• What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer? I have two healers: Johannah, Holy priest (who smites, never Discipline!); and Kourtnie, Restoration shaman
• What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans) All of the above, but raiding takes the cake. Mostly 10-mans; 25-mans once in awhile. I do PvP as a healer too though in both battlegrounds and arenas, and who doesn’t do the heroic daily!?
• What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?
  • Priest: Gotta be Guardian Spirit; glyph it up and you get 150% healing boosts really often! Circle of Healing and Divine Hymn are close seconds though.
  • Shaman: Earth Shield. I like to make a game out of seeing if a tank can get through a heroic with only Earth Shield and Riptide.
• What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?
  • Priest: Binding Heal, which is terrible, because it’s an excellent spell. It’s not that I don’t know it’s there, it’s that my health is usually the last thing on my mind. I think if I had to pick one to consciously forget, it’d be Greater Heal, because I’m much more focused on raid healing that trying to nab large chunks of damage off tanks. Our paladins do a dandy job on that.
  • Shaman: Chain Heal, and this is why I switched to Holy priest as my raider. I understand that 3.2 boosted Chain Heal significantly, but my play style just veers more towards fast-action spells and it’s undeniably slow to cast. Circle of Healing provides that nom-nom-nom smart heal goodness in an insta-cast form.
• What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?
  • Priest: Holy priests are strong raid healers, and this is where my healing enjoyment truly lies. In a pinch though, I can tank heal, and this is definitely a plus for the class. Priests also have so many spells, so the fun factor for healing is always there.
  • Shaman: Totems, totems, totems! Who doesn’t love them? And your armor is significantly higher than those squishy priests, too. Unfortunately, the slow raid heal spell didn’t agree with me in a burst-damage expansion like Wrath of the Lich King.
• What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?
  • Priest: Real easy to die. This definitely shows in PvP situations, but even in PvE, if you don’t have Fade and that new OT is a menace, you’re done for. My shaman spoiled me with her ability to sustain herself by spamming Lesser Healing Wave and relying on heavy armor.
  • Shaman: Too slow.
• In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you? Raid healing in both situations, but a Restoration shaman does a better job at tank heals than a Holy priest does if there’s a lack in the tank heal department.
• What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?
  • Priest: I love me a paladin. Since Holy priests are so strong on raid heals, the paladin’s tank healing capabilities really compliment well.
  • Shaman: Druid. I cast burst heal all day with Lesser Healing Wave, so let’s get some slow and steady HoTs!
• What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?
  • Priest: In 10-mans, another Holy priest. We need another tank healer in there! In 25-mans, druids. They like to raid heal, but my Circle of Healing is going to eat up that damage they’re rolling HoTs over whether I want it to or not–smart heals are mean that way.
  • Shaman: Paladin. You’ve condemned me to raid heal service and I get you think Chain Heal is awesome, but I am actually a big fan of Lesser Healing Wave on top of my nifty Earth Shield.
• What is your worst habit as a healer? Freaking out. Seriously, never Prayer of Healing without Serendipity 3, and don’t rely on Chain Heal when bad things are happening. Any slow spell means dead man with WotLK’s ridiculous burst damage output.
• What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing? Don’t tell me you need healing. Especially don’t tell me if someone else needs healing. I see it. Promise.
• Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing? Definitely. I’ve never thought any healing class was weaker than the other enough that it’s unbalanced, though.
• What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer? Meters. I know everyone likes to say that meters don’t tell the whole story, but if you use them right, they can help out a lot. Don’t just check how your heals were in the fight. Check these things too: Overheals; dispels; mana regeneration. Compare yourself to other members of your class/spec. See how you’re doing. It also lets you get an idea of the strengths/weaknesses of the other classes. For instance, paladins do great heals, but their overheals are something else!
• What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?
  • Priest: When people don’t realize the wildly different mechanics between Discipline and Holy. Both specs can raid heal and tank heal. Both specs can bubble. Both specs can HoT. But one spec is better at one of those roles than the other, and people should be aware of those strengths and weaknesses.
  • Shaman: OMG, that we can’t tank heal. I Hate That. With capitals.
• What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn? Whether they should use Spirit or mp5, and how to balance their mana, haste, and spellpower. It’s not just priests and shamans, but every class. Druids and priests should use Spirit, shamans and paladins should use mp5. Simple as that. Also, if you never go below 90% mana, get yourself some haste. If you’re oom constantly, stop stacking haste and focus more on your regen stat.
• If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)? I am the lowest overheals! /flex. Seriously though, I’m always high heals output, and I’m always pretty low overheals output. I have a reputation for being a good healer, and I really believe that’s because I’ve been doing it since vanilla. It’s all practice. Classes are just flavor; it ultimately comes down to the player.
• Haste or Crit and why?
  • Priest: Both, please! In equal measure!
  • Shaman: Crit, crit, crit, crit! Did I mention crit? Crit gives mana back thanks to the WS talents, and you’ll get Focus Magic if you tell people you have a 50% crit rating.
• What healing class do you feel you understand least? Paladins, because I’ve never played them. I’ve even played druid heals in Wrath content, but I’m not good enough about it to warrant discussing it in detail! You must be a masta grasshoppa to offer advice to others.
• What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing? I used to use HealBot. I recently switched to Grid and mouse-over heals after our uber paladin, Ariadnia, told me it’ll clip off half-second stalls on my healing. I use Bartender4 to manage my explosion of buttons.
• Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?
  • Priest: I gem Spirit even though I read I’m not supposed to. I have an obsession with Body and Soul and it’s ability to save people that are running behind with things like deep breath, and PW:S is a mana sink, so that’s how I try to counteract it. I also stack a little more crit than most Holy priests because I’m a Surge of Light fan. Part of what I love about priests is that they allow this kind of flexibility in stats.
  • Shaman: I have serious crit addiction.

