best tank healer

[ioask4it]

Hi,
I am interested to find out what is the best tank healer, in raids.

I am thinking at discipline priest or holy paladin.
You, what do you think about it?

Thank you

[Quinafoi]

When in doubt, choose C.

C. The one that casts heals on the tank.

A lot of the the "tank healer" and "raid healer" mentality doesn't apply very well in Cataclysm. On most encounters I'll find my "tank healer" doing like 40% healing to the tank and 60% healing to the raid. And I'll find my "raid healer" doing 30% healing to the tank and 70% healing to the raid.

On the vast majority of fights these days you will find very considerable cross healing. Why? Because no one dies in one hit. The tank will live if you don't spam heals on them constantly often long enough for you to mix in a heal on someone else. Likewise with raid healing the people in the raid won't die in one hit so you may mix in a cast on the tank.

[squats]

Hi,
I am interested to find out what is the best tank healer, in raids.

I am thinking at discipline priest or holy paladin.
You, what do you think about it?

Thank you

While i agree with Quinafoi, if i had to choose id say disc priest. Just because shields help the tank so much

[Megacode]

Between my Holy Pally and Disc Priest I prefer Tank healing on my Holy Pally. Nothing beats throwing HoSac on tank coupled with a DL during big damage spikes. Disc can definitely do the job but I just find it easier on Pally.

[squats]

Between my Holy Pally and Disc Priest I prefer Tank healing on my Holy Pally. Nothing beats throwing HoSac on tank coupled with a DL during big damage spikes. Disc can definitely do the job but I just find it easier on Pally.

It just seems easier because you can see the amount that your healing. Disc priests prevent healing so you dont get that feeling. unless your looking at recount that is.

[Liliyah]

Holy paladin. That's not to say other healers aren't able to tank heal, but a holy paladin is best suited for the job. Strong single-target throughput and beacon of light makes them really stand out.

[Icebreaker]

And a lot of very nice cds

[Blue]

It's not a question of what...it's a question of who...

As Disc, most of the time, I'm going to be casting on the tank(s), anyway, because I'll get more healing done (and mana return), by targeting those who take damage the most consistently. So, go ahead and assign a pally to tank heals--I can do raid, too. It's like what has been described. There's a lot of, "heal and shield, where and when", instead of "spam the tank, and pray for a break".

And, besides, whom shall I Smite/Heal, the hapless Fury Warrior?

[Theotherone]

I think I'd take a Disc priest, but I'm biased.

I heal as Disc too and if I could just ignore the raid and focus on the tanks, life is easy. Right now shields are, imo, overpowered. Even with the increased mana cost, they can pretty much be tossed on the tanks liberally. Raid buffed they're absorbing the first 30k of damage, couple with with an Ageis proc and that's another 5k and if I get an Inspiration Proc that's a 10% damage reduction and PoM is another 5k damage mitigated; basically, the boss needs to start of with a 40k+ hit to make me notice. Spam smite and, when it hits, that's a 12-15k CoH basically.

[Loganisis]

Um... As a tank... WTB Disc AND HPally? I loves them both!

That being said:

Disc gives me more margin for error by reducing damage intake, so for progression fights, Disc might be slightly better. And then once you have feel for the fight, HPally's nukes are joys.

I still want both though because I'm greedy and as I tank I'd love to have either! (Well, unless the druid is actually a better healer, better at prediciting damage and being proactive, in which case I'll take him, since player > class!)

[Aaran]

This is an impossible to answer question. It not only differs by encounter, but also based on the player of each class. Both specs make for strong tank healers, and each bring their own unique abilities.

If you are however, trying to figure out assignments for your raid, it is much more common to put the paladin on the tank and the disc on the raid. This likely has less to do with their strengths as a tank healer, and more to do with Disc's strength as a raid healer.

