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Ever since blizzard first announced the changed to 20 men Mythic raiding, there’s a lot of concern from healers about what this means for them. Coming during a tier that required up to 9 healers for progression 25M heroic Thok, the fact that the healing roster might have to be cut by two thirds was a huge concern to a lot healers. Not to mention, there is a huge disparity between the number of healers required this tier, from a high of 8-9 for Heroic Thok, to only three healers for Heroic Garrosh.
Healers finally has real news about the number of healers for Warlords of Draenor, and it isn’t quite as dire as many people were suspecting it might be, however healer heavy rosters will be facing some cuts. They are suggesting 4-6 healers for Mythic, and trying to avoid fights where 3 or 7 healers would be the ideal comp.
I’d say 4-6, 5 average for Mythic. We’re going to try to avoid 3 or 7 ever feeling like the right answer. (WatcherDev)
It also makes one wonder if healers, in order to keep their raid spots, will need to have more than one healer class ready to go depending on the healer comp card for a fight. For six healers, that is one of every class, but there always sites that require specific healer types. Likewise, there could be heavier stress on healers that can flip to DPS, or DPS that can flip the heals.
An example would be progression heroic Malkorok where at least two Mistweavers was really needed, although could be done with a minimum of one. And with discs being particularly strongly this tier, many progression guilds ran two or three per fight. Looking at the first tier, it was Mistweavers who were God-like, and many guilds had 2 on the roster, and usually with 1 or two Monks who could flip.
Unless your guild has a huge healing roster, going into Warlords of Draenor with 6 heals should be a strong healing comp, as long as you don’t have 3 of the same healing class making up the 6. But even for 4 healers fight, that will be a lot of bench time for some healers yet again.
It is too early to make predictions about which healing class will be “best”, and we likely won’t know until we see the next raid tier in beta, but even then, classes that perform well in the beta, don’t always perform as well once a tier goes live, so even that will have to be taken with a grain of salt.
Healers with DPS abilities (Monk’s new Fistweaving with Crane Stance, Disc Priests, Resto Shamans) might be slightly more in demand with 20M raiding, especially for progression when every DPS hit point can make the difference between a wipe and a kill.
Added: For a full overview of all the changes announced so far, read Lots of new healer changes announced for Warlords of Draenor
