Holy Priest Healing Easy Mode — Dragonflight 10.2

This page is intended for players who are new to the game or class, have no intentions of raiding Mythic difficulty, or simply want a more straightforward way to play their specialization without being overwhelmed by the numerous subtleties and active abilities that need to be taken into consideration for optimal play.

Holy Priest's standard toolkit is better suited to AoE/raid healing, where they can provide relatively smooth output. That said, thanks to the Lightweaver talent, they are also capable of single-target healers. Most of the stronger Holy Priest spells require standing still to cast, which requires some forward thinking to play optimally, meaning periods of heavy movement can sometimes be punishing and should be planned.

These are currently the easiest talent choices to perform in raid content. Note that some of the suggestions sacrifice a bit of performance for ease of use, but overall, the difference is not great. Consult the detailed talents page for the complete picture.

You can easily import the talent tree below by clicking 'Copy Export String' and then importing it in-game.

For dungeons, you should consider a slightly different build and change Holy Word: Salvation to Apotheosis, and consider dropping some of the Prayer of Mending talents for some increased damage talents.

You can easily import the talent tree below by clicking 'Copy Export String' and then importing it in-game.

Currently, Intellect is your highest-rated stat, and due to this, you should prioritize item level when comparing gear to wear. With two items of the same item level, you will want to prioritize stats as follows for raid content:

1. Intellect
2. Mastery = Critical Strike
3. Versatility
4. Haste

For dungeon content, the priority is:

1. Intellect
2. Critical Strike = Haste
3. Versatility
4. Mastery

While we provide stat preference lists, swapping gear to higher item level items — and their higher Intellect/total stats — should, usually, provide a larger upgrade than using lower item level items with better stats. The exception to this rule are items with important tertiary stats, Leech and Avoidance, which should still be used ahead of other items without them, unless the difference in item level is around 12 or above.

Regardless of the content you are tackling, you should be aware of a few basic abilities:

• Purify is used in most content as many enemies will place magical or disease debuffs on your allies, which can be removed by casting Purify on the affected ally. It is commonly referred to as dispel.
• Power Word: Fortitude is a group-wide buff that lasts for 60 minutes or until death and provides an additional 5% Stamina. Apply this before getting started on a dungeon or boss.
• Desperate Prayer is an active ability with a 90-second cooldown. It heals you for a portion of your maximum health and also increases your maximum health for some time, it should be used when your own life is in danger.

Raid healing is primarily focused on AoE group healing, as outlined below. A lot of your decision-making will be based on incoming damage and the cooldowns you have available. Holy Priest is best played using our short cooldown spells like Holy Word: Sanctify, Holy Word: Serenity, Circle of Healing and Prayer of Mending as often as practical. Do not think of these as cooldowns to save for an unknown future situation; use these regularly to benefit from their high healing and lower mana cost.

Below is the basic priority you should follow in raids when using the Prayer of Healing playstyle. You should not cast a spell that will mostly overheal, so keep this in mind while working through the priority list and skip an item if there is likely to be significant overhealing.

1. Holy Word: Sanctify when a cluster of your raid is injured.
2. Holy Word: Serenity on an injured ally.
3. Power Word: Life for emergency triage on an ally near death.
4. Prayer of Mending on cooldown.
5. Circle of Healing on cooldown when at least 4 allies are injured.
6. Halo when most of your raid is injured.
7. Prayer of Healing for general-purpose raid healing.
8. Flash Heal for life-saving single-target healing.
9. Smite an enemy when no healing is required.

Prayer of Healing will be the majority of your raid healing casts whenever your short-cooldown spells are unavailable. Try to use it just after Holy Word: Sanctify and Circle of Healing as these casts will buff you with Sanctified Prayers and Prayer Circle respectively, increasing the effectiveness of your Prayer of Healing casts.

