Healer Tier List for Shadowlands PvP (Patch 9.0.2)

This tier list will go over which healers are the best and which are the worst for Shadowlands PvP, depending on the "meta". The meta is often determined by which classes are the strongest, or which classes counter other popular/strong specializations. It is important to note that the meta can quickly change after nerfs/buffs, so this page will be updated frequently.

1. Holy Paladin (S-Tier)
2. Discipline Priest (A-Tier)
3. Restoration Shaman (A-Tier)
4. Restoration Druid (B-Tier)
5. Holy Priest (B-Tier)
6. Mistweaver Monk (C-Tier)

Holy Paladins are currently the best healers in season 1 of Shadowlands for multiple reasons. Their biggest strength is how many cooldowns they have. Being able to rotate cooldowns, such as Blessing of Sacrifice and Blessing of Protection, allows them to keep their team alive long enough to get a kill on an enemy.

Holy Paladins also have some of the best Mana in the game. They have little to worry about in terms of keeping their Mana at a high percentage.

Finally, Holy has the most consistent stun to use on an enemy, Hammer of Justice. When running the Fist of Justice talent, Hammer of Justice has a short cooldown and can be used to set up crowd control on the enemy healer or kill target. Holy Paladins have the most cooldowns, damage, and crowd control than any of the other healers, which is why they are by far the best healers right now.

Discipline Priests offer high consistent damage and healing for their team. With an ability like Dark Archangel, this gives Discipline a high spot for any team that needs that extra bit of damage to secure a kill.

You will often see Priests healing team compositions like RMP (Rogue/Mage/Priest) and Jungle (Feral Druid/Hunter/Priest). These teams rely heavily on setups and doing damage in a short amount of time.

On top of giving your team damage, Priests can do a large amount of damage themselves. Abilities like Purge the Wicked and Penance can aggressively be used on enemies to deal damage to them. In addition to damage, Priests have multiple cooldowns they can rotate. Rapture and Power Word: Barrier are two strong cooldowns that can easily keep your team alive when under pressure. The combination of both damage and healing make Discipline Priests a force to be reckoned with when paired with top DPS specializations.

Restoration Shamans are an extremely versatile healer, bringing damage, healing, and utility for their teammates. Most of their healing is instant and comes from Riptide and Earth Shield. Both of these spells allow the Shaman to heal without casting and being concerned with being interrupted. Restoration Shaman also bring utility in the form of Grounding Totem to soak incoming crowd control.

They are also the only healer in the game with a kick, in Wind Shear. In addition to strong utility, they also have multiple strong cooldowns for when their team is in trouble. Ascendance and Spirit Link Totem are two of the strongest cooldowns in arena, and allow Restoration Shamans to quickly recover when enemies are using their cooldowns. Combine all of the above with almost any other class in the game and you will have a powerful arena team.

Restoration Druids have a unique playstyle, being the only healer that has multiple Healing over Time (HoT) effects. They offer great single-target healing and have a wide variety of spells for different situations. Abilities such as Soul of the Forest can make Restoration Druids heal for even more when their team is under pressure.

Barkskin makes them a hard target to swap to, and Ironbark makes it hard for their teammates to die when it is active. In Shadowlands, they also have access to Heart of the Wild to do some strong damage to enemies if they choose this talent. Although their single target healing is quite good, Restoration Druids will struggle against teams with spread damage and will run out of Mana quickly when trying to keep HoTs on multiple teammates.

Holy Priests offer some great single-target healing and multiple ways to prevent crowd control on themselves. A large majority of their healing comes from Greater Heal, but now that this has a 15-second cooldown they need to find other ways to heal. Holy Word: Serenity and Prayer of Mending both help with the long cooldown on Greater Heal. However, it does not help enough when they are being targeted by two melee and versus teams with spread damage. Holy Priests are do not do as much damage or healing as a Discipline Priest, making them much lower on the tier list than their other specialization.

Mistweaver Monks have some great healing throughput. However, that is all that they have. Mistweavers did not see many changes going into Shadowlands and are suffering for it. Although they have a good amount of healing output, they run out of Mana quickly.

They also continue to have the same major weakness that they had in BfA: they can die in any stun. This makes them a huge liability for their team. Despite their weaknesses, Mistweaver Monks can keep their team alive for a few minutes before running out of Mana. Ideally, try to group with two melee teammates that will stay alive when you are in crowd control.