Holy Priest Raid Bosses Guide

Covenants:

Prefered covenants: Night Fae/Venthyr

Legendary:

Flash Concentration + Unity

Notes:

In Phase 1, you’ll want to use your big cooldowns Divine Hymn & Holy Word: Salvation during, ideally, Exposed Cores. It can be used if your raid triggers a lot of Spikes of Creation simultaneously or if you don’t want to overlap too many raid CDs during Exposed Core.

During the final phase of the fight, you’ll have to rotate raid CDs until the boss is dead. There is nothing tricky or exciting since this first boss is relatively easy.

Covenants:

Prefered covenants: Night Fae/Venthyr

Legendary:

Flash Concentration + Unity

Notes:

This fight revolves entirely around rot damage (due to Ephemera Dust damage). The more it lasts before you “dunk” the boss (with Ravening Burrow), the more it ramps, so you’ll prefer to commit raid CDs with higher stacks of Ephemera Dust on the raid.

Be careful to avoid channeling your Divine Hymn just before a Retch!

Otherwise, nothing very tricky here; keep an eye on the 3 soakers (Dust Blast) too!

Covenants:

Prefered covenants: Night Fae

Legendary:

Flash Concentration + Unity

Notes:

Since this boss won’t be a tight DPS check, and you will probably have to hold DPS at some points (depending on your raid’s strength), you may want to Night Fae (Fae Guardians) yourself here, allowing you way better use of your Divine Hymn.

Two things will eventually require raid CDs: both intermissions, and the tank ability, Glyph of Relocation, followed by Hyperlight Sparknova (raid-wide damage).

Depending on your raid DPS, you’ll be able to Divine Hymn both intermissions by using Night Fae (Fae Guardians) on yourself in between. Do note that, during the intermissions, Gunship Barrage can appear under your feet during your channeling, so you will have to pop a personal before that.

Your Holy Word: Salvation can be used during Glyph of Relocation + Hyperlight Sparknova combos, since they are quite bursty, and are followed by Continuum Stasis Traps that can spawn on you if you were channeling an Divine Hymn instead of casting a Salvation.

Your Soulshape will, once again, come very handy here, allowing you to blink through Genesis Rings if needed at some point (who knows !).

Covenants:

Prefered covenants: Night Fae/Venthyr

Legendary:

You’ll have two options here as a Night Fae; either use it on a DPS or on yourself to be able to use Divine Hymn on every Inevitable Dominion since this encounter won’t be a tight DPS check.

If you use your Night Fae on a DPS, you will probably want to rotate your cooldowns between Inevitable Dominion and Disintegration Halos. You’ll always have to go through one halo, then wait/bait and dodge the Obliteration Arc before channeling your Divine Hymn, not to be trapped!

Your Soulshape ability will be helpful here, allowing you to skip multiple Halos’ damage by blinking through them. Use it during triple (or/and quadruple) Halos!

If you’re playing Venthyr, Door of Shadows will have the same purpose, and you’ll be able to skip one (or two, if you have good timing) rings on a said set.

Covenants:

Prefered covenants: Night Fae/Venthyr

Legendary:

Flash Concentration + Unity

Notes:

The biggest thing during this encounter will be to heal the seeds to refresh and stack the Invigorating Bloom buff as long as possible (by healing a new seed to full just before the buff expires).

As a Holy Priest, you have an insane toolkit to deal with that; heal a seed (ideally the 2nd one) for Trail of Light purposes, then switch to the first one, pop Guardian Spirit on it, and spam! Don’t forget that you can use another Holy Word to empower your Holy Word: Serenit on the seed if you have the 4p.

Your Divine Hymn can be used to cover Burden of Sin rot damage or Windswept Wings (be careful of the Pinning Volleys if you do so !), while your Holy Word: Salvation will have an excellent use to cover Hand of Destruction.

Don’t forget to use Symbol of Hope between phases!

Covenants:

Prefered covenants: Night Fae

Legendary:

Flash Concentration + Unity

Notes:

If DPS isn’t an issue at all (even though it’s still better to Night Fae (Fae Guardians) a fellow DPS), you can Night Fae yourself and be able to Divine Hymn for each Synthesize.

