10 Hours / Week: Paladin or Priest

[Eldarius]

Hi all,

I'm struggling to decide what to play at 60. I will only be able to play for 10 hours per week (ish), although i'll be taking a week off work on launch to attempt at putting a dint in the levelling process.

I want to do most content - Dungeons, Raids, PVP & Gold Farming. I want to have a good experience each time i log in, rather than fighting an up hill battle.

What is the overall better experience? I played Vanilla back in the day, but i know the meta and knowledge of the game has increased so much that the game itself will play differently on launch.

I'm leaning towards paladin: despite the painful levelling. I'm at a "Heads or Tails" crossroad at the moment though, with the idea of a healer priest with Benediction tickling my fancy atm.

[Akasha64]

Paladin outheals Priest in vanilla based on the current knowledge we have. This is because Paladins are more mana efficient. They get mana back when they heal with Illumination talent. Priest main AoE healing spell in vanilla is Prayer of Healing, but you'll only use this in 5-mans for the most part. Later on they changed it so you can choose which group in the raid to cast it on. I think they have Holy Nova as well, but due to short range, it shouldn't be used much.

Other than that they have a HoT (Renew) and a barrier (Power Word: Shield), both of which I don't think Paladin has. So if you're looking for a variety toolkit in terms of healing spells, Priest is the way to go, with Paladin having mostly single-target heals all the way and being buffbots.

There are some spells for Priests though, which I really like, that Priests didn't get until later. Prayer of Mending, Circle of Healing and Binding Heal. I sure kind of miss those healing spells when I play a vanilla priest. I think mostly you'll have to go Holy tree, since Disc didn't become a thing until later. Yeah, Benediction staff wasn't a thing in TBC though, so I guess there's that.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

Depending on how much of the classic crowd is actually from the time, there might well be a pro-priest bias, regardless of what the numbers say. There's likely to be a community perception that you always need a priest, at least early on. You'll probably get groups easier.

Also friendly reminder on the off-chance you forgot that paladin is alliance only, so if you have friends going horde that's your answer.

[Ettan]

Its not the fastest but leveling as a priest solo was super chill.
That actually makes them pretty decent levelers in my oppinion, as I regard the process more of a marathon than a sprint.
Just find an equlibrium (mana use/wanding) and you never have downtime in your leveling process.
-> maintain inner fire, pw shield/ renew
-> dot up/(holy fire) > wand (or smite) (or 40+ mindflay) > cast the occasional mindblast
Then save your fear / inner focus for oh shit moments.
Keeping your wand up to par as you level is something that is well worth investing in, wand scaling is occasionally really broken (doing more damage at certain points than if you had infinite mana and could freecast).

It is much the same story with paladins, but all your damage is tied to your auto attack swings.
You sort of have that with priest wanding aswell, but there is abit more complexity too it than just wanding.

If you are down with healing as either class, you are in high demand for every aspect of the game. And as with tanks people will generally be more nice to you and try to suck up to you.

Priests are the most complete of the healers of classic wow, the most versatile.
Not that paladin healers are not effective, they certainly are. But gameplay wise its more their strong utillity kit that makes them attractive to play.

For farming I think both can do dire maul east thrash runs (aoe) solo. And you could always group up with a tank and do various farm/dungeon runs (tribute, flask recipies, pre bis runs ect).
But if gold farming is a large component of what you want to do, I would consider (or down the line) a mage / hunter.
Would make it slightly harder to find a raidspot, but not really all that problematic.

[Akasha64]

And as with tanks people will generally be more nice to you and try to suck up to you.

A lot of people loved to blame the healer when a group wipes though. At least back in the day. MMO culture changed a little bit.

People eventually realized healers are more scarce than DPS, and that as a DPS you're replaceable. I guess DPS is the role that comes closest to pewpewing, and therefore is more fun for most. I don't blame them either. When I find a DPS class that resonates with me, I really love being a DPS, but otherwise I prefer being a healer more.

