What healer is best for what content? I’ve got multiple 110+ and 6 120s. Im having a hard time finding traction with the balance of play style and strength of heals.
I’ll level a different healer for every specific type of content (pvp, mythics,raid)
Paladins are nearly mandatory on the raid-scene. Although priest are currently the highest-throughput. Both are strong candidates if raiding is your thing. Paladins kit is super strong in raiding, their single target healing and utility cool downs are incredibly valuable. Priests are mostly just because they are busted throughput right now.
Monks or Druids if you want to effectively M+ and hit high spots on the leader board. They bring a level of utility to M+ that I enjoy. They have strong cooldowns for tanks as well as the group. Both of them have adequate-to-strong DPS capabilities during healing lulls. Druids also bring battle res. While monks bring a 5% damage bump to physical. Both bring some much-appreciate CC to groups.
I don’t know much about PvP but my 2400 friend swears by shaman or disc priest.
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Thanks for the input. I have a druid I’ve been messing with. It’s always been fun (mained it in the past). I seem to have small mana issues, but I’m sure as I get back into it this will smooth out.
I did try disc, but i just don’t care for it. Haven’t tried holy though
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I haven’t tried any other healer but druid in this expansion. I have some pretty good parses if you want to check me out to merit my credibility (same name, burning blade, druid)
The mana-issue goes away once you are geared well enough. There’s also a pretty good trinket upgrade coming for alchemists (385) that makes your mana potions extremely good. I’ll personally be making the swap to it tomorrow.
From what I have been told Disc and Druid are similar in how their throughput goes out. Mostly raid-healing. Disc being considered the more complicated of the specs. Disc is also the stronger of the two, by a considerable margin. That is supposed to change in 8.1 but we’ll see. Speculation from ptr is leaning towards disc being weaker overall after the adjustments. Can’t say from experience.
My only complaint about druid in this expansion is rejuv had most of its time-increasing-traits removed in BFA. So you have to time out your spells more than before and have knowledge of when burst or damage is coming your way. They’re finally adding it back in via autumn leaves changes, but we’ll see how far the +3 seconds goes.
It’s a great overall choice if you want to do any of the content. It’s strong in all three aspects of competitive play!
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Honestly Priest is one of the purest healers in the game and probably should always be top on throughput. That said Disc should be lower than holy which isn’t currently the case. Holy is currently hampered by the fact that it doesn’t have much in the way of preventative heals (bubbles matter a ton) that can still work when there are healing soak debuffs in place.
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While I agree priests should be strong, I don’t think they should be as far ahead of the other choices as they currently stand. When the parse difference between classes exceeds 10% you put the class in a mandatory situation where all guilds feel they are required. To the point where some guilds even run 2.
I’d be OK if Holy was 10% ahead on parse because it lacks preventative heals at all pretty much. But Disc definitely shouldn’t be and it is on live. That said it looks like they are taking a combined 15-20% nerf in the patch.
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I actually hope it doesn’t swing too much in the opposite direction. Blizzard have been known to swing it too hard with nerfs. I want them brought more in line, not eliminated from being useful.
Im not mad at this tbh
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Hard to say, part of Disc’s main utility is they are a primarily preventative healer. The mana increase to bubbles, and the serious hit to cooldown means they will switch from being proactive to reactive. Personally I see them being DOA without a three stack of one of their new traits that buffs shadowmend. Regardless Disc is, in my opinion, going to struggle badly in 8.1 due to mana at a minimum.
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I agree with the sentiment that they will struggle in 8.1
Disc is hard to balance fundamentally BECAUSE of the way the spec itself plays out. If you make it too powerful, you prevent too much damage and it becomes an all-powerful situation where everything is just made ridiculously easier with the presence of a discipline priest.
On the flip side if you make it too weak, the damage prevention is hardly noticeable and you may as well bring a throughput reactive healer who can dish out stronger immediate heals.
They’ve always struggled to find the balance on the preventative classes and builds. A good example of this is protection warriors and ignore pain. It’s either grossly over powered or useless. Very rarely has it been in the middle.
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I see similar issues with afflock… no wonder I play both…
I dont know about raiding, but when it comes to PvP I’d say the two most unkillable healers are the monk healers and the disc priest.
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My concern with the current batch of changes is they are PvP changes that are affecting PvE in a really really nasty way. Yes… disc priest was a major pain in PvP, but weakened soul has nasty chain effects when bosses or even boss areas do base level damage.
My wife, Holy Priest, because any other answer would be detrimental to my RL health.
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I really appreciate the feedback guys. I’ve been feeling not that interested in this xpac. Hoping healing gets me back into it
My two favs are Resto Druid and MW Monks. Both of those have a great variety of heals for just about every type of situation.
Hey OP, healer main here who plays all healing specs!
Unless you’re raiding at a mythic level, I would highly suggest selecting a healing class based on playstyle. At a normal or heroic level, ANY of the healing classes can perform exceptionally well, so long as they’re in the hands of a player who understands their spell interactions and uses those interactions to maximum effect.
With that said . . . you can literally do ALL the content you’ve mentioned on a disc priest*. They’re good in raids, mythic+, and PvP; plus, you have the option of swapping to holy in raids. (Hpriests aren’t great in m+ or PvP, though.)
“Best” healers for raiding (8.1): priest (both specs), paladin, mw monk
Current m+ healer meta: disc priest, resto druid, mw monk
Current PvP healer meta: disc priest, resto shaman, holy paladin
Again, because healing is so focused on a player’s individual style, it’s hard to say what class will best fit you. For example, I’m a stellar resto druid in mythic+, but I play it terribly in raids (so I run a mw or priest). I’ve spent a lot of time healing, but I’m probably the worst holy paladin you’ve ever met. Not kidding. The holy paladin mage tower took me 90+ attempts.
TL;DR: Find a healing class you like, rather than something other players consider the “best.” There’s a lot of variation in the healers and how they handle damage, and you really just need to find the one(s) that works for you. Good luck!
*ETA: Disc priest is getting some nerfs in 8.1, but most of the discos I know aren’t too terribly concerned about them. The return of Withered Soul is probably the one thing they’re most annoyed by.
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I’ll start by saying that I think you can play whichever class is your favorite in pretty much any content you choose. I really do believe that.
As to my preferences and observations:
Resto shamans and disc priests are hard to beat in PvP. Discipline priest is a survival beast. It takes concentrated effort from multiple players at the same time to kill me on my Disc priest. I once got OWNED IN THE FACE by a warlock on his game, and I wish I could find him and talk strategy with him because he was amazing.
That said, I notice resto shamans keeping people up so well that my team will ask “why is no one dying no matter what I do?”
So. Those are my picks for PvP.
For dungeons, holy priesting is strong but has limitations because of the lack of mobility. You have to talent very carefully for the ability to move and heal at the same time. Most of the toolkit requires standing still, and in some encounters, that will be a problem.
Monk healers are also pretty great in dungeon heals, but I haven’t played one this xpac.
I appreciate that. I’ve played everything on the past so I’m psuedo familiar. I agree that what I like is important nobody truly likes playing a struggling spec.
Having said that idc how good disc is, I don’t enjoy it