Yup, resto shammy (Ulduar, up to Mimiron), resto druid and holy pally (both only done 3.0 raids) and my holy/disc priest, my main, my pride and joy (downed Mimiron, still in Ulduar and ToC). I gotta say, I like them all, in very different ways. My priest is probably my favorite just because of the extremely varied toolbox and the ability to switch between 2 completely different healing specs (rather than just 2 variations of the same spec). Here would be my sort of “round-up” (remember, these are just my opinions, YMMV):

Holy Paladin

Come a long way since the days when it was “big heal or little heal?” Keeping Beacon of Light on a tank lets you top off the raid or heal a second tank with ease, while gearing up in heroics Seal of Wisdom + Judgement of Wisdom gives you effectively infinite mana. Holy Shock seems meh until you come to rely on it, and it helps mix up your “rotation” (along with Sacred Shield). Fairly versatile solo-healing 5-mans, though situations with heavy group-wide damage will test you (Black Knight phase 3 comes to mind). Glyph of Holy Light just doesn’t cut it there, though it’s a nice little bonus, I suppose. Raid tank healers par excellence, but you knew that already. Handing out buffs remains annoying unless you have 3+, especially in groups with hybrids of different specs (we run with a resto, feral and balance druid). Tons of loot, though, because all spellpower plate – and a lot of mail, unless your comp is shammy-heavy – go straight to you; on the downside, the plate itself isn’t always itemized the way you might like, and the hunter rolled on the mail with haste and crit, despite spellpower, because he likes the way it looks. Also don’t forget about your Hands, they have saved many a DPSer’s hide. I also recommend looking into the Bubble spec, while not terribly popular, if you’re happy with where your crit is at without the ret talents you can bring some unique raid survivability to the group in the form of Divine Sacrifice.

Resto Druid

There are as many reasons to love druids as there are leaves on their branches. Exceptional HoTs, both single-target and AoE smart heal in the form of Wild Growth, coupled with a competent-to-amazing direct heal in Nourish and some fairly good need-heals-now buttons (Swiftmend and Nature’s Swiftness) make the druid a very balanced healing, particularly for smoothing out damage. Don’t underestimate a skilled resto druid in any role, though they’re typically put on raid healing. I personally like to have a druid along with dedicated tank and raid healers in 10-mans – the DPS loss is more than made up for in overall smoothness. Particularly godly on fights with steady-predictable raid damage. The need to switch out of tree form to help DPS if there’s not as much healing needed is unfortunate, but that’s what dual specs are for, and there’s enough itemization overlap between balance and resto that, while you won’t be topping any charts as a Boomkin in resto gear, you won’t be dead weight either. Battle rez is also a raid-saver at times, though the long cooldown means you need to be judicious about when to use it.

Resto Shaman

You will be put on raid healing – unless the raid leader hasn’t got the foggiest idea what he/she’s doing. Yes, the buff to healing wave and certain glyphs (LHW and ES for instance) can make you a viable tank healer, but… why would you want to when you can Chain Heal Your Way To Victory? Just bind every key on your keyboard to CH, roll your face on it, and reap the accolades! If you want a more involved playstyle, the Tidal Waves proc makes Riptide a fun spell to play with, and using it to up your shots at a LHW crit on the tank for some damage reduction from Ancestral Fortitude never hurts. Make sure your Earth Shield is up on the tank, Water Shield is up on you, you’ve got your Earthliving Weapon buff, and the right totems – and god help you if you have another shaman in the raid. Heroism/Bloodlust is OP, never raid without it – either it’ll get you through farm content that much faster, or it’ll let you pull of stuff you might have failed at otherwise. Rebirth also gives good wipe recovery, but in progression you’re better off saving it for when you go down while your presence could make the difference between victory and defeat. (i.e. do NOT pop it when there’s just a bubbles pally left standing) Overall, a fairly engaging healing style, particularly if you actually choose to use all the tools Blizzard has given us.

Holy Priest

Like the shaman, magnificent raid heals. Prayer of Healing, Prayer of Mending and Circle of Healing form the staples of true AoE healing, though Holy Nova and Lightwell should not be underestimated if your raid knows how to move together and use a Lightwell. Empowered Renew basically gives you a tick up-front the instant the renew lands – which can crit and proc all kinds of goodness. That and Flash Heal are tho go-tos when only one person needs topping up, and there’s some excellent synergy to be had – Serendipity will cause FH to reduce cast time on the next PoH (or GH – yes, it’s still in your spell book, no, you can’t delete it), and a renew crit can proc Surge of Light, giving you a free instant-cast FH… you see what I’m saying. Synergistic AoE heals could be the motto of this spec, but that would sound like MBA doublespeak, so it’s not. PvP Healing Form (sometimes also known as Spirit of Redemption) can also save the raid by allowing you to heal after your death, though you’ll actually take it for the spirit. (Fun fact: the buff tooltip reads “You have become more powerful than anyone can possibly imagine.”)

