Playstyle & Rotation
Holy Priest is a straightforward and reactive healer, making it easy to pick up. It excels at constant throughput and strong spot healing, though it suffers from a lack of burst mobility.
The core gameplay loop revolves around your powerful Holy Word: Serenity (Single Target) and Holy Word: Sanctify (AoE). These have long cooldowns, but get lowered by casting their corresponding spells Flash Heal and Prayer Of Healing. With Voice Of Harmony, Prayer Of Mending and Halo (Archon) reduce them as well.
Additionally with Prayer Of Mending and your Mastery: Echo Of Light you will have a ton of passive healing.
General Priority list for Healing
- Prayer Of Mending if you are sitting on two charges
- Use your Holy Words if they are about to reach two charges
- Prayer Of Mending
- Holy Nova if talented into Lightburst
- Holy Words
- Prayer Of Healing or Flash Heal (with Surge Of Light procs)
Prayer Of Mending is your main source of healing as Oracle. Cast it as much as possible, even if everyone is at full health to prepare for damage. Never let this sit on 2 charges.
Avoid sitting on two charges of your Holy Words, as they trigger Epiphany (resetting Prayer Of Mending) and Lasting Words (applying Renew). The only exception is if you are holding them for incoming burst damage.
If you still need more healing, prioritize Flash Heal with Surge Of Light procs. After that use Prayer Of Healing, but be careful as it has a high mana cost.
For damage, press Holy Fire on cooldown if talented (otherwise keep Shadow Word: Pain active) and cast Smite.
General Priority list for Healing
- Prayer Of Mending
- Holy Word: Serenity & Holy Word: Sanctify
- Holy Nova if talented into Lightburst
- Prayer Of Healing
Unlike Oracle, your strongest source of healing here is Prayer Of Healing. Thanks to the Archon talent Spiritwell, you can use your Surge Of Light procs on Prayer Of Healing and should not be used on Flash Heal. You still want to use Prayer Of Mending on cooldown since it is a very efficient heal.
Avoid sitting on two charges of your Holy Words, as they trigger Lasting Words (applying Renew) and you do not want to waste the cooldown reduction from casting your other spells. The only exception is if you are holding them for incoming burst damage.
Additionally, you have access to Halo, a powerful 1-minute healing cooldown. It grants you 4 Surge Of Light procs over its duration to help with strong raid healing with Prayer Of Healing.
For damage, press Holy Fire on cooldown if talented (otherwise keep Shadow Word: Pain active) and cast Smite.
General Priority list for Healing
- Prayer Of Mending if you are sitting on two charges
- Holy Word: Serenity if you are sitting on two charges
- Prayer Of Mending
- Holy Word: Serenity
- Holy Nova if talented into Lightburst
- Flash Heal
The healing rotation with the current talent build for dungeons is incredibly simple since you only have Holy Word: Serenity, Prayer Of Mending and Flash Heal.
Make sure you have Holy Word: Serenity available for strong damage intake, since most of your power lies in it thanks to Ultimate Serenity.
Damage Rotation
- Holy Word: Chastise
- Holy Fire
- Smite (or Holy Nova with 4+ targets)
Holy Word: Chastise triggers Empyreal Blaze, making your next two Holy Fire casts instant with no cooldown. Additionally, Burning Vehemence causes Holy Fire to cleave nearby enemies.
General Priority list for Healing
- Prayer Of Mending
- Holy Word: Serenity
- Holy Nova if talented into Lightburst
- Flash Heal
The healing rotation with the current talent build for dungeons is incredibly simple since you only have Holy Word: Serenity, Prayer Of Mending and Flash Heal.
Make sure you have Holy Word: Serenity available for strong damage intake, since most of your power lies in it thanks to Ultimate Serenity.
Additionally, you have access to Halo, a powerful 1-minute healing and damage cooldown. It grants you 4 Surge Of Light procs over its duration to help with spot healing with Flash Heal. Since it has a fairly short cooldown, make sure to use it on cooldown as often as possible unless a large damage event is incoming.
Damage Rotation
- Holy Word: Chastise
- Holy Fire
- Smite (or Holy Nova with 4+ targets)
Holy Word: Chastise triggers Empyreal Blaze, making your next two Holy Fire casts instant with no cooldown. Additionally, Burning Vehemence causes Holy Fire to cleave nearby enemies.
Cooldown Usage
Apotheosis
Apotheosis is your main throughput cooldown. It significantly increases the cooldown reduction for your Holy Words, so your goal is to cast as many of them as possible while it is active. Make sure you are not sitting on two charges of your Holy Words, since activating it grants you a charge. Following choice node improves it:
- Eternal Sanctity: Increases the duration by 12 seconds. Only take this if you need to heal sustained damage for 30+ seconds.
- Divinity: Increases healing by 10% and makes your next 3 Prayer Of Healing casts instant and stronger. This is the default choice for Raid.
Divine Hymn
Divine Hymn is a strong cooldown that provides decent AoE healing and increases healing taken by the group by 20% from all sources. This makes it incredibly powerful when paired with other healer cooldowns. Following choice node improves it:
- Seraphic Crescendo: Reduces the cooldown to 2 minutes. Take this if specific damage timers require the shorter cooldown.
- Gales Of Song: Increases the throughput. Stick with this as your default.
Guardian Spirit
Guardian Spirit is a unique external defensive. It acts as a cheat death rather than damage reduction, while increasing healing received by a massive 60%. Use it to stabilize tanks or save players from lethal mechanics. Guardian Angel improves it further and makes it a 1 minute cooldown but since its on a choice node with Restitution it should not be picked in raids.
Power Infusion
Power Infusion is a strong external Haste increase which also gets applied to yourself thanks to Twins Of The Sun Priestess. This should almost always be used on a DPS player who is using their main cooldown to increase the group's damage.
Defensives
Holy Priest is a great progression Healer not only because of the easy rotation but also because of some great defensive options:
- Restitution: The most powerful defensive talent granting you a cheat death after your Spirit Of Redemption fades.
- Desperate Prayer: A decent defensive cooldown with a fairly low cooldown.
- Translucent Image: Turns your Fade into a 10% damage reduction cooldown you can and should use often.
- Protective Light: Together with Binding Heal you will constantly apply a 10% damage reduction to yourself whenever you use a Flash Heal.
Utility
Priest generally has a lot of strong (but sometimes niche) Utility:
- Power Word: Fortitude: A strong group buff increasing everyone's Health by 5%.
- Mass Dispel: Dispels all magic effects from 5 friendly targets and removes one magic buff from 5 enemies. Can be incredibly powerful for specific fights or dungeons.
- Angelic Feather: Can be used to increase a friendly player's movement speed, but is usually used on yourself.
- Dispel Magic: Removes one magic buff from an enemy without a cooldown.
- Mind Soothe: Useful to skip specific packs in Mythic+. Does not affect enemies with True Sight.
- Leap Of Faith: Grips a friendly player to your location. Useful to help someone out of a bad situation.
Crowd Control:
- Psychic Scream: This is your main "stop." Can be further improved with talents like Void Tendrils.
- Mind Control & Dominate Mind: Takes control of an enemy. Niche, but sometimes you can use powerful abilities from the enemy to help your group.
- Shackle Undead: Incredibly niche "hard CC" that only works on Undead enemies.