Originally Posted by
RavenGage
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.