Hello there again! For those of you who don’t know me, I am Alexandar, in-game Iqui. I’ve been playing priest since early Molten and pretty much experienced every inch of the game features WotLK expansion offers for priests. When my previous “guide” – post on discipline priest in 0% buff LK encounter was released I had so many questions about holy priest role, some of them are about basics of holy priest but most of them are about end game raiding tips in a holy priest role, so, I’ve decided to share some of my knowledge. I won’t be covering the basic facts about holy priest like stats and complete talents overview, also there won’t be any formula or any other mathematic coverage on my words cause I find this useless to talk about while playing on private server. The idea is to give you guys practical tips so you can test and and impletement it in your own gameplay. This guide will be based on a practical analysis not mathematics or in depth theorycrafting.
However, way before I decided to write this guide, I’ve done some in-game tests with my friends who also play holy priests since the beginning of the expansion (Tutantlakon and Foks) and pretty much excel as holy priests, and in the end we came to a solid conclusion about stats/talents and gear composition on how should a holy priest be set up to cover all the aspects of end game raiding content so it only makes it easier and efficient for players.
As mentioned above, this guide is based on end – game raiding only, so to narrow it a bit, I will be focusing on holy priest role on some bosses of Icecrown Citadel 25 Heroic (with and without 30% Aura) with emphasis on Lady Deathwhisper, Deathbringer Saurfang, Professor Putricide, Blood Queen, Sindragosa and Lich King and Ruby Sanctum 25 Heroic – Halion.
So, following my previous words, this guide will be divided into five sections:
- Talents and Glyphs overview
- Gear setup and item variations
- Tactics and healing output in different boss encounters
- User Interface and Addons
- Practical demonstration and videos
1. Talents and Glyphs overview
Holy priest is, from my point of view and Wotlk experience, one of the hardest classes to master if we’re talking about healer mechanics. Since the Wotlk was released, there were different talent solutions for holy priest throughout the game which were covering either tank healing or raid healing, so people had to rely mostly on those 2 specs which basicly only depends on the raid composition and raids needs. Holy priests were rarely asigned as tank healers due to inferiority in single target healing to holy paladins or resto shamans, but most of the time they were fitting as raid healers due to strong AOE healing output and variety of spells to keep the raid alive. I won’t be covering these two specs I mentioned above, since you can find them in the guides Mercy, Noella and Boonsbane wrote but I will focus on the one I found to be best relying for end -game raiding which is unique and offers both to the raid: strong single target heals and AOE healing. After few tests made during end game raiding with Foks and Tutan in the past 2 years, this spec seems to be giving the best healing output soultion both on tanks and raid group with coordinated and efficient mana management. According to this, the talent tree and glyph solution should look like this:
As I mentioned in the starting paragraphs, I will not be explaining every talent in this tree cause I would be repeating myself after people who did it in the past few years. Explanations can be found on Mercy’s or Noellas guide. But, before you ask any questions I want to explain why I chose some specific talents:
Why did I invest into Improved Power Word: Shield when we’re not playing discipline here?
During boss fights like Halion 25H or Lich King 25H we are supposed to use shield on the tanks during our healing “rotation”. Firstly, on Halion, there won’t be any discipline priest inside the shadow realm (where the holy priest is mostly assigned to heal) and the extra shield on the tank inside during cutters or before breath can help significantly. Also whenever someone gets the Soul Consumption debuff and Hand of Freedom is not used properly on that guy, the initial dmg after the dispel can be fatal, our shied creates a 1 second window for defensives in this case or instant heals. On the other hand, while fighting Lich King on 25H where we actually have a discipline priest, we will be using our shield mostly on Off – tank in Phase 1 whenever Shambling gets into Frenzy to minimize dmg on him and on the Main tank in Phase 2 right before the first Soul Reaper hit so we can easely continue healing the raid on Infest without wasting any globals. As for 0% buff LK25H encounter, we will be using our shield right after first Soul Reaper tick to minimize the incoming damage from melee hits and maybe save his life (Shield + Inspiration). While fighting Lich King, an experienced discipline priest should never shield the tanks while his Rapture is not on cooldown so we are using it as a filler and spending one point into this talent to increase its absorb potential is a efficient and smart investment.
