Holy Priest Healing Spec, Builds, and Talents — Dragonflight 10.2

For Holy Priest, there is one primary raid healing build, focused on using using Prayer of Healing buffed by Prayer Circle. This is supported by by Prayer of Mending and its associated talents.

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

The Holy Priest tree has several talent points or groups of talent points that can be moved around without affecting the core playstyle:

• Enlightenment gains you a point if the added mana isn't required.
• Epiphany can be swapped for Light of the Naaru depending on personal preference.
• Miracle Worker can be swapped for Restitution if the cheat death is required.
• Halo can be swapped for Divine Star for fights where the raid is stacked or requires heavy movement.

To spend any of these recovered talent points, you should look at:

• Prayerful Litany to increase the strength of your Prayer of Healing.
• Rapid Recovery to bolster your healing from Benediction and Holy Word: Salvation.
• Desperate Times to increase your overall healing.

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:

• Mass Dispel, particularly in raid encounters, can have limited usage. If Mass Dispel does not fit well with the boss you will be fighting, swapping it out will save you one point.
• Improved Fade is the weakest of the survival talents, and provided you do not need the added survivability, you can talent out of it to spend a point elsewhere.
• Holy Nova is very situational and is only worth pressing with Rhapsody. It is a very small healing increase, even when used properly, and you can save 2 points by swapping out of these and using another healing spell in that situation instead.

To spend any of these recovered talent points, you should look at:

• Dispel Magic and Improved Purify if an offensive purge or disease dispel is required.
• Phantasm if snare removal is beneficial on a particular encounter.
• Shadow Word: Death and it is supporting talents Death and Madness and Tithe Evasion. It is an extra button to press, but it deals good damage to targets under 20% hitpoints.
• Mindgames for more added damage and some extra healing. If you have an abundance of points, Manipulation, and Shattered Perceptions both boost the power of Mindamges.
• Shackle Undead, Psychic Voice, 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.

For dungeons, see our Mythic+ guide linked below for a starter build that you can work from and tailor to your requirements. Our Mythic+ guide also goes into more detail about potential talent changes to help you adapt to your group's requirements.

Note that we do not explain EVERY Talent in the tree on this page. We only explain Talents that are part of our optimal builds for raiding and Mythic+. For full details and explanations of every Talent, please visit our Spells page via the button below.

The class tree is somewhat split into 3 "columns" with the left-hand side of the tree providing additional healing, the center of the tree containing group utility and buffs to your allies, and the right-hand side primarily focused on damage-dealing abilities.

The upper section of the tree introduces us to Renew and Prayer of Mending, which are core mechanics to healing as a Holy Priest. You also pick up some healing increases and have access to utility options. Typically, most builds will include:

• Focused Mending and Improved Flash Heal for the increases to their respective spells.
• Angelic Feather as a mandatory pick. It is our main source of increased movement.
• Shadowfiend is worth taking for the mana return and some additional damage.
• Picking up Improved Purify gives you a disease dispel which is useful in all forms of content.
• Pathing through Leap of Faith for some extra utility, and it also provides access to valuable middle-row talents.

Crowd control and their enhancements like Shackle Undead, Psychic Voice, Sheer Terror, and Void Tendrils will depend on the content you are doing and what makes the most sense there.

There are some defensive options in Protective Light and Spell Warding, which should be considered. Their strength will depend on the content you are healing in.

For additional damage, there is Shadow Word: Death, which hits quite hard. You should consider pathing on to Tithe Evasion in the middle section to reduce the damage taken from regular Shadow Word: Death casts.

This section starts with more group utility abilities and leads into two strong healing and damage throughput talents Unwavering Will and Twist of Fate. You will typically take the following in all forms of content:

• Love it, or hate it, Power Infusion should be taken in all forms of content and used on an ally as you will also path through Twins of the Sun Priestess to access the tree below.
• Twist of Fate provides a nice healing and damage bonus in all forms of content.
• Unwavering Will is the other big throughput talent in this section of the tree and should be taken in all builds as well.

Some of the more situational utility includes Mass Dispel and its supporting talent Mental Agility, which is great as a backup dispel, or for dealing with specific mechanics in Raid and Mythic+. This will be taken more often than not as the method of pathing down towards Unwavering Will.

There is some good value in Inspiration, especially if you are using a more single-target healing-focused build. Other more situational utility options are Move with Grace and Body and Soul.

The lower talent area has a lot of good choices, with nearly every talent having a situation that can be useful. The nodes you should consider using more often than not are:

• Choice node of Divine Star and Halo will be a mandatory pick, with your choice depending on the encounter. Divine Star is great when your whole group is stacked together, and for the added damage. Halo excels where the group is more spread out, and damage is not as much of a priority.
• Angel's Mercy and Binding Heals are both attractive defensive options and will largely be personal preference. The value of Binding Heals, in particular, is reduced if you are not running a heavy Heal or Flash Heal build.
• Surge of Light is a great addition to single target-focused healing builds, and even in builds centered around Prayer of Healing provides some free, instant healing.
• On-demand defensive capability provided by Translucent Image is too good to pass up for just one talent point.

