So imagine you’ve never healed in an MMA before you’ve at least never healed in wow before so where do you begin well first off I’d make sure that you want to heal it’s something which I would recommend giving a go as I think a lot of people think it’s harder than it actually is.The next thing is decide what kind of content you want to do all healers can heal all content but as I said before some healers do better in different situation.
Classes
Click to jump to specific healer:
Holy Paladin
The paladin is more of a single target healer rather than AoE. It makes up for that through the strong single target heals, which makes it a perfect tank healer. It’s also really good in small groups making it unbelievably powerful in mythic plus dungeons.
As a paladin healer you use the holy light to heal your allies. You make sure that you’re near allies that need that holy healing. Using things like Beacon of virtue, to target 5 allies sharing out the healing put out. This can maintain your an entire groups health to a high level. It’s especially good in weeks where the affixes deal strong amounts of damage unfortunately most of your heals have cast time meaning you have to stand still a lot but because you’re sharing out the healing you don’t need to cast as many times as you normally would with other classes.
The Paladin is also really strong in raids. The raid leader will probably task the Paladins in your group to make sure the tanks don’t die. The Paladin in general is a good class to pick as you are also able to tank and DPS as well as heal and unfortunately some of the other healing classes we’re going to talk about don’t have that ability to do so.
Restoration Druid
Use by most raid groups and professional mythic + Dungeons because of its heal over time abilities. The Druid can cast an ability that will heal the target over a course of time. This allows them time to do other things such as dealing damage slowing ads or concentrating on healing another target.
The Druid also has a large range of great cooldowns like tranquillity. Having those heal over time is very important; it allows for the druid to move meaning it may dodge mechanics plus contribute a small amount of damage to the boss.Druids also have a cool tool called innovate which can be cast on themselves or another healer. Allowing them to cast as many spells as possible in a certain amount of time. This costs no mana and helps with mana management.
Unfortunately the druids don’t have many direct heals. Saving many allies from near death at one time can be very hard for them. However like the paladin they can maintain a high amount of health on most of their allies.
The Druid can also play as multiple roles.
Discipline Priest
Disc Priests are probably the most different out of all of the healing classes. To heal as a discipline priest you have to deal damage which sounds strange but you use things like Atonement. Atonement is cast on allies then deals damage through spells such as smite and penance it heals it’s allies.
Disc Priests are very useful as unlike most of the other healing classes it has high mobility meaning that standing still isn’t a problem. Unfortunately with discipline priests mistakes are more punishing compared to other Healers.
They are also week at burst spot Healing in a raid setting. Reactive raid wide emergency heals are limited compared to other healing specs. However with that significant damage without sacrificing healing discipline priests aren’t likely to be declined when trying to join a raid and in mythic plus dungeons.
Mistweaver Monk
Now the Monk is a strange one they have some of the strongest single target Healing in the game they are incredibly mobile through a combination of movement abilities and spells that they can cast while moving.
They are very tanky and have two separate personal defensive cooldowns. They are also very good in things like dungeons because they provide a strong crowd control options, however the monk has quite weak burst healing out of revival its strongest cooldown. The mana management can be very difficult for new players to pick up this isn’t a class. I wouldn’t recommend using a boost on. You need to learn your abilities and manage them in a certain way. If you are purely healing as a Mistweaver Monk it can be very hard to deal a significant amount of damage unlike the other healers.
The Monk is unbelievably powerful, nearly as powerful as the Druid every single RAID group wanted a monk in their group certainly would take a look at. However be aware it is very hard to get good at the monk but don’t be scared of it if you want to challenge jump right into it.
Restoration Shaman
The Restoration Shaman excels in burst healing and sustained stacked group healing with those massive Aoe spells. It can cast while moving if you’re using spirit Walkers Grace its unique powerful healing tools such as spirit link totem ancestral protection totem and astral vigor.
It’s unbelievably powerful in all types of content but it also has great non healing tools to like Windrush totem something which can you increase your movement speed of wind shear, an interrupt Purge which will dispel an enemy the list goes on. Unfortunately the restoration shaman kind of looses it’s way in mythic plus because of its mediocre single target heals. It doesn’t really have many tank cooldowns. Unfortunately if the entire RAID group has to spread out across an entire room it’s not great at healing.
Mobility isn’t great as most of your heals must be cast while you’re standing still which can get you killed. Unfortunately apart from its 1 High damage reduction spell astral shift it’s not very good at staying alive. However if you get an entire group stacked up on one spot on one boss with them dying with your mastery. Deep Healing which makes you heal more when people are low health especially with spirit token totem. You are a god when you drop that spirit link totem and save everyone.
Holy Priest
The holy priest most MMOs have the holy priest in some way or another. If you’re new to healing the holy priests is probably your best bet. If you want to heal but aren’t up to the challenge of learning in depth how to heal this is the one for you. I’m not saying it’s simple but I’m saying it’s the simplest. It’s basic direct heals mean anyone can really start a holy priest.
It’s powerful in raids and mythic plus dungeons. It excels at reactive burst and group healing. It has a unique cool down based healing style providing regular burst of healing it has powerful group cooldowns with apoptosis and word power salvation talents. However it has no amenities or damage reduction defensive abilities. It’s not very good at moving while healing as majority of the spells have a cast time. The reliance of short cooldown abilities can hurt the sustained throughput especially in single target heals.
When you think of healing in most games the holy priest is a one that you think of. You might use it and find that you love healing and move to a different class but don’t think it’s not good at all because sometimes a holy priest is the one that keeps you alive.
All Guides for these Healers can be found on the JustLootIt WoW Page here
Pro Healer (If I’m tabbed in), otherwise a total Moob