Holy Priest Healing Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities (Legion 7.3)

Table of Contents

• +Introduction
  • 1. Class Overview
  • 2. Patch 7.3 Changes
  • 3. Patch 7.2.5 Changes
  • 4. Patch 7.2 Changes
  • 5. Contents
  • 6. ChangeLog
• +Easy Mode
  • 1. The Basics
  • 2. Talent Choice
  • 3. Stat Choice
  • 4. Basic Playstyle
    • 4.1. Single Target Healing
    • 4.2. AoE/Raid Healing
  • 5. Cooldown Usage
  • 6. ChangeLog
• +Spell Summary
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Main Resource
  • 3. Basic Abilities
    • 3.1. Utility
  • 4. Important Procs
  • 5. Cooldowns
  • 6. ChangeLog
• +Builds and Talents
  • 1. Talent Choices
  • 2. Talent Cheat Sheet
    • 2.1. Raids
    • 2.2. Dungeons
  • 3. Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents
  • 4. Tier 2 (Level 30) Talents
  • 5. Tier 3 (Level 45) Talents
  • 6. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents
  • 7. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents
  • 8. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents
  • 9. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents
  • 10. ChangeLog
• +Artifact Traits and Relics
  • 1. Artifact Progression
  • 2. Relic Choice
  • 3. ChangeLog
• +Netherlight Crucible Relic Paths
  • 1. General Optimization Advice
  • 2. Tier 2 Upgrade Priority
  • 3. Tier 3 Upgrade Priority
  • 4. ChangeLog
• ×Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities
  • 1. Rotation
    • 1.1. Single Target Healing
    • 1.2. AoE/Raid Healing
    • 1.3. Binding Heal Playstyle
  • 2. Cooldown Usage
  • 3. Optional Read: Mastering Your Holy Priest
    • 3.1. Artifact Abilities
      • 3.1.1. Holy Mending and Prayer of Mending
    • 3.2. Serendipity
    • 3.3. Healing Cooldowns In Detail
      • 3.3.1. Divine Hymn
      • 3.3.2. Guardian Spirit
      • 3.3.3. Tier 4 Talents
      • 3.3.4. Tier 5 Talents
      • 3.3.5. Tier 6 Talents
      • 3.3.6. Tier 7 Talents
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Stat Priority
  • 1. Basics
  • 2. Getting a Better Understanding
    • 2.1. Statistics Explanations
  • 3. ChangeLog
• +Gems, Enchants, and Consumables
  • 1. Gems
  • 2. Enchants
  • 3. Consumables
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Macros and Addons
  • 1. Macros
    • 1.1. Generic Macros for Priests
      • 1.1.1. Leap of Faith Mouseover Macro
    • 1.2. Specific Macros for Holy Priests
      • 1.2.1. Apotheosis / Circle of Healing Mouseover Macro
      • 1.2.2. Angelic Feather Macro
  • 2. Addons
    • 2.1. Generic Addons for Priests
      • 2.1.1. ElvUI
      • 2.1.2. Clique
      • 2.1.3. Boss Mods: Deadly Boss Mods or Bigwigs
      • 2.1.4. GTFO
      • 2.1.5. Parrot or Mik's Scrolling Battle Text
      • 2.1.6. Weak Auras
      • 2.1.7. Recount / Skada / Details!
    • 2.2. Specific Addons for Holy Priests
  • 3. ChangeLog
• +Gear, Legendaries, and Best in Slot
  • 1. Best in Slot List
  • 2. Trinket Recommendations
  • 3. Tier 20 Set Bonuses
  • 4. Legendary Items
  • 5. Loot Competition
  • 6. ChangeLog

General Information

On this page, we list your Holy Priest core abilities and how they should be used together (rotation) in World of Warcraft Legion 7.3. We also explain when to use your various cooldowns. Then, we go deeper and present all the subtleties that you will need to know if you want to excel at playing a Holy Priest.

The other pages of our Holy Priest guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

About Our Reviewer

This guide has been reviewed and approved Niphyr, a generally knowledgeable, long-time healing Priest and theorycrafter. You can follow him on Twitter.

1. Rotation

Healing is in great part based on your ability to react to the damage that the raid takes, and as such there is no set rotation. Rather, you must understand what spells are best suited to the different situations that can occur during a raid encounter.

Below, you will find the optimal use of your abilities, and it will be up to you to then combine them efficiently in combat.

1.1. Single Target Healing

If your target is taking low to medium amounts of damage, you should be able to heal them with Heal. Renew should be used only during periods of heavy movement, when Light of T'uure is on cooldown and you are unable to stand still and cast other spells.

