Heal the raid*

*I am a shadow priest now, but that doesn't mean I don't care about issues of the entire priest class. I have also never played a paladin, so this is based on observation. I'm not sure how to write this post without sounding so opinionated. Hopefully, no paladins were hurt in the writing of this post, fortunately they wear plate.

Now that I got the disclaimer out of the way....

Heal the raid has always been a secondary role. The main tanks and off tanks are primary. Most fights healing the raid has always been secondary in urgency and priority. Many of the classes are able to move themselves away from damage, bandage themselves, etc.

So when I see the plan for my guild's upcoming boss fight listed with paladins and shaman to be the tank healers and priests to raid heal, I felt a twinge of demotion of the priest class' job.

Now without going into the details of the fight, I do understand certain fights require certain strategies. But this still stood out for me, because at least in my guild, you always placed your strongest healers on the tanks.

In some top performing guilds they don't even bring priests along to heal. So I guess our guild's priests could count themselves lucky.

As paladins became stronger healers in BC, you couldn't say anything about it as a priest or you'd be labeled as a crying for nerfs. As the now defunct Paladin Suck said "I just find it sickening that Priests are focusing on nerfing Holy Paladins..."

I for one never asked for one single paladin to be nerfed. But I supported priests that asked for holy priest buffs. In the end, paladins were nerfed but still retained their healing power and priests remained unchanged.

So now we're left, as described by a Blue on the Europe WoW forums "In my opinion Priest are still the best healers in the game, when that has been said however I think that it is harder to heal efficiently as a Priest than healing as a Paladin."

Huh? Since when has a raid thought it best to bring an inefficient healer?

My whole priest vs. paladin gripe has been that for the majority of my life as a priest I've had to work at being efficient. Priests spend time NOT healing, which seems bizzare when you really think about it. Then BC comes along and paladins just spam Flash of Light. And suddenly the one thing I thought was skill less and frowned upon (spamming a heal of any kind until you're out of mana - ask for an innervate and start spamming again) becomes the ultimate in raid healing.

I can't find the exact quote now, but as a paladin said before "take all your many varied heals priests, I'll still outheal you with my one heal". Priests and other players keep insisting that all healers heal equally well and we each have our strengths. But I'm slowly not seeing that pan out in my own guild.

The saving grace for our guild's priests is they are dwarves. They can always play their fear ward card. And we still have fortitude. Yeah.