2022 - Holy Priest PVE Guide - v3.3.5a

**GearkingXAW** · June 13, 2022

About Me: I shall keep my In-game name Private for Personal Reasons. However, I have Raided in countless ICC 25/RS 25 runs as a Holy Priest I have played on Molten/Warmane since 2013. I have tested many Different Variations of Holy Priest?s Spec & now wish to present to Warmane?s Community which Specs I find best & of course, why they are. You?re free to disagree and play whichever works best for you. (Yes, I have Studied Mercy?s & Iqui?s Guide & have Learnt some things from them.)

Contents:

Talent Tree Variations & Explanations.
Glyph Choices.
Stat Priorities Explanations + Gem Choices.
Healing Spells Breakdown.
Mana Management.
BIS List + Enchants.
Low Geared Holy Priest Example.
Professions & Consumables.

1. Talent Trees Variations & Explanations.

Spoiler: Show

Raid Healing Spec: 5 Healers & 30% Buff Content.

Spoiler: Show

Discipline Necessary Talents:

Twin Disciplines: 5% Increased Healing.
Improved Inner Fire: More Spell Power.
Improved Power Word: Fortitude: More Raid HP.
Meditation: Allows 50% of Mana Regen that you get from Spirit to continue while Casting.
Inner Focus: Good for Divine Hymn.
1/3 Improved Power Word: Shield: Filler for Mental Agility.
Mental Agility: Saves you a ton of Mana.

Holy Necessary Talents:

Healing Focus: Necessary for Divine Hymn, Hymn of Hope, Flash Heal & Prayer of Healing.
Improved Renew: Most Powerful Healing Spell.
Holy Specialization: Crit to upkeep Holy Concentration.
Inspiration: 10% Physical Damage Reduction on Crit Heals.
Holy Reach: Mainly for Circle of Healing?s Range.
Healing Prayers: Mainly for Prayer of Mending.
Spirit of Redemption: 5% Spirit = More Spell Power + Mana Regen.
Spiritual Guidance: 25% of Spirit = Spell Power.
Spiritual Healing: 10% Increase Healing.
Holy Concentration: 50% Increased MP5 that you got from Spirit.
Blessed Resilience: 3% Increased Healing.
Empowered Renew: Most Powerful Healing Spell & Helps Upkeep Holy Concentration.
Circle of Healing: One of your Main Healing Spells.
Divine Providence: Mainly for Circle of Healing & Prayer of Mending Healing Increase + 30% Cooldown Reduction on Prayer of Mending.
Guardian Spirit: Saves Lifes.

Encouraged but Optional Talents:

Spell Warding: On Heroic Content, this will save your life on many Occasions.
Test of Faith: Your Role as a Holy Priest is to Blanket the Raid with Hots & Instant Heals, so this adds a Fair bit to your Healing on the rare occasions that Players drop below 50% HP where you need to use Flash Heals, Prayer of Healing & Divine Hymn.

Useless Talents:

Surge of Light: An Instant Flash Heal that but still retains its GCD. Its as if Flash Heal doesn?t have a 1s Cast Time?. Its Trash.
Serendipity: With 5 Healers & 30% Buff Content, if you manage to utilise this talent after putting 13-15 renews, Prayer of Mending & Circle of Healing. Your other Healers are Slacking.
Empowered Healing: This is only useful for Flash Heal for this Spec and Players who are dropping incredibly low & Rshams/Hpalas are Struggling. Test of Faith would be better then.

Raid Healing Spec: Reduced Healers or 0% Buff Content.

Spoiler: Show

VDW Inside Healing Spec: Special Occasions Only.

Spoiler: Show

2. Glyph Choices.

Spoiler: Show

3. Stat Priorities Explanations + Gem Choices.

Spoiler: Show

Stat Priority Explanations:

Spoiler: Show

Gem Choices:

Spoiler: Show

4. Healing Spells Breakdown.

Spoiler: Show

Note: Smart Heal is a Heal that Prioritises the Player with the Lowest HP within its Set Range.

Main Spells:

Spoiler: Show

Situational Spells:

Spoiler: Show

Bad Spells:

Spoiler: Show

5. Mana Management.

Spoiler: Show

6. BIS List + Enchants.

Spoiler: Show

7. Low Geared Holy Priest Example.

Spoiler: Show

8. Professions & Consumables.

Spoiler: Show

**Iqui** · July 25, 2022

Hello,

First of all, I wanna say that your guide is indeed short but you covered all the crucial parts which is the entire point of guidance. I see interesting information, yet I still can't see any valid argumentation why would you rush the soft haste cap on holy priest since the only way to do it is to sacrefice your main stat - spellpower. Gemming pure haste is just way off the grid for all healers except restoration shamans for obvious reasons, even holy paladins for obvious reasons also. Do you have any logs or videos of how this spec/build works in a raiding environment? I'm really curious about it. I do not judge, but since you're running a pure blanketing spec - oriented arround Renew and instant cast healing spells the logical way is to stack as much as possible spellpower, not haste.

