Holy Priest Healing Guide for the Raid

This page is focused on max level Holy Priests in PvE (dungeons, raids, etc.,) but lower levels will also find value here. If you’re looking for other specs or leveling or PvP see the links below.

This Holy Priest guide is primarily intended for use at max. However, the principals will still apply during the leveling process. If you’re looking for advice on leveling your Priest, check out our Priest Leveling Guide.

If you want the same in-game step by step leveling guide that we use to get to level 90 as fast as possible, take a look at our favorite in-game leveling guide.

Holy Contents

1. 1. Holy Priest Talents for the raid
   2. Holy Stats
   3. Rotations
   4. Gems
   5. Enchants
   6. Consumables
   7. Professions
   8. Leveling Quickly

Other Priest Guides: 

• PvE: Discipline Healing, Shadow Damage
• PvP: Shadow, Discipline
• Other: Priest overview, Priest leveling

 

In Game Addon Makes Gold Gathering Much Easier, Click Here Now to get Yours

 

 

Race Choices for Priests

Since you are raiding you are obviously max level, but just in case you want to check out the various races for your next alt, go see our Priest Overview page.

 

Holy Priest Healing Talents

Talents can be easily swapped for other talents. Keep a stack of tomes handy and switch them as necessary. The better you know the fights the better you’ll be able to adapt.

Our picks are checked, , but other picks will be better in certain situations.

Tier 1, Level 15

1. one
2. Specral Guise is more of a PvP thing.
3. Angelic Bulwark shields us when we drop to low health, an alternative method of survivability to Desperate Prayer. Angelic Bulwark might beat out Desperate Prayer on fights where you expect to drop to low health more often than Desperate Prayer can be of use. It’s also a passive ability, you don’t have to be concerned about hitting a key.

Tier 2, Level 30

1. Body and Soul adds a nice speed boost to our Power Word: Shield. If your targets of PW:S typically also need the speed boost, then this is your pick. More precise than Angelic Feather, but more expensive, especially if the target doesn’t really need the shield.
2.  Angelic Feather is ideal for providing on demand speed boosts to one player at a time. Very flexible. Not as expensive to cast as Power Word: Shield (under Body and Soul.) Its only issue is proper placement when people are grouped.
3. Phantasm is more for PvP heroes (it’s a PvP trinket) than us Dragon Slayers.

Tier 3, Level 45

No clear winner here, grab whichever works best for you. If your Mana is good then grab Surge or Solace, depending on your needs.

1.  Surge of Light – If you’re just healing (and not DPSing) and your mana is fine then take this one. If you’re having mana issue then take a look at the other two talents in this set.
2. Mindbender boosts Shadowfiend, increasing our mana regeneration, which isn’t bad at all. This is the pick on the assumption that you need the mana. Take solace if you’re doing damage, Surge otherwise.
3. Power Word: Solace – Take this if you want to add to the team’s damage and you don’t need the extra mana of Mindbender. PW: Solace does return some mana.

Tier 4, Level 60

Doesn’t matter much which one you grab. All three of these are situationally useful at best and unlikely to add much to a fight.

2. Psychic Scream – More of a PvP telent. It’s best use in PvE is to piss off the tank.
3. Dominate Mind is exactly what it sounds like. Note that dominated targets will attack you when the domination wears off.

Tier 5, Level 75

All of these will add to your overall effectiveness, but Power Infusion gives you a burst when you need it.

1. Twist of Fate is a damage and healing boost that’s best taken for encounters where you expect to be throwing out emergency heals to low health targets on a frequent basis. Grab this one if that’s how your team rolls.
2.   Power Infusion is a haste boost that also reduces the cost of our spells for the duration. This is the best option for most fights due to the control you in deciding when to trigger the buff.
3. Spirit Shell – for 10 seconds you will shield instead of heal.

Tier 6, Level 90

Cascade is better for larger groups, Halo for smaller groups, and Divine Star should be skipped.

