]]>Someone posted on BoK that they thought that Priests, normally thought of as a “pure” healing class, are hybrids. Here was my two cents on the matter.
Reply:
]]>Meh. something I’ve believed for a long time. I’ve been on both sides of the screen, played a priest for 2 years and now am playing a pally.
Disclaimer: The following opinions only regard PVE content in a raid format
However, there’s a important distinction. There are two types (at least only two types of hybrids that I’m going to use in this discussion): role hybrids and methods hybrids.
Role hybrids are classes that can fit into multiple roles but not nearly as effectively as a “pure” class, i.e. druids, shamen, and pallies. Then there are method hybrids, whom have the same roles, but multiple ways of doing them, like healing.
Now, in terms of role hybrids, they have to be weaker in all of their roles, else there would be no reason to play a “pure” class. Why restrict yourself if you’re only going to be substandard right? As such, when doing raid makeups, when you are concerned with min/maxing for progression, the obvious choice would be to fill with a bunch of pures, with fewer role hybrids because you’re concerned with maxing your capabilities.
However, in terms of method hybrids, having more options is a good thing. Paladins have no options (which, having played a priest for a long time, IMHO, makes paladins one of the worst healers). You have 2 useful spells. Heal, and more bigger heal. Yes, there is holy shock, but for the most part, holy shock just doesn’t heal enough or scale well enough to be worth the GC a lot of the time.
One up the chain you have shammies, who have the same options you do, plus a smart aoe heal (chain heal), and a single target smart hot (earthshield). On top of that, a big insta on a timer. And thus I feel resto shaman’s are “better” healers.
Some of you will say, well… wtf. Shamans focused in pvp and they OOM faster and they don’t have blessings. Well… survivability is a separate issue, and blessings aren’t healing per se. Limit the discussion to heals. Mana longevity is a tricky subject, because different fights favor different healing styles and different healing needs. Better to just table the subject and assume that everyone is a hardcore player that will not oom in some trivial amount of time because they will blow consumables and such.
Druids are next up on the totem pole IMO, with many HOT options, a battle res (and ignoring the fact that they don’t have a normal res… this discussion is limited to PVE raids), as well as a limited large aoe heal, and a fast heal option through swiftmend/renew. And also a big insta on a timer.
On the top, I consider the priests, because they have the most tools at their disposal. Large fast heals, efficient slow heals, effective Hots, Good AOE heal ability, and a great ~1.5k insta on a 4 second cool (pw:s). It’s no NS, but having a quick ZOMG reliable 1.5k on your bench can save many lives.
Granted, there are a lot more than what spells are in your stable to good healers, and from experience as a pally tank, I know I’d rather have a good pally or shammy healer rather than a bad holy priest at my side, regardless of my thoughts on the class balance.
Personally, even though I may get flamed for my opinion, but pally healing IMO stinks. I guess when the only tool in your toolbox is hammer, all the problems of the world look like nails. Pallies get really hurt on battles where there are a lot of movement, because they have no hots to smooth the spikes, nor do they have a good way to mitigate damage from multiple sources. Heal… and more bigger heal. That’s it. Oh there are things I wish for… like a better heal COEF on shock, or some kind of fire and forget or some way to mitigate aoe… but sadly, the only thing that is sort of working right now is Holy Pallies. I want ret and prot to get some love first.
Pallies get it both ways. We’re both role hybrids and pure single target healers. We’re certainly good and keeping that 1 guy up.
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]]>BTW: There is a high res version of this trailer at gametrailers, but only the standard def one is embeddable.
Helps that I already loved Team Fortress back in the day, but still…
“Some people think they can outsmart me… maybe… maybe… But I have yet to have one who can outsmart bullet.” Awesome.
]]>WTF! I hate tangerines!
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Source: F@NB0Y$
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