When it comes to healing assignments there can often be a confusion as to what class/spec is best for what job, especially if the person doing the assigning isn’t familiar with healing classes. In order to make the raid leader’s job a bit easier here’s a short and sweet general guide to who does what best.

 

Holy Paladin - Tank Healing: Holy paladins are best at single target healing, able to throw out quick, powerful, and mana efficient heals. If you put a Holy Paladin on raid heals, their head just might explode at the notion and then you’d be down a healer.

Restoration Shaman – Raid Healing:  The bread and butter of the Resto Shamans healing repertoire is [Chain Heal], which makes them ideal for raid healing. However, if you have a well-geared and skilled player, it is possible that they can tank heal. In general though, you’ll want to have your shamans on raid heals. Also, make sure they are coordinating what totems they drop, because the effects don’t stack. For example, have one drop [Healing Stream Totem] and another drop a [Mana Spring Totem]/[Mana Tide Totem].

Discipline Priest – Tank Healing:  Disc priests are mitigation healers, making liberal use of [Power Word: Shield] and spells that provide damage reduction to prevent damage from occurring in the first place. However, in certain encounters it can be beneficial to have a disc priest on raid heals. For example in ICC on Deathbringer Saurfang, raid shielding can keep him from gaining blood power when he deals damage to the raid.

Holy Priest – Tank or Raid Healing:  Holy Priests are well suited to either assignment. They can put out powerful heals on single targets or use [Circle of Healing], [Prayer of Healing], etc. to heal all party/raid members within a certain radius.

Restoration Druid – Tank or Raid Healing:  Because druids make use of both HoTs and direct cast heals, they do well in either assignment. Think of them as filler. If you need a tank healer and are heavy on raid heals or vice-versa, the druid can fill in. If it doesn’t matter, then ask the druid which they prefer to do.

 

Just keep in mind that your mileage may vary.  My general guide here may not always be best based on player preference and raid composition.  Regardless, you should always consult with your healers to make sure everyone is happy with their job.  A happy healing team is a successful healing  team.