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

[Swifthoof]

https://healiocentric.wordpress.com/201 ... t-believe/

this was informative... it looks like you can get artifact weapons for off spec at level 102.

Yeah there are a lot of these type of posts and information threads, but they miss the point a little.

1. This isn't solely about leveling. So you get to 110 in healer spec; What then? How do you get your World Quests done? Why level as healer when at 110 you suddenly will need a dps spec to do the top-level solo content?

2. What about world PvP? In healer spec, you might be a sitting duck.

3. You can get your second artifact weapon at 102. So you can have the best of both worlds fairly quickly into the process.

4. Blizzard have said that you should be able to keep your second spec weapon at about 80% of your main spec weapon. That is fine for leveling and tooling around solo. I suspect you will be happy with a 50% weapon for solo content, but for people who genuinely want to dual spec, this is going to be nasty.

5. It means that if a healer or a tank don't show up for a progression raiding night, having one of the dps tank or heal is going to put them 20% back on their artifact talents, and we all know what a fine line progression is.

[Yrzuli]

https://healiocentric.wordpress.com/201 ... t-believe/

this was informative... it looks like you can get artifact weapons for off spec at level 102.

Yeah there are a lot of these type of posts and information threads, but they miss the point a little.

1. This isn't solely about leveling. So you get to 110 in healer spec; What then? How do you get your World Quests done? Why level as healer when at 110 you suddenly will need a dps spec to do the top-level solo content?

2. What about world PvP? In healer spec, you might be a sitting duck.

3. You can get your second artifact weapon at 102. So you can have the best of both worlds fairly quickly into the process.

4. Blizzard have said that you should be able to keep your second spec weapon at about 80% of your main spec weapon. That is fine for leveling and tooling around solo. I suspect you will be happy with a 50% weapon for solo content, but for people who genuinely want to dual spec, this is going to be nasty.

5. It means that if a healer or a tank don't show up for a progression raiding night, having one of the dps tank or heal is going to put them 20% back on their artifact talents, and we all know what a fine line progression is.

1. Most the World Quests I've seen -- at least the big reward ones -- are definitely group content, not solo. And even the solo ones, you /can/ DPS in heal-spec. You have the advantage of being hard to kill, if slower at actually killing. And with everything becoming multi-tapping, if you find a WQ that has people there but you don't want to bother finding a group, just start dotting up what everyone else is attacking. You'll get credit.

2. Again, survivability. Assuming you don't get stunlocked down, but then even in DPS spec you're vulnerable to that.

5. That is something that we're going to have to work on. We're going to have to have alternate tanks/healers who are willing to put in additional effort with their artifacts -- possibly by holding back their primary artifact by a hair. I'd like to think a few artifact weapon points aren't going to crush us on progression.

[Paxristos]

WRT the last point. I think there's a trade off because while artifacts will be a little messy, dps with tank or healing off-specs will only have to gear once, right? I thought I read somewhere that classes won't have to grab whole new armor sets for their primary stat. BiS will be a little wonky, but wouldn't the artifact discrepancy be off-set in terms of practical raiding by the fact that off-spec is auto-geared? Not ideal, no... but I doubt it will set us back. Like, someone having to fill in on tank or healer would be better geared than they would have been in the past.

[Paxristos]

I've leveled both dps and healer in both Mists and Warlords.. the only difference is that as healer, I'm not killing extra crap for the kill xp and gold.

I imagine that before August 30, there will be a rough idea as to who will be filling primary tank and healer roles in raid, and that designated subs would be expected to level as dps first?

[Yrzuli]

WRT the last point. I think there's a trade off because while artifacts will be a little messy, dps with tank or healing off-specs will only have to gear once, right? I thought I read somewhere that classes won't have to grab whole new armor sets for their primary stat. BiS will be a little wonky, but wouldn't the artifact discrepancy be off-set in terms of practical raiding by the fact that off-spec is auto-geared? Not ideal, no... but I doubt it will set us back. Like, someone having to fill in on tank or healer would be better geared than they would have been in the past.

Yeah - it's pretty much "gear is gear" now. Sure, it might not have the stats that /you/ prefer, but like now if you want to build a crit-build you'd have to check for sources.

The only question I really have, since I haven't transferred over a JC, is gemming. Blizz made it sound like there will be more gem slots now, but I have not looked to see if RED=STR/INT/AGI based on spec (such as gear is). If not, then you will periodically need multiple pieces.