Mists of Pandaria Classic Holy Priest Rotation and Cooldowns

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. Holy Priest healing is largely focused on AoE raid-wide healing and boasts some of the highest AoE healing throughput in the game.

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

• Chakra: Serenity – 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 – Holy Word: Sanctuary
  • Increase the healing done by your area-of-effect healing spells by 35%; this is the main Chakra that you will be using all of the time.
• Chakra: Chastise – Holy Word: Chastise
  • Increases the damage done by your Shadow and Holy spells by 50%, reduces the Mana cost of Smite and Holy Fire by 90%, and gives Smite a 10% chance to reset the cooldown on Holy Word: Chastise. This has very limited uses, but you may be able to swap to Chakra: Chastise and deal some damage if raid-wide damage is low for a bit.

While Holy 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 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 instead.
2. Renew apply to tanks.
3. Holy Word: Serenity Use on cooldown if you are in Chakra: Serenity.
4. Prayer of Mending Use on cooldown.
5. Greater Heal Whenever your target is taking high, sustained damage.
6. Heal Use whenever incoming damage is very low and you want to reserve Mana.
7. Binding Heal Use in emergencies whenever you and the target are both low health.
8. Flash Heal Use whenever your target is very low health and needs a quick heal.
9. 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.

AoE raid healing is where Holy 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 you should always be in this Chakra when you are raid healing.
2. Holy Word: Sanctuary Place on the ground where the most raid members are at.
3. Renew apply this to players who will take high damage.
4. Circle of Healing Use on cooldown.
5. Prayer of Mending Use on cooldown.
6. Prayer of Healing Use to top up any groups that are still low health.
7. 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 Use whenever your target is very low health and needs a quick heal.

Holy 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 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 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 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 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 healing during phases where there is high single-target damage.
• 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 before using this to increase its healing by 35%.
• 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, 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 3-minute cooldown. Restores 3% of your Mana with each attack. Use this early and often, you should get several off every fight.