hiya, i was wondering if someone could explain the strengths and weaknesses between the healers and what roles they fill in raids. more between the cleric and blood mage as they seem the less played healers. thanks
cleric = biggest direct heals, can absorb the most damage of the healers, have skills to boost the damage of the group for dps spikes, several affinties to choose from which add a little bit of flavor to the class, can be limited if either player or tank are debuffed with negatives to healing, patheticly low dps (you can kill most anything but it takes you forever and a day) also can have mana regen issues at various stages of end game. bloodmage = heals through doing damage (taps) so the class becomes somewhat limited when you cannot damage the mob (invunerablities, no target to tap off of or mobs that can be healed by arcane), slower casting times on most direct heals and your main tap isn't too fast either, can be rather reliant upon criticals to open up blood tribute which is a nice tap that heals the group, great life to mana conversion spell, one of the most unique to vanguard classes (disciple being another). all in all the four healers of vanguard are fairly well balanced and each is wanted in a group/raid situation so you really cannot go wrong with any of them. the cleric is a more traditional big heal class, while the shaman uses a bit more runes, wards and reactives to spice things up. the true odd balls are the disciples and bloodmages who are/were fairly unique to vanguard. the disciple is a melee healer who in most cases has little use for mana and needs to be hitting the mob (and hopefully critting to open up the concordant chain) to be most effective. the bloodmage is a int based caster healer who basically heals more for the more damage they do. as far as buffs go, shamans have some of the most addictive buffs in the game (my name is nejibana and i am a bear-buff-aholic), while bloodmages have their symbiotes which you will want to toss one up on everyone in the raid (idivudual cast so hit either frenzied or quickening jolt on 24 different people) and a nice set of group buffs, clerics have probably the second best group buffs and disciples have probably the worst casted buffs in game but some good in combat buffs.