As damage increases, you should begin incorporating Flash Heal (as your Mana allows, and any time you have a Surge of Light proc, if you have taken this talent).

When the damage is high or very high, you should use Holy Word: Serenity, which will heal the target for a significant amount. If this is still not enough, you also have access to Guardian Spirit.

It is important to make regular use of your Light of T'uure ability (provided by an Artifact trait). Use this ability on cooldown, unless you need to save it for predictable meaningful damage. Note that it buffs the target to increase your healing done to them by 25% for 10 seconds, so make sure to follow up on it with spells such as Holy Word: Serenity.

Regarding Prayer of Mending usage, things are a bit more complicated. As a single target healing spell, it may not look powerful enough to be worth using, but because nearly every encounter has period AoE/raid damage, you should essentially use it on cooldown. The only exception to this is when someone needs saving immediately.

1.2. AoE/Raid Healing

When the damage is low, you should use Heal on the players that require healing. You can supplement this healing with Holy Word: Serenity, Circle of Healing and Halo or Divine Star as needed (if you have taken these talents). You should also be using Prayer of Mending on cooldown during this time.

When there is high sustained damage, you will have to turn to Prayer of Healing and Holy Word: Sanctify. In addition to this, you should continue to use Holy Word: Serenity, Divine Star or Halo (if you have taken one of these talents), Prayer of Mending, and Circle of Healing, but Renew and Heal are too slow to be worth using. Be aware that your Mana, though, as while spells like Prayer of Healing and Holy Word: Sanctify do a lot of healing, they are also very expensive.

Power of the Naaru, an Artifact trait, buffs Prayer of Healing for 15 seconds after using Holy Word: Sanctify. You should try to maximise your AoE healing by playing around this buff, namely by using a Holy Word: Sanctify before casting Prayer of Healing (provided that you have unlocked this trait).

1.3. Binding Heal Playstyle

When talented into Binding Heal and raid healing, your priority should be as follows.

1. Use Prayer of Mending on cooldown.
2. Use Holy Words as much as possible, when they will not overheal.
3. Use Binding Heal as a filler.
4. Use Light of T'uure when moving or as an instant cast spell to help triage a target taking high damage.

Binding Heal synergises well with the Benediction talent, and on shorter encounters where you find yourself not running low on Mana, the Enduring Renewal talent can also work well with Binding Heal.

Note also that when facing light to medium raid damage, you should use Binding Heal instead of Prayer of Healing.

2. Cooldown Usage

As a Holy Priest, you have two 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 a very specific time.
• Guardian Spirit should be used depending on many factors, including on 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.

You can read more about how to best use these cooldowns, and about the cooldowns and abilities granted by your talents, in our detailed cooldown section.

3. Optional Read: Mastering Your Holy Priest

The above information should allow you to perform at a high level as a Holy Priest. In the following sub-sections, we offer a few additional pieces of information and we expand on some concepts further.

3.1. Artifact Abilities

Your main Artifact ability, Invoke the Naaru, is passive and causes your Holy Words to have a chance to summon an image of T'uure, which will mimic all your spell casts (on the same targets you cast them on) for 15 seconds, as follows.

• Your Renew causes T'uure to cast Tranquil Light, a 6-second HoT.
• Your Heal, Flash Heal, and Holy Word: Serenity cause T'uure to cast Healing Light, a single target heal.
• Your Prayer of Healing and Holy Word: Sanctify cause T'uure to cast Dazzling Lights, which heals up to 5 nearby targets.
• Your Prayer of Mending and Divine Hymn cause T'uure to cast Blessed Light, which heals 5 targets within 100 yards.
• Your Smite, Holy Fire, and Holy Word: Chastise cause T'uure to cast Searing Light, which deals damage to the target.
• Your Holy Nova causes T'uure to cast Light Eruption, which deals damage to all enemies within 8 yards.

The spells that T'uure casts are quite strong. For example, as you can see from the tooltips, Healing Light heals for 250% of spellpower, while your own Heal and Flash Heal "only" heal for 475%.

One of your golden traits, Light of T'uure, is an active ability with 2 charges and a 45-second recharge time. It heals the target and buffs them for 10 seconds, causing your healing done to them to be increased by 25%. The spell is powerful, and using it regularly is important. Ideally, you should save it for periods of predictable single target damage, and use it to heal the target (most likely the tank) back up. If this is not applicable, then just use it on cooldown.

3.1.1. Holy Mending and Prayer of Mending

Holy Mending causes Prayer of Mending to heal the target instantly for an additional amount whenever it jumps to a player on which Renew is active. Since Prayer of Mending prefers jumping to players on which it is not already present, by placing Renew on players without Prayer of Mending, you will increase the likelihood of this trait to proc.