Why did I invest into Mental Agility if I’m running a “hybrid holy spec”?
If the healer setup is good and experienced, tank healing will not be an issue so we will be focused on raid healing with our instant cast spells like Renew, Prayer of Mending and Circle of Healing. During short fights like bosses in TOGC 25 this talent doesn’t play a big role but on Halion 25h or ICC 25H bosses where we receive a huge amount of AOE dmg in the raid, that 10% mana cost reduction on the spells we use most of the time is really helpful.
Why I didn’t include Blessed Resilience and Test of Faith into this talent setup?
Simple. The percentage of increased effectiveness of healing spells it almost insignificant if we’re running a hybrid spec. If the raid is dropping under 50% during the fight that means the healers are really, really bad or the raid setup is totally wrong ( no retris, no shadow priests etc) which basicly means holy priest has to manage all by himself.
Why am I not using Body and Soul talent?
Yeah, this talent looks and sounds cool but its totally useless in end-game raiding content. Yeah, you could shield people before they get defile on LK to move faster, you can shield them to get speed to move faster inside Shadow realm on Halion while affected with Consumption, but still, is it really worth wasting 2 talent points so you could give legs to your raid members? End – game raids require you to know every aspect of the specific raid, every mechanic boss does and so, you should be able to manage your movement even without speed buff like this talent or nitro boots. In the end, I would say: for progressing yes, for end game hardcore NO.
Magical question: Why is Spell Warding excluded and Divine Fury 5/5?
Lets start with arguments and pros and cons. Damage taken in Wotlk is divided into 2 sources: Spell and Physical. Spell Warding 5/5 makes us receive 10% less dmg from Spells which is totaly useful considering the wide range of magical damage in end game content. On the other hand, Divine Fury 5/5 decreases the casting time of our Greater Heal. General logic behind all this, considering only serious end game raiding, would be: is it worth sacrificing 5 points which increase your healing output for 5 points of your own survivability. The talent tree I made represents my opinion on this so as the facts that in case of heavy spell damage to raid priest can and SHOULD use Binding Heal to top himself and a raid member so you won’t think about being killed and risking another raid member to die cause you wasted time for healing yourself. Binding Heal, most of the priests on this server don’t even know this spell exists. Try it. Also, some would say without this talent you can’t clear Infest on 0% buff with single Prayer of Healing and Circle of Healing precast, again false, and you can see the proof in my videos below. As for Divine Fury, most people would say the small decrease in casting time of Greater Heal means nothing since we have Serendipity stacked but this is false. While solo healing LK 10H on 0% buff you could see the big difference when tank drops cause and you need to heal him while Serendipity is not up. Conclusion: If you want to take care of yourself in the raid more than you want to care of the raid, take Spell Warding and waste 5 points.
About glyphs:
The only glyph that is to be considered for replacement ,depending on the boss encounters, is the Glyph of Prayer of Healing. You could replace this glyph with the Glyph of Flash Heal. If there is less AOE damage in the raid pick Flash Light, otherwise stick to Prayer of Healing. Examples: Halion 25 Shadow realm: Prayer of Healing (constant AOE dmg) , Halion 25h Physical realm: Flash Heal (AOE dmg only on Meteor, strong single target damage on tanks). Glyphs of CoH and GS should never be changed because they significantly increase our output, both utility and healing wise.
2. Gear setup and item variations
As you can see in this build I did not include Death Surgeon's Sleeves, Nightmare Ender, Ashen Band of Endless Wisdom and Royal Scepter of Terenas II. Reason for not including the wrist and the wand is because these two items are not offering any haste rating which is essential for us if we run this talent build. The amount of spirit we sacrificed is not that worth as the haste rating and constant increased stats we get from Bracers of Fiery Night and Corpse-Impaling Spike. As for Ashen ring, if you go down deeply into theorycrafting every single fight in end game Wotlk holy priest-wise, including this ring which gives lower constant stats from start than Ring of Phased Regeneration, after few raids, you will realise that the spell power proc which this ring gives with its up/and downtime is totaly wasted in some certain points of fights, especially the short ones. Going for constant stats is always better in terms of high end game raiding and fast and efficient raids.
