What healerclass would fit the DK team mostly?

Hello, as with many of you im running 4x Frost DK setup for PvP/Arena, but have one of them Blood and 3x Frost while in HCs etc.

My goals with the team are not that high for arena but id like to give it a shot and se how far i can get etc etc. Im also intrested in PvE for the HC aspect of the game aswell as beeing able to fill out parts of raids in the future (but i concider myself a PvP person mostly).

So my question is like this; What healer would be the best option for me at this moment and what are the pros and cons of the diffrent healer classes ingame for this setup.

For me atm i am mostly intrested in adding a priest, since i dont consider the Pala bubble to be that much of a gamechanger as priest CDs would but thats just personal.

Discuss :)

Well you have four choices, as healer for your team.
- Druid
- Paladin
- Priest (Disc or Holy)
- Shaman

And three general ways you can use the team.
- PvE
- World PvP/Battlegrounds
- Arena

For heroics/10-man raids, the Paladin is probably the worst choice because of lacking mobility when healing and aoe/party heals.
Any other aspect of PvE, and any of the healers is likely as good as any of the others.

In BG's, I can see an argument for any of the healers working fairly well.
In Arena, the Paladin has the strongest case, but the Priest has good points too.
You know in Arena, or against smart opponents in BG's, your healer will be focused whether to be killed or chain CC'd.... and the Druid/Shaman basically have no immunity effects, while the Priest has a 50% reduction against burst and the Paladin has the bubble.



DRUID
Defenses
- Leather Armor, No Shield
- Start the arena match in stealth, probably not the first target... less useful in BG's, unless your team is willing to move very slowly.
- Solo, you can pillar hump... but probably not while playing four DK who are managing cooldowns.
- You can powershift in any form to break any root or snare.
- No immunity type clicks, when focused.
Healing
- Several instant cast HOTs which are nice, but also requiring a ramp up time which can be a weakness against target swaps.
- Very strong healing while moving.
- Wild Growth is good AoE healing, for any clumped group such as your DK's
- Treeform is large boost to healing power, on a cooldown.
Buffs
- MotW = Resist Everything + 5% extra Stamina.
Offense
- Root a melee
- DOT a rogue to keep them in combat


PALADIN
Defenses
- Plate Armor, Shield... with Resilience this is 80% physical mitigation.
- Bubble makes you the worst target on the team to go for, most compositions won't have the bubble breaker... and that is wasted DPS time, while the DK's put out serious hurt.
- Beacon of Light and Protector of the Innocent provides substantial passive healing, while healing someone else.
- Divine Protection offers 20% mitigation, basically half the time.
- Resistance Aura is substantial protection against Frost, Fire and Shadow damage.
Healing
- With cooldowns, nothing matches your healing through-put.
- Very simple to macro an utterly mindless healing chain on your focus target.
- No AoE heal.
- The "Big Button" is a massive boost, all off of the GCD (Aura Mastery, Divine Favor, Divine Protection, Guardian of Ancient Kings)
- Aura Mastery + Concentration Aura = guaranteed heals without interruption.
Buffs
- Kings = Resist Everything + 5% extra Stamina.
Offense
- Hammer to Stun/Interrupt something


PRIEST
Two Specs
- Disc, once geared provides powerful shields/mitigation.
- Holy, has strong AoE heals and provides healing after death, while gearing up.
Defenses
- Cloth Armor, No Shield
- Inner Focus is something for defense... probably close to Leather levels.
- Power Word: Shield, especially for Disc.
- Pain Suppression is not a Pally Bubble, but it is 50% reduced damage.
- Fear Ward, vs one fear.
- Psychic Scream, forcing one trinket or giving you time to heal unimpeded.
Healing
- An unmatched array of healing powers.
- Disc with Shields, Pain Suppression and Healing is the closest to matching the through-put of a Paladin.
- Lots of AoE heals and heals while moving.
Buffs
- PW: Fortitude is extra Health
- Shadow Resistance.
Offense
- Mass Dispel... to guarantee the initial kill target does not survive because of Bubble/Iceblock/Etc.
- SW: Pain, to keep a Rogue in combat.


SHAMAN
Defenses
- Chain Armor, Shield; 2nd best passively against melee.
- Earth Shield is not insignificant.
- Grounding Totem vs a nasty spell.
- Tremor Totem is the equivalent of a single extra trinket (vs Fear/Charm/Sleep) that is raid-wide, so hitting the entire group even if you're in different groups in a BG.
- Earthbind as a snare.
- No immunity effect if focused.
Healing
- Fairly strong healing, but not as much throughput as others.
- Some AoE heals; chain healing works, but isn't as strong as it used to be.
- Not the most mobile of healers, a little better than a Paladin but far behind a Druid or Priest.
Buffs
- Healing Stream provides the equivalent of Resistance Aura, except vs Fire/Frost/Nature instead of Fire/Frost/Shadow.
- Totems will provide something, but many overlap with DK abilities like Haste or Str/Agi.
- Underwater Breathing for PvE.
Offense
- Hex to CC someone.
- Wind Shear as an extra interrupt.