Try not to use Flash Heal too much, as it will result in a lot of Mana spent without doing a lot of healing. It should be saved as an emergency heal when Holy Word: Serenity and Power Word: Life are both on cooldown. Procs of Surge of Light are the exception as using one on a Flash Heal cast does not cost any mana.

Holy Word: Salvation and Divine Hymn should be used during a period of heavy raid-wide damage. Keep in mind, however, that your raid leader may instruct you to use it at a very specific time.

Try to avoid using Renew, Power Word: Shield, and Holy Nova when raid healing. They are a poor use of your time and Mana in nearly all situations.

Dungeon healing is primarily focused on single-target healing, as outlined below. A lot of your decision-making will be based on incoming damage and the cooldowns you have available. It is better to use your cooldowns early and often than it is to save them for unknown future situations.

Below is the basic priority you should follow in dungeons. You should not cast a spell that will mostly overheal, so keep this in mind as you work through the priority list and skip an item if there is likely to be significant overheal.

1. Holy Word: Serenity on an injured ally.
2. Holy Word: Sanctify when most of your group is injured.
3. Circle of Healing on cooldown when at least 3 allies are injured.
4. Prayer of Mending when little healing is required.
5. Power Word: Life for emergency triage on an ally near death.
6. Divine Star when most of your group is injured.
7. Heal and Flash Heal should be alternated for general-purpose single-target and group healing.
8. Smite an enemy when no healing is required.

This healing style focuses on using Lightweaver to buff casts of Heal by alternating between Heal and Flash Heal. When trying to heal multiple group members at once, rotate through them with Heal and Flash Heal as the above priority list dictates. Moving between targets helps you get better value from Trail of Light and lets you top multiple people at once despite casting "single-target" healing spells.

For heavy damage, use Apotheosis with Heal, Flash Heal and Holy Word: Serenity as it comes off cooldown. If this is still not enough, you also have access to Guardian Spirit.

Dealing with damage while in dungeons is often overlooked by healers. While any additional damage is beneficial to your group, it should not come at the cost of keeping your group alive, which is your main priority. Smite is your main damage-dealing ability, and it costs very little, Mana. In situations where Mana is not a concern you can also cast Holy Fire on cooldown and keep Shadow Word: Pain on enemy targets. For more than 4 targets, you should use Holy Nova when Holy Fire is on cooldown, instead of casing Shadow Word: Pain.

While we have a larger section dedicated to walking through common mistakes and how to avoid them, a couple are worth mentioning now. These focus on our two most valuable resources, Mana and time.

Mana is very easy to waste without realizing it. The most common way is spamming inefficient spells during downtime or periods of low healing. Stick to Smite if you want to remain active during these periods and avoid spells like Renew and Power Word: Shield as they are very Mana inefficient and should rarely be cast. Casting DPS spells outside of Smite, when Mana is going to be a concern, is also a way to accidentally consume additional Mana without realizing it.

Time is a bit more difficult to quantify, but one really easy thing you can do to get yourself more healing time in both dungeons and raids to focus on minimizing your movement to maximize the time that can be spent casting spells with a cast time. For those periods when you do have to move, you can rely on the array of instant cast spells available to us, including Prayer of Mending, Circle of Healing, Holy Word: Serenity, Holy Word: Sanctify, and, when talented, Divine Star.

As a Holy Priest, you have three baseline cooldowns. Here is how you should use them:

• Divine Hymn should be used during periods of very intense raid damage. Keep in mind, however, that your raid leader may instruct you to use it at a very specific time.
• Holy Word: Salvation when talented for raid, should also be used during periods of very intense raid damage. Keep in mind, however, that your raid leader may instruct you to use it at a very specific time.
• Symbol of Hope should be used towards the end of a raid encounter to give the highest potential Mana back to all healers in your group. A good guide is either when you are at 20% Mana or the boss is at 20% health remaining.
• Guardian Spirit should be used depending on many factors, including your raid leader's instructions. If you do not have to save Guardian Spirit for a specific event, then just use it as a "life-saver" on the tank or another raid member who needs it.