Greetings, adventurers! Librarian Husky here, ready to guide you through the chaotic tides of Solo Shuffle. With *The War Within* shaking up the meta, it’s time to sharpen your instincts and focus your gaze on the healers Seidu will likely dominate with this season. Whether you’re braving the storm with the wrong talents or standing tall while your lobby burns, fear not—I’m here to ensure you’re equipped with the right knowledge to rank every healer from best to worst. Let’s dive in and make sure you’re prepared to out-heal, outsmart, and outplay!

Preparing for the Season: Tested Strategies

To help you out, we have been working behind the scenes for the past three months, testing everything on the beta while collaborating with the highest-rated players in the game. Together, we’ve developed brand new healing strategies. You can skip all the guesswork of the early season and start with the best PvP guides developed over a decade.

Adaptive Swarm and Its Impact

If you haven’t played in a while, you might notice that Adaptive Swarm has disappeared from your bars. However, don’t worry—this change hasn’t done much beyond removing a small element of min-maxing, which is a positive shift. After a nerf to Lifebloom, the spec now revolves more around a double Rejuvenation build, adding even more HoT maintenance.

Resto Druids: CC and Range Improvements

On the crowd control side, Resto Druids are looking even stronger, especially with a rework to the High Winds PvP talent. Coupled with the Astral Influence talent, Cyclone now has a 30-yard range, which has already sparked some frustration in the community. This increased range gives Druids a significant edge in control.

Boosting Druid Damage

Another major advantage for Druids is their damage output. After buffs in the late stages of Dragonflight, and with Treants now automatically casting Moonfire every few seconds, Resto Druid damage has become quite competitive. While it may not match the power of Preservation Evoker’s Tip the Scales or Disc Priest’s Penance, Druids are now more than capable of making an impact on the damage meters.

The Challenge: Preservation Evokers

The main challenge Druids face right now is the rising popularity of Preservation Evokers. With Tip the Scales, Evokers not only gain an AoE Purge but also a mini Bloodlust for 30 seconds, making them a formidable opponent, especially when targeting Druids’ HoTs. However, we expect Resto Druids to maintain their strength, similar to their end-of-Dragonflight performance, with excellent single-target healing and one of the best healing cooldowns in Solo Shuffle.

Resto Druid’s Consistent Strength

Resto Druid is definitely going to remain strong once again. Despite the fact that the spec didn’t see many changes heading into the new expansion, it still warrants a high-tier ranking. Now, it’s time to look at Preservation Evoker, and oh boy, where do we even begin?

The Rise of the Chrono Warden Build

Currently, Preservation Evokers are gravitating towards the Chrono Warden hero build, a sort of Preservation and Augmentation hybrid. Blizzard was too preoccupied with inventing a Healer-support hybrid that they didn’t stop to ask if they should. Chrono Warden is incredibly strong for several reasons.

Empowered Spells and Living Flames

The first reason Chrono Warden is overpowered is that it causes every empowered spell to automatically launch up to three Living Flames, turning a fully charged Spirit Bloom into an AoE Lay on Hands. This dramatically increases the impact of the spec in both healing and damage.

The Power of Tip the Scales

The second reason for Chrono Warden’s strength is Tip the Scales. This ability feels like grabbing a power-up from Mario games. After pressing Tip the Scales, Evokers receive a 30-second buff that increases haste, movement speed, and cooldown recovery by 30%, slowly trickling down over time. This buff gives them significant momentum early in the game.

Evoker’s High HPS and Aggressive Playstyle

None of this new tech would matter if Evoker’s healing wasn’t strong, but it turns out they still provide some of the highest HPS in the game. With the buffs added to empowered spells in the Chrono Warden tree, Evokers are now encouraged to play even more aggressively, preserving their title as top-tier healers.

Chrono Warden: The Offensive Healer

As the most offensive healer, Chrono Warden adds a unique ability where Hover turns into a Shimmer-like spell, instantly teleporting the Evoker forward and granting them some damage reduction for a few seconds. If you thought Evokers were strong at the end of Dragonflight, they’re even better in The War Within. It’s a true “jack of all trades, master of everything” situation. Good healing output? Check. Plenty of cooldowns? Check. Big damage? Double check.

