Rogues in 2v2 - Which healer fits best

So, after we all know by now that rogues are close to useless in the
higher brackets unless playing in a yet rare 4DPS caster setup, we've
got to put up with our still existing strengths in the lower brackets.



One of those is the 2v2 bracket. Highly dominated by Warlocks there's a
chance for us, the actual counterpart to them, to also get our
opportunity to dominate somehow in return.

To accomplish that, we need a partner or more, a teammate. Now we've
got the first fundamental question: Double DPS or teaming up with a
healer?

Here I've chosen the last one since I never liked the "all or nothing"
game which might provide more fun some times, but after all requires
the better coordination and has way less margin of error.



Having that out of the way we come to the interesting part: which
healer provides the most, fits best and exposes the less weaknesses
against the different classes and setups?



There are 4 options:



Shaman | Priest | Druid | Paladin





Shaman:



Important Skills:



Instant Heal / Earth Shield / Mana-Tide Totem / Offensive Purge /
Bloodlust / Nature's Guardian / Shocks / other supporting Totems



While this list looks impressing at first, it looses a lot of its
attraction after really thinking about the counters the listed
abilities have. Nature's Guardian, the Instant Heal, Purge and the
Shocks are just good.

The first makes him really endurable, the second will save your ass
more than once when he's cc'd and it looks like you're already dead.
The third is truly powerful and has its use against almost every setup.
The last ones are plain annoying to almost any opponent you can think
of, be it as interrupt, slow or even dot.

The others are quite situational and vary from winning move to waste of
mana. Earth Shield and Bloodlust can be devastating but are easily
purged with one click which stands in no comparison to their manacost
or cooldown.

The Mana Tide totem shares its weakness with all the other totems but
has 2 additional problems. Its effect is ridiculously eyecatching and
no good opponent will let it tick more than twice until eliminating it
and it's on a 5 minute cooldown. The other totems hold their use cause
while being killed can be directly replaced by another (exception:
Grounding Totem) or even place a selfbuff on people('s weapons).

The Grounding Totem, absorbing one dmg spell and getting destroyed or
absorbing one non-dmg spell and stand there with a 15s CD, can
be called kinda useful but it's also possible that it doesn't help you
at all since it's not that difficult to eliminate it or work around it.





Conclusion:



The Shaman himself, wearing mail and a shield, can beat the 10k ac
easily and can become a real threat to melee dps, thanks to earth
shield when not dispelled and nature's guardian (dispellable too? I'd
appreciate correct info's here).

Against casters he has blatant disadvantages though his totems and ability to interrupt casts negates this a bit.

Windfury unfortunately doesn't support the rogue that much at all as
he's got to have two different poisons up against most setups (Wound
main, Crippling off - standard) though he can drop the Wound if there
are double DPS and therefore no healers on the opposing team. [With the recent changes, WF totem only affecting a Rogue's white dmg it might be complete useless compared to GoA]

But lacking a defensive dispel except poisoncleanse (only important
against other rogues) roughly limits the amount of support he can offer
in terms of dmg (dots) as well as cc's (chill, roots, coex to name a
few).

CC's is a good call as he's also quite susceptible to them. Despite his
Insignia every 2 minutes and a 15sec cooldown totem that can easily be
bypassed by good players he just has to take them unless the teammate
prevents them.



Priest:



Important Skills:



Manaburn / 0.5s Mass Dispel / offensive+defensive dispel / Blessed
Recovery / Fear ... / many Instantcasts / Shadowfiend / Inner Fire /
Stamina & Shadow Resist



Quite different but still kinda comparable to the shaman, the priest is
kinda more offensive in some ways but also relies on selfbuffs to
protect himself, making him very vulnerable to opponents capable of
dispelling those.

Manaburn is, skilled to 2s cast, very devastating and can decide a lot
of matches for you if abused enough tough avoidable through LOS.

The Mass Dispel is outstanding as an almost instantcast and can
literally **** enemy Paladins an Frostmages though beeing mana
intensive.

The dispel itself is gold, no wonder priests are not seldom called
dispel-bots or such. Offensive as the Shaman one but double as
effective as the Paladin variant, removing two magic effects with one
dispel. The downside is that it's not affecting curses or poisonst at
all, making you vulnerable to other Rogues and Warlocks.

The Shadowfiend is okay. It sometimes has totally dumb pathing and 80%
of the time you'll see him running around doing no dmg (and returning
no mana) at all but when properly used and functioning it can give back
some 2-4k extra mana.

Everything else is..a two-edged sword. On the good side, all the buffs
and instantcasts let the priest be the 2nd most mobile healing class
which can even give it a try and have 2 or 3 seconds of drinking
between a full buff round with PW:S, Renew and PoM after putting their
mate to 100%. Shadow Prot helps a lot against the relevant opponents
and extra stamina in the Arena is just good.

On the bad side, buffs are dispellable and even with the 20% resist via
Silent Resolve they are way too easy removed and leave you very
weakened.



Conclusion:



Specced the right way a Priest can give almost every enemy a hard time.
Mana classes can be burned out in a short time and with his instants
the Priest is less vulnerable against in-cast counterspells. This also
lets him play with LoS to avoid lots of harmful casts.

The once very dangerous melee classes also lost a bit of the pressure
they put on a priest since blessed resilience/recovery were released
and given an acceptable amount of resilience.

The only real problem are dispelling classes like Shaman, other Priests
and sometimes Mages via Spellsteal who can take away every possible
defense a priest has.



