Some T1 classes do little to nothing to help the group.. wizards and rangers come to mind off the top of my head. Chanters and bards are generally considered the utility classes because they bring the 'most' buffs to the table (plus the power feed on the chanters). If you're doing 'high end' content EVERY class, including healers, are expected to do a fair amount of dps. For the healers, utility and tanks, it's just not their first priority.
Question: does it matter that I probably will do very little, if any, raiding? I'm talking almost solely Heroics & Fableds at 95. Thanx again for the info!
Raiding is not much different from heroic content in some ways. Maybe the biggest change is the priority of heals vs cure. In a heroic setting a lot of times you can just heal through detriments. In a raid setting, you want that stuff cured ASAP or it could cause a wipe. Other than that the basic play style is the same... heal your butt off and throw in damage when you can.
LOL. And...when it comes to starting out as a healer, they might remember that you were pretty good dps, they will DEFINITELY remember you if you let them die...
Back on point, Wardens are very fun to play in group or solo. And once you get to know the class, you can out dps the casual playing scouts while healing a group. As far as utility goes, like previously stated somewhere in this thread, they basically just dps and buff sometimes. There really is no need for any kind of utility class in TOV aside from a handful of fights. Dirge became a very fun class for me, and I can always find a group.
No. As with all classes, they bring the same abilities to heroics and raids. There's 3 different priests, druids, clerics and shamans. I'll ignore Channelers as they are unique and I have very little idea about them. Druids cast heals over time that top up missing health. Wardens proc heals from meleeing also. Druids heals are pointless if everyone is at max health. Clerics cast reactants on either the player or enemy, that heals when damage is taken. Inqs can also proc heals and dmg from meleeing like wardens. Reactants are of benefit when everyone's at max health. Shamans cast wards that absorb damage rather than the players HP getting lower. Wards are of benefit when everyone's at max health. All have "normal" heals too that just heal for x amount, although druids have smaller ones that heal over time for the extra. Druids are the easiest to play as the strat doesn't really change. All their heals are HoT heals and you stack them as needed to keep up with the mob dps. Clerics and Shamans vary depending on the difficulty of the encounter. Some easier encounters only require casting the reactants or wards prior to the fight starting and refreshing them as they're about to run out. But harder fights requires the need to "normal/direct" heal as well because their primary heal type (reactants/wards) can't keep up.