3.2. Serendipity

Serendipity is a passive ability that causes Heal and Flash Heal to reduce the remaining cooldown of Holy Word: Serenity by 6 seconds, and Prayer of Healing to reduce the remaining cooldown of Holy Word: Sanctify by 6 seconds.

While you do not need to actively manage this ability in any way, it is very important that you are aware of its existence and that you constantly monitor the remaining cooldowns of your Holy Words, so that you can use them as soon as they become available.

3.3. Healing Cooldowns In Detail

Your healing cooldowns require a bit more explanation in order to ensure that you can make the best of them.

3.3.1. Divine Hymn

Divine Hymn will heal all raid members within 40 yards over 8 seconds, and also increase the healing they receive during that time by 10%.

Keep in mind that the spell is channeled, so you cannot perform other actions while casting it.

Generally, your raid leader will assign you to use this spell at a certain time in the fight, in order to counter a heavy burst of damage. If this is the case, make sure your spell is available at that time.

Otherwise, you should simply try to find a moment when using this spell is beneficial. Most often, this will happen during a period of very intense raid damage.

When possible try to cast Prayer of Mending prior to your Divine Hymn (as it synergises well with the Renew the Faith and Holy Mending artifact traits and Benediction talent). Also try to cast a Holy Word immediately before Divine Hymn to gain the Divinity buff (if you have chosen this talent).

3.3.2. Guardian Spirit

Guardian Spirit is one of the most useful tools you can bring to a raid. Using it places a buff on the target, which lasts for 10 seconds and increases all healing received by the target by 60%. If the target receives a killing blow during this time, they will not die and instead be healed for 40% of their maximum health, consuming the Guardian Spirit effect.

While you can use this on any raid member who is about to die and whom you have no other means of saving, it is by far better used on a tank who is about to take a large amount of damage. You should make sure to communicate with the tank and other healers, in order to ensure that you do not use multiple powerful cooldowns at the same time.

You can also use this spell to allow tanks (or other players) to survive an ability that should have otherwise been avoided, either as part of your raid's strategy or to recover from a mistake.

Keep in mind that your raid leader may assign you to use this spell for a specific event in the encounter.

The Guardians of the Light trait also puts Guardian Spirit on you when you Guardian Spirit someone else and is certainly worth mentioning as you can potentially save two people at once (your target and yourself).

3.3.3. Tier 4 Talents

Symbol of Hope is the only active talent in this tier. When you want to use this ability, you must make sure that the other healers in the raid are prepared for it (since they all benefit from it), so communication is important. You should also only use it when there is enough raid damage to justify spending its powerful effect. While Symbol of Hope is active, you should you use expensive spells such as Prayer of Healing and Holy Word: Sanctify.

3.3.4. Tier 5 Talents

You should make sure to use Surge of Light procs quickly, so that new charges are not wasted.

3.3.5. Tier 6 Talents

When using Divinity, it is worth staggering your Holy Word usage (when it is safe to do so) in order to chain the 8-second buffs that Divinity provides, since they do not stack.

3.3.6. Tier 7 Talents

Apotheosis is a powerful cooldown, which you should save for moments of heavy damage. Below, we list the spell sequences you should use to maximise your healing-per-second.

To maximise your single target HPS:

1. Cast Holy Word: Sanctify.
2. Cast Holy Word: Serenity.
3. Cast Flash Heal until Holy Word: Serenity comes off cooldown.
4. Cast Holy Word: Serenity and repeat step 3.

To maximise your AoE HPS:

1. Cast Holy Word: Serenity.
2. Cast Holy Word: Sanctify.
3. Cast Prayer of Healing until Holy Word: Sanctify comes off cooldown.
4. Cast Holy Word: Sanctify and repeat steps 2 and onward.

4. ChangeLog

+ show all entries - show only 10 entries

• 28 Aug. 2017: No changes needed for Patch 7.3.
• 10 Jul. 2017: Added a section regarding the rather popular Binding Heal playstyle.
• 12 Jun. 2017: Made various updates to the healing playstyles and Divine Hymn and Guardian Spirit sections.
• 27 Mar. 2017: No changes needed for Patch 7.2.
• 10 Jan. 2017: Checked and confirmed for Patch 7.1.5.
• 02 Nov. 2016: Added a section on the Holy Mending Artifact trait and how to optimise its procs.
• 29 Aug. 2016: Updated for Legion's launch.
• 04 Aug. 2016: Revamped single target and raid healing rotations, and made several other minor improvements.
• 18 Jul. 2016: Updated for the Legion pre-patch.