Mythic+ Healer Rankings: A Tier List for The War Within (Patch 11.0.5 / Season 1)

This tier list is NOT FINAL; it will change and will be updated as often as necessary prior and during The War Within Mythic+ Season 1. There are often moments of tier set and class tuning, as well as talent changes and secondary stat scaling that will impact the placement of the specs.

I am Petko, a competitive Mythic+ player, known to be pushing the boundaries of High Mythic+ with several World first and Europe first rankings among past seasons on multiple classes. I have worked hard on preparing for Season 1 of The War Within, spending numerous hours per day examining each and every spec in a dungeon environment on Beta. This Tier list will continue to be updated as much as it requires over the course of The War Within and it will also focus on what the "meta" will look like as it stabilizes. Along the way, this Tier list will also be supported by various professional Mythic+ players with high credibility in the community, theorycrafters across all specializations, and my own empirical evidence.

To begin with, this Tier list will exclusively focus on the first Season of Mythic+ in The War Within. There will be no Warcraft Logs rankings added nor simulation data for the majority of the classes and specs. As a result, this Tier list will be solely based on empirical evidence of the current state of the classes' performance in Mythic+ from my own point of view and the point of view of the group of players testing those classes who are among the best representatives of the specs in the community. Moreover, this Tier list will take into consideration every impactful class change and tier set tuning before and after the start of the season.

It is important to note that opinions might vary and that is completely okay, but remember to be respectful when providing feedback as the sole purpose of this tier list is to help the WoW community with their choice of main or alt each season.

This tier list is entirely based on healer performance in Mythic+. The factors that are considered are HPS and DPS output, external cooldowns, utility, durability, and mobility.

Below, you can find the full rankings for Healers slots in Season 1 of The War Within in Mythic+. We encourage you to further read and understand why some classes are placed lower or higher than expected, with several factors taken into consideration.

1. Discipline Priest (Best Choice)
2. Restoration Shaman (Excellent)
3. Preservation Evoker (Excellent)
4. Holy Paladin (Impressive)
5. Mistweaver Monk (Impressive)
6. Restoration Druid (Impressive)
7. Holy Priest (Good)

If you are interested in our other rankings for Mythic+ in Season 1 of The War Within, please click the links below.

Patch 11.0.5 update: Discipline Priest received no relevant changes in the upcoming patch, leading to the second part of Season 1. With the most recent Discipline Priest buffs to Atonement, their Mythic+ performance will rapidly be improved, as having strong healing output was previously one of the weakest points for them. On top of this, they will retain their strong external utility packages in the The War Within. They currently have the strongest damage output across all healing specs, which is one of the major factors why they are considered "the best" healing choice (not including the OP Power Infusion).

Mobility and durability remain ongoing issues, as well as being one of the only healers in the game without an interrupt. This can specifically harm their already weak mob control further (due to lack of interrupt), especially as Season 1 is full of dangerous caster mobs.

Utility Package

Functionality	Spells	Notes
Core	Pain Suppression	External-defensive cooldown applied to a chosen target for 40% effectiveness.
Core	Power Word: Barrier	Summons a barrier reducing the damage taken by all allies within the area with 20%.
Core	Rapture	-
Core	Power Infusion	You must always have Twins of the Sun Priestess talented.
Core	Power Word: Fortitude	A raid-wide 5% Stamina buff.
Core	Psychic Scream	AoE disturb effect.
Core	Mind Soothe	It reduces the range at which the target/s will attack you. Incredibly useful for trash mob skips. It can be used on multiple enemies.
Core	Mass Dispel	Incredible useful where Mass Dispelling is needed.
Optional	Vampiric Embrace	Extra off-healing.
Optional	Leap of Faith	Helps with repositioning.
Optional	Dominate Mind	Mindcontrols an enemy, allowing you to simultaneously execute your rotation while having full control over them and their abilities.
Optional	Shackle Undead	Crowd-controls a undead target for 50 sec.
Optional	Purify Disease	On top of Dispel Magic you will be able to further bolster it by allowing the spell to remove 1 Disease on a friendly target.

Patch 11.0.5 update: Restoration Shaman received a few quality of life changes, which will help with the mana retention, leading to the second half of the first season. Their healing has become much more efficient, with several options for topping up health bars swiftly while dealing damage, stronger spot-heal options, and better defensive/group-wide utility. Their new Hero Talents have significantly helped them close the gaps and elevate their playstyle compared to the previous expansion. If you are an avid Restoration Shaman fan, this will be the expansion to get back to it as it currently ranks as one of the best healers in the Season 1.

No strong external-defensive cooldown outside of their long and powerful cooldown - Spirit Link Totem. Although it is a great choice when your team is stacked, a strong single-target external-damage-reduction spell (like Druid's Ironbark short cooldown) would be quite helpful.

