I am trying to figure out a class to roll in Classic. I have never healed in WoW before but I’m thinking of giving it a try in Classic. I don’t have tons of time to play, but am willing to give it a shot if the learning curve is not too steep. Is it difficult?
Are there lots of required addons to be effective?
And, would I need to respec often between leveling or just playing in the open world vs healing in instances? Or, could I do both with a single spec?
As for class, I’m open to hearing about different options. I hear good things about Priest healing, but I’m open to suggestions.
You’re actually at an advantage not having healed in retail. Vanilla healing is very different. You will mainly have 1-2 major spells that you will cast ~3 downranked versions of 90% of the time. Is this hard? No. It’s just different.
Mana management is king. You have very limited spells, but you will need to know which rank to cast when. Once you get in the rhythm of this it’s fairly easy.
No. No Addons are required.
You can level as a healer spec, but it most cases it will be much slower. For a lot of lower and mid level dungeons you can heal just fine in a dps spec though.
To piggy back off someone else, no addons are needed.
Most of us didnt have really fancy stuff back then. And the fancy stuff we did Blizz is breaking.
So, let’s break down the healers:
Priest - one of the better healers in the game, but since they are in cloth needs a good front line.
Paladin - a versatile a good healer, can do a lot of healing, but you have to buff people every 5 minutes. That’s where your mana mangement will come into play. (Alliance Only)
Druid - solid choice. Can’t really go wrong here. Excels in PvP, good in PvE, gives mana back to the priests and paladins.
Can’t speak to shamans since I wasnt horde back then.
Healing isn’t difficult, it’s just different. You are probably used to focusing on enemies and killing them. It’s weird to change from that mindset into healing your allies. Healing varies on every encounter, depending on things like your group composition.
It can be really fun, overwhelming and down right exhilarating. Sometimes it may be boring if you are with an experienced group or they outgear the requirements. But sometimes it can be really challenging and rewarding, like when your heals were responsible for the team capturing that last flag. Or you were the last healer alive in the raid. Or you saved some little noob getting wrecked in wpvp. Healing can be really awesome.
I started healing as a holy priest during tbc. I was a pretty terrible rogue So tried something new. I transitioned to a holy paladin afterwards and have been one for over a decade. I think priests are a good introduction because they offer such a wide range of heals. I’d say holy pally is definitely the easiest healer. But it really depends on your style. Druids are hard dude. I was never good with the whole HoTs thing. I wouldn’t reccomend starting with a druid tbh.
Your levelling would be impacted by a pure healing spec, but you can heal early 5 mans without it. If you want to level as a healer, I’d recommend grouping with anyone and everyone as you go. That’s my plan at least.
shrug When leveling and grouping with paladins, my buffs still say 5 minutes. If it changes as it gets closer to raid time, that can be discussed. But at this moment in the beta and the game, it’s 5 minutes.
Try it. You won’t know if you like it until you do.
Difficult? No, not really. It’s like any other class with practice you better at it.
Addons? I didn’t use any addons in Vanilla.
Respec? You can heal as a dps healer. Respec costs are expensive so I wouldn’t recommend switching back and forth like you can in Retail now. Pick a spec and stick with it to 60, then you can do what you want when you have enough gold.
Priest is fun, especially when you get shadowform. I am biased to Druid healing and leveled as Resto in Vanilla. It is a personal choice you will have to make when you get there.
Again, to piggy back - only level as a healing spec if you are 100% going to level with someone.
Respecing costs TOO much money. It’s gold that you just WONT have, unless the nay sayers about the economy are true. It’s not unheard of to respec at lvl 40 and then 60 (lvl 40 to fix all the oops choices) and then 60 to get ready for raiding. And after that, you respec if the raid instance calls for it.
You’ll might use an addon to cleanse your teammates. So nah, addons aren’t needed.
While leveling you’ll use a hybrid spec, so you can effective heal dungeons but also solo your quests. Once you hit 60, you’ll respec into your endgame spec and most likely stay that way unless you plan to PvP, which you’ll respec a lot if you are serious about it.
Priest is all around best healer - things like AoE, buffs, single target, reactive, preemptive, easy to gear.
Paladin, IMO, is the most direct healer. Huge heals. Never runs out of mana. Really hard to die. Can bubble themselves to cheat death. Maybe a little harder to play if you’re min/maxxing your buffs.
Druid is hardmode! You’ll be a sniper with downranked heals. They also have a battle rez, huge aoe heal, and can restore mana (usually cast on priests). Incredibly fun to play, nonetheless.
Shaman is IMO the easiest and most OP healer in the game but you have to play a stinky horde, so I wouldn’t recommend it.
You don’t get those until you’re a higher level. I think 52 you might get the first 15 min version and you get them over the next several levels? Until then you get 5 min buffs.
![:laughing:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/laughing.png?v=6" ":laughing:")
So tried something new. I transitioned to a holy paladin afterwards and have been one for over a decade. I think priests are a good introduction because they offer such a wide range of heals. I’d say holy pally is definitely the easiest healer. But it really depends on your style. Druids are hard dude. I was never good with the whole HoTs thing. I wouldn’t reccomend starting with a druid tbh.