Introduction to the Holy Priest
Healers that worship the power of the Light, Holy Priests use powerful healing spells to keep themselves and their allies healed through dire situations. The Holy specialisation allows for smooth and very strong AoE/raid healing, and it performs very well in terms of single target healing as well. Holy has traditionally been a reactive healer, using a variety of spells at its disposal to quickly heal damage taken by their allies.
Below you will find a beginners guide to the Holy Priest, you can click on highlighted abilities, for a more in depth description of them.
Strengths and Weaknesses of the Holy Priest
Strengths
- Easy to pick up and learn to play.
- Excels at reactive burst and group healing.
- Unique cooldown-based healing style providing regular bursts of healing.
Weaknesses
- Mediocre mobility while healing, with the majority of spells having cast times.
- Mediocre group healing in situations that force a large spread.
- Reliance on short cooldown abilities can hurt sustained throughput, especially single target.
Talents
Rotation of the Holy Priest
The basic rotation of the Holy Priest is as follows:
Holy Word: Sanctify when a cluster of your raid is injured
Holy Word: Serenity on an injured ally
Circle of Healing on cooldown when at least 4 allies are injured
Prayer of Mending on cooldown
Flash Heal for emergency triage on an ally near death
Prayer of Healing for general purpose raid healing
Heal for general purpose single-target healing
Renew while moving and emergency healing is required
Smite an enemy when no healing is required
Healing Cooldowns
Divine Hymn is a channeled spell that heals all raid members within 40 yards over 8 seconds, and also increase the healing they receive during that time by 10%
Guardian Spirit places a buff on the target, which lasts for 10 seconds and increases all healing received by the target by 60%
Symbol of Hope should be used towards the end of a raid encounter to give the highest potential mana back to all healers in your group
Stat Priority
The stat priority for the Holy Priest is:
- Mastery = Critical Strike
- Versatility
- Intellect
- Haste
Pro Healer (If I’m tabbed in), otherwise a total Moob