Preservation Evoker: The S-Tier Healer

As the healer that can quite literally do everything, Preservation Evoker has tipped the scales to become the only S-tier healer for Solo Shuffle. Moving on, we have Mistweaver Monk, who might be one of the lowest-ranking healers on our list. One thing we’ll clarify right away is that pure Fistweaver builds seem to be dead for the time being in PvP, which could be seen as a good thing depending on your perspective.

Mistweaver Monk: Conduit of the Celestials

On the bright side, Mistweavers are playing one of the coolest hero builds in the game, called Conduit of the Celestials. This build literally summons every Celestial God to aid you in combat. Using Tiger Palm or Vivify will summon Xuen like a bat out of hell to attack an enemy and heal. Chi-Ji’s gift will summon Yu’lon from the heavens, blessing you with cooldown reduction on Life Cocoon, and finally, Spinning Crane Kick will call your bird bro, giving you mana and doing some healing.

Monk’s Struggles in Solo Shuffle

It’s not rare to see a Monk top the meters in Arena. The problem continues to be how Monks heal and how weak their cooldowns are. To be an effective Solo Shuffle healer, you either need to be good at mitigating damage or have enough passive healing to handle long, sometimes unavoidable CC chains. Monks are still the only healer who needs to plant their feet to apply short-duration HoTs that disappear the moment they get CC’d.

Challenges Facing Mistweaver Monks

To make matters worse, Revival was nerfed, now removing only three magical effects from the entire party. Grapple Weapon also had its range reduced, while many other healers saw range increases on their spells. For Mistweaver Monks to be high-tier again, they would need better passive healing and more ways to mitigate damage. Raw healing output alone just doesn’t cut it.

Touch of Karma and Monk’s Low Tier Placement

Unfortunately, Touch of Karma seems to have backfired, and Monks will likely find themselves in the low tiers for another season. Now, let’s move on to Holy Paladin, a spec that had one of the wildest balance journeys on the beta. For a brief time, Holy Paladin seemed ready to skyrocket to S-tier status, but Blizzard stepped in to ensure that didn’t happen.

Holy Paladin’s New Hero Spec: Herald of the Sun

Holy Paladins are now leaning towards the Herald of the Sun hero spec, which includes one of the coolest-looking passives, which we’ll discuss shortly. This loadout also includes two key quality-of-life improvements: Dawn Light and Eternal Flame, both of which give Paladins a much-needed boost in utility and efficiency.

Herald of the Sun: Enhancing Holy Paladin’s Healing

A few healing-over-time effects help cover the key weakness of having weaker passive healing. Herald of the Sun also adds some RNG procs that can massively buff the healing or damage done by Holy Shock. One of the most interesting aspects of Holy Paladin is the rework to Light of the Martyr, which now resembles the old Vim and Vigor from Legion.

Light of the Martyr: A Risky Power Boost

The new Light of the Martyr increases healing done by Holy Shock when the Paladin is at high HP, but with a penalty of creating a healing absorb on the Paladin themselves. This mechanic could be exploited by better players, which is concerning since Holy Paladins were already a favorite target for bloodthirsty melee. Now, they might become an even more attractive swap target.

Holy Paladin’s Uncertain Future

At the moment, Holy Paladin’s future seems the least certain, especially in Solo Shuffle. However, it remains one of the most beginner-friendly healers, with reactive healing and strong instant cast options. Due to its underwhelming performance at the end of the beta, Holy Paladin is placed in the mid tiers for now.

Discipline Priest: A Promising Outlook

Moving on to the first of our two Priest healers, Discipline is looking quite promising. Discipline is one of the few healers with two PvP-viable hero specs, with Oracle looking like the best choice in Solo Shuffle. Oracle grants an ability called Premonition, which combines four cooldowns into one, similar to the old Blessing of Summer for Holy Paladins. This ability is highly complex, and players are still figuring out how to master it.

Mastering the Oracle Hero Spec

You can skip all the guesswork with our brand new guide on the Oracle hero spec, featuring an in-depth walkthrough of its lengthy cooldown rotation. The first press reduces the cooldown of the next three spells, allowing you to send out multiple Penances in a row, either for damage or to boost Shields. This can provide significant utility in tight situations.