I'd like to see your PoV in a raid if you have any, it's always interesting to see new approaches, but valid argumentation must be presented.

Yours sincerely,
Iqui

**TutellaF** · July 26, 2022

Hi,
I think this comes from IceCrown.
Basically there you have high chance you will compete against high (if not bis) healers. So you are just forced to "snipe" some effective healing to validate your place in raid.

You can't beat hpal with flash heals/greater heals as his are more powerfull, effective and quicker + beacon (and it's not your job to tank heal).

So you are stuck with raid healing.

You have little chance to beat rsham by hard casting anything.
You might pre-cast one PoH before expected AoE, but he will do the same with chain.
Problem is, as mentioned in the guide, PoH is not smart heal unlike chain, so there is high chance for overhealing to not needed targerts leaving others again to the sham (as w/o serenpidity you have no chance to finish another PoH before his chain, not to mention other healers will be trying to top those targers too).

So it is reduced to PoH with serenpidity stacks -> CoH -> recast PoM and back to Renew spam to try to beat rdruid's Reju spam.
Thing is rdruids need only about 735 haste + talents for soft cap, so he will have more hots out unless you go for the haste cap as well.
Basically you just hoping to have enough Renews out so the 1-2 ticks they do before starting to overheal will be at least the same as the effective healing the rdruid gained.

Personally I lthink holy is best suited for fights like Hallion's shadow realm with steady raid dmg w/o much spikes.
Rsham taking care of tank + movement don't let him to spam chain raid too much.
So you have chance to utilise the Renew spam + CoH + PoM on CD. With that you will get Surge of Light procs to drop some insta Flash Heals on tank / lowest raid member.

Anyway that's just how I understood the guide, might be wrong.

BR,
Tutella

**phrias** · July 27, 2022

weird way of healing, it's a bit contradictory. If I understand you heal by spamming renew, POM and circle. For that you need to reduce the GDC, that why you full gem haste. The matter: renew is affect by your haste, so it's tick faster. So you need to spam even more renew.

For me it's not enought healing but I 'm curious to see it on action.

For the people just above, stop trying to "beat" other healing class just by looking at skada or whatever. It's not give the really effective healing (by default). Furthermore when they don't have the same role.

Hpala = flat healing
rdrood = flat aoe healing
rsham is between both

and hpriest can be everwhere depends playstyle, spe, tank + always a burst aoe healing

wth are you talking about less smart heal???? all this kind of spell work by using the same rules. It's write in blizz patchnote.

**GearkingXAW** · August 27, 2022

Originally Posted by TutellaF

Hi,
I think this comes from IceCrown.
Basically there you have high chance you will compete against high (if not bis) healers. So you are just forced to "snipe" some effective healing to validate your place in raid.

You can't beat hpal with flash heals/greater heals as his are more powerfull, effective and quicker + beacon (and it's not your job to tank heal).

So you are stuck with raid healing.

You have little chance to beat rsham by hard casting anything.
You might pre-cast one PoH before expected AoE, but he will do the same with chain.
Problem is, as mentioned in the guide, PoH is not smart heal unlike chain, so there is high chance for overhealing to not needed targerts leaving others again to the sham (as w/o serenpidity you have no chance to finish another PoH before his chain, not to mention other healers will be trying to top those targers too).

So it is reduced to PoH with serenpidity stacks -> CoH -> recast PoM and back to Renew spam to try to beat rdruid's Reju spam.
Thing is rdruids need only about 735 haste + talents for soft cap, so he will have more hots out unless you go for the haste cap as well.
Basically you just hoping to have enough Renews out so the 1-2 ticks they do before starting to overheal will be at least the same as the effective healing the rdruid gained.

Personally I lthink holy is best suited for fights like Hallion's shadow realm with steady raid dmg w/o much spikes.
Rsham taking care of tank + movement don't let him to spam chain raid too much.
So you have chance to utilise the Renew spam + CoH + PoM on CD. With that you will get Surge of Light procs to drop some insta Flash Heals on tank / lowest raid member.

Anyway that's just how I understood the guide, might be wrong.

BR,
Tutella

I personally believe that a fast healer is necessary in 10 or 25 man raids. Healing Hard but slow in my experience on heroic content is pointless as players would die before I could even get the heal off. You may think sniping is bad but to me sniping means your healers are alert and paying attention and ready to heal and not slacking off.

