I don't agree with her about being a horrible tank. She does just fine.

In my experience, priests seem to work best in terms of how much healing they get out of their mana, but I've seen some crazy resto druid and pally heals. Of course, my experience with these healers is largely restricted to the old raids, I haven't seen much in the way of level 70 classes healing.

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I've rolled a druid and a priest (pre-TBC) and a paladin (post-TBC) and here are my thoughts.

Druid (Restoration):
- best HoT spells, which makes healing main tanks and hurt group members easily
- innervate is like a free mana potions so mana problems aren't too bad of a problem
- poor at shedding aggro (relies on catform cower or trinket)
- poor rezzing

Priest (Holy):
- best overall healer with a good mix of big heals and HoT's
- very handy bubble spell to save people who are about to die
- holy spec is pretty weak at solo leveling

Paladin(Holy):
- super mana efficient with blessing of light + downranked Holy Light
- Bubble is nice when things get bad
- mana inefficient at healing other non-tank party members

In terms of which class I enjoyed the most playing:
1) Paladin - nice balance of healing and solo dps
2) Druid - great dps and healing, but battle rez was a bother
3) Priest - best class for healing instances, but had a hard time leveling (poor at pvping and long breaks to regen mana)

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I am a 70 priest. I have 10,000+ mana and 1,300+ healing. I don't have ridiculous gear, but I am a primal mooncloth tailor.

I have never had a problem healing any instance. I almost never go oom. I rarely die because of bubble, fade and good healing aggro mgmt.

The other healing classes have their benefits too, i'm sure others will list them here.

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As a 70 holy priest (with gear that gives me about +1650 healing) I never see myself at the top of the healing meter.

The best single-target healers are paladins for their low-cost healing spells (Can bubble themselves if they get too much threat)

The best raid healer (and top on healing meter)is Shamans with their chain heal. Shamans have earth shield which can be repetedly placed on the main tank to help heal. Shamans have no aggro reducing skills except for the tranquil air totem, but there is a range limit and uses the same 'air totem' requirement as windfury totem and grace of air totem (OR they can take a death and anhk to reset all aggro) But shamans are very mana-ineficient and will need to pop mana pots a lot.

Priests can be good single-target healers and can throw some HoTs and have group-wide heals and Prayer of Mending (My personal favorite)And priests have Fade for that aggro control.

I havn't raided with a restro druid as of yet. Not sure if thats a good thing or a bad thing.

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Priests are worst.. i can outheal a priest anyday

Druids are most fun.. cause feral is easy to lvl with balance is fun to play with and lvl with.. and resto is really good for healing. I have healed 18 70s through AQ 20 main healed for first and 2nd boss. Druids can wear a leather cloth mix which works perfectly.

Pallys can only throw major heals but are good cause they can rez and buff.

I would go Druid cause they can be everything whereas pallys are (as of right now) only healers at endgame.

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I am the main (read: only at level 70) priest of my guild, and there is not a day where I do not log on and get begged to do instances and raids. My +healing is a mere 1250 without elixirs, but my mana pool is over 10k unbuffed. With buffs, I can reach almost 13k mana (Arcane Intellect, Blessing of Kings, and Mark of the Wild). My Shadowfiend (now that its fixed) helps me regain a small portion of mana, and Inner Focus allows me a free Greater Heal every now and then, so with that and the occasional mana pot I am rarely out of mana.

Yes, I am a squishie. But I can bubble and fade, have hots and can Greater Heal for almost 7k in a crit (13% chance to crit in healing gear), and with my "smite spec" (35 Disc/25 Holy) I can still pwn some mobs when I wear my crit set (23% chance to crit with holy spells).

I may not be the best healer in my guild (I would give our main Paladin that title), I can certainly hold my own.

Plus playing a hybrid gives me a headache.

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Definitely Druid.

1) Druids have the widest variety of heal over time spells, which are low-aggro and low-maintenance. They also have the most powerful (in terms of direct healing done) single-target heal in the game.

2) Treeform makes the Druid have incredibly good mana efficiency.

3) The Druid's Resoration Tree is the BEST healing tree in the game- many resto druids have almost every point in that tree. Offers crit (esp. for Regrowth!), 20% more bonus healing to ALL healing spells, not just some, major threat reduction and crit damage reduction, and a hefty boost to spirit (which subsequently increases healing through tree of life aura).

4) Tranquility with zero aggro is like a free full health spell for the whole party every few minutes. Much better than the priest's prayer of healing IMO.

5) Combat rez.

