The War Within Healer Rankings: Nerub-ar Palace Raiding Tier List (Patch 11.0.5) (Patch 11.0.5 / Season 1)

11.0.7 update: the only healer changes in the latest patch were incredibly minor and the new ring does not currently look to be extremely good either, making it likely that the raid healer meta will not change from what it was previous to the patch.

The rankings below reflect the predicted War Within raid meta and will be updated over time as more hotfixes and patches hit the live servers.

To understand why these rankings are the way they are, you first need to understand what is most valued in a raid setting. For healers, we value healing throughput, cooldowns, DPS output, and other miscellaneous utility.

Just because a healer is currently low ranked in the tier list, it does not mean that it is not viable or that it will not become much better after balance changes. Also, excellent players will always be deserving of a raid spot, regardless of their specialization.

The main exception is when you require a specific healer to bring utility that is needed for a particular encounter (such as Rescue for low mobility classes), or one of the main raid buffs, such as Mark of the Wild, Power Word: Fortitude, or Devotion Aura.

You can find the summarized healer tier list below, but make sure to also check the individual section for each healer in order to understand our ranking reasoning and specialization perks.

S	Preservation Evoker Preservation Evoker has the highest raw throughput potential and can swap easily between high burst and high healing over time, making it a very versatile healer. When also considering the extra Zephyr and Time Spiral or Spatial Paradox each extra Evoker brings to the raid, they are the most stackable healer. Preservation Evoker Guide Holy Priest Holy Priest is the top spot healer in the game right now and an invaluable specialization to have in the raid as most other healers specialize in area healing. They also bring the unique Symbol of Hope which is great to have, especially during raid progression. Holy Priest Guide
A	Holy Paladin Holy Paladin has a lot of strong utility and has been a staple of raid compositions across WoW history, being able to play in melee or range and focus on raid healing or spot healing with talent adjustments, making it a very versatile healer for any roster. Holy Paladin Guide Discipline Priest Discipline Priest brings the highest DPS contribution of all healers and powerful damage reduction abilities to a raid group. Its burst healing profile is one of the strongest, and Power Infusion and Mass Dispel are unique utility that is often invaluable to progression. Discipline Priest Guide
B	Restoration Shaman Restoration Shaman remains a strong specialization with many cooldowns, very high burst healing and unique utility which passively increases the survivability of the raid, such as the health buffer provided by Ancestral Vigor. Despite some recent buffs, Mana is likely to continue being an important limiter to the spec's throughput potential. Restoration Shaman Guide Mistweaver Monk Mistweaver Monk has high throughput capabilities and while it is relatively low on utility, it has some unique tools that can be indispensable in certain encounters. Similarly to Holy Paladin, it can find its home within melee range, which has multiple advantages from a mechanical standpoint, allowing Mistweavers to generally focus on healing when raiding. Mistweaver Monk Guide
C	Restoration Druid Restoration Druid's new talents, Forest's Flow and Renewing Surge, have made them stronger, and they are now performing well in the raid, although not to the point of being mandatory in any composition or capable of displacing any of the other healer options. Restoration Druid Guide

If you are interested in other rankings for the Season 1 raid in The War Within, please click the links below.

As the raid to world first unfolds, the healing meta becomes clearer, and this new list should more adequately display the current state of things. Regardless, we will be continuing to monitor and update the healing tier list as new hotfixes are deployed or new playstyles are developed.

11.0.7 update: Preservation is unchanged from the previous patch, and thus expected to continue as one of the best healers for raiding in the new patch, especially in its stacked raid healing niche.

Hero Talents: Preservation has access to the Chronowarden and Flameshaper Hero Talent options. Chronowarden improves your Empowered spells, Tip the Scales, and Living Flame significantly, and also converts Hover into a teleport with Warp, which allows you to bypass certain mechanics entirely. Flameshaper provides a new active ability, Engulf, which does high single target healing and also huge area healing once you also get Consume Flame, provided you are hitting a target with Dream Breath active. You will also be able to use Renewing Blaze on an ally at 50% effectiveness, which serves as a second tank external.

Healing Throughput: Preservation has excellent burst healing, especially against raid-wide damage with its frequent Essence Burst-powered Emerald Blossom casts, further amplified by Cycle of Life. Temporal Anomaly can also be used to create multiple Echos, which can then serve to replicate Reversion (with Golden Hour for burst), Dream Breath, or Verdant Embrace (which also activates Lifebind for extra healing when followed up by high self-healing abilities such as Emerald Communion, Spiritbloom, or Living Flame).

