Holy Priest PvP Guide in Battle for Azeroth (BfA 8.1)
This guide will walk you through everything you need to know to play in a PvP environment. The guide will cover everything from talent choices, PvP talents, gameplay and rotation, and useful racial bonuses. It is most applicable to Arena content, but most talents and racial bonuses will work in Rated Battlegrounds and skirmishes.
1. Spec Overview / Place in the Current Meta for Holy Priests
Holy Priests are the most underrated healer . Usually a specialization that struggles, Holy Priests excel at healing against spread pressure and single-target teams. Many teams will struggle with how much utility and immunities you have.
1.1. Strengths of Holy Priests
- Strong spread healing
- Multiple powerful healing cooldowns
- Very Mana efficient
1.2. Weaknesses of Holy Priests
- Struggle against teams with two melee on it
- Have to cast most spells to get value from cooldowns
- Subpar sustained single-target healing
2. Stat Priority for Holy Priests in PvP
The stat priority for Holy Priests in PvP is as follows:
- Intellect;
- Haste;
- Versatility;
- Mastery;
- Critical Strike.
Intellect is the best stat in all situations. Haste is the strongest secondary stat at all times due to it reducing the Global Cooldown on abilities and increasing the tick rate of your HoTs. Versatility is also crucial because it increases your overall damage dealt and reduces damage you take.
3. Azerite Traits for Holy Priests
Azerite traits are unlocked in you helm, shoulders and chest. With each Azerite level in your neck, you get closer to unlocking the center trait in your gear. These traits vary from increasing damage or healing of certain abilities to helping increase your survivability. Depending on what traits you use, it can completely alter your playstyle and what talents you should be using.
3.1. Outer Ring
Below are the best Outer Ring traits.
Holy Priests do not depend on one single trait to increase their
damage. Instead, they want a mix of the above traits.
Permeating Glow increases your single target healing.
Word of Mending,
Stand As One, and
Blessed Sanctuary all help increase your spread and overall
healing output.
3.2. Middle Ring
Below are the best Middle Ring traits.
The Middle and Inner Rings are important for additional healing.
Blessed Portents and
Concentrated Mending both give
you additional healing and are great for when you are stuck in crowd control.
Woundbinder and
Earthlink give you a small stat
increase and results in increasing your total healing output.
3.3. Inner Ring
Below are the best Inner Ring traits.
All of these traits give you additional ways of surviving. These are all passive, but are crucial to have.
3.4. General Guidelines
In general, Holy Priests do not have a specific cooldown that you need trinkets to line up with. As a result, your trinkets can have a passive or on-use effect. The stat you want to be increasing is Intellect. The reason you want to increase Intellect is because it drastically increases your overall healing output.
To be successful in 3v3 arena, you need to have at least two pieces of gear
with either Word of Mending or
Archive of the Titans.
You will also want either
Blessed Portents or
Woundbinder in the second tier.
Below, we list the items that have these traits.
3.4.1. Helms
Blazewing Hood;
Sinister Gladiator's Silk Helm;
Sinister Gladiator's Silk Helm;
Sinister Gladiator's Silk Cover;
Sinister Gladiator's Silk Cover;
Horrific Amalgam's Hood;
Sirensong Headdress;
Sandspinner Headdress.
3.4.2. Shoulders
Mantle of the Skyterror;
Sinister Gladiator's Silk Mantle;
Sinister Gladiator's Silk Mantle;
Sinister Gladiator's Silk Epaulets;
Sinister Gladiator's Silk Epaulets;
Mantle of Contained Corruption;
Mantle of Ceremonial Ascension;
3.4.3. Chest
Robes of Biting Cold;
Sinister Gladiator's Silk Raiment;
Sinister Gladiator's Silk Raiment;
Sinister Gladiator's Silk Vestments;
Sinister Gladiator's Silk Vestments;
Robes of the Unraveler;
Fen Spirit Wraps;
Squallshaper Vestments.
3.5. Recommended Items
Sinister Gladiator's Maledict is absolutely the best trinket you can
have. The on-use damage and healing absorption is capable of forcing defensives
by itself. This can be used by itself or while you are using your burst rotation
to force multiple cooldowns out of enemy teams.
