Best Healers

[Tillna]

Me and a friend were discussing what was the best healing class.

All in all, it comes down to whohas the skill and gear to heal.

I have a 56 Shaman I am working on, full Resto, and she has some nice healing gear so far. All the Blue Dragon Scale gear and soem BRD, DM and LBRS gear with mana regen and + healing.

I have healed Scholo at 53, LBRS at 55, BRD at 54, ETC.

Some people, on the other hand, swear by druids because of a better AOE heal and HOT's. Others like priest better because of Buffs, shields and different styles of heals.

I like my Shammy healers because of healing way and ancestral armor. Get a proc on the MT, and watch his damage taken just fall.

So I ask, what class do you like being MH the most?

[Malebrignon]

I'm rather biased on the subject.

Druids have the biggest, baddest heals, but healin' IS what priests do best.

[Kaliera]

It depends on what you're after. Druids are the kings of effecient heals and HoTs, priests are the best at AoE and quick heals, and shamans/paladins are the best at providing group buffs while pinch healing. All are different roles, so it's hard to say which is the 'best'.

Edit: Missed your preference question. Having played all healers except paladins, I prefer playing druids for main healing in pretty much all corners. In five mans, it's fun to just slap on a rejuvination with my healing gear, then sit back and watch as the tank takes 0 net damage while my mana goes back to full. Popping off 1.2k non-crit heals for 140~ mana is pretty damn fun too. For PvP healing, I get a kick out of starting a warrior off with Regrowth and Rejuv HoTs before he charges into a group. It must frustrate the hell out of the people attacking him/her. <3

[Xorek]

It really depends on how you are defining best, but by most criteria, priest is the clear winner.

Druid heals are the most mana efficient, and a good size, but they are slow to case (3 seconds with resto spec). They also have good HoTs, but they are less mana efficient. They are really best for a group that is already well in control, and just needs consistent controlled heals.

Priest have got good heals, but more importantly, a wider variety. If you factor it by their ability to keep people alive, they have shields, instant heals, aoe heals, big heals, etc... They have the most available to them, and can cope with emergencies the best.

[Grolish]

Resto druids and shaman when well played and geared can make great healers...with some nice special abilities as well. As good as they can be, when it comes to healing, the priest is clearly the best. They have a full range of healing spells (HOT's, small fast cast, large single target, and strong multi-target), a bigger mana pool, great aggro reduction and rapid mana regen. If you add the priest itemization to this, it's no contest.

[Fhenrir]

Shamans are only the best healers for following around a warrior in BGs and dropping windfury totems. Those things seriously make us into gods.

However, if we're talking PvP healers nothing beats a healer that you CAN'T KILL!! ARRRGH!! *rips his mane out*

[Ylisaxa]

I play a Pally, Priest, and resto Druid. Paladins don't even come close, but it is a tough tough call between a resto druid and a priest. Priests don't have a rez timer and have plenty of "oh shit buttons" though.

[Kurohane]

It's also, in my opinion, highly dependant on a situation, level, gear, spec and skill. You can't really say one is better than the other, becuase each would be best for diffrent things. *shrugs*

[Tillna]

Another thing i forgot to add

Shamans have our totems.

I normall ydrop Strenght, Agility, Searing and Mana totems in battles, keeping Armor high, damage high and letting my Mana pool back.

I will use Stone skin or the Resist totems as I see fit.

And liek Fef said, I did LBRS, pulled aggro, and didn't die when it took them more then 5 seconds to pull off of me.

Also, for Druid and Shammy healers, Instant cast our biggest heal

[Aquizit]

Varrathus. Odonna if she was still around...
Paladin and priest respectively.

There, argument solved. :P

[Abric]

A flawed question. Priests are the best healers, period. If you put everybody on a fair playing field, the priest will blow everybody out of the water, with the druid being a close second.

A more accurate question would be... what healer is best in a certain situation. Each healing class shines in respective roles, even paladins.

...

Give me better questions!

P.S. Kaliera doesn't heal. She shouldn't be in this discussion. Give me the Pack buff! Give meeeeee!

[Tillna]

I said like, not by game mechanics.

Lrn2read, kthnk bai


still I say shammies, because the priest are all PVP or not around on my server

[Cedes]

However, if we're talking PvP healers nothing beats a healer that you CAN'T KILL!! ARRRGH!! *rips his mane out*



like a paladin :D

[Malebrignon]

Yar.

Pure, bare bones, no gear, no talents:

PRIEST FTW!

You multi-tools gotta put a lot of work into it to catch us.

[Cyrass]

PvE Just on the raw class, talent points aside: a priest is probobly the best healer, then it is a toss up between Druids and Shaman, since Druids have the best big heal and multiple HoTs, but Shaman's heal spells almost mirior a priests, save that the Shaman has no HoT (I don't count healing stream totem as a HoT). I don't know how this applies with Paladins since I don't know about Alliance healing.