6) Breaking into Bear or Cat when aggro is pulled and either sucking some damage while the tank does his dance or using cower to reduce threat.

7) Equipping Leather OR Cloth armor (plus more weapon types) for high stat versatility compared to priest.

The only real drawback is lack of a "panic button" for aggro (since changing forms is not the greatest way to lose aggro), and if some members die you only get to put down one res at a time. Other than that, there's no contest.

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I'll summon you guys up to par. My priest is Venop on Gorefiend (+1818 healing +146mp5 while casting) and at the moment, I do not see the priest class as the top healing class, but more the efficiency class. But I do believe it is by far the hardest healing class to play.

Where priests shine the most is during boss fights. Outfitted with the correct gear (and plenty of stamina), a priest benefits the most by have good healers by his side. The amount of mana a priest can regenerate after the 5 second rule (which by the way, is another topic I might touch upon) is simply amazing and too good to pass up. Therefore, it is in efficiency that a priest must play.

If a priest wishes to spam as many heals to get at the top of the healing meter, he is going to fail, and fail miserably. The spells aren't very mana efficient and he will find himself OOM very very fast. Instead, a priest must rely on the efficiency of the other healing classes to occasionally heal (large heals btw) to keep the tank alive as best as possible, and regain mana as much as possible to outlast a fight.

To regain mana, you must know the 5 second rule. After you cast a spell, you will be in the mp5 while casting 'phase' for 5 seconds. After that state, you begin to regain mana at your mana regen rate (not while casting).

A priest must effectively use this and heal with confidence to be successful.

Also, you will not be at the top of the healing meter, but you will be the guy who used only 1 mana pot in all the bosses of karazhan, while that druid and pally used 12. Happens to me all the time. It also happens that every other healing class will be out of mana, and i'll still be half mana and able to give the other healers a mana break.

Since the 2.0 patch, priests have become a support class more than a healing class, but they are still definitely capable of healing very well.

Those are my 2c. Works wonders in Karazhan and Gruuls.

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I think we're looking at this the wrong way. If you want to heal (i.e. that's what you consider fun) then you don't want to play a class that will primarily heal- i.e. Priest.

If you roll a Pally, Druid, or Shaman- you WILL almost definitely take on other roles in groups- and healing won't likely be one of them if the group can get ahold of a priest.

I think if you want to roll a utility class and also heal- your best bet is a shaman. People tend to be 'mystified' by what exactly they do in group settings, and will put them to heal duty before they subject a pally to it in a group.

All I'm getting at is, if you have a priest join a group, and he tells you 'I'm shadow, DPS only, I refuse to heal' - by general opinion, they'll kick him and find someone who will.

I believe the hierarchy goes as follows for who will be put to healing duty first:

1) Priest
2) Shaman
3) Pally
4) Druid

If you want to heal, roll a priest. There's not enough of us out there as it is, and we're a really fun class. Your soloing ability is on par with any other DPS class when spec'd properly, and regardless of such, you're sure to get a spot in groups being the best of the 4 healers.

Chris

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Eh, typo- I meant you DO want to play a class that primarily heals... In the first sentence.

Chris

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Well as the main priest in my guild i say that i can constantly out heal the better pallys and most druids in my guild. Healing meters lie as they dont count my prayer of mending so the tank usually ends up 4th on the healing list lol.

But with my gear i have about 1546 healing unbuffed (i need a new belt and some better gems lol). (http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/#character-sheet.xml?r=Dentarg&n=Wideruled)

problem with priests is that to have efficiency you have to either spec heavily into disc and rely on tons of +heal gear. You also should down rank your spells to gain the max efficiency and the +heal will help make up some of that difference. In longer fights i generally use gheal rank3 to conserve mana while doing enough healing. In burst fights i am usually spamming max rank flash heal to help keep the tanks alive long enough for the other healers to catch up.

So in short fights druids probably win.

in long fights its usually the pally and i at the top of the heal meters. And since one of our better pallys went emo with his little clique its now just me at the top...im so lonely wont a drooid or pally come up to keep me company. i dont always have to be tops! :D

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OMG priests no handed!
Ok for raiding anyway...
Druids are useful, battle rez is handy as is Tranquility. But Shaman's chain heal is better IMO.
But even though a Paladin would normally top a healing meter, (one they overheal a lot) without a priest in the group it would crumble a fair bit. We can get rid of the pally for DPS and still survive, but when a priest leaves chaos breaks loose!

---
They were made to heal.
GJ Blizzard.

