This Season of Discovery healer rankings guide will provide a tier list of the best healer classes, their builds, and the best runes to keep the entire party alive. It’s important to know which healers are the strongest in SoD Phase 4 to conquer the level 60 Molten Core raid. We will tell you all about the best healer class and their mechanics to help you prepare for the endgame. And you can also check out our DPS and Tank rankings for Season of Discovery.
4.9Season of Discovery Healer Tier List
Here is our complete SoD healer tier list. The ranking within these tiers is subjective, and each healer listed is valuable in their own right. Below, we’ll explain the talent and rune choices to enhance the healing abilities of each healer spec.
| S Tier | A Tier | B Tier | C Tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mage | Shaman | Druid | Paladin |
| Priest |
Mage
This Season of Discovery Mage healer build focuses on maximizing mana efficiency and survivability while providing strong support capabilities. Here are the key highlights:
- Abilities such as Arcane Concentration, Arcane Meditation, and Arcane Mind increase your mana regeneration and the total mana amount you can get. This enables you to be able to sustain healing and support spells for longer durations of the fight.
- Arcane Power and Arcane Instability increase the power of your spells, so your heals and support abilities will be stronger. Instant cast spells are possible with Presence of Mind, providing flexibility and quick responses in critical situations.
- Arcane Resilience and Frost Warding enhance your survival skills, which means that you will be able to take less damage during combat.
- Abilities such as Arcane Focus, Elemental Precision, and Ice Shards raise your chance to hit and your critical strike chance, making your spells hit more often and deal more damage when they do crit.
Best Mage Runes
| Rune | Slot | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Advanced Warding | Head | Allows your Mana Shield, Frost Ward, and Fire Ward to be cast on allies, doubling their damage absorption. Mana Shield consumes 50% less mana per damage absorbed. Removes 1 Curse and 1 harmful Magic effect from an ally. |
| Burnout | Chest | Increases spell critical strike chance by 15%, but non-periodic spell criticals cost an extra 1% of base mana. |
| Missile Barrage | Waist | Arcane Blast has a 40% chance, and Fireball and Frostbolt have a 20% chance, to halve the duration of the next Arcane Missiles, make it free, and fire every 0.5 seconds. |
| Mass Regeneration | Legs | Heals all party members within 30 yards of the target player over 3 seconds and applies Temporal Beacon for 15 seconds. Temporal Beacon converts 80% of Arcane damage to healing, reduced by 50% on self and 80% for AoE spells. |
| Spell Power | Feet | Increases critical strike damage bonus of all spells by 50%. |
| Arcane Blast | Hands | Deals significant Arcane damage, increasing the damage and healing of other Arcane spells by 15% and increasing the mana cost of Arcane Blast by 175%. Stacks up to 4 times for 6 seconds or until another Arcane spell is cast. |
| Balefire Bolt | Wrist | Deals Chimeric damage, increasing the damage of the next Balefire Bolt by 10% and decreasing Spirit by 10% for 30 seconds. Stacks up to 10 times. If Spirit reaches 0, you die. It is checked against the lowest resistance of the target. |
| Arcane Specialization | Finger | Increases hit chance with Arcane spells by 6%. Does not stack with other ring runes. |
| Frost Specialization | Finger | Increases hit chance with Frost spells by 6%. Does not stack with other ring runes. |
| Arcane Barrage | Back | Fires multiple missiles at the target, dealing significant Arcane damage. Has a 20% chance to trigger Missile Barrage. |
This build is very efficient in terms of mana and has high sustainability which makes Mage the best Season of Discovery healer. Skills such as Arcane Concentration, Arcane Meditation, and Arcane Mind guarantee constant mana regeneration, which means that healing and support can be provided for a long time. Also, Arcane Power and Arcane Instability increase the spell power, and Arcane Resilience and Frost Warding increase the durability of the Mage, making it a very useful healer in any fight.
This flexibility makes Mage an excellent option for completing Molten Core, however, you may encounter difficulties in completing this raid. Professional gamers from Overgear are ready to help you overcome them with ease!
Priest
This SoD Priest healer build is designed to enhance your healing efficiency and versatility, making you a strong support character in various combat situations. Here are the key highlights:
- Abilities such as Improved Power Word: Shield, Improved Healing, and Meditation make it possible for you to heal more efficiently and mana sustain during long encounters. This makes you a reliable healer for your group or raid.
- Holy Specialization and Divine Fury improve your healing done, making your heals stronger and decreasing the cast time of your main heal spells.
