Greetings, esteemed Healers! Librarian Husky here, and it’s time to ready yourselves, for the recent Tank nerfs from Blizzard have now become our shared responsibility. Blizzard’s vision is crystal clear: it’s all about slower, more deliberate healing instead of the frantic life-saving we’ve been accustomed to. They’ve reduced our healing output while significantly boosting health pools, setting the stage for a new era of careful, strategic healing. So, let’s dive in and master this new challenge together!

The New Role of Healers

Blizzard’s goal in all of this is Healers who methodically restore health bars—no more ping-ponging between full bars and death’s door, no more crazy stress all the time, and no more filling in the gaps by just being a weak DPS. Personally, this is actually really exciting to me. I think healing rocks when it’s about strategy, using your kit, and being efficient with your mana. That’s exciting to me.

Challenges from the Dragonflight Expansion

Healing has suffered deeply from the arms race that basically led us to the real struggles in the Dragonflight expansion. The good news is that beta testers are praising this new rhythm. They’re praising it while not raging about lots of instant deaths from the rather overwhelming amount of dangerous Dungeon mechanics.

The Impact on Mythic Plus Dungeons

That’s the thing, right? Like, yep, Mythic Plus has had its fixes paired back. That means Blizzard has put in loads more mechanics, and that could, in some ways, mean cool, involved dungeons.

The Challenges of Mastering New Dungeon Mechanics

You can learn and master these mechanics, but the downside is it can be a bit of a shock, and a lot of people are dying. Dungeons so far have been tougher and more mechanically dense than ever. Perhaps Blizzard’s tuning will hit the mark, but the sheer mechanical overwhelm may still be a problem.

The Expected Adjustment Period

Because of the increased difficulty, I do expect a bit of a teething period here. With all of this change, let’s take a look at how each spec is going to be entering this new era. If you need a bit of help deciding, check out this guide posted for our members over at Bellular.

<3>Holy Paladins: The Big Winners

Let’s get into the specs. I am thrilled to say that Holy Paladins are winners. They have finally received their long-awaited overhaul. What’s happened is Glimmer is gone, and that has freed up a significant amount of power, which is now evenly distributed across their kit.

Changes in Holy Power Spenders

The Holy Power Spenders, which were once just a laughing stock, have been juiced up big time and now actually feel good. On top of that, button bloat has been reduced. For example, Divine Favor is now baked into your Barrier or Prism cast, and Light’s Hammer and Daybreak are just gone. Infusion procs are once again back to just buffing your heals.

The Power of Simplicity in Holy Paladin Gameplay

If there’s ever been an argument for simple being better, it’s this. The focus now lies on efficient spending of your Holy Power and min-maxing your usage of Infusion procs, Divine Favor, and your list of other spells. It all comes together well, and the melee weaving is still here.

Efficient Holy Power Spending

The focus on Holy Power generation fits even better now because your Holy Power spenders actually feel good. Add to that their Hero Talents, and basically, Holy Paladin is a standout winner. Herald of the Sun is just a veritable light show and upgrades your Word of Glory into the old Eternal Flames.

The Appeal of Lightsmith Talent

Lightsmith is a DPS and shield-granting support tree that is a little bit niche in fantasy, but if you love it, you’ll love it. Overall, it’s super positive, but not everything is perfect. The Talent tree is still full of niche passives, and the lack of a full rework has left a few parts behind.

Areas in Need of Improvement

Abilities like Tears Deliverance or Hammer of Wrath either need a second look or should be dropped entirely, with that space going to something else. It’s kind of weird to say it, but more pruning may actually be beneficial, as would a little bit more general utility. But still, looking past those minor gripes, Holy is absolutely popping off.

Holy Paladins and Mistweavers: A New Era

If you’re a Holy Paladin, you can have a big smile on your face. Next, Mistweavers—congratulations, you’ve actually outlived Essence Font. Yes, Essence Font is gone, and its removal, along with a few other changes, finally frees up your gameplay. The blend between fist weaving and casting is now satisfyingly clean.

The Evolution of Mistweaver Gameplay

So much so that the Monk community has been on a bit of a mission to eliminate the old melee, ranged, and fist weaving SL terms. The focus is now on builds based on your talent choices. You might run Tear of the Morning if you’re using Soothing Mist or Rising Mist if you’re using Rising Sun Kicks.

