PvE Healer Rankings

[Vlad 411]

This thread is for comments about our PvE Healer Rankings for TBC.

[Guest Warlock]

The guide states druids have A tier healing and throughput but lists them as B tier. Whatever category is dragging them to B (e.g. utility) should be listed as well.

The guide also does not mention druid's Rebirth (Battle Rez) or Innervate nor their lack of an out of combat rez.

[Seksi 208]

7 hours ago, Guest Warlock said:

The guide states druids have A tier healing and throughput but lists them as B tier. Whatever category is dragging them to B (e.g. utility) should be listed as well.

The guide also does not mention druid's Rebirth (Battle Rez) or Innervate nor their lack of an out of combat rez.

Now that the  first week is done and we have logs as well as my own experience in clearing the first tier of TBC Classic I'll be adjusting the tier list. Druids have more throughput than I anticipated, and both Shamans and Paladins have less. Expect changes soon! 🙂 

[Guest Warlock]

9 hours ago, Seksi said:

Now that the  first week is done and we have logs as well as my own experience in clearing the first tier of TBC Classic I'll be adjusting the tier list. Druids have more throughput than I anticipated, and both Shamans and Paladins have less. Expect changes soon! 🙂 

I have been trying to see if anyone else had noticed the logs and healer performance, which seems to be contrary to the conventional wisdom (shamans are the king of PVE and druids are just OK in PVE and better for PVP). I look forward to your updates. I hope you'll add points I made above to mention Rebirth, Innervate, and no OOC rez. Thanks.

[Seksi 208]

3 hours ago, Guest Warlock said:

I have been trying to see if anyone else had noticed the logs and healer performance, which seems to be contrary to the conventional wisdom (shamans are the king of PVE and druids are just OK in PVE and better for PVP). I look forward to your updates. I hope you'll add points I made above to mention Rebirth, Innervate, and no OOC rez. Thanks.

That wisdom comes from later seasons because Druid hots don't scale at all with Crit and Haste, which will start showing up more on gear as we advance through TBC.

Also, the type of content in the first few raids and Kara is 95% tank healing and barely any raid healing so that also favors Druids that can roll heals over time endlessly on the tank.

Once later tiers have higher secondary stats on gear and Chain Heal becomes an MVP spell to handle area of effect damage you'll see why Shamans have got such a good reputation 🙂

Changes went in this afternoon already, should be online tomorrow or so.

[Guest Warlock]

9 hours ago, Seksi said:

That wisdom comes from later seasons because Druid hots don't scale at all with Crit and Haste, which will start showing up more on gear as we advance through TBC.

Also, the type of content in the first few raids and Kara is 95% tank healing and barely any raid healing so that also favors Druids that can roll heals over time endlessly on the tank.

Once later tiers have higher secondary stats on gear and Chain Heal becomes an MVP spell to handle area of effect damage you'll see why Shamans have got such a good reputation 🙂

Changes went in this afternoon already, should be online tomorrow or so.

Thanks for the explanations. It makes sense. I took a look at the Gruul rankings for druids, because I expect more raid damage. It was interesting to see varying healing styles. The top druid, Justinsanedr, had raid healing regrowth as his top heal. Some of the other top healers had totally different styles with Rejuv being top for another and Lifebloom for another. The Regrowth "style" would benefit from the most crit/haste. The Rejuv/LB style would less so (from haste on the breakpoints and not crit).

All this said, at the 90% level, RDruid is 555.51 vs RSham 416.69. That's a 33% difference. That's still quite a gap to make up. I am interested to see how things go--and if the trends to match historical TBC rankings--or if they change because of people know more now than they did back then--and have better tools to help optimize. Anyway, I'll keep an eye on this guide. Thanks!

[Seksi 208]

13 minutes ago, Guest Warlock said:

Thanks for the explanations. It makes sense. I took a look at the Gruul rankings for druids, because I expect more raid damage. It was interesting to see varying healing styles. The top druid, Justinsanedr, had raid healing regrowth as his top heal. Some of the other top healers had totally different styles with Rejuv being top for another and Lifebloom for another. The Regrowth "style" would benefit from the most crit/haste. The Rejuv/LB style would less so (from haste on the breakpoints and not crit).