Cooldowns: Evoker is a very cooldown-oriented healer, ranging from the extremely powerful but high cooldown Rewind, to the short "build your own cooldown" Stasis. Emerald Communion is also a decent cooldown when appropriately used with high Lifebind counts. Zephyr has a small target cap but reduces damage taken significantly. Finally, its external cooldown is Time Dilation, which delays 50% of the damage taken by the target on a very short cooldown.

Damage Output: Preservation Evoker has good AoE damage potential and can also do high single-target damage if you can get into a rhythm of casting an Ancient Flame-empowered Living Flame every time you press Emerald Blossom or Verdant Embrace. You will also often have extra powerful free Living Flames available from Lifespark procs.

Utility: Preservation has a lot of niche, but occasionally indispensable, utility. It has a raid buff, Blessing of the Bronze, and a strong permanent healer buff in Source of Magic with Potent Mana. Landslide serves as a mass rooting effect, which can be essential in specific fights. Rescue allows the Evoker to move any player around and is fantastic in encounters with strong knockback mechanics that can be ignored with it. Time Spiral and Spatial Paradox serve a similar purpose and keep your group mobile, even when mobility personals need to be used back to back. Zephyr has already been mentioned for its damage reduction above, but can also be used for its movement speed increase.

Evokers can also remove Magic and Poison with Naturalize, and Cauterizing Flame can remove bleeds, curses, and almost all other non-magic debuffs. The bleed removal component is especially useful in some raid encounters where only immunities or a Paladin's Blessing of Protection can remove high-damage bleeds.

Defensively, Preservation is one of the weakest healers' baseline but compensates by having two personal cooldowns: Obsidian Scales and Renewing Blaze, which have relatively short cooldowns. Movement and knockbacks are very easy to deal with due to the double-jump mechanic native to Evokers and the short cooldown Hover.

Overall, Preservation Evoker is a cooldown machine likely to have something to use on every major incoming damage source and can produce some very high numbers as a result. Emerald Blossom and Echo combos can also provide decent healing during cooldown downtime, and it is noteworthy that Preservation is one of the most flexible healers on whether to use its resources for DPS or healing, as the situation demands, but has relatively low passive damage to compensate.

Unfortunately, these strengths are counterbalanced by the radius limitations of Emerald Blossom, the complexities of Echo gameplay, and by Preservation having a lower range than other healers, making Preservation a poor choice for spread fights.

11.0.7 update: Holy Priest received minor buffs and was already considered one of the best healers, thus warranting no rank change.

Hero Talents: Holy has access to the Oracle and Archon Hero Talent options. Oracle grants the Premonition ability, which rotates between multiple helpful effects. These allow you to cast 4 Prayer of Mending back-to-back for massive smart healing and Apotheosis synergy with Answered Prayers, convert your overhealing into extra smart healing, which pairs well with Prophet's Will, and place a large absorb shield and damage reduction on an ally of your choosing. Archon is a very simple tree focused on making your Halo and Flash Heals stronger, making it the perfect compliment to Holy Priests looking for a more relaxed playstyle.

Healing Throughput: Holy has high throughput and is able to cover all types of incoming damage with its versatile kit of healing tools, which includes Prayer of Mending, Flash Heal, Prayer of Healing and the Holy Words Holy Word: Salvation plus Holy Word: Sanctify. While it is not the best throughput healer for all situations, its healing is solid and easy to set up.

Cooldowns: Holy has some powerful healing cooldowns in Holy Word: Salvation, Apotheosis, and Divine Hymn, all of which can do a large amount of burst healing when used at the right timings. Its tank external is Guardian Spirit, which increases healing taken by the target and prevents death while active. Due to its unique healing-increasing powers, it can be extremely good in situations where you need to heal a friendly NPC for a large amount.

Damage Output: While Holy Priests can do a lot of damage if they commit globals to damage abilities, doing so forces them to stop healing, which is not ideal. Thus, in harder content, much of the damage potential comes from using Power Infusion on the right targets while they are using DPS cooldowns.

Utility: While Holy Priest is not particularly strong in this area, Symbol of Hope can be a strong raid cooldown in the hands of coordinated groups that have their personal cooldowns assigned around its usage. It also provides the Power Word: Fortitude raid buff and the Power Infusion DPS buff. Finally, their Mass Dispel is often invaluable in raid encounters and, while more niche, Leap of Faith can be a lifesaver in some situations.

Defensively and mobility-wise, Priest is rather weak and mostly relies on Desperate Prayer and Angelic Feather, but it is also the only healer that can keep healing after dying with Spirit of Redemption, which is of fantastic value in some bosses with hard execute phases.