The Stability of Core Gameplay

Either way, most of your gameplay remains the same unless you’re running Jadefire Stomp for the classic damage-to-heal conversion build. Even then, that’s just an addition to an already very solid core spec. All it took from Blizzard was a few talent reshuffles. Removing Clouded Focus to add Crane Style and Pull of the Mists were surgically precise changes.

The Impact of Hero Talents

These changes have led to an immaculate version of the spec—it’s really good. However, the Hero Talents are a mixed bag. Conduit of the Celestials is actually fun, full of that colorful celestial flair with a new ability and passives.

Mistweaver’s New Talents and Passive Options

You’ll definitely feel these changes in action, which is pretty great. However, there is also the somewhat passive and generic alternative called Master of Harmony. Maybe you’ll find it boring, or maybe it just provides more power that some players prefer without much interaction. This might be Blizzard’s intent with it.

Mistweaver’s Success in the Latest Patch

Overall, Mistweaver walks out as a solid winner. Resto Shaman also does the same, emerging as a victor, thanks to smart, subtle changes. For example, you save at least one hot bar slot with Downpour, as it’s no longer its own button but now a follow-up to Healing Rain—a slick change that reduces ability bloat.

Resto Shaman’s New Buffs and Defensive Options

The new Tide Waters buff your Healing Rain further. Finally, Resto Shamans have got a raid buff called Sky Fury, which is essentially Windfury plus Mastery. Additionally, a major weakness has been addressed with a new personal defensive ability, Stone Bulwark.

Upgrades to Major Resto Shaman Cooldowns

Their major cooldowns, Spirit Link and Ascendance, have also received much-needed upgrades. These upgrades are affordable and effective, reflecting Blizzard’s effort to enhance the overall experience for Resto Shamans.

Improvements to Resto Shaman Talents and Utility

They’ve taken some two-pointer talents, dropped them down to one, and made some key abilities baseline. This change makes the Talent tree much nicer to build in. As for utility, the class tree is even more optimized, with a bit of reshuffling that makes the best spells much easier to grab.

The Evolution of Resto Shaman as a Group Healer

With these changes, Resto Shaman has evolved into a powerhouse group healer—easy to learn but hard to master. Unfortunately, not everything is perfect. The Hero Talents are a bit mixed. Farer is a fun ancestor-summoning talent that gives your Lava Burst another charge and upgrades Nature’s Swiftness.

The Role of Totemic Hero Talent

Then there’s Totemic, which replaces your Healing Rain with Surging Totem and upgrades totems across the board. Totems are fitting for the Shaman class, but it’s not the most exciting to play. That said, none of this makes the spec actively worse—just a little underwhelming.

Overall Strengths and Weaknesses

Overall, Restoration Shaman feels great; it’s a lot of fun and works well in most circumstances. However, a few weaknesses persist, like the reliance on big cooldowns to react to danger. But even with these minor issues, Resto Shaman presents a strong picture.

The State of Resto Druid

Resto Druid has been in a tough spot, especially as every other Druid spec has been underperforming in recent updates.

Resto Druid: A Winning Update

I can say that Resto Druid is a winner in this update. Let’s go through some of the changes. First, Moonkin form shifting is no longer necessary for optimal damage and mana return, which is a really nice change. It streamlines gameplay but does so at the cost of Flap and Wild Charge’s leap.

Improvements to Damage and Talent Effects

Damage itself is actually getting a solid upgrade via talents proccing Heart of the Wild once every minute, which is pretty sweet. This also comes with a new damage transfer effect that offers windows of blasting out your Wraths or doing some cat weaving. Another interesting change is the removal of the random extra Regrowth proccing talent.

Adjustments to Tranquility and Healing Logic

This removal has allowed Blizzard to enhance the spell by adding an additional 30% upfront component, which many will likely appreciate. Tranquility has also undergone a significant change, shifting to being a massive upfront heal. This fundamentally alters what the spell used to be.

Flourish and Photosynthesis Talent Changes

Instead of being halved in raids, Tranquility now uses the standard logic of most big heals, with reduced effectiveness beyond five targets. The last meaningful change involves Flourish and Photosynthesis, which now occupy a choice node, forcing a decision between two incredibly strong talents.

Evaluating the Impact of the Class Tree Revamp

I think overall, in theory anyway, this should allow each talent to shine and be powerful without causing balancing nightmares. One would hope that a class tree revamp would solve many problems. Unfortunately, those hopes are somewhat dashed. Unlike the Shaman revamp, this one has no massive improvements but also no horrible downgrades—it’s just different.

