Ive never healed a day in my life and started playing during LK. Want something new, something different. Is priest beginner friendly or should i lean more towards a diff healing spec??
Holy Priest is considered one of the most begginer friendly healing specs so defintiely a good choice to start, overall it’s very straight forward in the sense that it’s designed to heal damage reactively meaning that you see the health drop in the frames then you heal it…
Disc is considered more difficult to get started with, it has become more accessible than it used to be but you still need to be comfortable with a few things like mouseover macros, immediately swithcing between offensive and defensive abilities to be able to heal effectively, etc. All healers benefit from this but for Disc is kind of mandatory so if you are already comfortable with those then picking-up Disc shoulnd’t be too hard, specially for dugeons (it’s harder to play in Raids due to needing longer to set-up your healing)…
One more note is that Disc is also a more proactive healer so to get the best out of it you need to anticipate and prepare for damage before it goes off, that said this is particularly crucial in Raids but not thaat neccesary in dungeons until you reach hihger M+ levels (at which point every healer should be anticipating too).
I’m a relatively new player. Also same boat as you, want to go in and learn healing. After a bit of research, Holy just sounded like it ticked all the boxes to what I was looking for and what I’m use to in other MMOs.
Holy priest is real easy to pick up on, it has some decent instant heals for random high burst damage, and can do ok damage if needed. I recommend focusing on healing and when you feel comfortable start weaving in damage. Cdew has some great macros to help with damage, lets you keep your healing target selected and when using your damage spells they hit the mob the other player is targeting so you arent tabbing around or switching back and forth between selecting players and mobs.
I think holy priest is still one of the “easier” healers to get the hang of. BUT I do not believe it is no longer the newb to healer friendliest class. Holy priests, and priests in general have a lot of key binds and a lot of spells that you have to understand to know how to properly use to play holy at a optimal level.
IMO the best healer now in WoW for a brand new player/brand new healer is Resto Shaman. A reactive healer like holy priest, but with far less keybinds. I mean hell you could honestly take everything off your bar but Rip Tide, Healing Rain, Healing Surge, Chain Heal and Spirit Link Totem and you could get through most content lol.
Dont let that deter you though, Holy is still a reactive healer so it will still always be a better newb friendly spec to pick up. But it definitely is not the easiest healer to play anymore.
Oh and to add, don’t sleep on Disc, I know historically disc was considered “Hard” or because it is proactive healer its not as easy. With all the changes made to disc I honestly feel like I have a easier and smoother time healing on Disc than I do holy even when I get behind and am “reactive” healing as disc. I think you should try both 