As for the wepons, it is obvious that Royal Scepter of Terenas II gives better passive stats than Val'anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings but considering the buff Blessing of Ancient Kings provides, doing heals with it is way better, especially on this build. On the other hand, after doing several solo heal/ solo tank 0% buff Banes, I realised that using Val'anyr in this type of encounter is totaly useless because in each kill, the total absorption of Val'anyr shields in the entire raid was never above 100k so its better to go with Terenas since you already have increased stats from starts.
3. Tactics and healing output in different boss encounters
Lady Deathwhisper 25 Heroic
In Phase one stand in the middle and heal members who get damaged by Death and Decay. When adds spawn, keep a distance and keep an eye on fury warriors and boomkins in your raid and keep healing the tank with Renew and Flash Heal. When they start damaging the adds warriors and boomkins tend to die really fast if they are not toped with heals because of the high amount of threat they get (Hurricane, Whirlwind etc). To prevent their death make sure to call out a Hand of Protection on boomkin or if its on fwarr use your Guardian Spirit. It is important that you monitor the behavior of those 2-3 raid members on mentioned classes so you can react fast and maybe save a life, who knows. When some of the raid members gets Frost Fever just dispel it and continue healing. Help the raid while using Psychic Scream on Mind Controlled members.
In Phase two, managing your movement while healing is really important. The healers positioning should be sth like this:
Reason for this is that this way healers don’t need to move much when Vengeful Shade are spawned and in case one of them is targeted, that specific healer can move away from the raid without disturbing the rest of the healers. Like this the only problem which can occur is melees triggering spirits in the melee range. To prevent melees from duying, make sure you spam Renew + Circle of Healing on the melee groups and keep Prayer of Mending bouncing from the tank to the melee group. In this situation, discipline priest should Mass Dispel every slow from Lady’s Frostbolt so melees can move fast while targeted by spirits. If not, do the Mass Dispel by yourself . In case you see that spirits are about to eat the melees, make sure you precast Inner Focus + Divine Hymn to save some lives. Apart from that, healing here should be: Flash Heal on tank to keep Inspiration up, keep Renew on people (frostbolt dmg, death and decay dmg) and keep Prayer of Mending bouncing around. For emergency situations like spirits explosions you can precast few Prayer of Healings and Circle of Healing on the groups who are most affected so make sure you pay attention the entire fight.
Deathbringer Saurfang 25 Heroic
Make sure you are spread with other ranged dps. Keep Renew on the raid members affected by Boiling Blood and keep using Power Word: Shield and Prayer of Mending on the tank which is holding the boss. Apart from healing Boiling Blood, useFlash Heal on the tank to keep Inspiration up and running. When the Mark of the Fallen Champion appears, place your Renew and spam Prayer of Mending and Flash Heal on that specific raid member. Use Guardian Spirit in case the target with Mark of the Fallen Champion starts dropping low. In case you get the Mark of the Fallen Champion instead of healing with Flash Heal, use Renew on yourself and start using Binding Heal on the tanks or people with Boiling Blood . This way you take care of the Mark on yourself and heal the raid members in the same time.
Professor Putricide 25 Heroic
Start by applying Renew, Prayer of Mending and Flash Heal on the main tank to proc Inspiration. When the raid starts getting AOE dmg start applying Renew and let Prayer of Mending bounce around. When Abomination spawns put it on focus and make sure you heal it with Renew and few Flash Heal if other resto shaman/ hpala slacks. When oozes appear, make sure you monitor the targets of the oozes, apply renew on the member targeted by red ooze and hard heal him with flash heals. As a healer make sure you are away from the target of the green ooze so you can cast heals without disturbance and without getting knocked back. If you see the raid member targeted by the green ooze is standing alone, make sure you use Guardian Spirit on him cause otherwise he will die for sure. If other members are stacked, the damage will be shared, it means you should use your Glowing Twilight Scale and do some Flash Heal to top the knocked group. If one of the groups is around 50% hp precast Prayer of Healing (you will have Serendipity stacked 3 times while previously toping the knocked group) + Circle of Healing to top them and continue applying Renew + Prayer of Mending on the raid. The rest of the fight is pretty simple, always position yourself the way you can heal the entire raid, to see and avoid maleabe goo and be ready to heal the tank hard with single target healing after you reach the last phase. In the last phase if the tank starts droping low you can use your Guardian Spirit to increase the healing cause it will be off cooldown if it didn’t proc earlier to green ooze target. When people are "dps whoring", especialy when oozes spawn and they continue tunneling the boss instead of switching to oozes, the explosion and knockback from the green ooze can criticaly damage the raid if people are not stacked properly to share the damage. In this case make sure your instantly use Inner Focus and precast Divine Hymn.
