Holy Priest Healing Spec, Builds, and Talents (Legion 7.3.5)

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Last updated on Aug 28, 2017 at 19:26 by Vlad 165 comments

General Information

On this page, we present the viable talent choices for Holy Priests in World of Warcraft Legion 7.3.5. 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 Icon Tome of the Tranquil Mind and Codex of the Tranquil Mind Icon 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 for Holy Priests

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 for Holy Priests

? 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 Icon Enlightenment is currently the recommended choice in this tier.

Trail of Light Icon Trail of Light is currently a good choice for fights on which Mana is not a concern and you find yourself spot healing a lot with Flash Heal Icon Flash Heal.

Enduring Renewal Icon 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 Icon Benediction and Piety Icon Piety talents.

4. Tier 2 (Level 30) Talents for Holy Priests

✔ 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 Icon 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 Icon 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 Icon Perseverance is a fairly good choice for personal survivability.

5. Tier 3 (Level 45) Talents for Holy Priests

✘ 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 Icon 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 for Holy Priests

✔ 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 Icon Light of the Naaru currently, which increases your throughput by allowing more frequent use of your Holy Words.

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

Guardian Angel Icon 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 for Holy Priests

✘ 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 either Piety Icon Piety or Binding Heal Icon Binding Heal. Between the two, the choice is yours and up to preference.

For dungeons, we recommend Surge of Light Icon Surge of Light, but all 3 talents are viable.

8. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents for Holy Priests

✔ 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 Icon Divinity, which out-values both Divine Star Icon Divine Star and Halo Icon 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 Icon Holy Word: Sanctify and Prayer of Healing Icon Prayer of Healing will quickly drain your Mana.

With that in mind, there is value to be gained by choosing Divine Star Icon Divine Star or Halo Icon 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 Icon Surge of Light, the Tier 5 talent.

9. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents for Holy Priests

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

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

⋘Spell Summary

Artifact Traits and Relics⋙

10. ChangeLog

28 Aug. 2017: No changes needed for Patch 7.3.
10 Jul. 2017: Updated tier 5 talent description to more highly recommend Binding Heal. Also tweaked the tier 1 talent section.
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.