Great readin as always. I still do think that a disc priest could be the best option for me personaly. Reasons like massdispell and PS. I do think that a priest could be pritty tanky with stacked res on him aswell, but wel se about its still bitween pala or priest :)

Thanks for the info Ualaa.

Something to consider:

Priests, shamans and druids have been enjoying their extra resilience from using 2 pieces of shadow/moonkin/elemental gear and at the moment the more resilience you have the more one extra point is worth. After 4.1 resilience will start to scale linearly so everyone over 33% damage reduction will be nerfed and the 2piece resilience set bonus won't stack either.

A priest is great in world PvP to mass dispel. That's one thing I miss on my pally.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kicksome

A priest is great in world PvP to mass dispel. That's one thing I miss on my pally.

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Aye. Nothing gives me more satkisfaction than popping pally bubbles or ice blocks.

My main whinge on the priest is that it is hard for them to maintain healing if focussed or cced.

The most reliable way my team get killed is if the priest is chain cced or if he is focussed while one fo the DKs are also dpsed. The pally bubble not only keeps the healer alive in this situation, it kills cc and it stops interrupts. The only time I get this effect on the priest is when I die and get spirit of redemption. Also I feel that pallies make better single target healers for when dps switches to burst one of your DKs. Against >2k 3dps teams even with defensive cooldowns, I find it hard to keep a focussed DK up with priest spamming flash heal.

Credit to Mosg2.

The pally has two macros, for spam healing.
I basically have both of these, on all the DK spam keys, essentially a two-step.

Are the other healers as easy to macro?



#show
/castsequence [@focus,exists,nodead] Flash of Light, Flash of Light
/cast [@focus,exists,nodead] Holy Shock

#show
/castsequence [@focus,exists,nodead] Holy Shock, Holy Shock, Holy Shock, Word of Glory



In 2's, against double DPS who do not interrupt.
So far no two players have even been close to killing the Focus.

And that's not pressing the "big button"...
Guardian Kings, Divine Favor, Aura Mastery, Divine Protection and Trinkets.



The question wasn't entirely the PvP aspect, but also running the team through PvE Heroics.
With one DK in Blood spec/presence as a tank.

I've heard of, and seen a video of, running 4x Blood spec/presence.
Not caring which has threat, as they all have Death Strike, Rune Tap, Blood Worms...
And you still have a healer.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn--Long time no post :)

Right now I'm still leaning towards the Paladin if you're doing 5's. They've got the best survivability and can heal the longest throughout a 5's match so far in my experience.

Shaman is pretty tempting though for 3's.

Yeh well some things to add, im currently leveling up my 4x Demo lock team (will have 1 main that is full vicious atm and 3 new dinged slaves). I will have the helaer on a 5 account so he should be able to play with diffrent 4x teams on my 1,2,3,4 acc.

You think the healer "need" changes with that? im thinking of priest in this case cause of holy nova.
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=15237/holy-nova

If u also have [http://www.wowhead.com/spell=55683 shoudnt that be a wrecking ball with 4x demo locks thats dooing hellfire + 4 felguards that skillstorms? (For BG i should add, no aims in arena with these) :cool:

Anyway regarding the healer, i whant one that i can mix in with more teams if possible, without taking away good viablility from the DK team.

Can't comment on patch 4.1, but holy pallies were not really the strongest pvp healers in the past months. Whereas resto shamans are really powerful and really hard to kill. Offensive dispells & interrupts are easy to macro in, keeping riptide and earthshield up likewise. You have some very big heals on the shaman. You have grounding totem and an extra fear breaker and slow. And a hex. I never really understood why a holy pally was perceived as superior in the 4x dk team. The downside for a resto is that it's easy to lock you up for quite a bit. If being tunneled the pally can survive by using the bubble, but with all the cc & dg, a 4x dk team should be able to coop with that.

I'd see it currently as resto shaman > priest/druid, > holy pally. That's until today, I'm not up to date with all healing changes in 4.1

@zenga

Mostly, I think, people like the Pally because they're a terrible target for the other team. Due to their survivability you'll get about an extra 5 or 6 seconds of DPS with your DK's, unhindered, if they focus your Pally.

/shrug