I wanna heal in classic, but i got a problem

[layfee]

Hey,

I really wanna heal in classic - priest probably.

How do healers cope with random world quests, farming for attunements, just basic farming for gold in the "endgame" or at least at max level?
To me it seems like a big pain in the ass and i dont think i wanna switch specs every time i wanna farm and then go back to heal in a dungeon etc.
Were healers just pure group specs, meaning that you gotta group up for everything basically out in the world, or could you solo some stuff or at least be effective if you wanna make some gold for yourself and farm some mobs?

I love the concept of healing the group and to be the guy who keeps people alive, but as soon as i look at the solo content i might have to do apart from dungeon runs and raids, i kinda get deterred from picking a healer for classic. As a dps i could just go out in my spare time and farm some mobs working towards an epic mount or something, but as a healer its not that simple right?

[Bildur]

I've never played a healer so why I'm answering your post I do not know lol

However back in those days I leveled a Warrior as Protection - for the same reasons you want to main a Priest: I wanted the people I grouped up with to stay alive.

Back then the game was new to me so I did not know at the time, but later when I looked back I realized what I had been up against compared to DPS classes: Back then a Warrior Tank could take a lot of damage ... but barely couldn't kill a fly.

Around lvl 40-ish I met a Holy Priest, she was from the same country as me and we quickly became friends and a really good Tank-Healer partnership emerged. From what I remember she have had a similar problem she discovered late in the game; struggeling more with killing stuff but really good at keeping herself alive. But like me she had been oblivious to this fact and just had a great time leveling a charecter that meant something to her.

So I guess that was why I responded to your post. If you can unlearn everything you've learned from current WoW and accept that you won't kill stuff as fast as say Hunters, Rouges, Warlocks etc but still have fun with a charecter that means something to you ... your good to go. Have fun and see you in Vanilla

[Janaa]

It wasn't actually too bad. Priests had reasonable dps spells in holy, and as for many casters, wands were a hugely important source of damage, and would be your main tool while leveling.

Edit: But certainly, would be a lot faster with a warrior. ^^ The main reason I never played a warrior in vanilla was because of the dire need for pocket heals, or endless eating/bandaging.

[Ihazpaws]

You can farm, level, gear up alone as a disc/holy priest but it will be slower than as a dps spec. I'd get some friends/guildies help out and farm together. You can also make "dps" healer spec as a priest. You can even stay as shadow and heal pretty much any dungeon but in that case you need group of friends who are good enough to stay alive in dungeons with lesser healer.

It seems I cannot add images but here is a link to one dmg healing build. You can take of well and increased healing done and then use points on disc tree to reduce instant cast spells cost and take spirit buff. This build is also quite glass cannon so you need to be careful with your pulls.

https://imgur.com/EZvVhPP
This build is for doing dmg and singletarget healing. For raiding you need to focus more on aoe in some cases.

[babyback]

You dont need to be fully specced into healing to heal in dungeons. I played a priest in vanilla and it wasn’t until lvl 60 I went full healer.

[Akka]

It wasn't actually too bad. Priests had reasonable dps spells in holy, and as for many casters, wands were a hugely important source of damage, and would be your main tool while leveling.

Pretty much. Holy priest aren't actually that bad. Speccing into wand damage is actually a good move, though.

As a dps i could just go out in my spare time and farm some mobs working towards an epic mount or something, but as a healer its not that simple right?

It is. A healer has lower damage, so will take more time to kill mob, but it has higher survivability, so it's much less prone to dieing.
Don't sweat it too much. It certainly isn't going to be a farming spec anytime, but it's all right.

[Zensunni]

Answer is simple: Healers spec into whatever spec they want and then heal in healing gear with their DPS talents, since raiding in vanilla is a joke and doesn't require min-maxing. I'm not joking, that's how we did it in vanilla. Only time the healers on my raid team (myself included) actually spec'd into the healing tree in a significant way was for major progress nights. Once something was on farm, I was healing as enhance, winning meters, and speed-clearing with a team that was doing the same.

Get it through your head people - vanilla raiding is a joke, and none of this min-maxing matters.

[gamhacked]

Answer is simple: Healers spec into whatever spec they want and then heal in healing gear with their DPS talents, since raiding in vanilla is a joke and doesn't require min-maxing. I'm not joking, that's how we did it in vanilla. Only time the healers on my raid team (myself included) actually spec'd into the healing tree in a significant way was for major progress nights. Once something was on farm, I was healing as enhance, winning meters, and speed-clearing with a team that was doing the same.

Get it through your head people - vanilla raiding is a joke, and none of this min-maxing matters.

No idea how people expect Classic to be at all challenging. They'll have to end up 5-manning 40 man raids to make it 'challenging', which it still won't be, because the game was so damn easy.

[crakerjack]

You just need to make sure you have water. Just spam holy fire on things until they die, did insane damage. I leveled my priest from 40-60 by spamming holy fire for single target and using holy nova for AoE. Again, you'll need water because holy fire used up quite a bit. Also shadow word pain.

[Xemioza]

Answer is simple: Healers spec into whatever spec they want and then heal in healing gear with their DPS talents, since raiding in vanilla is a joke and doesn't require min-maxing. I'm not joking, that's how we did it in vanilla. Only time the healers on my raid team (myself included) actually spec'd into the healing tree in a significant way was for major progress nights. Once something was on farm, I was healing as enhance, winning meters, and speed-clearing with a team that was doing the same.

Get it through your head people - vanilla raiding is a joke, and none of this min-maxing matters.

