Nice tierlist. As someone who got 2500-3100 score on all healers last season, I agree with most, but disagree with a few of these. Depends a bit what part of pugging you tend to focus on, because I feel like pugging 10-18 is different than pugging 18-25. Mistweaver Monk: S-tier Fully agree, and IMO this is the best pug healer if nothing changes. Great utility kit, great cooldowns. Easy way to carry the team or pick up where other slack. BIggest downsides are: Not having DR (at best you have Chi Cocoon and Chi-ji Cocoon); being forced in a 5y melee range with no range extension. Resto Druid: First one I disagree with slightly, I might drop it to A. It's toolkit is amazing, but the lack of a reliable kick without skull bash is big. And even bigger is that it's quite hard to fix errors of your team fast. Unlike MW / Shaman / HPriest or even Evoker it's hard to counter unexpected damage spikes. RDruid throughput is massive, but proactivity by handling 5 sec ahead of damage. In a pug this is a big thing, especially if you also cannot interrupt. Toolkit is indeed really great. Resto Shaman: Fully agree with A spec, this is a sleeper spec for PUGs, it can carry extremely hard and probably has one of the best kits to carry a team. SLT, ranged 12 sec interrupt, Cap totem, Thunderstorm, Bloodlust; it has the most important tools for pugging. It's plagued by lower performance at higher level and bad survivability at higher level; but that matters not for anything sub-22 (or sub 12 in S4) really. Biggest downside in pugs is the massive mana consumption if you go a CH build and the squishiness at times. Also Ascendance and HTT didn't feel very impactful vs other healers major cooldowns to me. Holy Pala: Probably worst, might even be C spec; It is mostly just lacking throughput for some reason. Whereas in S2 you could use CDs to cover mistakes and/or power through burst, making it the best PUG healer; now you need CDs to simply keep up with regular damage. It has some good utility, but also nothing in the same order as Monk / Shaman / Druid. It needs some love. Holy Priest: Also a sleeper spec, I would put this in A tier myself. While this is severely lacking on utility being a priest it has some insane damage and insane burst throughput. Power Words get you through any and all damage at these levels and the rework gives access to both Divine Image and Divine Word, the latter having insane AoE healing combined with Sanctify, something Holy was struggling with. Lack of Kick, DR and good AoE CC outside Psychic Scream indeed bring this down, but this healer has the best pure healing (and damage) capabilities, making it best for the sub-22 range (sub-12 in S4) DIsc Priest: This was my main for the last 2 seasons. I would put this low B or top C tier for pugging. It's not bad and you can carry a team, but the lack of utility, kick makes you reliant on other party members. Biggest issue with PUGS is often people chunking because of a mistake, disc also lacks some solid single target healing to pick someone up when he stood in fire. If you play with at least 1-2 persons who you know can handle kicks and dont just die though this becomes a great powerhouse. The AoE burst healing is insane and cooldowns are quite strong. Preservation: My least favorite healer, because of the playstyle. Probably top of B in my experience; maybe going A rank if you have a full melee party. Biggest problem is just people standing in Narnia with the limited range. In S3 it was actually quite good with the buffs to living flame it kinda trucks as a single target heal. Great utility, bloodlust, 2 dispells, AoE sooth; as you said it has it all. It's mostly the range though and the stigma against it.
How would you rank Priest as a collective healing class? Say swapping between the two efficiently for lower and then to higher keys? Say Holy into low keys and Disc into higher? Would you put Disc in S tier with PUG + friend?
I use tendrils and fear in place for some mobs and I am curious, what are you using rapture for if not to rescue a dps from a mistake they made? Yes, you can use it for ramping but so far, it seems rare to me when atonement in dark cov works so well.
Returning player here. I really want to play caster MW to +15. It's just what I enjoy the most despite fistweaving being optimal. Can it cope? Or am I just setting myself up for a life of being kicked from groups for low DPS?
