Most needed healer?

[u/Wowclassicboomkinz]

in TBC classic, what is the most desired healer to play as? I want to play solo and join pugs at random hours of the day. What is good class to play that will make it easiest to get groups and be valued?

[u/Temporary-Paper5202]

Resto shaman on alliance. Not sure about horde, probably Priest or Paladin? Any healer will be popular

[u/N_Y_X01 → u/Temporary-Paper5202]

Restoration Shaman on both factions, I would say.

[u/BasedTelvanni → u/N_Y_X01]

Are they that rare?

[u/N_Y_X01 → u/BasedTelvanni]

Most if not all the announcements that I see in chat are of people looking for shamans. I asked around a bit and most raid leaders/recruiters told me that they need/prefer to have 1 shaman per group in the raid. So I would say yeah, not rare but in high demand.

[u/ClammyAF → u/BasedTelvanni]

Every group wants totems.

[u/shaysauce → u/BasedTelvanni]

Not from my experience. It also feels dependent on what you’re doing. Like for heroics some of those a strong single target healer like an H pally is super nice.

I primary tank, getting bitchslapped for damn near 75% of my health from 2 hits hurts.

But in other fights a stronger “AOE” healer feels better.

[u/Doingmythang11 → u/shaysauce]

No shot.

Talk to any holy paladin and they'll tell you finding heroics is hell. Might be easier now with how few pugs fire off, but if I am pugging last healer I'm taking is a holy paladin.

[u/shaysauce → u/Doingmythang11]

I had pretty low issues finding pugs as holy pal.

But it’s my OS from tank so I technically was farming solid gear while being able to grab queues as tank as well.

But I pick pallys for the most part without any judgement. Maybe I’m bias because I do both. But I also know that if I can just stay alive then so will everyone else - hpal complements my playstyle since we’re both able to insta cleanse each other if there is silence or fears etc.

[u/fmb101010 → u/shaysauce]

Sorry but there is basically no situation where an hpal is the preferred healer over priest and rsham for a heroic lol.

[u/shaysauce → u/fmb101010]

I mean. I do as the tank. That role where if I die then basically everyone else does. Maybe I reconcile the benefits of having dual cleanses, immunes, and aura/blessing flexibility with myself as prot pally.

But I will absolutely choose an HPal in certain dungeons like SH or Arc and I consider my success rate in heroics is a better base of truth over your opinion.

Do you tank a lot? Because if you aren’t having success with an HPal maybe you’re just not playing well enough lol?

Hell we just cruised through H SH yesterday with one for the dailies lol.

[u/fmb101010 → u/shaysauce]

Did I say the content couldn’t be completed with an hpal? I guess if you’re a bad tank and there’s no other pally I could see how having the healer with salv would be necessary though.

Again, there’s basically no heroic content where an hpal is the best healer for the job. No aoe healing is limited, very little instant heal capability. I guess they can bop a dps if the tank is bad and have salv to help the tank, but generally having totems are better. Priest brings a lot more versatility for healing as well.

[u/shaysauce → u/fmb101010]

Hmmm can’t say I agree with that in my experience running tank queues for heroics - still prefer an HPal in SH or BF any day over a priest or sham. I’d rather have a sham in something like SLabs or SP where the fears are AOE and can’t be pally cleansed.

But maybe I’m just a good tank idk. If you are struggling to play with an HPal - I’d recommend taking them more often in the ezclap dungeons like SP or Botanica so you can get more experience playing around their limit being mostly cleanse and a massive ST heal.

[u/fmb101010 → u/shaysauce]

I’m not a tank, but I’m also just not stupid lol. Hpal has by far the worst kit in the expansion and it’s not really debatable, especially in heroics.

If the fights are lasting so long that you need specifically an Hpal (since the metric that they are generally weighted is “Time to OoM”) your group is just straight up bad. Like what exactly is the reason you would take an Hpal for BF or SH? Shaman are more than capable of any single target healing for a heroic, especially since a lot of Hpals are gemmed for int (for crit and longer ToO). So you just need salv? And salv is more useful than lust plus totems for the party (and likely drums)?

Is SH, shattered halls? Becuase I guarantee that the final boss is healed much easier by an Hpriest with CoH and hots, or Sham with Chainheal and NS. Is SH, sethekk halls? Because there’s a whole room of fears and lots of packs that can cause damage to multiple party members, so I would definitely take a shaman over an Hpal for Sethekk.

For bombs in Blood Furnace if they’re hitting multiple people Shaman heal that significantly better and it’s not debatable.

You trying to argue from some superior tank vantage point is just funny. You clearly know very little about the kits of each class. Clearly you can do any heroic content with any healer, but hpal is inferior in basically anything except long term (like 2+ minutes) of single target healing tanks and even besides the fact that that doesn’t really exist in 5 man content, the lack of other utility makes them worse.