Keep an eye on people targeted by the Deconstructing Energy/Deconstructing Blast and top people quickly after landing Motes before a Cosmic Shift + Resonance Cascade. These combos will hurt!

You can use your Shining Force on small Degeneration Automas to knock them in the middle of the room to help AoE DPS too!

Covenants:

Prefered covenants: Night Fae/Venthyr

Legendary:

Flash Concentration + Unity

Notes:

Phases 1 & 2: You’ll want to use CDs during the Reclaim, and probably for Relocation Form too, when the boss regains its mobility, inflicting raid-wide damage and transitioning.

Remember that Earthbreaker Missiles hurt a lot and will require people to be healthy if the boss is transitioning just after a set of missiles.

Intermissions: Heavy movement during the intermission, try always to be ahead of the boss, never be late (especially in the second intermission, and even more if you’re carrying a bomb!).

Earthbreaker Missiles will still require some attention healing-wise during those intermissions, and you might even want to use some raid CDs on one of them.

Tip: You can ask for a Benediction of Protection and stand in an Aftershock (after missiles hit) without being harmed nor knocked back if you want to channel your Hymn at this specific moment!)

Phase 3: No more Reclaim, but a lot of overall damage + motes soaking + 3 waves of missiles to handle. If you’re in the range team, you’ll be standing behind Planetcracker Beams and will have to prio ranged players during the whole phase.

If you’re near the boss, soaking motes (which is not well-suited at all for a Holy Priest, but who knows!), you’ll have to carefully watch melees AND yourself, especially before Earthbreaker Missiles hit while soaking.

Covenants:

Prefered covenants: Night Fae

Legendary:

Flash Concentration + Unity

Notes:

Phase 1: Your CDs will mostly cover Befouled Barriers. Don’t forget to spot-heal people with Domination Word: Pain, especially when Hopebreaker comes!

Kingsmourne phase: Depending on which healer you’ll be paired with, this can change some things, but overall, a good approach is to use Holy Word: Chastis on the boss before he finishes his Kingsmourne cast, then pre-cast Mass Dispel to instantly pop it while you are inside. Then, you can Guardian Spirit + Holy Word: Serenity an add to instantly top it to full if you crit, followed by a Holy Word: Sanctify + Circle of Healing on the remaining adds. Cast Heal after that to help finish the healing.

You will probably also have to use your Shining Force (on yourself or on someone, depending on your set-up) to knock a DPS add near the others to help DPS players.

Intermissions (both): As a healer, you probably will be baiting small adds’ blue circles when they die by staying outside of the raid. You’ll have to move a lot, but it’ll be a huge DPS gain for your raid. When the big add begins casting, don’t forget to Holy Fir and Holy Word: Chasti it! You can use Shadow Word: Death too, but be careful since it’ll most likely hurt you for 50% of your health in this phase. Don’t die from that!

Phase 2: It’s the same as Phase 1, except that you can help CC the Grim Reflections thanks to your Shackle Undead, depending on your raid set-up. Ideally, you will already have hunters trapping them, but don’t forget your utility spells, too, just in case!

Phase 3: Try NOT to pop your personals during Hopebreakers in Mythic, but ideally, when people are cleansing themselves and stack the raid with Purging Light; this DoT will hurt A LOT at 3 or 4 stacks, and you most likely will already have some raid CDs for Hopebreakers as AMZ or Barriers.

Covenants:

Prefered covenants: Night Fae

Legendary:

Flash Concentration + Unity

Notes:

As usual, you can Night Fae (Fae Guardians) yourself on this encounter to be able to cast Divine Hymn during each Swarm if, and only if, you don’t need it for DPS purposes.

Otherwise, depending on your healing set-up, you might want to either hold CDs for every Swarm or rotate between a swarm and an add spawn (while it’s spam casting on the raid).

Pay extra attention to people with high stacks of Cloud of Carrion before they transfer it.

