Has anyone in Beta worked out the best way to level a healer?

[Swifthoof]

So, specifically I have a few questions:

Is the rumor that you have to pay money every time to switch between your healing spec and your dps spec true?

Is there any way to level in your dps spec but put your artifact power into your healing weapon?

How far behind will you be if you don't bother with healing spec until you reach max level?

If I level in my healing spec, aren't I going to have to get DPS spec anyway to do max-level world quests, dailies and rares?

In order to do max level solo content and survive in world PvP aren't I going to need a certain amount of DPS artifact traits?

Is there any way to respec an artifact weapon, if you get it wrong?

It seems to me that this is something you could really screw up, if you get it wrong, costing you hours and hours of game-play. I simply don't believe that leveling as a healer is remotely viable, or that end-game solo content is viable as a healer either. Nor do I want to be wandering around the PvP world as a free HK.

So what is the best way to approach this?

[Greebo]

They swear up and down that there should be no time difference levelling healer vs tank vs dps. No clue how they reach that conclusion though.

From yesterday's dev interview:

Healer Leveling and Talents

The team put effort into improving healer damage and healer soloing in Legion, so players are now able to level more as a healer more efficiently than they were able to in previous expansions.
A Holy Priest and Shadow Priest won't kill things at the same speed, but the overall difference in time to complete a zone is not meaningfully different now.
DPS still has a small advantage in leveling speed, but healers no longer take 2-3x as long to kill enemies.
There are talents and Artifact traits that will help you level faster as a healer.
You can change your talents around freely when you queue and arrive in a new dungeon, so there is no need to go back to town.

Don't know about the artifact-into-other-spec thing though.

[Canaie]

At least on the PTR, all specs are available any time out of combat without any cost.

[Greebo]

At least on the PTR, all specs are available any time out of combat without any cost.

I think that's a PTR artefact. From the PTR release notes:

Character Changes
Specialization System Changes
Characters can now change between any of their specializations at most any time for a progressive gold cost. Action bar configurations are saved for each specialization. As a result, Dual Specialization has been removed. Characters can queue up as any role that is available to their class and will automatically switch to the suitable specialization when entering the Dungeon, Raid, Battleground, or Arena without any gold cost. For example, a paladin might be questing as Retribution but queue up in Dungeon Finder as a Tank. When the paladin enters the dungeon, they will automatically switch to Protection.

Talent System Changes
Players may now change talents freely when in any rested XP area. The Inscription profession can craft consumable items that allow for this to be done in the field. In addition, after queuing into an instanced dungeon, raid, or PvP content, players have a grace period during which they may change talents freely.

[Swifthoof]

So essentially to play a healer you have to be a second-class citizen for all solo content.

How can they think that is a good idea?

[Awatu]

From what I have heard (take this with some salt), it is easier to level as a Healer than a DPS in some cases due to the survivability. At least at certain ilvls.

I do not believe it costs anything to switch specs, but it does cost gold to change talents and that can only be done in certain areas such as inns.

No idea if artifacts can be respec'd, but I would be shocked if they couldn't. I don't know how much artifacts power is gained through leveling, but I believe it is possible to maintain two artifacts at a reasonable level. Once at max level, one will become primary and the other will be secondary, but I don't know what the disparity will be if you focus on DPS to level then switch to healing at 110.

[Greebo]

So essentially to play a healer you have to be a second-class citizen for all solo content.

How can they think that is a good idea?

Serious question: how is this different from the past? Except for the artifact power.

[Greebo]

Level as boom but get your class hall and first artifact as tree and spend all of your artifact power on that?

[Swifthoof]

So essentially to play a healer you have to be a second-class citizen for all solo content.

How can they think that is a good idea?

Serious question: how is this different from the past? Except for the artifact power.

In the past you just needed to gear up with your secondary spec. You didn't need to get healing gear til you got to max level and there were enough drops while you were questing that you pretty much could get a healing set as well as your dps set.

The new way, either you will be an inferior dps, or an inferior healer, when you get to 110, and you will stay behind for the entire expansion because you are splitting your artifact power between specs, while a dps is just focusing on one spec. You aren't going to be able to do all the quests once for your dps spec and then once for your healer spec, so you will never catch up that artifact power on your "other" spec.

If you want to raid, I would assume you need to do the leveling as a healer, so it really is just a question of doing all the solo content slower, all world pvp as a free kill, having problems with completing the odd world quest and so on, which isn't going to be that much fun.

[Swifthoof]

Level as boom but get your class hall and first artifact as tree and spend all of your artifact power on that?

You cant equip your healer weapon in boomkin spec.

[Canaie]

Just read through the dev interview's Artifact Knowledge section here.

[Swifthoof]

Just read through the dev interview's Artifact Knowledge section here.

Yeah - I read that, but it means you will not be able to do bgs as a dps and then heal in raids anymore (or vice versa).

In either one your artifact weapon will only be half as good as the other dps or healers, that are only leveling one weapon, and playing as much as you are.

The only way it will work, is if you can max out your artifact weapon before RBGs or raids start.

Seriously, I wouldn't level a healer before they patch this because there is no way this is going to work on live. The developers seem to have a total mental block on this. They cant add enough dps abilities to healers to give us the dual spec functionality we have had for years.

This goes for tanks as well of course.

[Yrzuli]

As a tank, I've always leveled as a tank. Even while questing. But that's beside the point.

You can stash your artifact power items and use them on whichever weapon you'd prefer.

They insist that not only will healers have DPS capabilities, but there will be instances where your artifact helps out as well. I haven't looked at the druid weapons, but it is possible that there are some artifact slots of "increases damage and healing".

As for the world quests, a lot of them are intended to be done in groups, so having a healer would be awesome.

As for switching specs -- you can switch for free when you queue for dungeons. If you're running around as DPS, but have your healing weapon, you can queue as a healer and can switch for free when you zone in (or it may even auto-switch you, I dunno). I think the same may apply for bgs.

Honestly, if you want to main DPS while leveling, I don't think not applying artifact power to your weapon will hinder you too much.

And yes, the bit I did as disc priest, versus DPS classes, I felt more comfortable with the added survivability.

[Greebo]

I wonder how much difference artifacts will have in pvp since they are normalizing gear. I suspect that the honour talents will be more important.
I'm thinking that keeping your off-spec at 80% will be akin to not having a tier set.

[Awatu]

I think artifact talents are disabled in rated PvP. Emphasis on "I think".