BY YOUR POWERS COMBINED

The Legion is almost here...

MY LEGION TEAM
Generally speaking I've known for a while now what my team would look like in Legion. My first night of Alpha access made me drop me decide to swap tanks from my Warrior to my Death Knight. In terms of DPS, my mind hasn't changed much.

The Mage and Warlock are solid, I actually think I could main either one in the expansion if I were looking for a raiding guild. They're both perfectly capable. Though, I think if I were to main a Warlock I'd probably go Demonology rather than Destruction. Mage, I'd probably go Fire. But I could easily go with any of the three specs, honestly. They're all three fun and capable.

The hunter however is another story, I don't think I could main one. Survival is kinda meh frankly, there's nothing really wrong with it. But there's nothing really interesting about it either. Same goes for Marksman, it's fine if you get a rubbery one when you go PEW PEW at the screen and see big numbers on the screen. Beast Mastery however, has gotten way too simple to be really interesting over a prolonged period of time. Which is really a shame, there's some cool new pets available and Engineering is looking better than ever. Ultimately, it's somewhat disappointing. For boxing, it'll work just fine though.

That leaves us then with the healer, a question that I really couldn't answer until literally days ago. I suspect, like many boxers this has been the real sticking point in this expansion. Because Discipline has been such a popular choice for healing boxed groups for so long. But the move to a more hybrid DPS/Support healer position created a big problem for those of us accustomed to shield and flash style healing. So, what to do?

HEALS FOR DAYS
I decided to test heals out, in a more serious manner, but. I also relied pretty heavily on YouTube to point me in the proper direction. Credit where credit is due, here are those videos for reference.

Method - Best Legion Healer Class and Spec
HIST - Legion Beta | RANKING ALL HEALERS
Preach Gaming - Legion Healer Comparison

There were others, like FinalBossTV which got me started down the rabbit hole in the first place with a round table discussion with several healers months ago about the Alpha/Beta changes in Legion. I think my opinion of the healers, as usual comes closest to that of Preachers. I quickly eliminated the melee healers, so Paladin and Monk were out. That left Priest, Druid, Shaman. I enjoyed all three actually, but the reliance on HOTs was a deal breaker for me, so Druid was out.

That left only two.

Priest has a couple of good advantages, Holy is ultimately kinda boring. But it's got all of the tools necessary for a rock solid healer. Disc, if I decided I wanted to run Mythic Dungeons would actually be a reasonable bet, assuming I could keep the rest of the group alive. And to tell the truth, Disc is probably my most enjoyed spec of all of the healers. Which is ultimately what eliminated it from the final selection. I'll explain...

In my estimation, Disc is loads of fun. But it is not the kind of spec you can casually press a couple of buttons and do okay with. It's a very "reactive" spec. There's always something to do, something to keep tabs on. If I were to main a healer in Legion, it would be between Disc, Mistweaver, and Tree honestly. But I'm not talking about solo play here. I'm talking about boxing, the Disc priest would be excellent for someone looking to box from the healer perspective, but I prefer boxing from the tank.

So, in the end the Shaman won. I haven't run a healing Shaman since Burning Crusade, even in Wrath I simply ran 4 Elemental's and called it a day. The toughness, and all around great healing abilities, coupled with the ability to toss some extra damage in a pinch, Heroism, utility, not to mention CC in the form of Hex. Then of course there's the added bonus of Reincarnation, offering some extra wipe recovery alongside the Warlock's Soulstone.

This rounds out an ultimately very versatile group with multiple CCs, redundant wipe recovery and strong single target as well as AOE damage. Now that I know what I'm taking, it's time I start working on them each in turn. In the coming weeks I plan on talking a bit more about my plans. But now, we're all on the same page as far as my team is concerned. So be sure to check back later, I'll be talking over each of the five characters individually to discuss the macros, talents, and settings I'm using as well as my new UI.

K