- Inspiration and Force of Will improve your chance to critically heal, giving massive bonuses to your healing and making it easier to maintain your party members’ health.
- Inner Focus and Mental Agility increase the mana pool, which allows you to cast spells more frequently without going out of mana. Power Infusion is a strong boost to your spellcasting speed and power, that is useful in critical moments.
- Improved Power Word: Fortitude and Divine Spirit are essential boons to your party, as they increase their effectiveness in battle.
- With abilities like Healing Focus, you reduce the chance of your healing spells being interrupted, making sure you can keep on healing no matter the situation.
Best Priest Runes
| Rune | Slot | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Divine Aegis | Head | Critical heals form a protective shield on the target, absorbing 30% of the heal amount. This shield remains for 12 seconds. |
| Serendipity | Chest | Healing with Flash Heal reduces the cast time of your next Lesser Heal, Heal, Greater Heal, or Prayer of Healing by 20% for 20 seconds. This effect stacks up to 3 times. |
| Empowered Renew | Waist | Enhance Renew to heal immediately upon application and gain increased benefit with each subsequent healing. Can be active on multiple targets affected by another Priest’s Renew. |
| Prayer of Mending | Legs | Places a spell on the target that heals them the next time they take damage, then jumps to another party or raid member within 20 yards. Can jump up to 5 times, lasting 30 seconds per jump. |
| Dispersion | Feet | Transform into pure Shadow energy, reducing all damage taken by 90% for 6 seconds. You cannot attack or cast spells, but regenerate 6% mana per second. Dispersion clears and provides immunity to snares and movement impairments. |
| Circle of Healing | Hands | Heals all party members within 40 yards of the target for a significant amount of health, providing a powerful area-of-effect healing. |
| Surge of Light | Wrist | Critical spellcasts make your next Smite or Flash Heal instant cast within 15 seconds. |
| Holy Specialization | Finger | Increases the chance to hit with Holy spells by 6%. This effect is not cumulative with other ring runes. |
| Shadow Specialization | Finger | Increases the chance to hit with Shadow spells by 6%. This effect is not cumulative with other ring runes. |
| Soul Warding | Back | Removes the cooldown on Power Word: Shield, reduces its mana cost by 15%, increases its base value by 15%, and grants an additional 50% of your healing power to its effect. |
Priest is an S-tier healer in Season of Discovery because of the high healing efficiency and flexibility of the class. Abilities like Improved Power Word: Shield, Improved Healing, and Meditation allow for constant healing and mana regeneration during the fight, making Priest a good group healer. Abilities like Holy Specialization and Divine Fury increase the healing done and decrease the cast time, Inner Focus and Mental Agility increase mana, so the Priest can keep healing the team in crucial moments.
Shaman
This WoW Classic SoD Shaman healer build focuses on maximizing your healing efficiency and survivability. Here are some key strengths and considerations:
- Talents such as Improved Healing Wave, Healing Focus, Healing Way, and Purification enhance your healing output and decrease the casting time of your main healing spells. This helps you to keep your allies alive more efficiently during intense encounters.
- Convection and Mana Tide Totem are important for mana management. These talents enable you to keep your mana pool replenished, which is useful in long fights.
- Elemental Warding and Ancestral Healing are two abilities that will help you and your allies take less damage. This decreases the total amount of damage received, which in turn increases the effectiveness of your healing.
- Totemic Mastery and Restorative Totems enhance the efficiency and radius of your totems, which is helpful for your team. These talents make sure that your totems add a lot to the group’s survivability and efficiency.
- Tidal Focus and Tidal Mastery raise your healing spell critical strike chance and decrease the mana cost of your heals making them stronger and more efficient.
- Nature’s Swiftness provides instant healing in emergency situations, enabling you to deal with sudden damage increases and protect friends from certain death.