Power Word: Life is a strong ability when the situation allows for regular usage of it. While this should be a default choice in dungeons, in a raid, it can be much more difficult to use, and instead, choosing Benevolence may be a better choice, depending on the encounter.

Multiple defensive options can be taken depending on your personal preference. Light's Inspiration turns Desperate Prayer into a very potent personal defensive. This leads to a passive defensive option, Angelic Bulwark. Finally, Improved Fade can be good to increase the uptime of Translucent Image.

There may be some specific usage for Void Shift that makes it desirable for some encounters, but it is not a common talent to take outside of niche situations where it helps bypass a difficult mechanic. Essence Devourer doesn't do enough healing to warrant taking when compared to other talent options available.

Lastly, Mindgames can be taken for some additional damage and healing, but it requires pathing through some undesirable nodes. This is particularly true for a raid build where you are not already pathing nearby and will gain significantly less from the talents leading up to it.

The spec tree starts in the upper half, introducing you to the remaining core spells that will form your rotation. The left-hand side of the tree focuses on augmenting Circle of Healing; the center-left portion is Single Target focused, buffing Heal and Flash Heal. The center column of the tree provides powerful cooldowns in Divine Hymn, Holy Word: Salvation, Apotheosis and Divine Word. The right-hand portion of the tree focuses on synergies for Renew and Prayer of Mending along with some damage increases through Holy Fire benefits.

Several talents should be chosen in all situations, and then some decisions should be made about the direction you want your build to head. The default talents are:

• Prayer of Healing
• Holy Word: Sanctify
• Guardian Spirit

After these, where your path depends on the goal of your build.

For Single Target focused healing, you will pick up Cosmic Ripple as it opens up the column of single target-focused talents.

For AoE healing, Circle of Healing is an obvious choice and Sanctified Prayers is a great boost to your Prayer of Healing which you will be casting regularly. Renewed Faith leads later on into Benediction, which is great for passive group healing.

For increased damage, pathing through Holy Word: Chastise and Empyreal Blaze to Burning Vehemence, which, when combined, greatly increase your single target damage potential.

The middle section contains most of the talents that buff the spells your build centers around. It also has the desirable cooldowns Divine Hymn and Symbol of Hope. These two talents are the only real mandatory talents in the middle section, with the rest changing depending on your playstyle.

Single target builds utilize Trail of Light, Everlasting Light and Crisis Management to buff Flash Heal and Heal to provide more healing and be more mana efficient. It also enables you to path into the better single-target talents in the lower part of the tree later on.

AoE builds take Prayer Circle, Prayerful Litany and Orison as they buff both Circle of Healing and Prayer of Healing. They also enable the powerful AoE healing combination of Holy Word: Sanctify into Circle of Healing, then Prayer of Healing casts.

Specifically for raid, Gales of Song provides a valuable boost to Divine Hymn healing and Prismatic Echoes is a flat increase to all your healing done through increased Mastery: Echo of Light.

The right-hand side is centered around buffing Prayer of Mending through Divine Service and Prayers of the Virtuous. The extra bounces from Prayers of the Virtuous, which also lead into the lower section talent Say Your Prayers, synergize well with Benediction, applying additional renews to your allies and increasing your overall healing for no additional time or mana spent. Taking these talents emphasizes the importance of casting the Prayer of Mending as often as possible.

Enlightenment is a bit more situational and can be taken for the extra regen if there are encounters you find yourself running out of mana. Before leaning on this talent, though, be sure you are using your mana well.

The lower section of the tree contains the more powerful capstone talents on the bottom row of the tree. The only mandatory node in all forms of content is the Apotheosis (dungeons) and Holy Word: Salvation (raid) choice node. For your remaining points, it will depend on the playstyle you have chosen.

For nearly all builds, the powerful increase Light of the Naaru provides your Holy Word cooldown reduction, making it a go-to choice in all circumstances. Harmonious Apparatus is a bit more situational, as not all builds cast Prayer of Mending and Circle of Healing on cooldown. Both Light of the Naaru and Harmonious Apparatus synergize well with Miracle Worker, which allows you to use the additional Holy Word cooldown reduction to bank a charge while you wait for the group to take more damage.

Enhancing single-target builds are Pontifex, Resonant Words and Lightweaver, which are all strong increases to both Flash Heal and Heal. They also synergize well with other single target talents taken further up the Holy tree and in the Class tree. Coupled with Apotheosis and either Divine Word or Miracle Worker, you have many tools for triage healing in both dungeons and raids.

For builds emphasizing the Prayer of Mending talents, both Empowered Renew and Say Your Prayers provide good additional value. Answered Prayers has the potential to provide healing and damage value, but the randomness of the Apotheosis buff triggering means the bonus can often be wasted.

Builds focusing on additional damage will want to pick up Divine Word or Divine Image.

Desperate Times is not a bad talent, but depending on the difficulty of your content, it may not provide enough benefit to warrant being taken.

Restitution has situational use in all forms of content and is more of a personal preference. While planning to get more healing benefits from talent can be extremely difficult; having the safety of a cheat death can be desirable, especially in extremely difficult content where you are likely to accidentally die.

Lightwell, despite the nostalgia, is not a recommended talent to use.