Also, I understand your comparison about Renew versus Rdruids Rejuvenation. As stated in the guide, it pales in comparison to Rdruids but Renew is still strong. But a Holy Priest's healing from COH and POM is where we will make up for our healing in comparison to a Rdruid.

I hope I answered most of your questions.

**GearkingXAW** · August 27, 2022

Originally Posted by phrias

weird way of healing, it's a bit contradictory. If I understand you heal by spamming renew, POM and circle. For that you need to reduce the GDC, that why you full gem haste. The matter: renew is affect by your haste, so it's tick faster. So you need to spam even more renew.

For me it's not enought healing but I 'm curious to see it on action.

For the people just above, stop trying to "beat" other healing class just by looking at skada or whatever. It's not give the really effective healing (by default). Furthermore when they don't have the same role.

Hpala = flat healing
rdrood = flat aoe healing
rsham is between both

and hpriest can be everwhere depends playstyle, spe, tank + always a burst aoe healing

wth are you talking about less smart heal???? all this kind of spell work by using the same rules. It's write in blizz patchnote.

Haste does not reduce the interval in between HOTs of Renew. I have checked it before and am able to keep up 15 renews in 15 seconds. If it did reduce the interval in between HOTs of renew, then gemming for haste would be pointless.

I hope that clarifies that.

**GearkingXAW** · August 27, 2022

Originally Posted by Iqui

Hello,

First of all, I wanna say that your guide is indeed short but you covered all the crucial parts which is the entire point of guidance. I see interesting information, yet I still can't see any valid argumentation why would you rush the soft haste cap on holy priest since the only way to do it is to sacrefice your main stat - spellpower. Gemming pure haste is just way off the grid for all healers except restoration shamans for obvious reasons, even holy paladins for obvious reasons also. Do you have any logs or videos of how this spec/build works in a raiding environment? I'm really curious about it. I do not judge, but since you're running a pure blanketing spec - oriented arround Renew and instant cast healing spells the logical way is to stack as much as possible spellpower, not haste.

I'd like to see your PoV in a raid if you have any, it's always interesting to see new approaches, but valid argumentation must be presented.

Yours sincerely,
Iqui

Hey Iqui, I appreciate your feedback and its an honor to have such a skilled Holy Priest read my guide. I will do my best to address the statements you made.

Why gem till soft haste cap of 1269?
Renew Section: As you have observed already, this spec focuses on Blanketing. In order to have effective blanketing, you need your heals to reach as many targets as possible. Yes you do lose Spellpower which impedes the healing of renew by a significant amount. However, you have to consider the number of people you can blanket due to reaching the soft haste cap. At zero haste with 1.5s GCD, you would only be able to heal 10 people at once. Whereas at 1269 soft haste cap, you would be able to heal 15 people at once with renew. Say for example you lose 500 Spellpower due to reaching the soft haste cap of 1269 and lose around a 1 to 1 ratio of healing (its less) from renew, 2500 to 2000, thats 2500 x 10 vs 2000 x 15. Which is 25000 vs 30000 overall healing. Or if you have 1.25s GCD due to having around 800 Haste, thats 2500 x 12 vs 2000 x 15. It would still be at 30000 vs 30000 overall healing. But in this case, since I'm covering more people, my blanketing would be more effective. Keep in mind, I don't lose nearly as much spellpower as you think as I use the Tier 10 Shadow Head & Shoulders making it much easier to reach the soft Haste Cap.

Flash Heal, POM & COH Section: In terms of healing throughput for Flash Heal, Prayer of Mending and Circle of Healing, spellpower build would beat a soft haste cap build. However, haste reduces the GCD of both of these spells giving you time to go back to healing with Renew as quickly as possible.

Prayer of Healing and Greater Heal Section: In terms of healing throughput for Prayer of Healing and Greater Heal on the other hand, similar to Rshamans with their long cast time from Chain Heal and Hpala with their Holy Light, Haste Build easily beats Spellpower Build. Which overall puts haste way ahead in terms of healing compared to spellpower.

I really hope to give you more accurate numbers and povs of me playing but I wish to keep my in-game name private for personal reasons.

I hope I have answered your questions Iqui.

Sincerely,
GearkingXAW

**Jhenna0** · July 16, 2023

I like how u included a spec exclusively for vali but theres one thing u overlooked, renew is ur strongest single target heal per time spent casting and because of that u should keep it on vali full time, and while glyph of renew doesn't increase its heal, it increases the amount of times u can cast it on vali.
You also included glyph of flash heal which i dont really understand why, i have maybe only once ran out of mana before first portal while running full throughput gear (minimun passive mana regen), if you are using flash heal / binding heal to build serendipity stacks u r losing healing potential, spamming greater heal with no serendipity will yield more hps, binding heal should only be used if u have aggro problems.
I also very rarely get aggro problems, its usually the rshams/hpals the first ones to get aggro, which is reason why i dont understand choosing glyph of fade either.