Best Shaman Runes
| Rune | Slot | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Tidal Waves | Head | Casting Chain Heal or Riptide grants 2 charges, reducing Healing Wave‘s cast time by 30% and increasing the critical chance of Lesser Healing Wave by 25%. |
| Overload | Chest | Your spells Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Chain Heal, Healing Wave, and Lava Burst have a 50% chance to cast a second, similar spell on the same target at no cost, causing half damage or healing and no threat. |
| Power Surge | Waist | Each time Flame Shock deals damage or Riptide heals, there’s a 5% chance to reset the cooldowns of Lava Burst and Chain Lightning and make the next Lava Burst, Chain Heal, or Chain Lightning instant. Also, every 5 seconds, you gain mana equal to 15% of your Intellect. |
| Earth Shield | Legs | Shields the target, reducing cast or channel time loss by 30% when damaged and healing the target when attacked. This effect occurs once every few seconds, with 9 charges. Lasts 10 minutes. Earth Shield can be on one target at a time. |
| Ancestral Awakening | Feet | Critical heals with Healing Wave or Lesser Healing Wave summon an Ancestral spirit, instantly healing the lowest health party member within 40 yards for 30% of the amount healed. |
| Water Shield | Hands | Surrounds the caster with 3 water globes, providing 1% of maximum mana every 5 seconds. When hit by a spell, melee, or ranged attack, 4% of maximum mana is restored, expending one globe. Only one globe activates every few seconds. Lasts 10 minutes. Only one Elemental Shield can be active at a time. |
| Riptide | Wrist | Heals a friendly target instantly and applies a healing over time effect for 15 seconds. The next Chain Heal on that target consumes the effect, boosting Chain Heal by 25%. Also triggers Ancestral Awakening. |
| Fire Specialization | Finger | Increases hit chance with Fire spells by 6%. Does not stack with other ring runes. |
| Nature Specialization | Finger | Increases hit chance with Nature spells by 6%. Does not stack with other ring runes. |
| Coherence | Back | Reduces effectiveness loss of Chain Heal and Chain Lightning per jump by 35% and 20% respectively, and each jumps to 1 additional target. |
Shamans are in the A tier of Season of Discover healer ranking because they are very effective and can do a lot of healing in a short amount of time. Essential skills such as Improved Healing Wave, Healing Focus, and Purification increase the healing power and shorten the casting time, allowing them to support allies during combat. Furthermore, mana management talents such as Convection and Mana Tide Totem, and emergency instant heals from Nature’s Swiftness make Shamans rather dependable and efficient healers in extended encounters. BiS gear will help strengthen your Shaman even more. Our boosters are ready to farm it for you so you can spend your time on more interesting activities.
Druid
This SoD Druid healer build is focused on maximizing your healing efficiency and sustainability while providing some utility from the Balance tree. Here are some key points about this build:
- Abilities like Improved Healing Touch, Improved Rejuvenation, and Tranquil Spirit lower the mana cost and boost the impact of your main healing spells, which means you can heal more and maintain your mana for longer during combat.
- Gift of Nature and Improved Regrowth increase the critical strike chance and the healing done by your spells, making your heals stronger and more beneficial to your group.
- Nature’s Swiftness and Swiftmend are instant heals which are very useful when the damage output increases and allies are in a critical state.
- Reflection raises your mana regeneration, which means that you will be able to keep up your healing in long fights and be more useful in longer battles.
- Omen of Clarity is an opportunity to make your spells and attacks cost nothing, which increases your effectiveness. Insect Swarm from the Restoration tree and the balance talents like Improved Wrath and Nature’s Reach offer more damage and utility to the fight.
Best Druid Runes
| Rune | Slot | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Improved Barkskin | Head | Cast Barkskin on allies, with no penalties to melee speed or casting time, and usable in any shapeshift form. |
| Fury of Stormrage | Chest | Wrath costs no mana and has a 12% chance to make Healing Touch instant and usable in any form for 15 seconds. Wrath can be cast in Tree of Life form. |
| Nourish | Waist | Heals a friendly target with an extra 20% effectiveness if Rejuvenation, Regrowth, Lifebloom, or Wild Growth is active on the target. Benefits from all effects tied to Healing Touch or Regrowth. |
| Lifebloom | Legs | Reduces the global cooldown on Rejuvenation and Lifebloom by 0.5 seconds and gains the Lifebloom ability: Heals the target over 7 seconds, with an instant heal when it ends or is dispelled. Can stack up to 3 times on the same target. |
| Survival Instincts | Feet | Grants 30% of your maximum health and boosts non-Physical healing by 20% for 20 seconds. Health is lost after the effect ends. Regenerates rage, energy, or mana based on your form when dodging. |
| Wild Growth | Hands | Heals all party members within 40 yards of the target over 7 seconds. Healing starts quickly and slows down over the duration. |
| Efflorescence | Wrist | Swiftmend causes Efflorescence, healing all party members within 15 yards of the target every second for 15 seconds. |
| Nature Specialization | Finger | Increases the chance to hit with Nature spells by 6%. Not cumulative with other ring runes. |
| Defense Specialization | Finger | Increases Defense skill by 25. Not cumulative with other ring runes. |
| Tree of Life | Back | Shapeshift into Tree of Life. Increases healing received by 10% for all party members within 45 yards, boosts Wild Growth healing by 60%, reduces the cost of healing over time spells by 20%, increases Spirit by 25%, boosts armor by 200%, and prevents harmful spell casting. Shapeshifting frees the caster from Polymorph and Movement Impairing effects. |
Due to their strong healing and utility but lacking in some aspects compared to the S-tier healers, Druids are considered to be in the B tier of the Season of Discovery healer tier list. Abilities such as Improved Healing Touch and Swiftmend are good for healing and reacting in emergencies, but Druids do not have the raw healing output or the same level of cooldown utility as other classes. Also, their mana efficiency and sustainability are good, but the focus on HoT spells may not be as useful in some situations where quick and direct heals are needed. Runes are an important part of this build, but farming them can be boring. Therefore, entrust this to our professional gamers.
