MoP PvE Healer Tier List / Rankings – Phase 1

Here we will rank each healer specialization in Mists of Pandaria Classic and explain each spec’s position on the tier list. There are six healing builds available in MoP Classic, each with their own advantages and disadvantages.

	Discipline Priest	Restoration Shaman
	Mistweaver Monk	Restoration Druid
	Holy Paladin	Holy Priest

1. Discipline Priest
2. Restoration Shaman
3. Mistweaver Monk
4. Restoration Druid
5. Holy Paladin
6. Holy Priest

The first phase of Mists of Pandaria brings three raids for healers to keep their groups alive through: Mogu’Shan Vaults, Heart of Fear, and Terrace of Endless Spring. There are also Challenge Mode Dungeons and World Bosses to consider, but this list will be weighted heavily toward 25-player raiding.

All healing specializations were competitive in the original Mists of Pandaria expansion, and in WoW Classic, Blizzard is making additional adjustments to balance the builds even further. This is the first WoW Classic expansion where major balancing changes are being implemented. With that in mind, we expect this list to evolve as more players get into the raids and more adjustments are made by Blizzard.

It’s also important to remember that MoP Classic is launching in its 5.4.8 state as far as abilities, talents, and glyphs. So even without considering the new balancing changes, each healer will perform differently in Phase 1 compared to how they played in the original raid tier. Raid logs in 2025 are unlikely to look the same as they did in 2012. While the content may be mostly the same, the builds are not.

In terms of stacking healers, most groups will gain the most from bringing a diverse healer corps, as each healer is designed to perform well in a specific niche. You’ll feel the absence of the other builds if you start stacking one class.

How the Specs are Ranked

• HPS: The amount of raw healing the spec can put out when single-target or AoE healing.
• Cooldowns: The ability to prepare for/respond to large bursts of incoming damage on the tank or raid.
• Utility: Any bonuses that the spec brings to a raid besides its healing, such as buffs, combat rez, etc.

S-Tier

The S-tier represents the most powerful healing specs in the current meta – those with the best healing and utility. Nearly every 25-player raid team will want at least 1 of these specializations, and you will notice the difference if your group doesn’t have one.

Discipline Priest

Discipline was definitively the strongest healer in the original Mists of Pandaria, and that distinction is unlikely to change much in MoP Classic. Their signature move is absorbing damage, and they get to do that even more effectively in Mists of Pandaria with Spirit Shell. This naturally puts them a step ahead of other healing specs due to the nature of absorbs versus healing. With absorbs, your teammates may be able to survive damage that would otherwise kill them, which is not something that can be done with healing alone.

If that wasn’t enough, Disc Priests also have access to the strongest healing cooldowns in the game. Whether you need to use them for a tank or the whole raid, you have your pick of powerful abilities to counter incoming damage: Archangel, Pain Suppression, and Power Word: Barrier, Power Infusion, Spirit Shell, and Void Shift.

When there’s not as much damage going out, Disc Priests can heal through Atonement while also contributing some decent damage to the raid. They’re great at helping their group beat tight enrage timers. This hybrid element makes them the best healers for Challenge Mode dungeons as well. They also have some strong utility in the form of Angelic Feather, Leap of Faith, and Mass Dispel, although these are shared by other Priests.

The biggest drawback for Discipline Priests is that they don’t stack as well as other healers. Weakened Soul isn’t as big of a deal as it used to be, but it still feels a bit redundant having multiple absorbs, and you might miss the raw healing of other classes when your Disc Priests aren’t set up for damage in advance.

Despite some nerfs to the build in the recent balance adjustments, Discipline Priests retain all of their unique features and will still be highly sought after for the same reasons, even if they don’t dominate the meters quite as much.

Restoration Shaman

Restoration Shamans have the highest HPS potential of any healer in Mists of Pandaria due to their Healing Rain, which can do incredible numbers when the group is stacked. You can just lay it down and watch the numbers come pouring in. The build loses its advantage when the group has to spread out, but stacking is more common than not, and the benefit of having a Resto Shaman for those fights is substantial.

The build has no shortage of strong healing cooldowns either. Spirit Link Totem is competitive with Disc Priest cooldowns in terms of allowing your group to survive burst AoE damage by redistributing health, preventing any individuals from dropping too low. Ascendance and Healing Tide Totem contribute further to your ability to put out large amounts of AoE healing, and Spiritwalker’s Grace lets you do it all while moving.

Shamans have always brought great utility as well, and that hasn’t changed. Every group needs a Heroism/Bloodlust and now you have Stormlash Totem as well for an extra raid-wide DPS cooldown. Capacitor Totem provides excellent crowd control and Wind Shear gives you an interrupt, both of which are especially useful in Challenge Mode dungeons. The build is one of the best options for a flex healer/DPS since Elemental Shamans can use most of the same gear and contribute solid DPS.

Like Discipline Priests, Restoration Shamans have been nerfed with the recent balance changes, particularly their Healing Rain. This should lower them somewhat from their lofty position in the healing meters, but they still have all of the same cooldowns and utility.

A-Tier

The A-tier represents strong healing specializations that offer a great amount of healing and utility, frequently having a unique trait that makes them worth bringing on their own. Most 25-player raid groups will have 1 of each of these specializations.

Mistweaver Monk

The new kid on the block in Mists of Pandaria is the Mistweaver Monk. Blizzard often struggles to balance new specs, and Mistweaver wasn’t in the best place at the end of the original expansion. Even so, the Monk can do some solid healing, especially when burst is needed. 

The Monk is lacking somewhat in the cooldown department, although Revival and Life Cocoon can both be quite useful. Most of their cooldowns are personal defensives.