It’s recommended to play Discipline in Mythic, if you can, on this encounter since the healing pattern will suit the fight very nicely.

Covenants:

Prefered covenants: Night Fae

Legendary:

Flash Concentration + Unity

Notes:

This encounter will require a lot of single target healing; people with Dark Eclipse or people soaking Cosmic Cores will take a lot of damage.

You’ll most likely use your cooldowns during Singularity phases or to cover the absorb heal during the normal phases (Mythic only) at some point, depending on your healing set-up.

You can easily use your Symbol of Hope/drink a mana pot after a Singularity phase.

Covenants:

Prefered covenants: Night Fae

Legendary:

Flash Concentration + 

Notes:

Phase 1 : Keep people with bombs (Rune of Damnation) healthy before they jump, and before each Torment. Your CDs will be used on either Chains of Oppression or Surging Azerite (Mythic).

Phase 2: In Mythic, pay extra attention to people soaking Azeroth’s blood (focus on one side, you probably won’t be able to heal both and will most likely be in one of the teams soaking it anyway).

During Rune of Compulsion, you can assist DPS the mind controlled players, and don't forget to dispel one of them at the end (yes, they will surely have a ton of debuffs on them after that, and that hurts quite a bit !)

Phase 3: Huge healing will be required for Rune of Domination. In Mythic, one player (+ a tank) will have a huge absorb on them since they will be alone in one of the three soaks, so you really need to single target heal those a lot after you used your healing CDs.

In Mythic, overlapping Torment + Surging Azerite will hurt a lot too, and will probably require some healing CDs at this specific moment.

Phase 4 (Mythic only): Top people before Torment/Rune of Domination (bombs), as in Phase 1, and keep extra attention to people with Death Sentence; this debuff ramps (you can see the debuff’s color switching from green to yellow, then to red) and hurts a lot.

Meteor Cleave is full physical damage, so even though it’s not that deadly, you don’t want to soak it without anything if you’re not healthy enough. Otherwise, try to keep your personals for bombs.

On this boss, you’ll be able to pick 4 anima powers prior to the fight. As a healer, it’s always recommended to pick some supportive powers if you can (stun immunity, movement speed buff around you, etc.).

There is no specific damage pattern on this fight; between the Grasp of Death debuffs affecting up to 10 players and the fire DoT ticking aura, you’ll have to do a kind of sustained raid healing throughout the encounter.

You can Mass Dispel every two cast of Predator’s Howl to help a bit with the dispels!

You want to use your cooldowns during both transitions, at 66% and 33%, since the damage output will be the highest of the fight.

During the last phase, the Immediate Extermination debuff will reduce healing taken over the course of the phase. As a Holy Priest, you want to heal during the first stacks, and to unleash all the DPS you can at the very end since you don’t have any big absorb mechanic to help the raid during that situation.

Not much to say about this encounter, many sustained raid damage dispatched into multiple mechanics, without any real pattern.

Watch out anyway for the soak mechanic, Arthura’s Crushing Gaze, when you have some other debuffs on players that prevent them to help soaking, since it’ll hurt a bit more!

Quite a lot of damage on this boss, tied to the orbs, on top of the Malevolence debuffs explosions/Shatter explosions.

You won’t be able to channel your Hymn that freely during this encounter, since there will be a lot of AoEs to avoid, and some knockbacks when Malevolence debuffs are dispelled.

Keep your Salvation for one of the Shatter, since the spell will trigger multiple AoEs to avoid, and use your Hymn after a dispel to cover the bombs damage + the orbs debuffs.

You’ll very likely have to Mass Dispel every two cast of Malevolence, so make sure to use it at the proper timing (your Raid Leader will probably do a countdown, but you generally want to dispel them after the Suffering cast on the tank, and just before the blue AoEs are landing on the ground).

You’ll want to cover the damage from breaking the Warmonger Shackles with your cooldowns on this fight. Be careful though with your Hymn, since there will be some AoEs to avoid during that time too. Wait for the first set of AoEs after the first chain has been snapped before channeling it !

