a feel for them and decide if you like them or not (that's how I leveled with my druid and realized I rather liked it and kept going).

[Osmeric]

I've healed on a paladin in heroic 5 mans and LFR. It's easier than the start of Cataclysm. Spirit is the goto stat, then int and mastery. Haven't done much PvP, so I don't know its current state. Earlier in the expansion healers were OP, but they've been nerfed a bit in PvP content.

There's a very large step up in difficulty from LFR to normal mode raids, but that affects everyone, not just healers.