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World of Warcraft (WoW) Patch 9.1 Shadowlands best healer analysis video based on RWF (Race to World First) class compositions. In this video I look at how the healer meta stayed the same while DPS & Tank balance has shifted significantly since the last raid race.
I also look at the new covenant and talent builds that have emerged during the competition and why!
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I look at (Resto Druid | Holy Paladin | Mistweaver Monk | Resto Shaman | Holy Priest & Discipline Priest) in Shadowlands Patch 9.1!
00:00 Intro & Meta
01:50 Best Raid Healers 9.1
09:56 Best Raid DPS & Tanks (Meta Changes)
12:32 Should Healer Meta Change & How?
Patch 9.0 World of Warcraft: Shadowlands expansion.
External Sources
Healer raid performance data: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/28#metric=hps
Windfury Totem chart is updated for 9.1 (Wordup): https://mobile.twitter.com/von_wordup/status/1412237956300038144/photo/1
Sanctum of Domination: Race to World First: https://raider.io/sanctum-of-domination/global-coverage
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The value of Damage reduction increases exponentially with incoming damage. I think if the incoming damage would be moderate but almost constant, we would see more variety.
Another thought: Introducing buffs / bonusses if certain abilities are used together e.g. Spirit link totem plus tranquility => gain special effect
Give resto druid a raid wide dmg reduce and we are top tier
TBH i think it should always be half and half (or close to it), Half of the raid bosses should favor HPS and the other half could Favor more DR, but still can use any healer progress. Idk if this was said already just giving my tiny 2 cents XD
To me there are 5 checkboxes that a raid team would prefer from all of their healers and they are…
1. Good throughput. Fortunately when it comes to just raw healing throughput, all of the healers are generally close to each other. Of course, Mistweaver and Rdruid are slightly ahead, but not by an insane amount.
2. Damage Reduction Cooldowns. Having these just makes progression raiding much easier in every aspect of the game. Things like Disc bubble, Spirit Link, and Devo Aura are prime examples.
3. Raid Utility. This is similar to the DR cooldown, but it's slightly different. Every healer has a little, but some have more than others. For example, Windrush, APT, a kick, etc etc on a shaman, BoP, Bubble, on a pally.
4. Damage. Everyone loves some extra DPS from a healer. The balance of DPS from healers however is quite wobbly right now though. Having DPS'ing be a part of your healing rotation is huge.
5. Tank Healing. Could have kept this one off the list, but there are just some healers that heal tanks extremely efficiently and there are plenty of bosses (M Sire) that slap tanks hard and it's good to have strong tank healers.
Now that we have the 5 checkboxes, let's look at the healers…
H-pal: Checks all 5. HARD. Throughput? No problem, Ashen CD, holy shocks boys, with this LotM lego? hugeee. Damage Reduction? Got you covered. Devo Aura. Raid Utility? Pony, BoP, Sac, Bubble, Freedom. You need Damage? Got you covered there too. They do more dps than ANY other healer by a significant gap. Tank healing? Bacon Bacon Bacon. + Sacrifice. What else is there to say? They have the WHOLE package.
Disc Priest: Checks all 5. Just not quite as hard as pally. Their raid utility in addition to the Stam buff, is putting an absorb shield on the raid allowing them to take hits they normally wouldnt be able to or gives them more "give" room when taking hits. They've got bubble, life grip, Pain suppression for tanks, and they pump dps as a normal part of their healing rotation.
Rsham: Checks 3.5. Their throughput is quite strong, especially in aoe, they have spirit link, windrush, APT, an interrupt, an aoe stun, a slow totem, tremor, and a free rez on themselves. Need I go on? They lack slightly in tank healing and overall damage though, mainly because in order to deal damage they have to stop healing completely. Earth shield is nice for tanks, but it's definitely not a beacon or a ton of HoTs.
Holy Priest: Checks about 2.5. Their throughput is good as well as their tank healing. The only great utility they provide though is symbol of hope. And even that isn't AMAZING (hence the .5). They have no DR cooldowns and their damage is weaker than Rhsam while having to stop healing as well in order to DPS.
Mistweaver: Checks about 2.5. Technically the highest throughput healer, but that's about all they have going for them. Their tank healing is decent with enveloping mist & life cocoon but enveloping mists are still extremely expensive. They have a small bit of utility with mystic touch and ring of peace/paralyze/legsweep (utility is the 0.5). Fortunately they can deal a bit of damage (maybe disc priest level) while simultaneously healing with their ancient teachings of the monastery lego.
