Holy Priest Healing Spec, Builds, and Talents (Legion 7.2.5)

Table of Contents

• +Introduction
  • 1. Class Overview
  • 2. Patch 7.2.5 Changes
  • 3. Patch 7.2 Changes
  • 4. Contents
  • 5. 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
• +Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities
  • 1. Rotation
    • 1.1. Single Target Healing
    • 1.2. AoE/Raid Healing
  • 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 present the viable talent choices for Holy Priests in World of Warcraft Legion 7.2.5. We detail what each of the talents do and in which situations they should be taken.

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. Talent Choices

Level	Choices
15	? Trail of Light	✘ Enduring Renewal	✔ Enlightenment
30	✔ Angelic Feather	? Body and Mind	✘ Perseverance
45	✘ Shining Force	✘ Censure	✔ Afterlife
60	✔ Light of the Naaru	✘ Guardian Angel	✘ Symbol of Hope
75	✘ Surge of Light	✘ Binding Heal	✔ Piety
90	✔ Divinity	✘ Divine Star	✘ Halo
100	? Apotheosis	✔ Benediction	✘ Circle of Healing

Talents can be freely changed when out of combat and in a rested XP area (such as an inn or a capital city). Moreover, Tome of the Tranquil Mind and Codex of the Tranquil Mind can be used to temporarily allow players to change talents anywhere, as long as they are out of combat.

2. Talent Cheat Sheet

Depending on the environment in which you are playing (raids or dungeons), your talent choices will differ. Below, we list the best talents for each environment before going into more detail in the sections below.

2.1. Raids

• Level 15: Enlightenment
• Level 30: Angelic Feather
• Level 45: Afterlife
• Level 60: Light of the Naaru
• Level 75: Piety
• Level 90: Divinity
• Level 100: Benediction

2.2. Dungeons

• Level 15: Trail of Light
• Level 30: Angelic Feather
• Level 45: Censure
• Level 60: Light of the Naaru
• Level 75: Any talent
• Level 90: Divinity
• Level 100: Apotheosis

3. Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents

? Trail of Light

✘ Enduring Renewal

✔ Enlightenment

• Trail of Light causes Flash Heal casts to also heal the previous target you healed with Flash Heal for 40% of the amount. Casting Flash Heal two or more times in a row on the same target does not cause them to benefit from Trail of Light, and instead the previously healed other target is still healed, no matter how many heals ago you had healed them.
• Enduring Renewal causes your single target heals to refresh your Renew on the target.
• Enlightenment passively increases your Mana regeneration rate by 10%.

Enlightenment is currently the recommended choice in this tier, given the average fight length of Nighthold encounters (Enlightenment excels on longer fights, in particular).

Trail of Light is currently a good choice for fights that have a lot of single-target spot healing (which is often the case in dungeons), or for fights on which Mana is not a concern.

Enduring Renewal is currently never a desirable choice in any situation. That said, theoretically, Enduring Renewal can be considered a solid choice for AoE healing when paired with the Benediction and Piety talents.

4. Tier 2 (Level 30) Talents

✔ Angelic Feather

? Body and Mind

✘ Perseverance

• Angelic Feather is an active ability with 3 charges and a 20-second recharge time. It places a feather at the targeted location, which grants a 40% increase in movement speed for 5 seconds to the first ally who comes in contact with it. Only 3 feathers can be active at any given time.
• Body and Mind is an active ability with a 10-second cooldown. It is a 4-second HoT that also increases the target's movement speed by 40% for its duration.
• Perseverance passively causes you to take 10% less damage from all sources while your own Renew is active on you.

The choice in this tier depends on what you need for your specific circumstances, but we can make some suggestions.

For movement, we generally recommend Angelic Feather, since it allows you to prepare movement speed increases for your raid. That said, you can sometimes prefer to take Body and Mind (since you can choose who to buff in the moment, and since sometimes Angelic Feathers can be picked up by random players, ruining your plans). Keep in mind that the healing provided by Body and Mind is negligible.

If you are not looking to provide movement speed increases, then Perseverance is a fairly good choice for personal survivability.

5. Tier 3 (Level 45) Talents

✘ Shining Force

✘ Censure

✔ Afterlife

• Shining Force is an active ability with a 45-second cooldown. It knocks back all enemies located around your (friendly) target, slowing their movement speed by 70% for 3 seconds.
• Censure causes Holy Word: Chastise to stun the target for 5 seconds, instead of simply incapacitating them (damage taken by the target does, of course, not break the stun).
• Afterlife increases the duration of your Spirit of Redemption by 50%.

Afterlife is the only talent in this tier that improves your healing, making it the obvious choice. That said, the other two talents offer crowd-control, which can be useful, especially in dungeon content.

6. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents

✔ Light of the Naaru

✘ Guardian Angel

✘ Symbol of Hope

• Light of the Naaru causes Serendipity procs to reduce the remaining cooldown of the relevant Holy Word spell by an additional 2 seconds (for a total of 8).
• Guardian Angel causes the remaining cooldown of Guardian Spirit to be reduced by 2 minutes and 30 seconds (to 90 seconds) whenever it expires from a target without having saved them from dying.
• Symbol of Hope is an active ability with a 6-minute cooldown. It is a raid-wide buff that affects all healers within 40 yards, removing the Mana cost of all their spells for 12 seconds.

We recommend taking Light of the Naaru currently, which increases your throughput by allowing more frequent use of your Holy Words.

Symbol of Hope is currently underwhelming, and as such should not be taken.

Guardian Angel is simply too situational to be considered a good choice in raids, but it can sometimes be useful in dungeons.

7. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents

✘ Surge of Light

✘ Binding Heal

✔ Piety

• Surge of Light causes your healing spells and Smite to have an 8% chance to make your next Flash Heal instant cast and cost no Mana. Getting a Surge of Light proc while you already had an unused one will grant you 2 charges of the proc (which is the maximum you can have at any one time).
• Binding Heal is an active ability with no cooldown and a 1.5-second cast time. It heals your target, yourself, and another random ally within 20 yards. Binding Heal also interacts with Serendipity, reducing the remaining cooldown of Holy Word: Serenity and Holy Word: Sanctify by 3 seconds each.
• Piety reduces the cooldown of Prayer of Mending by 2 seconds, and causes it to trigger Serendipity, reducing the remaining cooldown of Holy Word: Sanctify by 6 seconds.

For raid content, we recommend choosing Piety as the default talent for this tier (working especially well for raid healing). Surge of Light is currently not worth taking.

Binding Heal is not desirable for raid healing, but it is an option for healing in dungeons.

8. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents

✔ Divinity

✘ Divine Star

✘ Halo

• Divinity grants you a 6-second buff that increases all your healing by 15% whenever you heal with a Holy Word spell. This effect does not stack.
• Divine Star is an active ability with a 15-second cooldown. It resembles a yo-yo, in the sense that a ball of energy travels in a path away from you (in front of you), and after reaching a certain point (24 yards away), it returns. Both on the first, as well as on the second trip, it heals allies and damages enemies in its path.
• Halo is an active ability with a 40-second cooldown and a 1.5-second cast time. It creates a ring around you that expands in radius (up to 30 yards). Allies who come in contact with it are healed, and enemies are damaged.

The default choice in this tier should be Divinity, which out-values both Divine Star and Halo. The 15% increase in healing from Divinity is very strong, especially when you stagger your Holy Words in such a way as to chain the Divinity buff. That said, keep in mind that spamming Holy Word: Sanctify and Prayer of Healing will quickly drain your Mana.

With that in mind, there is value to be gained by choosing Divine Star or Halo. Divine Star is well-suited for healing AoE damage that comes in at 15-second intervals, and both Divine Star and Halo allow you to heal all raid members with a relatively short cooldown, which can be an important consideration. Finally, keep in mind that Divine Star works well with Surge of Light, the Tier 5 talent.

9. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents

? Apotheosis

✔ Benediction

✘ Circle of Healing

• Apotheosis is an active ability with a 3-minute cooldown. For 30 seconds, the cooldown reduction offered by Serendipity is tripled, and the cost of your Holy Words is reduced by 100%.
• Benediction causes your Prayer of Mending to have a 40% chance to place a Renew on each target it heals.
• Circle of Healing is an active ability with a 15-second cooldown, which heals up to 5 allies within 30 yards of the target.

The best choice in this tier is Benediction. It essentially provides free raid healing, and it synergises well with Artifact traits. As an alternative, Apotheosis is a good cooldown, if this is needed in the encounter.

Circle of Healing is generally not worth considering over either of the other two talents in this tier.

10. ChangeLog

+ show all entries - show only 10 entries

• 12 Jun. 2017: Added a separate talent listing for dungeon content, and updated several talent discussion sections.
• 22 Apr. 2017: Changed tier 4 and 5 talent recommendations from Symbol of Hope to Light of the Naaru and from Surge of Light to Piety.
• 27 Mar. 2017: No changes needed for Patch 7.2.
• 08 Feb. 2017: Updated tier 1 talent recommendation to Enlightenment.
• 10 Jan. 2017: Updated the talent descriptions to account for Patch 7.1.5, and also made some changes to evaluations (Benediction is now recommended, most notably).
• 02 Nov. 2016: Updated the Binding Heal and Benediction evaluations slightly.
• 25 Oct. 2016: Updated the description of Desperate Prayer, Divinity, and Guardian Angel to account for patch 7.1 changes.
• 14 Oct. 2016: Updated our evaluation of the tier 7 Benediction talent.
• 12 Sep. 2016: Fixed several instances where we were referring to Flash of Light instead of Flash Heal.
• 29 Aug. 2016: Updated for Legion's launch.
• 04 Aug. 2016: Updated the discussions and evaluations for all talent tiers.
• 18 Jul. 2016: Updated for the Legion pre-patch.