Disclaimer: I am a primarily M+ player (with a 3.4k combined score on various characters in season 3) and Ahead of the Curve raider, even though I have also dipped my toes into early Mythic progression to kill a few early bosses in the past two tiers.
My thoughts and remarks might therefore not reflect other players’ gameplay style or individual experience. My suggestions might not always be on point or relevant, but are a collection of ideas I thought might be interesting to share as a basis for further discussion.
It seems to me that over the course of Shadowlands, because of the constantly evolving metagame, especially in Mythic +, the healer role has changed tremendously, and so has the community perception of it. Some changes are extremely good, but some, I believe, would need to be iterated on to hit the mark.
In this very long post, I propose to explore some of the issues I have run across during the Shadowlands expansion as food for thought for further discussion.
Affix design
As it stands, from a healer perspective, it seems that too many undealt-with affixes result in players losing a significant portion of their health bar, which ends up putting the burden on the healer more than any other player when it comes to recovering from mistakes. Most affixes are therefore dubbed, jokingly or not, ‘healer affixes’, including, among others, Explosive and Bursting, which I believe were initially designed more as ‘party affixes’.
Instead of using HP loss for most failed affixes, there could be options to incentivise players to help their healers lest they suffer a major individual drawback based on their specialisation.
Here are a few examples:
- Spiteful: instead of having the shades chunk players for a massive amount of HP, the player could be stunned or have a 100% miss chance on all abilities for 10-15 seconds if he or she is hit by a shade
- Explosive: each explosive ball could be tied to a player and, instead of affecting the whole party, the damage could only apply to said player (a bit like the Thing from Beyond from Battle for Azeroth, a format of affix that could also be used for Spiteful); alternatively, if explosives remain a party-wide affix, the downside could be a percentage-based reduction of damage for DPS players, a hit to the healer’s healing power or mana pool, and, for tanks, something like either an increase in damage taken or a reduction of their threat generation
- Sanguine: instead of doing damage, the pool could apply something like a stacking haste debuff for every tick a player keeps standing in the pool
The direction some other affixes have taken has been very good, however. The new version of Bursting, for instance, being dispellable, has given healers more counterplay opportunities. Raging went in a similar direction, although I am a bit more on the fence about this one as only a limited number of classes can soothe raging mobs. Arguably, however, other healer utility can be used with great success, from AoE stuns to slows and roots.
The main difference between Bursting/Raging on the one hand and Spiteful/Explosive on the other is that the former style of affixes give more agency to healers overall, while it can be a little demoralizing to see your party rely almost entirely on your performance as a healer to deal with the latter. (For instance, I routinely have to kill over 80% of all explosives in a dungeon run on Explosive week.)
The question of affix design also circles back to the question of mana management. All three seasonal affixes in Shadowlands came up as a makeshift solution to solve the high potential of healer mana starvation in keys. Mana should not be, in normal cases, the limiting factor in M+. The issue here is to not break mana management in raids, where it is integral to playing a healer well, with the proposed solutions for dungeon gameplay. The recent seasonal affixes worked wonders in that respect, but they are only ever a temporary solution. Some well-known streamers with a large audience like Jdotb have started suggesting more durable fixes, like applying an aura in keys to increase healer mana regeneration in dungeons. Another oft-mentioned idea is to revert the change that was made to drinking at the start of Shadowlands, and to increase mana regeneration while drinking by a factor of at least 100% (in the style of the Sugar-Coated Fish Feast in BfA).
Whatever the direction the development team leads us towards, I would strongly argue that forcing the group to wait while the healer drinks after every pull is definitely not a solution, as it contradicts the very idea of engaging gameplay. Healers are already seen as contributing (marginally) less than the other players of the team, so if players have to AFK while the timer is running out while the healer drinks, tensions are bound to arise, and the situation is not going to be fun for anyone.
Healing in Dungeons
With season 3, a new problem has appeared for healers because of the increased tank self-sustainability made possible by the various tank tier-set bonuses. With most meta tank classes, healers find themselves vying for first place on the HPS meters or even end up far behind the tank in the case of Death Knights. This issue could be boiled down to the age-old question of the relevance of HPS as a metric to gauge healing, as healing is often likened to a zero-sum game. If the tanks heal themselves, the HPS generated from their own toolkit will not be done by the healer.