Rdruid: Checks 3. Tank healing, throughput, and Raid utility. They have roar, typhoon, roots and can heart of the wild to fill a role if needed. Their tank healing with lifebloom, ward, and hots is quite strong. That being said though, their damage is abysmal currently and they have no DR cooldown to speak of.
The question is now: Why would anyone ever bring another healer aside from disc priest and Hpal to a progression raid? You would be intentionally handicapping yourself if you did.
But what's the fix? What is the point of all of these rankings? Here's my answer. Balance all 6 healers to check the same number of boxes. I don't care how many boxes that is. Just make it the same number. Because until that day, the ones with the most boxes checked will always be brought to raid progression. I won't bore you any more than I already have, but just think about that. If all healers had the same number of boxes checked. Not necessarily the same ones, but the same number. I think then we'd be well on our way to more balanced and vibrant healer comps during progression raiding. No jack of all trades (cough hpal, disc priest). But masters of few.
Great content Madskillz! Keep up the great work.
Imo hpal is the issue since BFA. I mean they have less HPS and deal more dmg and thats totally fine.. but fcking hell m8 u can't allow a healer to outdps you in burst.. this is just dawgshit. If the gab would not be that hard i think it would create room for others
But is it even a real problem? DR is that much better for top first guilds, as it is based on the pure damage – not on the player’s item level. For Echo or Limit, item level is always going to be suboptimal and thus, not playing DR is simply stupid math-wise. Numbers won't add up for the no-DR healers at that stage, as the item level is too low. Also, you can expect that people will know mechanics by heart, right? So you play with lower gear than expected, with people who are experts in boss mechanics, and you need as much damage as expected as you won't be able to win the fight – not due to your skill, but due to numbers and time requirements.
None of this is true for most of the player base, as they usually do it with better gear and worse mechanics’ knowledge. The later we are in a given patch, the less accurate these meta requirements are. Let's face it, most of the casual players won't come close to the performance level of top guilds & for PUGs or even more casual guilds, where people make mistakes, pure HPS healers will be a more viable option. We had seen it already at the end of 9.0. So it's just whole another world and comparing apples to oranges in my opinion, when we put this top 1% next to the rest of the players.
Fix:
Higher player health pool, more damage take (but less spiky damage) have mana matter again.
A good raid would keep everyone around 70% max HP without risking people getting one shot. It would also force players to be more efficient.
Even if they give all healer classes that missing a raid cooldown damage mitigation, people are still going to pick hpal+disco just because of their damage output. An rdudu/rshamy can outheal disco for example, but thats not the case. As long as people are not dying, you dont care if your heals top them or if they just put them at 80% hp instead of 100% if you want to trade that for alot more damage. Sadly, when picking healers, it's "who has mode damage output" rather than "who can make raid feel safe". And of course it helps that the 2 most strong damage healers, are also the ones who provide raid mitigations.
There are a few things to say about the current meta.
a) Personally, I want to see WF kills with all classes being represented. I don't feel sorry for holy priests. I don't see why priests should have both healing specs being represented in the WFR. This is also why I don't feel sorry for MW. Brewmaster and WW have been included in numerous WF kills. Before the current raid tier, when was the last time we saw a ret pala? Yesterday we saw a 20man group with 4 boomkins, why is that ok? You cannot exclusively reshape the healing balance without touching the dps and tank balance. You need to see the bigger picture.
b) That being said, resto druid and MW have no real utility right now. They don't fit anywhere. There is no fight that is easier if you bring one of those 2 specs. Resto druid feels weak even in m+. Even holy priests had their moment in CN Sun King because of GS. All druids need to be great again is one utility spell, maybe raid-wide thorns? MW just needs a dps buff. Melee healers should do more dps than ranged healers, in my opinion.
c) It's unfair for holy paladins to be considered op. It's VENTHYR paladins that are out of control. And I suspect that if AH gets nerfed there will be a shift in the meta. As a kyrian hpala main, I have never felt that my class is overperforming. I am doing more dps, yes, but also less hps, and as a melee, I take more dmg and I suffer a lot whenever I cannot go close enough to use CS. Also, people that complain about hpala dps should keep in mind that 20-30% of our dps in single target fights, comes from melee attacks. And finally, disc priests have been meta in WFR waaaay longer than hpala. But that has never been a problem apparently.
d) Resto shaman is how a healer should be designed. They are insanely good and super fun to play! The utility they provide is insane and they can do a lot of dmg, whenever they don't have to focus too much on healing. Overall, the most balanced healer at the moment. I find it infinitely easier to heal m+ on my resto shaman than on my main hpala.
e) All in all, the healing meta doesn't really affect the vast majority of the players and their progression. I did 6/10 M CN and other than Sun King there was no other fight that felt undoable without a specific healing spec. And the reason is that by the time most of us start doing mythic raid, we will probably already outgear the content.
