Healer Rankings / Tier List for Cataclysm Classic

Nov 09 update: The rankings have been updated for Firelands!

Below you can find a quick summary of the current PvE healer rankings:

1. Holy Paladin (S-Tier)
2. Discipline Priest (S-Tier)
3. Restoration Shaman (A-Tier)
4. Restoration Druid (A-Tier)
5. Holy Priest (A-Tier)

In order to further understand the reasoning behind these rankings, we would recommend you read the rest of the page, as that is explained in more detail in the next few sections.

If you are interested in other PvE role rankings for Cataclysm, check the following links:

When sorting out the rankings for healers PvE, we are primarily concerned with two things:

• Throughput — the ability of a healer to do a lot of raw healing, whether sustained or in bursts, and including healing cooldowns such as Avenging Wrath, Tranquility, and Divine Hymn.
• Utility — non-healing abilities that the healer brings that are useful to the raid, such as Aura Mastery, Power Word: Barrier, Power Infusion, Spirit Link Totem, and Rebirth.

We will rank each healer on both of these categories and further elaborate on how they come together to create the current ranking for the class.

While all healers can do a lot of healing, Holy Paladins are the kings of area healing with Holy Radiance whenever the raid can be stacked, especially during Avenging Wrath. They also sport many useful defensive cooldowns for themselves and the raid, making them the overall best healer.

Discipline Priests are also a must in raids due to their unique healing style which includes significant shielding with Divine Aegis and Power Word: Shield. While their throughput will no longer be completely made out of absorbs, these will allow the raid to survive through some high damage mechanics, especially in combination with Power Word: Barrier.

These are the two specializations you will usually want healing your 10-man groups.

• Throughput — S-tier — Holy Paladin is no longer the undisputed king of single-target healing in Cataclysm, but is now able to do unparalleled area healing when the raid is stacked with Holy Radiance and Light of Dawn, which converts to massive tank healing with Beacon of Light, allowing Paladin to retain its S-rank throughput status, especially once their new Mastery, Illuminated Healing, is taken into account;
• Utility — S-tier — while Divine Guardian is gone from Holy's toolkit, Aura Mastery is still a powerful raid cooldown, Avenging Wrath a reliable throughput cooldown, Hand of Sacrifice and Hand of Protection are still great in multiple scenarios, and Paladin is the only healer with a full immunity in Divine Shield.

• Throughput — S-tier — most of your spells will activate Divine Aegis and Power Word: Shield still exists, even though it will not be spammed anymore due to high Mana costs. Combined with the new Mastery, Shield Discipline, Discipline can prevent much of the incoming damage before it even happens, which is a fantastic healing style to have for keeping other players alive, and more than justifies S-rank even when raw throughput potential is not high.
• Utility — S-tier — the utility of Power Word: Barrier, Power Infusion, Pain Suppression, Mass Dispel, and Power Word: Fortitude are all great reasons to bring at least one Discipline Priest, even beyond throughput reasons.

Cataclysm has good healer balance, which justifies every other healer being in the A-Tier, although all of them have their own weaknesses and strengths, described below. Restoration Shamans are stacked and spot healing specialists with a lot of unique utility, Restoration Druids are spread healing specialists with a lot of raw throughput but no shielding, as are Holy Priests.

While these three specializations can work in 10-man groups, they are generally better suited for 25-man healing due to their area healing spells needing to hit many players in order to be efficient.

• Throughput — A-tier — Healing Rain and Chain Heal are both very strong area healing spells, but also require a lot of targets to be damaged and stacked within close proximity, making them more situational than most other area healing spells. Riptide buffs Chain Heal and is a very powerful spell on its own in Cataclysm. It also provides Tidal Waves, which can be combined with the new Deep Healing Mastery to make Restoration Shaman a very strong spot healer.
• Utility — S-tier — Bloodlust / Heroism is still a critical raid buff in Cataclysm, but can now also be brought by Mages. Regardless, Restoration is getting fantastic new utility with Spirit Link Totem and Ancestral Healing and can still bring a huge array of Totem buffs and debuffs to fill in any raid buff gaps.

• Throughput — S-tier — Druids have great spread raid healing with Rejuvenation blanketing, while also doing significant tank healing with Lifebloom and spot healing with Omen of Clarity procs. Their Tranquility is also now a raid healing cooldown, and Tree of Life is a strong personal throughput cooldown, making them very well rounded for healing. Most importantly: most of this healing can be done on the move, making Druid the most mobile healer.
• Utility — B-tier — equivalent raid buffs to Mark of the Wild, Faerie Fire, and Replenishment are likely to already be brought by other classes in a raid setting, and Innervate is now very weak unless used on self. Also, while Rebirth is important, it can now also be brought by multiple other classes and all players in the raid will share a common battle resurrection limit, making it much weaker than it used to be.

• Throughput — S-tier — just like the previous healers, Holy Priests can do it all, with strong single-target and area-of-effect healing, although Chakra does require you to specialize in one or the other for its duration. Their Divine Hymn is perhaps the most powerful raid cooldown of all, but does require a long time standing still channeling. Lightwell can do a lot of healing but is very cumbersome to use properly and easy to ignore or waste. Finally, their mastery Echo of Light provides a ton of unconditional extra healing.
• Utility — B-tier — while Discipline is one of the most important healer specializations to bring to a raid for its unique utility, Holy mostly has Guardian Spirit and Spirit of Redemption which are nowhere near as good as Pain Suppression and, especially, Power Word: Barrier.