What healer to play for shadowlands?

Community General Discussion
1

Hi,

Been wanting to level an alt healer as I’ve only ever been DPS in BFA for when shadowlands releases. But I have no clues what to chose.

Discipline or holy priests is the classes that interest me but from what I heard discpline seems to have one of the highest skill cap for too little reward and holy just doesn’t seem to make the cut in most content.

So any advice on what could be a decent healer for shadowlands? Im not necessarily looking for the " Best " healer class available but I also don’t want to end up with the worse possible spec for healing that doesn’t get accepted in M+/raid because it’s not meta.

2

I dont play a healer but if I did I’d play a shaman because that seems the most fun healer spec to me.

Also, SHAMAN KING!

Also, is it too soon to guess which healer is better for shadowlands?

3

Rdruid is always a safe bet.

2 Likes
4

Personally, Shaman, but Paladin and Druid are the ultimate choice as they can Tank, Heal and DPS, giving you plenty of options in the future. RDruid is always desired and HPaladin is low-key stronk.

RShaman is pidgeoned into raid-healing (where they shine), whereas not as desired for M+, and it can only swap to two different DPS specs if you want to mix it up (and regret your spec choice). Shaman has been stuck in a loop for quite some time, whereas the rest always seem to go places (eventually).

Ultimately, however, you should go with your gut, not what people tell you. Most will just name their favourite healer. Only you will know what you want to play and what you want to stick with.

2 Likes
5

Druid all the way

6

Honestly, play whatever you’re interested in, make a class trial and experiment a bit.

Don’t let people saying one spec is bad, or good but difficult, discourage you from trying a new class and deciding for yourself whether you like it or not.

Disc is great and has a somewhat unique mechanic of healing.

Hpriest is a great entrypoint for healing since it has very intuitive healing mechanics.

Druid is one of my favorite classes in the entire game and restodruid always has great potential.

Paladin, being effectively a melee healer, also has some sort of uniqueness to it that people find enticing. Its also got great utility spells with Freedom, BoP and auramastery.

Shaman has an incredibly fun playstyle as well as spirit link totem, which is one of the strongest raidcds, as well as works through necrotic. Plus it can turn into a ghostwolf which is pretty swell.

And Monk can probably convert his mana into hps five times as quickly as any other healer can, I’ve never died having a mistweaver in my group, unless it was a oneshot or the monk went oom.

They’re all great in their own way and all of them are at the very least playable.

I don’t recommend choosing based on recommendations or whatever’s currently the fotm. I recommend finding whatever you enjoy playing. Because unless your goal is to play as effectively as possible, your goal should always be to have as much fun as possible. And playing a class you don’t like won’t end up in said thing.

That being said

Disc > Hpala > RShaman >= MW Monk > Hpriest > Rdruid

That’s regarding my personal opinion regarding how much fun the respective spec is, no matter how strong or weak they’re currently considered as.

Purely from a raidperspective as well, MW Monk and Rdruid would climb a fair bit while disc and shaman would drop a fair bit for m+.

3 Likes
7

From a purely fun perspective, Mistweaver is looking to be awesome in Shadowlands. With the Night Fae covenant ability, the Ancient Teachings of the Monastery legendary, we’ll be a major source of amazing kicks and stomps and all kinds of misty healing stuffs. (Other Covenants work quite well too, Night Fae is merely the one that synergises best with the Rising Mist build, which happens to be my favourite. :P)

And Brewmaster is looking okay too, if you ever want to switch to tanking.

Resto druid is also always a safe choice, and is fun to play too. I found that it requires a bit more awareness, because you need to put the HoTs up in advance, and you’re less reactive than a Mistweaver. Mistweaver has to prep and ramp up too, but they have more “oopsie” buttons (with cocoon, revival, and TfT+env mist).

3 Likes
8

Or you know if you are not aiming for world first just play what fits to youe playstyle becouse otherwise you will be stuck with class you dont enyoj just for performance numbers when you clearly dont need them.

9

I’m considering night fae MW also. Faeline stomp looks really fun

2 Likes
10

Don’t pick priest if you don’t like not getting accepted in m+. I get pretty much insta invites when I apply to groups on my paladin, my priest has a far harder time to get invites to groups.

1 Like
11

Monk looks fun in shadowlands.

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12

Hunter.

Always hunter.

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13

On a serious note I’m afraid I’m not qualified to say, but please enjoy my terrible humour.

8 Likes
14

Completely depends on your skill level with healers. Are you comfortable going in melee and dodging extra mechanics? Then pally/monk are for you. Do you play with people who take as little damage as possible (i.e good interupts/stuns/dodging stuff). Then resto dru/disc is a good choice, not as much burst healing if people are getting wrecked by avoidable damage. I’d say mistweaver is a safe bet for random groups, with solid heals and good burst. And resto shammy shines more in raids. Completely depends on the content you do, and the group you play with, and your skill level.

1 Like
15

hunters can be healers shooting frendly with a healing arrows just like Anna in overwatch. :stuck_out_tongue:

16

Just pick what’s decent in BfA and go off from there is my best advice.

17

Basing decisions on what is good now (with no emphasis on what the player actually feel like playing - which is more important) is setting yourself up to play something based on an external perception which can drastically change in one patch.

Example - I was maining Prot Warrior for the duration of MoP and Legion, yet the introduction of BFA absolutely hammered Prot Warrior into the dirt. Just tanking regular dungeons was rough, nevermind Mythic+. It was the most unenjoyable experience I had in a long time, and I’ve been class-dabbling since vanilla. If you enjoy a class enough, you’ll stick with it, or wait for inevitable change, so I swapped to my Prot Paladin and, shock horror, once I considered making that my main instead, Prot Warrior was over-buffed two patches later.

Don’t be one of those people who decide based on what others are saying - because 99% of what others say will have no bearing on you, what you want to achieve, what you consider fun, and is always subject to being shaken up as soon as the dev team start balancing.

There will be people out there closely studying Shadowlands and making plans long before it even arrives - and there’s no guarantee those plans will be cemented due to everything being subject to change. What’s more important than subjective opinions on what someone else should play is figuring out what YOU want to play, and a good way to start is to use the Class Trials to test the one’s you’re interested in.

Tip, you can skip the class-trial tutorial by using your hearthstone on the boat immediately. This sends you to your main city and gives you the freedom to pick any spec rather than having to do that obnoxious tutorial as a forced spec.

Try it.

18

Well, bandage guns are indeed a thing.

19

From my perspective whats generally good continues to be good later on, say Hpally, which is my main. Of course player enjoyment matters as well, some may like the MW style more.

Also, its super tough to make a decision based off the class trial due to borrowed power and different scalings.

20

My shaman.

I will most likely start with the alliance shaman.