Healer run downs (explanations)

[JohnBeelick]

Hello! I'm wondering if anyone can put down a brief run down of the different healers and how they heal. Such as : raid healing, CD benefits, main focus in healing. Not looking for what is flavor of the month or the best throughput but simply a run down of how they all play so I can make a decision.

[Deleted]

Disc Priest: Absorbs (lots of them) and DPS Heals via Atonement. That's the unique traits of Disc Priests and its usually good to have at least 1 in most raids. Their actual HEALS are subpar but its more than made up for by the amount of absorb or mitigation they put out which compliments the actual heal-healers very well. Likewise they're the perfect choice for fights where you want a half healer half DPS. Raid CD is ok, PW: Barrier in keeping with the Disc style just mitigates damage.

Expect to spend a lot of time pressing Smite and DPSing, it heals for a lot. When not doing that its mostly about predicting incoming damage and prepping the raid with Spirit Shell and PW:S, aka: your absorbs, or by using your mitigation CDs on the raid/tank. You're there to prevent damage while the other healers heal what little of it got through.

Holy Priest: Who cares, everyone plays Disc. Suppose to be a sort of jack-of-all-trades type healer, kind of rare to see Holy Priests nowadays due to how good Disc is. If you are Holy then you're suppose to be switching between different states (chakras) to compliment your current heal needs, basically single target or AoE. They mostly stay in AoE chakra and focus on raids heals. They do have a good raid CD, basically an exact replica of Druid's Tranq.

Expect to have a bunch of people asking why you're not Disc.

Monk: Raid healer extraordinaire. Probably the weakest tank heals in the game, and the strongest raid heals. I believe they have decent DPS while healing too if they choose to, kind of like Disc Priests. I don't know too much about them, but they basically fill the raid healer niche atm. Don't have powerful raid CDs that I know of. They don't need em since they can heal an entire raid quite well with just their normal spells.

Expect to sit around and place HoTs on the entire raid, torpedo yourself through clumps of players to heal them and then torpedo back the way you came to heal them again. Lots of raid healing.

Shaman: Emergency healer. Their mastery shines in situations where people's HP is low. They have the best raid CDs (3 of them) for OHSHIT moments or big damage spikes. They increase the raid's health by up to 10% (unique, no one else has this effect) which again doesn't mitigate damage but gives a buffer to survive OHSHIT moments. If things are going smoothly they don't do much, low HPS and look bad on paper. If shit hits the fan they shine.

Expect to play based off of predicting damage, similar to Disc... except instead of shielding people you pre-cast your heals or CDs to land after they get dumped on. With that mastery you can get some huge heals off but you need to time them right. Timing is key, especially for tank heals (probably the only class that can get a tank from 10% to 100% in a single GCD if timed right). Also very big on Healing Rain placement and upkeep.

Druids: Used to be the HoT/raid healers... kind of usurped that job by Monks now. I think they have better tank heals than Monks though and they have Tranq which is a very good raid CD. Also some unique utility benefits like the plethora of possible Symbiosis spells and their raid-wide sprint buff. Situationally useful, Druids as far as I can see don't excel at anything specific but they're not really bad at anything either. Perhaps the new jack-of-all-trades healer.

Expect to... I dunno, do a bit of everything. HoT upkeep like Lifebloom and Rejuv is big, gotta keep those HoTs rolling. The rest is just heal whatever needs it.

Paladains: Arguably the best healers in PvE atm. They have a little bit of everything... or a lot of everything. Tank heals, raid heals, some absorbs (though not as much as Disc), lots of personal CDs and one ok-ish raid CD (magic damage only mitigation). Lots of utility, lots of HPS, lots of diversity and even some absorbs to boot.

Expect to play around with Holy Power generation in order to maximize HPS and mana efficiency. Gotta remember to use your billion and one CDs, like personal HPS CDs, utility CDs, raid CD... etc. in order to maximize efficiency. The heals which use HoPo (Light of Dawn and Eternal Flame) are extremely strong so making use of those is key, but they're pretty easy to use.

[Hyve]

Monk: Raid healer extraordinaire. Probably the weakest tank heals in the game, and the strongest raid heals. I believe they have decent DPS while healing too if they choose to, kind of like Disc Priests. I don't know too much about them, but they basically fill the raid healer niche atm. Don't have powerful raid CDs that I know of. They don't need em since they can heal an entire raid quite well with just their normal spells.

Expect to sit around and place HoTs on the entire raid, torpedo yourself through clumps of players to heal them and then torpedo back the way you came to heal them again. Lots of raid healing.