Utility Package

Functionality	Spells	Notes
Core	Skyfury	-
Core	Bloodlust	-
Core	Earth Elemental	A powerful elemental summon that helps you survive. It can also tank non-boss-enemies for you.
Core	Spirit Link Totem	Reduces damage taken to your party/raid within 10 yards of the totem by 10% and every 1 their health is redistributed evenly.
Optional	Ancestral Vigor	Allows for some of your core abilities to temporary increase your health by 10% for 10 sec.
Optional	Earthen Wall Totem	Have a choice between a protective totem or a totem that allows you to reincarnate upon death and provides a temporary 10% increased health.
Optional	Mana Tide Totem	Increases Mana Regeneration to the whole party for a short time.
Optional	Wind Rush Totem	On-demand extra movement speed which can be further bolstered by Jet Stream - removing all snares on all targets interaction with Wind Rush Totem (its like a massive Blessing of Freedom).
Optional	Ancestral Guidance	Provides extra off-healing to your party.
Optional	Capacitor Totem	3 sec AoE stun.
Optional	Hex	Single-target crowd-control ability.
Optional	Cleanse Spirit	Removes all Curse effects from a friendly target.
Optional	Purge	Removing 1 beneficial Magic effect from an enemy.
Optional	Thunderstorm	AoE disturb effect that can either knock away or knock up ( Thundershock).
Optional	Poison Cleansing Totem	Removes all poison effects on a nearby party member each 1.5 sec for 6 sec.
Optional	Elemental Resistance	Small group-wide school of magic damage reduction.

Patch 11.0.5 update: Preservation Evoker received little to no changes in the upcoming patch. They still have the shortest offensive and defensive ability range among all healers, which is a massive issue. Their performance, more specifically their damage and healing output, has been absolutely incredible, and will continue to be so in the second half of the season. With that in mind, their HPS profile is still their strongest asset, paired with great DPS. Both Hero Talents offer additional utility, adding flavor to the specialization as a whole. Overall, they do not stand out as the best healing option for Mythic+ simply because of how hard it is to make them work in a pug environment. The group awareness must be present for them to understand how your healing profile works so you can unlock your full potential.

They struggle to heal when the group is not stacked, which can be problematic with several ranged DPS or uncoordinated groups. In addition, although their utility and mob control are great, they still suffer from a lack of fully ranged abilities, which can be crucial in tough moments.

Utility Package

Functionality	Spells	Notes
Core	Blessing of the Bronze	-
Core	Tail Swipe	AoE disturb effect that knocks up enemies.
Core	Wing Buffet	AoE knockback effect.
Core	Expunge	Removing all Poison effects from an ally.
Core	Rewind	Rewinds 33% of damage taken in the last 5 sec by all allies.
Core	Time Dilation	It causes 50% of damage your ally takes to be instead dealt over 8 sec.
Optional	Sleep Walk	Single-target crowd-control effect that forces the enemy to move towards you.
Optional	Source of Magic	Can be further bolstered by Potent Mana
Optional	Oppressing Roar	Increasing the duration of all crowd-control effects on the affected enemies by 50%. You can further talent into Overawe, removing 1 Enrage effect from each enemy (AoE Enrage Removal).
Optional	Spatial Paradox	It enables your Healer of choice to move freely while casting and increasing the range of most spells by 100% for 11 sec.
Optional	Terror of the Skies	After using Breath of Eons, you will stun all enemies by 3 sec affected by your breath.
Optional	Zephyr	Area-of-effect damage reduction (party only).
Optional	Cauterizing Flame	Bleed removal
Optional	Rescue	You can further bolster it with Twin Guardian talent for extra durability.

Patch 11.0.5 update: Holy Paladin received their fair share of changes which will make them better than they were in the previous patch. The new tier-set will add more healing throughput off-cooldowns, addressing a previous issue for the spec while also increasing their damage profile. There are no new changes for their Mythic+ toolkit, but everyone knows that Holy Paladin has one of the best party-wide utilities, strong defensiveness (even an immunity), and excellent mob control. Overall, we expect them to continue be a solid choice for a healer going into the second half of Season 1.

Further buffs to their healing/damage output will likely result in them being considered for the S-tier as they have all the necessary tools to be a sleeper OP spec.

Utility Package

Functionality	Spells	Notes
Core	Devotion Aura	Permanent 3% group/raid-wide damage reduction aura.
Core	Hammer of Justice	A powerful single-target 6 sec stun effect.
Core	Lay on Hands	Heals a member of your party/raid to full health.
Core	Intercession	Combat-resurrection
Optional	Blessing of Sacrifice	Helps a single member of your raid in a critical situation. This can be further improved by talenting Sacrifice of the Just.
Optional	Blessing of Protection	Physical immunity, which can help you with some boss encounters.
Optional	Blessing of Freedom	Immunity to movement impairing effects.
Optional	Repentance / Blinding Light	You have the option between single-target crowd-control effect or a powerful mass AoE stop.
Optional	Cleanse Toxins	Removes all Poison and Disease effects from the target.
Optional	Turn Evil	Be able to fear any Undead, Aberration or Demon is an additional form of crowd control.

