So I just came over from FFXIV (Don’t worry I’m prepared for the community, I’ve heard tons of stories) after pretty much doing all the endgame stuff for this patch. I wanted to know which healing class has the best dps output. I’m currently a level 28 Orc Restorative Shaman, but I don’t want to invest too much time into it if it’s not what I’m looking for. I jusrt want do be able to dish out some nice dps when everyone has been topped off
While all healers can dps to some degree, there are definitely some shining stars here. These are Discipline Priest, Holy Paladin, Restoration Druid and Mistweaver Monk.
The most extreme of the four is Discipline Priest. It is designed from the ground up to dps in order to heal. It works by applying and maintaining a buff called Atonement on your friendly targets, which then transfers a portion of all DPS you put out as healing onto your atonement recipients.
Holy Paladin’s mastery stat makes it very conducive to DPSing during down times, as the closer you are to more members of your group, the better your heals will be. Putting yourself in melee range of the boss generally gets you close to a large portion of your group, and also allows you to easily dps when needed.
Mistweaver Monk has a specific talent build that is referred to as “Fistweaving”. While not always the best option for every fight, it can add quite a bit of DPS to an encounter where you might need to help take down adds, or help the group beat an enrage timer. It works similarly to pally in that it is a “melee” healer when DPSing.
Finally, Restoration Druid is the last I would consider to be “good” dps options, but moreso for M+ and PvP than in raid environments. In raids, DPS is never really going to be your focus. In M+ and PvP however, it really does shine by speccing into the Feral Affinity talent. This allows you to jump in and apply some pretty powerful DoT’s to the target, while your HoTs tick away and keep your group members up without much effort.
If you ask on the general discussion forum for the healer spec dps rankings, I’d bet someone could analyze the Warcraft logs and give you the exact rankings. Nice breakdown Zipster.
If you exclude disc priest, how well you heal on the class is the most important factor in your dps. If you are a great and efficient at healing on a class, you would have more time to dps. The better you heal the more time to dps. In raids. It’s a competition to be the highest HPS healer so you won’t dps much.
PS. If you own BFA, you can make 110 trial characters and test all the healers in the tutorial, dummy, and 15 min battle scenario. Use the Icy Veins class guides for Rotations, priorities and talents. Leveling a few classes to 30ish would help if you can’t make trial characters.
I think the Discipline Priest is what I’m looking for. I used to play neverwinter alot and the Cleric had an ability where they would mark a target, and any allies that damage that target would receive healing. I haven’t found an mmo to do that since. Thanks alot!
1 Like
Not a problem! It’s a lot of fun to play, but be aware that it can be a bit stressful at times as it’s a very proactive healing style. You will have a couple direct heals to back you up if needed as well.
Disc is good in dungeons while holy priest is top tier in raids. You’ll get two healer specs which is double any other class. Disc is one of, if not the hardest healer to play optimally. Holy priests have two instant ranged nukes, and one with a cast time. Plus an instant spamable melee ranged aoe,
Ironically, I’m doing the FF XIV free log in right now. I have 7 maxed level 80 jobs including scholar and white mage. Working on leveling AST. I’ve been playing WoW and FFXIV since they launched in 2004 and 2013.
I’ve been leveling MCH, but not at a fast pace. My SAM is my main, which is up to 485 iLVL, all my crafters and gatherers are capped out as far as level, and im just too lazy to really go for the endgame there. I’ve got only 5 classes that aren’t 80. I just don’t feel like grinding them now.
I think you will really enjoy the end game in WoW. There is an incredible amount of content compared to FFXIV. We have 22 end game dungeon difficulties with scaling rewards, and four raid difficulties. The raids are long with 20-30 players and 9-12 bosses all in once instance with trash in between. Much better raid scene. WoW gear and skill customization is also much better with more variety. Gear corruptions, Azerite traits, essences, trinket effects, Spec talents, etc
In WoW end game, you spend a lot of time out in the zones. They are packed it feels more like an mmo compared to FFXIV where you sit in town. All forms of WoW PvP are much better too. Some other max level content: Zone assaults, world quests and bosses, warfronts, island expeditions, horrific visions,
That said, there are several things I like about FFXIV but I can’t justify subbing more than 1 month a year and 2 months when a new expansion comes out. There is not enough end game content. I love the story, sound and graphics, and I can play on PS4. Combat, class design, and leveling dungeons are generally good too.
P.S. The WoW community is more quiet in dungeons but not in raids…it’s not a bad scene like you hear. I’ve spent thousands of hours and have rarely experienced toxicity. In FFXIV dungeons, part of the reason people are generally more chatty and helpful is they get paid to be nice via commendations.
So a few of the healing differences between games. In FFXIV, scholars and white mages have basically unlimited mana. Lots of skills to Regen mana or give free casts. Lucid dreaming, thin air, assize, Indom, etc. They can dps hard and not worry about running out. Healers are expected to dps hard and needed for dps checks. There are only 4 players in dungeons or 8 people in raids.
In WoW, you don’t have active skills to regen mana. So you have to manage mana carefully and you run out sometimes. You will sit to regain mana in raids and in dungeons.
In raids, there are usually 20-30 people and there is always people that need heals. Sometimes you have to hold back and not heal people that need it due to mana issues. The result is you don’t dps much in raids unless your a disc priest. Healer performance is based on hps not dps.
In end game mythic + dungeons difficulties 1-20, there are no hard item level requirements to enter. It’s 5 players in the group. If the group is under geared or bad, you might do almost no dps because your struggling with keeping everyone alive and running out of mana. Players don’t expect WoW healers to do alot of dps, and they would never call you out. Lastly, pretty much everyone uses dps/hps meters at end game. “Details” is the most popular addon