Healer Rankings / Tier List for WoW Classic Season of Discovery
The Season of Discovery is aiming to completely disrupt the established meta of WoW Classic by including new Runes that drastically increase the power available to all classes. These runes even allow Mages to heal as well! Keep reading on to find out our early findings on Healers in SoD, power levels and rankings so far.
Summary of Healer Class and Specialization Rankings
June 7th, Phase 4 pre-release predictions:
Mages,
Priests, and
Restoration Shamans
are likely to continue being the top healers, with Mages being kings of healer DPS,
Priests being the best at raw throughput and Shamans having the best utility, and
also much improved healing with the new Coherence Rune.
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:
- Arcane Mage (S-Tier)
- Holy Priest (S-Tier)
- Discipline Priest (S-Tier)
- Restoration Shaman (S-Tier)
- Restoration Druid (A-Tier)
- Holy Paladin (A-Tier)
DPS and Tank Class Rankings
If you are interested in our other rankings for WoW Classic, please click the links below.
Full Healer Class and Specialization Rankings
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.
S-Tier Classes and Specializations
Arcane Mage
June 7th, Phase 4 pre-release predictions: good
usage of Spell Batching with Temporal Beacon and maximum level runes and
talents make Mage one of the top area healers while also providing high damage output
for a healer. Mages are also predicted to be one of the top DPS classes in Phase
4, making them a great swing healer option for a raid roster.
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, making it a fantastic complement to your healing roster. Due to its targeting limitations, however, 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.
Discipline and Holy Priest
June 7th, Phase 4 pre-release predictions: 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.
Discipline Priests
and Holy Priests are best
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.
Restoration Shaman
June 7th, Phase 4 pre-release predictions: 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. In Phase 4 their throughput is also seeing a substantial increase with
the new
Coherence Rune!
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.
A-Tier Classes and Specializations
Restoration Druid
June 7th, Phase 4 pre-release predictions: Wild Growth
is still the main carry of Druid healing, but now always has to be paired with the
new
Tree of Life Rune due in order to do high healing. As Tree of Life form
prevents the use of damage spells unless you have
Fury of Stormrage, using
it will limit your ability to DPS while healing and thus lower your overall DPS
potential, which used to be one of Druid's strong points.
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.
Holy Paladin
June 7th, Phase 4 pre-release predictions: tank healing
remains a very strong point of Paladins, especially with the new Divine Light
Rune 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.
Changelog
- 07 Jun. 2024: Phase 4 predicted healing rankings before launch.
- 07 Apr. 2024: Adjusted healer ranking post world-first Sunken Temple.
- 09 Mar. 2024: Updated healer ranks for current meta.
- 09 Feb. 2024: Adjusted Shaman healer ranking up post world-first Gnomeregan.
- 05 Feb. 2024: Updated healer rankings with Phase 2 pre-launch predictions.
- 14 Dec. 2023: Revamped the original text of most classes to make it purely Level 25 relevant.
- 08 Dec. 2023: Ranking revamps now that BFD has been cleared many times over and all runes / raid compositions are being used.
- 01 Dec. 2023: Sent Priest back to S-Rank post world first BFD clear.
Classic Class Overviews
Classic Race Guides
Classic Profession Guides
This guide has been written by Seksi, original vanilla player and multi-class player, currently playing on Gehennas Horde. You can find him on the Classic Warrior, Mage and Shaman Discords, as well as the Icy Veins Discord.
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