Blood-Queen Lana'thel 25 Heroic
This is the fight where holy priests and resto druids shine because of the AOE raid dmg aura present in this fight. Position yourself left or right side of the room not too close to the melees so in case you get Swarming Shadows you can move to the wall and prevent the possibility of spreading it to the raid group. At start of the fight, use Fear Ward on yourself and start healing by using Prayer of Mending on the tank. Continue with applying Renew on the raid group and using Circle of Healing on cooldown on the most affected groups. This is a fight where Glyph of Prayer of Healing comes in handy so make sure you have it before the fight starts. If tank starts taking heavy dmg use Renew on him and apply few Flash Heals to stack Serendipity and apply Inspiration. Inspiration should never fall from the tank. With Serendipity stacked you are able to cast Prayer of Healing fast on the critical groups. On Incite Terror, make sure you run to the middle and precast Mass Dispel. Before she starts flying, there will be 1 raid member with Swarming Shadows on him, when fear hits he will most likely die on 25H mode if its not instantly dispelled. Keep an eye on that specific raid member and if no one dispels him fast enough preapply Guardian Spirit just in case it goes bad ways. The rest of the fight is same as mentioned above, heal the AOE dmg and cast some Binding Heals in case you get splashed and you need to heal another raid member asap.
Sindragosa 25 Heroic
Before she lands make sure you cast Flash Heal on the tank once or twice to apply Inspiration and use Renew, Prayer of Mending and Power Word: Shield on him. When she lands, raid will start receiving dmg from the aura. Start by applying Renew to every raid member and use Circle of Healing / Prayer of Mending on cooldown. When Unchained Magic debuff is applied on raid members, make sure you keep Renew on them and whenever you can, if you are healing Sindragosa without disco, use Power Word: Shield on resto shaman and holy paladin if they are high on Instability stacks. If you get the debuff, move away from the raid but make sure you are on the side where the tank is so you can heal him also. When Sindragosa flies, if you don’t have unchained, apply Renew on the tomb marked raid members and if you see at least 2 or 3 members from the same group are marked for tomb start precasting Prayer of Healing on that group, you will top them even if they got entombed, it works through tombs if you precast the healing spell before the tomb landed. Again, when she starts flying down, make sure you have Inspiration on the the tank before Sindi hits him. Why? Parry haste. Make sure you have Inspiration up and running asap and all the time. Serve your purpose.
Lich King 25 Heroic
Phase 1
Position yourself with the ranged group and apply Power Word: Shield on the MT few seconds before the fight starts. Also 5 seconds before the fights started use Prayer of Mending / Renew and cast few Flash Heals on the MT to proc Inspiration. Make sure you have enabled tracking for Power Word: Shield on your healing addon so you can see which group has to be toped after Infest. After first wave of ghouls, you can see which melees (mostly fwars/ retris/rogues) are receiving damage from physical hits of ghouls and make sure you keep Renew on them. Since the discipline will not be shielding this group cause of his Rapture procs, make sure you precast Prayer of Healing on this group without shields so you can delete the Infest from them fast and continue healing the tanks. In case there is heavy ghoul damage on warriors due to Cleaving and Infest hits, Prayer of Healing followed by Circle of Healing would clear the damage problem while fighting LK on 30% buff. Apart from monitoring the melee group, make sure you keep Renew on the both tanks and Prayer of Mending bouncing from tank to melee group, also Inspiration on tank up and running with few Flash Heal criticals. As in end game guilds, off tank, retri paladins or discipline should be assigned to dispel the Necrotic Plague, if that doesn’t happen make sure you do it. After the first Shambling Horror, off tank will start receiving heavy physical damage and from this moment you have to monitor 3 things: Main tank and off tank hp and cooldowns and raid group. Make sure the Inspiration never drops from the tanks by casting Flash Heal on OT and Prayer of Mending/ Flash Heal on the Main tank. Since in most of the LK 25h fights (non speed kill ones, and if BL/Hero is not used in p1 and considering the average dps in these raids, ) second Shambling Horror appears few seconds before going out to transition, this is a breaking point where you need to monitor the hp of the OT as well as his cooldowns so you can time your Guardian Spirit effectively by tracking Frenzy on Shambling Horrors. In most of the cases off tank (in this situation prot paladin) will use Divine Protection on the Frenzy of the first Shambling so he can minimize the damage done by both shamblings, so make sure you use your Guardian Spirit right after DP ends so you could help him survive the incoming damage from next Shambling Hits. Hopefuly Guardian Spirit will not proc if the following heals on the OT are good and you will have your GS cooldown reseted and ready for Phase 2.