2. Divine Star is a cheap heal with a short cooldown, but Prayer of Healing is better than Divine star, to skip this one
3. Halo is the better choice when your raid is really spread out and your need to heal a number of targets at range. Expensive heal, but if that’s how your group tends to stack up then it’s the best pick. Not recommended in a dungeon full of aggressive trash.

Tier 7, Level 100

1. one
2. two
3. three

 

 

Holy Priest Glyphs

Once upon a time Glyphs did interesting things. Now they are Minor glyphs and are entirely cosmetic. Pick any three, they will have zero effect on your raid performance.

 

Holy Priest Stat Priorities

You also have two new stats: Versatility and Multistrike.

1. • Priority: Haste >= Intellect >= Mastery > Versatility > Crit

Haste is really valuable at certain breakpoints, otherwise it just allows you to cast faster and your DoTs to tick faster at the expense of burning your mana faster. At the breakpoints you gain one extra tick on those DoTs or your casting suddenly becomes more efficient due to your cooldowns being more in sync. You can check Totemspot for a list of the Haste breakpoints you might want to shoot for.

Int provides your spellpower and some crit, it does not add to mana pool and has nothing to do with mana regeneration. Also, it no longer adds crit. Since it’s not available through gems or enchants (at level 100) it’s no longer a stat that you can stack, hence the lower priority.

Mastery adds a Heal Over Time (HOT) to your direct heals and their multistrikes.

Versatility is a straight up add to your damage, healing, and your damage reduction. It doesn’t add a lot, hence the low value.

Crit is less useful for Holy than Discipline since you do not get their Divine Aegis effect. None of your abilities get procs or additional boosts from Crits.

 

 

In-Depth Ability/Rotation Guide

Power Word: Shield and Prayer of Mending

2. If you happen to be relegated solely to single target healing duties such as on a tank then switch to Chakra: Serenity instead.
4. Power Word: Shield is weaker for Holy Priests than Discipline and you should avoid using it if a Discipline priest is in the raid as the Weakened Soul debuff will prevent them from applying their own Power Word: Shield to the target.

Our basic healing spell is Heal which has a very low mana cost but a moderate cast time and healing effect. Use this as much as possible to conserve mana.

1. Apply Renew to anyone in need of minor healing or you anticipate taking damage in the near future.
2. Prayer of Mending should be applied to a target at all times as it will jump to other players as they take damage.
4. Circle of Healing should be used on cooldown whenever multiple players have taken damage and are within range of the healing effect.
5. Greater Heal is a slower, higher mana cost heal used for periods of heavy damage.
6. Flash Heal is quick and heals for a large amount but costs an exorbitant amount of mana and should be avoided unless a target requires an emergency heal.
7. Binding Heal heals both you and the target and should be used in the event that you need to heal yourself at the same time as someone else.

Using either Flash Heal or Binding Heal grants you stacks of Serendipity, each stack reducing the cast time by 20% and mana cost by 10% up to a maximum of 2 stacks. This buff lasts for 20 seconds.

Cooldowns

1. Use Prayer of Healing, Prayer of Mending and Circle of Healing on cooldown when AoE healing is required.
2. Guardian Spirit can be used on the tank or other target if they are in danger of dying. You should plan the use of this ability with your raid ahead of time.
4. Divine Hymn is a powerful raid healing tool that should be reserved for periods of high AoE damage.
5. Shadowfiend should be used on cooldown for extra mana regeneration and a minor amount of DPS.
6. Hymn of Hope is an important cooldown used to boost mana regeneration raid wide. This spell is channeled and therefore will prevent you from casting any other spells for the duration of the effect unless you choose to cancel it early.

Tier 3 Talented Abilities:

1. From Darkness, Comes Light procs will allow you to instantly cast Flash Heal with no mana cost. The charges of this proc stack up to a maximum of 2 times and so should be used as often as possible to avoid wasting charges.
2. Mindbender simply enhances your Shadowfiend.
3. Power Word: Solace can be used for extra mana regeneration.

