Holy Priest Healing Spec, Builds, and Talents — Shadowlands 9.2
On this page, you will find out the best talents for each tier for your Holy Priest in World of Warcraft — Shadowlands 9.2. We also have default talent lists for various types of content, such as raiding or Mythic+. If you play with Warmode on, we have your PvP talents covered as well.
If you were looking for TBC Classic content, please refer to our TBC Classic Holy Priest talents.
Talent Choices for Holy Priest
Level | Choices | ||
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15 |
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25 |
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30 |
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35 |
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40 |
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45 |
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50 |
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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 Still Mind and
Codex of the Still Mind can be used to temporarily allow players to change
talents anywhere, as long as they are out of combat.
Talent Cheat Sheet for Holy Priests
While optimizing talents on a contextual basis is the highly recommended method of setting up your build, the talent builds listed below work great for specific purposes.
Depending on the talents you end up choosing, your playstyle maybe slightly altered. To properly understand the impact talents have on your rotation and to utilise them alongside the rest of your toolkit have a look at the rotation page below.
Raids
The talent setup below is a good starting point for raiding with Flash Concentration.
- Level 15:
Trail of Light
- Level 25:
Angelic Feather
- Level 30:
Guardian Angel
- Level 35: Any
- Level 40:
Surge of Light
- Level 45:
Divine Star (or
Benediction)
- Level 50:
Holy Word: Salvation
If you are running the Harmonious Apparatus or
Divine Image
Legendary, you should instead start with the suggestions below.
- Level 15:
Enlightenment
- Level 25:
Angelic Feather
- Level 30:
Guardian Angel
- Level 35: Any
- Level 40:
Prayer Circle
- Level 45:
Benediction or
Divine Star
- Level 50:
Holy Word: Salvation
You can swap in Benediction instead of
Divine Star for any
encounters where your raid is not regularly grouped together.
Dungeons
The talent setup below is a good starting point for dungeons. While Holy Priest talents for dungeons are less open than raid ones, the optimal setup depends on both your group composition and the dungeon you are clearing. This build in particular aims to maximize your ability to keep the tank and other focused targets alive by boosting your single target healing.
- Level 15:
Trail of Light
- Level 25:
Angelic Feather
- Level 30:
Guardian Angel
- Level 35: Any
- Level 40:
Surge of Light
- Level 45:
Divine Star
- Level 50:
Apotheosis
Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents for Holy Priests
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Enlightenment passively increases your Mana regeneration rate by 10%.
Trail of Light causes
Flash Heal and
Heal casts to also heal the previous target you healed with Flash Heal for 35% of the amount. Casting one of these spells 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.
Renewed Faith increases your healing done to targets you have
Renew on.
Enlightenment is currently the recommended choice in this tier for
raiding without the
Flash Concentration Legendary, providing you with
more Mana to spend for the duration of the encounter.
Trail of Light is the default choice when
running the
Flash Concentration Legendary. Trail of Light provides
great value by enhancing each of your
Heal and
Flash Heal casts
even further.
Renewed Faith should be paired with the level 45 talent
Benediction. While small amount of extra healing can be useful, due to
the small amount we use
Renew and the random way that Benediction
applies renew this talent is not ideal outside of scenarios with very constant
damage.
Tier 2 (Level 25) Talents for Holy Priests
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Angel's Mercy causes damage you take to reduce the cooldown of
Desperate Prayer based on how much damage you received.
Body and Soul grants 3 seconds of 40% increased movement speed on targets of your
Power Word: Shield.
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.
Angel's Mercy is an option for dungeons allowing you to survive larger
hits more often by enabling more frequent
Desperate Prayer casts.
Body and Soul is rarely going to be used in any content as the benefit
it provides is outweighed
Angelic Feather in almost every situation.
Angelic Feather is the suggested dungeon and raid talent as it allows
you to gain a small movement speed buff at a moment's notice, and can also be
cast in locations to allow your allies to instead collect the buff.
Tier 3 (Level 30) Talents for Holy Priests
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Binding Heals causes your
Heal and
Flash Heal casts to also heal you for 20% of the amount.
Guardian Angel reduces the cooldown of
Guardian Spirit to 60 seconds when it expires on a target without having saved them from dying.
Afterlife increases the duration of your
Spirit of Redemption by 50% and cast range by 30%.
Binding Heals provides the most personal benefit and is a solid
alternative to
Guardian Angel in all forms of content you are running
the
Flash Concentration Legendary.
Guardian Angel is suggested for dungeons and raid content, allowing you to cast
Guardian Spirit more often. The additional healing provided
is usually enough to save someone so the death prevention component does not trigger.
