I’m strictly a casual player now, with limited play time, and I’ve never healed before. I’m interested in healing dungeons for shorter queue times and, maybe, some LFR. I’d also like to try healing battlegrounds and, maybe, some arenas.
Is this a reasonable expectation to learn given limited playtime and no prior healing experience?
If so, any suggestions for class? Was thinking either Paladin or Priest.
Thanks!
in dungeons sure, it only really matters when ur in high end content.
healing is the hardest role and everything is on you. tanking is slightly easier
Wrong, healing is harder at lower levels because people constantly stand in stupid. As difficulty (and player skill) increases the hardest role becomes dps.
Priest. I have both and unless you know how to heal as a Paladin it is still a mystery to me! Either will do as a casual in a 5 man, I have no idea what I was doing and we survived. Holy is my 2nd main however, love seeing big bursts of raid heals. Not as much fun to level and solo though. Isn’t covenants frowning on offspecing or making it less viable or something?
Of course. Healing is the easiest LFR role in my view. Also now is a great time because with the expansion release everyone is going to be on more or less of an even footing at first.
I would not suggest paladin as you will have to be in melee range and know how to properly heal in melee range while DPSing and avoiding melee mechanics. Based on what you have mentioned, I could see that being an issue.
id so go for it to all the above except arenas, i think those will be a bit overwhelming
Laughing @ Willfred!
You can most certainly heal as a casual player
I would know, im on the casual side and main a disc priest
Both of those classes are fun. Just start with one and practice as you move through the content to msx level content. By then you will be performing like its the back if your hand. And if you happen to get interested in going further, you can consult guides for better playstyles and gearing options. Anything even up to some low level mythic keys can be done with little effort. LFR requires a little more effort because the mechanics shouldn’t just be ignored and you’ll be putting up with a lot more people but its still the best place to start should you decide to get into a normal raid tier.
This is true 100% though there will be some disgruntled people to claim this isn’t the case. I’m not sure whether tanking or healing is harder in difficult content though, as I main heals and have never gotten to that level with tanking as I have with dps and heals because tank just isn’t the role for me.
How is the Priest for other content? Any word, for example, on how Torghast will be as a Priest?
I guess you’d run Shadow for that?
Holy Priest is by far the best to learn on, they be strong…And you can swap to disc if you want to do some dps…having the option is nice…oh and shadow is reworked and feeling crazy broken 
Healing is very fun! Just depends on the group you run with. Sometimes it can be stressful, sometimes it can be a blast!
Shadow always seems to be left behind and once nerfed never balanced. I play Shadow as my offspec, as a casual you might want to try Pally. They can fight AND heal. Do you want Melee or Ranged with DoT?
I’ve healed up to M19 and at that level if anyone stands in stupid it’s certain death, you can’t do anything for a teammate that is already dead. As such, healing gets “easier” since you only have to sustain the group from non-lethal mechanics.
Tanking is almost as easy as healing at higher levels, you just have a considerably higher APM.
I haven’t got beta to test that
However I do all content as disc
Solo content is slower as disc than you can do as a dps, however it does have a decent rotation so it’s not like youre just spamming 1 attack
You can pretty much also survive anything as disc. Half the zone on you? You’re good. Enemy youre meant to be in a group to kill? Youre good to solo it
I find it very easy to play the game as it
I’ve played Ret before and enjoyed it. I’ve only played Mage as ranged. Never played a dot class really, but I’m looking for a change in SL. That’s why I’m thinking of healing.
Healing is probably the most involved roles, with the most significant consequences for mistakes. That being said, people who don’t heal think healing is a lot harder than it actually is. How difficult it is depends on a few factors, but ultimately it comes down to one question: what is your goal?
If you basically just want to get in on some heroics/low keys/raids, keep everyone alive, get through a smooth run and just generally have a bit of fun (which from your post I think this is you), then healing is not difficult. At this stage in the game the encounters are done to death that the amount of damage coming in is pretty easy to manage. Even if people stand in fire, for the most part you will be able to keep them alive simply through overgearing. As long as you are pressing buttons, you will ‘probably’ succeed.
If you want to move onto high-end content, that takes significantly more effort and the margins for failure are drastically smaller and the consequences more dire. You’ll need to comprehensively understand your toolkit, expected to weave in DPS, and be able to read and react to incoming damage at a near flawless level. The best way to do this is, you guessed it, just play. Get into groups, make mistakes, learn what works and how to handle different situations.
Ever consider Shammie? I macro’ed the heck out of my heals for my Sham so I can dps and focus heal tank. leveling I laughed because in pugs I top dps as sham heals too.
I just got into Pally healing because all my Pallys are tanks. It was a lot of fun, but like I said I had no clue what i was doing.
Not a beta tester, but currently as disc I can do all content easily. I haven’t looked into if that applies to torghast hopefully it does cause I’m not a huge fan of playing shadow.