Hey, what’s going on guys, it’s Librarian Husky. It’s that time again for the tier list, and this time we’re talking about the best healers for raids in Season One of the War Within. Now, keep in mind that all the healers are going to be looking very good. I don’t think there’s any that are going to be rough or poor; it’s really going to be about the race to World First. For any of these guilds, if you have a diverse group of healers, if you’re bringing a bunch of different specs and not stacking healers, you’re going to have a fine time. We’re focusing on hardcore high-end raiding where literally all the healers can be very successful if you’re just a good player.

Importance of Skill in Raiding

I’ve been raiding Cutting Edge for over 10 years now, and honestly, I think there’s pretty damn good balance going into this new season. It’s really just about being a skilled healer.

Race to World First Lock

So, to start us off with our first category, we have the Race to World First Lock. What will definitely be in the race to World First for real bosses, for hard bosses? Nobody cares what the first boss is going to be or what comp they’re going to have.

Potential Fourth Healer

There’s going to be another section for the potential fourth healer, and I’m going to rate them in terms of how likely I think they are to be the potential fourth.

Great Tier and Rough Tier

And then we have the Great Tier and the Rough Tier, but of course, the Rough Tier is going to be empty.

Race to World First Lock: Holy Paladin

So, let’s get it started. First and foremost, the Race to World First Lock is, you know, shocker, Holy Paladin. But it’s not just about Devo Aura being good or having damage reduction to bring to the raid—all of that fun stuff which we’ve seen rehashed a million times over.

Tangible Benefits of Paladin Healing

I think there are some very real tangible benefits to Paladin beyond just a bunch of passives which lock in the spec. Your spot healing is actually back; for once, you can return to operating in that role, blasting tons of spot heal output onto your allies. This is tremendously effective in a world where damage is so bursty, drawing a stark comparison between specs that have good defensives and those that don’t.

Importance of Defensives in High-End Progression

The biggest thing in high-end progression raiding is that the people who don’t have good defensives are just naturally going to need more spot healing. Since the dawn of time, every healer just wants to blast AOE healing. Traditionally, it’s been Holy Paladins who have been the ones equalizing health pools, pushing up those health pools together, and making sure the people who are falling behind stay on top.

Impact of Tank Healing on Paladin Beacon Choices

One of the biggest things that I’m curious about—and I don’t know how we’ll see it go—is how tanks needing more healing will affect Holy Paladins in some of their Beacon choices. In our testing before Paladin got a bunch of different nerfs, lots of Paladin players were running with Beacon of Virtue, blasting super hard, and that was how they did most of their AOE healing.

Historical Context: Paladin Healing in Warlords

There’s been a lot of tuning since that point. Historically, back in Warlords, when tanks were just getting annihilated, especially in Black Rock Foundry, Paladins played a crucial role.

Role of Holy Paladin in Raid Healing

I remember when our answer to heavy tank damage was to run double Holy Paladin and just blast healing into tanks. I don’t think we’re going into double Holy Paladin whatsoever this time; it’s likely going to be just one. However, I am curious to see the difference between some of the Beacon usage and how builds will vary because it still looks like Herald of the Sun is going to be dominant. The spec has a tremendous wealth of tools to keep your allies alive.

Impact of a Good Paladin

It’s going to be an incredibly important role to play Holy Paladin in the raid. You’ll feel like you’re very tangibly having a big impact on your raid by equalizing health pools. A good Paladin is going to be worth their weight in gold, and they’re not just a passive aura the way they felt in Airdrassil.

Discipline Priest’s Role in Raid Healing

Next up, you know it’s going to be Discipline Priest. Shocker, right? Holy Paladin and Discipline Priest are the top choices. Discipline Priest brings Barrier and ramp output, allowing them to blast a huge amount of healing—multiple raid cooldowns worth—into a narrow window of time. This pushes up health bars and keeps everyone healthy, sometimes being the only healer using a big cooldown for an incoming mechanic.

Strength of Discipline Priest: Negative Heal Absorb

One of the areas where Discipline Priest is insanely strong is in handling what they call negative heal absorb. That’s when an absorb is placed on an ally, and Discipline Priest is particularly effective in managing those situations.

Challenges in Healing Through Negative Heal Absorbs

In encounters where you have to heal through negative absorbs to actually heal health bars again, Discipline Priest shines. Blizzard has struggled to balance spike damage effectively, especially when defensives are high, and they have avoided adding too much rot damage to every fight. Instead, they’ve introduced mechanics where you have to heal through absorbs before healing your allies. Discipline Priest is exceptionally good at this.

