Fav healer? Your preferred healer

[Tocsin]

Hey guys, haven't played in 7+ months. Going to start playing again. Question, is there a preferred healer atm for 5-10man stuff. I have a druid, Shaman and a priest. I have played the Shaman the most over the years and priest the least. Id still have to lvl the priest 9 lvls, druid 4 lvls which wont take long. I like playing the healer role. I'm thinking the priest as I haven't done much with a priest in the past but they might suck atm.

Thanks in advance

[Coolmatt701]

paladin

[Azyoulike]

Priest or Druid out of those two. Shaman is ok, but kinda boring as a healer and still a little underpowered.

[Tocsin]

So, you would say Paladin as well? I have one just thought they got nerfed into the ground? My Pally and Shaman both are 80...I will try the paladin for a couple days and see what I think of healing with him.

[Fanty]

people really like druids for pretty much every role. cr is always welcomed, and trees are very powerful atm. if you're a skilled player you can't go wrong by picking a druid. at least imo.

[Elysia]

If you can play Disc priest competently, they can be some of the best healers. However, I prefer Druid healing.

[Ondarak]

i personally find that druids atm are the best, i have only ever raided with one shaman before and he was good but paled in comparison to druids and priests

[Norcyz]

Holy paladins aren't getting nerfed into the ground. So you should be safe going that route as far as I know. I've played paladin, shaman, and druid healers at high level and I personally prefer paladin out of those. Been meaning to try a priest, though.

[Melonberry]

Paladin for tank healing, disc or tree for raid healing (and they can tank heal better than a paladin can raid heal for the most part)

The other healers are worthless.

[Drizel]

Priest for me. You can't go wrong with a Disc main spec and a Holy off spec. They just tend to be able to fill in more roles then any other healer and damage mitigation/ass saving abilities are always welcome.

[Danner]

Paladins are by far the best healer in the game. I officially claim them to be OP. As for the "nerfed to the ground", that's in PVP and for retardins only. In PVE, it's hard to bring too many holypaladins. Paladins are a must for MT healing, and very very excellent for a random healer spot as well.

Druids have the highest output, except on fights where only the MT takes damage, in which case the paladin win. Most people measure healers worth based on meters. That's why the druid is a very popular healer choice. Noone will turn down a good druid, regardless of content.

Discpriests have the highest damage mitigation potential of any healer. If you install the addon for recount counting mitigation into effective healing, the discpriest will be above and beyond any other healer. Also, the fact that they greatly increase the max HP of a target drastically increase the survivability of any raid. Not bringing a discpriest is gimping yourself. But two discpriests get in eachothers way VERY easily; they simply don't stack well. Be prepared to respecc excess discpriests to holy as needed to counter this issue.

Holypriests have the highest burst healing potential of any healer. If you want a whole raid healed NOW, noone can do it better than a holypriest, and a holypriest have better potential for saving lives than a druid. Holypriests will however have problems with sustained healing. They are great at saving lives and have many awesome cooldowns - but often lack the ability to do their things for prolonged periods of time. Also a definite minus is a completely hopeless potential for MT healing. Make sure to bring enough paladins to counter this issue, or respecc them to disc as needed.

Shammies are probably the most stable healers in the game, and have toold well matched for the common damage patterns on any boss. It does sound kinda boring, but you can rely on a shaman. A paladin can go all out and run oom; a druid may mess up their hots and will have problems healing more than one target fast, discpriests can't cover everyone and holypriests usually run out of mana or cooldowns. A shaman never falters, and at the end of the day, that is what matters. Still, they are usually last on the meters, and are very often forced to respecc DPS since every new patch seems to keep on lowering the amount of healers needed, and most healers can last for 8 minutes now. We're currently running with 4 healers on 25-man, meaning there is just no room for a shaman unless someone else fails to show up. Heck, it's hard getting a spot as a holypriest these days.

[Tocsin]

Thanks guys. Liked all of the opinions and input.

[Gigajot]

I love Druid healing in every possible way

[Marithas]

druids as extremely overpowered raidhealers and really decent tank healers

[dexter_984]

It feels safe to have a holy paladin in the raid.
Best all-round healer is probably priest with holy/disc dual specs.

[gunner_recall]

[Azyoulike]

I pretty much agree with Danner's post. It's what I'd have written if I had been feeling more verbose

[DeltrusDisc]

If I ever go back, it'll be to my disc priest.

[Worshaka]

I pretty much agree with Danner's post. It's what I'd have written if I had been feeling more verbose

It's a pretty good summation, I don't profess to know much about Shaman but I know a lot about priests, and have a good knowledge of druids & paladins. He undersells Holy Priests a bit but the community are large do as well. Firstly a Holy Priest that gears correctly has very little mana issues, I just think Holy Priests are one of the more difficult classes to play so generally speaking most players stuff them up and it shows a weakness in sustainability. A holy priest played correctly can sustain healing just as well as any other healer.

