Healer Rankings / Tier List for Phase 3 of TBC Classic

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

1. Shaman (S-Tier)
2. Paladin (A-Tier)
3. Priest (A-Tier)
4. 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.

If you are interested in other PvE role rankings for WoW TBC, 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 for a sustained period of time.
• Utility — non-healing abilities that the healer brings that are useful to the raid, such as Bloodlust/Heroism.

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.

Shamans truly hit their stride in Tier 6, with the powerful Skyshatter Raiment tier set which gives strong boosts to Chain Heal, a very powerful spell against the high area damage of most encounters.

Having a Shaman in each group for totems is a huge boon, all but ensuring a healthy amount of Restoration Shamans in an optimized raid, and more Bloodlust/Heroism are always welcome!

• Throughput — S-tier, Chain Heal is extremely strong against the high group damage intake of many TBC encounters, and benefits greatly from the Spell Haste stat introduced in Tier 6. Their tank healing is also good, but not exceptional.
• Utility — S-tier, Bloodlust/Heroism does not apply the Sated debuff in TBC, and as such every new Shaman is an additional Bloodlust/Heroism for your group. Totem utility is also great and you will want to have at least one per group, making Shamans a great class to stack in TBC.

Shamans can bring it all in TBC, with their only weakness in PvE being their tank healing, which is passable but not as good as that of a Druid or Paladin, for example. Regardless, because of their incredible utility, you will always want as many Shamans as you can in your group, and the healing role is where they can shine the most.

The remaining healers are all quite balanced in TBC Phase 3. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses, and the ones with better utility (Paladin) are balanced by relatively lower throughput and a more narrow healing kit.

• Throughput — A-tier, Paladin single target healing is second to none in TBC as long as they can cast freely, and you will want at least a few in your raid to keep tanks and people being hit by mechanics alive. Unfortunately they have no area of effect healing tools and no heals-over-time or shields, making them very one-dimensional.
• Utility — S-tier, blessings such as Blessing of Protection are great in multiple scenarios, from keeping people who pull aggro alive to facilitating tank swaps and removing bleed debuffs. It is also all but mandatory to bring at least a handful of Paladins in order to have the utility blessings, such as Blessing of Salvation applied to the full raid.

Paladins bring some of the best group utility in TBC with their blessings, have great single target healing and are extremely tough with their Plate armor and Divine Shield last resort. However, their lack of area of effect healing options and the fact that you can cover all important blessings to a group with just a handful of Paladins (while extra Shamans always bring a valuable extra Bloodlust/Heroism) make them be less desirable once you hit that threshold.

• Throughput — S-tier, just like Shamans, Priests can do it all, with powerful single target heals which include heals-over-time and shields, and unlike Paladins they also have strong area of effect heals like Circle of Healing.
• Utility — A-tier, the unique utility of Improved Divine Spirit, Mass Dispel, Power Word: Fortitude, and being able to shield people ahead of burst damage events are great, but not quite as mandatory or stackable as what other healers bring.

Priests can do great healing in every situation and have the most flexible healing kit of all classes, with a lot of instant casts that are very useful in PvP, but not as important in PvE. Unfortunately, most of the utility they provide to the raid can also be covered by Shadow Priests and, as such, they are not a particularly good class to bring multiples of.

It is worth noting that while you can specialize deeply into Discipline, this is not recommended for PvE, due to the high healing loss from skipping deep Holy talents. You should have one healing Priest per raid pick up Divine Spirit and Improved Divine Spirit, however.

• Throughput — A-tier, Druids have great throughput on tanks due to their multiple heal-over-time effects which smooth out damage spikes and allow other healers to catch up. Their reliance on these effects makes them scale less over time due to not gaining as much value from secondary stats as most other healers, however, and the weak Tier 6 set bonuses do not help either.
• Utility — A-tier, while Mark of the Wild and Faerie Fire are mandatory buffs to have in a raid setting, any kind of Druid can bring these, with Balance Druids being particularly good for Faerie Fire, and a single Druid is enough to ensure uptime on these. This leaves Tree of Life's group healing increase buff as the only special thing a Restoration Druid can bring, which you should take advantage of for your tank group.

Druids, just like Priests, do most of their healing with instant casts, and also sport incredible mobility and survivability tools, making them PvP powerhouses. Unfortunately, in PvE these perks are not nearly as useful, and they have to rely on their throughput.

Heals-over-time (HoTs) do not tick faster from having Spell Haste and cannot be Critical Strikes, which limits the benefit of having these stats on your gear, especially as most of your healing will be tied to Lifebloom on the tanks, which are usually the only targets taking enough consistent damage to make HoTs fully effective. Spell Haste will allow you to cast more HoTs once you reach GCD breakpoints, but the extra spells you can cast will tend to overheal a lot more than your baseline Lifeblooms on tanks and token spot heals.

Thus, Druids will always be amazing tank healers, but tend to have their raid healing HoTs sniped, which causes their overall healing to decrease as raid damage increases throughout TBC.

There are currently no B-Tier classes.