In this encounter, you’ll have two big instances of raid-wide damage:

• Firstly, when the tank ability hits. You’ll want to use your small cooldowns (Holy Word: Sanctify and Circle of Healing) when this ability lands.
• And secondly, the Flameclasp Traps explosions. One of the tank ability will always occur during the explosions, so you’ll want to use your big cooldowns during these patterns.

You’ll want to use your big cooldowns during the Purging Protocol casts here.

Since they are occurring every minute and a half (by allowing the boss to cast at least 2 Purging Protocols each time), you’ll be able to use your big cooldowns twice during the encounter (before 1st core + 3rd core, or before 2nd core + after 3rd core, before the soft enrage, when the boss will be doing his final Purging Protocol).

Keep an eye on the Threat Neutralization targets during a core-phase/Meltdown, since they’ll take a LOT of damage very quickly.

You’ll probably use your Salvation after the Invoke Destiny cast (tank ability) here.

If you’re not doing the runes during intermissions, your Hymn will be very good there. Just make sure to stand BETWEEN the circles of the Loom of Fates to cover the whole raid without interfering with the runes-guys, and watch out for the grey orbs swarming the area before channeling it ! You can always ask for a Blessing of Freedom to channel your Hymn without taking any damage from these orbs.

On Mythic difficulty, if you’re the only priest, consider going for Disc, really. The only big raid-wide damage will be during the Glacial Wrath spikes explosions, and it’ll hurt A LOT since you’ll very likely pop them all at the same time.

Don’t forget to Mass Dispel every two Frost Blast to help the little squad-guys doing the soak !

P1: Your Hymn will be quite hard to channel, since there will be A LOT of things to avoid during the damage mechanics. The best timing would be during the Black Arrows hits, if you’re obviously not targeted by the mechanic.

Other damage patterns of the phase include Shadow Daggers/Barbed Arrow Stacks, and Domination Chains.

Intermission: Your Salvation will be very good to cover the 20 Domination Chains during this intermission.

P2: This phase will vary a bit depending on which side you’ll be. The new Mythic addition in term of new mob will be the big Colossus, which constantly deals some AoE damage to soak with your whole group. The magic debuffs are no longer dispellable here, and you’ll want to assist quite a lot on people with high stacks as long as the Souljudge isn’t dead yet.

Your cooldowns will very likely be used during the two times you actually fight Sylvanas during the phase, for the raid-wide Shadow Daggers damage, and before the Banshee’s Wail.

P3: Healing-wise, this phase is very similar to its heroic counterpart. You’ll want to cover Banshee’s Fury and Wailing Arrows with your cooldowns, and nothing else. Be sure to keep some small cooldowns after each Veil, when you’ll spread & heal it.

Obviously, you still want to dispel the tanks during that phase (and anyone else who is soaking the puddles) at proper timings. If anything goes wrong, don’t forget that you can Mass Dispel to get an extra dispel if needed!

Standard playstyle will do fine for this boss, one thing to keep track of your positioning is a lot more important, since players will be trying to stay close to the pillars to avoid mechanics. This can create line of sight issues, but the healing requirement is not high for the fight so do not stress out about the line of sight issues. You can hit players who are line of sighting you with Holy Word: Sanctify.

Since you only need line of sight of the center of Holy Word: Sanctify you can use that to hit players who you do not have line of sight of.

Make sure your UI allows you to heal NPCs that spawn during the encounter, as one of the mechanics (two on mythic) will spawn friendly NPCs that require healing before they reach the boss. 

Having a Holy Word: Serenity ready for the add spawned by Barghast’s Rip Soul will make the mechanic easier to deal with for your raid team. Likewise, the Mythic version of Sinseeker will, after Bargast has entered the encounter, create NPCs that require healing, if your raid is able to clump them together, Holy Word: Sanctify will be a solid contribution from you.

Your job as a Holy Priest on this boss is to amplify the healing done to Kael'thas. You can do this by using Guardian Spirit and Divine Hymn.

If you’re playing with 2 Holy Priests, note that the Divine Hymn stacks can be kept at 5 during both hymns, as long as the second hymn is cast before the buff expires.