Patch 11.0.5 update: Mistweaver Monk received quite a few changes in the upcoming patch, leading to improvement in their Mythic+ performance for the second half of Season 1. Mistweaver's current HPS profile is amazing as it can easily tackle any given encounter in Mythic+ while contributing to the team with its great damage profile (yes, most of your damage still requires you to be in melee). All of this combined plays well with the strong utility package they offer, not only contributing to mob control but also being a "peel" for your tank in dangerous situations ( Ring of Peace). They are also the only healer capable of providing the Mystic Touch debuff, which can significantly boost damage output if a physical-damage-centric meta is being employed. As such, we are pleased with the current state of the Mistweaver Monk and although they are not the best, the spec is in a great position.

Mistweaver Monk is still the only healer that does not have any external damage-reduction cooldown to help support your team.

Utility Package

Functionality	Spells	Notes
Core	Mystic Touch	5% extra Physical damage for your raid.
Core	Life Cocoon	Apply a large absorb shield to a friendly target.
Core	Revival	Removes all Magical, Poison and Disease effects on the entire party.
Core	Leg Sweep	3 sec stun effect.
Optional	Tiger's Lust	Removes all roots and snares.
Optional	Ring of Peace	It can be used to help your tank kite and as a AoE disturb effect.
Optional	Detox	Removes all Poison and Disease effects from the target.
Optional	Paralysis	Single-target disturb effect.

Patch 11.0.5 update: Restoration Druid Restoration Druid received a handful of changes leading to the second part of Season 1. They will still have one of the weakest healing outputs across all specs, compensating with a great damage profile. Your defensives have gotten better while keeping your incredible party-wide utility unchanged. With all of that combined, we believe further output buffs must be implemented for you to climb the rankings as currently, your healing is considered lackluster.

Further buffs on behalf of their healing capabilities. One of the hardest healers to truly master. If you are a beginner player, beware!

Utility Package

Functionality	Spells	Notes
Core	Mark of the Wild	Increasing the Versatility of your raid/party by 3%.
Core	Entangling Roots	Single-target root effect.
Core	Ironbark	Short-external damage-reduction cooldown.
Optional	Nature's Vigil	Extra off-healing.
Optional	Innervate	Allowing 1 friendly healer to cast spells without spending mana for 8 sec.
Optional	Stampeding Roar	Increasing the movement speed to all raid members by 60% for 8 sec.
Optional	Remove Corruption	Removes all Curse and Poison effects from a friendly target.
Optional	Soothe	Dispelling all Enrage Effects from an enemy target.
Optional	Hibernate	Single-target crowd-control effects against beasts and dragonkins.
Optional	Incapacitating Roar / Mighty Bash	You have the choice between AoE disturb effect or a single-target stun.
Optional	Typhoon	Aoe knockback.
Optional	Mass Entanglement / Ursol's Vortex	You have the choice between AoE root effect or AoE wind-of-vortex, pulling all the mobs to one location.

Patch 11.0.5 update: Unfortunately for Holy Priest, they have barely seen any changes in the upcoming patch. They maintain their decent DPS and HPS profiles but continue to face the same limitations - low mobility and insufficient mob control. Additionally, they are one of the few healing specializations lacking an interrupt spell, which makes their mob-control one of the weakest, compared to the rest of the healing specs. However, it is noteworthy that this specialization is considered one of the easier healing options due to its reactive healing capabilities, which are adept at addressing any form of incoming or sustained HPS challenges, complemented by robust spot-healing.

Lack of an interrupt, exacerbating their already weak mob control capabilities. Deficient in strong mobility.

Utility Package

Functionality	Spells	Notes
Core	Guardian Spirit	Provides a "Cheat-Death" to a chosen player.
Core	Holy Word: Chastise	Single-targe disturb effect.
Core	Symbol of Hope	Replenishes Mana and helps restore defensive cooldowns.
Core	Power Infusion	You must always have Twins of the Sun Priestess talented.
Core	Power Word: Fortitude	A raid-wide 5% Stamina buff.
Core	Psychic Scream	AoE disturb effect.
Core	Mind Soothe	It reduces the range at which the target/s will attack you. Incredibly useful for trash mob skips. It can be used on multiple enemies.
Core	Mass Dispel	Incredible useful where Mass Dispelling is needed.
Optional	Vampiric Embrace	Extra off-healing.
Optional	Leap of Faith	Helps with repositioning.
Optional	Dominate Mind	Mindcontrols an enemy, allowing you to simultaneously execute your rotation while having full control over them and their abilities.
Optional	Shackle Undead	Crowd-controls a undead target for 50 sec.
Optional	Purify Disease	On top of Dispel Magic you will be able to further bolster it by allowing the spell to remove 1 Disease on a friendly target.