Druid:



Important Skills:



Instant Heal / Loads of HoTs, protected via Talents, and even an
UA'alike counterpart / Cyclone / Roots / various forms to shift in and
out / Decurse and Abolish Poison / Innervate / Tranquility / Barkskin /
Mark of the Wild+Thorns



The ability to remove curses and poisons is quite okay. Both effects
mostly come from one class each, CoEx by Warlocks and various poisons
by Rogues. Shadowpriest Curses aren't that dangerous as well as a
Hunter's Serpent Sting while beeing able to also remove Viper Sting can
be called quite useful. Additionally Abolish Poison is a buff that
removes poisons steadily for 8 seconds.

The Hots hold their own as they're pretty powerful and as mentioned
above also protected in two ways. Sometimes a trinketed load of HoTs
can leave the druid enough spare time to get away and drink too.

Cyclone and Roots are both quite powerful. Especially used in chains
with an eye on the DR-timer they can be a real pain in the ass for your
opponents. Cyclone beeing only removable by insignias every 2 Minutes
makes him one of the, if not the most, powerful CC's out there.

Innervate is nice but can be purged if you're enemies are concentrated enough.

Tranquility is a LoS ignoring groupheal and therefore really strong. Can really save one's ass.

The different forms in the end are what truly makes the druid as good
as it is. Travelform allows fast movement, either to escape, kite or
just to get even faster away and drink something

Bearform offers mass AC to protect yourself from physical attacks and
at the same time makes you immune to manadraining effects. Also has a
Feral Charge which snares and silences if used mid-cast (when skilled)
as well as a 3-5s Stun.

Catform allows to enter the battle in Stealth and so supports the rogue
even more, keeping the enemy unsafe of what he has to expect. It also
has sprint/dash plus a stun+bleed opener.

Treeform's just plain useless in the arena.

The capability of shifting also makes druids practically immune to
sheep and at the same time let the druid remove snares and roots of
himself many many times.

The buffs are nice gimmicks but don't do much at all. A little
resistance and stats is nice, backfired dmg via thorns too..but they
aren't as important as the other abilities mentioned above.



Conclusion:



I'd consider Druids the most versatile healing class of WoW. The can
use strong CC's, have great endurance, offer top HoTS but can burstheal
you through Dmg-Spikes as well. They can give melee classes a real
tough time with their high ac in dire bear as well as the many kiting
options they have with shifting and tangle/nature's grasp and are great
in avoiding casters via LoS since they're just unbelievably mobile.

Their weak spot might be the vulnerability to Fear in any shape or form
as well as heavy focussing since shifting costs a good amount of mana
and if abused too much can leave a druid oom pretty quick.

And after all, they seem weaker against casters than priests. If
catched in the wrong moment/situation they can rapidly go down while
silenced.



Paladin:



Important Skills:



Divine Shield / Illumination / Hammer of Justice / Auras / Blessings / Holy Shock / Cleanse (Poison+Magic)



While this list seems weak it definitely is not.

The shield grants 12 seconds of free casting and immunity to everything
while removing everything (but Cyclone) when used. The exception is
Mass Dispel by Priests.

Illumination is what makes the Paladin a very endurable healer and pretty much the key to outlast opponents.

HoJ can break or make games if used properly (and not resisted of course) and is an okay CC.

The Auras don't affect rogues that much at all. ~1k AC more or less
isn't that big of a deal but the imp Conc Aura with -50%
castbar-pushback and 30% reduction to the silence duration is vastly
superior for your Pal.

Now the blessings are what supports our class the most. Freedom lets
us, if not purged, ignore just any movement impairing possible,
Sacrifice protecs the Pal from beeing sheeped, sapped, icetrapped,
blinded and what not. Protection can save games if used carefully and
all others are also good basic support, be it 15% stats or 200+ more AP.

Holy shock is the only kind of instant heal the paladin has or instant dmg, whatever may needed. It hits for a solid amount.

Beeing able to remove poisons and magic with one dispel is also very powerful.

Btw: they wear plate and a shield, hitting 15k and more AC easily.



Conclusion:



Paladins are more than else overrated. They hold their strenghts
especially against melee classes for sure and can be pretty enduring.
But they have their weak spots as well and these can be punished in
desastrous ways.

They offer almost nothing against casters. They have to stand there and
take whatever gets thrown at them. They are neither capable of playing
the LoS game much since they have to throw out direkt heals all the
time while at the same time making themselves very vulnerable to
mid-cast interrupts via Spell Lock, CS or others. Even imp. Conc
doesn't solve this.

The fact that they just have to heal through most of the time also
prevents 2 things: Drinking. And following, as simple as it may sound.
It's not that difficult for a druid or priest to follow a teammate
around corners or across the map. You can weave in some instants or
hots. A paladin stands, sometimes seems like a rooted heal-fortress
with only one instant every 30 seconds wich is kinda weak in comparison.





So after hit by the numerous walls of text above..where does this lead
us? Right, making a decision. I made mine a long time ago while in the
meantime having the opportunity to try out three of the four mentioned
healers (expect Shaman..didn't find a quality resto Shaman yet) and
thinkover it but I didn't regret it at all.

While every class offers his very own abilites, and therefore
playstyle, I find Druid and Priest matching best and guess, especially
after the BoSac and BoFree nerfs in 2.2, that Druid would be the best
choice for the most competetive Setup at all.

That should of course not mean that there can be no success with other
setups, it's just my humble opinion. But don't worry much at all. Other,
also very important things, don't come with the class. It's about
communication, phasing, coordinating and of course skill.



What's about you? Any different experiences, opinions, thoughts?