Afterlife can have some situational uses, but is generally not
preferred over the other two options unless using the Legendary Power
X'anshi, Return of Archbishop Benedictus.
Tier 4 (Level 35) Talents for Holy Priests
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Psychic Voice reduces the cooldown of
Psychic Scream by 30 seconds.
Censure causes
Holy Word: Chastise to also stun the target for 4 seconds.
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.
All 3 of these talents can have good situational uses in both raiding and dungeon groups. You should pick one based on what additional utility your group requires from you.
Tier 5 (Level 40) Talents for Holy Priests
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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).
Cosmic Ripple provides the most personal raid-healing benefit and is often run in raids to maximise personal healing done.
Prayer Circle provides a temporary increase to your
Prayer of Healing casting speed after casting
Circle of Healing.
Surge of Light is the default choice when running the Legendary Power
Flash Concentration. This talent has very strong synergy by providing
you with nearly all of the required
Flash Heal casts to keep the buff
up.
Cosmic Ripple provides a small passive healing increase, but the
benefits of the other two talents on this row overshadow the small passive gain
that Cosmic Ripple provides.
Prayer Circle is a great option for raid throughput when not running
Flash Concentration, offering increased healing per second to the main
AoE filler,
Prayer of Healing, for a few seconds after each
Circle of Healing cast. Be mindful not to hold
Circle of Healing
unless you know there is about to be some raid-wide damage that would really
benefit from Prayer Circle in the next few seconds.
Tier 6 (Level 45) Talents for Holy Priests
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Benediction causes your
Prayer of Mending to have a 25% chance to place a
Renew on each target it heals.
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.
Benediction is a fantastic passive option. It provides regular
healing but relies on you casting
Prayer of Mending as often as possible.
Divine Star is useful for dungeons by providing both damage and group
healing when the positioning of your group allows. In situations where your raid
is stacked it can provide significant healing, but for any encounter where your
raid is primarily spread out you should look to one of the other two talents.
Halo is a great raid healing tool when the positioning of your raid
allows for it. You should aim to get in such a position that as many raid
members as possible are in range before casting it. Be very careful using this
in dungeons so you don't accidentally attack enemies your group is currently not
in combat with.
Tier 7 (Level 50) Talents for Holy Priests
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Light of the Naaru reduces the cooldowns of your holy words by an additional 33% when you cast the relevant spells.
Apotheosis is an active ability with a 2-minute cooldown. Casting it immediately resets the cooldowns on
Holy Word: Serenity,
Holy Word: Sanctify and
Holy Word: Chastise and for 20 seconds, the cooldown reduction to your Holy Words is increased by 300%, and the cost of your Holy Words is reduced by 100%.
Holy Word: Salvation is a potent raid cooldown that heals everyone within 40 yards of you, as well as applying both
Renew and 2 stacks of
Prayer of Mending to each. While this ability does have a very long base cooldown of 12 minutes, each of your
Holy Word: Serenity and
Holy Word: Sanctify casts reduce its remaining cooldown by 30 seconds.
Light of the Naaru provides an easy to use and reliable increase to
your healing allowing you to cast your powerful Holy Word spells more regularly
for both dungeons and raids.
Apotheosis is a small cooldown that not only increases the frequency
with which you can cast holy words, but also removes their Mana cost for the 20
second duration. This is a fantastic choice for dungeons and can be extremely
potent while raiding when there is regular enough damage to make good use of the
full 20 seconds.
Holy Word: Salvation is essentially an additional raid cooldown and is
the default choice for raiding. It is best used when there is more incoming
damage, being great at responding to raid-wide AoE. Although the base 12-minute
cooldown appears quite long, you can generally get the cooldown to around 4-5
minutes with regular casting of both
Holy Word: Serenity and
Holy Word: Sanctify, as both spells decrease the cooldown of Holy Word:
Salvation by 30 seconds each when cast.
Changelog
- 21 Mar. 2022: Updated some talent descriptions.
- 22 Feb. 2022: Updated with Patch 9.2 changes.
- 01 Nov. 2021: Reviewed and approved for Patch 9.1.5.
- 23 Aug. 2021: Reviewed talent suggestions and descriptions.
- 29 Jun. 2021: Reviewed and approved for Patch 9.1.
- 09 Mar. 2021: Updated talent suggestions with some Legendary Power information.
- 23 Nov. 2020: Reviewed for Shadowlands release.
- 10 Nov. 2020: Revised talent suggestions.
- 12 Oct. 2020: Page updated for the Shadowlands pre-patch.
More Priest Guides
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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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