Heal for 4.0.6. in a 4DK + 1Heal combo (5-boxing)

This was discussed in few threads before,
but not in depth and not for 4.0.6

I am not be familar with all classes (i only played a restodruid 3 month ago), but i think restoshamans are to weak atm, so i skip them.

In this forum i see mostly 4DK+Priest or 4DK+Pally.
Priest: Guardian Spirit or Pain Supression sounds nice, but doesnt prevent him from being stunned or silenced.
Paladin: Good manabudget and a 8sec bubble. But after these 8sek ... am i get owned?
Druid: a lot hots and wild grow, but the most deffensive tool, the tree, isnt very practicable for a multiboxer. And: as multiboxer you cant take the advantage of shapeshifting.

Mosg2 rhapsodize his pally, Noids love his priest, some like to play with a druid and ualaa says 'pally for arena, the rest for bg'.
Still after reading a lot of 4DK+Heal-Threads, i didnt came across with a clear decision.

because it is subjective and a lot to do with your comfort with the class, and your level of knowledge of the class. If you cant play a druid or priest, then go for something you know.

Paladins are good because they have defensive cooldown that matter, they have good healing and are solid in PvP. priests are squishy and require a lot more management, running and hotting, pillar humping etc.

druid treeform is the best thing for multiboxer, ever.. instant 15k heals? yes please..

shamans.. hmm don't use those. lol

The Paladin gets respectable self heals, by healing others.
As her own Beacon target, she can put out very strong self healing.
Bubble makes her immune to attacks for a short duration, except that a few classes can end that early; but she is a poor target for most compositions because of the bubble.
With cooldowns, her heal throughput is amazing.
Resistance Aura and Blessing of Kings are both strong buffs.
In 5's, you know the healer is going to be focused hard and fast.
They wear plate and carry shields.

The Priest has two healing specs.
Discipline used to rock, but isn't that great in the 4.0.1 game; not sure how it will be in 4.0.6
Holy has the ability to continue to heal, for a while after dying.
If your initial target has an immunity effect like a bubble, mass dispel ends that... making the priest a stronger offensive choice to help ensure the first kill target dies while you have the cooldowns up.
You can Fear Ward the first fear, and have an AoE fear too.
Fortitude is a decent buff.
A priest is relatively squishy in cloth.

The Shaman is an interesting choice.
Earth Shield helps to keep her alive.
The totems offer a lot of buffs, including the equivalent to the Paladin's resistance aura.
Tremor is now a party trinket for sleep/charm/fear effects.
You have Heroism/Bloodlust in battlegrounds, but no longer in arena.
Purge has been nerfed a bit, but you can still remove opposition buffs, which can make an impact.
Shammies wear mail and carry shields.

I like a druid healer quite a bit, but not so much with relatively little attention given the toon.
Initially she would be stealthed, which until you need heals is the strongest defense option for any of the healers... provided you are okay with them coming to you, or you moving slowly.
Innervate can be purged/spell-stolen/etc, but doesn't nerf the heal output and is less vulnerable than a Mana Tide.
Barkskin + Tranquility is probably the best AoE healing, although others are good too.
The class is dependent on HOTs on the target, so there is a ramp up time.
Tree Form is a major cooldown, for serious heal through-put.
Mark of the Wild, is the same as Blessing of Kings now; a scaling buff as your team gears up.
The class wears leather, and no shield.




Whatever you go with, is probably workable.
Each has its own strengths and weaknesses, at least in comparison to the others.

Once a healer toon is noticed, any smart opposition will focus you.
So the ability to survive while focused is a strong consideration.
Chances are you'll be focused sooner in arena than in world or battleground pvp.

A large part of this team is managing your cooldowns.
The DPS is one button spam.
But you have Icebound Fortitude, Pillar of Frost, Anti-magic Shield, Lichborne, etc to manage.
The less you have to do, to keep the team alive... the more you can automate the healing the better.

Mosg2 has a pair of macros which really spam Focus target with a lot of healing.
The focus can be changed relatively easily.
And the special abilities are mostly off of the GCD.
Being able to set up your healer in a similar manner will be a major plus.

As above, I think you can make any healer work. I initially went priest for mass dispel, which is quite nice, but not a game breaker for me.

When I started arenas I would have killed for a paladin healer for bubble. This is what makes them top of the tree IMO. I haven't tried druid since WotLK but used to use one for my shaman team for BGs and as Mokoi mentions the healing is almost perfect for a boxer.

Where they fall down a bit is in focussed healing and survival. As Ualaa says, there is a ramp up time due to HoT healing. Obviously single boxed trees are a force to be reckoned with but you have to think about your dps toons while boxing also which takes away from your ability to use their cooldowns etc. optimally.

I levelled my DKs using a shammy healer because it was the closest toon I had to 55 at the time and I was just going to grab one of my 80 healers when I got there. Group utility was excellent with resists, anti-fear etc. and nice group heals. What I found I missed though was another instant heal other than riptide. In situations where I was being locked down by a melee my healing as a shammy would plummet and I didn't really seem to survive much longer with mail and shield.

So if you want to arena I would pick pally at this stage. If you want to BG more then pick any but maybe more priest or druid.

if you 5 box, your only choice is a holypal for pvp.
all other healer classes need much more movement to be efficient.

if you run 4dks and have 12 fingers you can try a priest.
(priest mass dispells dks & dks grip protect priest)

how come shamans is bad ? i use atm 4dk + a shaman ( im 78 with all 5)

Thank you all for the informations.
Due the simplicity i level now a paladin. If iam not satisfied with him, i can still switch to my lvl 80 shaman or druid.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cookiebo

how come shamans is bad ? i use atm 4dk + a shaman ( im 78 with all 5)

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I wouldn't say shammie is bad necessarily. As I said, I levelled my DKs with shammies, but DKs are comparatively overpowered during levelling and when you are a fresh 85 fighting geared 85s you need a healer who is tough and unfortunately that is not the shammy.

My main issue with the shammy was that for my style I like to have a few instants so I can keep my healer on autorun and just steer while click healing my team. If you stand still as a healer against any sort of melee you will die a quick death and get very few heals off in teh process. In big BGs if you are allowed the luxury of turret healing then shammies are sweet due to the massive AoE heal capabilities but in smaller PvP situations they are not as good as the more mobile (priest/druid) or tougher (Pally) healers IMO.