On the plus side, it has allowed healers to focus more on their DPS and utility contribution, making the role evolve fast over the past couple of patches and helping healer playstyle in keys become more engaging (in my opinion). However, when someone has a limited understanding of how healers work and see them last on the DPS metre and second on the HPS metre, it sometimes causes them to see the healer as a ‘slacker’ or as a less valuable member of the team. It may brushed aside as a personality problem, but it still happens. It forces healers to take on a variety of jobs in keys, from trying to kill every single Explosive orb to soloing mechanics (e.g., the maze section of Mists of Tirna Scithe) because taking care of such thankless jobs is a way of making themselves useful in the eyes of their teammates. It is not a problem in and of itself, but I do believe it says a lot about the evolving community perception of healers as the proverbial ‘third fifth wheel’ of a dungeon group, especially in PuGs.
One fix would be to prefer DR over self-healing when it comes to tank tier sets, as it would still reduce the amount of tank healing needed but maintain healers as the top HPS provider in a given group. I am of course not including Death Knights here, because their very class design calls for high amounts of self-sustain. The flip side of such a solution is that it might homogenise the playstyles of the various tank specs too much, but I am sure there is a compromise to be found somewhere.
Healer damage contribution
With the growing influence across the community of eSport events like the MDI or the Great Push, more and more emphasis tends to be laid on healer DPS contribution, in raids and Mythic + alike. This evolution is not bad in and of itself, as free GCDs when not healing should definitely be used to contribute meaningfully to the raid’s or party’s success whenever possible.
The flip side, however, is that the difference between a good healer and a great healer these days is made on the basis of DPS contribution, especially amongst tank and DPS players. And yet, healer DPS contributions, especially in Mythic +, has not been the focus of much balancing in recent patches.
Meta healers in Mythic + have been those that bring the most damage to the party (Paladin, Shaman, Priest), sometimes at the expense of their ability to actually heal the raid or party. It has become better since season 1 on average, but I think some us do not remember too fondly Paladin healers having to rely on an Elemental Shaman’s Ancestral Guidance or a Balance Druid’s Heart of the Wild healing too fondly when dealing with the Prideful affix. (Granted, this might have been cause by the tuning of the affix itself, but it was still a thing, for better or for worse.)
The problem is currently compounded by the growing rift between DR healers and HPS healers. The downside of the fine balancing in raids around the ‘free’ DPS of Paladins and Discipline Priests is that some classes with a mainly ‘passive’ damage contribution have been falling behind in keys recently.
At the moment, the determining factor seems to be the ability to contribute significant damage over the course of a dungeon rather than the ability to heal incoming damage, as healing throughput tends to be very high across the board and supplemented by a tendency to stack Versatility and Avoidance in higher keys to prevent one shots. With increased tank survivability in season 3 thanks to tier sets and higher item level gear, single-target healing contributions become tend to make less of a difference as well.
As there are only 6 healer specs in the game (soon 7 with Dragonflight), it seems of particular import to balance healers not only in terms of healing, but also of DPS contribution. The contribution from ‘passive’ and ‘active’ damage could be tuned more aggressively so it is always more beneficial to use ‘active’ DPS abilities as a healer when you are not healing: high damage contributions from ‘passive’ spells like Consecration (Paladin), Sunfire (Druid), and so on could be diminished in favour of active abilities like Crusader Strike or Wrath / Shred, which currently make up a thoroughly insignificant portion of your damage breakdown even when you press them more often. I am not unaware that both Crusader Strike and Shred are builders, which might explain why they are less impactful than spenders like Shield of the Righteous (in mass AoE scenarios) or Rip, but I think the right balance has not yet been found this expansion on that particular front.