Sinister Gladiator's Safeguard is a mandatory trinket if you think the
enemy team can swap to you and kill you. This provides and additional defensive
for when you drop to low health. If you do not think a team will swap to you and
kill you, you can use replace this one with any of the trinkets below.
Sinister Gladiator's Badge is strong for the Versatility and the on-use
Intellect effect. The 2-minute cooldown is long, but should be used every time
you are using your burst healing rotation.
Sinister Gladiator's Insignia has a good amount of Versatility on it and
has a passive effect. This effect increases your Intellect. This increases your
sustained healing output.
3.6. Weapon Enchant
Enchant Weapon - Quick Navigation is the best weapon enchants. This
enchant provides a proc that gives you more Haste. This reduces the cast time
of your important spells and results in an increase to your overall healing. It
also increases the rate that your HoTs heal.
4. Regular Talent for Holy Priests
Level | Choices | ||
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15 |
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30 |
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45 |
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60 |
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75 |
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90 |
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100 |
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While the above table provides a generally accurate overview of the viability of talents, some finer points are discussed in the sections that follow, and we recommend you read those for a deeper understanding.
4.1. Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents
Trail of Light is the best choice in this tier. This talent
helps with healing against teams with both single target and spread
pressure.
4.2. Tier 2 (Level 30) Talents
Angelic Feather is the best choice in this tier. This will help you
run to or from enemy players. This will make it much easier to get in range of
the enemy healer for
Psychic Scream.
4.3. Tier 3 (Level 45) Talents
Guardian Angel is the best choice in this tier. Many teams will
try to avoid proccing
Guardian Spirit to prevent the healing from it.
This talent is great when teams do that, so you can use
Guardian Spirit
more often.
4.4. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents
Psychic Voice is the best choice in this tier. This gives you a
consistent crowd control on a short cooldown. However, if your team is lacking
a stun or you are playing against a team that will prevent you from reaching the
enemy healer,
Censure is the best choice in this tier.
4.5. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents
Surge of Light is the best choice in this tier. This gives you strong
single-target healing that is instant and costs no Mana. It also makes it much
easier to reduce the cooldown of
Holy Word: Serenity.
4.6. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents
Benediction is the best choice in this tier. This talent saves you
Mana and globals.
4.7. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents
Light of the Naaru is the best choice in this tier. This talent
helps reduce the cooldown of your important Holy Word spells much faster.
5. PvP Talents for Holy Priests
The first PvP talent tier is will give you a choice between
Gladiator's Medallion,
Relentless, and
Adaptation.
Against teams with very little crowd control,
Adaptation is the
best choice in this tier. With PvP talents like
Holy Ward and
Greater Fade it will make it hard for teams to put you in crowd
control. Against any other team,
Gladiator's Medallion is the best
choice in this tier. It is the standard PvP trinket effect with a 2-minute
cooldown.
You can choose 3 of the following PvP talents. Each of them has their uses, but some are better for certain strategies than others. The top three choices are the most useful, but can be replaced with other PvP talents depending on your team's goal.
Greater Fade removes all threat, increases your movement speed by
50% and causes most melee, ranged and spells to miss you for 4 seconds. This is
a crucial talent for not only avoiding crowd control, but to also avoid
damage if you are being focused. You can still be interrupted while this is
active, so be careful.
Greater Heal is a crucial PvP talent to have. Single target healing
has always been a weakness for Holy Priests. This talent provides a strong
heal when there are no interrupts available.
Rapid Mending makes
Prayer of Mending instant, and its jump
range is increased by 10 yards. The important part
about this talent is that it makes
Prayer of Mending instant. Because of
this, you will be able to keep you and your teammates alive with very little
casting. This is also a large healing increase.
Holy Word: Concentration causes all party members in the circle on the
ground to be immune to all silence and interrupt effects. This talent is
absolutely crucial against teams with multiple interrupts or if you are playing
with two casters. You can replace
Rapid Mending with this PvP
talent.
