Balance/Resto Druid here.

I'm currently specced 40/0/21. My first plan was to go for 34/0/27, but i found the additional resto talents not required and prefered the dmg talents to quest and lvl.

This was planned as a spec just to play to 70 (starting with 30/0/21, Moonkin at 61, then Dreamstate till 64), but i am more than pleased with the possibilities it offers to me.

Some words to my equip and history: When I went through the Dark Portal, i was equipped with the best possible T2 equip (Reju Gem, Shard of the Scale, Rampant Growth). We had the Twins down and 5 bosses in Naxx, but our server is too new and we were not in a hurry to make more progression pre tbc. My dmg equip only consisted of the Skeram pants, BWL gloves and Aq20/5 man crap. ~200 Spelldmg... Now only 3 T2 items are left (due to the 20mp5 bonus), and the moonkin equip has almost 600 spelldmg + trinkets and some hit and crit. Including the spec i am at 1300+ Heal (1100 on items) and a manareg of ~360/200 due to charscreen (~105 mp5 on items, Dreamstate).

I have healed through every 5 man instance solo and it was not really a problem. Been full resto since my first day in Molten Core on this server, i miss some resto talents and especially the swiftmend I learned to love. On the other hand, i rarely use Rejuvenation anymore. Only on tanks and not that much. My primary healing spells have moved from HT 4+7 to Lifebloom und HT Max + 8-10. Lifebloom is amazing. So mana efficient, quick and the spell that i use to heal everything but the mt. For some bosses it is required to spam max rank HT, regrowth and even throw in a Nature's Swiftness max HT and if the whole group takes much dmg (1st Shattered Hall Boss Enrage Whirl is a wonderful example), Barkskin and Tranquility are just incredible.

Mostly we still went with another hybrid as backup healer, 70% of the time a retri paladin, 30% a shadow priest. That's a huge help of course but in non-heroics, it's not necessary.

What i did not expect and what really satisfies me is the fact that i can be on par with mage dps when it is not about aoe. Of course i have to be more active than them and can not just play "1 button", you have to keep your dots ticking, use wrath and starfire depending on the situation, dont forget the cooldown of your dmg trinkets and play on the edge of aggro (which aint that bad in non heroics if it is too much since you got some armor, but you should of course avoid it). But if I do that, I'm exactly on the same level as our Mages and Warlocks (speaking about the best players of those classes that i know). If you now subtract the ~5% dmg they did by my aura (well the crit bonus is less than 5 but since some talents proc of crits, it should be okay) and add it to me, i did even more. If i shift out and heal if it's dangerous, i fall behind of course, but who cares, when it keeps the group alive?

With a balance/resto spec you CAN do decent dmg as long as the gear progression equals the other classes. You CAN mainheal every 5 man instance. You CAN mainheal heroics but it requires a backup healer in some situations (only did ramparts and slave pens so far, maybe the spec comes to it's limit in the further instances, i'll have to see that). You CAN play a true hybrid and have a very broad spectrum of spells and actions.

I miss my full resto capabilities. I miss Swiftmend, I miss zero-aggro-tranquility, I miss extremly strong hots, I miss 20% healaggro reduce instead of 8% and I miss some HT power.

But i think that's a 10-20% healing advantage (since Moonglow, Lunar Guidance, Nature's Grace and Dreamstate are pretty strong healing talents too) I am giving up. But these 10-20% less healing allow me to deal 100-300% more damage. I will keep this spec until i finished every outland quest and until this happens, i'll have to collect more experiences in other heroics and raids to see if my spec is viable there. If i can still fullfill my duties and make it worth for the raid to pick me instead of a mage or a priest, i'll stay hybrid. If raiding will require me to spec full resto, i will do that immediately after finishing the last quest. I want to be an enrichment for my group and my raid and not a weight.

If the game mechanics allow me to achieve that as a true hybrid, dreams come true. :-) So far, it's fine.

As a 14/0/44 priest I'm finding that I "can" solo heal pretty much all 5-mans, but I'll be drinking quite a bit. Morass is tough though, best to have 2 off specs or 1 heal spec.

I will admit though, that I'm about to trash all my T2-3. I'd just rather pass on the morass/arc/bot/mech groups if they are wanting a heal spec healer. Shadow priests just add way more to a group with a heal spec healer than they add to a group by solo-healing or even healing with another off-spec (which is 2nd best though!)

Good example, I grouped up to clear out bot. We had a heal spec shaman who was quite well spec'd and a great healer. At first I was dps'ing out of shadow form to toss out the occassional mend/flash/renew/gheal. When we hit the end boss, we found that we couldn't kill him with me in healform. The second I switched to full dps/assist-add-killing the boss was trivial. And that boss is, in my opinion, one of the hardest of the TK bosses.

Agreed. I (shadow priest) finally got around to a heroic underbog last night and had to step out of shadowform 2x, on those 2 pimped bog giants. Other than that the holy priest was fine healing everything else. Also who would have thought mind control could is now a legitimate spell? Holy hell, it makes many heroic's much easier (bring hit gear). A few pulls I had an oracle and the other priest had a healer, it was quite fun!

Another incorrect assumption that folks tend to think is that shadow priests can't spike. We can spike to around 700-900 dps with a swd/mb/mf/mf twist, you do need about +800 dam gear though. I wouldn't recommend that in PVP obviously, but it's fine in PVE and a good way to get Mend back on someone important since SWD triggers the heal. It does drive your other healers insane though. Wait this is a "heal" thread, nvm.