The Power of Premonition’s Second and Third Press

The second press grants a healing buff, which might not seem too exciting but adds another free cooldown to your toolkit. The third press offers a mini Life Cocoon with a built-in mini Ironbark, which can be stacked with Power Word: Shield to essentially create a huge defensive barrier for your target.

The Fourth Press: Unleashing Full Power

The fourth press is where things get wild, as it grants all three of the previous effects at once. This effectively turns the Priest into Thanos, collecting all the Infinity Stones. This usually happens at the two-minute mark of Solo Shuffle, just when most healers are desperate for a cooldown to press.

Oracle: A Game-Changing Spec for Discipline Priests

Oracle Priest is incredibly strong. Discipline Priests now benefit from a 50% damage reduction Pain Suppression, an improved HP threshold for Power Word: Life, and even stronger Shields. Power Word: Shield received a significant buff in *The War Within*, greatly enhancing the spec’s ability to mitigate damage, which is crucial in Solo Shuffle.

The Void Weaver Build: Strong in 2v2

The new Void Weaver hero build looks promising, but it’s optimized more for 2v2 scenarios, where there are more opportunities to deal damage. For now, we believe that Oracle Discipline Priest is a top contender for one of the best healers in the early expansion. Premonition provides added defensive coverage and healing multipliers, allowing Discipline Priests to control the tempo, which is crucial for this spec.

Disc Priest: High-Tier Threat in Season 1

As one of the strongest healers in the early expansion, Discipline Priest is cementing itself as a high-tier threat in Season 1. In contrast, Holy Priest has a different story. It was one of the weakest healers during the beta phase, but before you get too disappointed, the spec has received several quality-of-life improvements.

Holy Priest’s Synergy with the Oracle Tree

Many of Holy Priest’s improvements stem from the Oracle hero tree, which is also great for Holy. This includes gaining an entirely new healing cooldown through Premonition, which allows some impressive plays, such as casting Prayer of Mending four times in a row. With Oracle, Power Word: Shield is automatically applied with Prayer of Mending, which benefits from Crystalline Reflection and Body and Soul if talented.

Buffs to Power Word: Life and Prayer of Mending

The best part of the Oracle tree is that Power Word: Life can now be used on targets below 50% HP, up from 35%. This is a huge deal for Holy, as it synergizes perfectly with the Desperate Times passive, offering strong instant cast healing when needed. Holy wasn’t highly ranked on tier lists a few weeks ago, but that was due to tuning issues. Fortunately, Prayer of Mending has been buffed by an astounding 65%, which should significantly improve their rankings. Holy is a healer heavily dependent on numbers tuning, as healing output is the spec’s primary strength.

Holy Priest’s Dependency on Healing Output

If you don’t have amazing damage mitigation or a great passive source of healing outside of Lightwell, Holy Priest is entirely dependent on big healing output. This isn’t exactly reliable in high-dampening Solo Shuffles. However, if you’re feeling pessimistic after seeing everyone’s tier lists sandbagging Holy Priest, know that Zen himself thinks the spec has a lot of potential.

Holy Priest’s Place in the B Tier

While it might seem like a hot take, we are bumping Holy Priest to the B tier after the massive Prayer of Mending buff. This leaves Resto Shaman as the last healer to cover for the start of the expansion. Shamans are gravitating towards the Far Seer hero spec, which revolves around summoning ancestors to assist in combat.

Summoning Ancestors: Far Seer Hero Spec

Ancestors mimic the abilities cast by the Shaman. If you use a single-target heal, your ancestors will follow suit. If you deal damage, they’ll do the same. Ancestors can be summoned in three ways: first, by pressing Unleash Life, which guarantees an ancestor; second, through RNG procs from Riptide; and third, by using the new ability, Ancestral Swiftness.

Ancestral Swiftness and Its Short Cooldown

Ancestral Swiftness literally replaces Nature’s Swiftness and has a much shorter 30-second cooldown. Now, Resto Shamans have NS every 30 seconds, and it even includes bonus healing by summoning an ancestor. Ironically, one of the best parts about ancestors occurs when they despawn, as one lucky ancestor grants additional benefits before leaving.

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