I want to say i really like this video! I wish more people would make content for PUG groups. Not everyone plays at high levels, or has a group they run with. I think it's great to see content geared to us PUG lifers lol
In pugs below 20 reliable stun+strong reactive healing+interrupt is the most valuable imo. Druid: A tier, doesnt have anything reliable I mentioned above but once you start rolling or can prepare your output is insane (sadly with pugs you cant really prepare for their fails). Cant put it in S tier because you cant carry pugs that much. Shaman: S tier due to that stun totem+thunderstorm on short CD alone, interrupt is there and reactive healing is solid. Evoker: A tier due to 5 second AoE stun+interrupt+swipe+buffet and strong reactive healing. Would be S tier if it didnt have crap range. Holy priest: best classic "save me dude!" healer with big oh shit buttons. Actually holy priest has similar CC to druid and is very noob friendly so A tier for me.
Thanks for the shaman love! ❤️ I have been jumping off shaman because of community perception, but man is this healer fun. Somewhat easy with nice nuance thanks to cloudburst and so much utility. Only thing I don’t like is that I get oneshot very easily, when I don’t have astral shift up. Mistweaver is the other one I loved since it came ojt in MoP, just because of theme. Every timw i hop on my monk, i start the MoP soundtrack playlist right with it. thanks for the different perspective.
I love Resto Shaman. It’s the most relaxing healer spec to play which is a big deal for how stressful healing can be. The water sound effects and visuals just keep me calm lol
You do make some valid points but I can't say I agree with two things; Not taking skullbash in pug as resto is a mistake, well worth the points. And holy priest needs to be higher, while it lacks much of the valuable utility as you say it can really save a run with huge insta heals after people make mistakes. Also with some vers, fade 10% dmg reduction, and the flash heal yourself 10% dmg reduction you can survive pretty well, these also have very high uptime.
Skullbash: The choice is basically between Skull Bash and Thick Hide. Anything below +20 (+10 in S4) can probably be done with skull bash, but anything above becomes hard without the 6% DR, it's massive. Also Skull Bash is an interrupt that requires 2 GCD unless you sit in cat form, makes it extremely clunky. It's definitely a downside of resto druid even if you DO pick it. I agree that for pugs you can pick this though, makes more sense and reduces one downside. Agreed on the holy priest. Also see my own post in the thread, but it's as much of a sleeper spec as resto shaman is. It's an absolute power house; it has some massive downsides in it's CC and lack of kick, but both it's burst healing and burst dps are unmatched making it actually seriously good for carrying pugs. Also agree it's not as squishy as people think.
Nice video, agree with most of this. I've found my holy priest deals best with poor/low dps PUGS better than either my druid or MW. I'd bump Holy P to the front end of B, the dps I can unleash with a group that knows what theyre doing is insane, almost double the dps of my MW. Shaman has saved many a PUG with the amount of utility and great burst hps when needed.
I played all healers in S3 but holy pala which I did in shadowlands. I think Monk, Shaman and Evoker have the most complete kits. Evoker is tricky to play tho. Priest pumps some big heals but most of the times will eat the dust in pugs because ppl do not interrupt. They also are the easiest to die as they are cloth and they surv tools are not that great.
Holy priest have not had an issue if you spec for chastise, fear with in-place and shackle.. keep shields out on weakest player, self res save on tank or mvp player, keep mend/renew going, and tell group before you even start to assist on affixes.. the big one is affixes .. this past weeks were brutal bc they nerf 50% heal per affix.. so if left not lockeddown, your at 25% heals and its not fun
I play preservation, and although it toon a while to get used to 30y range wasn't really an issue, especially when echo, rescue, and hover are all on the table. Specking into engineering rezz does seem like a must, and the discusting length of interrupt is horrible, so depending on the group either focusing on the most important 40s rotational kick or using it when needed. Preservation doesn't get as much love as it should imo.
Now spec into devastation and you’ll know what a real unloved spec is. But yeah, pres is gonna be great for s4. Don’t forget the leggo coming back which is a huuuuuge burst of healing around your tier set
@liamdavies2823 Yeah, I'm looking forward to it, though I think the Orser of love is Aug>Pres>Dev. Though from what I remember in season 1, Devistation had an amazing burst, so hopefully, they can get back to that. I think they will be better in the raids than they will in M+ *side note* I completely suck at playing dps due to my not enjoying the role, so I hardly ever play it.
