a good healer in random bg's?

[splitlip]

i'm planning on farming the "of the horde" title through random bg's and i'm thinking about doing it as a healer, is there any particular class that would be ideal for that? one with well-rounded tool kit and abilities? what are your experiences?

so far i have every healer class at 90+ except for a monk and i've enjoyed healing on all of them so that's not an issue.

also the last time i healed bg's was in wotlk, any general tips to keep in mind?

[Buscava]

Probably Druid or disc priest. Disc is super strong right now but looks like they’re getting a couple nerds in 8.1. Druid is nice in bgs for their solid on the move healing plus bear form durability. Either of those should suit you well.

As for general tips bgs are bgs lol they haven’t really changed. Play the objectives to win. As you’re farming kills instead of honour I’d reccomend avoiding trying to lead or direct in whatever bg you’re in. If your whole team is playing on the road don’t bother telling them to push stuff or move to flag etc you’ll just get frustrated. For raw kills AV/ the epic bg que is probably the best route to take.

[Ultima]

Resto Druid, Holy Paladin or MW Monk, in my opinion.

Druids and Monks have great escape tools, while Healadins have an impressive toolkit to help out the DPS.

[furiousferret]

IMO, Disc is so far ahead of the rest its the go to and I don't even think the 8.1 nerfs will slow it entirely. After that, go Mistweaver.

[Ultima]

IMO, Disc is so far ahead of the rest its the go to and I don't even think the 8.1 nerfs will slow it entirely. After that, go Mistweaver.

Waiting for final notes, but I think they've now removed both stacks of Focused Will from Disc, right? That means Disc will be taking a lot more damage from melee. Not great for BGs.

[ilik2345]

Waiting for final notes, but I think they've now removed both stacks of Focused Will from Disc, right? That means Disc will be taking a lot more damage from melee. Not great for BGs.

Disc is a really good choice if your playing with another healer, on its own, it often feels a bit meh, but i imagine all healers are much like this. Its exasperated on flag maps as disc is not great at single target healing and lacks big cds to keep people up.

[callipygoustp]

Ever since I switched to my resto druid for PvP back in TBC, my favorite toon for PvP has been the resto druid. I've got all the healers at max level and I've done plenty of PvP, random BG and rated BG, on them but I've always found the resto druid to be the most enjoyable.

[fadedmind]

Waiting for final notes, but I think they've now removed both stacks of Focused Will from Disc, right? That means Disc will be taking a lot more damage from melee. Not great for BGs.

Only stacks once so they still have a 15% reduction

[Satelliteyears0o]

Waiting for final notes, but I think they've now removed both stacks of Focused Will from Disc, right? That means Disc will be taking a lot more damage from melee. Not great for BGs.

its about frikkin time. Having a perma 30% wall was ridiculous. Disc is the best designed healing spec in the game, it is awesome but it has some things that also make it easy to play cuz it forgives a lot

[ilik2345]

its about frikkin time. Having a perma 30% wall was ridiculous. Disc is the best designed healing spec in the game, it is awesome but it has some things that also make it easy to play cuz it forgives a lot,

Not sure any healer is easy to play... Everyone finds things difficult or easy differently, in the context of this game however, I would class disc as one of the harder healers to master and certainly one of the steepest learning curves to start off with - Mainly as it does not play like any other healer any more. Perhaps if you've not played a healer before its easier, but i doubt it, From those I've seen play and my own experience i would say the skill range of players that play disc is pretty wide, and the few i would consider the very best at it, rather rare.

Disc is not alone in having quite a gap between a good player and a player just starting out, Generally if your a melee, and can't get a kill from a disc priest alone you should be able to effectively take them out of the game by slowing them, some of better players depending on class spec will not find it hard to get a kill solo if the disc is alone. If its 2vs1 and you can't get a kill something is being done incorrectly by the attackers.

[Ultima]

Only stacks once so they still have a 15% reduction

You sure? I'm talking about the patch note that only states that it's available to Holy.