[chooi]

Both will be in high demand as long as you are willing to heal. People will kiss your ass to join their raid especially when playing a (Dwarf) Priest so you can get away with less time invested and enjoy the luxury of full guild support. However, keep in mind that Vanilla still is a serious time commitment if you want to raid/PvP on at least semi-decent level. I can't stress enough that this is not retail WoW where you can run your daily/weekly chores for free epics and gold. 10h/week sounds like the bare minimum when you know how to play very efficiently. Forget about high PvP ranks entirely. Might as well lower your standards and join a rather casual guild that takes it slowly. Endgame content won't run away and catch-up gear in later phases (Dire Maul, ZG/AQ20, some crafting gear) sure helps to ease the burden.

Priests are the most versatile healers in the game by far and have a huge healing arsenal for every situation. It's not even a competition. You will most likely run out of keybinds. (Shadow) Priests are insane beasts in PvP/duels and really fun to play with mana issues as their only true negative. No sane player will touch a skilled and geared Priest in open world 1v1.

Holy Paladins are very strong ST healers with great utility but having played one from Vanilla to TBC in high-end content I can tell you: it's fucking boring and they somewhat fall off in later raids because the need for AoE healing increases significantly.

All that said, I would go with Priest because it's a really engaging and fun class once you got the hang of it. I've avoided Priest for almost 14 years of WoW but recently tried it on [banned topic] and it's great fun! I actually enjoyed leveling Priest as long as you spec 5/5 Imp. Wand, 5/5 Spirit Tap and replace your Wand as often as possible (google: wand progression for Priest leveling and/or look up a YT guide). Your wand will be your best friend. Trust me. Understand the 5-second-mana-regen rule and use your mana in bursts for the opener then finish them off with your wand. You will have little downtime, a decent kill-rate and dying is actually a challenge. You can also duo-level with a friend or find a random player in your current zone to do some quests together. Lonesome Warriors will love you.

[Tjaz]

I'd go for priest because its easier to farm gold with holy nova. With 10 hours a week you dont have to be the nr1 healer in the guild.

[czarek]

If u have not much time its good to choose tank or heal spec for the reason of fast grouping but its pretty hard to lvl up and farm. For the reason of chill playing i will choose hunter but its only dps.

Pala or priest? I could choose priest because im horde :P

For classic i will choose warrior i think.

[Knolan]

Hi all,

I'm struggling to decide what to play at 60. I will only be able to play for 10 hours per week (ish), although i'll be taking a week off work on launch to attempt at putting a dint in the levelling process.

I want to do most content - Dungeons, Raids, PVP & Gold Farming. I want to have a good experience each time i log in, rather than fighting an up hill battle.

What is the overall better experience? I played Vanilla back in the day, but i know the meta and knowledge of the game has increased so much that the game itself will play differently on launch.

I'm leaning towards paladin: despite the painful levelling. I'm at a "Heads or Tails" crossroad at the moment though, with the idea of a healer priest with Benediction tickling my fancy atm.

I would go priest. Paladin leveling is dull as hell and if you are playing 10 hours per week it will take a good 15 - 25 weeks to level (depends on how good you are at it).

[Yorgh]

I have the exact same dilemma, except i'm also thinking about Druid.
I was HPally in TBC and when the sunwell island came out with all the dailies and what not i was in such pain cuz HPally tock forever to kill something making questing/dailes very boring. I didn't play at max lvl in vanilla so i wonder if HPally's are just as crippled in Vanilla as they where in TBC, what kind of questing are you supposed to do at 60? Rep farm and what not.
I did play prist in Vanilla, just never got to 60 as world pvp was too much fun, ended up at lvl 50 ish with many days /played at each end lvl cuz of world pvp I know the class is stronger at killing things in their holy/healing spec, so i might just want to chose Priest over Paladin for that soul reason. Even though i plan on playing alot of pvp and i know Paladins are stronger then priests.
Then we have Druids. Which i can lvl in feral and tank evertyhing up to MC and only off-heal whenever there's no need for tanks. I dont like not having a ress, and i dont like that i'm not a very good healer at 60.
So, what to do. Imba Pally healer who cant PVE (quest/farm rep). Good healer Priest with ok PVE play, decent PVP play. Or Druid who's jack of all trades, master of none.