Overall, Holy Priests' perks, ease of use, and versatility allow them to be a jack of all trades, but also means they live and die by their current tuning, as their utility is not particularly compelling outside of a few niche scenarios.

11.0.7 update: Holy Paladin received minor buffs and was already quite high on the rankings, thus warranting no rank change.

Hero Talents: Holy has access to the Herald of the Sun and Lightsmith Hero Talent options. Herald of the Sun allows you to apply Dawnlight to allies, which can be further leveraged when using Avenging Wrath through Sun's Avatar for massive healing. It also grants the Eternal Flame active ability, which works similarly to Word of Glory but also leaves a heal over time on the target and is 25% stronger on yourself, making it work well alongside Light of the Martyr. Lightsmith has higher damage potential with Sacred Weapon and its supporting talents, which can go on allies and deal quite a bit of damage, but its other benefits are simply not nearly as impactful as the ones from Herald.

Healing Throughput: Paladins has strong raw throughput, some of which is delivered as absorb shield healing from Barrier of Faith, Greater Judgment, and Overflowing Light, as well as Tyr's Deliverance and Holy Shock, allowing for high amounts of spot healing, which also cleaves off the tank with Beacon of Light and its supporting talents.

Cooldowns: Holy sports a strong healing increase cooldown in Avenging Wrath, a large damage reduction cooldowns for the raid with Aura Mastery plus Devotion Aura, and a fine tank external with Blessing of Sacrifice. Divine Toll can be pressed frequently for large cooldown healing, as well, and Lay on Hands is great for emergencies.

Damage Output: Holy Paladin has a decent damage profile, and you can get a lot of damage from your melee swings and rotational abilities, such as Judgment. Using Blessing of Summer on the right targets also provides a good amount of damage.

Utility: Holy Paladin sports some of the best unique utility in the game with Blessing of Protection and Devotion Aura. They can also interrupt on a short cooldown with Rebuke, crowd control with Hammer of Justice, Turn Evil, Blinding Light, and Repentance, and combat ress with Intercession.

They dispel Magic, Disease, and Poison effects with Cleanse, any movement-impairing effect with Blessing of Freedom. Defensively wise, Divine Shield is the only immunity ability provided to a healer class, and they also have plate armor, strong defensive talents, and Divine Protection. Their mobility is mostly tied to Divine Steed, making it one of the few things where Paladins do not excel.

Overall, Holy Paladin has a very strong kit and an almost guaranteed spot in a raid, especially as its throughput is also currently quite good, on top of having excellent spot healing capabilities.

11.0.7 update: despite having no changes Discipline Priest still brings by far the highest DPS contribution of all healers and powerful damage reduction abilities to a raid group, making it keep its current high rank.

Hero Talents: Discipline has access to the Oracle and Voidweaver Hero Talent options. Oracle grants the Premonition ability, which rotates between multiple helpful effects but is generally less impactful than Voidweaver, which increases your potential Atonement healing significantly in a fully passive way.

Healing Throughput: Discipline can have strong throughput but has difficulty with spot healing in raids as it is tied to predictable burst timings driven by its short cooldowns. On the upside, it has frequent raid burst healing windows enabled by Atonement spreading from Power Word: Radiance and multiple single-target applicators, such as Renew and Power Word: Shield, which makes it a strong healer against periodic raid burst damage patterns.

Cooldowns: Discipline has a very powerful healing cooldown in Power Word: Barrier, which offers massive damage reduction, but only inside its small area of effect. Rapture is also a strong cooldown for both emergency spot healing and ramp setups. Discipline can also easily amplify its Atonement healing with Shadowfiend or Mindbender. Finally, its tank external is Pain Suppression, which provides a large amount of damage reduction for its target.

Damage Output: Discipline Priests have the strongest passive healer DPS due to their rotation heavily involving the use of DPS abilities for Atonement healing (which includes multiple DPS cooldowns) and the Power Infusion cooldown, which is a significant raid damage gain when used well.

Utility: Discipline Priest has good utility, as they provide the Power Word: Fortitude raid buff and the DPS buff Power Infusion mentioned above. Mass Dispel is also often invaluable in raid encounters and, while more niche, Leap of Faith can be a lifesaver in some situations.

Defensively and mobility-wise, Discipline Priest might be the weakest healer of all, with only Desperate Prayer, Fade (with Translucent Image), and Angelic Feather to help out in those areas.

Overall, Discipline Priests have a tight kit that can perform well for healing multiple situations while also doing significant DPS and bringing multiple damage reduction options. While it is still not the ideal healer in random player spot-healing-heavy scenarios, other healers can easily cover that gap, leaving Discipline to be one of the best healers at doing everything else in the current tier.