@@Luke-A have you seen dev on the season 4 ptr? It’s top dps by far, it just lacks slightly in (unique!!) utility. It’s gonna be aug>=dev=pres for season 4. As long as no nerfs happen to them, they’re all looking at A+ tier. Most top dps evokers will be switching between aug and dev depending on dungeon and affixes
@liamdavies2823 have looked at Quazzwow, but other than the odd snippets, I kept myself in the dark. I don't want to expect one thing, and it changes a week before and ends up being disappointed, but that sounds great for evokers. On season 3, I hit 3100 pugging and hardly ever saw dev or Aug. Since I only healed, I can't say how rare pres has been, but people keep commenting on the lack of range or that people need to be in front of them, but that's not really the case if the healer knows how to play.
@@Luke-A insane tuning this late in the expansion is unlikely unless it’s to do with pre-TWW balancing for hero talents/talent changes/mastery revamps etc. Dev was very very bad for the first month of S3 then it got buffed to a good level. Dev’s S3 set is also awful for M+ but great for raid which is why it’s currently A tier for raid. Aug is slowly being made redundant by secondary stats being maxed out by most specs. The survivability gained from aug is objectively insane, BUTTTTT in S4 every single spec can buy a rageheart with bullions. So big dps specs in s4 like devastation can just take a rageheart. The very slight dps loss is worth it when you’re strong anyway and will die if you don’t take it (which means it’s gonna be a dps gain cause ur alive blah blah blah). And in S4, both pres and dev have tier sets interacting with empower spells and therefore having amazing synergy with the leggo. Aug just give more main stat in ebon might with it. I’ll probably end up playing a lot of all 3 evoker specs and maybe having a Druid alt there cause boomy and resto are sooooo fun
Yay druids! I had so much fun with my druid this season, and I was thinking about switching next season for some variety. But... if it ain't broke, why fix it?!
I main resto druid and have since year 2007. I would put them lower in this tier due to their healing style. Most PUG groups have DPS that don’t kick and they stand in crap to top the dps meter. I will say this is the best resto druids have felt in a very long time. My alt this season is mistweaver. 1. Mistweaver 2. Shammy/Druid 3. Paladin 4. Holy P 5. Disc P. Not sure where evoker fits as I haven’t played it. The whole, limited range thing is just asinine.
Why have they fked over HPal so bad... There has to be a reason. They almost got it right with the rework but then they reworked the rework and ruined it
I definitely think holy priest is better then what you put it at It doesn't have trouble healing and its also like the second highest damaging healer in the game rn
Ngl, I keep forgetting about Evoker even being a class. I don't mean to. I leveled 2, really didn't like it and deleted both of them. I know some people totally love them and that's great, but I actually forget about them. Sorry. Great vid as usual man!
Nice tierlist. As someone who got 2500-3100 score on all healers last season, I agree with most, but disagree with a few of these.
Depends a bit what part of pugging you tend to focus on, because I feel like pugging 10-18 is different than pugging 18-25.
Mistweaver Monk: S-tier Fully agree, and IMO this is the best pug healer if nothing changes. Great utility kit, great cooldowns. Easy way to carry the team or pick up where other slack.
BIggest downsides are: Not having DR (at best you have Chi Cocoon and Chi-ji Cocoon); being forced in a 5y melee range with no range extension.
Resto Druid: First one I disagree with slightly, I might drop it to A. It's toolkit is amazing, but the lack of a reliable kick without skull bash is big. And even bigger is that it's quite hard to fix errors of your team fast.
Unlike MW / Shaman / HPriest or even Evoker it's hard to counter unexpected damage spikes. RDruid throughput is massive, but proactivity by handling 5 sec ahead of damage. In a pug this is a big thing, especially if you also cannot interrupt. Toolkit is indeed really great.
