New Player, Need a class

[BrightBlueSkies]

Hello! I know this is probably done to death, but I have not seen anyone mention being primarily interested in healers. I would like to know what healers (ideally on order) are fun to play as well as have good solo gameplay, because I do enjoy the questing aspect of MMOs as well. Thanks in advance!

[nocturnalguest]

Fun is a very subjective thing.

They are all functional and fun to play to me, even Runepriest which has no additional specific heal mechanic is fun to play. If you define what you mean by "fun" you will have much higher chances to get the answer you want but failed to ask.

I assume if you use words "solo gameplay" followed by "enjoy the questing" you clearly mean that you ask about being able to solo PvE on healer and dont mean PvP, if so then the best possible option is 2h/shield Warrior Priest, rest of healers also function very good in terms of solo PvE but WP is just superior because it has best sustain, its tanky while still doing damage. Keep in mind you cant effectively play main game PvP modes along solo PvE being in one build/spec, for different modes you will have to use different gear and builds. For example, while you level out WP you can play PvP modes as shield in T1 then you will have to swap to book for PvP and kinda stay book until rr60+ and grinding out gear.

[zulnam]

Warrior Priest is a good, easy, choice for a starting player. Once you get AoE heals it becomes much easier to heal.

The Armor aura is useful for starting or newbie players (who are not using armor pots).

If you are looking for solo pve Grace is a pretty solid choice as it is a melee healer which can heal the party through damage. This means you can easily solo most quests in the world (and even one or two easy public quests).

In terms of pvp, it's also a stable healer choice and easy to learn. The melee healer is good for small scale and scenarios. DPS spec can be pretty good in solo pvp once you have gear, and with some open minded people it can even be a good spec in smallscale.

In terms of large scale pvp (realm vs realm), the only viable spec is healer. That is the case for all healers.

[BrightBlueSkies]

Wonderful, thank you both! I want to start with PvE so that I can get a grasp of the basic mechanics before I jump into the (apparently) extremely deep and involved PvP scene. I think I will give WP a try, I do enjoy the aesthetic very much! I'll also check out the RP to level 15 or so (I think that's the recommended level to make sure you get an actual understanding of the base class!).

Oh, and fun for me is being able to support my party and help them be successful; I really enjoy the group aspect of mmos and like to have an impact across the board, rather than simply being the one to damage one or two enemies at a time. I enjoy seeing the impact of keeping people alive and making them more effective in combat.

[nocturnalguest]

One of the most important parts of leveling process is that you have to keep your more important level - renown rank as high as possible. Keep in mind few things:
- its highly recommended to do PvP as soon as possible, there is no ladder, ranking or whatever that you can spoil starting PvP as soon as you load as fresh combat rank 1 char.
- XP gains in questing and scenarios is insanely high, you get either no (questing) or very low (scenarios if not winning) RR doing it which is in common considered to be a bad thing.
- there is a huge breakdown when you reach combat rank 40 and special system called bolster is no longer in play to boost your char for it being able to somewhat compete against leveled out enemies, this bolster no longer applies and it makes your time as fresh 40 incredibly hard against enemies, thats why reaching 40 with as high renown rank as possible is a mandatory go-to strategy.
- if you still want to explore quests, lore and sightseeing maps and do PvE you can buy (its cheap) special scrolls which will reduce your XP gains by 75%, those are ideal and must have to steadily explore the rich Warhammer world but still dont level up too fast, so you better use those if you insist on discovering this dark and grim universe thru quests (generally considered that its better to just properly level out in PvP and then explore world being already settled with gear and renown ranks)

With your definition of fun you will enjoy playing any healer. Runepriest (and Zealot on destro side) is meta, has to be in each group, 2nd spot is shared by WP or AM. All 3 (and +3 from destro side) healers are viable, have their own pros&cons and niches where they shine brighter so pick your poison according to aestatics and gameplay mechanics.
WP gameplay at first sight may look like lacking deepness a bit, being a bit dull in oRvR but thats not true objectively. Class has alot of tricks and other stuff that define very skilled players and "press 1 while drinking beer" folks.