As a Mistweaver, this is pretty much true. Our Raid Healing is fantastic, but Tank healing is somewhat lacking. Very HoT orientated.

[Deleted]

As a Mistweaver, this is pretty much true. Our Raid Healing is fantastic, but Tank healing is somewhat lacking. Very HoT orientated.

Running MW+Holydin in 10 man works a charm! Holydins reliable aoe throughput is...dodgy to say the least, but we can top ppl and keep tanks up nps whilst letting the monk do the heavy aoe work.

[JohnBeelick]

Disc Priest: Absorbs (lots of them) and DPS Heals via Atonement. That's the unique traits of Disc Priests and its usually good to have at least 1 in most raids. Their actual HEALS are subpar but its more than made up for by the amount of absorb or mitigation they put out which compliments the actual heal-healers very well. Likewise they're the perfect choice for fights where you want a half healer half DPS. Raid CD is ok, PW: Barrier in keeping with the Disc style just mitigates damage.

Expect to spend a lot of time pressing Smite and DPSing, it heals for a lot. When not doing that its mostly about predicting incoming damage and prepping the raid with Spirit Shell and PW:S, aka: your absorbs, or by using your mitigation CDs on the raid/tank. You're there to prevent damage while the other healers heal what little of it got through.

Holy Priest: Who cares, everyone plays Disc. Suppose to be a sort of jack-of-all-trades type healer, kind of rare to see Holy Priests nowadays due to how good Disc is. If you are Holy then you're suppose to be switching between different states (chakras) to compliment your current heal needs, basically single target or AoE. They mostly stay in AoE chakra and focus on raids heals. They do have a good raid CD, basically an exact replica of Druid's Tranq.

Expect to have a bunch of people asking why you're not Disc.

Monk: Raid healer extraordinaire. Probably the weakest tank heals in the game, and the strongest raid heals. I believe they have decent DPS while healing too if they choose to, kind of like Disc Priests. I don't know too much about them, but they basically fill the raid healer niche atm. Don't have powerful raid CDs that I know of. They don't need em since they can heal an entire raid quite well with just their normal spells.

Expect to sit around and place HoTs on the entire raid, torpedo yourself through clumps of players to heal them and then torpedo back the way you came to heal them again. Lots of raid healing.

Shaman: Emergency healer. Their mastery shines in situations where people's HP is low. They have the best raid CDs (3 of them) for OHSHIT moments or big damage spikes. They increase the raid's health by up to 10% (unique, no one else has this effect) which again doesn't mitigate damage but gives a buffer to survive OHSHIT moments. If things are going smoothly they don't do much, low HPS and look bad on paper. If shit hits the fan they shine.

Expect to play based off of predicting damage, similar to Disc... except instead of shielding people you pre-cast your heals or CDs to land after they get dumped on. With that mastery you can get some huge heals off but you need to time them right. Timing is key, especially for tank heals (probably the only class that can get a tank from 10% to 100% in a single GCD if timed right). Also very big on Healing Rain placement and upkeep.

Druids: Used to be the HoT/raid healers... kind of usurped that job by Monks now. I think they have better tank heals than Monks though and they have Tranq which is a very good raid CD. Also some unique utility benefits like the plethora of possible Symbiosis spells and their raid-wide sprint buff. Situationally useful, Druids as far as I can see don't excel at anything specific but they're not really bad at anything either. Perhaps the new jack-of-all-trades healer.

Expect to... I dunno, do a bit of everything. HoT upkeep like Lifebloom and Rejuv is big, gotta keep those HoTs rolling. The rest is just heal whatever needs it.

Paladains: Arguably the best healers in PvE atm. They have a little bit of everything... or a lot of everything. Tank heals, raid heals, some absorbs (though not as much as Disc), lots of personal CDs and one ok-ish raid CD (magic damage only mitigation). Lots of utility, lots of HPS, lots of diversity and even some absorbs to boot.

Expect to play around with Holy Power generation in order to maximize HPS and mana efficiency. Gotta remember to use your billion and one CDs, like personal HPS CDs, utility CDs, raid CD... etc. in order to maximize efficiency. The heals which use HoPo (Light of Dawn and Eternal Flame) are extremely strong so making use of those is key, but they're pretty easy to use.

Thanks so much! that's exactly what I was looking for. Think i'm going to try out the druid!

[Halifax]

Monk: Raid healer extraordinaire. Probably the weakest tank heals in the game, and the strongest raid heals. I believe they have decent DPS while healing too if they choose to, kind of like Disc Priests. I don't know too much about them, but they basically fill the raid healer niche atm. Don't have powerful raid CDs that I know of. They don't need em since they can heal an entire raid quite well with just their normal spells.

