Mists of Pandaria Classic Holy Priest Rotation and Cooldowns

Last updated on Jun 25, 2025 at 12:00 by Abide

On this page, you will learn how to optimize the rotation of your Holy Priest Healer, depending on the type of damage your group is receiving while doing PvE content in Mists of Pandaria Classic. We also have advanced sections about cooldowns, procs, etc. in order to minmax your healing output and your mana efficiency.

1.

Holy Priest Rotations

If you have not already, we recommend reading the Spells Summary page first. Knowing how each spell and ability works in detail will greatly increase your understanding of the topics discussed on this page. HolyHoly Priest healing is largely focused on AoE raid-wide healing and boasts some of the highest AoE healing throughput in the game.

2.

Holy Priest Chakras

HolyHoly Priest continues to have the its 3 Chakra Icon Chakras, each upgrading the Holy Word spell into something new and granting you a passive buff specific to that Chakra Icon Chakra:

  • Chakra: Serenity Icon Chakra: SerenityHoly Word: Serenity Icon Holy Word: Serenity
    • Increases the healing done by your single-target healing spells by 35%; you will only use this when you are specifically focusing on tank healing during a high-damage phase.
  • Chakra: Sanctuary Icon Chakra: SanctuaryHoly Word: Sanctuary Icon Holy Word: Sanctuary
    • Increase the healing done by your area-of-effect healing spells by 35%; this is the main Chakra Icon Chakra that you will be using all of the time.
  • Chakra: Chastise Icon Chakra: ChastiseHoly Word: Chastise Icon Holy Word: Chastise
    • Increases the damage done by your Shadow and Holy spells by 50%, reduces the Mana cost of Smite Icon Smite and Holy Fire Icon Holy Fire by 90%, and gives Smite Icon Smite a 10% chance to reset the cooldown on Holy Word: Chastise Icon Holy Word: Chastise. This has very limited uses, but you may be able to swap to Chakra: Chastise Icon Chakra: Chastise and deal some damage if raid-wide damage is low for a bit.
3.

Holy Priest Single-Target Healing Rotations

While HolyHoly Priest is mostly designed to focus on AoE raid healing, you will often need to help keep the tanks alive during high-damage burst phases.

  1. Chakra: Serenity Icon Chakra: Serenity you should always be in this Chakra when you are strictly tank healing. If you are only helping with tank healing and are mostly focusing on raid-healing, stick with Chakra: Sanctuary Icon Chakra: Sanctuary instead.
  2. Renew Icon Renew apply to tanks.
  3. Holy Word: Serenity Icon Holy Word: Serenity Use on cooldown if you are in Chakra: Serenity Icon Chakra: Serenity.
  4. Prayer of Mending Icon Prayer of Mending Use on cooldown.
  5. Greater Heal Icon Greater Heal Whenever your target is taking high, sustained damage.
  6. Heal Icon Heal Use whenever incoming damage is very low and you want to reserve Mana.
  7. Binding Heal Icon Binding Heal Use in emergencies whenever you and the target are both low health.
  8. Flash Heal Icon Flash Heal Use whenever your target is very low health and needs a quick heal.
  9. Power Word: Shield Icon Power Word: Shield Only use this if your target will otherwise die without this, or if you are moving. Generally you will want to avoid using this most of the time.
4.

Holy Priest Raid Healing Rotations

AoE raid healing is where HolyHoly Priest excels, having the largest healing toolkit out of all the healers for AoE healing. This is the recommended rotaiton to follow when high raid-healing is needed:

  1. Chakra: Sanctuary Icon Chakra: Sanctuary you should always be in this Chakra when you are raid healing.
  2. Holy Word: Sanctuary Icon Holy Word: Sanctuary Place on the ground where the most raid members are at.
  3. Renew Icon Renew apply this to players who will take high damage.
  4. Circle of Healing Icon Circle of Healing Use on cooldown.
  5. Prayer of Mending Icon Prayer of Mending Use on cooldown.
  6. Prayer of Healing Icon Prayer of Healing Use to top up any groups that are still low health.
  7. Binding Heal Icon Binding Heal Use only in emergencies if an ally and yourself are both very low health and will die without a quick heal.
  8. Flash Heal Icon Flash Heal Use whenever your target is very low health and needs a quick heal.
5.

Cooldowns

HolyHoly Priest has long been known as a healer that brings multiple, powerful cooldowns, and this continues in Cataclysm as you have even more spells at your disposal. Knowing when and how to use these cooldowns will greatly improve your effectiveness as a healer and make you a great asset to any raid group.

  • Guardian Spirit Icon Guardian Spirit 3-minute cooldown. Increases the target's healing received by 60% and acts like a cheat death. If the target dies while buffed by this spell, it instead restores them to 50% health and removes this buff. This is a great cooldown for tanks as you can easily predict tank deaths to mechanics and use this to keep them alive.
  • Lightwell Icon Lightwell creates a Holy Lightwell at the targeted location, which automatically heals nearby allies below 50% health. Has 15 charges and can be killed, so make sure you place it outside of AoE effects.
  • Void Shift Icon Void Shift 5-minute cooldown. New to Mists of Pandara, this swaps your health with the target. After swapping, if either player is below 25% of their maximum health, they will be healed to that amount. This is great for saving someone who is about to die, as long as you are safe too!
  • Power Infusion Icon Power Infusion Tier 5 Talent Choice; Can only be used on yourself now; 2-minute cooldown. Grants you a self-haste and mana-reduction buff that also increases your damage dealt. If you took this talent, its perfect to use to increase your Atonement Icon Atonement healing during phases where there is high single-target damage.
  • Divine Hymn Icon Divine Hymn 3-minute cooldown. This is a major AoE healing cooldown and should only be used when your normal AoE healing rotation is not enough to keep the raid alive. Be sure to activate Chakra: Sanctuary Icon Chakra: Sanctuary before using this to increase its healing by 35%.
  • Hymn of Hope Icon Hymn of Hope 6-minute cooldown. This restores 2% Mana to 3 nearby allies with the lowest Mana overall and increases their maximum Mana by 15% temporarily. Ideally you will want to use this cooldown in conjunction with other Mana-restoring cooldowns, such as Shadowfiend Icon Shadowfiend, as the temporary 15% increase to maximum Mana amplifies the effectiveness of abilities that restore a percentage of your Mana pool. Try to coordinate this with your other raid members.
  • Shadowfiend Icon Shadowfiend 3-minute cooldown. Restores 3% of your Mana with each attack. Use this early and often, you should get several off every fight.