Healer Tier List for Shadowlands PvP (Patch 9.2.5)
All 6 healer specializations are viable in PvP, but depending on the circumstances and criteria for evaluation, some are stronger than others.
This healer specialization ranking for the first PvP season of Shadowlands ranks all the specs, helping you determine the best compositions to play.
About the Tier List
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.
Shadowlands Healer Tier List for PvP
- Holy Paladin (S-Tier)
- Discipline Priest (A-Tier)
- Restoration Druid (A-Tier)
- Holy Priest (A-Tier)
- Restoration Shaman(B-Tier)
- Mistweaver Monk (C-Tier)
Full Healer Class Rankings
S-Tier
Holy Paladin
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.
A-Tier
Restoration Druid
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.
Discipline Priest
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.
Holy Priest
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 have strong, instant healing that makes it easy to recover when their
team is falling behind. Due to their healing and damage output, they are on-par
with Priest's other healing spec, Discipline.
B-Tier
Restoration Shaman
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.
Restoration Shaman downfall is that their healing can be shutdown and if they
start to fall behind, they do not have many cooldowns to help them recover.
C-Tier
Mistweaver Monk
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.
Changelog
- 31 May 2022: Reviewed for Patch 9.2.5.
- 30 Mar. 2021: Updated Tier list for Patch 9.0.5
- 31 Dec. 2020: Guide added.
More Healer Tier List for Shadowlands PvP Guides
This guide has been written by Mysticall, a seasoned PvP player who has repeatedly achieved Arena Master and 2500 rating. You can watch his stream on Twitch, and you can also check out his YouTube channel.
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