Part of this is tagging two others to participate, so I’m going to choose these two bloggers:

1. The Unconventional Priest, which is now a smite priest blog! ZOMG, go read it, it’s going to be uber!
2. Unbearably HoT, because I’d like to learn more about druid healing; not to mention every entry is dripping with sexual hilarity and I’d love to instigate another potential post.

Check out the Circle of Healers to others that have participated in this questionnaire. This whole thing was started by Miss Medicina.

Restoration shaman in Ahn'kahet.

First, a little background.

Last time we looked at shadow priests versus smite priests. If you’re interested in playing a smite priest though, chances are you aren’t a hardcore DPS’er. You found out about this spec because you were playing with your Holy tree and a lightbulb turned on–or because you were trying to figure out how many Smites you could squeeze into that window where you weren’t healing before your raid leader asked what you were doing. Since one of the reasons you’re playing a smite priest is because you also fill healing roles, why not look at how your healing role pars up to the other “raid healing class” that comes with Lightning Bolts instead of Smites?

At least half the time, I’m healing raids. I actually discovered smite priest spec with Johannah as a raid utility in Burning Crusade because we kept having healers show up for a raid here and there, and without dual specs and with a craving to keep my gold, I designed a spec that could fill both roles in a pinch.

When Johannah was moved from smite priest to the primary raid healer role though, I became frustrated. During Burning Crusade, the shaman Chain Heal was astronomically better than anything I felt Johannah could do. Burning Crusade priests were the slush second place of all healing roles; overshadowed by the paladin on tanks, overshadowed by the druids on HoTs, overshadowed by the shaman on raid heals.

So I went for a class that wasn’t second place and ended up with Kourtnie the Restoration Shaman NINJA.

Side note: In vent, NINJA is pronounced “Neeeeenja,” not just “Ninja.” Ninjas, lowercase, are people that take gear. NINJAS, uppercase, are just awesome.

Restoration shamans versus priests in Wrath of the Lich King.

I was doing great healing with Kourtnie the NINJA until WotLK came out. At first, I had respect for the fact that priests could once again resume a real place among WoW healing society; if a holy priest could raid heal efficiently, that was great. When Prayer of Healing whooped Chain Heal into the ground though pre-3.2 though, my tolerance started to grow thin.

Here are some charts on the spells I used for the bosses in the Tournament of Crusaders raid, with the play style I was accustomed to before the Chain Heal fixes:

Bad LHW habits are bad...

...but are encouraged by Chain Heal's setbacks.

Notice that Chain Heal is, sadly, on the bottom of the list. Since then, Chain Heal has been bolstered by a couple things:

• Inclusion into Improved Water Shield’s proc, increasing mana efficiency.
• Changes to Tidal Waves so that Lesser Healing Wave (Chain Heal’s previous WotLK replacement) no longer gains any haste and Healing Wave (and therefore Healing Way) actually become useful additions to the rotation.

There are still two fundamental flaws though:

1. Being in a raid where the raid members will not stick together. This is not a case for larger, organized guilds, but many guilds that are not as accustomed to strategy will encounter this frustration [that is often shortened as N00bism]. Prayer of Healing has 30 yards, so it’s more prone to cover the raid-tards.
2. Casting time. Prayer of Healing is going to have this problem too, but then there’s several other spells besides Lesser Healing Wave and Riptide that a priest can rely on when you’re in that speedy crunch, such as Circle of Healing and Prayer of Mending. And trust me, when someone’s about to die and one second feels like a hundred years, the shaman goes with the Lesser Healing Wave over Chain Heal.
   1. First argued caveat: “The Tier 9 set bonus further bolsters of Chain Heal.” The priest’s Tier 9 set bonus, however–at two pieces instead of four–bolsters one of their unique raid healing spells, Prayer of Mending.
   2. Second argued caveat: “Chain Heal is a ’smart heal’ and will only target those that need healing; therefore, it is the superior raid healing spell.” Priests have a smart heal as well, Circle of Healing. You might have to spec for it, but then again, if you’re specced as a Discipline priest, aren’t you more interested in tank healing than raid healing?

Thus, priests are more reliable healers than restoration shamans. (If you’d like to see my totally borked counter-argument for shamans, visit the “Forget Priests!: Seven Reasons to Play Another Healing Class” post at Kourtnie the Shaman.)

Smite the world away, priests! On those days when your guild has too many healers on, why play elemental when you could be doing something really cool like HOLY SPELLS? And when you could heal with two different specs, no less? Priest healing wins.