2 things
1) Healers that have a big DR should not also do big damage or big healing.
2) Fuck covenants
sniff I'm a monk heal I'm the worst healer in the game it wasn't a good idea to ride this character
the balance on haeler suck
The insanity of prot pally's ability to offheal with ashen hallow and hand of the protector also carries hard.
The problem is that blizzard has cornered themself a long time ago with class identity, with damage dealing and DR, just being too good to pass up when you have low gear. As a disc player I don't mind the meta, and disc is the fourth most popular specs in mythic public logs but i do understand the players frustrations with the top 0,1% meta especially for monk, however my point was that some big changes would need to happen to shift the balance, like making the top specs just not viable or adding some spells to the less loved one, or reworking them up a bit.
I feel like by design the top specs are just better tailored for progress in their very identity, and the "healing troughput spec" don't changee much because blizzard doesnt wan't to homogenize too much the class, For me with the current gameplay of the top specs, I find it very hard to find a solution that doesnt destroy them or doesnt make the "healing throughput specs broken" while convincing top meta guilds to play with monk/drood/hpriest.
Nerfing Paladin wasn't necessary and won't change anything. Instead, they should buff underperforming classes like Druid and Monk. Give them some other shield or damage reduction options or they'll never compete. Preventing damage is always better than healing through it
Take barrier and devo aura away from disc and pallies and spirit link while we are at it
If someone only started Disc in shadowlands yeah spirit shell is horrible, but from Legion BFA Disc was just the most fun healer because it’s difficult and rewarding to play, this patch with evang making a comeback for mythic it’s mega fun. If you want easy mode for pugs u just switch to Holy. No problemo
What we got: chains of domination
What we need: changes of domination
I’ve been a Resto Druid main for about 12 years. In SoD I was asked to main my Disc Priest. I don’t mind it at all… shoot, getting a good Boon ramped Spirit Shell and watching the entire raid’s HP not budge feels AWESOME… but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t bummed to not be playing my Druid. 🙁
Am okey with every healer having a niche. So if one is bis at raid im okay but dont make it that they are bis in all contents of pve and also pvp
AoE damage reduction will always be the best healer to take in cutting edge raiding. They should find a way to give every healer a method to provide aoe damage reduction. Resto shaman has spirit link, disc PWB and aura mastery with hpal. The other healers need something to match these cds. Why not give tranquility, revival and hymn a aoe damage reduction while casting?
I read some really interesting fixes or solutions so far. Keep them coming!
they kinda have to introduce DR to hpirest, mistweaver and rdruid. DR and absorbs are almost always better than raw HPS. it's just a design flaw…
Make tranq castable on the move.
Remove devo aura mastery or cap it like they did to AMZ.
Nerf disc healing throughput. Maybe atonement transfer increase in m+.
Remove dr effect from spirt link (keep health exchange). Slight increase to damage throughput for shaman.
And i think we are fine.
There is no healer you cant bring, but there are healers you must bring. As long as you have a shaman, a disc (or another shaman) and a paladin, the other healspot(s) are free to pick.
I'm playing Mistweaver mythic progression since our guild has Holy paladin and resto shaman already. I played resto shaman last patch, but I think the fistweaver play style is a lot of fun. The extra throughput cooldowns especially on Painsmith help a ton with survivability through the chains. However, I think unfortunately for most fights Holy paladin does fill the mw role better with higher dps and damage reduction. Biggest thing holding back mw is community perception though, as I have no trouble healing m15s, but can't get invited to a single group, whereas when I get on my lower ilevel resto shaman, I get invited to any group I apply for.
Simple solution here may simply be to increase the damage output of rdruid and mw by a significant margin. Not only do they have the most "in depth" dps rotations, the setup to start dpsing on rdruid takes what? 4-7 gcd's depending on pack/encounter. If hpal, disc and shaman can have high hps, utility and damage, I don't see why MW and rdruid can't excel in at least 2 of those.
Reason why it never changes is raiding is helped more with damage reduction and absorbs (Paladin, Priest, Shaman), and PvP is reactory. Healers are just different.
Without homogeneous abilities this issue will continue. Give the other healers dmg reduction, buff slt, give mist weaver and resto Druid an ability to turn their hots into instant bubbles that tick away over time on a cd.