Effectiveness of Discipline Priest in Specific Encounters

For example, Discipline Priest was insanely powerful in Smolderon for dealing with this, but only half the raid had a negative heal absorb, so you would blast tons of heals into one half and overheal the other half during ramps. However, in encounters like Brew Twister Ovenax, where the entire raid is blanketed in heal absorbs that pulse and stack, Discipline Priest is absurdly effective.

Dominance of Void Weaver and Discipline Priest’s Utility

Void Weaver is going to be very dominant in these situations. The Barrier and damage reduction (DR) it provides are going to be insane on many encounters. Even if it’s not ideal for the final boss, as was the case with Raz, the spec still bursts and ramps phenomenally. While it may lack output outside of its ramps, especially with the reduced Shadow Covenant uptime going into the season, it still excels at its core role.

Performance and Challenges of Discipline Priest

While I’m not thrilled with how Discipline Priest is playing from a gameplay perspective, I expect its performance to be very high in the raid. Once again, it will be a challenging and hopefully rewarding healer. We have had some experiences with Discipline underperforming in raids, notably in Aberrus, where its output was really low and it didn’t effectively compete with other healers. As a result, we saw a lot of Holy Priests instead.

Impact of Tuning and Expectations

I think the tuning, even after the Arcane Intellect and Chaos Brand nerfs that directly affect Discipline’s Atonement healing, is still high enough to be very impactful in the race to World First. However, I don’t expect it to reach the levels of dominance seen in Battle for Azeroth or Legion. The spec will be pretty good, but it won’t be absolutely absurd or overshadow all the other healers, similar to its position in Aberrus, but without Mistweaver blotting out the sun.

Resto Shaman in the Race to World First

To round out our Race to World First lock, we have Resto Shaman. Shaman has undergone significant changes throughout beta, with improvements to Spirit Link Totem and the return of the Spouting Spirits talent, adding more damage reduction and burst healing to Spirit Link Totem. Just as Discipline Priest can stack for Barrier, Shaman can stack for Spirit Link, and I think the spec is going to absolutely excel with it.

Totemic or Far Seer Build in the Upcoming Raid

It’s uncertain whether we’ll be running a Totemic or a Far Seer build in the incoming raid, as there seems to be pretty good balance across those hero talents. I’m eager to see if you’ll be switching around your hero talents depending on some of the encounters you face. What the spec does phenomenally well is blast healing. Its healing tuning is very high, and it feels like the spec now actually has really powerful cooldowns, which they seemed to lack throughout most of Dragonflight.

Improvements and Cooldown Usage in Dragonflight

During Dragonflight, Resto Shaman was the target of numerous nerfs, even to things like Ascendance getting heavily nerfed while other healers’ cooldowns remained untouched. Now, with the two-minute cooldown for Ascendance through your talents, pairing it up with Ancestral Guidance—even after AG got nerfed—it’s still a fantastic cooldown. The spec can just blast huge healing when needed, and the extra defensive capability with Stone Bulwark Totem will be a big help in progression raiding.

Utility and Stamina Buffs in Progression Raiding

The extra stamina provided by Ancestral Vigor is always a good thing, and now you’re also getting Downpour, which can add another layer of stamina to your team. In progression raiding, Shaman is often thought of as the healer that excels when health pools are low. However, in the current environment, health pools don’t stay low for very long—they tend to yo-yo up. While Mastery is often praised, the real strength lies in the cooldowns and utility that the spec offers.

Shaman’s Powerhouse Capabilities

I would highlight things like Spirit Link Totem and the ability to stack multiple cooldowns on top of each other, like Ascendance and Ancestral Guidance, then just burn through your mana bar to push up health bars as fast as possible. These are the real big factors that make Shaman a powerhouse and, I believe, a lock for the race to World First.

Considering a Potential Fourth Healer

Let’s talk about the potential fourth healer. I don’t think any of the first three healers—Discipline Priest, Holy Paladin, or Shaman—are going to be stacked. You’re not likely to see two Discipline Priests, two Holy Paladins, or two Shamans in the same raid. So, what will the fourth healer be? I’m going to put them in order of what I think is most likely, but this is an area where I could very well be wrong.

