Shadowlands Healer Tier List for Sanctum of Domination Patch 9.1 - Now Updated for Mythic Week 2

Live Posted 2021/07/26 at 6:00 AM by Wowhead

Disclaimers About This Tier ListPatch 9.1.5 Shadowlands Healer Tier List for Sanctum of Domination

S: You are an exceptional choice and are valuable in nearly every encounter in Sanctum of Domination, bringing strong throughput, exceptional survivability and universal utility.

A: You are a good choice and excel in most situations in Sanctum of Domination but have a few weaknesses on particular encounters.

B: You are an average choice in Sanctum of Domination. You may have a niche on some encounters but are a solid pick.

C: You are below average in Sanctum of Domination and struggle to stand out on many encounters due to your weaknesses.

D: You are viable, but the encounters in Sanctum of Domination show more of your weaknesses than your strengths.

Healer Ranking Changes from Shadowlands Patch 9.1 to Patch 9.1.5

Promoted in Rank:

Mistweaver Monk promoted from A to A+ tier.

Demoted in Rank:

Holy Paladin demoted from S to A+ tier.
Holy Priest demoted from A to A- tier.

Sanctum of Domination Class Guides

Blood DKFrost DKUnholy DK

Havoc DHVengeance DH

Balance DruidFeral DruidGuardian DruidRestoration Druid

Beast Mastery HunterMarksmanship HunterSurvival Hunter

Arcane MageFire MageFrost Mage

Brewmaster MonkMistweaver MonkWindwalker Monk

Holy PaladinProtection PaladinRetribution Paladin

Discipline PriestHoly PriestShadow Priest

Assassination RogueOutlaw RogueSubtlety Rogue

Elemental ShamanEnhancement ShamanRestoration Shaman

Affliction WarlockDemonology WarlockDestruction Warlock

Arms WarriorFury WarriorProtection Warrior

Patch 9.1.5 Shadowlands Healer Ranking and ExplanationsS Tier SpecsOverall Rating: S

Patch 9.1.5 brings covenant swaps and some very minor Priest changes but overall doesn't change Discipline much at all. Kyrian remains the top covenant and even though you can swap covenants freely, the primary benefit of this is really for better allowing Priest mutli-speccers to play Discipline when before they would be shackled to other covenants to play Shadow.

While Spirit Shell was largely ignored in the World First race in favor of Evangelism, the former is making a comeback now that the borrowed power of the raid, the Shards of Domination, are providing a substantial passive Intellect increase, allowing the shields of Spirit Shell to reach higher cap quantities. In this "deep farm" status for a large quantity of Mythic guilds as well, Spirit Shell is the only way to prevent those heavy throughput healers in Resto Druids and Mistweavers from taking all of the output in the zero-sum healing game.

Discipline brings good passive damage to guilds still progressing Sanctum of Domination but to be fair, any healer can deal decent damage if they swap to the more damage-focused Shards, so it is less salient to the raid as it stands today as opposed to it being a critical point in early World First progress.

Where Discipline falters somewhat is relative to their competition, Paladins have stronger passive damage and utility, most other healers are more mana efficient, have a higher potential "maximum" output and are less hungry for external mana. Multiple Disc Priests on an encounter continues to be very strong this tier with multiple opportunities to separate your respective ramp windows.

Discipline's mass burst healing of Legion and BFA rises again and is difficult to replace, especially when you bring Power Word: Barrier, absorbs and strong passive damage. A 1.5 minute cooldown that produces massive healing for the entire raid, consistently results in a substantial boost to the raid's odds of survival and your team's chances of killing the boss.A+ Tier SpecsOverall Rating: A+

In the patch we received buffs to our Venthyr covenant ability, Fallen Order. The buffs included additional damaged done by the Tiger Adept's Tiger Palm, along with them now casting Spinning Crane Kick when there is more than 1 enemy in range. The Ox Adepts now provide an absorb shield for 10% of the monk's health when they spawn. Finally, each Crane Adept will now cast Enveloping Mist 2 times for each spawned. This is an increase from the single Enveloping Mist they used to cast. Some other minor changes relate to updated target caps. Spinning Crane Kick no longer has a target cap, and instead deals reduced damage past 5 targets. Also, Chi Burst now deals reduced healing beyond 6 targets.

The above are amazing updates to Mistweaver Monk, specifically Venthyr Mistweaver Monk. Previously, your Crane Adepts, that spawn from Fallen Order, would cast only a single Enveloping Mist. With the above updates, you now get double the number of Enveloping Mist casts for each Crane Adept. Also, the Crane Adepts can continue to channel Soothing Mist while casting Enveloping Mist. Both of these changes provide a large increase in a Mistweaver Monk's overall HPS. Mistweaver Monk's are already a strong HPS class, specifically those that choose Venthyr and the above changes only make the covenant stronger. Mistweaver Monks should be the clear HPS leaders throughout 9.1.5. The above Chi Burst change is minor, as the spell already had a healing reduction on large groups. You could game this however, by having the reduction reset if the projectile for Chi Burst hit 2 groups that were sufficiently spread apart. In practice, the change does not have a large effect on the use of the spell.

