The balance between the various healing specs is likely the best it’s ever been in the history of the game, or at the very least, extremely close.
A player can easily run their own preferred combination of the below healers and perform exceptionally in both Mythic+ and the Sepulcher of the First Ones raid.
What used to separate the classes in terms of defensive cooldowns and damage output is substantially less than seen in prior expansions.
6. Holy Priest
An outstanding healer with great reactive abilities, particularly for large groups in raids, Holy Priests can handle any type of damage. Furthermore, there is always a tool in their arsenal to handle any situation and keep the player thinking during the run.
Primarily, their rotation centers around the proper use of Holy Word: Sanctify and Holy Word: Serenity, with the rest of the healing coming from Circle of Healing and Prayer of Mending.
Strengths
- + Excels in group healing and reactive bursts.
- + Unique healing style that uses cooldowns to provide burst healing.
- + Effective group cooldowns with the help of talents like Holy Word: Salvation and Apotheosis as well as abilities such as Divine Hymn.
- + Outstanding toolset for group utility with the help of Dispel Magic, Fade, Power Infusion, Mass Dispel, Leap of Faith, and Mind Soothe.
Weaknesses
- - Weak survivability, no damage reduction, or immunity-based abilities.
- - Hard to track the use of multiple healing abilities that all share low cooldowns.
- - Group healing abilities lack sufficient range during spreads
- - Relying on short cooldowns hurt throughput during single target encounters
See Holy In Action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDAMPMp1Oig
5. Restoration Druid
Restoration mainly specializes in providing several raid targets a steady stream of healing and, with cooldowns, strong healing bursts. They also perform well when they are required to heal a small group of targets for extended periods of time, including party members with debuffs.
Generally speaking, they suffer from reactive damage when they aren’t prepared and don’t have the necessary time to set up healing over time (HoTs) prior to the damage done. To better handle emergencies like this, they are equipped with important abilities like Flourish and Tranquility.
Strengths
- + Many high-impact cooldowns such as Flourish, Tranquility, and Convoke the Spirits.
- + Can sustain healing when moving.
- + Able to produce strong healing even during heavy group spreads.
- + Exceptional tank healing.
- + Impressive self-sustainability and survivability.
- + Proper spot and debuff healing.
Weaknesses
- - Lacks a cooldown for damage reduction across the group.
- - Demands cooldowns be used at the precise time.
- - Bad damage output.
- - Fails to do any damage at all when forced to provide heavy healing.
See Restoration In Action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGA_p6QW79I
4. Holy Paladin
Despite their recent nerf from the 9.2 patch, Holy Paladins are valuable to raids. Those equipped with Ashen Hollow can still perform damage comparable to tanks with not a single loss in their capability to heal.
This class provides stellar group utility with the help of Divine Shield and Blessing of Protection, making them especially useful for higher-level Mythic+. When used in combination with Devotion Aura, the ability Aura Mastery is one of the most powerful raid cooldowns across all healers.
Strengths
- + Great passive healing for tanks with the aid of Beacon of Light.
- + Outstanding utility spells like Blessing of Freedom and Blessing of Protection that can be cast on others or themselves.
- + Exceptional survivability with plate armor and defensives like Divine Shield and Divine Protection.
- + Amazing damage output as Judgment and Crusader Strike do damage and healing at the same time.
- + Valuable in raids with powerful cooldowns like Aura Mastery.
Weaknesses
- - Challenging to heal spread targets due to a heavy reliance on Light of Dawn for nearly all AoE healing.
- - Poor mobility given that the only movement increase ability is Divine Steed.
See Holy In Action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tV8py0vMKt4
3. Restoration Shaman
A very strong healing option going into the new raid, especially due to their incredible tier set. They offer one of the game’s best raid cooldowns with the aid of Spirit Link Totem. In combination with all other available abilities, they are invaluable. What’s more, they’ve been known for impressive damage output with the help of Vesper Totem from the Kyrian covenant. This allows them to have a good offensive toolset.
Strengths
- + Great group healing for spots and stacks.
- + Spiritwalker’s Grace allows them to cast while moving on a very frequent basis.
- + Good survivability with the aid of Vital Accretion and Astral Shift.
- + Unique set of tools for powerful healing with Ancestral Vigor, Spirit Link Totem, and Ancestral Protection Totem.
- + Remarkable tools that aren’t directly related to healing like Reincarnation, Purge, and Tremor Totem just to name a few.
Weaknesses
- - Fails to adequately heal group spreads.
- - No basic ability for immunity, teleport, or jumping.
- - Without cooldowns, healing demands long cast times and is extremely inefficient.
- - No passive damage bonuses weaken overall potential in this area.
- - No cooldowns for tanks.
See Restoration In Action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk9FXr8fbp0
2. Discipline Priest
A competitive healer for raiding, especially considering they produce almost the highest DPS without sacrificing their healing which is an incredible asset for early progression on fights.
Their effective health pool is maximized through valuable abilities like Rapture and Power Word: Barrier while they are also able to retain some good low-cooldown abilities that set them up for burst damage better than other healers.
Strengths
- + Short cooldowns for high burst heals.
- + Effective cooldowns to increase the overall health of party members through damage reduction and absorption.
- + Powerful sustained spot heals for raid settings.
- + Significant damage output at almost no expense to performance.
- + Decent mobility with enough spells that can be cast while moving.
Weaknesses
- - Limited toolset for emergency healing in comparison to other specs.
- - Severe repercussions for improper rotation/gameplay on behalf of the player.
- - Higher barrier to entry to heal raids.
- - Lack of self-sustainability.
- - Weak set of options for mobility and no movement speed increase abilities at the baseline.
See Discipline In Action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZImonuArbjg
1. Mistweaver Monk
No other spec in Shadowlands can heal like the Mistweaver Monk. Their output is unmatched, and when combined with their perfect mobility, decent survivability, and incredible damage output, they truly are the most valuable healer for raiding and Mythic+ alike. Buffs to critical abilities like Revival have allowed them to stand out for group-wide healing.
Strengths
- + Unmatched single-target healing across all healer specs that is sustained.
- + Perfect mobility with the help of Transcendence, Chi Torpedo, Tiger’s Lust, and Roll.
- + Capable of taking immense damage thanks to an abundance of damage reduction abilities.
- + Can cast most healing spells when on the move.
- + Exceptional crowd control through tools like Ring of Peace, Paralysis, and Leg Sweep.
- + Enemies receive 5% increased Physical damage thanks to Mystic Touch.
Weaknesses
- - Revival is still weak despite recent buffs.
- - Difficult to manage mana.
- - Poor scaling over the course of an expansion’s content.
- - Fails to provide the raid with damage reduction.
See Mistweaver In Action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsdBl2nZOEE
