World of Warcraft®

So, I have been tanking and playing dps for two years now and I would like to try a healer finally. Since, winter break is upon us, I wanted to give myself a challenge and try to get to raids by the end of it. I have experimented a small amount, but no further than 30. I don't need to be told how or when to heal and use abilities. I just want to know what a new healer friendly class would be and what a better place to ask than the healer forums. If anyone could help me and leave a class suggestion and maybe why, it would be much appreciated.

It all depends on your playstyle: Certain people will enjoy certain healing classes, and others will hate them. I enjoy playing Druid because I love the HoT mechanics.

If you're purely interested in PvE, I'd say a priest is always a great choice for new healers. They've got an enormous toolkit, but you don't need to use every tool there is in order to heal well as a priest. Disc is doing quite well right now on the raid healing meters.

That being said, if you like PvP at high levels, I've heard priests kind of suck.

I'd roll shaman or monk with your background. They're both useful, fun, and relatively unhindered in most* areas that tend to challenge healers.

I've hardcore raided with them all (though with monks that was mostly in the beta) and my personal favorites are disc priest and druid.

How long is your break?

Getting to 90 from 30 (or perhaps lower) in less than a week (2 week break?) can be done, certainly, but getting into raids close to 460 equipped might indeed be a challenge.

If your time frame is shorter than two weeks, I'd scratch the paladin off of your list. Ret levels...noticeably...slower than any of your other options, and you will need decent healing gear, plus passable Ret gear.

Druid/Shaman/Priest can use one gear set for both dps and healing, which helps.

Monk requires two gear sets as well, but comes with a significant amount of bonus exp.

If you don't need to be *told* how to heal, then it seems to me that your choice should be based mostly on the one you feel will allow you to actually reach your goal, which is probably the druid.

Unless your winter break is a month long?

Edited to add: I'm tempted to go into the tanking forum, create a post titled *New Tank,* proceed to tell them that I don't need to be *told* how to tank, just which one should I play, and see what happens.

Riôt

12/15/2012 09:54 AMPosted by Riôt

If you don't need to be *told* how to heal, then it seems to me that your choice should be based mostly on the one you feel will allow you to actually reach your goal, which is probably the druid

I mean I can look into on my own time and I have a pretty experienced friend. I didn't wish to take the time of the others too heavily on such a light and easy topic to answer quickly.

On another note, thanks for your guys responses and I will look into a druid/disc priest.

If they don't nerf disc priest very soon this is what I would suggest to roll right now. They are without a doubt the best PvE healers at the moment. Dual healing spec (holy/disc) is also pretty useful/versatile. They can also "dps heal" pretty well especially on fights with damage modifiers.

I've been playing a resto druid for a long time. I love the mobility and the "fast paced playstyle". However, our toolkit is a bit too limited in my opinion. It's one of the easiest healing class to start with though.

The only addon that you should use is Clique with the default blizzard frames configured to your liking.

12/15/2012 01:50 PMPosted by Zekeriki

It's one of the easiest healing class to start with though.

Shaman is the easiest to start out, i've found. It's a very forgiving class that can perform quite well in many situations, without a glaring weakness. (spread situations aren't nearly as bad as they were in cata if you play it right, although they still are a weakness) Decent tank and raid healing, good cds, a great mastery for when the !@#$ hits the fan.

Druid can get a bit confusing in comparison because you have to watch hot timers a bit more, keep mastery up, keep lifebloom up, know where to use swiftmend to place efflo, etc.

A priest is a decent choice as well because if you start out as holy (the more forgiving spec) and get a handle on priest healing, switching to disc is not that big of a leap (same basic spells just more cd timers and forethought required.)This allows for great versatility.

Paladins are good but they require a lot of awareness of when to use a cooldown (they have tons) so i wouldn't recommend them to someone just starting out as a healer because all of the buttons may be a bit overwhelming.

And monks have such a weird playstyle that i would definitely not recommend rolling one if you haven't played a different healer yet.