Introduction
This guide was written by Buythelight and Mitzki, both priest mains in Method.
Buythelight, who is currently a Holy and Discipline priest main. He has previously
raided in Reason. He has played Holy Priest since the rework in 7.0
Mitzki has been maining priest ever since she started raiding Mythic in Emerald Nightmare. In 2017 she applied for a raid spot in the guild that would become Reason and later took the role as healing officer in Battle of Dazar’Alor.
Holy Priest's strength comes from its immense amounts of healing throughput. Holy Priest is also easy to pick up and start learning.
Their weakness is that they are a jack-of-all-trades, master of none kind of spec, and they bring no damage reduction to the table, unlike the other priest healing spec: Discipline.
What has changed
The biggest changes from BFA to Shadowlands for the spec are:
- Circle of Healing is now baseline.
- Prayer of Mending is now instant cast.
- Power Word: Shield is now available.
- Apotheosis now resets holy word cooldown on use.
These are the two biggest changes to holy priests healing toolkit going from BFA to Shadowlands, and while they are not major changes, they do a lot to shore up one of holy priests greatest weaknesses.
The Apotheosis change is very good for Mythic+, instantly refreshing the cooldown of your holy words can help you out of rough positions. Using Serenity, Apotheosis Serenity is a really good looking single-target healing burst. Shadowlands dungeons and especially the new Prideful affix has more group-wide damage compared to Battle for Azeroth dungeons, so Holy Word: Sanctify, Apotheosis, Holy Word: Sanctify is a great option for that, enabled by this change.
Holy Priest Damage Changes
In the damage department, Holy Priest received some changes that are most welcomed for any downtime on a raid encounter:
Holy Fire is now a 1.5s cast time, but hits very hard.
Holy priest now has Shadow Word: Pain good extra damage for when your group needs it, especially in m+ or very tight enrage encounters
Holy priest now also has Shadow Word: Death another high damage button that Holy has received, but with a downside. You’re unlikely to be using this outside of the execute range but do be careful of the damage it returns to you if you’re not killing the target with it.
These additions have given Holy Priest a lot of damage, you will likely want to press Holy Fire as often as your mana pool allows you to which will vary per fight, same with Shadow Word: Pain.
Holy Priest now also has access to Power Infusion, which can be used either on yourself for a healing throughput increase or an allied DPS player to clear the enemies faster.