ok I want to (for my own purposes included) talk about holy priests vs resto shamans (i am not an expert in either, but I want to get it started with people who are)

also, I have not included Disc, but if someone wants to add Disc information here, please do, i understand they heal a bit differently than Holy, but i wouldnt want to make a post about them since i have never played them.


Lets take a look at whats similar:

Earth Shield / Prayer of mending.

Well, since you want heals on tank, Earth shield stays where you put it, and still heals for a ton of dmg when it is needed. Prayer, while offering more aoe healing due to its bounces, isn't guaranteed to heal a target in need, and bounces randomly to toons you are probably trying to avoid taking dmg on anyway.

Greater Heal / Healing Wave

Well, I haven't played a priest in a while as holy, but as I remember, greater heals were very slow and very large, offering little in the way of emergency huge healness.. and only offering an inner focus / GH combo which guarantees a crit, but still a slow cast, so not terribly useful in an emergency. Healing Wave, though still a relatively slow heal, if talented for it provides a huge healing option with increasing gains, and can be insta cast for those o shit sit's.

Renew / Riptide / Healing Stream

Well as for hots, a priest has an awesome renew spell which hits often and for a lot of HP, and is a very good spell for any healer to use. riptide, with a cooldown and not as much healing per tick is inferior to long lasting heals, but provides much more instant healing than renew. Resto shamans also have Healing / Mana stream totem, which when glyphed / talented provides a lot of passive healing to the group, and when stacked with other shaman totems can provide a good amount of healing over time on all targets at no mana cost is setup before a fight and able to last the entirety of the encounter.

Small Heals:

Heal or Flash heal are good spells, and lesser healing wave is equally as good, and when glyphed and talented, provides a lot of healing on your tank with earth shield on. These are staple heals and fairly similar. A Shaman will be able to heal like this longer than a priest I believe, because LHW is more mana efficient than the priest equivalents, please correct me if im wrong on this one, like i said, its been a while on a holy priest.

Bubble / nothing

This is where a priest really gets a free point, in bubbles, not only on tank but on anyone who needs it. This is a great dama mitigator, and an excellent buff for anyone. Unfortunatly it is not as well used on warrior or feral druid targets as they lose rage, but a minor problem on fights which generate tons of the rage you require.

Aoe Heals

Ok, so apart from healing stream totem, a shaman has no real good heal for everyone at once, but chain heal is much more mana efficient than any priest equivalant and can almost chain spam this spell an entire fight, and has recently gotten a much needed upgrade making it chain further and for more healing each jump. This is a great spell and can hardly be compared to any of the priests equivalent spells. It chains on people who NEED it and do not waste a jump if a target is in range who needs a heal. Prayer of Healing is also a great AoE heal but will drive the priest OOM very quickly is relied upon. Circle of healing is also a great spell, and heals for a lot of all targets are close enough, but has a cooldown and can not be spammed in situations where your DPS is taking a lot of dmg at once.

ok, just a short write up from my experience since im bored at work anyway, and please add or fix it as you guys wish, I am not a priest or shaman expert, but this can be a springboard for people to talk about the benefits of each healer class.

I would also be interested to see what people think of a druid healer here, since they have great aoe healing as well as single target heals and emergency heals. I would be inclined to take a druid healer before a priest healer i think.