Resto Shaman: Fully agree with A spec, this is a sleeper spec for PUGs, it can carry extremely hard and probably has one of the best kits to carry a team. SLT, ranged 12 sec interrupt, Cap totem, Thunderstorm, Bloodlust; it has the most important tools for pugging.
It's plagued by lower performance at higher level and bad survivability at higher level; but that matters not for anything sub-22 (or sub 12 in S4) really.
Biggest downside in pugs is the massive mana consumption if you go a CH build and the squishiness at times. Also Ascendance and HTT didn't feel very impactful vs other healers major cooldowns to me.
Holy Pala: Probably worst, might even be C spec; It is mostly just lacking throughput for some reason. Whereas in S2 you could use CDs to cover mistakes and/or power through burst, making it the best PUG healer; now you need CDs to simply keep up with regular damage. It has some good utility, but also nothing in the same order as Monk / Shaman / Druid. It needs some love.
Holy Priest: Also a sleeper spec, I would put this in A tier myself. While this is severely lacking on utility being a priest it has some insane damage and insane burst throughput. Power Words get you through any and all damage at these levels and the rework gives access to both Divine Image and Divine Word, the latter having insane AoE healing combined with Sanctify, something Holy was struggling with. Lack of Kick, DR and good AoE CC outside Psychic Scream indeed bring this down, but this healer has the best pure healing (and damage) capabilities, making it best for the sub-22 range (sub-12 in S4)
DIsc Priest: This was my main for the last 2 seasons. I would put this low B or top C tier for pugging. It's not bad and you can carry a team, but the lack of utility, kick makes you reliant on other party members. Biggest issue with PUGS is often people chunking because of a mistake, disc also lacks some solid single target healing to pick someone up when he stood in fire.
If you play with at least 1-2 persons who you know can handle kicks and dont just die though this becomes a great powerhouse. The AoE burst healing is insane and cooldowns are quite strong.
Preservation: My least favorite healer, because of the playstyle. Probably top of B in my experience; maybe going A rank if you have a full melee party. Biggest problem is just people standing in Narnia with the limited range. In S3 it was actually quite good with the buffs to living flame it kinda trucks as a single target heal. Great utility, bloodlust, 2 dispells, AoE sooth; as you said it has it all. It's mostly the range though and the stigma against it.
Good points man! Thank you.
How would you rank Priest as a collective healing class? Say swapping between the two efficiently for lower and then to higher keys? Say Holy into low keys and Disc into higher? Would you put Disc in S tier with PUG + friend?
I use tendrils and fear in place for some mobs and I am curious, what are you using rapture for if not to rescue a dps from a mistake they made? Yes, you can use it for ramping but so far, it seems rare to me when atonement in dark cov works so well.
Returning player here. I really want to play caster MW to +15. It's just what I enjoy the most despite fistweaving being optimal. Can it cope? Or am I just setting myself up for a life of being kicked from groups for low DPS?
Love it, pug-healing is such a different beast from healing in coordinated groups.
Friendship ended with Holy Paladin, now Mistweaver is my new best friend
Those Timmies live in game too: "Sorry, you're a Holy Paladin, won't take you." "Dude, it's a +4"
It do be like that.
I want to say i really like this video! I wish more people would make content for PUG groups. Not everyone plays at high levels, or has a group they run with. I think it's great to see content geared to us PUG lifers lol
Love the intro! So true and I have been watching CPU and GPU reviews and it is so evident folks don't watch the whole video!
Love the start of the video 😂 Great job
interesting takes! seems to be very well thought out. I hope you do more of these! maybe in a few weeks to see how things are shaking out?
Absolutely fair take on how these healers feel in PUGS. NOT GOD DAMN MDI
In pugs below 20 reliable stun+strong reactive healing+interrupt is the most valuable imo.
Druid: A tier, doesnt have anything reliable I mentioned above but once you start rolling or can prepare your output is insane (sadly with pugs you cant really prepare for their fails). Cant put it in S tier because you cant carry pugs that much.
Shaman: S tier due to that stun totem+thunderstorm on short CD alone, interrupt is there and reactive healing is solid.
