Holy Priest Frequently Asked Questions — The War Within (Season 1)
On this page, we go over several of the most frequently asked questions regarding Holy Priest in World of Warcraft — The War Within (Season 1). This will be updated as more common repeated questions surface over the course of the expansion.
Why is my /cancelaura Macro for Spirit of Redemption Not Working?
There was an internal change to how /cancelaura works for macros. As a result of this, it no longer works with Spirit of Redemption. To create a macro that cancels Spirit of Redemption, use the following syntax:
- #showtooltip Spirit of Redemption
- /cancelform
How can I Sim my Holy Priest?
Reliable healing simulators do not exist, instead healing is modelled using a variety of other tools to help compare talents, traits, trinkets and other customisation options.
What Talent Build Do I Use Now?
Holy Priest with the The War Within talent tree has variety of situational choices when it comes to choosing your talents. For dungeons, there are fewer choices but in raids many of the talents are viable and have their place in specific scenarios.
To read more about both, check out the talent discussion page.
What Stats Are Good for Holy Priest?
Your preferred stats will vary slightly depending on the content you do. Mastery, Critical Strike and Versatility are all very close in value and Leech provides good value for a free stat proc on gear.
You find more in-depth discussion and information on the best secondary stats page and some of the theorycrafting behind it on the simulations page.
Is Renew Worth Casting?
Renew reducing the cooldown of Holy Word: Sanctify by 2 seconds is not enough to significantly change the priority of when Renew would ordinarily be cast, and it should be reserved for moments where movement is required and spells or talents like Holy Word: Sanctify, Holy Word: Serenity, Prayer of Mending, Circle of Healing and Divine Star are all on cooldown.
Is Power Word: Shield Worth Casting as a Holy Priest?
Power Word: Shield is in a similar state to Renew. Ideally, you should rarely ever need to cast Power Word: Shield due to its poor healing for Mana spent. That said, it does have a use for periods where you have no other instant-cast abilities and need to save someone on the brink of death. The extra bit of immediate health could be the difference between life and death for them, so sacrificing more total healing and Mana efficiency in that situation can be worthwhile.
How Do I Use Symbol of Hope?
Symbol of Hope is a channeled ability, restoring Mana to all nearby healers based on their missing Mana. Because it restores Mana based on the amount of Mana a healer is missing, it is ideal to use it when most of the healers are running low on Mana. As a general guide, try to find a time to use it when healers are all around roughly 20% Mana. Because it is channeled and requires you to stand still, it may take some forward planning to find an optimal time to channel the entire spell without being interrupted by encounter mechanics.
Your group leader may also request you cast Symbol of Hope as a pseudo defensive cooldown to allow your allies to use their personal defensives more regularly. In this case you may get minimal benefit from the Mana return but that the benefit to the group of reducing defensive cooldowns will outweigh that. You can view a full list of all of the defensive spells that Symbol of Hope reduces here.
Changelog
- 09 Sep. 2024: Reviewed for The War Within Season 1.
- 21 Aug. 2024: Updated for The War Within.
- 23 Jul. 2024: Reviewed for The War Within pre-patch.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 4.
- 17 Mar. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.6.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.5.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.2
- 04 Sep. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.7.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.5.
- 01 May 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight launch.
- 25 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
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This guide has been written by Niphyr, a generally knowledgeable, long-time healing Priest and theorycrafter. You can follow him on Twitter.
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