Shadowlands Healer Tier List for Sanctum of Domination Patch 9.1.5

This is a list of the best healers in Sanctum of Domination Patch 9.1.5.

Welcome to Wowhead’s Shadowlands Healer Tier List for the Sanctum of Domination Raid, updated for Patch 9.1.5. We’ve created a Tier List for raiding in Patch 9.1.5 with the assistance of our class writers, reflecting on the pros and limitations of each Healer spec for the raid as well as how each spec performs.

This page will be updated when new information becomes available, so keep checking Wowhead for updates!

Strategy Guides for the Sanctum of Domination

If you want to pick your class based on its raid strength, this article will go through the strongest Healer specifications in the current raid tier, as well as an explanation from our Class Writers on why.

Notices Regarding This Tier List

With comments from our Class Writers, this guide was created to offer you a summary of how each Healer performs in Mythic Sanctum of Domination for Patch 9.1.5. If any tuning changes are made, we will update this tier list. This Tier List was created for players who like to choose a class depending on its utility in the current Mythic raid tier. You don’t have to play this way, and you may choose your class based on any criteria you like.

The rankings are based on the criteria of throughput, utility, and defensive value in Sanctum of Domination, and employ a typical Tier List methodology to rate each spec on a scale of best (S Tier) to unviable (F Tier). These rankings were created by our Class Guide Writers, who are experts in their field, but they are still their own opinions. You may disagree with some of their findings since everyone has different priorities.

Shadowlands Healer Tier List for Sanctum of Domination in Patch 9.1.5

Here’s how each Class Writer scored each Healer spec in Sanctum of Domination for Patch 9.1.5 for this Tier List.

• S: You are an outstanding option in Sanctum of Domination, delivering powerful throughput, exceptional survivability, and universal usefulness to practically every encounter.
• A: You’re a decent pick in Sanctum of Domination and succeed in most settings, but you have a few flaws in certain confrontations.
• B: In Sanctum of Domination, you’re an okay choice. You may have a specialty in certain situations, but you’re still a good choice.
• C: In Sanctum of Domination, you are below average and fail to stand out in many confrontations owing to your flaws.
• D: You’re a viable character, but the Sanctum of Domination encounters highlight your flaws rather than your virtues.

Because all specifications are feasible, no spec has been assigned below a C tier.

Buttons for Filtering

S

A+

A

A-

From Shadowlands Patch 9.1 to Patch 9.1.5, the Healer Ranking has changed.

Rank Advancement:

• Monk of the Mistweaver has been upgraded to the A+ tier.

Rank Reduction:

• The Sacred Paladin has been downgraded from the S to the A+ tier.
• The Sacred Priest has been downgraded from the A to the A- tier.

Class Guides for the Sanctum of Domination

Each boss in the raid includes suggested skill builds, gear, and raid recommendations on the Sanctum of Domination page in our Class Guides!

Healer Ranking and Explanations in Patch 9.1.5 Shadowlands

Specs for S Tier

Priest of Discipline

Overall Score: S

Patch 9.1.5 introduces covenant exchanges and some minor Priest tweaks, but otherwise has little impact on Discipline. Even though you may shift covenants freely, the greatest advantage is that Priest multi-speccers can now play Discipline instead of being bound to other covenants to play Shadow.

While Spirit Shell was mostly overlooked in favor of Evangelism in the World First race, the former is making a return now that the raid’s borrowed power, the Shards of Domination, is granting a significant passive Intellect gain, enabling Spirit Shell’s shields to reach greater maximum numbers. Spirit Shell is the only method to prevent those big throughput healers in Resto Druids and Mistweavers from stealing all of the output in the zero-sum healing game in this “deep farm” condition for a huge number of Mythic guilds as well.

Discipline provides strong passive damage to guilds still completing Sanctum of Domination, although to be fair, any healer can provide great damage if they switch to the more damage-focused Shards, so it’s less important to the raid now than it was when it was first released.