11.0.7 update: Restoration Shaman remains a strong specialization with many cooldowns and high burst healing, as well as a 25% cheaper Surging Totem, which should significantly help with Mana conservation on long fights.

Hero Talents: Restoration has access to the Farseer and Totemic Hero Talent options. Farseer summons Ancestors through Call of the Ancestors and Ancestral Swiftness, who help you heal or DPS depending on what spells you cast, making it a flexible option. Totemic simplifies your rotation by replacing Healing Rain with Surging Totem which lasts over twice as long and is instant cast and also automatically casts free Chain Heals when you use a totem with the Lively Totems talent, but is heavily reliant on stacked healing abilities.

Healing Throughput: Restoration has decent healing for all situations but suffers from having much of its area healing tied to Healing Rain and Downpour, with Rain requiring a large number of players to be inside and damaged for a long duration. Chain Heal is a much more versatile spell, especially with Tidebringer, but taxes Mana heavily, limiting its use. Luckily, Healing Wave and Healing Surge are also very strong, especially once you have the Season 1 tier bonuses, creating an environment where Shamans have strong reactive tools for all situations.

Cooldowns: Shaman has multiple powerful healing cooldowns: Spirit Link Totem is the most well-known and allows you to survive healing reduction effects or extreme raid damage, especially if unevenly distributed. Unleash Life, Cloudburst Totem, Ascendance and Spiritwalker's Tidal Totem serve as multipliers to your healing, as does Primordial Wave to an extent, and all of them can be very powerful if you are using them at the right time. Healing Tide Totem is also a strong healing cooldown, which also allows you to continue casting during its duration. Earthen Wall Totem is a small but powerful cooldown, especially against many small hits. Finally, and notably, Restoration lacks a tank external, but has Earth Shield and Earthen Harmony's passive damage reduction to compensate.

Damage Output: Restoration Shaman has two strong damage talents in Acid Rain, which turns Healing Rain into a strong damage effect, and Master of the Elements, which provides a way to tie Lava Burst damage to Healing Surge healing and automates Flame Shock applications. Combined, these two talents provide a lot of passive damage and are well worth taking, especially in a Mythic+ setting!

Utility: Restoration Shaman has an important raid buff in Skyfury and is known for its many utility tools. Besides those mentioned above, Spirit Link Totem which is one of the few cooldowns that works against healing reduction effects, Ancestral Protection Totem has the unique power of resurrecting someone, making it very useful for suiciding dangerous mechanics. Shamans also have Ancestral Vigor for passively increasing raid health, Tremor Totem to break fear, charm, and sleep effects, and Poison Cleansing Totem for mass removing poison, as well as many other utility options.

Restoration Shaman also has good survivability talent options in Brimming with Life and Astral Shift plus its supporting talents, as well as Earth Elemental or Spirit Wolf, which doubles as a mobility tool. Ghost Wolf and Gust of Wind are the primary burst movement options, but Spiritwalker's Grace can be even stronger, as it allows you to cast while moving. Finally, Shaman has the unique perk of being able to self-resurrect with Reincarnation!

Overall, Restoration Shamans are strong all-rounders due to their versatile toolkit and are often indispensable due to Skyfury, other unique utility, and cooldowns. They are also currently doing strong raid and spot healing, making them a strong option for progressing through Season 1's content.

11.0.7 update: Mistweaver Monk received no further changes in the latest patch, thus maintaining its current rank.

Hero Talents: Mistweaver has access to the Conduit of the Celestials and Master of Harmony Hero Talent options. Conduit of the Celestials provides the active Celestial Conduit channeled ability, which heals allies and damages enemies around you and can be used while moving, and also the ability to proc help from each of the four Celestials through Courage of the White Tiger, Heart of the Jade Serpent, Strength of the Black Ox, and Flight of the Red Crane, all of which can be activated simultaneously during or after a Celestial Conduit channel with Unity Within. Master of Harmony gathers much of your healing with Aspect of Harmony, releases it with Thunder Focus Tea and Purified Spirit and amplifies this healing through Coalescence. It also boosts Chi Burst significantly through Manifestation and Path of Resurgence.

Healing Throughput: Mistweaver has excellent throughput and is able to cover all types of incoming damage with its versatile Enveloping Mist and Vivify healing kit. Much of its healing is delivered over time and lacks targeting, such as the healing produced by most Hero Talents and the DPS to Healing conversion of Ancient Teachings, which also requires being in melee range of an enemy target, as does Awakened Jadefire and Invoke Chi-Ji, the Red Crane.

