Never played Vanilla, need suggestions on PvP healer.

[Curtsey]

Hello everyone, heard some good things about the server and I always wanted to give Vanilla a shot, so here we go.

That being said, I always play a healer in MMORPG's and I usually focus on PvP. Are each of the healers useful in their own way in certain situations? Or is there a clear cut list of what is good and what is garbage in this era of WoW?

I thank anyone who has any suggestions.

[Sham]

I would rate healers efficiency in vanilla as this from best to worst:
Holydin > Priest > Shaman > Druid

[Fubbzy]

Id agree with that above, from a pure healing/defensive and premade standpoint for sure, but every healer has a time and place they really shine. It mostly has to do with team comps.

Priests are the healing gods, but can be caught out and struggle if teammates cant peel, so if you are mostly planning to pug i would veer from this unless you are some positioning master. Priests cant cleanse poisons with their kit, so they often struggle with viper sting unless you roll dwarf master race orcarry antivenoms.

Druids are my favorite to play, they are by far the weakest for premade healers due to no magic dispel, only abolish poison and decurse. Decursing isnt as useful on a healer due to mages being so abundant in pvp anyway, so its pretty easy to see how druids just get outclassed. They do have natures swiftness and swiftmend, but these tools just are not as useful as the other classes when it comes to group play, strictly as a healer. Most fun to play with a hunter who can kite with you outside imo.

Shamans are the most offensive of the healers, and you need really good positioning to play it well. They lack a dispel, but make up for it with windfury totem synergy with the teams warriors and they have an offensive purge. This healer has the highest skillcap imo.

Paladin is probably what id recommend, its got everything. Team support spells, emergency buttons, and can take care of most debuffs.

[farrsa]

Resto shaman is basically bad in pvp. You wanna be an elemental/resto hybrid to actually pull your weight in organised pvp. Resto druid is possibly the worst pvp healer, only good for flag carrying (though this is down to your skill rather than items/spec mosty).

Horde side, only holy priest makes sense as a dedicated pvp healer, but they are really squishy, and a #1 target for enemy warriors, so they need to be peeled for very hard. Also, priests oom very quick unless they are wearing a lot of pve gear, and are very susceptible to mana burn type abilities.

Paladins are undoubtedly the best pvp healers. Freedom, protection, sacrifice, 5s stun, plate, bubble, very large mana pool, can cleanse everything except curse.

This imbalance between factions is the reason why alliance will win organized pvp encounters unless badly outplayed. It also affords the more attention-starved players the possibility of boasting and taunting others on the forums (notice how every one of these pathetic, strut-up-and-down-like-a-peacock threads is made by an alliance player), despite the fact they (re)rolled alliance to have this advantage in the first place.

[stimz]

Shamans are the most offensive of the healers, and you need really good positioning to play it well. They lack a dispel, but make up for it with windfury totem synergy with the teams warriors and they have an offensive purge. This healer has the highest skillcap imo.

They are the highest skillcap healer, because they aren't a healer and if you're playing deep resto outside of raids, you're wasting your class. 30ele/21 resto. They have way too much utility and are too dynamic for the plebs on this server to know what to do with, let alone bind.

[Sham]

Worth mentioning is that while some healers overal feel stronger, there are no useless healers. And if you're skilled player you can do wonders with any class. I remember vanilla pvp movie where resto druid + warrior rekt zerg of 10 players who attacked them at once. Druid was just kiting them, shifting from snares and casting hots while moving, and warrior slowed whole bunch not letting them to reach druid. I doubt priest or paladin would survive 10 people on them.

They are the highest skillcap healer

Imho holy paladins are. They just have the biggest arsenal of group support skills: blessings, dispels, auras, heals along with other skills. This is how pally should be played: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoLvRKsIbOc

[stimz]

Resto shaman is basically bad in pvp. You wanna be an elemental/resto hybrid to actually pull your weight in organised pvp. Resto druid is possibly the worst pvp healer, only good for flag carrying (though this is down to your skill rather than items/spec mosty).

Horde side, only holy priest makes sense as a dedicated pvp healer, but they are really squishy, and a #1 target for enemy warriors, so they need to be peeled for very hard. Also, priests oom very quick unless they are wearing a lot of pve gear, and are very susceptible to mana burn type abilities.

Paladins are undoubtedly the best pvp healers. Freedom, protection, sacrifice, 5s stun, plate, bubble, very large mana pool, can cleanse everything except curse.

This imbalance between factions is the reason why alliance will win organized pvp encounters unless badly outplayed. It also affords the more attention-starved players the possibility of boasting and taunting others on the forums (notice how every one of these pathetic, strut-up-and-down-like-a-peacock threads is made by an alliance player), despite the fact they (re)rolled alliance to have this advantage in the first place.

Freedom, sacrifice, cleanse don't really mean much if you aren't running a vurtne premade against it. None of the good WSG horde premades on the servers I played on ran more than 1 mage and I can't remember them running a lock. It was always phys DPS centric with good purge trains. Could literally one shot players with a good RNG windfury totem, sword spec, hoj chain, which didn't happen often, but it did happen. Everyone here runs frost mages and doesn't seem to have good purge bots and they wonder why they can't do damage frostbolting freedomed warriors. Herp Derp.

[farrsa]

How can you say freedom, sacrifice, cleanse don't really mean much.

[stimz]

They are the highest skillcap healer

Imho holy paladins are. They just have the biggest arsenal of group support skills: blessings, dispels, auras, heals along with other skills. This is how pally should be played: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoLvRKsIbOc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoLvRKsIbOc&t=1m51s <- douja carried that fight btw

and thats how a shaman should be played. but he'd not be casting holy light on this server, cause 10 month old reasons.

I disagree though, pally may have a high skill cap but it has a very low skill requirement, blessings dispels auras heals? Shaman has totem twisting(fast tremor and grounding usage is huge), purges, resist totems, shocks and the option (honestly requirement) of swapping between supporting team/purging to dropping big ass burst or turreting 2.0 cast 85.7% coefficient lightning bolts at near scorch speeds. Their playstyle is much more dynamic and therefore is harder. Pallies are single minded as support with a long CD single target dispellable, orcable, groundable stun for offense. Those were my most played toons in vanilla and that's just my opinion, but I did stick with shaman til r11. Shamans became much more single minded as expansions went on though.

[stimz]

How can you say freedom, sacrifice, cleanse don't really mean much.

with a good purge train they don't mean much, unless you're running vurtne squad.