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I don't agree that druids are the best healers. Each healer has something unique to bring to the raid and in 25-man raids I think having a few of everything is really beneficial. I play a holy/disc priest with between 1850 and 2100 +healing depending on what type of gear I'm wearing (I have mp5 gear, highest +healing, and stam/healing gear). I'm normally 2nd on the healing charts below a pally although sometimes that fluxes depending on the fight and I'm first or third.

Druids are awesome for their rejuvs so they can move around a lot more than I can when I'm healing but my renews tick for around 800 so they aren't something to laugh at either. Pallies heal fast and can heal big and they're oftentimes on MT healing duty along side me. Shammies and their chain heals are awesome AoE heals and quite helpful but typically the shammies are below me on the healing charts because they don't have the +healing I do yet.

Like I said before though, each one is a different style of healing and I don't think any one of them is the ultimate healer and it really depends on what type of play style you're looking for when choosing a healing class. Would you prefer awesome HoTs? Druid's your calling. Would you like to have a little bit of everything but not be the top at any of particular one type of heal? Priest. Fast heals but no HoTs? Pally. AoE heals? Shaman. That's pretty much my take on it. Although I will admit that in raids priests have to have much higher +healing than any other healing class to compete with the others but in my opinion they can be just as useful as any other healer but having a good mix of healers for 25-mans is key.

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Shamans are very effective when it comes to healing (and I would very much argue with the notion that druids have the best healing tree) - earth shield is arguably the best 41-point talent in the game, and nature's switness is an absolutely great "OH S**T" button. Our two problems are that healing is sort of boring - we only have 3 healing spells - and our mana efficiency is in the toilet.

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All of the healing classes are good enough healers that if you're specced and geared to heal you'll never be in a situation where you're ineffective or rejected as a healer. I'd choose my class based on other factors rather than just sheer brute healing ability.

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this whole 'which class is best' argument is kinda missing a qualifier.

because what you should be asking is 'which class is the best healing class in which role'.

there are so many permutations to all this, it's really hard to just make a general pronouncement. we could have 5 man groups, soloing, pvp in arenas, pvp in BGs, pve raiding group healing, pve raid mt healing, etc.

fe. for MT healing, paladins are certainly great. they are plainly built for this role and excel at it.

for raid group healing, druids and shaman are incredibly strong, paladins are incredibly weak and as with everything, priests are kinda in the middle.

in pvp things are different. in 5 mans things are propably different still. weaknesses or inconsequential aspects suddenly become very useful and important.

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I am a 70 Priest with +1450 to healing, 10250 mana, and 150 mana/5.
The dreaded "OOM" is very rarely issued by me, and if it is it means
something has gone very wrong. We have a 70 Druid healer as well as
a 70 Shaman that I have been through high level instances with.
Don't run much with our Pallies but when I do group healing seems to
be an issue.IMO its between Druid's and Priest for the top spot. I
watch in awe as the Druid HOT's are flying all over the place. I
actually think a Druid/Priest combo complement each other very well
and since you need at least two healers for Kara and above just make
sure you have a one of each. Also agree that while Shammies are good,
thier lack of CC and threat reduction make them a liablity at
times.P.SThe comment on druid leather healing gear reminded me about
seeing a 70 Druid in nearly the same gear as me. Whitemend/Primal
Mooncloth. At first I was pissed but then I thought hey, whatever
works. Bet he heals awesome...lol...I draw the line at Pallies and
cloth though.

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It depends on the circumstances. Most my characters are healers.

Priests are fabulous healers, but that doesn't do them much good when they're dead (well after Imp. Death anyway) (and boy do they die fast, and easy!) By far the worst healer in PvP just due to how quickly they hit the dirt. And I have major problems in groups that lack CC or have a bad tank (I die. A lot)

Paladins are wonderful healers but have problems keeping up when things go horribly wrong. But I enjoy the way my pally can taunt a mob that would 3 shot my priest off a clothy and just stand there and tank it. While still healing.

With a Druid, it depends on spec. a Balance Resto using HT primarily will have fabulous lasting power with slow big heals, wheras a Full Resto druid is all HoTs and instacasts. Each spec with its own strengths and weaknesses.

Shamans, for all my being horde for ages, I now know least about (mine is 40-something I think) they lack true power in any one category. But that doesn't hold them back. Chain Heal is bloody awesome in a raid.

All in all. I've enjoyed all my healers. Although my Druid and Shaman aren't too far along yet. I would recommend that new people roll Paladin or Druid though.

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