healers.

what is a good healer? i have seen the priest from adamant but has anyone tried any pure or near pure heals builds besides the cleric?

What system and edition?

Pathfinder

Healing in Pathfinder is usually considered to be something that is done 'after the battle'. However, the healing subdomain is very nice since even if it is 'after the battle' healing it is boosted and thus uses less resources.  Typically, I build clerics to prevent damage rather than to heal damage. In my monday campaign my cleric rarely ever has to heal because he prevents so much damage from occuring.  One other thing, with Wands of Cure Light Wounds being so prevalent, clerics are not really needed even for post-battle healing. Some groups dont even have clerics along because of this. - Gauss

Pathfinder...Oracle with Life Mystery is your best bet. Pretty much what Gauss said as well rings true.

mmm.. ok is there a system where healers are needed? I  have played WOW and other console rpgs and enjoy heal slinging so im looking for a transition charachter.

Raymond, it isnt that healers in PF wont have a purpose. Its just that it is usually considered a sub-standard purpose. By the mid levels damage will come in faster than a PF healer can deal with it. Prevention is better at that point. BUT, people still play a healbot if they want to and PF healbots do a fair job at that task.  - Gauss

Indeed, and the wand solution is only for someone with ranks in Use Magic Device or that can cast the spell anyway if they wanted to. It all depends on the type of healing you want to do, I mean as a druid you get some nice flavorful little spells like  Goodberry  that allow you to heal by infusing berries with healing power. More of an after combat thing but it's fun to roleplay with. Also as a Cleric and Druid you have access to the full spell list, you just choose which spells to prepare and if you feel like you're not doing much with all of your heal spells prepared, you can easily respec to prepare other spells. Now Oracle is a Spontaneous caster so you don't have to prepare spells beforehand for one, but you do have to choose which spells you want to have and you can focus on the buffing ones but ultimately you will end up a little short depending on your Mystery and Spell choices and it's harder to choose to go a different route after you've set your path there.

Is pathfinder really that different from 3.5e? because seriously, i know that i would not play in a campaign without a dedicated combat healer, due to the fact ive seen way to many instances of where a level 15-20 party would have had a party wipe without one, even with scrolls/wands/pots/staves in play in 3.5e games.

Pathfinder and 3.5 are not that mechanically different. But even back in 3.5 prevention was far far better than healing. Pathfinder combats are a bit deadlier than 3.5 combats and so that is now even more true. In short: Damage comes in faster than most healers can heal it. While yes, you can do that, many people have come to the conclusion that preventing damage is better than healing it.  A number of my cleric builds are based on preventing damage. For example, my bodyguard build grants +4 AC to anyone standing next to him. And then of course, there is my cursing build which prevents the creature from either seeing or acting altogether. Any number of battlecleric builds dish out damage and help bring down an enemy faster (thus reducing damage taken). There are many ways to get away from the healbot concept and still be as (if not more) effective as a cleric. In any case, if you want to explore the various Pathfinder cleric builds there are many many threads on Paizo's website regarding them.  - Gauss

Healing is fine. But you should probably find a way of being more proactive in combat than just healing. i.e. threat managment like Gauss was saying. the good thing about cleric/druid is they are supper versitile like that. and you can change your spells every day. not to mention as a cleric you can spontanously cast heals (if you are the right type of cleric.) In pathfinder/dnd pretty much any character concept can work so long as your party and GM are willing to work with you and help you out.

Healing + prevention can be super effective. The thing about prevention is that there are ways to deal damage regardless of normal AC and even though one can be resilient against all the elements, have super saves and high AC (touch, normal and flat-foot) it's still impossible to prevent all damage and in order to get all the above you have to use all your money to items that support it and your build has to be perfect and it usually requires at least some spells (buffs) so you can't really do anything else except stay alive which in proper RPGs which don't have strong ingame mechanics for agro isn't that effective because the enemies will just focus on other party members who are a lot easier to kill. But if you have high hp, proper to good AC, high saves + evasion, and you can just cast heal every 5 - 10 rounds you will take damage but never enough to kill you and you don't have to use all your resourses in to making you unkillable. I hope my post made any sence.

Disc Priest = Life Oricle Holy Paladin = Paladin W/ Cha>Str>Con Resto Druid/Shaman = Cleric