[Eldarius]

The main thing that's putting me off playing a Priest is their PVP effectiveness. I know Shadow melts faces, but how do healer priests hold up in battlegrounds? I've always had the memory of getting destroyed by Rogues & Hunters.

Part me of also wants to also play Paladin Tank (Yes, i'm aware i'll be limited to Dungeons & UBRS).

It's so difficult because i simply won't have the time to invest in e.g. 2 characters!

[StrawberryZebra]

I know Shadow melts faces, but how do healer priests hold up in battlegrounds? I've always had the memory of getting destroyed by Rogues & Hunters.

From what I remember, healing Priests did reasonably well in group PvP because of how flexible they were. They had the tools to handle most situations, as well as a lot of defencive and offencive utility with their dispells. Mana Burn let them get a huge leg up when it came to attrition, offsetting how inefficient some of their heals were.

Sure, Rogues and Hunters are going to be a challenge, but they are for pretty much every spellcaster anyway - With the notable exception of Paladins with Imp Concentration Aura, who could cast their heals without worrying about pushback and could remove Poisons.

At the end of the day though, any healer is good in a Battleground. I mean... They're healers, of course you want them on your team.

[Sooba]

Paladin outheals Priest in vanilla based on the current knowledge we have. /Snip

This is inaccurate. Yes, Paladins definitely outheal priests in raids when gear levels are high: Naxx gear being the best example. However, they are competitive in MC, BWL, AQ, and even early Naxx before much Naxx gear has been acquired. Raids allow Paladins to show off their defining features as a healer - spamming a relatively weak but extremely mana efficient heal and using multiple stacking buffs from multiple Paladins (in particular the unheralded BoL which boosts their heals considerably). Even then, Priests can keep up until the most extreme gear levels.

This is ignoring something important, though. Paladins struggle in level 60 5-man dungeon content unless that content has been outgeared. It can be done, but it requires the group be far more careful about aggro and extraneous damage. Paladins have no method of AoE heal. No dmg shield on a short cooldown. No HoT. They can't just spam FoL here, as they'll get behind on damage and the group will wipe. They also give out only one buff when there's only one of them, so that advantage over the Priest is gone. And BoL at most should be used on the tank. It's not the best one to use in most situations. This makes a difference when you're the primary healer.

If you're only playing for 10 hours a week, and you know you're going to want an easier time at all levels, I would recommend a Priest. Specifically, a Dwarf Priest (Undead if Horde). This will make your dungeon gearing process far smoother. Your raiding experience will be solid for either choice. Your role as The healer will never be questioned.

As an aside, group PvP is less intuitive for a Priest as compared to a Paladin, but that doesn't mean they're better. Paladins are easier to "slip into" mentally. You're impossible to kill, your role is to make others the same. Consequently Paladins tend to be seen as "better". Priests are just as important to have, though. On the Alliance, Priests are the more offensive healer, which takes a little getting used to. You're a little more vulnerable and require a little more support from team play. On the other hand, you're not entirely shut down by a counterspell, and Mana Burn + universal magic dispel makes you threatening to opposition if there isn't enough pressure on your team to keep you healing. Make friends with a couple people who can peel for you, and you'll have loads of fun.

- - - Updated - - -

/Snip
Holy Paladins are very strong ST healers with great utility but having played one from Vanilla to TBC in high-end content I can tell you: it's fucking boring and they somewhat fall off in later raids because the need for AoE healing increases significantly.

/Snip

The rest of your post was fantastic, but be careful here. The need for AoE healing was definitely something that happened as TBC progressed. It made Holy Paladins rather unwanted in Sunwell. This is less true in Vanilla, and in fact Naxx was where Paladin healing really shined. Yes the raid took more dmg, but it was cleaned up sufficiently with spot heals on the Alliance. Priest AoE heals weren't overly effective in Naxx anyway, as it was group-only. They didn't get CoH yet.