Mistweaver Monk's mobility is a nice trait to have, particularly for bosses that require quick movements. Roll can be used on Painsmith Raznal to quickly reach safe spots or on Sylvanas Windrunner in Phase 1 or 2 to dodge mechanics easier and get into position. You can utilize Transcendence on Fatescribe Roh-Kalo to 'jump' over beams during intermission and continue to heal rune runners. The weaknesses of Mistweaver Monks do not change in this patch, but the gap is smaller. We lack a Damage Reduction, which may seem like a larger issue, however, with the current encounters and health pools, they are less important. Those damage reduction abilities from the other classes still allow you to live through an otherwise unlivable amount of damage, but that damage is not a prevalent this late in the tier.

Overall Mistweaver Monks are a top tier choice. In terms of raw HPS, there currently does not look to be a class that can come close to them. Our strongest HPS covenant received buffs so our HPS should remain very strong throughout 9.1.5.Overall Rating: A+
Now that we are deep into Sanctum of Domination, Paladin's ranking is downgraded a bit, as per usual Holy Paladin falls off a bit. Early on into a tier, Paladin is an S class healer, and that remains true. If we were on progression, this rating would be S, however in farm, fight times are a shorter meaning less effective use of Ashen Hallow. Damage is not as important, as your DPS out gears all of the damage checks, and tank healing is trivial as tanks have access to more gear. With 9.1.5 nothing is changing here, Paladins can more freely swap between Kyrian or Venthyr but that ultimately does not change much.

Having the ability to swap between Divine Toll and Ashen Hallow for a fight does not do much for you, as there aren't many fights where you will be swapping regularly. For progression you play Venthyr with Ashen Hallow. For farm you can either stick with Venthyr or go Kyrian if you enjoy Venthyr and/or don't need the damage but both were already viable choices. Paladin's strength of high tank healing is just additional overhead this deep into a tier. The cooldown from Ashen Hallow isn't necessary, as players have more gear. Similarly, other healers are capable of putting out more effective HPS, and our damage isn't necessary to meet damage checks now.

All in all when Patch 9.2 rolls around, if nothing were to change in healer balance (it likely will) Holy Paladin would be S tier for progression, as that is just the nature of Holy Paladins healing profile. They are great Progression healers and aren't as valuable during farm. Paladins are still great in farm, they just don't shine as much as in progression.
Overall Rating: A+
Being able to swap more freely around covenants will make it a lot easier for people to experiment and find the covenant that they prefer gameplay wise. In regards to performance nothing is changing, as all covenants were already very viable and capable, with Necrolord just about clutching the very slight HPS advantage at the cost of damage contribution.

The most relevant healers remain Discipline Priests and Holy Paladins with their strong damage contribution and especially damage reduction against the bursty patterns of this raid, but Restoration Shamans are as usual very much in demand and is always the first healer you'd fill in. While not as strong as other raid damage reductions, Spirit Link Totem does offer 10% on top of the health redistribution which can defuse a lot of very dangerous situations. Outside of that, we continue to bring a diverse healing toolkit which can be used to fit any encounter combined with other strong cooldowns like Ancestral Protection Totem and Healing Tide Totem and great mana sustainability. Healing effectiveness differs depending on the encounter, but on particularly difficult ones Mastery: Deep Healing kicks in and provides us with great throughput potential.

The utility side has proven to be very useful -- Sanctum of Domination does offer multiple encounters where Wind Rush Totem has excelled, for example the Painsmith Raznal intermission spikes; or dodging the Torment slices during the Soulrender Dormazain encounter. Interrupting with Wind Shear has a few uses: Kel'Thuzad spawns multiple Soul Shard casting Piercing Wail which need to be interrupted with similar circumstances throughout the Soulrender Dormazain and Sylvanas Windrunner encounters. Good usage of Mana Tide Totem will keep your other healers happy. Regarding mobility, we do still struggle to quickly move to another location at times (outside of Night Fae with Soulshape), but its not too bad due to Thunderous Paws giving a small boost on demand and Spiritwalker's Grace allowing us to cast during movement.

Survivability wise we're looking at Astral Shift, Spirit Wolf, Vital Accretion and if you're Necrolord you have access to what is probably the most useful defensive cooldown: Fleshcraft. Combined this is quite a decent stack of defensives and should get you out of most of the tricky situations, especially when the health from Vital Accretion is combined with a defensive - for example when you are breaking a Warmonger Shackle during the Soulrender Dormazain encounter, during which you're likely outside of all raid cooldowns.