[Crittable]

Personal preference with a good raid group:
I enjoy FFA healing assignments when the healers know how to work with each other. Shaman earth shields the tank and heals raid and tank when they need it, disc priest shields who they see fit and heals anyone who needs it, holy pally beacon the tank and heal who needs it, holy priest CoH/PoH their butts off but while keeping a renew on the tank and throwing spot heals when needed, druids being druids and doing whatever they do with the changes that cata brought them.

Personal preference when tanking:
In heroics, I prefer everything but a disc priest because I have felt rage starved with the bubbles they use. It's been since before Cata that I had a disc priest as a healer so I haven't judged rage generation while bubbled in quite some time. It might be different.
But, as a tank, I feel safe with whoever is healing me as long as I trust them as a healer. The person, not the class.

[Aaran]

Shields no longer affect rage generation. They changed this in early wrath.

[Crittable]

It couldn't have been early wrath because I was feeling it in ToC. Could have been mid to late wrath since I hardly run with disc priests. However, if that's true, then disregard most of the second half of my post. The player over class sticks, though, as others have said.

[mistraele]

with what healing i have done so far (only 4/12) with my guild on my alt holy priest, keeping up a tank isnt really an issue (provided its not a idiotically geared stam stacking one) even for my priest.
to be honest, having done disc and holy, i prefer holy for raid healing now. better aoe heals and i dont feel disadvantaged either if im stuck with tank healing duty.

[klausi]

The question shouldn't be: "Who's the best tank healer?" it's "Who's the worst raid healer?" or "Do we need/want Inspiration/Ancestral Fortitude for this fight?". We regulary use paladin or druid for maintank healing because we get better results using our priests (both disc and holy) and shaman on the camp. This greatly differs from playerskill, raidsize and class synergies.

It couldn't have been early wrath because I was feeling it in ToC.

Changed with patch 3.1 on 14th of April '09, Ulduar release

[ioask4it]

indeed is the player not the class. Example: at the 2nd boss @ BoT. That boss can be played with the minimum item lvl required for raids because 99% form wipes is because the bad tactics (blackout, engulf magic, etc).

But in 80% the raid leaders puts a pally to heal a tank, perhaps it has more advantages (compared with other healers)

[Airowird]

C. me!!

If the Disc Priest needs to be Disc, I'ld go with him for the Inspiration (unless you already have a Shaman doing Ancestral Healing)
If the Disc can go Holy, perhaps it would be better for him to be raid healing.
Unless ofcourse you can have your Paladin Beacon the tank & raid heal and the Disc Priest doing some smiting in between.

[Crittable]

Changed with patch 3.1 on 14th of April '09, Ulduar release

Thank you for the clarification. It always seemed that I felt more rage starvation with my warrior tank when I had a disc priest, but apparently it was just me.

[feralminded]

There's a ton of options available really. In 10man as Disc I can manage to nearly keep up both tanks in most encounters (exceptions being insanity like HM halfus, but I do most of the healing on both tanks on HM Omnitron or HM Magmaw or HM Maloriak). Still you get lots of help these days as raid-healing druids will always roll their lifebloom, raid healing paladins will always beacon the MT, and raid-healing shaman will always roll their earth-shield. Even when I am exclusively on tanks I still at most account for 70% of their healing.

Paladins are super-heroes on tanks as well due to their huge amount of very strong CDs. As a disc I really don't have much for reactive cooldowns (PI and PS are proactive). That aside outside of the CDs I feel better equipped as disc ... but reactive CDs can make all the difference. In iffy fights like HM halfus I think the paladin has the edge and that's likely all that matters.

Holy priests are just terrible for tanks, specially once you see HMs or Cho'gal. Shaman are *ok* at best. They have HUGE bombs these days but it's still not enough to handle the rigors of serious tank healing. Druids are actually modestly good tank healers with several very strong hots keeping a tank stable though they can run into trouble if their tank takes unexpected spikes. That said a druid healing a mastery-loaded warrior can probably do it nearly forever. Druids are fantastic mobile tank healers though for things like nef p3 (depending on your strategy).