Holy Priest PvP Guide for Mists of Pandaria Classic

Holy Priest has been greatly improved for PvP, making it the go-to specialzation for PvP healing as it offers multiple powerful cooldowns as well as a very diverse toolkit that fits many situations. Holys rotation, in PvP at least, is now almost entirely all instant cast healing spells; this makes Holy extremely hard to counter, as it can not be interrupted most of the time.

Strengths

• Works well in many comps, easy to get a team.
• Very high bursting healing; can top up allies right away.
• Multiple sources of healing-over-time.

Weaknesses

• Limited personal defensive cooldowns.
• Very high mana costs, need very high Spirit.

Recommended option: Psyfiend.

This tier of talents offers some form of crowd control, making all three choices solid for PvP content.

• Void Tendrils — Summons Shadowy tendrils out of the ground, rooting up to 5 nearby enemies; the tendrils can be killed to break the root. Use this when facing melee-heavy teams.
• Psyfiend — Summons a Psyfiend that stands in place for 10 seconds and fears nearby enemies every 2 seconds. Has low health and can be killed.
• Dominate Mind — Charms an enemy, controlling their actions for a limited time. This is useful for 2v2 arenas, especially when teamed with a crowd control focused class, such as Mage.

Recommended option: Angelic Feather.

This tier of talents offers movement speed utility buffs, allowing you to speed up yourself and your allies.

• Body and Soul — Players targeted by Power Word: Shield or Leap of Faith by 60% for 4 seconds.
• Angelic Feather — Place a feather at the targeted area; allies that touch the feather will gather it, gaining 80% increased movement speed for 6 seconds. Stores up to 3 charges. This talent is overpowered and should always be taken.
• Phantasm — When you use Fade, you remove all movement impairing effects from yourself, and your movement speed is unhindered for 5 seconds.

Recommended option: From Darkness, Comes Light.

This tier offers upgrades to existing abilities, replacing them with more powerful versions.

• From Darkness, Comes Light — 15% chance when you Smite or cast a healing spell to cause your next Flash Heal to be instant cast and have no mana cost, stores up to 2 charges. This offers too much utility to not be taken, giving you many instant-cast Flash Heals, preventing you from being interrupted by casting.
• Mindbender — Improves your Shadowfiend, increasing its damage output and mana return.
• Solace and Insanity — Improves Holy Fire, increasing its damage dealt and causing it to restore mana.

Recommended option: Angelic Bulwark.

This tier of talents offers personal defensive options, improving your survivability greatly.

• Desperate Prayer — Instantly heals yourself for 30% of your max health.
• Spectral Guise — Temporarily enter stealth, leaving behind a copy of your charater at the location where you vanished. While stealthed, any action taken with end the stealth, or if the copy of your character is directly attacked 3 times. This is useful to escape certain casts, create a little distance, confuse your enemies where you are going, and get some sneaky Psychic Screams off by sneaking into the enemies backlines.
• Angelic Bulwark — Anytime a damaging attack brings you below 30% health, you gain an absorption shield equal to 20% of your max health; this can only occur once every 90 seconds. Great defensive talent if you are being focused often; swap this out if you find yourself rarely being targeted by the enemy team.

Recommended option: Twist of Fate.

This tier of talents focuses on further improving your healing capabilities.

• Twist of Fate — After damaging or healing a target below 35% health, you deal 15% increased damage and healing for 10 seconds. With no cooldown, this can (and will) be active frequently, helping you top up your allies and finish off the enemies.
• Power Infusion — Infuses the Priest with power, increasing spell haste by 20%, all damage by 5%, and reducing the mana cost of all spells by 20%; lasts 20 seconds.
• Divine Insight — When you cast Greater Heal or Prayer of Healing, there is a 40% chance your next Prayer of Mending will not trigger its cooldown, and will jump to each target instantly.

Recommended option: Divine Star.

This tier of talents will give you a new rotational ability, which can be used either defensively or offensively.

• Cascade — Launches a Holy bolt at the targeted ally or enemy which grows in power as it travels, dealing more damage or healing the further that it traveled. It will then split, forking out to hit additional allies and enemies.
• Divine Star — Fires a Divine Star in front of you, causing damage to all enemies and healing to all allies within its path. After reaching its destination it will return to you, also dealing damage and healing to all targets in its path. Gives you a solid instant cast spell to add to your toolkit.
• Halo — Creates a ring of Holy energy around you that quickly expands and grows in power, dealing damage to enemies and healing allies in the area.

Glyphs were changed in a major way during Mists of Pandaria. Primal Glyphs have been removed, while minor glyphs have been changed to be entirely cosmentic changes, offering no combat improvements. For this reason, we will only be recommending Major Glyphs, as they still offer in-combat power; you are free to use any Minor Glyphs that you desire with this build!