Other issues arose this season with the extreme dominance of the Resonant Reservoir trinket when it comes to healer damage in Mythic +. Season 4 proposes to address part of the current problem with RNG and the lack of deterministic loot, but this particular trinket remained problematic. For instance, it was on the loot table of most healers via their caster offspecs, but not all. Neither Holy Paladins nor Mistweaver Monk had a direct way of obtaining the trinket by looting it from either the boss or the Great Vault. As it is a very sought-after choice, it basically requires weekly clears of the raid hoping one of your teammates will 1) loot the trinket, 2) not need it, and 3) trade it to you. More generally, this example raises the question of the allocation of trinkets in a certain type of content. In many ways, some of the most impactful Mythic + trinkets (The First Sigil, Resonant Reservoir…) are available only in the current raid, while some high-value raiding trinkets (Unbound Changeling, Infinitely Divisible Ooze…) can only be looted from keys. One solution would be to have a seasonal pool of trinkets (and possibly weapons, considering the impact of such items as the Jailer weapon or the Rygelon dagger) that can be looted both from raid bosses and dungeons in a given patch. Or a significantly more deterministic way to obtain any piece of gear in the game given enough time and investment.
The last point I would like to address in this section is the question of the healing vs. damage arbitration for healers, as it relates to the question of randomly obtained tertiary stats. As noted earlier, the current meta game in higher keys rewards Versatility and Avoidance stacking to avoid one-shot situations as healing throughput is generally not an issue outside of such scenarios, especially as both stats reduce the overall amount of healing needed in any given key, allowing the healer to spend more time on DPS. The main issue here, I believe, comes – once again – from the RNG nature of tertiaries. Having a set of gear with high levels of Avoidance, for instance, requires either a tremendous time investment, or an indecent amount of luck, or near unlimited funds. Or a combination of the three. I would suggest that a solution would be to make tertiary stats available to all characters through a system similar to how sockets work right now: with a set number tokens from the vault, everyone should be able to choose to buy either a socket or a tertiary stat enchant (Avoidance, Leech, Speed) to normalise the availability of tertiaries across the player base. It could even be limited to a set number of gear pieces, for instance those which cannot be socketed or enchanted. If we continue to move away from the extremely high value of DR we have had in the past, such a system would bring more fairness when it comes to high-end keys, especially for those players who have only so much time to commit to the game.
As with my proposal concerning trinkets, however, the object is not to give everything to everyone right away. Rather, the idea would be to give everyone an opportunity to have access to everything given enough time and investment. It is only fair that Cutting Edge players should obtain a full BiS gear set faster, but it is also a little disheartening for more average players to realise that, currently, they can never really hope to catch up, even at the tail end of a patch or an expansion.
Healer toolkits
Shaman
The toolkit overall is extremely well-rounded right now. Healing throughput was excellent throughout Shadowlands as well, which did not hurt. The only missing element from their toolkit is the lack of a tank external, which was offset this expansion by the high HPS potential of the spec.
Depending on tuning, this might prove to be an issue once again in Dragonflight, as it was, I believe, in BfA. Adding a DR function to Earth Shield could be a fix for that. Either a low flat DR (~3%, like Lenience for Discipline Priests) on the tank while Earth Shield is active on the tank, or a temporary DR when a charge is consumed or when Earth Shield expires are options that could be explored going forward.
From the early information about Dragonflight, Shaman is going to be losing its specificity of being the only healer with a kick, although it will remain the only ranged interrupt and the one with the shortest cooldown amongst all classes. The added utility in Thunderstorm being available, among other interesting changes set to happen in 10.0, should maintain Shaman in an excellent position, utility-wise, in dungeons.
On the damage front, the class will probably need some fine tuning, as it loses the Earth Elemental legendary and the Kyrian Covenant ability. A good option could be to give Earthquake to Restoration Shamans via the class tree, but adapted to them not using Maelstrom. I could be a maintenance buff like Consecration with an appropriate cooldown. Maybe a little like Healing Rain, with a 6 seconds cooldown, as Earthquake lasts for that exact duration. It would have the added benefit of making the Resto Shaman DPS rotation more engaging than it currently is. I am going to miss Vesper Totem, though, I must say! I was a fun ability, and fit the fantasy of the class to a T.