Discipline Priest

Typically you’d be tank healing, but disc actually makes for an interesting raid healing style, too. Your Power Word: Shield is highly durable, has no cooldown, instant-cast, includes a decent top-up heal with the glyph, prevents spellcasting interruption, cures cancer, and, contrary to what people may think, does not reduce rage generation for warrior or bear tanks – in fact, disc priest shields grant mana/rage/energy/runic power when they get used up, so the only person with any right to complain about a shield is possibly a prot pally who gets mana from Spiritual Attunement (direct healing -> mana) – though even then the energizing effect of a disc shield popping might outweigh it, I confess I haven’t done the math. As if all that wasn’t enough, it grants you haste for your next spell, and reduces raid-wide damage by 3%. Penance is also a fantastic spell – healing up-front and through the channeled duration, and not consuming the haste effect of a PW:S, you can Shield, Penance, and Flash all but the most stamina-stacking of tanks to full when incoming damage is going crazy. The downside of course is that you can’t shield any target that’s been shielded in the last 15 seconds, so I highly recommend configuring Grid (or whatever it is that non-grid heathens use) to have an indicator for both PW:S and Weakened Soul (the PW:S debuff). If you’re not busy, don’t be shy to toss a shield up on anyone who looks like they might be about to take damage – particularly casters, who won’t lose casting time while shielded. And if you’re feeling adventurous, you can raid-heal by using shields to haste your Prayer of Healing in situations that require it.

Priest (both)

Both Holy and Disc priest have some overlap – Fade drops aggro temporarily and is often all the incentive the mob will need to head towards someone else (I recommend using it as soon as you have aggro, or before, and not waiting until it’s eating your face). Divine Hymn is the holyiest of oh-holy-shit buttons, it’ll basically heal your raid to full, but beware: it’s channeled, and each tick is so fantastic you want to make sure you either won’t take damage or are shielded before you start the cast. In addition, both specs have a single-target Save – Pain Suppression for disc reduces incoming damage by 40%, Guardian Spirit for Holy increases healing by 40% (and will absorb a killing blow, healing the target to 50% if triggered in this manner). Both of those can be used to save a tank from certain death (or, technically, a non-tank character… but they probably shouldn’t be standing in whatever it is they’re standing in, instead). Raid buffs are also excellent – Fort is practically mandatory, and while scribes can hand out a fort buff, it’s equivalent to untalented fort – and you did spend those points in Imp. PW:F, right? Right.

Summary

So which class/spec to heal as? The biggest concern, if you have a guild already and want to reroll a healer, is synergy with your existing group. Don’t have a shammy, or need raid heals? Every raid should have a shammy, though technically an ele shammy brings everything a resto shammy does – and more – apart from CH Need strong tank heals? Roll up a pally, especially if you’re willing to forego group heals for (arguably) the strongest dual-target heals in the game. Have good tank and raid healers, but you want a certain je ne sais quoi to smooth out the gaps? Druids are not only versatile healers, but an ideal support healer – besides which, if you get fed up with healing you can fill any slot at all – tank, melee, or ranged, all with excellent raid utility. Unsure if you want to be raid healing or tank healing? Priests are extraordinarily versatile healers, and are the quintessential “I’m a healer” class. Shadow priests, I know you’re out there, but – why don’t you go Mind Control a Death Knight Understudy or a Dark Rune Warbringer or something and make yourself useful?

I’ve only scratched the surface here, and there are many playstyles and considerations I haven’t covered, and most of this has been from the perspective of raiding. For 5-man content, really any class will do (though Pallies will have the most obvious hard modes, while Priests will have something in their toolbox for every occasion – but really, whichever class appeals to you most is fine). For PvP, it’s a totally different set of considerations, and while I read about it plenty, I don’t think I’m qualified to state it without personal experience. The sum total of my PvPing is basically a weekend of AV in which my priest spent most of his time in PvP Healer Form, so.

Man, that’s a wall of text. I should stick that over on my still-contentless blog, 4heals.wordpress.com.

What to Expect

I’m an empiricist and a mathematician, but this is not intended to be, first and foremost, a theorycrafting blog. I caution that there may be posts with formulae and tables and that kind of thing, but you can safely ignore them.  I’d like to explore healing in general, starting with the fundamental question, “Why do we heal?” and moving on to the question so deep they may not even have an answer (I’m thinking here of “How do you get DPS to not stand in the nasty AoE in the first place?” I suspect the answer involves a skilled combination of bribery and coercion).

So the short answer is: a blog about healers, heals, and healing.  The title of this blog is intended as a play on the many meanings of “4 heals”.  ”Heals” often refers to the activity of healing, specific healing spells, or the healers who cast them.  I happen to have 4 healers now, and I intend to write 4 heals in the same way that Saurfang lives 4 the Horde.  Though somehow I have a hard time seeing him actually write it that way…

What’s Coming Up (Maybe)

Please, do not hold me to this, it’s more of a dump of some ideas kicking around my head. If any sound interesting, by all means encourage me to write about them. (Though to be honest, reverse psychology is probably a better bet.)

• Why I heal, at any rate
• Gearing up your freshly-80 Holy Paladin
• A few common “noob” mistakes, and how to avoid them
• Tanks: How to tell your meatshield something that might hurt their feelings (they’re hard on the outside, soft on the inside!)

I would warn you that I’m about to move across the Atlantic and thus will have little time to update this blog in the coming days, but one of the luxuries of having no readers is that I can take my sweet time.