Expect to sit around and place HoTs on the entire raid, torpedo yourself through clumps of players to heal them and then torpedo back the way you came to heal them again. Lots of raid healing.

Revival is a very powerful cooldown. Instantly heals everyone in the raid for a considerable amount and drops all Disease/Magic/Poisons off the entire raid which can be awesome in fights that it applies to.

[Deleted]

Revival is a very powerful cooldown. Instantly heals everyone in the raid for a considerable amount and drops all Disease/Magic/Poisons off the entire raid which can be awesome in fights that it applies to.

True, I didn't know of that one. So basically a Tranq that heals a little less but does it instantly instead of over time. Definitely a powerful raid CD, in keeping with the theme of being powerful raid healers.

[lordsphinx]

Since the OP sounds like s/he's reletively new at healing, maybe an order of easiest>hardest for a new healer to learn to play? I know my first healer was a disc priest, and when I started rolling a druid I was AMAZED at how few heals they actually had compared to disc. It was so much less confusing...

[Deleted]

Hpally is relatively straight forward, HPriest, imho, is a bit more complicated due to Chakra's etc.

[Spotnick]

Hpally is relatively straight forward, HPriest, imho, is a bit more complicated due to Chakra's etc.

It's not. If you have the need to be in anything else than in the aoe chakra, you should be disc for that fight ;-)

[JohnBeelick]

Since the OP sounds like s/he's reletively new at healing, maybe an order of easiest>hardest for a new healer to learn to play? I know my first healer was a disc priest, and when I started rolling a druid I was AMAZED at how few heals they actually had compared to disc. It was so much less confusing...

Yeah this ranking could be helpful too, I am very new to healing.

---------- Post added 2013-04-22 at 02:50 PM ----------

What would the rankings be for easy > hard as in like skills and cd's to manage and such?

[Deleted]

Its hard to give an easy -> hard for healers. Most of a healer's skill comes from learning how to heal in general not from your specific class.

Since the OP sounds like s/he's reletively new at healing, maybe an order of easiest>hardest for a new healer to learn to play? I know my first healer was a disc priest, and when I started rolling a druid I was AMAZED at how few heals they actually had compared to disc. It was so much less confusing...

You will always find your 2nd healing class easier than your first. Its only natural since its your first healer, you're getting yourself used to the whole idea of healing on top of the class itself. In actuality Disc Priests can probably get away less button presses than any of the other healers, you can literally sit there pressing Smite and do about 75% of your job. No other healer can do 75% of their job with one button (which is also why Atonement just got a 10% nerf).

But I digress, they're all unique in their own way but the true difficulty and skill of healing is not related to the specs themselves. Even if you could order them from simplest to hardest it varies with each fight, different healers excel or struggle based on the encounter.

[-aiko-]

True, I didn't know of that one. So basically a Tranq that heals a little less but does it instantly instead of over time. Definitely a powerful raid CD, in keeping with the theme of being powerful raid healers.

It has very strong situational uses for more than just healing, too. The cleanse/dispel effect is very strong for fights like Horridon when swapping between gates.

[Hottie4Hire]

I'd rank difficulty:

Shaman
Disc
Paladin
Monk

Shamans just roll riptide on everyone, put down healing rain, and chain heal. There's not a lot to worry about and their cooldowns are self-explanatory. They're actually my favorite healer, though. I wouldn't recommend the class because their dps specs are both awful and not fun at all to many players.

Disc can be overwhelming at first, but everything really makes sense in the healing arsenal so once you know what goes where, the class is fairly simple.

Paladins are the opposite of Disc. Simple at first but there's a lot of complexity to them in terms of maximizing all your CD's. Unless you're willing to manage up to 10 or so situational cooldowns, best to look elsewhere.

Monks I think are the most difficult. Work out to maximize healing on the targets you want it to be on can be tricky. You have to use your CD's at appropriate times before damage goes out and this can be hard at first. Tank healing is fairly lackluster unless you don't care for your mana (in which case you can spam healing sphere for by far the highest solo target healing in the game). As such, there's not a lot to do if the tank starts taking tons of damage. You need to be very aware and prepared for things in advance. If you can do that, you'll pull off amazing feats.

I haven't played Druid or Holy Priest since BC so I'm not qualified to speak to them.

[-aiko-]

Monks I think are the most difficult. Work out to maximize healing on the targets you want it to be on can be tricky. You have to use your CD's at appropriate times before damage goes out and this can be hard at first. Tank healing is fairly lackluster unless you don't care for your mana (in which case you can spam healing sphere for by far the highest solo target healing in the game). As such, there's not a lot to do if the tank starts taking tons of damage. You need to be very aware and prepared for things in advance. If you can do that, you'll pull off amazing feats.