All this said, at the 90% level, RDruid is 555.51 vs RSham 416.69. That's a 33% difference. That's still quite a gap to make up. I am interested to see how things go--and if the trends to match historical TBC rankings--or if they change because of people know more now than they did back then--and have better tools to help optimize. Anyway, I'll keep an eye on this guide. Thanks!

I'm curious over how things will change as well, will keep an eye out on stats and such so I can keep things updated accordingly 🙂

[Guest Very old Druid]

The statement that HoTs do not scale with haste is verifiably false.  HoTs absolutely scale with haste and if there was enough Haste in TBC it would be the most valuable substat. That being said, right now the BM trinket is really the only way to RNG pop enough haste to roll hots so fast the rest of the healers don't stand a chance. The fact that there are clear errors or lack of stat values in this kinda makes this guide moot... Very sad icy-veins was the go to back in the day. 

 

[Seksi 208]

3 hours ago, Guest Very old Druid said:

The statement that HoTs do not scale with haste is verifiably false.  HoTs absolutely scale with haste and if there was enough Haste in TBC it would be the most valuable substat. That being said, right now the BM trinket is really the only way to RNG pop enough haste to roll hots so fast the rest of the healers don't stand a chance. The fact that there are clear errors or lack of stat values in this kinda makes this guide moot... Very sad icy-veins was the go to back in the day. 

 

It could be more detailed, but what I meant with that is that Resto Druids dont scale as well with Haste as Paladins and Shamans, because of several factors:

1) Heals over time do not tick faster in TBC with more Spell Haste as they do in retail WoW, which means all the value of Spell Haste is focused on being able to cast more of them in a given time period, and you only gain any value if the amount of Spell Haste you get allows you to get extra GCDs in before having to refresh Lifeblooms (GCDs within the cycle, essentially), which makes for some awkward gearing until you hit your desired Spell Haste breakpoints. 

2) The healing profile of a top Resto Druid in raids is heavily skewed towards Lifebloom, as tanks (and the main tank, especially) are usually the only players taking enough consistent damage to make heals over time not be sniped by the non-Druid healers. The default Spell Haste already allows you to roll Lifeblooms on the tanks for the vast majority of your healing, with extra Spell Haste being used to throw in additional spells or roll even more Lifeblooms, which will have much lower extra value than the first heals.

This means simulations on Spell Haste benefits  have to assume that the extra heals will be highly useful, which they often are not, and stacking Spell Haste once it becomes plentiful later on, means giving up on Spell Healing once you go past a certain threshold, which is a big no-no unless you are about to hit a new breakpoint. You will still use Spell Haste that does not penalize your Spell Healing maximization, but you will not go nuts over it as Paladins and Shamans will.

Hope this clarified what I meant with HoTs not scaling with Haste, think I will change the text to reflect these explanations so that future people do not get confused, its not so much that you get 0 value, but rather that the value you can get comes with multiple caveats.

Thanks for your feedback!

[Guest Marrybanaoow]

Paladin healing is definitely not an “a”, and it gets worse from here. Resto druids can easily double a holy paladins healing already in SSC logs that have come out, all while healing the main tanks far more easily, so putting them both as “a” is kind of silly. I’d put them as “c” healing, since you are forced to stick them on tanks, and they don’t even give inspiration so it forces a shaman or priest to have to heal the tank too. The Druid also doesn’t give inspiration, but he’s rolling 3 stacks of lifeblooms with 3 rejuvs as well on all 3 tanks at the same time.
 

Priest healing should also be divided into Imp DS spec and circle of healing spec, since they are night and day. I’d wager Imp ds priests give “s” utility and “b” healing, and circle of healing “”s” healing and “c” utility ( pretty much just lightwell lol)

 

these are just my thoughts after years of high end classic raiding but all in all your guides are good for people getting into raiding! All the best!