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Holy Priest is the archetype healer. It provides what is probably the most straightforward entry gameplay to healing in world of warcraft. Not that it lacks depth, but its core mechanics are easier to apprehend. With the years it has evolved to grant some unique utility (Symbol of Hope) and surprising damage, able to rival Discipline Priest.
I want to start by mentioning that the guides are made by myself, and I am not a class expert. Hopefully, this will help get you started and will include some information that was harder to find. I want to emphasize that these pages more than anything are here to act as a portal to the content creators and other useful links in the right column (or scroll to the bottom on mobile). They are the experts :) In the mean time, if you read something that you think is inaccurate in this website, please let me know, so that we can make sure no erroneous information is shared!
Holy Priest most impactful changes are already live, and they add some more build options (full ST, or beefier circle of healing), as well as a lot more damage with the rework of Empyreal Blaze. Holy Word: Chastise is now the trigger for the talent, which makes for a smoother rotation.
You are now also able to pick Divine Word if you wish, which add a very versatile 1-min cooldown which comes to complete very efficiently your kit.
Overall, Holy is more fun than ever to play, and all of this goes well with the returning season 3 tiers set. This should be a good season to play!
POM is strong, very much so, and it ties into many key talents to make the spec work. Make sure to track the stacks on people, and apply new ones on CD on people who don't have any. The idea is to make sure you have a good spread before damage hits. the POM stacks will do a lot of the work to keep your group up.
An interesting note is that at iso-damage, POM gets much stronger with the number of ticks. so it is not amazing to counter one big hit of damage, but a wave of AOE damage that ticks for small amounts every .5 seconds is almost going to be solo handled by POM, since it is triggered by ticks of damage.
Despite the lack of the season 2 tiers set, POM still will have impact, especially because it will create Renew with Benediction, allowing you to fish for Priest Holy 10.2 Class Set 4pc procs!
There are two schools when it comes to CircleOfHealing. You can lean into it by picking
Halo or DivineStar are very efficient. Press these on cooldown. Strong AOE damage, potent healing, unless you know a damage event in coming in the next seconds, you are almost always better off casting on cooldown to get more casts out of them.
One of Holy Priest weaknesses is that it does not have many CDs outside of Apotheosis, and of course, the Holy Words!. Try to use it as much as possible of course, since it is absurdly strong, but be ready to handle situations without it.
Apotheosis is among the strongest group healing cooldown in the game.
You will basically machine gun extremely high single target healing, playing a cheated whack-a-mole for 20 seconds.
You want to do some preparation in this case. You will most likely play Miracle Worker this season. If you use Answered Prayers, make sure to use the windows to stock up your charges of Holy Words for the tough moments. The key point will be to always keep 1 charge off cooldown, so that you can use your tiers sets procs! Only use the second charge if someone is about to die, or if you know nothing else is following up (end of a burst etc). You will most likely not have Resonant Words, so no need to be specific about weaving in spells.
Sancitfy is your tool of choice to heal burst AOE, and while it has obvious issues (people need to be stacked), it is a pretty efficient spell. And it has one great usage in season 3. Use it early in a burst window to leverage Priest Holy 10.2 Class Set 2pc and put Renew on your group. These in turn could trigger Priest Holy 10.2 Class Set 4pc to give you more charges of Sancitfy or Serenity, making your burst healing window last longer!
Think of using DivineWord with Serenity to boost your ST heals for longer windows of intense damage. Never hold it for too long, it is on a very short cooldown. Generally speaking, FlashHeal is your bread and butter for sustained healing, and buffing it up is always a good idea.
Holy Priest is among the best at it. Serenity is an obvious choice, but even PWL and your standard Flash Heal and Heal should be more than enough for most situation. If you really need to heal a lot, Guardian Spirit is an excellent tool to apply preemptively to make all your heals 100% more efficient without triggering it, keeping it at a very low 1 min cooldown!
An easy one for a priest, since they can use Mass Dispel. Or at least that was the answer until this season. That being said, it is still one of the best tool for this. You can use your Purify -> MassDispel -> Purify before having to resort to your Single Target tools.
Desperate Prayer is a surprisingly efficient cooldown, and since it is also the only true defensive you have, making good use of it is essential. Angel's Mercy has been pretty good, but you would typically use BindingHeals if you need Protective Light. Light's Inspiration is a decent pick if you want more power in this defensive, although you may have to trade some utility to get it.