Every healer should have a meaningful raid damage reduction cool down; not just Hpal, Disc, and RSham. Until that is addressed, the stale healer meta will continue as is. 🙁
i mean this is for the 5% echelon of wow end game. in reality all healers work out
Its not really true that it affects only top 1%. Because venthyr paladin is so popular, its SO HARD to find m+ groups as NF rdruid in 18-20 range in pug groups. Its almost impossible, because everyone wants VENTHYR PALADIN ONLY
why disc priest i tought they got nerfed so much and buffed holy priest alot
what the covenant and talent of that ass rogue named toyz ?
I'm a stubborn one when it comes to healing. I play Holy priest because I love being that pure HPS pump machine and I also love playing shadow. So priest is a natural choice for me. Luckely the covenants for both specs also align so I can play both without deficit. I would love to see more utility be brought in on some of the more unpopular healers and greatly reduce or just remove dmg abilities from healing specs and replace them with utility spells (interrups, ccs, stuns, dmg reductions) All healers have dps specs so when venturing out into the world for quests, you do have a means of killing your enemy. Healers in most mmo's are there in a support role, to help the tanks and dps kill the mobs. if you remove dmg from the equation it opens up the door to alot more variety. One step in the right direction was the revamp of holy priests hymn of hope, but we need more like it.
I love your video's!
Because of you I changed from resto druid to holy paladin and I'm quite enjoying it.
As resto I had the problem that my team wasn't used to having a resto druid and so my hps often came as rock bottom as my hots weren't allowed to heal my team up.
My road to holy pala is going well so far. I did my first +10 with ilv 211 and going up.
I am currently kyrian but considering to go venthir (I.
I would like opinions of others what covenant you would go if you plan to go for top 20% so I'd like to clear some mythic bosses and do atleast ksm
As for a fix I feel like the meta is too bursty.
Making the damage patterns less bursty would make it slower and more boring but I think they could get away with it a little bit.
That way the healing can go down a bit and healers will have more time to heal.
The problem then is tho that some classes would have to be changed as this kind of kills the playstyle of some (pala and mistweaver) disc priest will get nerfed a bit from this :/
This problem for sure has been around since 8.2 sadly probably earlier.
If they can do insane damage numbers with insane healing, why bring any other healer that just does healing? They double dip. Actually triple dip if you account for the DR aspect. Blizzard should remove the DR aspect and give it to specs that have zero utility and aren't brought to anything. Removing DR will be a huge to nerf their healing as well, and might pose a threat of stacking these healers purely for their dmg output.
While on the one hand I don't want every healer to have a DR cooldown, it's no secret that disc priest and holy pally will dominate because they have big DR cds. In the RWF they must be run because players are simply not geared enough to survive damage events without DR, and that's why no other healer has room to fit in. Later on, as people can survive the initial blasts, big HPS healers should pull ahead. The issue with this is that players have peanut brain and even months into the tier they go "RWF comp or bust" and that just makes other healers lose their time in the spotlight.
based on the number of parses, and how healing really is, makes sense that monk is top, only ones that are playing them are probably the best healers in the world.
How mandatory are DR CDs like Aura Mastery vs Big Heal CDs like tranquility or revival? I thought they did a good job of switching up the raid damage profile in a number of areas. In CN, you tended to have massive singular damage events raidwide. Now you have things like Painsmith's traps, Glacial Spikes on KT, or the chains on Soulrender which are more a series of moderate damage pings. At least in theory, I would think that makes something like Revival more viable as a raid CD answer than it had been.
A large reason the healer meta never changes is because Blizzard either doesn't care to deal with it, or doesn't know how. It's absolutely ridiculous that the healing classes that bring DR also do the most passive healer damage, on top of high HPS. It's like Blizzard has no idea how to balance these things, or give other healing classes the tools to compete with the high end healing classes. I love mistweaver, but I'd practically be trolling my own guild playing it instead of my disc priest.
I think all specs need some way to prepare for incoming dmg or heal it like a paladin wack a mole style or change the way dmg reduction works.
There will always be a community driven meta that makes it very challenging to balance things without diluting class identity. That being said Blizz notoriously is very slow in doing small iterative tuning to healers to make things closer. MW was dreadfully underperforming last tier and blizz didn’t react for nearly a year despite community outcry. In addition Holy paladins have been the strongest for quite long with only small nerfs. Blizz should more regularly share their thoughts and make small tweaks to show they even care about balance.
Not good at fist weaving but still love my Monk healer so I dont fist weave. Shaman is my next one. Thank you for the info.