The Highlight of the Fluid Form Talent

That said, a new highlight is the Fluid Form talent. This will feel lovely as it allows certain abilities to automatically shift you, saving a global cooldown (GCD). For example, Rake and Shred will directly turn you into a cat, which is a significant improvement as it eliminates the need to waste GCDs.

Disappointment in Hero Talents

Sadly, the Hero Talents are a bit disappointing. Keeper of the Grove’s Tree and buffs are not particularly interesting, and Wind Stalker is just a bunch of passive abilities. However, it does have some bonuses that more advanced players can use, including Control of the Dream, which allows you to delay your major cooldowns by up to 15 seconds after they come up.

Advanced Uses and Overall Assessment

This ability can be useful for more advanced players, but for most of us, it might not be that impactful. Overall, while there are some interesting aspects, particularly for those with advanced strategies, the changes are not as universally beneficial as one might have hoped.

Assessment of the Changes: A Mixed Bag

It’s a decent win, but not entirely. None of the core weaknesses were addressed, so if you don’t like ramping, specific spell combos, or mastering the use of the Reforestation proc, you might want to look elsewhere. With that, the winners are finished. Normally, this would mean moving on to the losers, but in this case, it’s not really about losers.

Holy Priest: Not a Loser, But Not a Big Winner

Holy Priest hasn’t had many changes because they got a bit of a rework in patch 10.2.3, improving their Mythic Plus damage and raid healing. The only significant new additions are the Hero Talents, which are thankfully pretty good. Archon boosts your AOE healing with massive repeated Halo casts that give you instant Flash Heals.

Oracle Talent: A Complex but Powerful Addition

Oracle is a bit more complicated. It grants you Premonition, a self-buff spell that rotates between three different effects: cooldown reduction on your next spells, a big heal buff that spreads overhealing, and damage reduction to your next single-target cast. All three effects proc with every third cast, which is awesome but requires some advanced strategy to maximize its use.

Final Thoughts on the Overall Impact

So, while this isn’t a clear-cut “winner” scenario, if you had to choose, Holy Priest leans more toward the winning side, even if it’s not a complete victory. The updates provide some valuable tools, but mastering them will require a bit more effort.

Discipline Priest: A Slight Winner

I would say it’s a slight winner. For Discipline Priest, things remain largely the same, except for a significant revamp to Rapture. Instead of providing 40% stronger shields for 8 seconds, your next three shields are now 80% stronger. This change reduces some group coverage during ramps but offers nice, beefed-up targeted mitigation.

Continuing Success from Patch 10.2

Overall, Discipline Priest is still riding high from the improvements in patch 10.2. It shares the fun of the Oracle tree with Holy Priest, and it also benefits from Void Weave. Void Weaver is especially cool—Smite upgrades to Void Blast after using Mind Blast, opening an entropic rift under the enemy.

Enhancements and Core Strengths

You can then pump up the rift with Penance before it bursts for big damage, providing lovely Atonement healing. This is pretty exciting overall. There are a few minor wins and almost no losses to worry about. While the existing weaknesses and challenges aren’t solved, many are inherent trade-offs for the spec and class.

Final Assessment: Not a Loser

Believe it or not, the Discipline Priest is not a loser. The changes made have provided more targeted strengths without compromising the core playstyle, making it a subtle but effective improvement.

Preservation of Ochre: Minor but Meaningful Improvements

The Preservation of Ochre is right up the same alley as the Priest specs. There are some minor improvements to the Talent tree, which are very welcome. These include talents like Lifespark, which boosts their DPS, and Spatial Paradox, which offers a brief option to fix their reduced range.

Exciting New Hero Talents

The hero talent, Flame Shaper, introduces some hot gameplay via Engulf, while Chrono Warden adds a cool twist. It makes Empower spells automatically fire off the upgraded version of Living Flame, resulting in a big explosion. Additionally, it changes Hover into a blink-like warp, dropping speed boost orbs for your team.

Limited Range but High Potential

Beyond these changes, Ochre remains the same limited-range, high-IQ healer that some people dislike but others absolutely love. Despite these updates, the core gameplay hasn’t changed significantly, retaining its unique challenges and appeal.

Final Thoughts on Healer Design Challenges

To bring this discussion to a close, it’s clear that healing remains the role most burdened by overall design issues. This has been an ongoing challenge that Blizzard has been grappling with for a few years now. However, these specs are strong, and some of the new Hero Talents are truly fantastic.

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