1st transition phase:
When you go out to transition, make sure you are not standing close to anyone in the raid so you can monitor the raid situation clearly and react fast in case of emergencies. Since the damage on transition mostly comes from Pain and Suffering and slightly from Remorseless Winter (if you have greedy melees), your healing output on both transitions should be: Renew on raid members by focus on melee group, Circle of Healing on cooldown and Prayer of Mending bouncing in the raid group. After 6-7 secs into Transition use your Glowing Twilight Scale since the damage from Pain and Suffering is stronger now and most of the shields are broken. Make sure you keep Inspiration on the tank who is assigned for Ragings ( in most cases scenario would be mostly MT and OT is taking the last Raging since the MT will be focused on LK while entering into P2). From now there will be 2 breaking moments. First one is if one of the melees gets targeted by Ice Sphere (1) and second one is entrance to Throne at start of Phase 2. When one of the melees gets targeted by Ice Sphere (1), he starts dealing damage to nearby melees around him cause of Ice Burst effect. If he doesn’t move from the group make sure you have Serendipity stacked up and running so you can react and precast Prayer of Healing on the most affected melee group also followed by Circle of Healing. On 30% buff, this damage is significant but not fatal. On 0% buff, if that specific guy doesn’t move from the melee group, after 2nd tick of Ice Burst the entire affected group will be at 10% hp which pretty much means few people dead due to huge AOE dmg in entire transition. This is where our Glyph of Prayer of Healing comes in handy in case the group gets smashed by Sphere dmg and you have to heal them. A powerful and well timed Prayer of Healing precast can save the entire group and will leave a HoT on them which is very useful on transitions with constant damage.
Phase 2:
Second breaking moment is the entrance to phase 2 followed by Infest. Before entering the Throne, make sure you have Renew on the people who got damaged by Pain and Suffering so you can top them. While going in, use Power Word: Shield + Prayer of Mending + Renew on the main tank and a Flash Heal, so Inspiration will be applied before LK casts Infest and does the first melee hit. After that, since the discipline priest will start preshielding few seconds before transition ends, and some of those shields will probably break, make sure you precast Prayer of Healing on the group without shields right before Infest hits so there won’t be any Infest tails left and you could position yourself for the first wave of valkyrs. Phase two has has 2 critical points healing-wise. First one is always about managing Infest and second one is managing the Soul Reapers.
1st crucial point: Managing the Infest
Many healers, even non-priest ones, are understanding the concept of Infest totally wrong. Most of them, as seen through the raids in past few years think that by leaving a HoT on raid members will remove the Infest with its ticks and that’s it. This is partialy wrong since in order to remove it, that specific raid member needs to healed above 90% hp, otherwise his hp will constantly drop due to increased shadow damage he suffers from Infest ticks. Why partialy: Rdudu’s Regrowth leaves a HoT but the cast heals the target also by significat amount and the Infest is removed instantly. We are talking about instant HoTs here. So the point is, from holy priest PoV, if the disco didn’t shield group 1 for e.g. (which is mostly warriors grp) or the shields broke before Infest, you should: 1. In 30% buffed LK25h fight: using Circle of Healing instantly on the group right after Infest hit and follow it by Flash Heals on remaining Infest and 2. In 0% buff LK25h fight: Start pre-casting Prayer of Healing right on Infest cast in order to clear the group from Infest since Circle of Healing will not remove it entirely cause the initial damage is too big. There is no place for Renew in these situations, only for Prayer of Mending if only 1 target is left and affected by Infest. Never Renew, don’t risk it. The goal is to clear it and continue healing the tank, not fight it.