[Ashgaan]

its about frikkin time. Having a perma 30% wall was ridiculous. Disc is the best designed healing spec in the game, it is awesome but it has some things that also make it easy to play cuz it forgives a lot

Keeping the discussion relevant to the topic: You're joking right??
Disc has 0 mobility, there are no rolls, telleports, get out of roots and slows tools. Nothing. Once you connected to a Disc, you stay connected.
In Arenas things are different as your team will peel for you and usually you are on the offensive (thus the opponents are worried about peeling for your kill target). In random BG, where almost all DPSers are mongoloids you will get 0 peels.

Playing monk or druid in a random BG is 10 times better as you can take care of yourself better while also cleave healing the team. There is no forgiveness in disc, quite the opposite.


To OP:
1. Druids are the best, good utility, very hard to catch, almost all the spells are instant casts, tranquility is god send especially on maps where you can hide. Good ST healing and CDs . Bearform is a good defensive when swarmed, thorns will kill mongos more often than you think. You will be vulnerable when stunned, swarmed and out of bear.
2. Monks have very good healing both ST and AoE. They are kings of mobility, zaping and teleporting form one place to another. revive is very good and it usually wins you the initial clash (don't forget about the dispel part). You will be vulnerable to stuns or when out of tools to get away. Good positioning is key and try to never be in the first line.
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5. Paladins - good ST healing, little lackluster on the AoE part you will need to play smart and rotate CDs. Immunity is nice, so is freedom and steed. Utility is very high.
6. Shaman - good utility in the totems, good healing as well. Toolkit is not designed for BGs though, when focused is hard to get away.
7. Priests - both specs bring good healing their main problem is survival when focused. Hard to get away from anything really and when attacked by magic dmg, and there is no one to activate your "wall" you will melt. ALWAYS stay behind your lines, which in Disc case will be hard as you will want to spread your dots to as many as possible, which will bring you more in between your melee and ranged, this means that their range can push on you. You need a good melee team to punish enemies that extend and good range to keep them away from you. Good luck finding those in random BGs

[Piesor]

Since you want to play rnd bg I would suggest Druid. You cannot expect much support from your team, so you have to rely on your toolkit. Having stealth and being able to escape from almost every situation makes your life as healer less frustrating. Additionally you may have fun in Wsg as flag carrier, stealth tapping in Arathi etc.

Otherwise I would go for Paladin / Disc.

[Caprix]

What Ashgaan said. As a bonus as MW if a dps (especially melee) starts a 1v1 you can destroy him pretty quick, always fun.

[Exeris]

I prefer resto druid for random bgs, there will be a lot of situations in an unorganized group where you will want the ability to hide in stealth for a short while.

[Ashgaan]

Go druid, i forgot the stealth ability and how important it can be for a healer.
With druid you will also have dps specs which are very good in BGs
- Boomie huge AoE dmg with a lot of utility (root, beam, mass root, stun and so on) Rooting is very useful against lone flag carriers or without proper support. Root, call it's position and wait ofr backup (hopefully)
- Feral quite good in both mass fights and 1on1, their offhealing is enough to keep you alive while you destroy a defender or flag carrier. You can even 1v2 or 1v3 depending on the difference in skill.

[fadedmind]

You sure? I'm talking about the patch note that only states that it's available to Holy.

Yes for disc priests it will only give one stack=15% reduction opposed to live which stacks twice for 30% reduction. I dobt thibk holy had focused will to begin with so blizzard is giving it to them for help in pvp

[Thelxi]

For now it is disc hands down, but you pretty much missed that train with the incoming forbearance nerf. Extreme survivability with shield spam, radiance and penance in the holy school and shadow mend in the shadow school. Very strong (and useful for randoms) cooldowns with luminous barrier and rapture. You can troll with a knockback, fear, mind control and you can talent for a small speed boost. SF/MB is also a decent dps cooldown that can do considerable damage to noobs that don't know what hits them. Just a very high quality of life. You need a proper build and 2 brain cells though to fully experience the OPness though, if you are a noob you will blow up like any other healer. And 2 dps that know what they are doing can deplete your cooldowns and kill you if they are allowed to tunnel you, but this is a rare occurrence in randoms.

