Holy Priest PvP Rotation and Playstyle (Shadowlands / Patch 9.2)
PvP requires you to perform various actions in the course of a duel, match, or battleground: interrupting/silencing enemies, healing your teammates and yourself, defending yourself, keeping yourself alive, etc.. It is a game mode that fully utilises your kit, especially spells that are rarely used in PvE. On this page, we go through all the spells you need to use in PvP as a Holy Priest, how you should use them, and we explain what your playstyle should be.
This page is part of our Holy Priest PvP Guide.
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.
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. You should use
Angelic Feather to get in range of the
enemy healer for
Psychic Scream.
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.
Healing Techniques
Damage Rotation
Something to always keep in mind during the course of an arena match is dealing damage while also healing. Do not sacrifice healing to do more damage, but when there are situations where your team is safe, it is a good idea to output some damage. Here is what you can do to deal more damage:
- Use
Shadow Word: Pain on the enemy your team is trying to kill. If you can, try to use it on as many enemies as possible. You can also use this while kicked on the Holy school.
Holy Fire is a casted spell that deals a decent amount of damage. This does open you up to being interrupted, so it is best to use when the enemy team does not have interrupts available.
Smite is another casted spell. If
Holy Fire is on cooldown and you still want to do damage, start casting Smite to do some single-target damage. It is important to note that the more you do damage with Smite, the faster
Holy Word: Chastise will come off cooldown.
Shadow Word: Death is a very interesting damage ability. The primary use for this ability is to deal damage with it to an enemy before they crowd control you. If it does not kill the enemy, it will deal damage to you, breaking the crowd control.
Ideally, use Shadow Word: Pain on your primary target. If there is
downtime and the enemy team has no interrupts, cast
Holy Fire for a
moderate amount of damage.
Burst Healing
The great thing about Holy Priest is that they have the multiple ways to
keep teammates alive and high on health. 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.
- 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
Power Word: Shield on any teammates taking damage.
- Use
Prayer of Mending if it is off cooldown.
- Use
Renew on all of your partners, including yourself.
- If you are using the
Holy Priest 2-Piece or
Holy Priest 4-Piece, you wnat to make sure to use
Divine Conversation on
Holy Word: Serenity. To do this, use
Holy Word: Sanctify or
Holy Word: Chastise, then use
Holy Word: Serenity.
- Use
Holy Word: Serenity.
- Use
Holy Word: Serenity again if you are using the
Miracle Worker PvP talent.
- Use
Holy Word: Concentration if you have this talent.
- Use
Power Infusion.
- Use Power Infusion when you feel you are about to cast a few spells and need the extra Haste. This is a baseline ability at Level 58.
- Use
Flash Heal if you have
Surge of Light.
- Cast
Greater Heal if you are using this PvP talent.
- If you are stunned or need additional cooldowns to keep your teammate alive,
Guardian Spirit should be used.
- Use
Mindgames on the kill target if you are Venthyr.
- Use
- The second method is best used when playing against teams with
strong spread pressure.
- Use
Power Word: Shield on any teammates taking damage.
- Use
Holy Word: Sanctify.
- Use
Prayer of Mending.
- Use
Renew on all of your partners, including yourself.
- Channel
Divine Hymn behind the pillar so it does not get interrupted.
- Use
Holy Word: Serenity.
- Use
Holy Word: Serenity again if you are using the
Miracle Worker PvP talent.
- Use
Power Infusion.
- Use Power Infusion when you feel you are about to cast a few spells and need the extra Haste. This is a baseline ability at Level 58.
- Cast
Greater Heal if you are using this PvP talent.
- Cast
Flash Heal if your team is still low.
- Cast
Heal if your team is stables and want to save Mana.
- Use
Mindgames on the kill target if you are Venthyr.
- Use
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.
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
Power Word: Shield on any teammates taking damage.
- 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.
- If you are using the
Holy Priest 2-Piece or
Holy Priest 4-Piece, you wnat to make sure to use
Divine Conversation on
Holy Word: Serenity. To do this, use
Holy Word: Sanctify or
Holy Word: Chastise, then use
Holy Word: Serenity.
- 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.
- Cast
Heal to conserve Mana if your team is not in any danger of dying.
- Use
Mindgames on the kill target if you are Venthyr.
- 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.
- Cast
Smite if your team is safe and you want to play aggressively with your team.
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.
Cooldowns/Defensives
Power Infusion is by far one of the strongest healing cooldowns you have. Not only can this ability be used on yourself, but it can be used on a teammate. This means that, if you are playing against a team that does not have many interrupts for you, you can use this on someone on your team and they will get the Haste buff. Use this when you need to start casting healing spells, or use it on a teammate when they need to cast important spells.
Symbol of Hope is an incredible defensive cooldown for your teammates. A full channel of this spell reduces the cooldown of any major defensives by 60 seconds. In addition to this, they will also regain a large amount of Mana back. Use this when you need Mana and when your teammates need to get their defensives back. This can be used while out of line of the enemy team. If you do this, you will not be able to get interrupted and get full value out of the spell.
Shadow Word: Death should be used on enemies below 20% health, it has a much more important use for a Discipline Priest. You can use this ability at any time, but if the target does not die, it will deal damage to yourself. This is extremely important because, if there is an enemy Mage on the other team, you can use Shadow Word: Death at the end of the cast and deal damage to yourself, breaking the crowd control on you.
Greater Fade will be your primary defensive if teams focus you. When active, you will take little to no 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 increases your health by 25% for 10 seconds, and instantly heals you for that amount. This is great for when you get are being targeted or get interrupted on a Shadow ability, like
Mind Control.
- 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.
Macros
It is advised to use Macros to use abilities on enemies or allies without having to target them. For this reason, we have a page dedicated to them.
Changelog
- 04 Apr. 2022: Updated Defensives section.
- 01 Mar. 2022: Updated for Patch 9.2.
- Updated Healing Rotations.
- 26 Nov. 2021: Updated for Patch 9.1.5.
- 02 Jul. 2021: Updated Defensives section.
- 08 Mar. 2021: Reviewed for Patch 9.0.5.
- 05 Dec. 2020: Updated Rotations to include Covenant Ability.
- 30 Nov. 2020: Removed outdated Traits and Essences.
- 15 Oct. 2020: Updated for Shadowlands pre-patch (9.0.1)
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.
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