Healer Synopsis/Comparison Questions

[Etchings]

Hello!

I'm trying to determine which healer I would enjoy the most for when I reroll on the PvE server. I played a rogue back in vanilla, so I don't have any first-hand experience to help me determine which healer I'd enjoy the most. As such, I'm hoping that the Nostalrius community can assist me in this decision!

Some very important questions that I would like the answers to include:

1. Which healer has the easiest time in solo-content at 60? Such as farming, questing and acquiring materials.

2. Can somebody briefly describe what each class' role is in a raid? I believe I've read Priests are strong tank healers and Paladins are great raid healers?

3. What, if any, seal/judgment management does a Paladin have to perform in 5mans and/or in raids as a healer? Do they have to maintain a seal or do they ignore that gameplay?

4. For PvP healing (specifically in BGs), what advantages does each class bring to the table? Is there a class that isn't very strong at PvP healing?

I would really appreciate any answers to any of these questions. Also, if there's any other pertinent information that you think I should have I'd be glad to hear it!

Cheers!

[Bioness]

1. Which healer has the easiest time in solo-content at 60? Such as farming, questing and acquiring materials.

Druids are able to do a hybrid feral/restoration spec that still performs in raids and allows for decent solo performance. Paladins with consecration are also okay at killing stuff. Priests and Shamans are gonna have a bad time, unless they respec into a dps build.

2. Can somebody briefly describe what each class' role is in a raid? I believe I've read Priests are strong tank healers and Paladins are great raid healers?

Anyone can be a tank healer, and you will at times have more than one. Shamans are the best at healing multiple people, Paladins are great with fast small heals, Priests and Druids are flexible with either big heals or helping keep up the raid during periods of sustained damage. Paladins and Shamans will spend a good bit of time managing their buffs/totems so be aware of that.

Druid: Rebirth (battle rez), Innvervate (loads of mana), HoTs (won't be used much)
Paladin: Buffs (Kings and Salvation are amazing), Judgements, Divine Intervention, Divine Shield, Divine Protection, Blessing of Protection
Priest: Shields, Fear Ward (Dwarf Only), Mind Control (not really useful for raids, but fun in PvP)
Shaman: Totems (Windfury, Tremor, Tranquil Air), Reincarnation (Self Rez), Chain Heal

My best advice would be to watch highend raiding to see how each class plays, I can give you some links (note they are all from Feenix servers)

Druid PoV (Twin Emperors): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsiiJF38gjc
Paladin PoV (Gothik the Harvester): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYqSIYvouzs
Priest PoV (Grand Widow Faerlina): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y83O5UjAnGA
Shaman PoV (C'thun): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ORwPZ90upI

3. What, if any, seal/judgment management does a Paladin have to perform in 5mans and/or in raids as a healer? Do they have to maintain a seal or do they ignore that gameplay?

Depends on your group/raid, sometimes it is used in clutch situations, other times it is ignored as it takes up a debuff slot.

4. For PvP healing (specifically in BGs), what advantages does each class bring to the table? Is there a class that isn't very strong at PvP healing?

Druids are MVPs in Warsong Gulch as flag carriers, decent in other battlegrounds, can stealth cap flags/tower. Shamans are best used in Alterac Valley where they can chain heal properly, their Grounding and Tremor Totems are also the bane of Warlocks.. Paladins are nice healers and bulky distractions/annoyances. Priests can mass fear shortly before getting jumped by 10 players who immediately pick out the Priest.

Note the above is from my perspective, others may have differing opinions, but overall I feel like I captured the general view for the classes.

[Brunchkin]

1. Which healer has the easiest time in solo-content at 60? Such as farming, questing and acquiring materials.

Paladin is amazing at farming. Consecration + Force Reactive Disk is a notoriously good farming combo. It's also good aoe dps. Druid can sneak in places though, and sneak past mobs near nodes.

2. Can somebody briefly describe what each class' role is in a raid? I believe I've read Priests are strong tank healers and Paladins are great raid healers?

Pallies have small, quick, and highly efficient heals. Pretty much never go oom if set up right. Salvation is best raid buff in the game IMO. Kings is great. You can help ppl get their mana back too.

Priests have the best and biggest heals. They are the stars especially if they are Dwarf, but they go oom much easier.

Druids are somewhere in between. You will Innervate the priest. Battle rez is very good for raiding. Imp motw is very good.

3. What, if any, seal/judgment management does a Paladin have to perform in 5mans and/or in raids as a healer? Do they have to maintain a seal or do they ignore that gameplay?

Wand for mana!

4. For PvP healing (specifically in BGs), what advantages does each class bring to the table? Is there a class that isn't very strong at PvP healing?

As far as surviving and healing, Paladin for sure. But Druid will always be king of WSG. Priests are very fragile in pvp.


FYI: When I was leveling my druid, I found that people were very racist against druids because of our "not real" rez. I actually saw things like "LF1M healer, no druids". My only hope was to group with pally tanks for dungeons. I decided to switch to Pally healer for this very reason. As much as I hate the racism, I do want a real rez. Also, Pally can reach the defense cap if you ever feel like tanking. I wish you the best of luck.

P.S. Sorry, don't know about Shaman. But I think they have a real rez.

