Holy Priest Frequently Asked Questions — Shadowlands 9.0.5

Holy Priest has not changed considerably from BfA to Shadowlands. The most notable changes for Holy Priest in Shadowlands is the return of instant-cast Prayer of Mending and Circle of Healing becoming a baseline spell and no longer a talent. Power Infusion has returned and Apotheosis has also received an additional effect that resets the cooldown on Holy Word: Sanctify, Holy Word: Serenity and Holy Word: Chastise when used.

A summary of recent changes can be found in our Intro page.

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

While we are not very far behind other specializations in Shadowlands and can reliably complete keystones required for the maximum rewards, Holy Priest is not currently a meta healer for pushing / speed running keystones. Keep in mind that better knowledge of the dungeons, specialisation and gear can more than make up for the difference between Holy Priest and the meta healers.

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.

Holy Priest in Shadowlands has variety and 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.

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.

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.

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.

Symbol of Hope is a channelled 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 channelled 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.