Holy Priest Healing Mythic+ Tips — The War Within Pre-Patch
In this guide, you will find tips and advice to tackle Mythic+ dungeons with your Holy Priest in World of Warcraft — The War Within Pre-Patch.
Holy Priest in Mythic+
Holy Priest is in the middle of the pack for Mythic+ content in
Dragonflight. Holy Priest has several main draws that make it an
attractive spec to play for M+ content in Dragonflight, with multiple strong
cooldowns in Guardian Spirit and
Apotheosis, reliable single-target
damage, hefty group healing potential, and a straightforward, reactive
playstyle.
Power Infusion can also be a strong boost to your group's damage if
coordinated well with a DPS.
If you are unfamiliar with Mythic+ and its associated general mechanics, you can read more about it on our Dragonflight Mythic+ page below.
Holy Priest Mythic+ Rotation
For more information about the Holy Priest healing rotation in Mythic+, refer back to the Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities page.
As a healer, despite your role focus being to keep everyone alive through
your healing and utility, any spare time you get should be spent on providing
additional damage. Be mindful that only Smite costs very little Mana,
the other spells can start to become taxing on your Mana, so particularly on some
longer tyrannical bosses, you may need to reduce your damage output a little by
sticking to the slightly weaker hitting Smite casts.
Damage spell priority for 4+ targets:
Divine Word with
Holy Word: Chastise
Divine Star
Holy Fire
Holy Nova
Damage spell priority for 1-3 targets:
Holy Fire
Holy Nova with high stacks of
Rhapsody
Shadow Word: Pain (if the target will survive for the full duration)
Holy Word: Chastise (if you do not need the incapacitate/stun for cc)
Divine Star
Smite
Shadow Word: Death can be cast as extra damage while on the move in
place of
Smite on the priority list; just be mindful that it does do
damage
back to you when cast. If the target is below 20% health,
Shadow Word: Death has a similar priority to
Holy Word: Chastise.
Holy Priest Utility
Holy Priest provides support for the party through healing, damage, and other additional effects, such as dispels and crowd control.
Purify removes all harmful Magic and Disease effects on an 8-second cooldown. Often referred to as dispel, Purify is used frequently in all dungeons and can often be vital to the success of a trash pull or boss.
Dispel Magic removes one beneficial Magic effect from an enemy target. Often referred to as purge, Dispel Magic is very useful in Mythic+, as there are a lot of enemies with very powerful Magic buffs that we can remove immediately.
Mind Soothe provides a unique buff reducing the distance at which an enemy will aggro onto you and your allies. This has fairly niche usage but can be used in some scenarios to avoid having to pull a pack of enemies and instead walk right past them.
Mass Dispel is cast at an area, removing all harmful effects from 5 allies inside it, and 1 beneficial effect from 5 enemies. While the 40-second cooldown is quite long; there is ample opportunity to make use of this spell to help reduce incoming damage.
Guardian Spirit places a buff on an ally for 10 seconds, increasing their healing taken by 60%, and if they take fatal damage, it will instead heal them to 40% health. Together with the
Guardian Angel talent, this becomes a powerful single-target external cooldown on a 60-second cooldown, presuming the life-saving effect does not trigger.
Angelic Feather can be used by yourself or to assist slower allies in avoiding damage and dangerous situations.
Censure is an ability that stuns the target of your
Holy Word: Chastise for 4 seconds. This can be used to help reduce incoming damage from dangerous enemies and, due to casting
Smite frequently during low damage periods, will be available regularly.
Psychic Scream causes 5 enemies within 8 yards to flee for up to 8 seconds. This can be used to interrupt groups of enemies and, due to being broken on damage, it is very likely enemies will not flee too far if they are currently being attacked by your allies. Care should still be taken with nearby enemies that may be pulled into combat if a fleeing enemy gets too close to them. The cooldown can be reduced by 15 seconds with the
Psychic Voice talent.
Shackle Undead can be used to disable a single Undead enemy for 50 seconds. Several dungeons have dangerous Undead enemies, which are good candidates for Shackle Undead. Damage taken will remove this effect.
Leap of Faith can help assist allies in avoiding damage or saving them if they are knocked off an edge or into something bad.
Power Word: Fortitude provides a 5% Stamina buff to all allies for 60 minutes and should be kept up on everyone at all times.
Mind Control temporarily controls an enemy, which allows you to move, attack, and cast some of their abilities. This can be beneficial in some dungeons, as specific enemies have valuable spells that can buff your party or debuff enemies.
Void Tendrils can be placed to root a small number of enemies, useful in situations where melee enemies need to be kept at a distance.
Holy Priest Mythic+ Talents
You can easily import the talent tree below by clicking 'Copy Export String' and then importing it in-game.
Talent Discussion
This build plays around the consistent healing strengths of Holy Words being
bolstered by the various talents taken in both trees. In addition to this,
damage talents are taken to improve your damage output; in particular,
Empyreal Blaze,
Divine Word and
Burning Vehemence pair together well for an
increase in both Single Target and AoE damage.
There is some flexibility in the Spec Tree. For some increased AoE
healing you can pick up Divine Hymn by dropping
Enlightenment.
Answered Prayers and
Voice of Harmony are interchangeable and you
can choose whichever one you prefer. If you desire a cheat death for specific
mechanics, you can easily take
Restitution by swapping it from
Divine Word.
The Class Tree has a lot of flexibility, and there are multiple different talents you can change around depending on the encounter and your personal preference. The following are all great candidates to be situationally removed without altering your playstyle:
Light's Inspiration can be given up if the additional survivability isn't required.
San'layn is also a good talent to drop if you need another point for an affix-specific talent.
Improved Purify if you do not need a disease dispel and do not have the
Afflicted affix.
