Healers in TBC

[Mexh]

What was the experience like for those who wanted to heal in tbc? Did everyone level as a dps and respec after max level and back to dps for dailies?

I’m not sure if I’m ready for that headache or can afford that.

[ClassicPeon]

What was the experience like for those who wanted to heal in tbc? Did everyone level as a dps and respec after max level and back to dps for dailies?

I’m not sure if I’m ready for that headache or can afford that.

I know the 10 extra levels means you can spread out a little more points and possible get some more dps talents.

Sadly for shaman their really good dps talents are the late tier talents(for elemental at least).

[Heathy]

I levelled as a healer and pretty much spammed dungeons iirc, because for example you're going to need lots of coilfang armaments to get your heroic key for slave pens / underbog, and this is the same for all of the dungeon clusters, so you can pretty much just spam dungeon runs. in these different clusters for rep. similar to classic i'm sure each of the dungeons had a quest tied to it so ideally you'd quest until you get the dungeon quest and then do that.

I played pretty much 2 priest builds one was imp spirit buff + spiritual guidance (hybrid), and then later on I changed to full holy for CoH when my +heal was decent. the spirit build works off spirit so, gems/enchants etc trinkets with spirit, more spirit = better double dip on +heal and regen.

[Fisher557]

Well for me at least I leveled a druid as feral, the last 3ish levels I started opting in for the healing items instead of feral. Once I hit 70 I just basically did everything as a healer in healer spec lol. For dailies I just casted wrath’s and moon fire to kill stuff down, or if I had a friend I would group up and mass pull while I healed.

I’m assuming it will be pretty easy for shamans/druids/priests to do dailies as their healing spec, I didn’t play Paladin until dual spec was a thing so I’m guessing that would be much tougher to do.

[Storfan]

If only there was some sort of way to have two specs you can easily change between without having to pay a "feel-bad-tax" every time.

[crusadernero]

If only there was some sort of way to have two specs you can easily change between without having to pay a "feel-bad-tax" every time.

well thats not in the spirit of the BC version of wow.

[Storfan]

well thats not in the spirit of the BC version of wow.

True as that may be. Before classic I was a staunch advocate for #nochanges. In hindsight with classic coming to an end I will admit that #somechanges can actually be to a benefit.

[crusadernero]

True as that may be. Before classic I was a staunch advocate for #nochanges. In hindsight with classic coming to an end I will admit that #somechanges can actually be to a benefit.

Fair point, and I dont really disagree with you a whole lot. That said, I think it would be best if Blizzard releases the xpacs as they once were. With the good and the bad!

[Selastan]

In BC I mained a holy paladin, but only switched after my guild convinced me ret was garbage. I couldn't imagine leveling like that...I would switch after hitting max level and getting with a good guild you want to raid with.

Keep in mind this was my very FIRST character and I was around 12. I had a dialup connection, click-healed, and didn't know how to downrank until we got to SSC. I was BAD back then, and have hazy memories, so just because I couldn't do it doesn't mean YOU can't. Just stating my own experience as a BC healer for the record, garbage as it was.

[mmocfd1b0ab5a3]

You can heal every normal dungeon as shadow priest (yes Shadow Labs, Arcatraz etc.), thats what I did. I never tried heroics as shadow tho but I think those are doable but not so painless. I don't know about other classes.

[RainBoi]

If only there was some sort of way to have two specs you can easily change between without having to pay a "feel-bad-tax" every time.

The "feel-bad-tax" isnt just there for fun, it is there to create a gold sink and drain some of the excess gold from the economy. Whats next? Removing repairs too? What do you even need gold for?

[procne]

I levelled as feral druid, gathered some gear from pvp, crafting and badges. Then I switched to resto and started healing dungeons / raids. I don't think I switched to dps to do the dailies. Fortunatelly there weren't that many dailies back then

[Coolascancer]

I leveled my priest as shadow and I had played the game since day one vanilla- so i was not a newb but definitely not a meta badass either. My friend leveled his pally as holy after 60 for some reason but i recently leveled a pally somewhere and prot was virtually unplayable after 60- holy was much much better in terms of mana and grinding as well as self preservation. not sure about ret for pallies

[ek0zu]

Leveling as a healer is not a problem. Changing back and forth for dailies and raids/pvp whatever you enjoy won't be efficient (imo). I think it is better to level a farming alt.