Tier 5 Talented Abilities:

1. Twist of Fate is a passive effect that grants 15% increased healing and damage for 10 seconds after you damage or heal a target below 20% health.
2. Power Infusion is a cooldown you should save for when immense healing is required, it also reduces the mana cost of your spells making them more efficient.

 

Gems for Holy Priests

 

Holy Enchantments

Short on gold? If you want to buy the best enchants, fund all of your alts, donate to the guild, etc., but don’t have the cash, then see what the Zygor Gold Addon can do about about fixing your poverty.

 

Consumables for Holy Priests

Note that Pandarens get twice the food buff. All food buffs last one hour. Alchemists get about 30% more effect and an extra hour from Flasks and Elixirs.
Foods

Foods:

• Feast of Blood: 75 in highest secondary stat, feeds up to 30
• Feast of the Waters: 75 in highest secondary stat, feeds up to 10
• Calamari Crepes: 100 Multistrike
• Rylak Crepes: 75 Multistrike
• Fiery Calamari: 75 Multistrike

Elixirs: In Warlords there are no elixirs that give stats.

Flasks:

• Greater Draenic Intellect Flask: 250 Int for one hour
• Draenic Intellect Flask: 200 Int for one hour.
• Flask of the Warm Sun: 114 Int for an hour.
• Flask of Falling Leaves: 114 Spirit for an hour.

Potions: If you pop one immediately before combat you will be able to pop another during combat.

• Draenic Intellect Potion: 1,000 Int for 25 seconds
• Potion of the Jade Serpent: 456 Int for 25 seconds.
• Master Healing Potion: Heals 12k HP
• Master Mana Potion: About 6k Mana

 

 

Holy Professions

Professions now are for the gear and/or the gold. Most have something that can be used as starting raid/pvp gear or sold, such as various high level gear pieces, but those pieces tend to be expensive to make.

Some of the professions, eg: Engineering, have really useful items for leveling and world events. They’re not generally usable in raids, however (sigh.. no firing rockets at the boss…)

Professions
Blacksmithing	Mail and Plate armor and weapons. Keys for locks. Nothing for you.
Engineering	has lots of interesting toys, some of which have situational use. Rockets, bombs, gliders, and more.
Jewelcrafting	Useful rings and neck items, pretty gems, gemmed mounts.
Inscription	Glyphs, some trinkets, caster weapons, fortune & Darkmoon cards, and more.
Alchemy	Chemistry is fun, unfortunately you can’t make acids or bombs. You can make flasks and potions to boost stats and cause other interesting effects.
Enchanting	Enchant all those items and cast illusionary enchants.
Tailoring	Cloth armor (starting raid gear,) flying carpet, murlock chew toy.
Leatherworking	Leather and mail armor, nothing to see here.
Skinning	For gold gathering and for leatherworking
Herbalism	For Inscription, Alchemy, and gold gathering
Mining	Making gold and powering Blacksmithing and some engineering.

 

The Easy Priest Leveling Guide

Leveling your Holy Priest or any other Priest build doesn’t have to be an exercise in frustration, even with the zillions of quests and regardless of whether you were playing Vanilla WoW (1 to 60) or Cataclysm (to 85) Mists of Pandara (to level 90) or whatever comes next.

What’s the easy way to hit the level cap? Dugi’s Guide:

Dugi’s comes in the form of a small in-game window which sows you your current quests and goals. Everything you need to know is contained within the guide and is displayed for you and everything is updated as you complete quests. You’ll always have an arrow pointing the way and you’ll never wonder where to go or what to do next, even if you just gained a few levels in the BGs or Dungeons.

Dugi’s makes leveling easy and fun, regardless of expansion, and you may never have to look at your quest log again. Grab yourself a copy and and blast through the levels with ease.

Like this page? How about recommending it and/or commenting?