Paladins have more passive damage and utility, and most other healers are more mana efficient, have a higher theoretical “maximum” output, and are less hungry for external mana, which is where Discipline falls short. With several possibilities to divide your different ramp windows, having multiple Disc Priests on an encounter is still incredibly powerful this tier.

Discipline’s Legion and BFA mass burst healing returns, and it’s hard to match, particularly when you add Power Word: Barrier, absorbs, and significant passive damage. A 1.5 minute cooldown that heals the whole raid results in a significant increase in the raid’s chances of surviving and your team’s chances of slaying the boss on a continuous basis.

Tier Specs A+

Mistweaver Monk

Overall Score: A+

Fallen Order, a Venthyr covenant ability, was given a bonus in the patch. The Tiger Adept’s Tiger Palm now does more damage, and they may now unleash Spinning Crane Kick when there are more than one opponent within range. When the Ox Adepts hatch, they now grant an absorb shield worth 10% of the monk’s health. Finally, for each hatched, each Crane Adept will now cast Enveloping Mist twice. This is an improvement above the single Enveloping Mist they previously utilized. Updated target caps are the subject of a few additional minor modifications. The target limit on Spinning Crane Kick has been removed, and it now delivers decreased damage after 5 targets. In addition, Chi Burst now only heals up to 6 targets.

The following are fantastic Mistweaver Monk updates, particularly Venthyr Mistweaver Monk updates. Previously, your Fallen Order-spawned Crane Adepts could only cast one Enveloping Mist. With the aforementioned changes, each Crane Adept now has twice the amount of Enveloping Mist spells. Also, when casting Enveloping Mist, Crane Adepts may continue to pour Soothing Mist. Both of these adjustments result in a significant boost in the total HPS of a Mistweaver Monk. Mistweaver Monks are already a powerful HPS class, particularly those who pick Venthyr, and the adjustments above further strengthen the covenant. Throughout 9.1.5, Mistweaver Monks should be the obvious HPS leaders. Because the spell already had a healing decrease on big groups, the aforementioned Chi Burst adjustment is modest. You may get around this by having the reduction reset if the Chi Burst projectile impacted two groups that were suitably apart. In reality, the alteration has little impact on how the spell is used.

The mobility of the Mistweaver Monk is a useful characteristic to have, especially for monsters that need fast moves. Roll may be utilized on Painsmith Raznal to get to safe areas fast, or on Sylvanas Windrunner in Phase 1 or 2 to evade mechanics and get into position more easily. During the intermission, you may use Transcendence on Fatescribe Roh-Kalo to ‘jump’ across beams and continue to cure rune runners. Mistweaver Monks’ weaknesses remain unchanged in this patch, however the gap has shrunk. We don’t have Damage Reduction, which may seem to be a bigger problem, but with the current encounters and health pools, it’s less of an issue. Damage mitigation skills from other classes still let you to survive otherwise unsurvivable damage, although such damage is not as common this late in the tier.

Mistweaver Monks are a top-tier pick in general. There presently does not seem to be a class that can match them in terms of raw HPS. Our most powerful HPS covenant got boosts, ensuring that our HPS will stay strong during 9.1.5.

Holy Paladin

Overall Score: A+ Now that we’ve reached the Sanctum of Domination, Paladin’s rating has been reduced somewhat, as is customary for Holy Paladins. Paladin is a S class healer early in a tier, and this stays true. This grade would be S if we were on advancement, however on farm, combat times are shorter, resulting in less efficient usage of Ashen Hallow. Damage isn’t as crucial since your DPS outguns any damage checks, and tank healing is a piece of cake because tanks have more gear. Nothing has changed in this regard in 9.1.5; Paladins may now easily switch between Kyrian and Venthyr, but that is about it.