Conflating Vanilla with TBC muddies the waters if you're trying to give advice about only one of them.

[Akasha64]

This is inaccurate. Yes, Paladins definitely outheal priests in raids when gear levels are high:

Hmm, Tips Out had different numbers, but then again, he did not base his stats on Official server data. Though if his data is right, I'm guessing one of the key reasons is because priests had to downrank in vanilla WoW to save mana, whilst for Paladins this was not much of a thing. Paladins could heal with less concern of going oom. Priests had a higher skill ceiling pretty much.

[Sooba]

Hmm, Tips Out had different numbers, but then again, he did not base his stats on Official server data. Though if his data is right, I'm guessing one of the key reasons is because priests had to downrank in vanilla WoW to save mana, whilst for Paladins this was not much of a thing. Paladins could heal with less concern of going oom. Priests had a higher skill ceiling pretty much.

There are a number of major mechanics that [redacted] get wrong that impact the balance. One of them is buffs. The Onyxia world buff is much more finicky to obtain in real Vanilla, and Black Lotus has a dramatically lower spawn rate. (As in, at least one order of magnitude lower). To the point where it's not feasible to try and get both every time you raid. This means less crit and less +heal. This net effect is the same as if the guild was a tier lower in terms of gear. As I already established, higher gear levels favor Paladins in Vanilla. (crit favors Illumination, +heal steadily increases the value of HPM over HPS).

I've actually commented to this effect on his videos. There's a number of [redacted]-centric assumptions that Tips et al. hold that aren't going to be maintained into Classic. Apparently some others have been making the same point, because he decided to take our comments and monetize them with another video on differences recently. :P

[Gavll]

Do you like having agency over your character and buttons to press? Play a Priest.

Do you want to auto attack and hope for fun casino procs? Play a Paladin.

At the end of the day, both are going to be very welcome in PvE. I don't think you're going to raid much beyond MC/Ony and the 20mans in 10 hours a week and still have time to do PvP, farming, dungeons etc

Personally I think Priest healing is more fun too, since you have more buttons to press (again) and don't have to buff every 12-15 minutes.
Shadow Priest is very strong in PvP with lesser gear than a Paladin needs to be strong (which in 10 hours a week I don't see you getting, unless you forgoe all other content than raiding).

If you want a fun experience, then play Shadow Priest. You can still heal as Shadow in 5 mans.

[Roxyfoxy]

Both are great at endgame, priest probably more fun to level up.

You will have no issue getting a group with priest or paladin, as long as you want to heal.
Id pick a priest mostly cause of a much more varied toolkit compared to the paladins flash of light spam all the way trough mc until naxx

[chooi]

The rest of your post was fantastic, but be careful here. The need for AoE healing was definitely something that happened as TBC progressed. It made Holy Paladins rather unwanted in Sunwell. This is less true in Vanilla, and in fact Naxx was where Paladin healing really shined. Yes the raid took more dmg, but it was cleaned up sufficiently with spot heals on the Alliance. Priest AoE heals weren't overly effective in Naxx anyway, as it was group-only. They didn't get CoH yet.

Conflating Vanilla with TBC muddies the waters if you're trying to give advice about only one of them.

Heavily depends on the boss fight in AQ40/Naxx.

Note: I didn't want to give the impression that Holy Paladins are mediocre in high-end Vanilla. It's correct that they are very strong during all of Vanilla but there are bosses where Priests and even Druids can easily outshine Paladins because of the amount of incoming raid damage where the Paladins primary job is to focus on the tank(s) and the occasional cross-heal whereas Priests and Druids are essential to keep the raid alive. In other words: there are bosses where you can have too many Paladins but there are no bosses where you can have too many Priests. Easiest example would be to just have a look at Sapphiron which can be a real progression blocker with the wrong healer setup.