[BrightBlueSkies]

Thank you for the detailed reply! I'll definitely start PvP as soon as possible then.

What is unique about the Archmage? I know the runepriest has persistent buffs and the war priest has the prayers, having played them both a little bit.

[nocturnalguest]

Thank you for the detailed reply! I'll definitely start PvP as soon as possible then.

What is unique about the Archmage? I know the runepriest has persistent buffs and the war priest has the prayers, having played them both a little bit.

Archmage (same goes for Shaman on destro) has mechanics that benefit the opposite of you action, e.g. if you cast heal then you get mechanic point that will benefit your next damaging spell and vice versa. However in reality its hardly ever utilised much and general consensus is that it may need some revamps.

Archmage and Shaman are however if played well and properly are absolute beasts of "raid" healing because their main AoE heals (look up Energy of Vaul and Fury of Da Green abilities in their right mastery trees) are not tied to "group" but rather "allies" so it means that they heal everyone even out of group around your focused defensive target. That alone makes them very interesting and cool to play as you have a bit different and tricky approach. WP&DoK also have "raid" healing but its not ranged, doesnt require defensive target and just radiates around themselves, so they have to be closer to a meatgrinder while AM&Sham "raid" healing is somewhat ranged (80ft).

RP/Zealot however are more like classic backline healers, their feature is their heal rotations for different situations, so on those ones you need good reading of current situation and smart&skill demanding GCD usage, e.g. if someone is focused alone then best HPS is Rune of Mending followed by Grungni's Gift or vice versa depedning on how dire is the situation goes or maybe if incoming DPS is spread (aka big sustain pressure) then just Rune of Serenity and renew hots followed by quick group heal under proc reducing cast time or pray that WP/AM will group heal (they have more options and lower cooldowns for their group/raid heals) and recover your teammates. Their toolkit for heals and abilities mechanics makes them "enablers" as they both boost healing with % hence as ive mentioned both are mandatory to have one in each group and fully meta. List is very big for their situational rotations, wont even try to mention stuff here, it fully depends on whats happening and thus making both RP/Zealot gameplay interactive and cool too even despite them having no additional resources (like WP/DoK) or mechanics (like AM/Shaman).

[Martok]

I would like to know what healers (ideally on order) are fun to play as well as have good solo gameplay, because I do enjoy the questing aspect of MMOs as well.

My response to this issue is the same it has always been. Use Tier 1 to determine for yourself which class you find fun and therefore want to play. It doesn't take long to rank up into the level ten to fifteen zone, and if you decide not to pursue a class any further you haven't lost much.

First and foremost make this game experience fun and not work.

[nocturnalguest]

My response to this issue is the same it has always been. Use Tier 1 to determine for yourself which class you find fun and therefore want to play. It doesn't take long to rank up into the level ten to fifteen zone, and if you decide not to pursue a class any further you haven't lost much.

First and foremost make this game experience fun and not work.

Its pretty good rule of thumb and common sense, however not entirely true (its correct for aestatics only imo, but one needs to run t1 to figure the other is familiar with warhammer and knows even before installing, some will just pick on char creation screen), you miss way too much abilities and skills to really understand how their core gameplay will look like at startso may get a grasp for alot of classes, e.g. RP/Zeal but definitely not AM&shaman. And by at start is combat rank 40, renown rank 40+, which sadly takes way too much time to get too not even mentioning the "fun" most newcomers will encounter due to game mecanics, thats a big derail and different topic tho.

Back to a topic tho, AM&shaman are perfect examples of how different their actual gameplay will be from what you most newcomers would actually do in T1. So in this exact case T1 will show you literally nothing.

[Martok]

...you miss way too much abilities and skills to really understand how their core gameplay will look like at start...

Yeah but that doesn't negate my point. Not every class is for every player. I rolled a Slayer and in leveling to 16 found the experience excruciatingly boring. Therefore who cares what they play like at 40/40, I'm investing my time in classes that are not boring in Tier 1 and not the forlorn hope if they were, they will someday maybe get better.

Tier 1 is made for such revelations.