Healing and Cataclysm changes drastically from the versions of healing we've seen in Wow Classic does far. No longer will you be a whack-a-mole healing bot trying to snipe healing on anyone taking damage you should top them off instantly in one spell. Everything just kind of slows down. Tanks take more predictable damage and no longer will a holy light heal a tank to full in one global. Mana becomes much more of a concern. Several classes have tools to regain mana which they have to balance with pure healing apple. And this mana balancing act will make the skill gap between a good healer and a bad healer much wider than it was in wrath. Of course, when ranking healers it doesn't mean you want to stack one particular healer while ignoring the rest. They all fulfill different niches and I would venture to say that Cataclysm has the best healer balancing we've seen thus far. With that said, there are winners and losers and certain specs will need to have the PS off specs if they want to keep their rights bought. With that said, here's how I'd rank healers in Cataclysm classic. Starting off with the kings of wrath, the holy paladin. For those wishing for the downfall of the paladin you'll have to wait just a little bit longer. In Cataclysm, the holy paladin is still incredibly powerful. While they don't have the same ability to spam holy light like they did in wrath, they have access to a whole new arsenal of tools to keep both the tank and the raid alive. With Cataclysm, paladins were given the resource of holy power, acting as the builder slash spender in the rotation. You also get access to new AoE healing spells in the form of light of dawn and holy radiance which gives you access to very strong AoE healing. Holy radiance when it was introduced had a cooldown which was later removed in the expansion and assuming we'll be playing on the 4.3.4 tuning, holy paladins will be absolute beast when it comes to AoE healing if they can manage their mana. Speaking of mana, what truly makes the holy paladin so strong is their mana efficiency. You'll still want to stay in melee in order to get mana from seal of insight. When in melee range, you'll also use Crusader Strike to get holy power, making you even more mana efficient. Of course, you'll still have access to Divine plea that you'll be able to use a long side potion of concentration which will be the go to potion for most of the non-intensive fights. All of these tools come with the trade off that most spells have higher base mana cost than equivalent spells of other healers. In a such, the difference between indecent and a great holy paladin will be night and day. You'll no longer have access to Divine sacrifice, but you'll still have aura mastery. And since all of the resistance aruses were combined into one single resistance aura, this makes the spell even more powerful than it was in wrath. Every 25 man comp will have at least one holy paladin in their core healing setup that will never be flexed as a DPS. While they're not absolutely required in a 10 man scenario, they will still be a top contender for one of the two healing spots. That's why they earned their spot in the S tier. Moving on to a spec that is completely slept on in Cataclysm and that is their Restoration Shaman. Shaneel will absolutely still be a major part of your toolkit, but will have access to a few new interesting additions to break up the Monotony. In Cataclysm, Restor Shaman were given healing reign which places a circle on the ground, healing everyone within it for 10 seconds with the 10 second cooldown. She fights where the radius stacked or where the melee group is taken a lot of damage, this spell absolutely pumps. Shaman's retained passive healing on the tank through Earth's shield and passive mana on themselves with Water's shield. Water's shield can be glyph to increase the passive mana regeneration by 50%, which is quite decent during progression. In addition to getting mana through Water's shield, Shaman's have a rather interesting way of getting mana. In the Restoration Tree, Shaman's have access to Toleric currents, which grants you 40% mana based on how much damage you deal with Lightning Bolt. This talent obviously gains additional value as we start scaling with gear, but being able to toss out additional damage while still getting some mana return for your troubles is never a bad idea, especially when the raid is not taken any damage. A good shaman can realistically expect to toss out 30-50 Lightning Bolt over the course of a fight, which adds up to a decent chunk of damage and mana. Of course, Shaman totems will still be valuable and can't fill so many buffs that may be missing from your comp while providing steady healing with Healing Stream Totem and every 3 minutes giving your healers mana tied totem. A lot of people place Restoration Shaman towards the bottom of the rankings in Karakosom, and if it wasn't for this next battle, I would tend to agree. But Restor Shaman's in Karakosom have the best raid cooldown in the game, namely Spirit Link Totem. The value of Spirit Link Totem cannot be overstated. It's quite literally impossible to die while it's up, and the effective healing done by the raid will be incredibly high during inspiration since the raid is taken an equal amount of damage spread out over all players within the radius. This spell alone makes an outstanding pick on so many fights in Karakosom. That said, on fights where Spirit Link isn't required, Restor Shaman's will be the first ones to deflect