I'd probably agree that Monks are the most difficult. I've always been confused on tank healing comments for Monks, though. In terms of mana-efficiency and long-term tank healing they lack behind other classes but for emergency tank healing Monks are beat only by Shaman imo. Surging Mist spam on your Soothing Mist target can save them almost every time (unless it's a berserk or a failed encounter mechanic or something). My raid isn't shy about assigning me to tank healing. Enveloping Mists is a strong HoT, combined with an empowered Soothing Mist and Surging Mist availability. The reason Monks are usually on raid healing is because they excel at it, not that they're necessarily weak at tank healing.

With that said, you can't beat bubbles. :P Disc Priests and Holy Paladins excel at tank healing because of it. Overall though I think the healers are pretty balanced.

[Deleted]

Running MW+Holydin in 10 man works a charm! Holydins reliable aoe throughput is...dodgy to say the least, but we can top ppl and keep tanks up nps whilst letting the monk do the heavy aoe work.

Went with Rdruid/Hpally/MwMonk on Iron Qon Heroic. Paladin is abit behind in gear (515ish) continued to whipe in the last phase due to the lack of AoE heals after 3-4 Fist smashes. He relogged his Shaman, Where we could take 8-9 Fist smashes without even dropping to 70%. Shaman's definitely shine on heavy AoE phases

[Deleted]

I'd rank difficulty:

Shaman
Disc
Paladin
Monk

For Shamans you just listed their generic AoE rotation and said "pfft easy". Then for Monks you go in-depth on what they need to do to optimize every bit of healing. Why not "just roll HoTs and keep tornadoing" if Shamans can just "roll Riptide and heal Healing Ran"? and then go on to mention that Shamans need to prepare for what's coming (which makes sense considering their mastery)? One sided arguments are on sided.

Then you go on to say that their DPS is not recommended... because why? You don't find it fun? I actually know tons of people who love both Ele and Enh. And lets also mention the obvious upside that Shamans have an easy off-spec (resto and ele use same gear) unlike Pallies/Monks who need a whole 2nd set.

I'm sorry but your reasoning is quite oversimplified and biased. I can pose the same one sided argument for any combination of 2 healers to paint one of them in a bad light. Monks are gonna be in the biggest state of flux for a while since they are the newest class, and like DKs they will likely take a while to settle down. But you certainly can't tell me that Shamans are the easier to heal with than any of the other specs. For every oversimplified scenario you give me where they just Rain/Chain I can give you a scenario where they need to have perfect timing, prediction skills and use a wide arsenal. It all depends.

[omgacow]

True, I didn't know of that one. So basically a Tranq that heals a little less but does it instantly instead of over time. Definitely a powerful raid CD, in keeping with the theme of being powerful raid healers.

It can crit for 300k plus. Not to mention it pretty much has infinite range, I have been healed cross map in AV for 300k from revival. It is the very definition of an oh shit button

[sysco]

I really dont understand why everyone says monk healers arent very good tank healers I do not have an issue with with it. Just keep RM on them channel soothing and using EM keeps them up quite easily and you always have the insta cast surging for emergency's and you still have time to uplift to raid heal still as well. Where it isnt as strong as our raid healing i dont think its a real weakness either

[Deleted]

For Shamans you just listed their generic AoE rotation and said "pfft easy". Then for Monks you go in-depth on what they need to do to optimize every bit of healing. Why not "just roll HoTs and keep tornadoing" if Shamans can just "roll Riptide and heal Healing Ran"? and then go on to mention that Shamans need to prepare for what's coming (which makes sense considering their mastery)? One sided arguments are on sided.

Then you go on to say that their DPS is not recommended... because why? You don't find it fun? I actually know tons of people who love both Ele and Enh. And lets also mention the obvious upside that Shamans have an easy off-spec (resto and ele use same gear) unlike Pallies/Monks who need a whole 2nd set.

I'm sorry but your reasoning is quite oversimplified and biased. I can pose the same one sided argument for any combination of 2 healers to paint one of them in a bad light. Monks are gonna be in the biggest state of flux for a while since they are the newest class, and like DKs they will likely take a while to settle down. But you certainly can't tell me that Shamans are the easier to heal with than any of the other specs. For every oversimplified scenario you give me where they just Rain/Chain I can give you a scenario where they need to have perfect timing, prediction skills and use a wide arsenal. It all depends.

^Truth

Amount of abilities does not make a spec difficult. In fact, no healing spec is truly difficult. It's all about how you utilize your abilities and work with other healers. This is how balanced they are at the moment