MW is a very strong healer, but very fragile. It's mobile but once you get caught in a stunlock you will blow up even through all your cooldowns. Long gone are the days of instant casts and mistwalk. MW is very vulnerable to being interrupted, as you need to (briefly) channel very often. It can troll noobs with way of the crane like a boss though, and you could have a lot of fun with it in randoms. Just 1 dps that knows what they are doing can burst you down though, let alone 5.

Druid is better than MW imo, but still not as good as disc. If left alone to freecast it can spam regrowth for extreme healing that is almost mana neutral, making them godly healers in the epic BGs. You need a bit of PvE skill to pull that off though, most druids I've seen don't know how to do this. Tree form is a strong cooldown because of this. Outside of the cheese they are pretty good at everything, and can extremely tanky with the right talents and a second healer keeping you up, but even with the tankiest talents and a full set of hots on you in bear form on top of your efflorescene you will die eventually under enough pressure.

Holy is only good for epic BGs imo, it has strong cooldowns and is very mana efficient. A well timed salvation is a situationally cheesy cooldown that can pad the meters like no other healer with absolutely insane healing. Disc is not far behind though, even here. Holy in regular BGs is just not a good idea, as just 1 dps can deny your healing and eventually even kill you.

The other healers I haven't played in BfA, but as far as I can tell paladin and shaman are nothing to write home about atm.

[Satelliteyears0o]

Keeping the discussion relevant to the topic: You're joking right??
Disc has 0 mobility, there are no rolls, telleports, get out of roots and slows tools. Nothing. Once you connected to a Disc, you stay connected.
In Arenas things are different as your team will peel for you and usually you are on the offensive (thus the opponents are worried about peeling for your kill target). In random BG, where almost all DPSers are mongoloids you will get 0 peels.

Playing monk or druid in a random BG is 10 times better as you can take care of yourself better while also cleave healing the team. There is no forgiveness in disc, quite the opposite.


To OP:
1. Druids are the best, good utility, very hard to catch, almost all the spells are instant casts, tranquility is god send especially on maps where you can hide. Good ST healing and CDs . Bearform is a good defensive when swarmed, thorns will kill mongos more often than you think. You will be vulnerable when stunned, swarmed and out of bear.
2. Monks have very good healing both ST and AoE. They are kings of mobility, zaping and teleporting form one place to another. revive is very good and it usually wins you the initial clash (don't forget about the dispel part). You will be vulnerable to stuns or when out of tools to get away. Good positioning is key and try to never be in the first line.
.
.
.
.

5. Paladins - good ST healing, little lackluster on the AoE part you will need to play smart and rotate CDs. Immunity is nice, so is freedom and steed. Utility is very high.
6. Shaman - good utility in the totems, good healing as well. Toolkit is not designed for BGs though, when focused is hard to get away.
7. Priests - both specs bring good healing their main problem is survival when focused. Hard to get away from anything really and when attacked by magic dmg, and there is no one to activate your "wall" you will melt. ALWAYS stay behind your lines, which in Disc case will be hard as you will want to spread your dots to as many as possible, which will bring you more in between your melee and ranged, this means that their range can push on you. You need a good melee team to punish enemies that extend and good range to keep them away from you. Good luck finding those in random BGs

Lets see... sustained healing through offense, id take a 30% wall for doing absolutely nothing which doesnt include other mitigation. 2 (technically 3 with radiant) schools of magic making kicking not as effective since u normally want to kick shadowmend cuz of its spammable single target throughput. Other classes may have good mobility, but Disc cuts you a lot of slack as well as offering you ways toward a much higher skillcap. Its definitely not the worst, id say top 3. Lets say out of 20 games during a session, id go up at least 8 teams that are against disc priests at 2400+. At least thats what it was during legion (I got duelist 4 times and glad once) also disc priest is 2nd most popular spec in arenas atm, and bgs are ridiculously ez as one.

[xindralol]

druid/monk bc of mobility. druid if your team is awful you can just sit in stealth and collect honor