Also, we have to keep in mind that especially in Vanilla (and TBC) that healing was all about having a good mix of classes and working together as a team. Pure HPS meters are not fit to judge different healer classes fairly because it's easy to top the healing meters as a Paladin spamming FoL and the occasional HL when tanks are taking constant crazy amounts of damage while the Priests are stopcasting Greaters to top the tank when the Paladins can't keep up just to have another Pally snipe in another FoL so your Greater goes partially into overhealing. Basically, Holy Paladins are walking 1.5sec HoTs. Their primary role is to smooth out the damage spikes and provide constant efficient heals without going OOM to give the other healers a breather. They can and should use stopcast/downranked HLs when necessary but that job is better left to the Priests (or Druids) abusing high mana regen from Spirit and 5-second-rule.

BTW: You can and should spread your Priests in different groups in AoE-intense fights.

[Roxyfoxy]

Heavily depends on the boss fight in AQ40/Naxx.

Note: I didn't want to give the impression that Holy Paladins are mediocre in high-end Vanilla. It's correct that they are very strong during all of Vanilla but there are bosses where Priests and even Druids can easily outshine Paladins because of the amount of incoming raid damage where the Paladins primary job is to focus on the tank(s) and the occasional cross-heal whereas Priests and Druids are essential to keep the raid alive. In other words: there are bosses where you can have too many Paladins but there are no bosses where you can have enough Priests. Easiest example would be to just have a look at Sapphiron which can be a real progression blocker with the wrong healer setup.

Also, we have to keep in mind that especially in Vanilla (and TBC) that healing was all about having a good mix of classes and working together as a team. Pure HPS meters are not fit to judge different healer classes fairly because it's easy to top the healing meters as a Paladin spamming FoL and the occasional HL when tanks are taking constant crazy amounts of damage while the Priests are stopcasting Greaters to top the tank when the Paladins can't keep up just to have another Pally snipe in another FoL so your Greater goes partially into overhealing. Basically, Holy Paladins are walking 1.5sec HoTs. Their primary role is to smooth out the damage spikes and provide constant efficient heals without going OOM to give the other healers a breather. They can and should use stopcast/downranked HLs when necessary but that job is better left to the Priests (or Druids) abusing high mana regen from Spirit and 5-second-rule.

Yes, you dont have a healer class in vanilla thats "Best" they all are great, but they have different roles to fill in the raid.

Druid gets the short end of the stick as alliance, since paladins fill their role much better, on horde druids are more usefull since they take care of the small damage that paladins do as alliance.

The amount of aoe damage in vanilla is so small that you dont really use prayer of healing at all except for on vaelstraz or on easy farm content where mana is not a issue.

[Sooba]

/snip.

Your larger picture statement is very true. That being that it's possible to have too many Paladin healers, where it's not possible to have too many Priests due to their flexibility. I didn't want to argue too much, just caution not to bring TBC into it, as it really does muddy the picture. Vanilla simply is not comparable to the amount of AoE healing demanded in TBC, which almost outright invalidated Holy Paladins entirely in Sunwell. As a former Vanilla Paladin, I was extremely relieved by the time Mu'ru rolled around that I had rerolled Shaman at the beginning of TBC. Some of my Holy comrades were reduced to standing outside the entrance and buffing us as we entered from a wipe.

Your overall recommendation is likely the same as mine. If you know for sure you want to be a healer and you want to always be relevant in any PvE content and any Alliance raid composition in Vanilla, you really can't go wrong with a Priest.

- - - Updated - - -

/snip
Druid gets the short end of the stick as alliance, since paladins fill their role much better, on horde druids are more usefull since they take care of the small damage that paladins do as alliance.
/snip

This is true to a small degree, but is not as large an issue as some people make it out to be. 24/0/27 druids in Naxx gear had incredible mana efficiency and throughput. They were a viable alternative to Paladins. Due to gear constraints, you always want a good mix, and having a couple Druids in that spec meant you could carry more of them. This was good, because that way gear was easier to dole out. I know Druids get the shaft, and I think they're at their worst in early AQ when they're no longer as nice for offtanking but their Moonglow spec hasn't taken off yet. However it's fully possible to have 3-4 without gimping your raid. That was a good thing for us, because we had two Paladins burn out in short order and it took us a while to recruit/gear some sufficiently to replace.