Holy Ward wards the friendly target against the next full loss of
control effect. This talent will make it very hard for enemy teams to get
crowd control on you. Against teams with multiple
Purge or
Spellsteal effects, you should use
Holy Ward right before
you are put into crowd control. You can replace
Rapid Mending with this
PvP talent.
Ray of Hope is a spell that makes it so that for the next 6 seconds,
all damage and healing dealt to the target is delayed until
Ray of Hope
ends. All healing that is delayed by
Ray of Hope is increased by 50%.
This is a powerful single-target healing cooldown. You can use this versus
teams that can only get a kill with their burst damage, RMP (Rogue/Mage/Priest)
for example. You can replace
Rapid Mending with this talent.
6. Racial Bonuses for Holy Priests
Racial bonuses can provide interesting PvP benefits. Here are the best races to choose for each faction.
6.1. Horde
The racial gained from being an Undead ( Will of the Forsaken) is
really strong. This gives you an additional way to get out of crowd
control.
6.2. Alliance
The Human racial bonus ( Every Man for Himself) is a great way to get
out of stuns.
7. Playstyle for Holy Priests
The main role for a Holy Priest, besides keeping your team alive, is to use
your utility to prevent your teammates from using cooldowns and keep them
offensive. You will be able to keep your team alive by using your powerful
utility, such as Greater Fade and
Holy Ward. By rotating these
two cooldowns you should not be in crowd control often.
To keep your team offensive, you will often push in with your team to try to
get a Holy Word: Chastise on the enemy team. You can use
Angelic Feather to increase the uptime your teammates have.
7.1. Before Gates Open
If you are playing against a team without the ability to steal/dispel
buffs on yourself, you will want to use Holy Ward before the gates
open. However, if you are playing a team with the ability to steal/dispel buffs
you will want to use it right before you enter crowd control.
Make sure to use
Power Word: Fortitude on your teammates. It can be
dispelled by abilities like
Purge or
Spellsteal, so
be prepared to apply it often
Make sure your team has a strategy for crowd control.
Holy Word: Chastise is a strong stun if you are using the talent
Censure. However, you will probably will be using
Psychic Voice. You should use
Angelic Feather to get
in range of the enemy healer for
Psychic Scream.
7.2. The Opener
The other team is going to try to force your trinket in the opener so they
have an advantage later in the game. If you are about to be put into crowd
control try to use Greater Fade if you do not have
Holy Ward
active.
As soon as the gates open you will want to use Renew on all of your
teammates, including yourself, and use
Prayer of Mending.
7.3. Healing Techniques
7.3.1. Burst Healing
The great thing about Holy Priest is that they have the multiple ways to keep teammates alive and high on health.
- The first method is best when the enemy team has multiple kicks available.
It is also the fastest way to heal someone to high HP.
- Use
Prayer of Mending if it is off cooldown.
- Use
Holy Word: Serenity.
- Use
Holy Word: Concentration if you have this talent.
- Use
Flash Heal if you have
Surge of Light.
- Use
- If you are using the
Ray of Hope PvP talent you can do the following.
- Use
Ray of Hope.
- Use
Prayer of Mending if it is off cooldown.
- Use
Holy Word: Concentration if you have this talent.
- Use
Flash Heal if you have
Surge of Light.
- Use
Renew.
- Cast
Flash Heal.
- Use
- Finally, the third method is best used when playing against teams with
strong spread pressure.
- Use
Holy Word: Sanctify.
- Use
Prayer of Mending.
- Use
Renew on all of your partners, including yourself.
- Use
Divine Hymn.
- Use
It is important to note that if you are using Apotheosis, try
to wait until you have at least one
Surge of Light proc. This
will guarantee a shorter cooldown on
Holy Word: Serenity and it
is all instant.
Holy Priest cooldowns are relatively short and you will not have to cast
often. It is important to take advantage of this by using
Prayer of Mending as soon as you can.
7.3.2. Sustained Damage Healing
Use this to heal sustained damage throughout the match (damage done when the other team does not have burst cooldowns available).
- Use
Prayer of Mending as soon as it is off cooldown. This will make up a large majority of your healing.