2nd crucial point: Managing the Soul Reapers
In order to heal the damage caused by Soul Reaper on the tank, first, you need to understand how actualy Soul Reaper works. Soul Reaper is a debuff that is applied on our tank after LK hits him for 50% weapon damage. This effect deals xxx Shadow damage after 5 sec and increases the LK's haste by 100% for 5 sec. When the LK hits the tank with his weapon that damage is considered Physical. Five seconds after the Reaper is applied tank gets hit by shadow damage. After that LK’s melee haste is inceased by 100% and the damage that tank receives at this point is combined Physical (cause of fast melee hits) and Shadow due to Reaper damage. Since the damage tank receives is both Physical and Shadow, we need to time our abilities perfectly in order to heal the Reaper properly and this is really important since there is a difference while fighting LK with and without ICC buff aura.
From a holy priest player perspective, I find this way of handling the Soul Reaper as a most effective one: Flash Heal + Prayer of Mending on the tank 3 secs before the Reaper is applied to apply Inspiration before he gets hit by LK melee hit since its pure Physical damage. Note: Sometimes you have to cast Flash Heal 2 times if the first one doesn’t crit but imo experience it happens rarely. Right after you placed Prayer of Mending, apply Power Word: Shield on the tank and wait for the Reaper effect. On the last second before the shadow damage comes in, start precasting Greater Heal and with its application, tank will be topped to 100% hp.
On 30% buff: Use Guardian Spirit before the Reaper hits. Why? You increase the healing done from all resources and since the LK doesn’t hit that hard on melee hits as it does on 0% buff the cooldown will be set to 1 min and you will have it up and going for 3rd reaper. Also, using Guardian Spirit on first reaper is not that mandatory on 30% buff as it is on unbuffed fight since even with proper tank cd usage followed by 2 perfectly timed holy lights from hpala, reaper is survived. Here we use our shield to mitigate melee swings not shadow damage.
On 0% buff: use Guardian Spirit right after the Soul Reaper is applied. Why? The physical hit will be lowered enough with tank def cooldown combined with Hand of Sacrifice as external so the the part where tank is supposed to die is the last melee hit combined with shadow damage. We delay the usage of Guardian Spirit not only to increase the healing on death-striking melee hits but to prevent his death since when GS procs tank won’t die and we will only have it on cooldown by full duration. Utility above all. Here, we use our shield to mitigate shadow damage, so we wait and use it 2 secs before shadow damage because we’re precasting Greater Heal right after Shadow damage is appled.
The picture below reflects how Soul Reaper works and and how does not affect the Melee swing timer. Videos can be found in the last section of this guide.
The problem occurs when LK is casting something, Infest or Defile for e.g., cause each cast is reseting his melee swing timer. That’s why healing the first Soul Reaper is easy cause its constant, but for the next ones is tricky. When LK is about to apply Soul Reaper, his melee swing timer does not reset. But when he starts casting Infest, his melee swing timer is reseted and his next melee attack will be 1,8s after he finished casting the Infest. The problem occurs when Shadow damage from Soul Reaper comes in together with a melee hit and tank gets roasted if he is not healed properly.
Since we understand now how to predict damage and heal the Reaper properly, next thing we have to worry about is Valkyrs. On Warmane, Valkyrs were bugged for a long time and healers didn’t have to worry about its damage on the tank when they are dropped under 50% hp and airborne again. Now, when its fixed it becomes a huge pain in the *** for healers, especially on 0% buff LK25h. Apart from Melee hits from LK, Soul Reaper and Infest in p2, tank receives damage from another source after the first wave of Valkyrs. It is from Life Siphon after each valk is dropped under 50% hp and airborne again. Since there are 3 Valks in each wave, after each wave tank is getting roasted by damage he receives and the damage in the raid has to be really satisfying so you could push the LK to phase 2.5. Since the damage is increased, and now its constant shadow + physical damage, we need to keep our Inspiration up all the time as well as Power Word: Shield on the tank on Weakened Soul downtime so we lower the damage he receives and buy time so we can also heal the raid on Infests and the tank on each melee hit. On 30% buff the damage the tank receives from Life Siphon is not that big and its easely healable, but on 0% buff, each valk wave cleared is a timing death bomb on the tank. To heal this damage, we should have our Renew up and running on the tank as well as Prayer of Mending jumping in the melee range. When each Infest hits we clear the remains by precasting Prayer of Healing and using Circle of Healing as a follow up. After that we just heal the tank with Flash Heal and Binding Heal and do the same as mentioned above on each Soul Reaper.
