Hello All, Thinking about starting up a new char and wanted to play a healer. What would you all recommend in today's game for a non-boxing priest class? Solo/molo/grouping/casual raiding. No hardcore raiding.
I play all three classes with my Druid being the lowest of the three at 82(shaman is 93, cleric 95). I find that Druids and shaman are a lot more self sufficient than the cleric. I, however, can molo well on the cleric. If you do not have a box, set of friends, or intend to raid, I would play either the shaman or Druid class. Ryear
THIS post is from the old forums when someone had the same question. The post is from 3 months ago so not too much has changed since then. I'm partial to my cleric (do have a 50's shaman, no druid though). We can do a lot more than folks think we can or sometimes like to do. But what type of play style do you want? There's a couple posts in the newbie forum with similar questions on healers so if you scan them for the returning players you might find a few other tips as well. Clerics tend to be "average" on solo, "good" on grouping, "great" on raiding.
I'm partial to the Shaman. We are excellent soloers, average "moloers," make a solid addition to a group and fill important roles on raids.
If you want to solo, don't play cleric. Cleric can get xp very fast, but this is all this class can do.
What do you mean Ardin? I am kind of leaning Druid or Cleric, not sure why but just not feeling the shaman.
If you're choosing between Druid and Cleric and want to solo, I'd go Druid hands down. In terms of a group, the Druid can easily main heal and contribute some damage as well.
Curious on Ardin's comment as well. And I speak as someone who often is the puller for our groups (every expansion since 2001), or acts as 2nd crowd control for nearby wandering mobs in addition to doing some healing and light DPS. Druids will have an easier time if you want purely solo. They can kite (quad kite+?) or pull out a tank merc and heal it. (Not sure if any have tried healing the DPS merc like I know clerics have/can.) For molo, druids have 2-3 options generally and clerics have. Molo as a cleric I can use a tank and heal him or a wizard and heal him or a cleric merc with me tanking and it/me healing myself. So 3 options there basically - but all 3 do require up front and close with the mob in some way. That said, Druids will give you tracking ability (never understimate this!), porting ability (can't complain about timesavers), DS, debuffing, healing, DPS (dots and nukes). Clerics will give you 'sense undead AA', powerful healing, some pulling, reverse DS's, low DPS (dots against undead only, nukes against any mob type). Just to name a few key things about the classes. If solo wise you want to be up close and personal with the mob, go cleric. If you want to be safer/further back and kite in circles, go druids. For molo abilities, both still apply and both classes can sit back and heal someone else (dps/warrior merc).
Why cleric is poor choice if someone wants to do something solo ? main reason - dps - killing any mob takes few times longer than any other class, if you want dps merc - your merc owns you in aggro, if you want tank merc - well, tank mercs sucks - even rogue merc is better choice (same amount of healing required, same aggro, far more dps). if your tank/melee merc dies - you have to look for shaman to get buffs because those mercs are useless without unity and haste.
Our soloing for xp requires little single target burn. If you can twincast a PBAE nuke for 4k twice on 100 mobs you just did 800k dmg in 1 second, beats what you can respite nuke for. One on one, yes, we suck for killing things, but that is something we try to fix, we have Fero and some other things to help our single target dps, we just dont get shaman/bard/serk/rogue/rng groups anymore
Playing a druid I can tell you, pick a shaman. Especially soloing, you want a shaman. Why? Shaman can slow mobs, and haste your merc. Those two things are worth a million plats. Whenever I solo with my tank merc, I spend 90% of the time healing them. Meanwhile, the dps on the mob is non-existent, as tank merc dps is awful. If you can haste the tank merc, they do better dps. If you can slow the mob, you can spend less time healing the merc and more time doing dps. Groups want a shaman for the buffs and the ability to add a lot of dps to melee classes. Plus you can slow mobs. Druids get druid skin, which is a nice buff but doesn't stack with cleric buff. However, shaman unity stacks.
In my dream world, I would build up a list of friends and guildies that when I log on, they would see me on and be like "hey, you are a sweet healer, and mercs suck so come xp with me here at x zone or x mission!!!" Of course that is a dream world, but one can dream. Since it sounds like, for the group game at least, either of them can keep a group healed at about the same rate, it comes down to do I want to solo swarm light blues as a cleric, or solo reverse charm, root rot, or quad kite. I like the druid for the versatility, but I like the cleric, probably due to reputation and my old school mindset, for the sheer healing power and go to healer class.
I really think that you _always_ trying to misunderstand me, or just put me in bad shape... Am i saying about xp ? No. I am saying about soloing. I have around 14kAAs atm and belive me - i know how to swarm to get xp. It is very easy for a cleric. As a cleric - try to solo anything in current zones - any class can, even rogue, without sweat. Only for cleric it is like "neverending story" because it takes to long to kill anything. And words that come from boxers are not worth anything here, because they don't know how to be a cleric, they know how their cleric is in their boxed group.
We talking molo or true solo? Asking because I kill very fast moloing with a wizard merc (just put it on burn and heal it). Solo-current stuff is impossible, have to go back a couple expansions for my skill ability personally. Wiz merc though blows it up in 1.5-2 min, compared to the usual 3-4 min if I'm soloing a similar mob.
I have been able to tank in current content for the last few years in group gear. I find it is easier to use a warrior merc and heal him, and in that light I can progress through bout everything. By finding any person with a dps merc at 95, was easily able to take down t4 named in VoA just with that 1 person. I fail to see where we fall short.
