Heal toon w/4 DK's Which Class to heal?

[Drarkan]

So I've started leveling a priest to pin with my DK's when he gets to level 58. Is that a good idea, or would having the pally for healing be a better idea since he's a plate wearer? Or even a druid? Or how about a Shaman? So hard to choose!

Lets get some input on this, I know Mosq, Ualaa and Tim are all using a paladin healer, however How viable will another class be? Is it just cause pally heals are pwn? And the fact they can bubble when in pvp? Hmmm... now that I think about it, I am going to roll a pally. That'll make 2 on the same acct lol

[Ualaa]

Prior to the launch of Cataclysm, we had a fairly lengthy discussion on this on the other site.

Your basic choices of healer are:
- Druid
- Paladin
- Priest
- Shaman

You have three basic arenas to play your team in:
- PvE (Heroics, Questing, Raids)
- PvP (Battlegrounds, World PvP)
- PvP (Arena)



From a PvE point of view, any of the healers will work, but the Paladin is probably the worst of these due to two limiting factors.
Every other healer has far superior AoE healing.
Every other healer has the ability to heal while moving, to at least some degree (in the case of the Shammy) or is very good at this facet of healing (Druid/Priest).

However for instances or questing, the Paladin has enough healing to get by... especially if you run 4x Blood DK's for their passive healing in Heroics via Blood Worms, Death Strikes in their rotations, Rune Tap every 30 seconds, etc.



From a PvP point of view, we have mass battlegrounds and world PvP. On most servers world PvP is rather dead, unless you want to invade the other factions home city. But this is basically chaotic random number battleground play.

Any of the healers will work here.
Arena strongly favors Priest (Holy with limited gear, Disc once geared) or Paladin.



The Druid has a ramp up time on heals, as they are very effective with a bunch of HOT effects on a target... but less effective without those.
The Druid has some stealth, but while stealthed you move a lot slower than the party, so this is not going to be used a whole lot; this stealth might be of some use in Arena, as you're not going to die when they cannot see you and you're outside of likely AoE areas.
Wild Growth is a very powerful AoE heal, but requires the targets to be bunched.
Tranquility is decent AoE healing on a relatively short cooldown.
You can do limited big heals with Nature's Swiftness + Healing Touch.... Swiftmend too.
Battle Rez is a nice effect to have, as is self Innervate.
You can shift, breaking roots and snares, for decent mobility.
Unfortunately, your armor is low and you lack defensive cooldowns to prevent your death when focused.
There's no way you're going to successfully Pillar-Hump, as an independently played Druid could, while also controlling the DPS/Cooldowns on four DK's.
Not the best for battleground style play, but workable if you want.



The Shaman is an excellent choice for chaotic battleground style healing.
You wear chain and have a shield for decent armor.
You have totems, for variable effects... not the most mobile but still decent... you can glyph Healing Stream for a large resist to Fire/Frost/Nature (only missing Shadow).
Tremor is a raid-wide fear break, basically a second trinket for the whole party.
You have Earth Shield on yourself, when you're focused... which will be most of the time.
There isn't any ramp up time on the heals... and you have the Nature's Swiftness instant big heal the same as the Druid.
You have Healing Rain and Chain Heal for the AoE healing; not the most mobile (better than a Pally) with Riptide, but not even close to a Druid/Priest.
You can self rez after you're slain, which is decent PvE recovery and a possible save move in PvP.
Five minute Fire Elementals are nice.
Bloodlust/Heroism is an extremely major benefit.
Basically Tremor Totem + Chain Armor + Shield + Earth Shield... you're far higher on the survivability than a Druid.
Not nearly the survivability of a Paladin or Disc Priest, or the ability to heal for "x" duration of time like a Holy Priest can in arena... a contender for 1st in battlegrounds, and a distant 3rd in arena play.



Priest comes in two forms, Discipline and Holy.
Either way, this is the most mobile of healers, with more tools for healing while mobile that any other.
As Holy, you have larger heals, and the ability to heal for a fair duration after you're dead... which is a major benefit for the arena style of play.
As Disc, you have very strong Shields, Inner Fire and Pain Suppression if focused.
You can AoE fear once and Fear Ward yourself against one fear and trinket another.
If your reflexes are good, you can Mass Dispel a fear bomb off of your team/DK's without them needing to use their own cooldown.
A major offensive benefit is removal of immunity effects, via Mass Dispel... so your kill target will die in the initial barrage when the DK's are immune to almost every CC effect.
Only a Pally has superior single target healing throughput for keeping one target who is focused alive.
When gearing up in arena, you can heal for a significant amount of time after dying... only a Pally with a Bubble effect will likely have a longer window of healing time from the start of a match until dead + spirit of redemption has expired.



