Healer Tier List for Dragonflight PvP (Patch 10.0.2)
All 7 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 Dragonflight 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 Dragonflight 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
- Restoration Druid (S-Tier)
- Preservation Evoker (S-Tier)
- Holy Paladin (A-Tier)
- Holy Priest (A-Tier)
- Discipline Priest (B-Tier)
- Restoration Shaman (B-Tier)
- Mistweaver Monk (B-Tier)
Full Healer Class Rankings
S-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. They also have
access to
Heart of the Wild to deal additional 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.
Preservation Evokers
Preservation Evokers are the newest healing specializations in Dragonflight and with them comes
Everything other healers can do, Preservation Evokers do better. Here are a few reasons why they are so good:
- They have strong damage that allows their team to stay aggressive when going in for a kill.
- Great mobility that will make it difficult for enemies to connect to
you.
Hover increases your movement speed and makes it so the enemy cannot slow you.
- They have many difficult cooldowns that you can use to help you recover
when falling behind. Cooldowns like
Emerald Communion make it easy to keep your team alive.
- Mana is normally a healer's biggest weakness. Still, because Preservation uses both Mana and Essences, they can keep their team alive without using much Mana.
Because of the above reasons, Preservation Evoker is an S-Tier healer going into the first PvP season of Dragonflight.
A-Tier
Holy Paladin
Holy Paladins are currently one of the best healers in season 1 of
Dragonflight 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 allow them
to keep their team alive long enough to get a kill on an enemy.
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 more cooldowns,
serious damage, and crowd control than any other healers. Their one
downfall is that they will run out of Mana quickly when dampening gets too
high.
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
instant healing, Holy Word: Serenity. This, in combination with
Prayer of Mending both help against teams that have strong burst
damage. They also have the ability to set up crowd control with
Holy Word: Chastise +
Psychic Scream. Holy Priests have
strong, instant healing that makes it easy to recover when their team falls behind.
Due to the amount of instant healing and damage they can do,
they are a better option to play than Discipline Priest.
B-Tier
Discipline Priest
Discipline Priests offer great 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 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 strong cooldowns
that can easily keep your team alive under pressure. The combination
of both damage and healing makes Discipline Priests a force to be reckoned
with when paired with top DPS specializations.
The reason why Discipline is lower than the other Priest specialization, Holy, is because they have Mana issues and lack mobility to help their team with crowd-control setups.
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.
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. This
allows Restoration Shaman to quickly recover when enemies are using their
cooldowns. Restoration Shaman downfall is that most of their healing is
casted and can struggle to recover if they start to fall behind in healing.
Mistweaver Monk
Mistweaver Monks have some great healing throughput. However, that is all that they have. Mistweavers have seen many changes going into Dragonflight. They have several different defensives and strong single-target healing. Although they have a good amount of healing output, they can still die in stuns when swapped to.
Changelog
- 09 May 2023: Updated for Dragonflight Patch 10.1.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 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 Dragonflight PvP Guides
This guide has been written by Mysticall, a seasoned PvP player who has repeatedly achieved 3000 rating. You can watch his stream on Twitch, and you can also check out his YouTube channel.
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