To spend any of these recovered talent points, you should look at:
Shackle Undead for the crowd-control on Undead enemies and the
Incorporeal affix.
Dominate Mind for another way to deal with the
Incorporeal affix
Psychic Scream,
Mind Control and
Void Tendrils all have very niche usage, but you should still be aware they exist in case there is a specific need for them.
Holy Priest Mythic+ Affix Advice
Tier One Affixes
Fortified and
Tyrannical are the two affixes
every player will see. These affixes shift the focus of Mythic+ from boss to
trash, depending on the week.
Tyrannical
Tyrannical increases the Health pool of boss enemies by 40% and
their damage dealt by 15%.
During Tyrannical weeks, we need to be more careful with Mana management on
bosses. Also, heavy-hitting boss abilities might require some planning of
Desperate Prayer and
Fade usage to reliably survive at higher
key levels.
Fortified
Fortified increases the Health pool of all non-boss enemies by
20% and damage dealt by 30%.
Fortified increases the focus on your crowd control abilities, such as
Censure. You should also be mindful of dangerous debuffs, which you
must dispel quickly using
Purify and
Mass Dispel, and dangerous
enemy buffs, which you can dispel with
Dispel Magic.
Tier Two Affixes
Storming
Storming creates a short-duration tornado near enemies.
Standing in this tornado will deal damage to you and cause you to be knocked
back.
The biggest impact this affix will have on you is the constant interrupts on
your casting if a tornado spawns under you and you need to move out of it. Care
must be taken when using Divine Hymn or
Symbol of Hope in case a
tornado spawns near you.
Volcanic
Volcanic spawns volcanic plumes underneath and around players
when in combat with any enemy. When damaged by Volcanic, players suffer damage
and are knocked into the air. The more enemies you are in combat with, the more
volcanic plumes will spawn.
Care must be taken when using Divine Hymn or
Symbol of Hope in
case a plume spawns underneath you.
Afflicted
The Afflicted affix will cause an Afflicted Soul to spawn with
3 debuffs on it, Cursed Spirit, Poisoned Spirit, and Diseased Spirit. The soul
must be either healed to full or Dispelled within 10 seconds.
On Afflicted weeks, you should talent into Improved Purify to assist
in clearing these Afflicted Souls out. If your dispel is on cooldown, you can
use
Holy Word: Serenity and
Power Word: Life to quickly heal the
Afflicted Souls.
Entangling
The Entangling debuff will slow you by 50% and force you to
snap a vine in order to remove the debuff. Since it is a snare, it can also be
removed using
Fade with the
Phantasm talent. Be wary about
using it every time, though, as you may be losing out on a defensive you may need
in the near future. Some Entangling debuffs may be better to walk out of.
Incorporeal
Incorporeal affix will summon an Incorporeal Being, which will chain-cast
Destabilize, which reduces the party's damage and healing.
We can assist with crowd control using Holy Word: Chastise,
Psychic Scream, and most importantly,
Shackle Undead.
Tier Three Affixes
Raging
Raging makes enemies immune to crowd control effects once they
drop below 30% health.
This affix can be particularly dangerous to your group, especially during
Fortified weeks. Care should be taken when dangerous enemies drop
below 30%, as abilities that may normally be stopped with crowd control can not
be prevented.
Bolstering
Bolstering causes dying enemies to increase the damage of other
nearby enemies by 20% for a short period.
This affix typically has little impact on our role as healers. To counter
this affix, DPS all mobs down evenly and focus on the highest health pool
enemies first. You can also use Mind Control on a high-health enemy
right before other enemies die to prevent it from getting
Bolster stacks.
Bursting
Bursting causes enemies to detonate when slain, afflicting the
group with a stacking debuff that causes players to suffer stacking damage over
4 seconds.
Bursting is dispellable. That means you can
add Purify and
Mass Dispel to your triage arsenal when dealing
with
Bursting. Mass Dispel, in particular, should be
coordinated with your group so you can quickly remove all stacks from your whole
party when needed. You should aim to Mass Dispel in any situation where your
group is going above 5 stacks.
If you are unable to dispel Bursting, your goal is to keep your
group as healthy as possible before the mobs even die and start generating
Bursting stacks on your group. This means trying to monitor the health of the
enemies you are in combat with. It takes a lot of stacks to outright kill a
group, so you should focus on assisting allies that are taking damage from other
sources, using
Power Word: Life,
Holy Word: Serenity, and
Guardian Spirit to keep them alive. Otherwise, use
Holy Word: Sanctify to boost the whole group a small amount, and triage
with
Flash Heal /
Heal, using
Trail of Light to cleave
heal on your group. Focus on making sure your team survives the pull, and once
it is over, you can top them up.
Sanguine
Sanguine places a pool of blood on the ground when an enemy
dies. This pool will heal enemies who stay inside the zone while damaging
players.
Psychic Scream can sometimes be used to get stubborn enemies out of
the Sanguine pools. Be mindful of casting
Holy Word: Chastise on enemies
inside a Sanguine pool if talented into
Censure, as they will heal for
the duration of the stun.
Spiteful
Spiteful causes enemies to spawn a Spiteful Shade for a
short period of time upon death.
This affix typically has little impact on our role as healers. You can use
Psychic Scream and
Holy Word: Chastise to stop Spiteful Shades if
you or another player is in a poor position and cannot run away.
Changelog
- 23 Jul. 2024: Updated for The War Within pre-patch.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 4.
- 29 Mar. 2024: Updated for Patch 10.2.6.
- 17 Mar. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.6.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Updated for Patch 10.2.5.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1.7.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1.5.
- 08 May 2023: Improved talent suggestions ready for Season 2.
- 01 May 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1 with new affixes and talent changes.
- 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: Updated 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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