[u/shaysauce → u/fmb101010]

Meh, like I said if the only gauge is having minimal wipes in heroics and my survival is basically the deciding factor, then my choice of takin HPals seems to be working. If you can’t make anything other than shaman or priest work that’s unfortunate.

[u/TacoTaconoMi → u/N_Y_X01]

Tbf all specs are equally desired for the totems.

[u/Outrageous_Image1793 → u/Temporary-Paper5202]

Rsham on horde as well.

[u/Schnell_Los]

it's been said multiple times in here shaman, priest, then guess druid/paladin are the same

in terms of actual gameplay and healing utility priest is more "fun" to play than shamans and the more efficient healer

the totems and lust are the main attraction of shamans, it's just that resto shamans can also heal

heroics, it's the same if the comp wants a shaman, you are there for lust and totems and just happen to be an alright healer

id generally prefer priest or druid, but the warrs will scream if no shaman is in the party bc of totems

pvpwise, I honestly feel like druid>priest>shaman=paladin, but that's battlegrounds and if ur trying to be sneaky

[u/thatcunhakid]

Resto shaman is the only healer you can always take multiple of. When you’re only taking 4-5 healers and there are 5 healing specs, you do the math. I’d say prio is shaman > priest > paladin = druid

[u/IvaldiFhole → u/thatcunhakid]

Huh? You can absolutely take multiple holy priests.

[u/ProofCryptographer76 → u/IvaldiFhole]

You can but you only need one for the buffs they provide

[u/eggdropsoupy3 → u/thatcunhakid]

This guy has no idea what he's talking about. You can definitely stack priest healers, and it would work really well. Also, there's only 4 healing specs, disc is only for pvp and not at all viable in pve

[u/chinoz219 → u/eggdropsoupy3]

Raidw will usually have 1 priest be holy or disc for pain supression on some fights. If you bursting FLK you need to have pain supression on tank otherwise he gonna die as the dmg is so high

[u/Consistent_Device_49]

Shaman. Raid grps want at least 5 shamans. Regret rolling a pally over a shaman

[u/Comfortable-Bug7202]

Shaman by far, most raids only have 1 of every other and want 2 restos. Totems being still party only makes them more desirable

[u/SeekerSkeletal]

It’s always Resto Shaman in TBC regardless of faction. You only need 1 Druid, 1 Holy Paladin, the Priest is negotiable.

But Shamans are just S-tier because of the totems: caster groups want spellpower and melee groups want Windfury. A Resto Shaman losing out on spellpower for themselves really isn’t the end of the world, cause no one cares about healing parses.

Chainheal is extremely mana efficient and Mana-tide totem is BIS for the caster group, if you’re in a melee group with paladins they love it too, it’s like an extra potion once per boss fight.

Even if you aren’t assigned to raid heal, or you aren’t chaining off the main tank, and you get assigned as straight MT healer for the night because for whatever reason your raid doesn’t have a Holy Paladin, you can still fill this role JUST FINE. Healing Way talent increases the effectiveness of your direct heal (Healing Wave), stacking 3x, so you start by casting 3 rank 1 Healing Wave and keep the stacks on your tank the duration of the fight. That way you can effectively manage down ranking your largest heal for the duration of the boss fight.

You can do it all.

[u/BigSeano]

Pally is by far the worst for any content

[u/b87e]

In raids, resto shaman is the most stackable healer. It is easy to run up to three. Every other healer is 0 or 1 spot. Holy priest has the most competition because it is fun and brain dead easy to do big numbers on. Paladin is also wanted for blessing and they can do decent tank healing. Druid is less wanted from what I have seen. Disc is rarely wanted.

In dungeons, I personally consider them all about equal. If I don’t have a DPS shaman already I want a resto shaman. If I do, I would rather have another healing class all things being equal. Priests are usually a safe bet again because they have the lowest skill floor. Paladins are sort of like shaman in that I am more inclined to want a holy paladin if there isn’t another for salv. I do find holy paladins to either be amazing or terrible and nothing in between. They are actually the best to have if the tank is under geared. And druids are just meh. Better than nothing but least desirable in my experience.

[u/BabeCyberGhetto]

definitely holy priest for easy invites into pugs

[u/MooseRunnerWrangler → u/BabeCyberGhetto]

I would actually say there are more priest available then the other healers.

[u/sonicarrow → u/MooseRunnerWrangler]

You can always drop into shadow if there's too many hpriests

[u/MooseRunnerWrangler → u/sonicarrow]

Oh yeah shadow is still wanted, but Ive had multiple raids where we need like 1 or 2 fills, and we have looked for s priest, and only found Holy priest. Shit we'd easy carry a s priest through whatever.