Healer Rankings / Tier List for Mists of Pandaria Classic
While DPS in Mists of Pandaria have different power levels, which determine to which extent you want to stack them, all healers and tanks are welcome in Raids and Dungeons, as they all have unique benefits that are worth learning about.
We will be ranking each healer class available in Mists of Pandaria below, alongside a short explanation on the reasoning behind its position. This list will be kept updated as Mists of Pandaria progresses, in order to always reflect the current meta healer rankings.
Healer Rankings Summary
MOP Launch Update: The rankings have been updated for the first raid tier of Mists of Pandaria!
Below you can find a quick summary of the current PvE healer rankings:
- Restoration Shaman (S-Tier)
- Discipline Priest (S-Tier)
- Mistweaver Monk (A-Tier)
- Holy Paladin (A-Tier)
- Holy Priest (A-Tier)
- Restoration Druid (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.
DPS and Tank Class Rankings
If you are interested in other PvE role rankings for Mists of Pandaria, check the following links:
Healer Ranking Details
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
Ancestral Guidance,
Tranquility,
Divine Hymn,
Revival, and
Avenging Wrath.
- Utility — non-healing abilities that the healer brings that
are useful to the raid, such as
Devotion Aura,
Power Word: Barrier,
Power Infusion,
Ring of Peace,
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.
S-Tier Classes and Specializations
While all healers can do a lot of healing, Restoration Shamans have
great area healing with Healing Rain and
Chain Heal, and also multiple
strong raid cooldowns as well as decent single target, making them the strongest
overall.
Discipline Priests are also a must in raids due to their unique
healing style which includes significant shielding with Divine Aegis,
Power Word: Shield, and the new
Spirit Shell. While their throughput
in not entirely 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.
Restoration Shaman
- Throughput — S-tier —
Healing Rain and
Chain Heal are both very strong area healing spells, which do require a lot of targets to be damaged and stacked within close proximity.
Riptide buffs Chain Heal with no downside and also provides
Tidal Waves, which when combined with the
Deep Healing Mastery makes Restoration Shaman a strong spot healer. Finally,
Ancestral Guidance and
Healing Tide Totem are two new strong healing cooldowns.
- Utility — S-tier —
Bloodlust /
Heroism is a critical raid buff, and only Restoration Shamans can bring
Spirit Link Totem and extra raid health with
Purification while also having a huge array of other Totem utility for niche fights.
Discipline Priest
- Throughput — S-tier —
Spirit Shell can be used very frequently to negate entire mechanics most of your spells will activate
Divine Aegis,
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.
A-Tier Classes and Specializations
All other healing specializations are currently in the A-Tier reflecting the expected good balance for healing in Mists of Pandaria post balance changes.
Mistweaver Monk are expected to deal the most damage out of all healers and have very good burst mobility and survivability, on top of not being targeted by ranged mechanics and having good Mana post tuning.
Holy Paladin are also expected to perform well with their two distinct
Eternal Flame or
Selfless Healer focused playstyles, Mana return
from
Seal of Insight and ability to become untargetable by ranged mechanics
by using
Crusader Strike.
Holy Priest have exceptionally large raw throughput potential after
their balance changes but those also made them harder to optimize due to the need
to Chakra swap often for maximum results. Overall they are expected to
bring massive throughput but also low utility.
Restoration Druids are spread healing specialists with a lot of raw throughput but no shielding or special utility, and they also received the fewest amount of changes, making them solid but not amazing.
Mistweaver Monk
- Throughput — A-tier — Mistweaver Monk
is the new healer specialization in Mists and brings strong sustained single target
healing with
Soothing Mist and
Enveloping Mist combos and strong spread healing with
Uplift, which is especially relevant when most other healers rely on stacked group healing;
- Utility — A-tier — Mistweaver has the best healer
damage in the game, but also some of the weakest utility tools overall and no damage
reduction cooldowns. Still, damage contribution is worth a lot, and unique cooldowns
such as
Ring of Peace can be great in specific fights.
Holy Paladin
- Throughput — A-tier — Holy Paladin healing
has heavily fallen in Mists of Pandaria, as
Holy Radiance does considerably less healing than in Cataclysm, has a weaker interaction with
Illuminated Healing, and Paladins received little positive changes when compared to most other healers;
- Utility — A-tier —
Devotion Aura is still a powerful raid cooldown and
Avenging Wrath is a reliable throughput cooldown.
Hand of Sacrifice and
Hand of Protection are also still great in multiple scenarios, and Paladin is the only healer with a full immunity in
Divine Shield.
Holy Priest
- Throughput — S-tier — just like the previous healers,
Holy Priests can do it all, with strong single-target and area-of-effect
healing, further empowered by
Chakra which can be swapped around very often off the global cooldown. Their
Divine Hymn is a powerful raid cooldown, but does require a long time standing still channeling.
Lightwell is also an interesting cooldown which gains value on harder fights where it will activate more reliably. 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.
Restoration Druid
- Throughput — S-tier — Druids have great
spread raid healing with
Rejuvenation blanketing and also excellent burst healing with the new
Genesis and
Wild Mushroom blooms.
Tranquility and
Incarnation: Tree of Life are also good throughput cooldowns. Finally, most of their healing can be done on the move, making Druid the most mobile healer.
- Utility — B-tier —
Mark of the Wild and
Faerie Fire are powerful, but their effects are also likely to already be brought by other classes in a raid setting.
Innervate is once again a good Mana tool that can be used on any player with similar benefits. Also, while
Rebirth is critical, it can also be brought by multiple other classes and all players in the raid share a common battle resurrection limit, making it less useful than it appears at first glance.
B-Tier Classes and Specializations
Due to the pre-launch balance changes, we do not currently think any specialization is B-tier or below!
Changelog
- 29 Jun. 2025: Rankings added.