Shadowlands Holy Priest Guide

Holy Priest Playstyle in Shadowlands

Holy Priest is a versatile but immobile healer specializing in using Holy Words or "small miracles" like Holy Word: Serenity and Holy Word: Sanctify to provide a rush of immediate healing to allies. Priests have a long history in Warcraft for buffing their allies and saving them from death itself. As a result Priest is often a more vulnerable healer than others with low defensive power and mobility. They make up for it by having excellent Area of Effect healing with some single target support.

Priest brings an important raid-wide buff in Power Word: Fortitude, increasing the stamina of your allies. While Discipline focuses more on preempting incoming damage or even absorbing it, Holy Priest is the master of heavy reactive healing, able to provide a steady stream of output whenever they get a chance to plant their feet and cast. The spec is great for players new to healing as it has a straightforward priority system and as the "classic healer" often has many mechanics that cross over to learning other healing specs later on.

If you are a returning player or would like a more in-depth review on the spec, the rest of this guide and both the beginner's guide and rotation guide will help provide more details on the spec.

Holy Priest Facts

Holy Priest in Shadowlands does not have any monumental changes to the playstyle and structure. Holy is often regarded as the classic healer, offering a flexible healing style that mixes Heal over Time effects with powerful direct healing abilities in our Holy Words. Any sort of healing that is required, Holy is able to adapt and respond to well enough to keep the group healthy. They are often viewed as the "Jak of all trades, master of none" for this reason. While they lack a specific niche, they make up for it in great raid oriented tools and cooldowns, which have only grown in Shadowlands with the addition of Circle of Healing to the baseline kit.

Best Holy Priest Racials

• Blood Elf - One of the most common races for Priests. Blood elves receive additional Critical Strike rating,Arcane Acuity, as well as the immensely useful Arcane Torrent ability. Offering mana regen and a Dispel Magic effect (Purge) to all enemies hit by the ability. While Priest already has Dispel Magic and Mass Dispel, utilizing Arcane Torrent can save mana and time, allowing the Priest to spend more time healing or dealing damage as needed.
• Goblin - Strong passive bonus haste (Time is Money) and extra, much needed mobility with their Rocket Jump.

• Human- Offering bonus secondaries through The Human Spirit and a stun escape in Every Man for Himself, Humans are a solid overall selection.
• Void Elf - The Allied Race offers a decent mobility/escape tool in Spatial Rift and a solid passive effect in Entropic Embrace for damage and healing.
• Night Elf - Depending on the time of day you will receive bonus Haste or Critical Strike with the Touch of Elune passive. In addition, Shadowmeld has a wealth of uses in high level keystones, leading away mobs from the party so they can cross a part of the instance and drop combat.

Holy Priest Strengths

• Specializes in multi-target healing, with all direct healing abilities causing a Healing Over Time effect afterwords.
• Has flexible single target and AoE oriented healing abilities in Holy Words.
• Raid oriented cooldowns that can restore health or mana to the group.
• Can heal through death for a short period of time with Spirit of Redemption.

Holy Priest Weaknesses

• Lacks many mobile or instant cast abilities and can be impeded on specific encounters with high movement requirements.
• Thrives in stacked encounters where Holy Word usage can be maximized, can struggle when players are more spread.
• Fewer defensive and survivability tools.

What makes Holy Priest Special

• Fantasy: Healers that worship the power of the Light, Holy Priests use powerful healing spells to keep themselves and their allies healed through dire situations.
• Races: All races except Orc and Highmountain Tauren can be Priests.
• Resources: Holy Priests use mana as their resource for spells.
• Damage Reduction: Focused Will is a passive personal damage taken reduction from melee hits.
• Healing: Holy Word: Sanctify as well as Holy Word: Serenity are the Holy Priests bread and butter. Use other healing spells such as Prayer of Healing and Flash Heal to reduce the cooldown of your holy words.
• Basic Rotation: Holy Word: Sanctify and Holy Word: Serenity should be used as often as possible. Prayer of Mending and Circle of Healing on cooldown, utilizing AoE and Single Target healing to reduce your Holy Word cooldowns.
• Mobility: Angelic Feather provides Holy Priests with a on-demand sprint.
• Healing Cooldowns: Apart from your Holy Words, Divine Hymn is your main healing cooldown as well as Holy Word: Salvation if talented.
• Armor: Intellect Cloth
• Flavor: Priests have a variety of vanity glyphs:
  • Glyph of the Heavens to float your Levitate targets on clouds
  • Glyph of Shackle Undead to change the appearance of your Shackle Undead spell
  • Glyph of Ghostly Fade to have a more spectral looking Fade!
  And some toys as well:
  • Thaumaturgist's Orb: Summons holy orbs or ravens. Sold by Quartermaster Miranda Breechlock in Light's Hope.
  • Scarlet Confessional Book: effect of old Glyph of Confession. Sold by Cravitz Lorent in Dalaran.

What's changed in Shadowlands?

With the second expansion in a row with minimal changes, Holy Priest should feel right at home for many returning players who have experienced it in Legion or BFA. There will be some talent adjustments that we will list below but the gameplay will continue to revolve around Holy Words and working to utilize them to the fullest.

New Abilities for Holy Priest in Shadowlands

Holy Priest has received some talent adjustments and GCD improvements:

• Circle of Healing - Is now a baseline ability and used about on cooldown whenever there is damage to heal as usual.
• Renewed Faith - Replaces Enduring Renewal on the 15 talent row and is a potential 5 man focused option to better support your tank.
• Prayer Circle - Replaces Circle of Healing on the level 40 talent row offering faster heals after using Circle of Healing.
• Apotheosis - Now instantly resets the cooldowns of your Holy Words when pressed solidifying this talent as the top Mythic+ pick on the row.

It has also received some returning abilities shared across all Priest specializations:

• Mind Soothe - Offers a very useful tool for skipping trash enemies in Mythic+ and while questing. You cannot run straight through these enemies but you can be significantly closer to them than before without having them attack you.
• Power Infusion - Off-GCD haste increase for yourself or an ally.
• Power Word: Shield - Situational use when on the move and the ally needs instant healing.
• Shadow Word: Death - More shadow abilities now made available to Holy.
• Shadow Word: Pain - Now baseline.

What are the Big Gameplay Changes for Holy Priest?

5 Man Growth

Now that Apotheosis resets the cooldowns of your Holy Words, it is more crucial than ever to maximize their usage when talenting into Apotheosis in a 5 man environment. While your healing Holy Words should frequently be on cooldown you must also make sure to keep Holy Word: Chastise on cooldown before using Apotheosis to take advantage of the extra damage or even an extra Stun from Censure.

How Do AoE Target Caps Affect Holy Priest in Shadowlands

Holy Nova now reduces in strength when hitting more than 5 allies or enemies. It will still be ideal to utilize for dealing damage in mass-AoE situations but you will likely want to apply Shadow Word: Pain to priority enemies first.