Evoker: A tier due to 5 second AoE stun+interrupt+swipe+buffet and strong reactive healing. Would be S tier if it didnt have crap range.
Holy priest: best classic "save me dude!" healer with big oh shit buttons. Actually holy priest has similar CC to druid and is very noob friendly so A tier for me.
Thanks for the shaman love! ❤️ I have been jumping off shaman because of community perception, but man is this healer fun. Somewhat easy with nice nuance thanks to cloudburst and so much utility. Only thing I don’t like is that I get oneshot very easily, when I don’t have astral shift up. Mistweaver is the other one I loved since it came ojt in MoP, just because of theme. Every timw i hop on my monk, i start the MoP soundtrack playlist right with it. thanks for the different perspective.
Hpala is in an identity crisis. Casting while in melee range is mega bs
Awesome video, good breakdown. Keep it up
I love Resto Shaman. It’s the most relaxing healer spec to play which is a big deal for how stressful healing can be. The water sound effects and visuals just keep me calm lol
yes, I think players underestimate how relaxing the spell sounds are! How nice is healing rain with the gentle thunder!
I’ve “mained” priest for years, scare quotes only because the state of the two healing specs consistently depresses me into rerolling…every expac.
You do make some valid points but I can't say I agree with two things;
Not taking skullbash in pug as resto is a mistake, well worth the points.
And holy priest needs to be higher, while it lacks much of the valuable utility as you say it can really save a run with huge insta heals after people make mistakes. Also with some vers, fade 10% dmg reduction, and the flash heal yourself 10% dmg reduction you can survive pretty well, these also have very high uptime.
Skullbash: The choice is basically between Skull Bash and Thick Hide. Anything below +20 (+10 in S4) can probably be done with skull bash, but anything above becomes hard without the 6% DR, it's massive. Also Skull Bash is an interrupt that requires 2 GCD unless you sit in cat form, makes it extremely clunky. It's definitely a downside of resto druid even if you DO pick it. I agree that for pugs you can pick this though, makes more sense and reduces one downside.
Agreed on the holy priest. Also see my own post in the thread, but it's as much of a sleeper spec as resto shaman is. It's an absolute power house; it has some massive downsides in it's CC and lack of kick, but both it's burst healing and burst dps are unmatched making it actually seriously good for carrying pugs. Also agree it's not as squishy as people think.
Thank you! Been saying this even before the rework. Hell, even during season 3's PTR.
Okok I’m watching!!! Don’t want to be like Timmy!
0:01 timmy just like me fr
“Monk slaps in every way imaginable” - quite literally. Slappy slap healing.
Finally some love for Resto Shaman, such a great M+ healer
Nice video, agree with most of this. I've found my holy priest deals best with poor/low dps PUGS better than either my druid or MW. I'd bump Holy P to the front end of B, the dps I can unleash with a group that knows what theyre doing is insane, almost double the dps of my MW. Shaman has saved many a PUG with the amount of utility and great burst hps when needed.
Forever love your humor. I've mained pres evoker all expansion and I'm so looking forward to getting even a modified s1 tier set back.
I played all healers in S3 but holy pala which I did in shadowlands. I think Monk, Shaman and Evoker have the most complete kits. Evoker is tricky to play tho. Priest pumps some big heals but most of the times will eat the dust in pugs because ppl do not interrupt. They also are the easiest to die as they are cloth and they surv tools are not that great.
I'm not a Timmy... I swear, I'm not a Timmy but Holy Priest deserves better.
MW is incredibly fun in M+, but I hate healing raidf with it. I'll go Rsham, I love the utility and the short cd ranged interrupt.
Holy priest have not had an issue if you spec for chastise, fear with in-place and shackle.. keep shields out on weakest player, self res save on tank or mvp player, keep mend/renew going, and tell group before you even start to assist on affixes.. the big one is affixes .. this past weeks were brutal bc they nerf 50% heal per affix.. so if left not lockeddown, your at 25% heals and its not fun
Paladin tier set is not that impactful. Not sure why everyone loves to equate a time when the class was overpowered af with their tier set.
