November 4, 2022

BEST HEALERS IN DRAGONFLIGHT: TIER LIST AND PREDICTIONS

Following our DPS tier lists, it’s time to talk about healers. It would be challenging and sometimes even impossible to defeat a mighty boss or get a high rank in the Arena without a reliable ally with healing abilities. Today we overview different healing specializations to understand who will be the best healer in Dragonflight.

DRAGONFLIGHT HEALERS TIER LIST

Evokers bring a new healing specialization to World of Warcraft, making it a total of 7 healing specs. It’s not that many compared to DPS options, but we still have something to choose from. The picture above shows that specs are allocated equally among three tiers. Let’s have a closer look and discuss each spec separately to see what they will look like in Dragonflight.

S TIER

The most effective specs in terms of general performance present this tier. Those are Preservation Evoker, Restoration Shaman, and Discipline Priest. It’s vital to understand that Evoker is a totally new class. Accurate predictions are hard to make, and many things may change before Dragonflight’s release and during the expansion itself. Still, Preservation may be a top healer since it appears as the strongest healing spec at the moment.

Preservation Evoker. We already mentioned in our Ranged DPS tier list that Evokers may have some issues because of their 25 yd cast range. This spec still makes it to S-tier due to its high mobility and very powerful healing talents in both class and spec trees. It may become the best PvP healer due to its mobility.
Class talents like Verdant Embrace make up for the short cast range, allowing you to quickly get to your teammate and heal them in the process. Cauterizing Flame can remove DoT effects and apply additional healing. The spec justifies its name — there are many ways to preserve healing effects and use them when needed, like Stasis and Cycle of Life.
Restoration Shaman. This spec’s utility may make it top of Dragonflight’s healer meta. Earth Shield and Healing Stream Totem remain super-powerful spells for passive healing. You can find several empowerments for them in your class tree. Ancestral Guidance, a strong cooldown, can also be acquired from there. It means you can get many powerful abilities without spending your Restoration points on them.
Restoration tree also provides many amazing features to the spec. Earthen Harmony, a former Runecarving Power, can significantly improve your Earth Shield and add its stacks to your target. That way, Restoration Shamans can focus more on healing abilities, becoming much stronger in single-target healing.
Discipline Priest. The last S-tier member as per our best healer predictions. It’s a unique spec as it relies on dealing damage to recover allies’ HP. Atonement appears to be the core of Discipline in Dragonflight, making its targets receive healing when you inflict damage. This spec’s changes imply that Discipline Priests won’t be spamming shields left and right and will focus on pure healing more.
Several powerful spells and talents make this spec very effective for preventing huge amounts of damage. Those include Power Word: Barrier and Aegis of Wrath. A new spell called Power Word: Life excels in single-target healing. Rhapsody, a new talent, significantly empowers Holy Nova, allowing priests to inflict a lot of AoE healing from time to time.

S-tier specs are better than other healers in terms of general performance. They will likely be the most popular healing specializations in Dragonflight.

A TIER

Specs in this tier of our healer ranking are powerful and effective, but may have some minor issues that do not allow them to get to a higher tier. Mistweaver Monk and Holy Priest represent A-tier.

Mistweaver Monk. This spec has a well-structured skill tree and various good talents in Dragonflight. Many good-looking mechanics will probably make MW Monk an in-demand class in different situations. As always, Mistweavers have several abilities and talents with healing-over-time effects. Those include such spells as Essence Font and Enveloping Mist. An old Monk ability Zen Pulse has also been transferred to the Mistweaver talent tree, allowing the spec to be among the best on the M+ healer tier list. MW Monks may have some issues with burst healing because of too many over-time effects.
Holy Priest. You can find Power Word: Life and Rhapsody talents mentioned above in Priest’s class tree. It means you can gain their benefits playing as a Holy Priest as well. The spec also has several powerful cooldowns, such as Guardian Spirit and Divine Hymn.
There are still problems that do not allow Holy to get to S-tier. First, it has too many buttons compared to other healing specs. You’ll need some know-how and practice to play the spec effectively. Second, many powerful talents, especially those at the bottom of the talent tree, have a “choose-one” type. Holy lacks utility because of that, and you’ll have to make the right decisions for different situations.

A-tier participants of Dragonflight’s healer tier list are strong and well-balanced specs. They will probably be desired members of any party.

B TIER

Restoration Druid. Druids have high potential as they have different options for healing. Restoration has strong healing-over-time spells such as Lifebloom and Rejuvenation. Nourish and Swiftmend are decent one-time-healing spells, and there are also some powerful cooldowns like Convoke the Spirits.
Still, Restoration Druids can’t acquire some demandable talents because they are spread out in the talent tree. For example, it’ll be difficult to have learned Typhoon and Skull Bash at the same time. Druids may end up at the bottom of the PvP healers’ tier list because of that.
There are also too many abilities in the last two rows of the Restoration talent tree. You’ll probably have to make sacrifices. Finally, some strong spells like Nourish considerably depend on Mastery. Druids will need proper stats to heal effectively.
Holy Paladin. This spec has decent healing options and can even empower allies with various spells. Those include Blessing of Summer, a former Night Fae Covenant ability, and different auras.
Holy’s problem is the process of generating Holy Power, Paladins’ main resource. This spec appears to have two different routes — melee or ranged casting, but melee abilities are way better for generating Holy Power. In other words, Paladins are forced to go melee, losing their healing effectiveness.