**Teknycannor** · July 28, 2023

I never comment but this guide combines everything I thought about the holy. I especially liked the part that serendipity is not enough for some occasions and the part about using the T10 of the SP to accumulate that Haste. thanks i will try this

**DaniTheFatal** · August 22, 2023

I tested and calculated Renew spell healing with and without the glyph casting it for fixed amount of time for example 1 minute, and the result was - glyph wins. Based on a fixed time with glyph you get extra cast which means more healing - and yes more mana but stil your heal is bigger plus the HoT effect of renew can crit which means higher tick amount (from glyph) can get higher crit heal. So i cant agree its horrible on the contrary its better option than PoH.

**TutellaF** · August 22, 2023

How was your test performed in detail?

You really ought to take into account the actual raid healling process when comparing those glyphs.

How much of that extra heal / crit contributes on average to your effective healing or does the extra goes mostly to overhealling?
Groups not assigned to specific healers? Shams are pre-casting as they should?
Then you you won't see much benefit from it and instead burn mana on extra re-apply and there will be less ppl covered.

On the other hand the PoH will always have none or only possitive effect.
Think sham 4xT10 / Earthliving procs. Not something you rely on but sure nice to have proccing randomly and sometimes actually doing effective healing.

**kokostas** · December 15, 2023

Is this guide still working?

Main Set	Name	Enchant
Helmet:	Sanctified Crimson Acolyte Cowl	Arcanum of Burning Mysteries
Shoulders:	Sanctified Crimson Acolyte Mantle	Greater Inscription of the Storm
Chest:	Sanguine Silk Robes	Scroll of Enchant Chest ? Powerful Stats
Gloves:	Sanctified Crimson Acolyte Gloves	Scroll of Enchant Gloves ? Exceptional Spellpower
Leggings:	Sanctified Crimson Acolyte Leggings	Brilliant Spellthread

Off Set	Name	Enchant
Neck:	Bone Sentinel?s Amulet	Nil
Cloak:	Greakcloak of the Unturned Champion	Scroll of Enchant Cloak - Greater Speed
Wrists:	Bracers of Fiery Night	Scroll of Enchant Bracers ? Superior Spellpower
Belt:	Crushing Coldwraith Belt	Eternal Belt Buckle
Boots:	Plague Scientist?s Boots	Scroll of Enchant Boots ? Greater Spirit

Rings & Trinkets	Name
Ring-1:	Ring of Phased Regeneration
Ring-2:	Memory of Malygos
Trinket-1:	Solace of the Fallen
Trinket-2:	Glowing Twilight Scale

Weapons	BIS-1	BIS-2	Enchant
Main-Hand:	Val?anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings	Royal Scepter of Terenas II	Scroll of Enchant Weapon ? Mighty Spellpower
Off-Hand:	Sundial of Eternal Dusk	Nil	Nil
Wand:	Corpse Impailing Spike	Nil	Nil

Main Set	Name	Currency/Dungeon
Helmet:	Helm of Clouded Sight	Emblem of Triumph
Shoulders:	Pauldrons of Revered Mortality	Emblem of Triumph
Chest:	Velen?s Raiments of Conquest	Emblem of Triumph
Gloves:	Velen?s Gloves of Conquest	Emblem of Triumph
Leggings:	Velen?s Leggings of Conquest	Emblem of Triumph

Tools

2022 - Holy Priest PVE Guide - v3.3.5a

Posting Permissions

Off Set	Name	Currency/Dungeon
Neck:	Evoker?s Charm	Emblem of Conquest
Cloak:	Disguise of the Kumiho	Emblem of Valor
Wrists:	Wristguards of Subterranean Moss	POS Normal; Krick & Ick
Belt:	Braid of Salt and Fire	POS Heroic; Krick & Ick
Boots:	Slippers of the Holy Light	Emblem of Valor

Rings & Trinkets	Name	Currency/Reputation	Remarks
Ring-1:	Ashen Band of Endless Wisdom	ICC Rep Farm	Nil
Ring-2:	Band of the Invoker	Emblem of Triumph	Nil
Trinket-1:	Battlemaster?s Vivacity	Honor Points	Yes, its PVP, but that is how important Haste is.
Trinket-2:	Battlemaster?s Vivacity	Honor Points	They do Stack.

Weapons	Name(s)	Currency/Dungeon	Remarks
Main-Hand:	Icecore Staff / Unspeakable Secret	Vote Points / POS Normal; Garfrost	Nil
Off-Hand:	Handbook of Obscure Remedies	Emblem of Heroism	If you have a 1 Hander.
Wand:	Coffin Nail	FOS & POS Normal Trash Mobs	Nil