Paladin
The class has the same incredible utility toolkit as always, and the bursty style of healing introduced by the combination of Holy Power and the Necrolord build is extremely entertaining. The class was hindered by the existence and difficult tuning of Ashen Hallow in the early Shadowlands seasons, but I would argue that the Season 3 version of Paladin is in an excellent state.
That it is currently the only healer with no casts whatsoever also makes it a very engaging spec to play in dungeons. Although I would like a ‘caster’ option to be viable in raids, I do believe that the current playstyle works extremely well in keys and should remain a strong viable option going forward.
The main issue it is facing right now in season 3 is that it is doing noticeably less damage than Priests and Shamans in most situations, and requires more pre-planning than traditional ‘reactive’ healers because of the need to generate and pool Holy Power. The playstyle has therefore crept closer to Restoration Druid or Discipline Priest, while still being original and unique.
What I would like to see change for Paladin healers is 1) a single-target DPS Holy Power spender, because Shield of the Righteous hits like a wet noodle in one-target scenarios, and 2) a rebalancing of the damage profile away from Consecration and into more ‘active’ damage options. Both can definitely be solved with the same adaptation.
An added bonus would be to see more single target healing potential going into the next expansion, although with the current state of tanks, it is definitely not a major issue. Early next expansion, however, we might need to output more tank healing than we currently are. It will all depend on the options available concurrently in the talent tree, because having Bestow Faith fill that niche could definitely work, as it already does, I believe, in PvP.
Druid
The Druid healing toolkit is very strong and extremely flexible in keys right now, making it an absolute blast to play. The ability to use, for instance, Flourish to amp up both tank support and AoE healing makes Druid healing feel very effective and well-rounded.
Druid utility is as strong as ever in keys, despite the bottleneck created by the Affinity system. Typhoon or Incapacitating Roar being gated behind the Moonkin and Guardian affinities, respectively, sometimes feels a little frustrating when you are also aiming to maximise your DPS contribution. I believe it is also one of the reasons why Cat Form (and even Moonkin Form) damage abilities do not feel as impactful as I think they should. The current design philosophy, therefore, made utility choices and DPS contribution clash to at least some extent. The Dragonflight talent tree, however, seems to be addressing that very issue and will surely offer more balancing opportunities for the damage side of things.
I am not a big fan of the Circle of Life and Death playstyle, because it is much more fast-paced and therefore unforgiving, but it is very efficient, which is never a bad thing. I believe going towards a playstyle for druid influenced by Draught of Deep Focus, with the damage playstyle being closer to a single-target funnel specialization, would make the Druid healer damage profile feel more unique. I guess it is a matter of preference, however, and will eventually depend on tuning going into Dragonflight.
Priest
The uniquely difficult position Priests find themselves in is that it is the only class with two healer specialisations in Holy and Discipline. As a result, one tends to fall behind the other depending on tuning and, arguably, fight design. In raids, it is usually not much of an issue at AotC level, but the DR brought by Discipline has been favoured over the years at CE level.
In keys, the situation is slightly different right now. In Shadowlands, even before Holy was the meta healer, it was always a strong contender because of its strong single-target healing potential, especially through the Flash Concentration legendary, and solid utility. Thanks to recent buffs, it also brings a robust damage contribution, complemented nicely by Power Infusion. The one area to monitor going into Dragonflight would be the impact of the loss of Flash Concentration on the healing profile of Holy Priests, be it in raids or in dungeons, because losing that strong single-target support might hurt the specialisation lastingly.
Discipline, by comparison, has fallen behind because of its comparatively lacklustre healing and utility toolkit in keys. Discipline’s ‘passive’ damage contribution was reined in because of how dominant it was in a raiding environment, and rightly so. The resulting problem, as many streamers have already pointed out, is that it has a high ‘floor’ but a fairly low ‘ceiling’ when it comes to DPS, leading in turn to the issue of comparatively low Atonement healing in keys. In raids, most of a Discipline Priest’s healing comes from Atonement, making for a very unique, very engaging playstyle. In dungeons, however, Atonement often feels little suited to sustain a five-man group in an environment where spot healing is often key to success. Even the AoE contribution of Atonement healing feels severely undertuned in higher keys, and leads Discipline Priests to rely on Shadow Mend spamming, which is not a very entertaining option.