Having the option to switch between Divine Toll and Ashen Hallow for a battle isn’t really useful since you won’t be shifting between them very often. Venthyr with Ashen Hallow is the best way to develop. If you prefer Venthyr and/or don’t require the damage, you can continue with him or switch to Kyrian, but both are acceptable options. This far into a tier, the Paladin’s strength of high tank healing is merely an extra overhead. Because players have greater gear, the cooldown from Ashen Hallow is no longer required. Similarly, other healers may now provide more effective HPS, and our damage is no longer required to pass damage checks.

Overall, assuming nothing changes in healer balance (which it very certainly will), Holy Paladin will be S tier for advancement when Patch 9.2 arrives, since that is the essence of the Holy Paladin’s healing profile. They’re amazing progression healers, but they’re not as useful on the farm. Paladins are still fantastic in farm, but they don’t shine as brightly as they do in advancement.

Restoration Shaman

Overall Score: A+ Allowing users to transfer covenants more easily will make it much simpler for them to explore and discover the covenant that they like in terms of gameplay. Nothing changes in terms of performance, since all covenants were previously quite viable and competent, with Necrolord just holding on to a little HPS edge at the expense of damage contribution.

With their great damage contribution and notably damage reduction against the raid’s bursty patterns, Discipline Priests and Holy Paladins remain the most important healers, but Restoration Shamans are in high demand as usual and should always be the first healer you fill in. While not as effective as other raid damage reductions, Spirit Link Totem adds 10% to the health redistribution, which may help defuse a number of potentially deadly situations. Aside from that, we’ll continue to provide a wide healing toolkit that can be tailored to every encounter, as well as powerful cooldowns like Ancestral Protection Totem and Healing Tide Totem, as well as excellent mana sustainability. The efficiency of healing varies depending on the kind of interaction, but it is especially important in really challenging ones. Mastery: Deep Healing activates, allowing us to work at a high rate.

The utilitarian aspect of Wind Rush Totem has proved to be incredibly helpful — Sanctum of Domination has many encounters where Wind Rush Totem excels, such as the Painsmith Raznal interval spikes and evading the Torment slices during the Soulrender Dormazain encounter. Wind Shear Interrupting has a few applications: Throughout the Soulrender Dormazain and Sylvanas Windrunner fights, Kel’Thuzad creates several Soul Shard performing Piercing Wail, which must be prevented with comparable conditions. Your fellow healers will be pleased if you use Mana Tide Totem effectively. In terms of mobility, we still have trouble moving swiftly (outside of Night Fae with Soulshape), but it’s not too awful thanks to Thunderous Paws’ minor increase on demand and Spiritwalker’s Grace’s ability to cast while moving.

In terms of survivability, Astral Shift, Spirit Wolf, Vital Accretion, and, if you’re a Necrolord, Fleshcraft, which is perhaps the most important defensive cooldown. This is a solid defensive stack that should get you out of most sticky circumstances, particularly when the health from Vital Accretion is paired with a defensive, as as when breaking a Warmonger Shackle during the Soulrender Dormazain fight, when you’re likely outside of any raid cooldowns.

From a flaw standpoint, I perceive the lack of damage contribution, whether passive or active, and regardless of covenant, which is nothing near that of a Paladin or a Discipline Priest. You can always choose Night Fae or Kyrian to deliver more damage than the other covenants, even passively, if you’re in desperate need of additional damage.

Specs for A Tier

Druid of the Restoration

A+ for overall quality

Despite the fact that we’ve entered a new patch with 9.1.5, nothing really changes for healers in general, or Restoration Druids in particular. We’re getting some visual improvements for Efflorescence and a new Travel Form, which are both fantastic, but there’s nothing mechanically altering with the class other from a modification to Necrolord Adaptive Swarm’s mechanics. Because we’ve already been playing with our best covenant, Night Fae, covenant shifting doesn’t give us anything in Sanctum of Domination. Expect some shenanigans with Kyrian Kindred Spirits and Kindred Affinity to greatly improve the output of a single DPS, but the other three covenants are unlikely to alter up the current raid paradigm.