Phase 2.5 is same as Phase 1.5, spread around, heal with Renew, Prayer of Mending and Circle of Healing. In case of heavy sphere damage use Prayer of Healing and conserve your mana.
Phase 3:
Few seconds after transition has ended, Lich King will cast Harvest Soul which pulls the entire raid into Frostmourne chamber. Right while you enter the throne, make sure you place Inspiration on the tank and start applying Renew on the raid members as many as you can. LK will cast Harvest Soul and you will be teleported in the center of the chamber. Since the chamber has constant AOE dmg aura and you have to move a lot, use your Glowing Twilight Scale right when you get teleported and use Circle of Healing to proc it. After that start moving with the raid and spam Renew / Prayer of Mending and Circle of Healing on the raid. If the raid is getting huge shadow damage, don’t hesitate and cast some Prayer of Healings to top them up, especially when entire group is having their hp halved. This is mostly painful on 0% buff where our resistance is lower. One second before going out of the chamber place Inspiration on the MT and use Power Word: Shield on him. After you get teleported to the Throne, wait for Defile and after that position yourself behind the LK so you don’t get damage from Vile Spirits and start healing the tanks with Flash Heal / Prayer of Mending and using Power Word: Shield as explained above for each Soul Reaper. In case of solo tanking, use your Guardian Spirit on the first Soul Reaper after the chamber so you will have it up for 3rd. When the LK finishes his summoning of Vile Spirits , tanks will reposition and you have a 4-5 secs gap to reapply Renew on the raid before you get pulled to FMC again. Repeat the healing rotation as mentioned above in the chamber.
Halion 25 Heroic
On Halion 25h holy priests are mostly assigned as “inside” healers but in my own experience, they are pretty efficient as “outside” healers also together with rsham or hpaladin.
Phase 1: Physical realm
Few secons before the tank pulls Halion, make sure you have Inspiration / Prayer of Mending/ Power Word: Shield and Renew on him. Since there is no ICC aura present, 2-3 Flash Heals will apply Inspiration after that just use ur HoTs and shield. As a safety measure, it would be really good and useful if the tank receives a external from paladins or in this case, when holy priest is in the raid, using Guardian Spirit at start.
On pull, heal the tank with Flash Heal and Prayer of Mending and stack Serendipity before breath. When Halion starts casting breath, start precasting Greater Heal to top the tank right on Breath hit and do a following Flash Heal to heal the next melee hit from Halion. If the pets are well positioned (behind boss), he won’t be parry hasting and melee hits will be regular. When somone gets Mark of Combustion, wait for him to reach the wall and dispel him, place a Renew on him to top him.
After first Meteor Strike , when you cross to the other side of the boss, continue healing the tank with rotation mentioned above. When Living Inferno (1) appears and it moves to the MT, use your Power Word: Shield on him and precast Greater Heal to top him on next breath. Make sure you keep Inspiration on both MT and OT since both receive good portions of damage. Heal the damage from Living Embers and Fire on the raid by using Circle of Healing / Prayer of Mending and Prayer of Healing in critical situations (bad spread of flames and aggro from Embers on melees and huge AOE).
At 75% of his HP, Halion will phase and open a portal to his Twilight realm. This is when Phase 2 starts.