From a weakness point of view I'm again seeing the lack of damage contribution, whether passive or active and regardless of covenant, which doesn't come close to something like a Paladin or a Discipline Priest. If you're in dire need of more damage however, you can always go Night Fae or Kyrian to provide more damage than the other covenants would have, even passively.
A Tier SpecsOverall Rating: A

Although we're entering a new patch with 9.1.5, nothing is really changing with healers in general or even specifically Restoration Druids. We're receiving some cosmetic changes for Efflorescence and new Travel Form, all of which look awesome, but nothing functionally is changing with the class besides a tweak the mechanics of Necrolord Adaptive Swarm. Covenant swapping doesn't really offer us too much in Sanctum of Domination simply because we've already been playing with our best covenant, Night Fae. There may be some niche cases for the other 3 covenants; expect some shenanigans with Kyrian Kindred Spirits and Kindred Affinity being used to significantly boost the output of a single DPS, but overall it's unlikely to shake up the currently existing meta in raid.

Restoration Druids have some of the highest healing throughput in Sanctum of Domination only being outclassed by Mistweaver Monk. How we deliver that throughput has also evolved in recent expansions; where previously we were typically more sustain-oriented healers, the sheer number of burst cooldown abilities (Flourish, Incarnation: Tree of Life, Tranquility, and now Night Fae's ) have catapulted us to one of the premier burst healers in Shadowlands.

The positives don't stop at just strong throughput. Our survivability, especially for a healer, is nearly unmatched with Barkskin, our passive healing Ysera's Gift, an on-demand defensive via Bear Form that can be further juiced up with Heart of the Wild, and even a passive Nature's Guardian-like effect via our conduit Well-Honed Instincts. The only thing missing would be a complete immunity, but to say it's difficult to kill a Restoration Druid would be a understatement. Combine this with exceptional mobility, both personally and raid-wide via the cooldown Stampeding Roar, and you'll see there's a lot to love with Restoration Druids. There's definitely renewed emphasis on mobility in Sanctum of Domination, especially for Painsmith Raznal, Soulrender Dormazain, and Sylvanas Windrunner.

Where we tend to fall short is our less than stellar unique raid utility toolkit, specifically our ability to passively contribute damage and lack of a raid-wide damage reduction cooldown. We do still bring the highly valued Ironbark for tanks in addition to Innervate, Stampeding Roar, and a host of other more niche utility. Unfortunately, most of that utility can be replicated by the other Druid specs. To deal meaningful damage, which can be invaluable in raiding, we need to commit significant time and potentially even cooldowns like Convoke the Spirits and Heart of the Wild which can erode our healing throughput. Fortunately, we're able to quickly switch our Domination Shards to Blood Link for some additional damage without completely destroying our healing throughput; however, all healers have access to this tool so this doesn't really put us ahead or behind any of them. Finally, reducing the dangerous onslaught of burst damage via absorbs or raid-wide damage reduction, especially when undergeared, can prove invaluable to raid survival, yet Restoration Druids still lack a significant way to contribute in this area. This limitation really sticks out on Mythic Guardian of the First Ones where you're trying to soak a large number of Purging Protocols to extend the length of the encounter.

Unless there are any major last minute or post-launch changes, expect Patch 9.1.5 to stick to the status quo when it comes to healing.
A- Tier SpecsOverall Rating: A-

While frequently in the shadow of its sister spec Discipline, Holy has been steadily improving throughout Shadowlands. This time in 9.1.5, there is greater covenant flexibility, allowing for Holy to choose between better mobility/mana/utility in Fae Guardians/Soulshape, better personal defensive and a lot of healing in Unholy Nova/Fleshcraft, more dungeon damage with Boon of the Ascended or finally, Mindgames for when you want to pvp.

While Night Fae remains the general top recommendation, with covenant swaps available, you have the ability to greater experiment with covenants for different encounters depending on what is most valuable. Holy still brings some of the best single-target heal support, multiple raid cooldowns and some utility in Symbol of Hope.

Holy's large let-down at this point in 9.1.5 is that they share a spec with Discipline and while they have high throughput, they're not as crazy high as Mistweaver Monks or Resto Druid at the moment (and since all people care about is having big # on the meters, this seems to give the spec a bad rep).

Shards of Domination allow the spec to optimize for further DPS if needed with a minimal impact on overall throughput, which is great for being more flexible for your raid team, but its also something that is generic that any other healer can do.

As predicted in our previous edition, Symbol of Hope is a fundamentally lackluster ability because it relies on the individual players themselves to identify the cooldown being reduced, understand how much it is being reduced and decide when to activate it. Symbol of Hope is frankly just a failure at adding more utility to a spec in dire need. While overall representation numbers of Warcraftlogs are good for the spec, in general, it is seriously underrepresented in higher level content and the natural "trickle-down" effect impacts player's everyday experiences when playing inside and outside of their guilds.