Preservation Evoker as a Contender

Let’s start off with Preservation Evoker. Preservation has gotten some pretty good streamlining to its talent tree, allowing you to take more Mythic+ focused talents or more raid-focused talents throughout beta. It has also had some adjustments behind the scenes. Life Bind is the primary mechanic I want to focus on here. Whenever you use Verdant Embrace, jumping to an ally to heal them, you mark them with Life Bind, and the healing you do to yourself gets partially transferred or copied to them.

Life Bind and Its Impact in the War Within

I should mention that the healing from Life Bind transfers to the ally and vice versa. In Vault of the Incarnates, this build of life-binding your allies and transferring healing to them was insanely overpowered and heavily nerfed afterward. However, in the War Within, they’ve changed it so that multiple proc effects and Echoed Stasis effects that apply healing to yourself will now transfer through Life Bind. While the transfer rate isn’t as high, more spells and effects can now transfer to your ally, resulting in very high burst capabilities for the spec.

Preservation Evoker’s Healing Output

In addition to Life Bind, the spec is highly tuned, with not only Life Bind ramp effects but also Empower abilities that just blast healing. During raid testing, there were some absurd logs where the Engulf ability from Flame Shaper Evoker was doing an insane amount of healing. Although some of these were reverted and fixed, the spec continues to deliver massive healing output. I expect Preservation Evoker to be the most likely fourth selection for the Race to World First because its output is so high.

Choosing the Fourth Healer for the Race to World First

What usually happens after you’ve selected all the healers that bring unique utility—like Spirit Link, Devo Aura, and Barrier—is that you look for a healer that either synergizes with the raid encounters or brings tons of output, or some combination of both. I think Preservation Evoker fits that bill going into the War Within, making it the most likely candidate for the potential fourth slot in hard boss encounters. However, there are other specs that could be considered for this slot as well.

Importance of Druid in Raid Composition

Druid is always going to be a very necessary class to bring into your group, and it really depends on the balance of all the other Druid specs to see which one is going to be good. In Aberrus, you started seeing quite a decent bit of Resto Druid in the Race to World First. I believe it was Liquid who preferred the Resto Druid, while Ekko may not have used it as much, though that needs confirmation. The Mark of the Wild buff is going to be insanely important.

Challenges and Strengths of Resto Druid

While Resto Druid has had a rough beta in terms of design and setup, there is some very strong output that you can achieve by combining Keeper of the Grove and Flourish. This allows you to pull your Treant, stack them together, and return to a ramp playstyle similar to what was effective in previous content. Now that most of your output is not coming from Treant, and they are not just hard carrying you, Keeper of the Grove increases your overall output whenever you activate your Treant, allowing you to build up a huge set of HoTs onto your entire raid and blast significant healing.

Comparative Performance of Resto Druid

While other healers can perform a similar job and deliver comparable performance, Resto Druid’s ability to stack HoTs and leverage Keeper of the Grove for massive healing output makes it a strong contender in raid composition. The combination of HoTs and Treant activations provides Resto Druid with a unique strength that can be invaluable in many encounters.

Comparing HPS and Utility of Resto Druid

I don’t think Resto Druid has as high of HPS or as crazy potential HPS as Preservation Evoker, but it brings a great raid buff and good utility to the team. Regrowth is one of the spells that provides healing, and having good spot healing in the raid is always a positive in high-end raiding.

Holy Priest as a Potential Fourth Healer

To round out our potential fourth healer, Holy Priest is a strong contender. Holy Priest dominated in Aberrus, was very good in Vault of the Incarnates, and remained solid in Amirdrassil. However, Amirdrassil marked the point where the spec started to lose some of its utility, particularly with the nerf to Symbol of Hope. Initially, it provided a minute of cooldown reduction since the Sanctum of Domination raid, which was ridiculously powerful.

Impact of Symbol of Hope Nerf

Symbol of Hope now provides only 30 seconds of cooldown reduction, but it’s still pretty good. Despite the nerf, the spec continues to deliver huge amounts of output. Archon Holy Priest with the empowered Halo effect provides significant healing. Throughout all of beta, it was present in testing, and it was publicly visible on all the logs. Surprisingly, Holy Priest dodged nerfs the entire time.

Holy Priest’s Strength in Large Raids

Part of Holy Priest’s strength comes from its utility in large raid sizes, particularly when it’s the only healer with two raid cooldowns that scale with raid size. This makes it especially valuable in high-end, coordinated teams, where the ability to manage total damage intake through well-timed cooldowns is critical.

