I've never really played a healer before, tend to gravitate towards scouts and tanks. I like being up in the fray. I'm looking for a change of pace but still want to be up in the fray. Melee healer caught my eye and the way I see it their are two big factors DPS potential and passive healing/ability to heal while dpsing. Just from looking at the AA/spells it looks as though wardens have the best passive healing, between the tree, the fairy, natural boon, some of the new heroic AA, and being able to cast regen spells very quickly between auto attacks coupled in with some nice melee buffs. Inquisitors seem to be the toughest, maybe have the highest dmg potential but definitely looks like they have the worst passive healing, however they get steadfast which is awesome for healing while up in the fray, in addition to more offensive abilities. Mystic seems to be somewhere in the middle, with the new shared stats is it possible to make dog dog worth more than $0.05? Stamped is amazing, and the blue AOE at the end of the heroic line-not the best choice for healing but looks like very nice AOE dmg. Right now I am leaning towards warden or mystic. I am curious to hear the oppinions of people that have actually rolled melee healer(s) and what they feel the PRO/CON of them are. Thanks in advance
Considering gear is currently non-existent for melee healers as of DoV, Inquisitors may have it best. They have a lot more self dps buffs including haste/dps mod, and almost as much multi attack as wardens have, plus they have a proc that gives 20% flurry. Inq will most likely have the highest dps potential, and highest mitigation. Steadfast is fine if you don't get knocked back, but in fights where you get knocked back, it won't help you. Inquisitors have to give up some abilities that help in healing/group survivability if they are going to spec pure dps. Inqs do have a couple of passive healing abilities through dps. Wardens very rarely get interrupted because their heals are so fast- and they self buff a significant amount of focus. Wardens will probably face fewer interrupts than inquisitors. They have the mitigation of chain because of their self-mitigation buff, so can still take a hit decently. Wardens do have a ca that gives haste, and a proc for dps, but they won't get haste/dps mods anywhere near an inq unless they use old gear. You can spec pure dps without losing any healing ability, and in fact will gain healing ability through lotto heals like natural boon. (Heh- Guess Wardens have fewer good AAs than inquisitors do ) Mystic dogs got a huge boost with shared stats. Mystic dog does much improved dps and does a lot of curing if speced for it. I don't have a mystic so can't give you a lot of details here. Ultimately, I wouldn't choose based on the number of passive heals they have. My preference is Warden, even with the multitude of weaknesses they face from a raid perspective. It's my hope that some of the wardens flaws are looked into by the developers. Inquisitor is much more wanted because they bring a ton to a group- their group dps buffs are amazing, and they have decent debuffs. Warden has a negligable amount of debuffs, and no group buffs to speak of. Warden will put out a ton more pure healing, and all you really have to do to switch from dps to heal is change stances. What do you want? Do you want a healer that can "be up in the fray" and will be great at group content, but the absolute best thing it does is pure healing? or do you want a hybrid of sorts that can do very solid dps, decent healing, solid debuffs, and great buffs?
Dov is a doom expansion for battlepriest DPS. 1) Doom of the auto attack During SF my warden auto attack used to make 30%+ of my dps and my MA was higher than the one of most scout (unbuffed), that is was 90% naked and i could push it higher using dps gear and i could use a haste belt Now my MA is still at 90%, i have zero DPS gear since cool item (with MA, melee skill, flurry, haste) are scout/fighter only. Scouts and fighter are somewhere between 250 and 350 there Auto attack does 50%+ of their DPS. A gardian with gear similar to mine may do more damage than me (i used to do more than them). Looking at their parse it comes from massive auto attack. I had several cool two handers but i cannot use any due the lack of critical % on them, so i use a one hander from Kael 1. The priest one hander from the x2 is very rare loot is not random we have 4 healers and 1 tank ... plate tank and brawler are alwaus transmuted (all alts already got covered). I saw once a half cool 2 hander on Kel trash. So globally to get and decent* 2 hander we need to finish the x2, Miss T will probably die very soon but it seems to me totally crazy to have to complete the x2 raid to get a decent weapon. * : If you consider that it has only 2 adornement slots and not 4 and no MA it's not a great weapon. 2) CA Doom : The reuse time of my CA is 3-4 times the one of their spell version, moreover spells are so fast to cast with 100% spell haste that using them is not an issue. So for any figth longer than 6 second using spells is better. Moreover master spell do more damage than CA attack with max rank. In a sense the spell casting stance is probably now better than the battlepriest stance (in lithany). Warden are probably the ones the most affected because we don't have DPS aas in heroic, mystic do have their big aoe and their self thorn that add MA, and inqui do have very good self bufs (tenacity and so on).
Id say Inq but I am Bias. With a mix of EM x4 x2, heroic and old sf raid gear pieces im parsing 40-70k on bosses and 60-80k on trash in EM Which is low compared to the HM Dps inq. Inq has no real passive healing but we have strong group reactives that do most of our healing for us. Also 2 cures one that can be cast while moving and when out of power. Plate, HP, Big melee buffs and hp buffs are what we bring to the group.