PvP Paladins take the cake on this, since they can litterally make it so you cannot kill or interupt them while they're healing. If you've never fought against a Paladin in PvP, you cannot fathom annoying this is. Next, I would have to say a Shaman, since we have higher physical damage mitigation and have several other defenses that not only apply to us, but our group (grounding totem, resist totems, tremor totem ect). Then priests, since a priest is able to sheild himself and stop damage and interuption so long as the sheild holds. At the bottom would be druids, in my opinon, because if you hop on a druid, it's like hitting a rogue without the high chance to dodge is most cases, and if a druid shifts into bear form, he lost the ability to heal anyone else while in that form.

Just my opinon on what I've seen with PvE and PvP groups.

[Sanrin]

PVP Paladins are really second only to a Druid in my opinion...simply because in pvp its a matter of who can survive the longest. In pve Shaman chain heals also dont compete. We have the ability to gain mana back upon crit, as well as spam a single 1.5 second cast that we can basically spam for 1000health crits. In PvE our heals also generate the least amount of agro by design, making us amazing for patch healing...and if we ever run out of mana we can simple judge a seal/cast a seal that gives us over 100 mana per swing. Its our Holy Light spell thats stupid when it comes to overall mana conservation.

[Castor]

Holy specced Paladins are the best pvp healers for a few reasons.

Illumination:

Any holy paladin worth a lick is going to have 5 points into illumination. What is illumination? Everytime a pally crits with one of it's casted heals it receives back 100% of the mana cost. You likely have Divine Intellect which increases your total int by 10% (int = spell crit; not sure how much = how many though), plus you'll also probably go for Holy Power (5% crit with holy spells). I think my latest pally had about a 10-15% crit chance with spells wearing blues and greens. That's essentially a 10-15% mana reduction to the cost of my heals.

Mix in a Divine Favor (next holy spell has a 100% crit chance) and you get a free of mana crit heal every 2 minutes. Not too shabby.


Spiritual Focus:

5 points into spiritual focus gives you a 70% chance to ignore interruptions when casting spells. Mix that with Concentration Aura for a 0% chance of having your spell interrupted from taking damage. Read that again. ZERO percent chance of interruption from taking damage. Spec for imp concentration aura and you also have a 15% chance to avoid silence and interrupt effects. Name one priest, shaman, or druid who wouldn't trade their left arm for that.

Surviveability

Everyone knows how impossible it is to kill pallies. They're decked out in plate armor and have their lolimmune they can pop every 5 minutes. Plus they can use blessing of freedom to get out of those pesky slowing affects. Throw in a hammer of justice every minute or so and you can see why pallies are tough to kill. Plus there's the psychological effect that pallies have where everyone leaves them alone in pvp because 99% of the time they're trying to auto-attack someone for crappy white damage and not using their mana to heal. Why attack them if they're doing no damage and not healing? Priests and druids may have bigger heals and larger mana pools, but if you're dead with 2/3's of your mana left or healing someone for 4k when they only need 2k hit points, are you really that helpful?

I know most of you will never agree with me because, frankly, you've probably never seen a paladin played well. Or more accurately, you've never played against one that was healing everything in sight and was impossible to kill. When that happens you'll start to see my point.

[Rajjah]

If healing classes put on the same robes, weapons, trinkets etc. Priest would be best, followed by druids (don't have enough xp with sham), then pally imo. All this based on instance performance experiences. As far as pvp goes i have no idea cause in all the time i spent in pvp on all servers, i can think of maybe a handful of times when i've actually gotten a heal. I should mention that the pvp healers on this server are by far the best of any server i've played. I've gotten heals and i'm a squishy mage! aha!


p.s. Fhenrir in spider man uniform is the best healer in the world!
p.s.s To Castor: you make a valid point, paladins are always overlooked and forgotten TILL you try and stop them from healing someone! Damnit I hate you paladins!

[Kaliera]

P.S. Kaliera doesn't heal. She shouldn't be in this discussion. Give me the Pack buff! Give meeeeee!

Kali has been a healer for a longer time than she's been a DPS/Tanker, and she's currently resto spec. Swiftmend owns all kinds of face, and was too good to pass up, considering I have a 60 hunter to kill stuff with.

P.S., Kaliera could still out damage Abric, even while resto spec. ;o

[Shadowspeak]

Priests dont have the most healing POWER, in my opinion druids do, but priests keep you alive more effeciantly.

[Abric]

P.S. Kaliera doesn't heal. She shouldn't be in this discussion. Give me the Pack buff! Give meeeeee!

Kali has been a healer for a longer time than she's been a DPS/Tanker, and she's currently resto spec. Swiftmend owns all kinds of face, and was too good to pass up, considering I have a 60 hunter to kill stuff with.