Holy Priest’s Role in Heroic Week

Holy Priest is likely to dominate during Heroic week, and everyone might be amazed at how much healing it can provide. However, when three major cooldowns don’t hit an additional 10 people, the output might seem more balanced. If this high output remains consistent, Holy Priest could be a potential contender for the fourth healer position.

Liquid’s Preference for Holy Priest

Historically, Liquid has heavily favored Holy Priest, and they really enjoy playing with them. Not only do you have the option of Archon, but Oracle has also become quite good. Empowering your Insight or Premonition ability gives you 10 seconds of cooldown reduction instead of the base 7 seconds. This allows for frequent casting of Prayer of Mending, feeding into more uptime for Answered Prayers, which helps you get your Salvation back faster.

Oracle Talents and Overheal Redirection

Oracle talents provide an overheal redirect, enabling you to use Guardian Spirit on yourself and treat yourself like a seed. Healing from Oracle talents, such as Flash Heal and Serenity, does more healing to you, and Guardian Spirit increases that healing further. Piety increases your healing and redirects overheal. When empowered with Fate Bender, the 70% overheal redirect becomes 98%. This allows you to Guardian Spirit yourself, activate Piety, use a raid cooldown, and focus all your Serenities on yourself, effectively solo healing a specific mechanic every 2 minutes.

Holy Priest’s Strength in High-End Raiding

As a result, Holy Priest is a fantastic healer that shouldn’t be overlooked. With its powerful cooldowns and the ability to solo heal critical mechanics, it remains a strong choice in high-end raiding, especially in well-coordinated teams.

Excitement for Raiding with Holy Priest

I’m really excited to play Holy Priest in a raid environment because the gameplay is super fun and engaging. Both hero talents are good and offer different benefits. Having Solace’s damage reduction on hand will be very helpful. I’m curious to see if we won’t need the Mark of the Wild buff from the Healer department if Preservation Evoker and Holy Priest have fairly equivalent overall output. There’s a strong argument for Holy Priest in the race to World First.

The Great Tier: Mistweaver Monk

Lastly, we have our final tier, which is the Great Tier, and that is going to be Mistweaver Monk. Even though this might be ignored by everyone when they just take a screenshot of the tier list, I still think Mistweaver is going to be an excellent healer for high-end raiding. From my experience, raiding all the way to World 13th and currently around World 40th, after 9 or 10 years of straight Cutting Edge raiding, I believe the healer balance in a raid environment is actually very good going into the next expansion.

Skill Expression and Mistweaver’s Potential

If you’re a skilled healer, you’re going to be successful and noticed. There are lots of opportunities for skill expression, and I think Mistweaver will do very well for everyone. That being said, what’s really caused Mistweaver to be represented in the race to World First—besides their high output—is their history of doing absurd amounts of healing. There have been a few different times historically where Mistweaver was highly represented, such as during Amirdrassil, where they were doing 20% more healing than everyone else.

High Representation of Mistweaver in Raids

I remember the name of the German guild—though I don’t think it was Advanced—that ran the Venier hero talent or the Venier Covenant build during Sanctum of Domination. It was Fallen Order from Mistweavers, which had ridiculous output, and they were running it as high as World Fifth or Seventh. Mistweaver’s high representation in raids is often dependent on its output. This isn’t so much an issue with the spec itself but with the overall healer utility balance for a raid.

Mistweaver’s Role and Utility in Raids

In Amirdrassil, Mistweaver was heavily brought in because of its strong single-target healing for NPCs, Revival for the Farrak encounter, and its survival capabilities. These aspects suited Mistweaver’s kit well. However, since it doesn’t look like we have those specific needs in the upcoming content, and Mistweaver isn’t doing insane healing—just great healing—these factors might detract from its representation in the Race to World First.

Mistweaver’s Hybrid Build and Output Potential

What the spec brings to the table now appears to be a hybrid Rising Mist and caster build for raids. You no longer have the Clouded Focus setup, so you’re not mashing Soothing Mist and all your output into one person and spreading it from there. However, Mistweaver still looks to be a powerhouse of output for your group, able to muscle heal through many challenges.

Condor the Celestial and Mistweaver’s Strengths

Condor the Celestial is insanely fun to play and offers a very strong minute-and-a-half cooldown. Additionally, Mistweaver can blast some key single-target healing, as Vivify has received some direct healing buffs, and there is tier set synergy with it going into the next expansion. From my perspective, I expect it to be pretty fun to play, and I’d love to see how it performs.

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