Paladin is the last option.
This healer is in Plate Armor and carries a Shield.
Divine Protection is 20% damage reduction for 1/3rd of every battle (20 sec every 60 sec).
You can self bubble, for immunity to everything which also breaks everything the same as a trinket; three classes can remove this effect, but you're a poor first target because you can bubble or even time the bubble to negate a large spell that is currently in transit towards you... Bubble is what makes the Pally the superior choice for Arena play.
No one has similar healing throughput as a Paladin for keeping one target up, a Disc priest has maybe 80-85% of your healing in this regard (if you count mitigation + heals vs your actual heals).
Beacon + Protector of the Innocent result in the Paladin being passively healed for a substantial amount while healing anyone else.
Like the Shammy (with a glyphed totem) a Pally has Resistance Aura for Fire/Frost/Shadow resistances (missing Nature).
The Pally is severely lacking in AoE heals, basically with a Cone frontal heal that the majority of Paladins won't even talent into or a PBAoE that heals for 10sec on a 30sec cooldown.



For battlegrounds, any of them can work to varying degrees.

For arena play it boils down to:

a) Priest... gives you an offensive edge with Mass Dispel, virtually ensuring your initial target is dead no matter what (Ice Block, Pain Suppression, Bubble, etc)... also, you have a guaranteed window of healing (as Holy) even after dying.
Offensive Choice.

b) Paladin... has the healing throughput (on their Focus) to almost guarantee whoever they are spam healing will live through anything, at least while their mana lasts.... and because of the Bubble effect, they are the most likely to survive especially the initial attack on them.
Defensive Choice.

[xartin]

I primarily use a druid healer on my pve team. no complaints yet



Trying to get past the first boss in aq40 at level 80 even with some T9 epics was a helluva challenge

[Drarkan]

Hmm ok deffinately something to think about, personally I like druids for healing, and I've already done a shaman team on another server, so i'm a little shamaned out lol

[Ualaa]

Depends on what you want to do with the team.

I would assume a lot of PvP, as it is far from the most optimal team for PvE/Heroics/Some Raids.
Anything will work for questing PvE, and almost anything for normal dungeons.

If you're doing PvP, there are two general areas of play.
- World PvP and/or Battlegrounds
- Arena and/or Rated Battlegrounds



For arena play, if you're not going Priest or Paladin, you're giving yourself a lot of extra challenges.

The Paladin is the easiest choice for this area of the game, bubble in the earlier stages of gearing up and unsurpassed single target heals against whoever is being focused as you in turn burn them down.

But a Priest isn't a bad choice, because of Spirit of Redemption while gearing up... you have a guaranteed (and fairly lengthy) window in which you can heal your team... and with a decent level of gearing a Disc priest is far from fragile.

Conversely...

A shammy in Arena does not have the survivability of either the Paladin or a Disc Priest, nor the ability to heal after dying (while gearing up) that a Holy Priest has and no Bubble like the Paladin... so you'll die early, and then the team has no heals.
Not saying they cannot work, as you'll eventually improve... but even still with a lot of gearing they won't match the single target healing-throughput of a Paladin, and won't have the mitigation+healing of a Disc Priest.

Last choice for Arena is the druid. Like the Shammy, they lack a defensive mechanic that once geared pretty much ensures they survive through any amount of burst... and, don't have either Bubble or Spirit of Redemption when gearing, so will be a relatively painful gearing up process in arena, like the Shammy.
If you were to get a healer played by a friend, a druid could work with all the HOTs and dancing around pillars for line of sight breaking -- something you're not going to effectively do, while also playing four DK's.



Discounting arena play...

The various levels of gearing, starting from no pvp gear (0 edge) and working your way up, give you roughly this degree of advantage... (I'm picking numbers here, so this isn't exact but gives an idea)...

The purchased/crafted gear gets you a +1 edge.
A full set of honor gear, from a battleground grind gets you +3 edge.
A full set of Conquest gear, from arena/rated battlegrounds, gets you a +4 edge.

No pvp gear is basically no resilience, or take 100% of player damage.
The crafted set gets you 10% reduction in damage from resilience, and increases your health to about ~100k.
The full honor set gets you 30% reduction in damage from players, and increases your health to about ~115k.
The conquest set, gets you 40% reduction (but in 4.1, this will be a bit less), and increases your health to ~125k.

