Which Class for New Healer

Community General Discussion
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I’m trying to decide which classes to level in SL. I am also thinking of giving healing a try this expansion. I have never healed before so am looking for a decent spec to learn with. I will be fairly casual, but might push Mythic+ if I can get comfortable enough. I would also love to try healing in Arenas and BGs. Raiding is less likely other than LFR. I will likely try more than one just to see what different types of healing are like, but I would love some input.

For what it’s worth, I played a Paladin in BFA so I will likely try Holy Paladin .

I was also intrigued by Priest because of the changes to Shadow. But, I hear Holy may be less valued in end game content, and Disc may be tricky for a new healer.

I have heard a lot of great things about Resto Druid and it sounds like fun. I have never clicked with the Druid class fantasy, but I suspect I could get over that for a fun playstyle. It also seems to be highly valued in Mythic+ and Arena, which I’d be interested in playing.

I leveled a Monk in Legion but found the DPS spec a bit confusing. I like that it can tank, though. But, I know nothing about the healing spec.

And, Shaman sounds fun though I never leveled one. I like that it offers a melee dps spec and a ranged dps spec, too.

So, anything is fair game, but I’m not sure what might work for someone new. AS you might be able to tell, in addition to being beginner-friendly, I would appreciate a spec that is “valued” to groups. This doesn’t necessarily mean FOTM, but I enjoy being a class that someone in the group says “Awesome, a [class] joined!”

Thanks, all!

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I don’t enjoy holy Paladin myself. I don’t like the idea of a melee healer, that goes double for a combo point healer.

I’ve been learning resto Druid and have enjoyed it a lot. I tried holy Priest before, and didn’t enjoy it.

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Resto Druid is gonna be your best bet for m+. Less strong in raiding.

Hole priest is the easiest healer to play. Priest is a good class because once you’re comfortable with holy you can swap to disc, which is more complicated but also more rewarding. You’ll also have shadow, which is looking good.

Mistweaver is also a fairly simple healing spec, since it’s a reactive healer. It does just fine in m+ and low level raiding.

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I want to say priest as disc priest is the best spec in the whole game.
However… go druid.

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I like shaman. It is unique… I always felt that every time I was getting really good I found a new thing about it to help me do even better. It’s like a good one to challenge yourself to master. But druid is a great class for a beginner.

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Ouch. I’m going to say go by class fantasy, but they completely stripped that away. I would say go for fun, but with how Meta is and how unbalanced a healer can be if you’re trying to get into a raid group, could be troublesome, because they will chose a healer that performs well, due to horrible imbalance, rather than one that isn’t. So my guess is to try them out and see how it feels. Sadly, they keep changing crap to make it feel new, but doing this, to me, each expansion feels awkward and unfun. I hope you find your healer, though.

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Mistweaver monks are fun. You can hard cast during a channel. The spec flows very smoothly and does a good job of keeping people alive.

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As others have said, Holy Priest is the most “quintessential” healer. It’s is versatile, easy to learn, and has lots of tools to do it’s job.

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Avoid Shaman or Monk unless you exclusively want to heal. Their other specs aren’t good and haven’t been for a while.

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I’ve played druid since cata, where I switched from holy paladin, and have found it increasingly fun in M+ and BGs. Temple of Kotmogu I think it is called, I single-healed as druid without a single death while controlling all 4 orbs. It was really fun.

I would say priest is probably the easiest to learn, and it has a bit of everything. Disc is very unique as it heals with damage somewhat and requires some planning; however, if you play holy you’ll learn about reactionary buffs (most healers use these) and HoTs which will prepare you for druid play. Priest talents are additionally very fun to play with.

That’s about all I can speak on healer-wise, if you have any specific questions feel free to ask me about priest/druid :slight_smile:

Oh, side note. I’ve heard mistweaver is powerful in SL for PvP but I can’t be certain.

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Go Mistweaver. Great single target, good mobility, not cooldown dependent, well suited for PvP and dungeons. The covenant situation looks like Venthyr suits all game content.

It’s just super fun and straight forward with opportunity for more skilled play later.

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I strongly suggest Resto Druids. I don’t know much about healing as I mainly dps and tank, but I found Resto Druid to be quite easy to pick up and learn. When I try other healing specs… people often die…

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Personally I like Priest, 2 very different healing specs, one active one passive and a really cool dps spec if you want a change. I find Druid is strong but pretty boring, same as Paladin and Mist. If I had to choose something other than Priest it would be Shaman. They have some really cool utilities that cant be matched i.e. interrupt, cool aoe heals, totems etc.

