From Dual-Boxing Wiki

Contents 1 Introduction 2 Healers 2.1 Offensive Healers 2.1.1 Priest 2.1.2 Druid 2.2 Hybrid Healers 2.2.1 Shaman 2.3 Defensive Healers 2.3.1 Paladin 2.4 Conclusion

Introduction

Any healer class will work, every one has it's pros and cons. It really comes down to player skill of the healer and your playstyle.

Healers are differentiated by:

#1 - The skill of the healer: It's easy to see the difference between a good and bad healer, for Arenas though there is a tier above that - your healer needs experience, although if your just starting out yourself you can let this one slide as your both on a learning curve. Now what do I mean by experience? Hopefully they have reached 1850+ rating.. 2k+ preferred previously at one point. Their gear also needs to be of high quality or at least comparable to yours. How do I gauge a good healer from an amazing healer? Try them out, start a team fresh and play 20 games, possibly more. At the 1500 rating you will play easy teams and as you move up the bracket they already have a feel for your playstyle and adapt to it. The #1 indicator I use to identify an amazing healer is when I no longer need to look at my health bars and can focus on offensive. If your able to do this then it is a keeper, no matter the healing class.

#2 The playstyle:

Are you offensive or defensive? Priest/Druid are more offensive type healers while Paladin/Shaman are defensive type.

Healers

Offensive Healers

Priest

Pros

• AoE fear can assist in ensuring easy Line of Sight kills, disrupting their offensive and pulling opponents away from LoS objects, pending if your alliance side can root/stun for 2 seconds with their racial.
• Pain Suppression is also a boon to avoid being insta-gibbed on your characters.
• Has powerful AoE Heals.
• Very good HoT's and ability to heal while mobile.
• Mana burn is an excellent offensive ability to shut down troublesome casters/healers
• The only class who can remove enemy paladin bubbles and ice block

Cons

• Do not have the mana efficiency to outlast opponents
• Very Squishy - talents and gear can help to reduce this

Druid

Pros

• Shapeshift to escape or absorb damage.
• The greatest strength of a druid is the ability to lock down a target in place long enough for you to take care of. * The element of surprise using Pounce while they are in stealth cat form, Roots, Feral Charge (talented), Cyclone, * Bash, or a combination of any provides you ample amount of time to lock down a target and blow it up.
• Able to heal burst damage better than anyone.
• Has 1 AoE heal
• Able to heal while mobile

Cons

• Also do no have the mana efficiency to outlast opponents, they are only able to last via running away and drinking which is usually not an option with this setup until later stages.
• Once burst heal is used - healing effectiveness goes way down

Hybrid Healers

Shaman

Pros

• Resto Shaman have very potent Chain heals which are able to heal the main and top off an AoE you may have taken. However, AoE is used infrequently in arena PvP, and is probably most prevalent in battlegrounds - particularly AV. Likewise, Chain Heal has a long cast time, draws a laserbeam pointing to your healers for enemies to follow, and only works when teammates are clumped in a small space.
• Nice burst heal via NS, and lesser healing waves for quick heals in a punch.
• Grounding totem is useful for absorbing large single-target spells and/or CC -- if you manage to time it well enough that it doesn't get eaten by something silly. Stacking shaman grounding totems is also very effective for multi-shaman groups.
• A Tremor Totem, particularly stacking tremor totem with other shaman in a "pulse stagger", can help break fears if you're in range of it.
• Mana Tide for long lasting fights (be careful - the animation is eye catching and mana tide is easily destroyed)

Earthshield to be placed on your main or on the healer, extra survivability

Cons

• Shamans may have a lot of pros but they have no instant cast heals (besides Nature's Swiftness), and are not mobile at all.
• No abilities to assist in locking down targets, so it is completely up to you to find kills. However, given appropriate group makeup, buffs like Heroism and assistive Purging can make up for this.
• 1 interrupt can dominate a Shaman healer, whose heals, lightning spells, and 3 totem types are tied to the nature tree.
• Earthshield currently is mana intensive, obvious, and dispellable/spellsteal-able
• Lack of CC or anti-CC makes Shaman an easy target

Defensive Healers

Paladin

Pros

• Very large consistant Heals.
• Blessing of Protection making melee heavy teams cake.
• Bubble providing 12~ seconds of non stop Heals without worry.
• Wears plate.
• Very mana efficient

Cons

• 0 instant cast burst heals (Holy shock buff may be changing this soon)
• Paladin stun seems to have a huge resist rate on it, so locking down targets is not plausible.
• Non-mobile, meaning easy lockdown.
• Multi-target damage is hard to keep up with

Conclusion

There is my assessment of what you can choose from. Besides the points that are made, it really comes down to how well you work with your teammate, your communication, and if it's your style.