into playing Elemental, which is why they earn their spot in the A tier. Then we have the discipline priest. The Disquees retain a lot of strength by being the class with the most absorption healing in the game, but the playstyle of spamming shields is no more. Disquees can ice us to 2 different styles of healing. The regular shield and heal style that you're used to, as well as atonement healing, where you heal through using Holy Fire and Smite. Atonement healing has a strength of being a smart heal, meaning that it heals the lowest health target. It's also a very mana efficient style of playing, as these spells have very low mana cost and you can proc rapture by simply stealing the tank every 12 seconds. That being said, I have a hard time seeing Atonement's style healing being used much in the early tiers unless the boss has a mechanic that increases damage taken or gives above to your damage. As an absorption style priest, you'll have access to prayer of healing that will create a stacking of sword-pinshield on all targets affected by the healing. And compared to spells like Holy Radiance of Holy Paladins, the priest version is incredibly mana efficient. If you've been playing Rath of Lich King, seeing the combination of Holy Paladin and Disque Stack in the majority of the group is not a new thing, and Calcism doesn't necessarily change that. There's now further reason to have more than one priest in your rate team since you won't realistically be competing for power-verged shield. But also, Disquees have access to one of the strongest rate cooldowns in the game with Powerward Barrier, which creates a Holy Barrier on the ground making everyone inside of it take 25% less damage, and with the glyph, they also receive 10% more healing taken. You'll be hard pressed to find any reason to not bring in Disquees, which is why they earn their spot in the S tier. Moving on to Little Brother, Holy Priest. In Calcism, Holy Priest can access to the Shocker system, allowing them to alternate their playstyle whether they want to Awe heal or single target heal. Theoretically, with good game knowledge, this allows them to perform several roles while confined to a singular spec. In practice however, Holy Priest tend to stay in one chakra to perform one role. And that role, they perform worse than any other class. While their throughput is not bad by any means, you'll be hard pressed to find the reason to bring a Holy Priest over at Disquees and other specs simply perform the roles better than the Holy Priest. But they may have niche use cases, but granted that we will have so many Disquees around due to how strong they are and how many priests they currently are in Rath of Witchking, the Disquees will simply be able to swap over on those specific fights to fill that role. Maining Holy Priest in Calcism will be rough even though your throughput can be competitive, which is why they earn your spot in the Awe tier. Then lastly, we have the Restoration Druid. I don't know what kind of copium the internet is on when they say that Rest of Druid will be the best healer in Calcism. It's absolutely true that Rest of Druid will have incredible healing output and if finds whether it's study damage, they will in most cases be top of the meters. But that's kind of it. When it comes to raid cooldowns, they lack anything remotely close to aura mastery, power barrier and spare length. They have raid-wide tranquility, but the raw output from Trank is less than that of Divine him from priests. The benefit of that of Druid tranquility over him is that it has a 3 minute cooldown compared to 8 minutes if the priest isn't playing holy. Of course, in Calcism, Druid lose their iconic tree form and instead get access to a 3 minute cooldown in the form of Tree of Life, giving them 15% extra healing done and powerful bonuses to their main healing spells. In Season of Discovery, Druids have access to a ruin that's a modified talent from Calcism, namely the Uri of Stormrage making their wrath free. The Calc version, however, gives them the chance to proc Starfire instead of healing in touch as an innocent cast. Being able to weave in rats during periods of downtime will contribute more to the raid than you'd think. And yes, Druids do their strong output numbers while during farm be able to solo heal certain encounters in 10 mad scenarios. And for that specific scenario, Resto Druids and Holy Paladins will be incredibly strong. That being said, during progression and speedruns in 25 mad rating, you'll be the first among with usher chambers to get flexed into a DPS role. So if you're planning to play a rest of Druid for Calcism, get ready to spend a significant amount of time in Moonken form. All of this nets him a spot in the 8 year. While the meta in Calcism will remain rather similar to the meta of wrath, the way you play changes significantly. Most likely, we'll see a healing composition for 25 man that brings all specs except the Holy Priest while flexing the Druid and Shaman. For Demon, there'll be a lot of possible variations where the two will healers can compliment each other's strengths and weaknesses. But while also keeping in mind what buffs needs to be filled for your rate. If you enjoyed this video, then I think you'll enjoy the tank ranking I released a while ago. DPS rankings are coming up within the next few weeks, so if you're interested in that, along with all things Calcism, make sure to subscribe. But that's all for now. Thank you very much for watching. Until next time.