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Any really are noob friendly if you read the spells and use them logically ( except disc I guess but meh ) Any healer will also be viable for heroic/mythic progg and the best ilvl drops from m+, so basing this only by which I think are easiest to learn and master.

Holy Priests are super basic and straightforward. The hardest part is making the most out of holy words, and even then. Generally the easiest to play, learn and master. Imo the hardest and most annoying part was learning how to not get chunked early Legion/BfA expacs by lower lvl m+ mechanics other healers could survive. Not much in the toolkit to help you cast on the move though, unless a holy word is up. They also had lower dmg than other healers ( less of an issue for casual players )

Restoration shaman are also pretty easy to get the hang of. You might need to get the feel for chain heals range and making sure you heal the correct target with it so it links properly. In raids people will be stacked so youll have no issues there. Spirit link totem can take a bit to get used to as a cooldown and placing it. Cloudburst totem allows for more complicated gameplay. ( less so now a days but it’s still decent ) Lots of utility and spirit link make shaman valuable in early raids. Has an interrupt and aoe stun.

Paladins are pretty basic too, the hardest thing youll be doing is making sure you use the utility and cooldowns properly and the wonky mastery requires you to be aware of your distance when healing targets, not sure if long arm of the law a thing still? cause I hated that and HPaladins mastery. Always ends up one of the top 2 in m+ due to great utility, dmg and ST/tank healing.

Mistweaver has a lot of interesting stuff going on. You need to maximize ren mists for vivify combos, mix in Essence font to maximize mastery on the vivify cleaves Etc, the mix of HoT and reactive healing can be a bit tricky, soothing mist being channeled and allowing for instant cast env mists takes time get to get used to. A very fun class to play and weave damage in and there are healing talents built around doing that. They also do have great tank healing and some defensive cooldowns. Ive rolled off a few raid boss platforms in my early monk days, be careful :sweat_smile: Very easy to blow all your mana If you dont pay attention, but in the flipside you can do a lot of healing if needed. The talent to regen mana while doing dmg is fun.

Druid imo took me the most getting used to because it is the only heal over time healer and thus the more you know fights and timers the better you will be and easier time youll have. I personally just dont like HoTs and it can be more frustrating healing people back up - mostly because I usually have to pug instead of run with people who are reliably good at avoiding bad stuff.
The spells are straightforward but dealing with burst damage can take some getting used to if you are used to reactive healers. It’s an easy class to play but harder to master and use every ability imo. I imagine in a group of friends of guildies who dont stand in bad Its less stressful. This is a strong class in m+ because of a lot of reasons, has a tank cooldown and B rez, the HoTs allow you to shift to cat form to dps too. It takes longer to master, this is why I personally put it lower. A newer player might have an easier time learning druid than say someone like me whos always ran reactive healers and cant trust pugs/hot’s imo.

Disc is the hardest for obvious reasons, dealing with atonement, does better in a friend or guild premade/non-pug group, etc.
I honestly miss cata disc I’ve tried multiple times to find something I like about the new/reworked disc in legion/bfa but I cant so Ive given up on disc myself.

Anyways that is my opinion on which healers are easiest to learn and master. ( in that order )

Now a days they’re all pretty easy to learn, mastering them takes a bit longer for some, and you can be viable for max lvl content as any healer, if you are looking to be meta/the best and to do the rated/top tier stuff youre options seem to be paly or druid, theyve been at the top sans nerfs for the last 2 expacs and given their toolkits theyll still be good at pushing extremely high m+ stuff.

Id suggest picking which you find is fun though, and testing them after the prepatch hits as theyll play VERY differently when the borrowed systems go bye bye soon.

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I never healed until BFA, made Holy Priest first healer, was very easy to learn with before moved onto Disc and HPal

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Questions like this are always hard because individual tastes vary so much and nobody knows what yours is, beyond what you’d just said.

Having said that. Holy Priest and Resto Shamans are the most reactive. Meaning, people take damage, and then you heal them. I don’t know about Paladins, but all of the other specs will depend more on you knowing when damage is coming, and then you work proactively to either absorb it or smooth it out with HOT’s.

Hopefully that helps somewhat.

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Brewmaster has been one of the best raid tanks specs for a long time. Not sure what you are on about.

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If you do 5 mans, resto druid is the only choice. If you raid, you can go resto shaman or priest.

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I think in the xpac, holy priest looks easier, but im no expert, I just hear they’re getting shield back, and with their toolkit, should be pretty easy to heal folks

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IDK, I kind of liked it back in Cata and in Mists. I think we had that with MW in Mists too, didn’t we?

I’m rolling MW next expansion though for my healer fix. Looks like it’ll be fun.

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