Fade when talented into Translucent Image provides a short cooldown defensive. It is not very strong, but use it every time you can anyway, it is off the GCD, there is no reason not to. Note that it can dispel roots and snares when talented into Phantasm. this can be very good in certain dungeons where some debuffs doing damage can be dispelled this way, as well as essential against the Entangling Affix.
Another quick defensive is Protective Light. You can quickly cast Flash Heal on yourself before a damage event to apply atonement and a 10% DR. It does work through BindingHeals, which makes the combo very efficient in high keys.
Other than Mass Dispel, Priests have another grand tool: Mind Soothe.
While Mind Soothe has been nerfed to not affect enemies who can see through stealth, it is still likely that it has usage to create innovative routes. It can be very useful in a pinch to avoid a patrol from getting aggroed into the current pull.
Power Word: Fortitude is a strong group buff, more and more useful as key levels progress to avoid 1-shots.
Psychic Stream is not the best tool in the game but it does give you somewhat of a AOE interrupt, which can be practical. You have to be close to melee, but you will be for Holy Nova anyway.
The ultimate niche-but-game-breaking utility. Dominate Mind helps you grab some mobs with interesting casts for your purpose. In particular, it is immense versus the Incorporeal Affix as it will reduce your enemies damage.
Shackle Undead is a spamable CC, which is great since it means you can lock down a caster by yourself. Now the issue is that it is highly dependent on the mobs you will face as Undeads are not so common in the dungeon pools. One particularly interesting quirk though is that it helps you solo the Incorporeal Affix with Dominant Mind.
Leap of Faith is best used in a coordinated group, where you can help someone move, grab your tank behind a wall, and other little placement tricks. in PUG, it is tough to use it without being obnoxious.
Holy World: Chastise when used with Censure will provide a ST stun on a short cooldown. It is unlikely you will spend the talent point however, unless your team is in critical need of it.
Holy Fire is often considered a "low-damage" spec, sort of a historic thing, but.. nothing could be more wrong. Holy priest packs a serious punch! You will have to stop healing to sneak in your damage, but the impact will be certain!
Pressing HolyFire on cooldown is the first and most important step to do damage as a Holy Priest. Also try to aim it at the priority target in the pull, this will help shorten pulls in a significant way. Similarly, use Chastise on your main target.
You also have a short damage cooldown with EmpyrealBlaze that really packs a punch. In AOE, try to use the charges of HolyFire on different targets. In Single-target situations, like a boss fight, you can use weave in the charges for a quick moveme
Holy Nova in particular with the 10.1.5 buffs to Rhapsody, is a very strong AOE damage spell. It will force you to be closer to melee, but it is in general good practice, just be careful :) In AOE pulls, Try to use it before it stacks up to 20 stacks of Rhapsody, so that you do not waste any!
Press on cooldown. Strong AOE damage, potent healing, don't hold them for too long.
Shadowfiend will provide a strong single target damage cooldown, which is useful on lieutenants and bosses.
Shadow Word: Pain is okay single target damage if you can spare the GCD, but not really essential (definitely not as important as Purge the Wicked for Discipline, do not make the confusion, everything else takes priority damage wise)
This was hopefully a nice and helpful introduction, but if you want to get further into healing with Holy Priest, you should look for more information, from more expert players. IV Holy Guide and Wowhead Holy Priest Guide might include more than this present guide, and be more precise about the priority list.
When it comes to video content, I really recommend Jak's Youtube Channel, starting with his video guide for the spec:
At this point, you should have enough information to get pretty high. What's left will be gear and stat optimization, for which you should use the QE: Live tool.
And then it is really watching the very best play, review some logs, ask for for feedback in the class discord or in the streams chat, and get better, one step at a time. Good luck!
Jak has been one of the most prominent priests in the community when it comes to M+. He also creates a lot of video content.
Nax is simply the top ranked holy priest, and is very active in the Priest Community Discord.
Tyeler is a faithful Holy Priest pushing the highest content every patch. Follow him to get the best tips to push your gameplay!
PI Helper
It will let you know who is using a cooldown when PI is up. Can be configured to react when people send you a command by whisper
This build used by Nax does not include Circle of Healing or Divine Word. It relies on heavy circle healing and careful management of your Sanctify charges for the AOE challenges.
This build used by Tyeler relies on Circle of Healing provides a simpler tool to help handle AOE damage. It does loose out on general single target healing (and no trail of light), but you can use Divine Word to make up for it. Divine Word can also be used to add more damage.
This is going to be the beacon of this tiers, although it will not be as strong. Be careful of the DOT it will leave on you!
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