Healers and their roles

[Azyoulike]

If a Warrior beats on you through a shield, in Blizz's eyes he shouldn't be rage starved. If a Death Knight uses his strikes on you through a shield, he gets his Runic Power because he's using his abilities that each use runes. Damage has so little to actually do with it now, so by that logic, your argument is flawed.

This is what I thought too, but at least regards the warrior Wowwiki disagrees. I don't pvp though so I'm not 100% sure, I guess I'll get a warrior to duel me sometime to check.

[lilbandit]

In my sleep deprived madness I once came up with a comparison between the healer styles and different weapons.. Since I have nothing really constructive to add, i might as well share them


Priest: The priest is like a revolver in old westerns.. Its all about the draw, reactionary skills and finesse is what matters most here.. Sacrificing power for precision.

Paladin: The paladin reminds me more of a machine gun than anything. Its all about speed.. A Paladin's effectiveness depends more on how fast he can pull off his heals than how efficiently.

Shaman: Shaman healing is like tossing grenades.. You decide on your target area, you pull the pin, you throw the heal, BOOM!

Druid: A druid is like a flamethrower.. It sprays healing everywhere in a constant stream or it focuses on a smaller area with increased effect.

brilliantly summarised.

[Arjana]

I don't think the traditional roles (tankhealer, raidhealer) is cutting it.

[long list of specific things each healer class is best at]

I just wanted to make two comments.. possibly you haven't met very many good disc priests since you seem to have overlooked them a little in the two things they excel at. I play my disc priest as my main because I love performing better than any other healer in two of your categories: raid cripplers and Oh Shi- moments. With raid cripplers, the key fact is that it's completely predictable damage - therefore bubble the entire raid, spike 25k+ hps and get a screen full of rapture mana returns filling your mana bar to full, and giving some dps a little energy/RP/rage/mana to celebrate their ~500 damage taken due to their fully absorbed shield. The only crippler this doesn't work on is descimate, which I've deemed as disc's worst enemy, in which holy is amazing.

Now the oh shi- moments (or what I like to call, saving lives). When everything's going fine, health bars are full, then you see a void in your raid frames - usually the mage or rogue getting smashed in the face down to ~250 health. Bubble, penance, full health again. It's an amazing feeling.

Oh also, the weapon analogies are awesome. Perfect summary.