Just arrived form WOW and need some advice from experienced raiders.

[Glendorin]

<p>Hey guys.  I had played this game years ago and gave it up to go to wow.  Ive been playing wow for many years now and am a healer in a progression raiding guild.  I am seriously considering canceling my wow subscription and coming here full time.  Can someone with raid experince tell me which is the best healer for end game progression?  I have tinkered around with all the healing classes here and I enjoy each style of healing equally well. Thanks for your time and I look forward to your opinions.</p><p>Stacey</p>

[Griffildur]

<p>The best healer for raids is the healer that can actually do his job without being told when to cure / heal / ward etc. and what the little buttons on their keyboard actually do.</p><p>Every healers has plusses and minuses and pretty much all types (or most) are part of a raid setup.</p><p>You're not going to be useful until you learn to play whatever class you'll end up playing. You'll need to hit lvl 90, no one will even consider you until that point, then you'll need decent AA, spells, equipment.</p><p>Your best bet is to get into a guild, learn your class, do everything mentioned above and after that try to get into a raid. Spend some time in the classes forums and read about every type of healer. A good healer is welcomed regardless of their class,a crap one won't see much raiding/grouping anyway. Maybe go on some pickup raids, there are some being formed all the time. Group a lot, do instances a lot because this will help learn your class.</p>

[Jerath]

<p>Depending on the raid guild and its needs.... You'll see every Priest class employed, and in different variations.</p><p>Some variations that are popular are Defiler / Templar for the MT, or Warden / Mystic.Inquisitors are definitely appreciated on raids, in no small part from their <strong>"Verdict"</strong> spell...I have seen Furies having a blast solo-healing a group of casters, and doing more strenuous duty as well.</p><p>But yeah, ultimately, you'll see all healers being used in a myriad of ways. Ultimately, eidand makes a good point though: the better you know your Priest class and the better you know its ins and outs, the better a healer you will be to a raid force, no matter what your role is <span style="text-decoration: underline;">in</span> the force.</p>

[Prestissimo]

<p>Not only how well you know your healer, but how well you know the different tank classes most notably their strengths and weaknesses when it comes to survivability.</p><p>Knowing what fighters can take what levels of punishment will allow you to much more realistically tackle the task of keeping them up, and although this seems like very simple 101 knowledge, you'd be very surprised that there is a very large number of healers that do not understand that what is the bane of one fighter is the bread and butter of another fighter. Knowing what those spots are will help you know if a swash will get ganked by aoe agro from all those dozens of adds (brawlers) or if the tanks going to take a large amount of spike damage from an ability absorbing a hit on a squishy (guardian) or that certain tanks when fighting adds perform more heal efficient when the attack physically lands and is healed by a reactive or HoT (paladins).</p><p>TBH, I'd honestly either recommend leveling a fighter along side your healer or spending some time looking at the roster of fighter abilities on eq2 wiki because knowing what you will face both in your target's survivability requirements as well as what the mobs can dish out is literally 90% - 95% of the battle in terms of being a good healer.</p><p>Aside from that, shaman's wards take first priority and are more survivability oriented so are typically more desired when it comes to progressing new content, cleric heals apply right after the damage is dealt (however it's usually small heals) and have good buffs and debuffs which makes them good for fighting content that isn't trivial but isn't pushing your force to the brink of death, and druids can restore tons of health which makes them good for filling up the currently massive health bars after a big aoe goes off.</p><p>As the expansion progresses, the harder mobs will become much easier as the gear to fight them becomes more available which will diminish but not remove the edge shamen survivability gives and increase the benefit clerics provide, and as the gear is more available, shamen and clerics will be more capable of handling larger healing demands as well as other class survivability will diminish the druids edge.</p><p>My recommendation:</p><p>Your safest bet is shaman at this stage or cleric for later expansion. If you know your stuff, playing as a druid will allow you to be the most versatile and once you're established even having your effectiveness "diminished" wont stop you from being effective. Your main value will be from knowing what you're doing and what role you fill as your class and how well you can mitigate your classes weaknesses.</p>

[yzyh]

<p>Yep this game isn,t like WoW where you'd replace every single healer by holy paladin while keeping a single priest (for the 3% shield buff castable on 1 target)</p><p>First you must know that priest are as close as beeing balanced as they will ever be.</p><p>Assuming everyone is a skilled priest in your guild you'd still want to run with 5 different priest (all but warden). Warden are great healer and a good one will easely make it into a good raiding guild.  But wardens buff/tools are a little more designed for the Main Tanking group while their is other priest bether for that job.</p><p>Buffing is huge in this game this is why "period" you won't see guilds running with 3templar or 3fury etc.</p><p>Also curing is a big part of a healer jobs, it is one of the reason why skill is so important in this game.</p><p>Just pick up any priest you like the gameplay. If he hapen to be bad in raid at anytime of your life, just betray to his counter part.</p>

[Arielle Nightshade]

<p>Agreed. There's no 'best' healer or we all would have rolled that one. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>