Healing in Wrath of the Lich King Classic is in a great spot. Each class has a niche and role they excel all. Holy Paladins are fantastic tank healers. Restoration Druids are efficient with their heals over time. Restoration Shamans still excel at AOE healing despite scaling back from the glory days in Burning Crusade. Discipline Priests and their signature protection bubbles supply a unique and useful role for the group. Holy Priests may be out of the spotlight, but Guardian Spirit is still amazing.

Players are no longer punished for picking the "wrong" class to heal in Classic WoW. Having said that, there are some clearcut favorites that will be preferred by guilds and raid compositions. Furthermore, there's the subject of Val'anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings. The powerful legendary healing weapon is earned in Ulduar, allowing healers to utilize the weapon for several phases of Classic WotLK.

Interested in our other Tier Lists for Wrath of the Lich King Classic? Check these out:

WotLK PvE DPS Tier List

WotLK PvP Class Tier List

WotLK Tank Tier List

Now it's time to dive into what you came here for, let's discuss a tier list for Healers in WotLK Classic.

Wrath of the Lich King Healing PvE Tier List

Holy Paladin

It's a great time to be a Paladin.

Holy Paladins were already effective during the original Wrath of the Lich King run. They'll be even better with over a decade of theorycrafting and optimization. A wide host of buffs help improve the Holy Paladin toolkit. Avenging Wrath is a great cooldown when needed. Holy Light sees buffs via new talents in the Holy tree. Holy Shock's cooldown is reduced to 6 seconds. There's a lot to love what the tried and true Holy Paladin abilities are up to. The new stuff, however, is the icing on the cake.

Beacon of Light is a dream come true, allowing Paladins to heal additional targets beyond their focus. It's a powerful talent capstone in the Holy talent tree and an absolute dream come true. Sacred Shield is another powerful ability, giving the healing target (usually the main tank) a damage absorption shield. Divine Plea helps ensure that mana issues are a thing of the past.

This combination of old reworks and new abilities helps give Holy Paladins a healing toolkit that's second to none despite their lack of mobility. There is no better Wrath of the Lich King healer.

Discipline Priest

For most of Classic Burning Crusade, Discipline Priests were able to get the job done. Headed into Sunwell Plateau, however, Holy became the preferred spec for many raids. With the release of Wrath of the Lich King, that's all going to change.

Borrowed Time is a huge new ability introduced in WotLK. It allows Discipline Priests to gain 25% spell haste for their next spell after casting Power Word: Shield. It also increases the amount absorbed by Power Word: Shield, equal to 40% of your spell power. Borrowed Power also buffs Divine Hymn, a new AOE heal targeting three allies, and Hymn of Hope, which helps restore mana to allies. Combined with the Soul Warding talent, which removes the cooldown of Power Word: Shield, the efficiency and power of a Disciple Priest can get out of control quickly.

The spec still has plenty of utility thanks to Power Infusion and Pain Suppression as well.

So why aren't Discipline Priests S-tier healers? It's all about Val'anyr, Hammer of the Ancient Kings. Power Word: Shield sadly does not proc the legendary weapon. As effective as Discipline Priests will be for raids, they aren't the best targets for Val'anyr.

Restoration Druid

It only took two releases, but Druids can finally resurrect people out of combat. That alone is a chance that Restoration Druids would be happy with. Thankfully, there's a little more to sweeten the deal. The new Wild Growth talent gives the spec some much-needed AOE healing to combine with their incredibly effective single-target output. This change, combined with the continued utility that Druids offer, will have them in more demand than they were in Burning Crusade. One new piece in the utility tool-belt is the Revitalize talent, which can restore resources to your allies for every tick of your Rejuvenation or Wild Growth.

The icing on the cake is how effective Val'anyr is for Restoration Druids. The ability to proc off the many healing-over-time spells you'll be rolling out is a great way to mitigate AOE damage.

It's not all fun and games, however. Lifebloom saw a bit of a rework, having its mana cost skyrocket, but allowing it to bloom will result in mana being gained by the healer. Furthermore, thanks in part to the efficiency of other healing specs, the risk of overhealing runs higher. Still, this is just nitpicking; Restoration Druids are great healers in Classic Wrath of the Lich King.

Restoration Shaman

The royalty of Burning Crusade healers, Restoration Shamans are nowhere near as powerful as they once were. They're still plenty effective and viable, just lacking compared to the above specs.

First, the good news. The new Riptide talent allows the spec the rare chance at an instant heal. This has been an Achilles heel for the spec that sometimes tended to creep up. While it's not a magic band-aid that fixes everything, it's a much-needed useful tool to help Restoration Shamans get the job done better. In addition, Earthliving Weapons is a very welcome weapon imbue to improve healing by the player. Other new and exciting tools, such as Tidal Waves and Riptide, further enhance the AOE healing Shamans are known for. Sadly, other classes can get the job done in this realm at a minimum, meaning that Restoration Shamans are no longer in a league of their own.

The bigger issue comes with the slight rework of Shaman totems. Not only are beneficial buffs raid-wide, but they also do not stack with similar buffs other classes bring. While this isn't a direct nerf per se, it's still a hit to the class utility. The need to stack Shamans is over. As a result, Restoration Shamans will be affected by this.

Holy Priest

Circle of Healing has been changed to better target five select allies within a 15-yard radius. That's a beneficial change. It's now on a six-second cooldown. That's not a beneficial change.

That's a very rough change.

Most of the reasoning for putting Restoration Shamans in the B tier is due to other classes' buffs. They're not bad but also no longer required. Holy Priests are in the C tier because they've been nerfed to the ground. They pale in comparison to Restoration Shamans as AOE healers. Holy Priests will not scale well as Classic Wrath of the Lich King goes on. Mana usage is still an issue, one that is compounded by the removal of downranking spells.

There are some interesting talents that can make the spec appealing. Guardian Spirit is probably the best "oh crap" button in the game. Being able to save someone from dying can swing the tide of an encounter. Serendipity, Empowered Renew, and Test of Faith help bolster the spec's arsenal and increase their healing output. The most skilled of Holy Priests will do well, combining the flexibility of the spec and their new talents to become a worthwhile member of any group. Having said that, it's definitely an uphill battle to get there.

Wrapping Up

Unlike tanking in Classic Wrath of the Lich King, choosing a healing spec has its pros and cons. Holy Paladins, as great as they are, still struggle at times with AOE healing. Restoration Shamans, despite no longer being the crème de la crème of raid healing, are still more than capable of getting the job done.

Every class and spec will be capable of getting the job done, even Holy Priest, though they'll have to work a bit harder than others.

The most important thing to remember with Wrath Classic is to play what you want and have fun!