That's probably a bit situational. Good example would be Slave Pens... I'd kinda prefer to have a main healer that could actually remove Quagmirran's poison rather than one who couldn't. I found this boss substantially easier with a Druid healer compared to a Priest.

Other places, that isn't always the case. Really depends on which parts of their versatility you need.

I must admit that I really do love a Shaman main healer that can pop Heroism.

Try getting a group as a DPS Warrior... at least there aren't that many Warriors.

I don't know how much this contributes as it involves a respec but...

I've both been top dps and main healer in different heroic runs (as enhance or resto), normally I am enhance and on certain pulls I will heal, as its needed. Whats really needed in most heroics is somone who can heal, and can dps depending on what you face.

Changing role based on the pull is what makes hybrids so damn good in heroics, and if you aren't doing it you are failing your group.

As far as druids etc MTing heroics goes, I do most with a warrior, but I've had a feral MT kara and heroics when needed with no problems at all, and I'm sure a properly geared paladin could have done it all.

I've only done Blood Furnace but my guild has had success running Heroics with complete hybrid setups.

We did BF with Paladin (holy/prot, tanking), Paladin (Holy/Prot, healing), Ele Shaman, Resto Shaman and Moonkin. The paladin was dicey tanking even one of the normal melee mobs (the ones hitting harder than Curator) but our entire stratbook was mostly just kite and nuke to death. Frost shocks and Earthbind Totems. We got Broggok in a few tries. The serious challenge after that were the ridiculous Felguard Annihilators uppercutting+swinging for 12-13k total. Frost Shocked and Cycloned them down, wiped a couple of times. Fortunately you can skip the last pack with Warlock (the one on the left as you go down the ramp). But don't tell Blizzard. All the bosses were insanely easy once pulled, but that has nothing to do with group setup. My overall impression is that the Heroics aren't really balanced. It's all about how good your group is at ignoring the stupidly hard hitting mobs' melee damage and getting to the bosses without having to go out and repair (we did). It doesn't help that the mobs routinely do the "store attacks" thing while they're unengaged that the Drakes in BWL tended to do a lot (though it's not unique to them by any means) and when they reach a target they swing 3+ times at once. It was all very silly, but decent fun for the first time. Definitely did not feel like going back to Furnace afterwards though.

Have done Heroic Underbog with resto druid mainhealer with myself tanking a number of times. Nothing strikes me as particularly unusual about this. The bog lords before Black Stalker are nontrivial, but yeah.

Goss, if you wouldn't mind, could you give me a little bit more detail of those runs? Usual group composition, gear used by you and the druid, etc. Thanks.

I loathe Gnome Rogues. But your avatar changes my mind.

I can't say I main healed a Heroic. But I did help heal our first venture into Heroic Slave Pens with a Feral build, and a Shadow Priest helping me. Our tank was Arms too so it was a fun little challenge. Mostly resulting in pro Hunter and Warlock kiting.

I have a full healing spec now, I should give a Heroic a try. The lack of rez worries me, I would have to have a Shadow Priest or a Enhancement Shaman backing me up. Or yeah, some form of Paladin.

I've solo healed plenty of heroics as a paladin. I just finished a group with a fury war tanking, me healing, and an elemental shaman dps'ing. The other two were a mage and rogue and thats the issue -- hybrids can't CC well at all and CC is integral to heroics.

The biggest difference I've noticed between paladin and warrior/druid tanks is the lack of demo shout/roar which has been pretty huge. Dealable, but huge. Also, heavy CC groups can be a pain since the paladin has to keep moving the mobs around to avoid consecrate breaking sheep/trap.

The Inciter in SL is pretty harsh on paladin tanks as well. Drains pretty much all mana and seriously hampers agro gain after every charm especially since he may very well have blow holy shock/judgement/etc... right before charm breaks so you can't get agro back quite so easily. Intercept/feral charge are very nice for that fight.

I just wish they would get rid of the "no avoidance when casting" rule. Having your dodge/block/parry artificially set to 0 kinda defeats one of the few advantages of having a paladin tank. "Okay to offset the lack of demo shout, a couple thousand hp and no real 'oh shit' tools....you can heal yourself! But when healing yourself, every attack will land. enjoy!"

I agree with the healer+hybrid sentiment in this thread; the trend of taking two pure healers just seems completely suboptimal, any pull or boss you need two healers for, your feral or enhance or shadow priest can just healbot for.

Earthbind totem is totally underrated in heroics, too. The power of kiting can completely trivialize a lot of stuff, in Slave Pens we'd have a bad pull where the tank died, but the rest of us would survive with heavy kiting.

I bet five paladins could do anything, too. It would just be slow.