Make sure to use the conduit Lasting Spirit as it increases the duration and the healing amplification of Guardian Spirit, making it even stronger.

During the DPS phases, when you’re hitting the Shade of Kael’thas, make sure to always have Shadow Word: Pain at all time on the boss, and use Holy Fire as soon as the Cloak of Flames pops (check your boss-mod timings!), followed by your Shadow Word: Death (during the 2nd DPS phase when the boss is under 10% health), your Holy Word: Chastise, and one or two Smite, to help your raid with the DPS check. If you’re Venthyr, make sure to put your Mindgames too during that window!

This encounter has a lot of passive damage throughout, ensuring Prayer of Mending and your mastery both gain a lot of value. In addition to the passive damage, Withering Touch does a lot of single target damage and with your Resonant Words potency conduit, Holy Word: Serenity followed by a Heal will allow you to help your raid team out immensely. Overall, this is a great fight for Holy Priest's jack-of-all-trades as there are different damage patterns occurring.

Fairly straight forward patchwerk fight. For the encounter, make sure you can see Gluttonous Miasma on your raid frames, as those are players you cannot heal, they have to use the mechanic themselves to leech from players around them. For emergencies, you can cast Power Word: Shield on players targeted by Gluttonous Miasma, as it does not prevent shielding.

Healing wise, there is nothing special to the encounter. There are some mechanics that require movement, so make sure you keep track of your boss-mods for the timer, if there's an ability you need to move for coming up in a few seconds, holding your instant cast abilities for that moment can be a slight gain, instead use a filler ability while standing still. The damage profile of the encounter has a lot of rot damage, making your mastery good on progress.

Surge of Light has quite a lot of value on the encounter as it adds an extra ability you can do on the move, and helps spot-healing the soakers.

The encounter constantly does damage, making Prayer of Mending one of your best abilities for the encounter, it will almost never overheal and it will keep bouncing. This is the kind of fight where Echo of Light does really well on. The encounter has three dancing breaks where no damage is going out and you cannot hit the boss, during this lull period Enlightenment increasing your mana regen feels really good. If you position yourself correctly early in the intermission it is also a good time to use Symbol of Hope, preferably as soon as possible as it gives based on missing mana and all healers will have more mana the longer you wait in the intermission to use it.

The classic Patchwerk encounter of this raid tier. Keep an eye out for Chain Link, if you and your partner are far apart you can use Leap of Faith to close the distance. The fight will likely have a tight damage check, and as such it can be a big help for your raid team if you can throw at least one, or ideally two Holy Fire into his extra damage taken phase, which happens right after Heedless Charge. Holy Fire has a 10s cooldown and the phase lasts 12 seconds. It can be scary to do damage, since after Headless Charge the raid takes damage, but the next damage event is quite far away, so no one will die because you pressed Holy Fire instead of a healing ability.

Be very careful of the add Stone Legion Goliath, on 20% HP this unit triggers a healing decrease, stacking 20% per second up to a max of 80%, during that time you only want to heal players who REALLY need it and you want to press Prayer of Mending if available, since its initial heal is not very important. Be mindful of who has Wicked Laceration, they will generally be good targets for your abilities, as they are going to be taking damage over time, giving value to your Echo of Light.

Depending on various strategies, your raid leader might ask you to use Leap of Faith on some of the Stone Breaker's Combo. The way you do this is simple: wait until Crystalize is done being channeled and then grip the targeted player out as the meteor is about to land.

If you are the only priest in the raid and you get targeted by Crystalize, you can use a Warlock's Demonic Gateway at the end of the Crystalize channel. This will take you out of the meteor at the same time as you get stunned.

In Phase 1, plan accordingly to heal people before the Blood Price.

During the transition, don’t hesitate to Leap of Faith one of your allies if they can’t make it into the middle for whatever reason.

In Phase 2, make sure to use your Divine Hymn way before or after a Massacre/Crescendo, as it will force you to cancel it. It happens quite often during this phase.

In Phase 3, you’ll have to top people before Blood Price, and make sure to really spot heal targets with Fatale Finesse.