- Maintain
Renew on all of your teammates, including yourself.
- If you are not in danger of being interrupted, cast
Heal to save Mana.
- Use
Greater Heal.
- This heal is crucial when you are single-target healing. You need to be able to predict incoming damage and start casting this even if your teammate is at high health.
- It is best to stay max range when you are casting this to avoid interrupts the other team might have.
- Use
Flash Heal if you have
Surge of Light.
- Use
Flash Heal if one of your teammates is taking strong single target damage.
- Use
Holy Word: Sanctify on your teammates to deal with spread pressure.
- Use
Divine Hymn if your team is having trouble recovering from spread pressure.
- In the downtime of an arena match try to use
Smite to reduce the cooldown of
Holy Word: Chastise.
7.4. Holy Word Passives
A unique passive that Holy Priests have is with their Holy Word spells. This passive lets you use certain abilities to reduce the cooldown of your Holy Word spells.
Holy Word: Serenity — Every time you use
Flash Heal or
Heal, it reduces the cooldown of
Holy Word: Serenity by 6 seconds. Take advantage of this when you are playing with a team with strong single-target damage. The more times you use
Flash Heal the faster you will have your strongest heal.
Holy Word: Sanctify — Every time you use
Prayer of Mending, it reduces the cooldown of
Holy Word: Sanctify by 6 seconds and by 2 seconds when you cast
Renew. This one should not be too hard as you should be using
Prayer of Mending as soon as it is off cooldown.
Holy Word: Chastise — Every time you use
Smite, the remaining cooldown of
Holy Word: Chastise is reduced by 4 seconds. This is a very strong passive to take advantage of. It is important to use
Smite if there is any downtime in an arena match. Reducing the cooldown of your only crowd control can catch teams off guard.
7.5. Defensive Techniques
Greater Fade will be your primary defensive if teams focus you.
When active, you will take little to not damage, but will still be vulnerable
to interrupts. It is best to get interrupted and then use
Greater Fade
to greatly reduce incoming damage.
Guardian Spirit should be used when you or a teammate
is very low on health and you have do not have a way to get out of a stun.
Instead of dying you will instantly heal for 40% of your maximum health.
Desperate Prayer is a decent heal that can only be used on yourself.
Although not a defensive for yourself, Leap of Faith is great for
helping teammates who are stuck in a stun or overextended. This ability can
also be used to get your teammate behind a pillar to heal them.
8. Best Team Compositions for Holy Priests
Now that you have the correct talents and understand your damage rotation,
it is time to step into the Arena with your team. With spells like
Greater Fade,
Prayer of Mending, and great Mana regeneration,
Holy Priests have the ability to outlast most other healers and win in deep
dampening games.
8.1. 2v2 Arena
In 2v2 Arena, you will likely have a long game. Holy Priests do not have much
damage to provide for their team. Use Smite to help with damage. If you
are playing against a team with a
Purge effect, do not put
Holy Ward on yourself before the match starts. Instead, use
Holy Ward right before an enemy tries to crowd control you. You can also
use
Greater Fade to avoid crowd control or damage. It is important to
note that Holy Priests, just like Discipline Priests, have a few spells that
have multiple schools of casting. If you use
Mind Control and get
interrupted, you can still cast all of your Holy spells.
Here is a list of the best team compositions for 2v2:
- Holy Priest + Frost Mage;
- Holy Priest + Windwalker Monk;
- Holy Priest + Destruction Warlock;
- Holy Priest + Feral Druid.
8.2. 3v3 Arena
Your role in 3v3 is similar to 2v2 Arena. Make sure to use
Prayer of Mending as soon as it is off cooldown. This will help with
stopping your team from taking heavy spread damage. Make sure to maintain
Renew on all of your teammates. You have a ranged crowd control in the
form of
Holy Word: Chastise. Use this ability if one of your teammates
needs to land crowd control on the enemy healer. Taking advantage of
Mind Control is crucial to being successful in 3v3 as a Holy Priest.
If the enemy team is using their burst rotation, use
Mind Control. If
you get interrupted it is okay because you can still cast the rest of your Holy
spells.