Comment by messiah77Love how they update these articles to reflect what the best guilds in the world run comp wise lol Seriously though, these tier lists need to stop, lately they've become farcical..Comment by DhrallThe people whom the tier lists matter for allready know. This only serves the purpose of spreading the hard-core meta to the masses, where these tier lists don’t really apply. Coordinated CD usage, and bit cooldowns in general, is not the most important thing for guilds or pugs clearint heroic. When 50% of the raid are zoo animals, having consistent throughput matters a lot more. Please just stop it with the tier lists..Comment by leowowMistweavers need more buffs. The ones given are not enough. I hope Blizz do something about it later on this patch.Comment by BiFeliciaGrade inflation in video game tier lists, as well! My teachers would be so proud.Comment by 1974788The usual outrage about tier lists. How about you guys don't read them if you don't like them because there are people who are interested in current meta.
And no, these lists do not make people not invite you into groups. But your -> I deserve to get into this group <- attitude clouds your mind.
You'll find a guild to play with even if you aren't a S-Tier spec and if it's your goal to pug your way through the world of warcraft, remember that there will always be a meta. Regardless of if tier lists exist or not. Submit to it!Comment by PeacemoonBring the player, not the class.

And it’s alright telling everyone to play holy paladin and disc priest, but one of them is melee and the other is quite tough to play and fit into a standard group as heals very differently.

People largely don’t need to worry about what class they are unless they really really pushing, and 99% of the playerbase aren’t anywhere near that.Comment by JohnsphilWowhead content creators, please at least have a discussion about this. It doesn't promote a good community to play the game...Comment by ProdromusHarvThe usual outrage about tier lists. How about you guys don't read them if you don't like them because there are people who are interested in current meta.
And no, these lists do not make people not invite you into groups. But your -> I deserve to get into this group <- attitude clouds your mind.
You'll find a guild to play with even if you aren't a S-Tier spec and if it's your goal to pug your way through the world of warcraft, remember that there will always be a meta. Regardless of if tier lists exist or not. Submit to it!Comment by PeacemoonThe usual outrage about tier lists. How about you guys don't read them if you don't like them because there are people who are interested in current meta.
And no, these lists do not make people not invite you into groups. But your -> I deserve to get into this group <- attitude clouds your mind.
You'll find a guild to play with even if you aren't a S-Tier spec and if it's your goal to pug your way through the world of warcraft, remember that there will always be a meta. Regardless of if tier lists exist or not. Submit to it!Comment by deeebagThese their lists are updated weekly.

So........during the first few weeks when only the one percent are generating data, surprisingly, the one percenter data is shown. Mind boggling I know.

Sure as weeks progress and people start to over gear it the 99% will start getting kills with whatever classes they want and generating data themselves and possibly change how this looks.

Amazing how that works

You ragers need to get a grip and stop over using the word toxicComment by ProdromusHarvThese their lists are updated weekly.

So........during the first few weeks when only the one percent are generating data, surprisingly, the one percenter data is shown. Mind boggling I know.

Sure as weeks progress and people start to over gear it the 99% will start getting kills with whatever classes they want and generating data themselves and possibly change how this looks.

Amazing how that works

You ragers need to get a grip and stop over using the word toxicComment by TigerusGood they nerfed Ashen Hallow...Comment by retpally4lyfeNobody even cares about tier lists and what's meta unless you're part of the race to World First. People are gonna play the class/spec they want to play. As it should be.Comment by davesignalIf your tier list only goes from S-rank to A-rank it might be time to re-scale your tier list.Comment by Balbutoenough with these tierlists please, they reflect nothing but the top meta and that isnt suitable for most players. A good holy priest is better than a &*!@ disc priest for example. play whatever suits you the bestComment by DastionSome of these tier listing could probably benefit from mentioning the Covenant in the list. Like Disc is only an S healer if they are Kyrian and maybe if they are Venthyr. A Night Fae Disc Priest isn’t going to perform near as well.Comment by retpally4lyfeSome of these tier listing could probably benefit from mentioning the Covenant in the list. Like Disc is only an S healer if they are Kyrian and maybe if they are Venthyr. A Night Fae Disc Priest isn’t going to perform near as well.Comment by ApokalypsaALove how they update these articles to reflect what the best guilds in the world run comp wise lol Seriously though, these tier lists need to stop, lately they've become farcical..Comment by FepersLove how they update these articles to reflect what the best guilds in the world run comp wise lol Seriously though, these tier lists need to stop, lately they've become farcical..Comment by MyniaSome of these tier listing could probably benefit from mentioning the Covenant in the list. Like Disc is only an S healer if they are Kyrian and maybe if they are Venthyr. A Night Fae Disc Priest isn’t going to perform near as well.