Restoration Only the Mistweaver Monk outperforms Druids in terms of healing throughput in Sanctum of Domination. Whereas we were formerly more sustain-oriented healers, the sheer quantity of burst cooldown skills (Flourish, Incarnation: Tree of Life, Tranquility, and now Night Fae’s ) has pushed us to one of Shadowlands’ primary burst healers.

The advantages don’t end with high throughput. With Barkskin, our passive healing Ysera’s Gift, an on-demand defensive through Bear Form that can be further boosted with Heart of the Wild, and even a passive Nature’s Guardian-like effect with our conduit Well-Honed Instincts, our survivability is practically unrivaled, particularly for a healer. The only thing lacking would be total immunity, yet it would be an understatement to say that killing a Restoration Druid is tough. When you combine this with amazing mobility, both individually and raid-wide thanks to the cooldown Stampeding Roar, you’ll understand why Restoration Druids are so popular. In Sanctum of Domination, there’s a fresh focus on mobility, notably for Painsmith Raznal, Soulrender Dormazain, and Sylvanas Windrunner.

Our unique raid utility toolbox, notably our ability to passively contribute damage and the absence of a raid-wide damage reduction cooldown, is where we tend to fall short. We still have Ironbark for tanks, as well as Innervate, Stampeding Roar, and a variety of other more specialist abilities. Unfortunately, the other Druid specifications can duplicate much of that functionality. To do large damage, which is useful in raiding, we must devote a considerable amount of time and maybe even cooldowns like Convoke the Spirits and Heart of the Wild, which might reduce our healing throughput. Fortunately, we can rapidly swap our Domination Shards to Blood Link for some more damage without sacrificing our healing throughput; but, because all healers have access to this tool, it doesn’t actually put us ahead or behind anybody. Finally, particularly when undergeared, mitigating the deadly onslaught of burst damage through absorbs or raid-wide damage reduction may prove crucial to raid survival, but Restoration Druids still lack a substantial means to help in this area. This restriction is particularly noticeable on Mythic Guardian of the First Ones, as you’re attempting to absorb a huge number of Purging Protocols in order to lengthen the encounter’s duration.

Expect Patch 9.1.5 to maintain the status quo in terms of healing unless there are any big last-minute or post-launch adjustments.

Specs for the A-Tier

Holy Priest

A- for overall quality.

Holy has been constantly developing throughout Shadowlands, despite being overshadowed by its sister spec Discipline. There is more covenant versatility in 9.1.5, enabling Holy to select between better mobility/mana/utility in Fae Guardians/Soulshape, stronger personal defense and a lot of healing in Unholy Nova/Fleshcraft, more dungeon damage with Boon of the Ascended, or ultimately, Mindgames for pvp.

While Night Fae remains the overall top choice, covenant swaps allow you to experiment more with covenants for various encounters based on what is most valuable. In Symbol of Hope, Holy still has some of the strongest single-target heal assistance, several raid cooldowns, and some utility.

At this time in 9.1.5, Holy’s biggest letdown is that they share a spec with Discipline, and although they have high throughput, it’s not as high as Mistweaver Monks or Resto Druid (and because all people worry about is having huge numbers on the meters, this appears to give the spec a terrible PR).

Shards of Domination enable the spec to optimize for higher DPS with no effect on overall throughput, which is fantastic for raid team flexibility, but it’s also something that any other healer can accomplish.

Symbol of Hope is a fundamentally weak ability since it depends on individual players to detect the cooldown being decreased, comprehend how much it is being lowered, and select when to use it, as we anticipated in our prior edition. Symbol of Hope is a failure at giving additional functionality to a standard that desperately needs it. While Warcraftlogs have a strong overall representation, it is severely underrepresented in higher level material, and the natural “trickle-down” effect has an influence on players’ daily lives both within and outside of guilds.