[Contego]

Back then I leveled my shaman as resto, mainly by spamming dungeons, but also by doing some questing with a buddy. Quest hubs are slightly more streamlined, so it's easier to hop in and out of a "questing session". For example, the Nagrand arena gives great exp, and usually requires someone to heal. Same goes for several Wanted-quests and other elite-quests.

[Ogarash]

What was the experience like for those who wanted to heal in tbc? Did everyone level as a dps and respec after max level and back to dps for dailies?

I’m not sure if I’m ready for that headache or can afford that.

TBC is not retail. Every class has all the spells available, unless those spells are learnt from talents. A Shaman for instance therefore has a wide vareity of damaging abilities so you can if you so wish level as resto. There is no need to however since you won't need deep resto build for leveling dunggeons healing so some form of enh/resto or ele/resto works very well. Also, yes it costs gold to respecc but 50g in TBC is barely any gold at all so that is not much of a concern.

[Akka]

You can heal every normal dungeon as shadow priest (yes Shadow Labs, Arcatraz etc.), thats what I did. I never tried heroics as shadow tho but I think those are doable but not so painless. I don't know about other classes.

Depends on the version we'll get.
You're certainly not gonna heal these Bog Giants and their "let's hit the tank for 80 % of his life" punches with a shadow priest if they are in their first iteration.

[polskija]

I used to play as a Holy Paladin for the latter half of the expansion. My experience was this:

I was very lucky to play in an end-game guild that still used Holy paladins in their core. For the most part (at least on the server I played on) the role of paladins was to stand outside Sunwell and give blessings. The most efficient healer classes at that stage were holy priest and resto shaman.

I leveled up my paladin as holy, but I was an odd one doing that. Most people leveled their characters up with a dps specc and just did the leveling instances healing in a dps specc with healing gear.

The money part is quite individual. In my guild MOST people had an alt character to make money. Mine was a mage with alchemy and herbalism so I could also help my main with the costs of raiding. Some tanks and healers would specc dps for a few days when there were no raids and just go crazy with the farming during that time.

Also, in my guild we often did the world bosses and the boe epics were raid rolled so you'd end up getting lucky at some point. It all got easier with skettis and Ogrila dailies and later even more so with Quel'Thalas which we called "The PVP Island".

[Low Hanging Fruit]

It depends on how hardcore/minmax the group you run with is. Honestly you can do it with 5-6 of just about anything. None of them are total trash if played right. But I am only going off memory here and do not claim to be a superman of this nor did I go to google to "be cool" and just repost it here for ya.

Paladins bring you blessings and are massive single target healing. Snipe well. Pretty much are never out of mana machines. But later in the expansion get weaker as the encounters are more "everyone takes damage all the time" type encounters and less about tanks mostly soaking it all up. With that said you probably always want one or two in the group. For sure the best filler class if you cannot stack more shaman and priest.

Shamans are pretty much gods. Chain heal scales insanely the whole way through. Later gear and some down ranking makes them almost never run out of mana. Totems are godly. Oh, but they have lust. So.. yeah..

Priests. Priests weren't so hot at the start of TBC. But I think it is safe to assume you will be getting the last set of talent points and such? Either way PoH scales out of control like chain heal does as gear goes up. They also get a couple other smartish heals if I remember. Mana does require a good bit of management here though. Priests are for sure in competition with Shaman for king healer of all of TBC but they don't have lust. So that makes them lose.

Druids are kind of in an odd spot. Lifebloom rolling can be insane. Innervate is great to have along with combat res. If I remember right they get an aura that increases healing taken from people in their party? So having one sitting with your tanks is pretty cool. They are kind of like the class you probably want one of but not really wanting to stack? Probably can get away without one too.

[Storfan]

The "feel-bad-tax" isnt just there for fun, it is there to create a gold sink and drain some of the excess gold from the economy. Whats next? Removing repairs too? What do you even need gold for?

How much gold have you spent on respecs for the entire duration of classic? How much do you recon the average player has spent? I'd wager the answer to both is probably less than 1k gold. in wotlk dualspec costed 1k to learn. If implemented in TBC they could just up that price if they felt the need to.