I want to see you do that in AQ40/Naxx

[czarek]

What random world q ? Solo farm as healer nope but good in coop. You can just farm dungeons with guild its more efficient or make alt dps class just for farming.

[Ogarash]

Priest is the best healer in vanilla, just plain best. So if you want to play it, go for it. You'll be invited to EVERYTHING!
Speccs don't work like they do now. Aside from spells you get from talents, you have access to all the spells of your class, that is the holy ones and the shadow ones.
Priest leveling is easy-peasy. It's not the fastest, but it is very reliable and has little to no downtime when doing solo shit. This is due to you using a wand. You shield yourself, dot the target and then wand away until dead. Works like a charm.

Also, nobody speccs 51 points ( that's the amount of talent points you have at 60 ) in Holy only, or Shadow only. The ratio varies but even deep holy speccs have 15 or whatever points in another tree. You could also be shadow really, and heal dungeons juuust fine. Your holy specc really only comes into hard play when you're deep into raiding, which is basically the latter part of BWL and onwards.

[Crick3t]

Back in the day I played priest and I really enjoyed the group part of the game. We even went on to clear some bosses in Naxxramas.
BUT I also made a rogue farming alt because solo farming (there are no worldquests) was a true pain in the a**.

TL: DR: Priest gameplay is amazing, but get yourself a farming alt.

[AeneasBK]

Like nearly everything in an MMO; you don't act like an asshole to people you meet and lo! when you're 60 you get nearly anything you need given to you by the friends you made along the way.

People are really REALLY bad at playing MMOs sometimes.

[Heathy]

I think levelling up in tbc was easier but ill be honest, I pretty much just spammed groups to level up, once you reach the level where you can spam maraudon, i did that over and over and over, then the sunken temple, over and over, then brd etc upto 60. questing is doable as holy in classic it just takes longer than it would if you were a regular dps class. usually the benefit is that you pretty much never actually die, because you can just run away, until the mobs reset and heal yourself while you do that. questing takes longer but unless you pull loads of mobs you can survive until the mobs reset, where as other classes can't heal themselves and just die.

I have played shadow over the years, but i think i was the first person in the guild to reach 70 and 80, as holy. although that might just mean i no lifed more than everyone else rather than it just being perfectly viable. it did get easier over the years.

[MardestyGSOG]

Smite and holy fire can do enough dmg to farm and grind at 60, wands and SW:P make it a little more efficient.

It will be slower but doable. At least you’re not a prot warr or holy pala.

Really though, if you’re a 60 holy priest, you’ll have a spot in a guild, and they’ll make sure you get what you need if your dps is coming up short out in the world, it’s important that you stay farmed and stocked up and raid leaders are usually gonna see to it. As long as you’re in a decent guild.

[Raven]

Best tip would probably be, get a friend to play with since back then changing spec is way to much work and hassle to be worth it.

[Bramickias]

Theres really no reason to level with a healing spec. The early game is easy enough for any class to be able to heal no matter their spec, although having some gears with +int on it is advised for druid/paladin/shaman. Even at 60, you hardly need to go for a 100% healing spec, at least until you start raiding seriously.

If you want to play a holy priest at 60, solo grinding mobs is just inefficient. If you want to make some gold, just go with mining/herbalism or do some group content. A holy priest is everyones best friend, you shouldnt have any problem finding people to do, well, anything with. Theres also the alternative of getting a hunter/mage/warlock alt so you can farm gold on them, but with how long it takes to level a character to 60, thats for the more dedicated people.

[Voidwielder]

Hybrid Disc/Holy and you'll be very safe in solo world PvE content (there's not much of it in Classic).

When you'll level, you want to do Shadow/Disc hybrid - you will Wand a lot, upside of that is you can go from mob to mob very quickly. Downside of that is you won't be as quick as a Mage but considering how often they'll die in the hands of less experienced, mediocre players, it'll make up for it.

I feel like Priests are one of the most underrated classes when it comes to levelling speed and consistency and down time.

Just stay healer main after 50 and people will seek you as opposed to having to LFG. If you find a Warrior or Rogue along the way, quest together.

[Heathy]

they really are but probably not in classic, it was slow as molasses, I think killing elites yielded the best exp gain which is why ill always say the group spamming was quicker exp gain than questing. ofc the best thing to do is to quest upto the point that you need to do the dungeons for the quest. but per mob if you can chain multiple group runs together, it is likely the fastest way to level, doubly so if you have double exp saved. you just gained way more exp per elite kill and you're killing way more mobs than you would by yourself. questing is great for pushing the double exp into another level. but i don't think it competed with chaining group after group, being a priest ofc getting into groups wasn't that difficult. ofc doing it this way you also learn how to heal groups which can often be interesting for various reasons.

the early game is pretty slow I think I had to endure stranglethorn to reach the mid 30s maybe and uldaman, but once you get to like 40-42 and maraudon, lots of elites in there, upto level 51, should be able to reach 50 in there and start on the sunken temple, that'll get you to 52 and brd. brd gets you to 56 and lbrs/dm east. hop skip jump to 60. throw zulfarrak in there to mix up the maraudon runs at the mid 40s.

clothies have the cheapest repair bills once you have your fast mount, well i had alchemy but there came a point where gold lost its purpose other than repairs and buying some random boe for an alt. I eventually made money (if i needed it) by selling mageblood potions and righteous orbs. suffice to say once i had my fast mount i didn't bother actively trying to farm gold. the fast mount is pretty much the one and only gold sink.