Phase 2: Twilight realm
Before going into portal, make sure you place Inspiration and Renew on the tank who is going inside. Enter the portal and position with the raid. After positioning, top the tank with Flash Heals or Binding Heal if you are damaged also and use your Glowing Twilight Scale followed by instant Circle of Healing to proc it. Start healing the raid with Renew and Prayer of Mending / Circle of Healing on cooldown. Before the Twilight Cutter , make sure you have Serendipity stacked. When cutter appears, start moving and healing with your instants as mentioned above. Since the raid is moving, and tank healers can’t heal the tank constantly, when Halion starts casting Breath precast Greater Heal and Power Word: Shield him afterwards. The damage will be well mitigated. If the raid is getting highly damaged, cast some Prayer of Healings to top the groups and continue with your healing rotation. When someone getsMark of Consumption debuff, give him Renew, and right after dispelling apply Power Word: Shield on him and heal him with Binding Heal to prevent his death. Make sure that the guy with Mark of Consumption has near full hp before dispelling him otherwise he will die in most cases without any defensives.
Phase 3: Both realms
Phase 3 start starts when Halion hits 50% hp and he summons a portal back to Physical Ream. From this moment Halion exists simultaneously in both Physical and Twilight Realm and the raid is split into 2 groups. As a holy priest, your true potential is released while healing inside in phase 3. The healing rotation for phase 3 is same as for phase 2. Heal with your Renew / Prayer of Mending and Circle of Healing and on each cutter movement heal the tank and yourself with Binding Heal to stack Serendipity to top the tank with Greater Heal if he drops. Since in phase 3 Halions gets a stat called Corporeality, dps disbalans can make Halion attack harder in one of the realms, so make sure you use your Guardian Spirit in this situations. Other situation when you should use your Guardian Spirit is while moving on cutter and tank has no major defensives or when other healer gets Consumption and you have to heal the tank hard.
4. User Interface and Add ons
Since the UI is a matter of choice of each player I won’t be discussing mine and why I prefer it over ElvUI like most of the players. I only wanted to share it with you guys in case some of you like it. Also the add ons and Healbot settings I use in-game.
List of Addons and download links:
- DBM by Afterlight: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1me...gxUPN0w3KieM2g
- Healbot by Iqui: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1WK...Wu4UxeOIzfzOEe
- Weak Auras 2 with model paths: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ne...UEX-PRF8PF3Ilb
- InvisusRaidTools: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HYI...ew?usp=sharing
- CombatLogFix: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Wi...eHyA7WPQGoUWxx
- Cooldowns: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Yt...jSdaxNbu0f2J9g
- Dominos: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1F4...iUYOj2UiKS3JP4
- HalionHelper: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Uq...yXCfjbfbkqeBjK
- ParryHaste: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1xj...9NKwM0LN3Dlz4Z
- PlateBuffs: https://drive.google.com/open?id=14y...A1Dz011cMdbdSc
- Quartz: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Yz...qrK-oYpg26-Qg6
- RaidCooldowns: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1oh...zdBsSjKAoAkS6I
- Recount: https://drive.google.com/open?id=16X...Y-QkroU9HyKbl-
- Skada: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1iq...2pC7jqrzXa3_fk
- SnowfallKeyPress: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Jb...LTNpYhbHFsMymo
- TellMeWhen: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1nZ...t7icnM_VieWxQO
- Xperl: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1wE...CCnfJtU5vgImQy
5. Practical demonstration and videos
Solo tank/ Solo heal 0% buff Bane with Holy Priest [Afterlight guild]
Solo tank (ProtWarr) / 4 heals 0% buff LoD with Holy Priest [Afterlight guild]
Halion 10 Heroic / Solo heal inside with Holy Priest [Afterlight guild]
Argent Defender run / Holy priest PoV [Pugs]
Final words
The goal of this guide is to help holy priests who still play WotLK to get better, improve in healing and maybe experience something new. There are possible mistakes in this guide, as in every other since I'm also a human being, but be realistic while commenting on them since I made this guide for mostly practical use. Math ain't gonna help people get better or predict incomming damage. Only practice and good teammates will.
P.S. Special thanks to my friends Teamstars, Foks and Tutan on the enormous help they provided during some tests, theorycrafting and practical analysis we did to prove some most of the things written in this guide!
Aditional information with details can be found on my personal discord server, feel free to join and ask any questions related to wotlk gameplay and stay updated with UI information: https://discord.gg/G6tRKgEpab
Member