In addition there is nothing wrong with a holy priest tank healing, our first Algalon 10 kill was with a holy priest MT healing and we actually failed at that encounter until we got a Holy Priest MT healing. We were using a Paladin and Disc priest for a bit then a Paladin and Druid and it wasn't until we switch to a Holy Priest that we cleared the encounter.

Druids are overvalued for the very reason that they can output superior healing in terms of healing meters. What is overlooked is that healing is slow and can get into trouble when people require to be at full health otherwise risk death. Something like Hard Mode Thorim for example, you can't afford someone to hover around 75% health, you need them bursted back to 100% so they can take 2 successive random hits again. Again this is where the strengths of a Holy Priest shine.

So you should add that Holy priests are the most versatile healers in the game, they have the biggest toolbox and can adapt to more healing situations quicker and more effective than any other healer. Their weakness being that they don't have strong niches, so in the case of MT healing, they might be able to do it but they dont do it as well as a Paladin or Disc priest.

[harky]

Priests are in a somewhat difficult spot right now purely because they do have two viable specs. Shaman, Paladin and Druid all need to be complete healers in their one spec, or they'll get trumped by other healers. Paladins are as others have said a little overpowered. They have been since BC and honestly, I don't see a problem with it because you can overstock on Paladins. If you have more Paladins than tanks then their worth suddenly drops by almost half. If they don't have a consistent beacon target they fall flat. If they do they're amazing. Shaman can raid heal well and tank heal very well. Druid can tank heal well and raid heal very well. Then you have Priests... Holy is virtually useless on tanks. Disc has stat scaling issues, but winds up being the most critical healer in a raid.

Honestly a big part of the problem I see with healers lately is the push to ignore meters, which is wrong. Yes, you do need to look at more than HPS, but pretending that meters don't matter is silly. Knowing who has the highest pure-healing throughput is important. That's Druid for raid healing and Paladin for tank healing. Looking at the skills, cooldowns, etc will show this pretty easily. Shaman is #2 on tank heals, Holy Priest is #2 on raid heals. From a pure healing perspective tank healers are Paladin > Shaman > Druid > Disc > Holy. For raid healing it's Druid > Holy > Shaman > Paladin > Disc. Obviously Disc brings something else to the table in absorbs and thus for utility ranks much higher in both. This only becomes apparent through meters by comparing raid HPS and incoming raid DPS.

The extra problem, really, is the idea of 'saving lives'. It's a nice way to think of things, but nice isn't always helpful. Who saves the most lives? The tank healers. Absolutely no questioning it. Next up? Depends on the fight. If there's a lot of raid damage then (hold the gasps) whoever is on the top of that healing done meter. That's just the way it is. They made the largest impact in preventing deaths. If it's a fight where there's a lot of spiky random damage? All healers can do this pretty well. Holy only has advantage when clusters of people, or entire parties are those in need. Otherwise it's most likely a Shaman, Paladin, or Disc Priest. Holy can do decently with SoL, or B&S, etc in some situations, yes, but saying they save more lives in general? I can't agree. I've actually found the opposite. Holy Priests who are playing the 'Druid' style by rolling Renew/CoH around and bouncing PoM are far more helpful than those who are trying to handle things with big reactive bursts. Most of the time what you're doing is causing something not to be easier, but simply a little less scary.

I've actually stopped playing Holy entirely and for the most part my Priest is benched, but the above is exactly why that is. Outside of having 1-2 Disc Priests and a Holy Priest for B&S, there's little reason to bring them. Why bring a healer that relies on some mystical ability to 'save lives' when I can bring the a healer that can battle res? All anecdotes aside in regard to whatever fight you found Holy to be better in whatever situation remember that someone else has done the same thing with a different healer. Was their way easier, or was yours? Does it matter?

To answer the OPs questions in regards to 'favorite' healers. Right now that's Druid and Paladin. Asking in the Priest forum obviously that raises a little fur, but when you look around on whatever server you're on you'll get the picture. When you realize that Paladin + Druid can 2 heal any 10 man content... yeah, even clearer. Disc is up there as well, but only in 3 heal setups in 10 mans except for a few fights. Disc + Shaman is a really good pair, but preferred? Nah, Druid and Paladin. Has been since TBC took Paladins from buff bots to tank healers and Druid from lame Innervate bots to the HoT healer. All the healers work and do well, but if you want people to come looking for you to heal? That's where WoW is at right now.