Without consistent arena victories, you get the full honor set which is near 30% mitigation and a decent level of health.
I'm a tiny bit beyond this level on my team now.
With cooldowns, I am the equivalent of a raid boss in battlegrounds; without coordinated CC effects, 15 random players will often fall to my five... although 10 random players that work together and coordinate can take me.

Just playing battlegrounds, you'll get to this relative level of gearing.

Depends what your goals are, and what you'll be happy with.

[Drarkan]

Never was really a fan of PVP, not really against it, just not very good at it, even as a multiboxer, though DK's might change that LOL. I have a lvl 8 pally i'm leveling and a level 6 priest, so I think I'll go with the Paladin, since its PVP friendly, and higher atm.

[Ualaa]

For a primary PvE play...

Depending how important the ability to Decurse is, will determine whether you want a full blown healer type in their Resto/Holy/Disc spec.

The basic choices are:
- Tank
- Healer
- 3x DPS

Or:
- Tank
- 4x DPS that includes at least 3x DPS that can heal (lose out on some Decurse ability)

You can go Melee DPS or Ranged DPS, as you prefer.
However Range will be far easier, both because you won't be messing with pathing and random running off via Click to Move... and because only your tank will be in melee range eating short range auras, cleaves, point-blank effects etc.



The 4x DK team, with a healer...

Is four tank spec characters, which get you extra survivability at the cost of slower clearing of mobs and likely an inability to beat any enrage timer that is implemented for heroic or raid content.



It is going to be very similar to the double healer teams.

Run the equivalent of say 2x Holy Paladin, 1x Tank, 2x DPS.
Place Beacon on the 2x DPS from the Pallies, and when they heal the Tank the DPS get passive half heals.
You can round-robin the tank heals, or spam smaller/faster/less efficient heals, but need them less often so the whole party is regularly getting smaller heals instead of larger less frequent heals.
Protector of the Innocent will passively heal the Pallies, for a fair amount any time they heal someone else.
End result, only the tank takes full damage, and you have two healers to keep them up; and all four non-tanks are passively healed for a lot more than almost any splash/aoe damage in the game.

The other version was 2x Resto Shaman as healers, and I believe a Blood DK tank.

Both ran with 2x Ranged DPS, I believe Mage and Warlock for the extra utility (portals, summoned food, healthstones, soulstones, sheep, banish, seduce, fear, summoning).

These teams have cleared 100% of the Cataclysm heroics, before any of them were nerfed down to become easier.
Tank + 2x DPS + Double Healer have more DPS than 4x Tanks + 1x Healer, but not sure you'd beat an enrage timer like Patchwerk if one were included in this expansion.

[Tim]

For me the decision often comes down to what is easiest. I personally stuck with the Paladin due to having high armor, bubble, instant heal (holy shock), and being able to survive burst in BG PVP.

I think a Druid might actually be the best for PVE due to their instant HOT and AOE Heal, but I think overall it might be limiting, so sticking with a Pally might be best.

[Strom]

When i leveled a team of Warrior, holy priest, resto druid, 2x mage they cleared every instance they did with ease.
Having a lack of 1 extra DPS for an extra healer was made up by having two arcane mages with great dps.
Using a holy priest, resto druid it was next to impossible to take out the tank.

For cata i also ran Pali, 2x resto shams, 2x Ele shams and they cleared every instance with ease the 2 resto shami using filler lightning bolt to help with DPSing ( still gearing them for heroics only Ilevel 322/4 i believe at the moment)

My pali, Priest, Warlock, Mage, Shami arnt doing to good in Heroics. really Squishy.
I have seen this team by people clearing heroics. Would love to see more vids of peoples Healer and 4 Melee clearing Cata.

Actually why is it i dont see people running 5x pali / Tank- 4x pali anymore?

[xartin]

Originally Posted by Tim

For me the decision often comes down to what is easiest. I personally stuck with the Paladin due to having high armor, bubble, instant heal (holy shock), and being able to survive burst in BG PVP.

I think a Druid might actually be the best for PVE due to their instant HOT and AOE Heal, but I think overall it might be limiting, so sticking with a Pally might be best.

Primary reason why I use a druid for my team is because HOT's effectiveness at surviving silence or interrupt mechanics in pve encounters. Essentially druids provide a very effective heal buffer that increases "effective health" of any team members.

That also helps with effectively counter balance how much multitasking I personally need to be aware of while I'm trying to micro manage 5 characters especially since i often tank with a prot warrior as my lead focus target

Other heal classes that don't have heal over time abilities I find to be much more of a chore to multibox in groups larger than pairs. I do however have a holy priest / prot paladin duo that I levelled together to 60 that was some of the best fun i've had with a group I created since I started multiboxing.