That is the main issue Dragonflight should aim to address. Automatikjak has recently released a video on the subject, calling for the introduction of an option to tune Atonement better in dungeons, for example through the Sins of the Many talent. Another solution would be to add a talent option in one of the nodes (maybe opposite Evangelism in lieu of Spirit Shell, which has raised many tuning issues in the past) that is particularly suited for 5-man content. For example, a 1.5 minute cooldown with an effect along the lines of ‘As long as five or fewer Atonements are active, Atonement healing is increased by 100% for the next 15 seconds’ that would serve the same purpose in keys as a Druid’s Flourish. I am not sure how that would affect PvP tuning, but it is an idea.
Having slightly more utility for Discipline in keys would also be a nice change, and would bring it more in line with its Holy cousin. One solution would be to add the Psychic Voice/Mind Bomb to the Dragonflight Discipline tree to give Discipline more options in that department so it does not fall behind Holy too badly.
As Power Infusion is staying in Shadowlands, I would also love to see some aggressive tuning of the DPS of both Discipline and Holy around that ability, although I will concede that it is extremely difficult. Right now, however, Holy Priests are one of the top damage contributors in keys among healers (alongside Shamans and, to a lesser extent, Paladins) without even factoring in Power Infusion, which hardly seems fair.
Monk
Monk is the healer I know least, by far, so be warned – my remarks may be way off base here.
It has always struck me that some aspects of Mistweaver design do not really seem to have a clear uniting factor, but rather appear as a motley combination of elements borrowed from other healers (HoTs, direct heals, etc.)
Cleave healing in Vivify felt innovative when it came out, and to this day still feels rather unique. It also rewards good pre-planning, which is never a bad thing, while being made fairly effortless by the smart heal behaviour of Renewing Mist.
Revival also has some theoretically attractive baked-in utility with the mass dispel effect, but remains niche but counterintuitive in most cases. As a Mistweaver acquaintance of mine pointed out, in most situations, the Revival dispel ends up being used as a bail-out mechanism when people are failing mechanics. For example, it can be a life saver when the party does not manage to kick Portalmancer Zo’honn’s Empowered Glyph of Restraint in Tazavesh, but if the ability went off, the underlying issue is that it should have been kicked in the first place. The only times where it brings real value is on Globgrog and Margrave Stradama in Plaguefall, because of how invaluable the mass disease dispel can be in those instances. (But then again, the LoS strategies during the Globgrog boss fight have recently rendered the theoretical added benefit of Revival irrelevant once again in that fight.) The Kel’Thuzad encounter in Sanctum of Domination also made Revival desirable, but such fights are unfortunately few and far between – for good reason, too, because making Revival mandatory in any raid fight would create unreasonable constraints in terms of team composition. Perhaps the dispel could be split from the heal portion of Revival, giving Monks instead either a cleave dispel (in the spirit of Vivify) or a Mass Dispel-like effect for poisons and diseases only.
The areas where Mistweaver needs support in dungeons include damage and tank externals. Life Cocoon has felt very weak all expansion, and unrewarding to utilize in keys. As in the case of Revival, the appended utility portion fails to hit the mark – especially in raids, where it benefits Druids more than the Monk casting the spell. An option to explore would be to have instead HoTs cast by the Monk bolster and sustain the absorb portion of the shield while it is active, by adding to the shield value up to a point (in the spirit of the Shaman Earthen Harmony legendary effect), in order to reward good use of Mistweavers’ strong single-target healing potential.
As for the damage side, on top of some tuning going into Dragonflight, I believe that seeing talent options like Way of the Crane or Ancient Teachings of the Monastery make a return in 10.0, perhaps on a shared node, would go a long way to helping Mistweavers shine in dungeons once more.
I do hope Fallen Order stays around for Dragonflight in one form or another, as it complements the class fantasy quite well, and offers a healer-specific version of Storm, Earth, and Fire (however buggy the ability may have been over the years).
I hope some of the ideas I outlined here at least made some kind of sense and might lead to some of the changes healers need to continue thriving in the constantly evolving M+ metagame.
And before I forget, sorry for the long post, have a potato 
.