Healer Rankings / Tier List for WoW Classic Season of Discovery

November 14th, AQ40 release update: there are no significant healer balance changes to register, making the predicted balance be close to what we know from the BWL meta.

Below is a quick summary of the full healer rankings for Season of Discovery WoW Classic. This summary is intended to give a quick outline of the standings of specializations in comparison to one another, and we recommend reading the full rankings to understand why specializations are ranked as they are:

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

If you are interested in our other rankings for WoW Classic, please click the links below.

All healer classes have their unique perks and bring valuable buffs, which makes ranking them on a Tier format very difficult as, depending on group composition, all of them can be considered invaluable. Thus, we will be valuing their throughput (including damage, for Mage, specifically) and ability to get effective healing in single and AoE incoming damage scenarios.

November 14th, AQ40 release update: Priests continue to be the most versatile healer, with the most healing-dedicated amount of runes, allowing them to quickly swap their focus between single and area healing, and also enabling multiple damage reduction cooldowns on demand, such as Pain Suppression and Power Word: Barrier. Furthermore, they have the highest raw healing throughput out of all healers, and Discipline in particular does most of its healing as absorbs which are usually more valuable than regular heals, as they do not overheal and can prevent deaths from one shot mechanics.

Discipline Priests are strictly superior to Holy Priests but both can be viewed as one single spec for tier ranking, as the runes that define their playstyle are freely interchangeable.

Priests are the iconic healing class of WoW Classic. With Power Word: Shield, Renew, and Flash Heal, they have the most complete healing toolkit out of any healer, and also the most healing-focused rune options, which cover any kind of healing style, including absorb-focused healing, which no other healer can do.

Thus, while their kit might not be the very best for a single scenario, they earn their high ranking through their unmatched versatility and ability to adapt to any healing requirements. Between Strength of Soul, Serendipity, Circle of Healing, Penance, Prayer of Mending, Homunculi, Power Word: Barrier, Pain Suppression, and other powerful runes, you can bring a healing team composed of only Priests are be absolutely fine in any situation.

November 14th, AQ40 release update: tank healing is a very strong point of Paladins, especially with Divine Light combined with Beacon of Light. Sheath of Light and Sacred Shield are also fantastic healing runes which further boost your other spells, such as Flash of Light. When combined with Illumination, the amount of Mana returned is extremely high, which enables much higher healing potential in long fights.

Holy Paladins bring some of the strongest raid buffs in the game (including previously unavailable ones such as Horn of Lordaeron), along with having incredibly useful auras.

Their Mana is great at maximum level with Sacred Shield giving you 50% extra crit on Flash of Light by itself and thus making most casts free with Illumination. This allows Paladins to finally make full usage of Beacon of Light, which will ensure its target stays topped but is likely to heavily overheal in most fights unless damage is heavily focused on a single target.

Paladins will also have access to either Inspiration Exemplar, which compares favorably to Tremor Totem, an interrupt in Rebuke, or Divine Sacrifice, a powerful group cooldown but also heavily situational.

While they heavily lack tools in the area healing department, their strong single target healing and ability to splash constantly with Beacon of Light makes Paladin a strong healer when properly piloted.

November 14th, AQ40 release update: Shamans bring a huge threat increase for tanks with Spirit of the Alpha, high damage reduction for a group with their resistance totems, short cooldown range interrupts with Earth Shock, and also massive Mana regeneration through Shamanistic Rage, Water Shield, and Mana Tide Totem, much of which splashes to the raid group.

Restoration Shamans shine for their utility: they can bring almost every buff in the game, allowing you to have most group buffs in even small groups such as dungeons or 10-man raids. Their main weakness is that they specialize in large group healing with Chain Heal plus Coherence and Healing Rain, which can be powerful but requires many damaged allies stacked closely together, which is not always easy to find in every fight.

While Shamans struggled with Mana in WoW Classic, Season of Discovery introduces many runes that alleviate such concerns when combined with baseline class abilities and talents. Examples of these tools are Water Shield, Shamanistic Rage, Power Surge, and Mana Tide Totem.

These allow Shamans to be able to afford to spend much more Mana than their healer counterparts, thus reducing the gap usually caused by Shamans having more expensive spells relative to their throughput.

November 14th, AQ40 release update: Healer Mages might not be very popular, but perform quite well on healing, and especially on DPS potential where they are miles ahead of the other healers on the log statistics, making them quite strong with the right handling.

Arcane Mages can now be healers, due to their new healing spells, such as Regeneration, Rewind Time, and Mass Regeneration. While all of these spells can do some healing on their own, they rely on a unique mechanic, Temporal Beacon, which causes some of the Mage's Arcane damage to be converted to healing to all friendly targets with the Mage's beacons.

Even with this powerful effect, there are two weaknesses to Mage healing: very high Mana costs on heals and the need to apply timed beacons before the damage to healing conversion can occur, but fortunately Evocation plus Mana gems help with Mana and Spell Batching allows you to apply your Temporal Beacons on targets of opportunity just as damage spells are hitting, cutting reaction time to damage a lot when used properly!

This means Arcane Mage is the one of the few healers that can do high DPS while healing, but also that it is a class that requires a specific fight profile to do well and is not easy to play. Also, due to targeting limitations, you will still almost always want to bring non-Mage healers as well to a raid group, in order to cover unpredictable damage on random raid members and high tank healing fights.

November 14th, AQ40 release update: Druids are unfortunately not performing that well currently and the changes in the next patch do not look to be changing this around. Still, they have a very strong healing over time niche that no other healer can really fill, making them strong on specific encounters.

Restoration Druids in SoD can finally stop relying on Healing Touch as their heals over time can now be applied freely without overwriting world buffs or important consumables. This enables Rejuvenation, Regrowth, and especially the new Lifebloom and Wild Growth to become much important to your healing.

Druids will also gain access to Mana-free damage with Fury of Stormrage, which also enables instant Healing Touch casts, and give out the Mark of the Wild group buff. They also have unique utility with the only combat resurrection in game, Rebirth.

This being said, healing over time requires time to fully run its course, and targets can die before they are healed or be healed to full very quickly if there are other healers present in the group, making Healing Touch or Nourish usage important in such scenarios.

Discipline Priests are strictly superior to Holy Priests and coexist in the same class, making Holy a rarely played specialization.

There are currently no B-Tier specializations.