• Glyph of Prayer of Mending — Improves Prayer of Mending healing, which you will be using on cooldown, making this a mandatory glyph.
• Glyph of Renew — Improves Renews healing, making this a well-rounded glyph for an overall healing boost.
• Glyph of Inner Fire — Increases armor bonus of Inner Fire. This is a great defensive glyph choice when facing melee DPS.
• Glyph of Inner Sanctum — Reduces Spell damage taken by 6% while Inner Fire is active; use this if facing casters.
• Glyph of Fade — Adds a 10% damage reduction to Fade, turning it into a strong defensive cooldown. Useful when you are being heavily focused down.
• Glyph of Shadow Word: Death — Should be used against Mages to break crowd-control such as Polymorph.
• Glyph of Mass Dispel — Should be used against Mages to remove Ice Blocks, and Paladins to remove Divine Shield.

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 section. In PvP you will need to react and adapt to different situations, meaning you will not always follow the recommended rotation below.

1. Chakra: Serenity — You will keep this up most of the time, whenever you need to heal.
2. Chakra: Chastise — Swap to this if you are helping damage an enemy, going for a kill.
3. Chakra: Sanctuary — This Chakra is mostly used for PvE, but you should swap to it before using Divine Hymn to fully top your entire team.
4. Lightwell — Keep this down in a hidden location, so it can not be easily destroyed. The healing this provides ignores line-of-sight, so be sure to always hide your Lightwell, as your enemies will try to destroy it if they can.
5. Prayer of Mending — When you are wearing the PvP set gear, your Prayer of Mending will place Holy Spark on your target, increasing the healing done by your next Flash Heal, Greater Heal, or Holy Word: Serenity by 50% for 10 seconds. Use Prayer of Mending on cooldown, always targeting whoever needs the healing the most with it so they get the Holy Spark buff.
6. Renew — Keep this up on anyone taking damage. While in Chakra: Serenity to refresh the duration of Renew on players you heal.
7. Holy Word: Serenity — Can only be used while in Chakra: Serenity; increases the critical effect chance of your healing spells on the target by 25% for 6 seconds. Use this as often as possible.
8. Flash Heal — If you have a From Darkness, Comes Light proc.
9. Power Word: Shield — Use this on people being focused, especially casters are this prevents interruption on spell casts while the shield remains unbroken.
10. Divine Star — Use this in emergencies, when you need an instant heal and have nothing else, or if you are being focused and will be interrupted if you hard cast a healing spell.
11. Greater Heal — Use this when you have 2 stacks of Serendipity.
12. Flash Heal — Use this as a filler as needed.

Holy Priest has a number of personal cooldowns, mostly focused on increasing your groups survivability. 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.
• 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!
• 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 group 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.
• Shadowfiend 3-minute cooldown. Restores 3% of your Mana with each attack. Use this early and often, you should get several off every fight.

In addition to your main spells and cooldowns, you also have many utility spells that can be game-changing when used in the proper scenario. Make sure you understand each of the spells listed below to fully take advantage of your entire spellbook.

• Leap of Faith Pull the target ally towards your location. A great cooldown to save a group member who is in a bad position or help someone catch up if they are falling behind.
• Purify Our new-and-improved dispel in Mists of Pandaria. Removes all harmful Magic and Disease effects from a friendly target. This will dispel all debuffs, rather than 1 only as it did previously, but now as an 8 second cooldown.
• Mass Dispel An AoE version of Dispel Magic that removes 1 magical debuff from up to 10 friendly targets, and 1 magical buff from up to 10 enemy targets. Can also remove stronger magical buffs that cannot be dispelled in other ways, such as Ice Block and Divine Shield when paired with Glyph of Mass Dispel.
• Fear Ward Makes a friendly target immune to the first fear used against them. Use this whenever you are facing enemies that will use a fear, ideally on the tank or yourself.
• Levitate Allows your target to float above the ground, walk above water, and greatly reduce their falling speed.
• Shackle Undead Shackles an Undead enemy in place, preventing them from moving, attacking, and casting; this crowd control will break if the target takes any damage. Use this if you ever need to crowd control an Undead enemy.
• Fade When paired with Glyph of Fade, this will give you a 10% damage reduction while active.

If you are looking to maximize the potential of your Holy Priest in Mists of Pandaria PvP, these are the recommended professions:

1. Tailoring — is a great choice for the Lightweave Embroidery unique cloak enchant.
2. Jewelcrafting — Gives you two powerful gems, Brilliant Serpent's Eye, giving you a large stat boost.

The list linked below includes the best possible gear setup for a Holy Priest in PvP.

When it comes to evaluating Holy Priest's place within the Arena, we have created a number of guides devoted to listing a variety of popular team compositions which you can find below.