Cooldowns: Revival is the main Monk cooldown, and it dispels everyone while also doing massive instant healing. Invoke Chi-Ji, the Red Crane and Invoke Yu'lon, the Jade Serpent are strong healing cooldowns with different use cases, and Monk has a lot of short cooldowns such as Faeline Stomp, Sheilun's Gift, and Thunder Focus Tea, which provide flexible benefits depending on the spells you combo them with. Mistweaver's tank external is Life Cocoon, which provides a massive shield and increases healing over time taken by the target.

Damage Output: Mistweaver Monks can do a lot of damage with Rising Sun Kick, Spinning Crane Kick, Blackout Kick, and Tiger Palm. Most importantly, their damage converts into healing efficiently with talents such as Ancient Teachings, Awakened Jadefire, and Invoke Chi-Ji, the Red Crane. These conversions create scenarios where dealing damage is the optimal healing strategy and allows for significant DPS while healing, especially in dungeons.

Utility: Monks have a strong raid buff in Mystic Touch and unique utility such as Ring of Peace, can interrupt with Spear Hand Strike, and instantly AoE stun with Leg Sweep. They can also dispel Magic, Disease, and Poison effects with Detox.

Defensively, Monk has multiple cooldowns: the massively buffed Expel Harm, Fortifying Brew, and Diffuse Magic all contribute towards making Mistweaver one of the toughest healers when played well. Mobility-wise, Monk is also exceptional with Tiger's Lust, the customizable Roll, and the instant teleportation of Transcendence, making knockbacks, damage nova effects, and other movement-related mechanics easy to solve.

Mistweavers were one of the top healers through the second half of Dragonflight due to the high amount of friendly NPCs to heal and the high amount of dispels required on the hardest bosses, but the new raid tier does not seem to be as friendly to these strengths, although there is significant Transcendence potential on some of the harder bosses. Overall, Mistweaver lacks health increasing / damage reduction effects, making it be dependent on having high tuning when encounters are not tailored to its strengths.

11.0.7 update: Restoration Druid has received no PvE changes so far, and thus keeps its old rank.

Hero Talents: Restoration has access to the Keeper of the Grove and Wildstalker Hero Talent options. Keeper of the Grove focuses on Grove Guardians and makes you heal significantly more while they are active through talents such as Dream Surge, Power of Nature, and Harmony of the Grove. Wildstalker provides new passive sources of healing over time with Thriving Growth, which also increase your healing on their targets through your Mastery and Vigorous Creepers, and also increase your general healing with Root Network.

Healing Throughput: Druid has decent throughput potential, with most of the power being focused on spreading out Rejuvenations and hitting Regrowth on heavily injured targets. It mostly relies on heals over time, such as Lifebloom and the abilities of Grove Guardians, but also has access to instant healing from talents such as Embrace of the Dream, Thriving Vegetation, and Nature's Swiftness. Most of their heals can also be done while moving, allowing throughput to remain high even in the most hectic of raid bosses.

Cooldowns: Restoration has good healing cooldowns in Incarnation: Tree of Life, Convoke the Spirits, and Flourish, which can be used separately or as part of a burst healing combo, which can heal through high amounts of damage. Its tank external, Ironbark reduces damage taken and increases healing taken by the target, making it one of the best tools of its kind, especially due to its relatively low cooldown.

Damage Output: Restoration Druids can do a lot of damage if they optimize their talents for it and use Cat Form and/or Heart of the Wild, and they can also convert much of that damage into healing with Dream of Cenarius. Alongside Sunfire, Moonfire, and Nature's Vigil, they have decent damage potential but also need to jump through multiple hoops in order to deal damage, while many other healers just do it fully passively as part of their rotation.

Utility: Druids have one of the best raid cooldowns in Mark of the Wild, and also bring Innervate, which can be used on themselves or other healers, Stampeding Roar for a short-cooldown raid-wide movement speed increase and Ursol's Vortex plus Typhoon to control enemy movements or Mass Entanglement to completely stop them, if needed.

Mobility-wise, Druid is quite strong with the passive speed gain of Cat Form and burst speed of Tiger Dash / Dash or Wild Charge, on top of being able to cast most of their rotation while moving and at range. Their main defensive is Barkskin, which has a very low cooldown, and they can shift into Bear Form at will to make themselves even tankier.

Overall, Restoration Druids have decent utility and a unique healing style, further pushed by Grove Guardians pet healing, but are extremely dependent on healer tuning status and thus currently lackluster.