P.S., Kaliera could still out damage Abric, even while resto spec. ;o

That's only because Fhenrir makes you heal. You know I'd never make you heal... because I likes the beastality in you.

...

Sorry. I kind of set that one up. Bwhahahaha

AbricOOC
~Can be outdamaged, but can't be out-DPSed.

[Kaliera]

...You know, now that I think about it, I don't think I've ever healed Fhenrir before. Oo;

[Leithlen]

Unfortunatelly, I wasn't paying complete attention when I voted, and while I think I may have accidentally voted for Preist, I have to agree with EVERYTHING Castor said.

I don't play a Paladin personally, but I have an EXCELLENT one in my guild co-founder, and when he's around. I/We... don't... DIE!!! I and the rest of our group fight as if we all have 9 lives. Unless you're just TOTALLY outgeared or outnumberd in a fight, in PvP combat or in instances, a Paladin can save himself and his entire party from certain death, and turn it into a hard-fought victory. Between their multiple heals (including free crit heals and lay-on-hands), their bubble, and plate armor, they can save the party and not worry about themselves to the last minute. What else is better than a healer that can be beaten upon without a problem. When your healer is a fully capable off-tank, does it get any better? Sure they may not have all the abilities of a priest or druid, but they SURE as hell make it easier on the party with how survivable they are (and make everyone else).

If spec'ed, geared, and played correctly, I'll take a Paladin as my main healer into any instance or PvP battle over anything else. We just did an Undead Strat run with a Paladin, Warrior and 3 Hunters. None of us even have a full set of anything yet, just random peices, and yet we pulled constantly, almost never had to stop for mana, and only wiped once when an eye showed up unnoticed in the middle of a fight, with no deaths outside of that event. We were even able to kill the Baron with one of the hunters disconnecting within 30 seconds of the start of the fight!
We may not have made it in the 45 minutes, but considering our lack of equipment and overall experience, I think we proved that a Paladin is easily a viable and valuable main-healer. This run actually went smoother than when we went with both a Paladin and a Druid (who was mostly equipped in tier 2 and some teir 3) because with the Paladin, you don't have to worry about the healer getting hit!

[Fhenrir]

...You know, now that I think about it, I don't think I've ever healed Fhenrir before. Oo;

Untrue! You healed me that one time we got lost on the way to Hyjal, and I couldn't decide whether we were running away or fighting. Much death occured because I refused to stop and ask for directions.



That's only because Fhenrir makes you heal. You know I'd never make you heal... because I likes the beastality in you.

For the record, it's because tauren chicks are so cute. If she were an elf I would consistantly encourage feral spec just so I wouldn't get sick of the "2-copper whore" look.

[Kaliera]

Untrue! You healed me that one time we got lost on the way to Hyjal, and I couldn't decide whether we were running away or fighting. Much death occured because I refused to stop and ask for directions.

Oh yes, thanks for reminding me about that, I had tried to erase that from my memory... >_>

*Note to self: Healing Fhenrir gets you killed. Stop doing that.*

[Abric]

You'll never have to worry about that with me, Kaliera.

http://rickaura.ytmnd.com/

You know how it is.

AbricOOC
~Been waiting to use that for a long time

[Shadowspeak]

You'll never have to worry about that with me, Kaliera.

http://rickaura.ytmnd.com/

You know how it is.

AbricOOC
~Been waiting to use that for a long time

http://flagrantdisregard.com/flickr/output/motivator7144714.jpg

[Abric]

Shadowspeak, you fail.

Your pictures never work.

[Fhenrir]

*Note to self: Healing Fhenrir gets you killed. Stop doing that.*

It was just that once I couldn't decide whether to run or fight it! I was going to run, but then you started healing me so I thought "hey, I can kill it". But then I saw something else nearby and got a bit more scared and started backpeddling away... and by the you had aggro, so I tried to taunt it off you and then run, and you healed me again...

I don't usually suck! Honest!

*shifty eyes*

...

*signs up for ZG and goes afk on autofollow the entire instance*

[Fhenrir]

*Fhenrir gets back from afk*

"Hey, we killed Hakkar! Oh, Zin'rhok, the destroyer of worlds! You shouldn't have!"

You know I've had one for about a month now, right?

[Danyxandra]

I don't know anything about healing classes because frankly, I suck at them. I'm playing a paly atm and loving it but for the tank aspect with the buffs. I played a druid in another game and sucked at it so bad I was asked to never do that again.

I don't know what each class is capable of in healing if all played by the same quality of player, but if I was playing the best of the healing classes, I'd still be worse than a good healer playing a sucky healing class.

In fact, I defy anyone to be a suckier healer than me. :oops: Huge Kudos to people that have the attention span to keep people alive. I am too easily distracted by bright and shin.....ooooh, what's that?!? Pretty!!