Here is a list of the best team compositions for 3v3:
- Holy Priest + Elemental Shaman + Arcane Mage;
- Holy Priest + Destruction Warlock + Elemental Shaman;
- RMP (Holy Priest + Subtlety Rogue + Frost Mage);
- Holy Priest + Outlaw Rogue + Elemental Shaman;
9. Useful Macros for Holy Priests
Macros are crucial to be successful in PvP. They allow players to use abilities on enemies without having to target them. This helps increase overall damage/healing and general awareness in the arena. Here are a few macros that all Holy Priests can benefit from.
9.1. Holy Word: Chastise 123 Macro
- #showtooltip Holy Word: Chastise
- /cast [target=arena1] Holy Word: Chastise
Using this macro will use Holy Word: Chastise on arena enemy 1.
This makes it easier to crowd control an enemy while healing your team.
If you want macros for the second and third enemies, simply change the arena1
to arena2 or arena3.
9.2. Purify Party Macro
- #showtooltip Purify
- /cast [target=party1] Purify
Using this macro will cast Purify on party player 1.
This makes it easier to dispel a teammate while healing the rest of your team.
If you want a macro to dispel the second party member, change the party1 to
party2.
9.3. Holy Ward Self Macro
- #showtooltip
- /cast [target=YOURNAMEHERE] Holy Ward
Using this macro will use Holy Ward on yourself. This makes it
quicker to use if crowd control is being cast on you.
10. Changelog
- 09 Feb. 2019: Updated Gear Recommendations and Item Recommendations sections.
- 11 Jan. 2019: Updated Guide for Patch 8.1.
- Updated Azerite Traits.
- Updated PvP talents.
- Updated Burst Healing section.
- Updated Sustained Healing section.
- Updated Best Team Compositions section.
- 28 Nov. 2018: Added Gear Guidelines section.
- 04 Oct. 2018: Removed Artifact traits and Relics section.
- Added Stat Priority and Azerite trait section.
- Added Talent Table.
- 02 Oct. 2018: Removed PvP Gear and War Mode sections.
- 27 Aug. 2018: Updated Air Drops section.
- 07 Aug. 2018: Updated guide for Patch 8.0.1.
- Updated Introduction and spec overview.
- Updated Tiers 3, 4, 5, 6 regular talent sections.
- Added PvP (War Mode) talents and gear sections for the new BfA system.
- Updated Racial Bonuses section.
- Updated Burst Healing and Sustained Healing sections.
- Updated Macros section.
- Removed Gear section.
- Updated Artifact Traits and Relics sections.
- 09 Jun. 2018: Added an Arena Compositions section.
- 12 Apr. 2018: Made several updates to the guide and its structure.
- Added sections for Macros, Strengths, and Weaknesses.
- Moved Gear, Artifact Traits, and Relics sections to the end, since they are not that important.
- Changed recommended Tier 5 and 7 regular talents and Tier 2 honor talent.
- Updated "Burst Healing" and "Sustained Healing" rotations.
- 15 Nov. 2017: Fixed a small error in the Serendipity description.
- 09 Sep. 2017: Not many updates needed for 7.3
- Removed Artifact Trait descriptions.
- Changed recommended Tier 1 regular talents.
- 04 Aug. 2017: Changed a spell error under the "Burst Healing" rotation.
- 06 Jul. 2017: Guide added.
Other PvP Guides
Holy Priest PvE Guides
This guide has been written by Mysticall, a seasoned PvP player who has repeatedly achieved Arena Master and 2500 rating. You can watch his stream on Twitch, and you can also check out his YouTube channel.

- Wintergrasp 8.1.5 PTR Testing: February 19th
- Rextroy's 40 Vs 40 Events
- Patch 8.1 Hotfixes: February 14th
- Patch 8.1.5: Kul Tiran Human Intro Cutscene
- Patch 8.1.5: Zandalari Troll Intro Cutscene
- PvP Hotfixes: Feb 13th - Massive Mana Regen Nerf
- Crucible of Storms Raid Testing: Feb 21st-25th
- Patch 8.1.5 Build 29352: Highlights


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