[varth]

I'll provide info on priests and shaman since I've played both extensively on Horde side only

Raiding

Priests are the best tank healers, while being meh at raid healing.

Shamans are the KINGS of raid healing, you will absolutely destroy meters on any fight with aoe dmg. You have good utility with mana tide, strength of earth totem, windury totem, and mana spring

PvP

Priests have a gigantic impact on Horde because we are the only dispellers, very good burst healers, while also being the most fragile class in the game. In other words you have a gigantic KILL ME sign and die easily, I extremely dislike being holy in pvp due to this.

Shaman provide a TON of incredible pvp utility while being very hard to kill due to high armor from shield/mail. Earthbind totem is an absolute nightmare for melee, grounding totem can wreck burst from mages and warlocks, tremor totem for aoe fears, earthshock to stop heals/dmg, frostshock to stop runners or kiting. I adored healing in pvp on my retail shaman because you are a nigh unkillable healing asshole.

[Praxxia]

I actually like having a druid always on tank healing. Keeping hots + a steady stream of downranked healing touch is nice. And burst can be covered with a swiftmend or Natures touch HT. Paired with a a Priest (inspiration) and it's a nice combo.

[Armilus]

1. Which healer has the easiest time in solo-content at 60? Such as farming, questing and acquiring materials.

All three have terrible DPS with a healing spec but paladins can pick up a half-decent 2H epic while raiding and their T1/T2 gear is plate so it helps a bunch with farming (even if they don't use it while healing). Druids can stealth as needed and tank as needed which helps a bit as well but they have to work harder for off-spec gear.

Priests are probably the worst at lvl 60 solo content.

2. Can somebody briefly describe what each class' role is in a raid? I believe I've read Priests are strong tank healers and Paladins are great raid healers?

The roles are all pretty much the same. For tank healing it is beneficial to have all 3 classes for most fights, the paladin has quick fast heals, the priest has slower big heals and the druid has slightly slower big heals so you get a good spread in the timing of when heals land.

Paladins are good at raid healing because they can last more heals in a shorter time. Druids are good at raid healing steady damage with HoT's. Priests can do both with flash heal and renew but they aren't as mana efficient.

All 3 classes will have to spam dispel or decurse on some fights.

3. What, if any, seal/judgment management does a Paladin have to perform in 5mans and/or in raids as a healer? Do they have to maintain a seal or do they ignore that gameplay?

Some guilds will use judgement of light/wisdom, depends on the encounter and how your guild is using debuff slots. If your guild isn't planning it's usage of debuff slots, you can't really use any judgements as they will get knocked off right away.

For 5 man instances, usually mobs will die too fast to bother.

4. For PvP healing (specifically in BGs), what advantages does each class bring to the table? Is there a class that isn't very strong at PvP healing?

All 3 have different advantages that ends up leaving them pretty equal IMO. Paladin can take the most hits, druids are kings of flag running and avoiding damage by shifting out of snars + travel form. Priests have inner fire for 2k armor and offensive dispel.

For group PvP, priest and paladin are probably better because priests can offensive dispel and paladins can basically stand there and tank. Druids are best for solo PvP just because they can be really hard to kill.

In any case, as a healer in BG's you're a tank.

[Etchings]

Wow, thank you all so much for this very thorough information!!

[Handlock]

Druids have the most mana efficient healing. You can spam R4 Healing Touch all day. They're good tank healers in particular. The heals are a bit slower and thus hard to use for raid healing as others will snipe the heals before you. However, spamming HT on the tank is efficient. The slower spells mean more benefit from +healing.

Since only one Rejuvenation can affect a target, only one druid should be doing it. Raids will typically assign one druid to cover the tanks and another to cover the raid if they want, although it's often not worthwhile since it's mostly overhealing. Regrowth basically doesn't get used. It costs a ridiculous amount of mana.

[Armilus]

Druids have the most mana efficient healing. You can spam R4 Healing Touch all day. They're good tank healers in particular. The heals are a bit slower and thus hard to use for raid healing as others will snipe the heals before you. However, spamming HT on the tank is efficient. The slower spells mean more benefit from +healing.

Since only one Rejuvenation can affect a target, only one druid should be doing it. Raids will typically assign one druid to cover the tanks and another to cover the raid if they want, although it's often not worthwhile since it's mostly overhealing. Regrowth basically doesn't get used. It costs a ridiculous amount of mana.

Yup.

If everyone is using a raid bar addon that shows when people have rejuv/renew on them, it helps a LOT to reduce the impact of non-stacking hots. There isn't much usage for it in MC/BWL but later on you can have 2 druids using every GCD just keeping rejuv up on the entire read without any overhealing, cause everyone is taking constant damage.

Vael is really the exception to the above quote. You get infinite mana on that fight so spamming max rank regrowth is actually best. Especially if you can see what targets already have regrowth ticking on them. 3 druids can do most of the raid healing on vael with this (2 groups each).

Another case where regrowth and rejuv are really good is any fight where the raid is being stunned or prevented from casting in any way. It can help a lot to have renew, rejuv and regrowth HoT's on the tank so they don't die when everyone is stunned. There aren't many fights like this though, the really big one is in naxx. Shazzrah is kind of like this because he uses counter spell.

So ya, what handlock said is true most of the time but there are some cases where you can make use of rejuv spam and regrowth (for the HoT component).