In this guide, we will look at the different healing classes, and how they have been impacted in the new release.
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands is the latest expansion in series that has been running for many years. In fact, the first WoW expansion was the Burning Crusade (2007), and now we are all the way up to Shadowlands (2020).
Resto Druid
Looking at the recent Patch Notes, Resto Druid’s have been nerfed (somewhat), though not to the extent that the other classes have been.
Resto Druids have historically been one of the strongest healers in the game, mainly because of how much they resemble tanks when it comes to damage. Their damage output is outmatched by every other healer in the game with a single global cool down, Resto Druid’s ability Sunfire.
For example; it affects multiple targets around it and does a whole lot of damage, and that’s not all that they have. They have things like Typhoon which also does a whole lot of damage as well. So this minor damage nerf was necessary and it does make a huge difference when it comes to Resto Druid’s current place in the game.
Holy Paladin
This is a big one! Holy Paladin mains probably feel like their wings have been clipped at this point, and that is fair, as this nerf is huge. It starts out with a reduced mana usage on the Crusader Strike, which is the best part here, but then comes the 15% damage reduction on the Shield of the Righteous.
Holy Shock and Word of Glory have gotten increased damage by 9% and 10% respectively, but the talent has lost its healing potential reduced by 10%. The passive armour bonus has been reduced to 10% from 20%, and now the DPS talents.
Execution Sentence no longer has a chance to do critical damage, and initial damage has been reduced 25%. Final Reckoning damage has been reduced to 35% from 50%, and Sanctified Wrath damage has been increased 50%.
Now these changes are a huge nerf, mainly because you can’t really run a melee build on Holy Paladins anymore. Getting melee’d in Shadowlands is actually very annoying. Someone that is constantly able to melee you and then run away to “heal themselves” is a huge nuisance. Hence the nerf comes in, with reduced damage to all of the melee abilities, and increased damage to Sanctified Wrath.
With these changes, it makes the game seem fair and square. Ranged is the way to go with Holy Paladin in the current meta. I should also note that they have decreased the mana usage of most of their abilities – which is a buff to be honest, but the melee going away has really clipped Holy Paladin’s wings.
Discipline Priest
Priest has been nerfed when it comes to their damaging capabilities all around. Power Word: Shield absorb has been reduced by 8%, while Shadow Word: Pain and Purge the Wicked have gotten a damage nerf of 10% each.
This makes for an impactful change. The Paladin was the top raid healer before the nerf, while Priest was doing the same thing in Shadowlands, but he was great for both raids and mythic+, which warranted these nerfs, as they don’t want one healer doing better than all of the others.
The nerfs on both of his abilities and his talent will see a decrease in the damage he can do up close and will see him take more of a back-ended role.
Resto Shaman
Resto Shaman’s probably the fourth most popular healer in the game; his chain healing has been an annoyance for most of the players in game, which has been an issue with the healer meta taking more and more over. The current nerfs for Resto Shaman, are his chain healing being nerfed reduced by 7%, which is a huge nerf, Restoration Shaman has also seen a specialization loss in percentage to 15% from previously 40%.
Resto Shaman is one of the best raid healers, he’s not that great at Mythic+ but he’s great, I think his nerf is the most unjustified here, the nerf to his chain heal will become a significant nerf to High Tide, which already has been nerfed to almost powerlessness at this point, which is very unjustified. I think nerfing Resto Shaman this way wasn’t the way to go; this does not go well with the amount of cooldowns that come with his chain heals.