I play preservation, and although it toon a while to get used to 30y range wasn't really an issue, especially when echo, rescue, and hover are all on the table.
Specking into engineering rezz does seem like a must, and the discusting length of interrupt is horrible, so depending on the group either focusing on the most important 40s rotational kick or using it when needed. Preservation doesn't get as much love as it should imo.
Now spec into devastation and you’ll know what a real unloved spec is. But yeah, pres is gonna be great for s4. Don’t forget the leggo coming back which is a huuuuuge burst of healing around your tier set
@liamdavies2823 Yeah, I'm looking forward to it, though I think the Orser of love is Aug>Pres>Dev.
Though from what I remember in season 1, Devistation had an amazing burst, so hopefully, they can get back to that. I think they will be better in the raids than they will in M+
*side note*
I completely suck at playing dps due to my not enjoying the role, so I hardly ever play it.
@@Luke-A have you seen dev on the season 4 ptr? It’s top dps by far, it just lacks slightly in (unique!!) utility. It’s gonna be aug>=dev=pres for season 4. As long as no nerfs happen to them, they’re all looking at A+ tier. Most top dps evokers will be switching between aug and dev depending on dungeon and affixes
@liamdavies2823 have looked at Quazzwow, but other than the odd snippets, I kept myself in the dark. I don't want to expect one thing, and it changes a week before and ends up being disappointed, but that sounds great for evokers. On season 3, I hit 3100 pugging and hardly ever saw dev or Aug. Since I only healed, I can't say how rare pres has been, but people keep commenting on the lack of range or that people need to be in front of them, but that's not really the case if the healer knows how to play.
@@Luke-A insane tuning this late in the expansion is unlikely unless it’s to do with pre-TWW balancing for hero talents/talent changes/mastery revamps etc. Dev was very very bad for the first month of S3 then it got buffed to a good level. Dev’s S3 set is also awful for M+ but great for raid which is why it’s currently A tier for raid. Aug is slowly being made redundant by secondary stats being maxed out by most specs. The survivability gained from aug is objectively insane, BUTTTTT in S4 every single spec can buy a rageheart with bullions. So big dps specs in s4 like devastation can just take a rageheart. The very slight dps loss is worth it when you’re strong anyway and will die if you don’t take it (which means it’s gonna be a dps gain cause ur alive blah blah blah). And in S4, both pres and dev have tier sets interacting with empower spells and therefore having amazing synergy with the leggo. Aug just give more main stat in ebon might with it. I’ll probably end up playing a lot of all 3 evoker specs and maybe having a Druid alt there cause boomy and resto are sooooo fun
Yay druids! I had so much fun with my druid this season, and I was thinking about switching next season for some variety. But... if it ain't broke, why fix it?!
Timmey! Timmytimmy! Tim! TIMMEY!
I main resto druid and have since year 2007. I would put them lower in this tier due to their healing style. Most PUG groups have DPS that don’t kick and they stand in crap to top the dps meter. I will say this is the best resto druids have felt in a very long time. My alt this season is mistweaver.
1. Mistweaver 2. Shammy/Druid
3. Paladin 4. Holy P 5. Disc P.
Not sure where evoker fits as I haven’t played it. The whole, limited range thing is just asinine.
Why have they fked over HPal so bad... There has to be a reason. They almost got it right with the rework but then they reworked the rework and ruined it
Any change with the recent healing nerf ? Is mistweaver still good with - 13 % healing compare to the -5 % on druid
I don’t think I’d really change anything…probably just further solidifies my choice of Druid > Monk
I definitely think holy priest is better then what you put it at
It doesn't have trouble healing and its also like the second highest damaging healer in the game rn
omg I"M TIMMY
hi timmy here
I am Timmy.
Ngl, I keep forgetting about Evoker even being a class. I don't mean to. I leveled 2, really didn't like it and deleted both of them. I know some people totally love them and that's great, but I actually forget about them. Sorry. Great vid as usual man!
Effin timmy bruh