Paladin
This WoW Season of Discovery Paladin healer build is designed to maximize your healing capabilities while providing additional support and utility:
- Abilities such as Divine Intellect, Healing Light, Illumination, and Holy Power increase your healing output and mana regeneration. This way, you can be sure that you can heal for as long as you need without running out of mana.
- Divine Favor and Holy Shock are instant heals that can be very useful in cases of an emergency. These talents improve your capacity to respond to sudden changes in the damage rate.
- Improved Blessing of Wisdom and Improved Blessing of Might increase the bonuses you give to your party, increasing their mana regeneration and attack power correspondingly.
- Improved Lay on Hands is a better emergency heal and damage reduction ability, Improved Devotion Aura and Guardian’s Favor also boost your defensive capabilities and the power of your auras.
- Benediction decreases the cost of your abilities, and Pursuit of Justice increases your movement speed, which helps to maneuver during the fight and avoid negative effects.
Best Paladin Runes
| Rune | Slot | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Fanaticism | Head | Boosts your Holy spell critical strike chance by 18%. Additionally, critical healing spells apply a heal-over-time effect, restoring 60% of the healed amount over 12 seconds. |
| Hallowed Ground | Chest | Your Consecration ability now heals allies within its area for 200% of the damage it deals. |
| Infusion of Light | Waist | Enhances your Holy Shock, increasing its damage and healing by 50%, reduces its cooldown to 6 seconds, and critical strikes reset its cooldown and refund its mana cost. |
| Hand of Sacrifice | Legs | Transfers 30% of damage taken by the target party or raid member to you for 12 seconds, or until you’ve transferred 100% of your maximum health. |
| Sacred Shield | Feet | Grants a Sacred Shield when the target takes damage, absorbing damage and increasing the Paladin’s critical hit chance with Flash of Light by 50% for up to 6 seconds. Flash of Light heals targets with Sacred Shield for an additional 100% over 12 seconds. Effect can only occur once every 6 seconds. Lasts 1 minute and cannot be on more than one target at a time. |
| Beacon of Light | Hands | Marks the target as a Beacon of Light, causing all heals cast on party or raid members within 40 yards to also heal the Beacon for 100% of the amount healed. Only one Beacon can be active at a time. Lasts 1 hour. |
| Light’s Grace | Wrist | Casting Holy Light reduces the cast time of your next Holy Light spell by 0.5 seconds. Lasts 15 seconds. |
| Holy Specialization | Finger | Increases your chance to hit with Holy spells by 6%. This effect does not stack with other ring runes. |
| Defense Specialization | Finger | Increases your Defense skill by 25. This effect does not stack with other ring runes. |
| Divine Light | Back | Heals a friendly target significantly, with 50% of any overhealing converted into an absorption shield lasting 15 seconds. Multiple casts do not stack this shield. Benefits from all talents and effects that trigger from or modify Holy Light. |
Paladin is ranked in the B tier of the Season of Discovery best healer tier list because it has average healing and utility. While talents like Divine Favor, Holy Shock, and Beacon of Light offer solid burst and sustained healing, the class does not have the same sustained high output and utility as the top-tier healers. Also, the use of critical heals for optimal results is sometimes less effective in conditions of increased pressure.
4.9Now we understand the strengths and weaknesses of each healing spec at level 60. It can greatly improve your chances of success in Molten Core, Season of Discovery Phase 4 raid. Use this WoW Classic SoD healers ranking as a guide to build the strongest healing team possible.