The build brings some decent utility, with an interrupt in Spear Hand Strike, a taunt in Provoke, and a variety of crowd control options. Other healers can also bring these, however. Where the Mistweaver pulls ahead is its ability to deal damage while healing through Fistweaving, very similar to the Discipline Priest with Atonement. This extra damage can be a major boon for progression raiding or Challenge Mode dungeons.

Mistweaver Monks have received the most significant buffs so far in MoP Classic, with adjustments to make Fistweaving more viable, improve their mana efficiency, and buff their healing. They are likely to be very competitive healers as a result, even if their lack of strong cooldowns keeps them from being an absolute must-have like Disc Priests.

Restoration Druid

Restoration Druids are solid AoE healers in Mists of Pandaria, and their healing is a little less dependent on the group being stacked than Restoration Shamans. Their HoTs provide a powerful buffer against steady ticking damage, and they can now choose to detonate them for some on-demand burst healing with Wild Mushroom/Wild Mushroom: Bloom.

Their healing cooldowns include Incarnation: Tree of Life and Tranquility as well as Ironbark. None of these are particularly powerful or unique compared to other healers, but they make up for it with their utility cooldowns.

These utility cooldowns include the invaluable Rebirth and Innervate, two staples that have always made Druids welcome in any group. They have excellent crowd control options such as Entangling Roots and can make their entire group move faster with Stampeding Roar. The ability to stealth and dash around in Cat Form or take some hits in Bear Form are not to be underestimated. They also have Symbiosis, which can have some very useful applications.

While Resto Druids can be stacked, multiple sets of HoTs ticking on the raid will not feel as good as having a more diverse healer corps that can handle different mechanics with absorbs and direct heals.

So far this build has received a small buff to their overall healing and no other changes for MoP Classic. Since the spec was middle-of-the-pack for the original expansion, it’s possible that Blizzard is balancing the other healers around them and leaving them mostly untouched. That should serve Resto Druids fine since much of their appeal is in their utility, as long as other healers aren’t buffed too far ahead of them.

B-Tier

The B-tier represents healing specializations that are very much viable — you won’t ever wipe because your healers are “only” B-tier. However, they are generally not as powerful as the healing specializations in tiers above them; they typically have slightly lower healing throughput or weaker utility, and usually aren’t as stackable.

Holy Paladin

Holy Paladins weren’t in the best position at the end of the original Mists of Pandaria, with some of the weakest healing of the pack. The build also lacks a specific niche: they don’t have the strongest AoE heals, absorbs, HoTs, or damage, despite having access to all of them in their toolkit.

To make up for their relatively underwhelming base healing, Paladins get some very strong healing cooldowns that can allow them to put out solid burst when needed: Avenging Wrath, Divine Favor, and Guardian of Ancient Kings. They also have Devotion Aura, Hand of Sacrifice, and Hand of Protection for keeping people alive through heavy damage, and Lay on Hands to hit the reset button on a target whose health is dangerously low.

Beyond their strong cooldowns, Paladins have some very useful utility. They can free someone from crowd control effects with Hand of Freedom, interrupt with Rebuke, taunt, stun, and survive the unsurvivable with Divine Shield. They also bring not one, but two raid buffs in the form of their Blessings. Unfortunately their damage is among the worst of the healing specializations, which is another point against them for progression raids and Challenge Mode dungeons.

So far in MoP Classic, Holy Paladins have received a buff to their Mastery, which can now proc from periodic effects such as Eternal Flame. At the same time, Eternal Flame‘s healing output was reduced. The spec has also seen some adjustments to improve its mana efficiency. These changes are helpful, but don’t significantly change the Paladin’s position among the other healers.

Holy Priest

Holy Priests are perfectly capable healers just like every other healer in Mists of Pandaria. Their AoE healing is especially competitive. The problem with the spec is that Discipline Priests have hogged all of the unique cooldowns and utility, leaving the Holy Priest feeling like an afterthought.

Divine Hymn is a very strong raid healing cooldown that Holy Priests have all to themselves now. They also get Guardian Spirit and Spirit of Redemption, both of which can be powerful wipe-savers in the right moment. But for your average burst phase, Discipline Priests’ cooldowns are miles ahead. Holy Priests lack their siblings’ powerful mitigation and absorption abilities.

They are also lacking in unique utility; while Angelic Feather, Leap of Faith, and Mass Dispel are all very useful, they are available to all Priests, so there’s no reason to choose Holy over Disc. Holy doesn’t get Atonement like Discipline, and their damage output is underwhelming.

The build has received the largest buffs of any healer so far in MoP Classic, with both of their healing Chakras having their healing effects increased substantially. Chakra itself has had its cooldown cut down to 10 seconds from 30, which should make it less punishing to swap between stances. These changes should make their healing quite competitive. Even so, the fundamental flaw of the build is that Discipline simply offers a more appealing toolkit and there’s no good reason to go Holy while Discipline is an option.

C-Tier

The C-tier is comprised of healing specializations that are, frankly, a bit on the weaker side. It could be argued that they’re still viable, having acceptable healing throughput and some useful utility and other unique quirks, on top of being very fun to play. However, they will generally lag significantly behind S-tier and A-tier healing specializations, and you might struggle to find a raid spot with one of these specs, as they aren’t in high demand.

There aren’t any healers in Mists of Pandaria Classic who fall into this category.

D-Tier

Simply put, specs in the D-tier are considered to be not viable. They can be fun to play, but you will struggle to get invited to raids when playing one of these, and you may even find yourself getting kicked from groups, as your healing will be really bad.

Fortunately, no healer is so weak that we’d say they’re not at all viable in MoP Classic.