Discpriest: Absorbtion (longevity, dmgreduction, survival)Originally Posted by majaharet
Holypriest: Aoe Burst (power, flexibility, mobility, dmgreduction, speed, survival?)
Druids: HoT blankets (mobility, flexibility, longevity, power)
Paladins: Single target throughput (power, dmgreduction, survival, speed)
Shamans: Cluster damage cleanup (longevity, power, flexibility, dmgreduction, self-ress-on-death-survival, speed)
The first word is their signature modus operandi. The paranthesis is their individual strengths.
This I will disagree on. You cannot measure healing ability on the meters. That's to say, you can. But you shouldn't, as the numbers will not reflect what the healer is actually offering.Originally Posted by majaharet
Reading on the druid forums, they absolutely envy us holypriests for our burst; it's a major weakness of the druid to be honest. Sure, they'll keep the raid alive, they will pull silly great numbers due to fight mechanics and sniping, but they can't keep the raid topped. That's where the priest comes in.
Reading on the paladin forums, they absolutely envy us holypriests/shammies/druids for our aoe heals. They envy discpriests for the damage mitigation. They envy shamans for their longevity.
The shammies in turn are screaming for better mobility, and like us, they think druids are silly OP.
Discpriests are screaming for more throughput. It's to the point where most discpriests don't consider themselves a real healer anymore; since paladins have raised the bar extremely high. In fact, everyone thinks paladins are silly OP, and everyone except the paladins themselves would like to lower the bar.
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It's easy to consider the holypriest a second rate healer if you look at the meters alone. I can try to heal like a druid, spamming renew on everything. I'll do really great HPS if I try. Maybe not quite up to the druid, but it's reallly close. I'll lack swiftmend and a combatress, but - there is nothing preventing me from going that route.
But at the same time, even though my HPS is awesome, I'm not playing to my strengths. I'm trying to be a druid, and while the meters says I'm doing something very rigth, I know it not to be true. My main strength is the aoe burst capabilities. My signature ability is to get people to to full HP fast, blowing insane amounts of mana in the process. That's my job in the healing machinery. Trying to heal as a druid breaks that part. And it's very important.
That's not to say I shouldn't use renew. But... it's not the end-all answer.
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At the end of the day, it's not really a power issue. Yes, druids bring stronger raidwide HPS. Priests bring other stuff, it ideally evens out in a starcraft-style balance. But there definitively is an imbalance right now. You can easily heal any content with paladins and druids. You will have a hard time with an equal amount of discpriests holypriests and shammies.
This has led the rest of us into being considered second rate healers. We just bring different skillsets. Sadly, not many of them are useful these days. Go back to ulduar, and the situation was different. PoH was insanely useful in that content. AoE Burst healing was mandatory on a majority of the fights. Not bringing a holypriest was gimping yourself.