PvE Holy Priest Healing Guide

Holy Priest Healing Guide

Stat Priority

Talents & Builds

Pre-Raid & Best In Slot (BiS)

Gems, Enchants, & Consumables

Rotation, Cooldowns, & Abilities

Welcome to Warcraft Tavern’s guide for Holy (Healing) Priests in World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Classic. During your read, you will find information on gearing your Priest in your Pre-Raid BiS and each phase’s respective BiS list. You will also find information on which enchants and gems you’ll be looking for, and more.

In The Burning Crusade Classic, every race now has access to Fear Ward, so we will be skipping over that specific spell during this section.

Best Races

Alliance

Human: In addition to The Human Spirit, Diplomacy and Perception, Human Priests receive Feedback, an ability that surrounds you with anti-magic energy, burning 165 of the attacker’s mana on any successful attack against you. Human Priests also receive Desperate Prayer, an instant-cast spell that heals the Priest for significant damage, on a 10-minute cooldown.

Dwarf: In addition to Stoneform, Dwarf Priests receive Chastise, an ability which causes mediocre damage, while immobilizing the target for up to two seconds. The drawback is that this ability only works against Humanoids. Dwarf Priests also receive Desperate Prayer, an instant-cast spell that heals the Priest for significant damage, on a 10-minute cooldown.

Night Elf: In addition to Shadowmeld and Quickness, Night Elf Priests receive Starshards, which assists with damage, and Elune’s Grace, which will help with your overall avoidance toward melee and ranged damage for a short time.

Draenei: In addition to Gift of the Naaru and Inspiring Presence, Draenei Priests receive Chastise, an ability which causes mediocre damage, while immobilizing the target for up to two seconds. The drawback is that this ability only works against Humanoids. Draenei Priests also receive Symbol of Hope, which regenerates approximately 999 mana to each of your party members.

What is the best Alliance race?

The main competition falls between Humans and Draenei for the best race on the Alliance. Because we receive Spiritual Guidance in the Holy tree, Humans having an increase of 10% to their Spirit is incredibly beneficial. By receiving Symbol of Hope, you can benefit caster-groups significantly. While Perception doesn’t have many uses in PvE content, it still gives Human Priests a leg-up in those few situations. Human Priests also have Desperate Prayer and thus would be considered the best race on Alliance.

Horde

Undead: In addition to Will of the Forsaken and Cannibalize, Undead Priests receive Touch of Weakness, an ability that provides reactive damage when hit with a melee attack, and reduces the damage caused by the attacker for a short time. Undead Priests also receive Devouring Plague, a damage-over-time spell that heals you as it damages your target.

Troll: In addition to Berserking, Troll Priests receive Hex of Weakness, an ability that weakens your target, reducing damage caused by a small amount and the effectiveness of any healing by 20% – in most fights, this would be used mainly for the damage reduction. Troll Priests also receive Shadowguard, an ability that acts like a shield, making every attack against you retaliate on the attacker, causing shadow damage, up to a maximum of three charges.

Blood Elf: In addition to Mana Tap and Arcane Torrent, Blood Elf Priests receive Hex of Weakness, an ability that provides reactive damage when hit with a melee attack, and reduces the damage caused by the attacker for a short time. Blood Elf Priests also receive Consume Magic, allowing you to dispel one of your own buffs, and in return receive a small amount of mana.

What is the best Horde race?

Because Hex of Weakness affects the healing the target receives, it wouldn’t show much benefit on fights that don’t see that happening. Touch of Weakness relies on the Priest being hit, which shouldn’t happen in dungeons, heroics, or raids, so we won’t see much benefit from that, either. Because of this, the Troll Priest would be competing with the Undead Priest – Berserking compared to Devouring Plague, which sees the Troll Priest coming out on top for the best race on the Horde.

Best Professions

Alchemy: By choosing Alchemy, the Priest may be able to supply their own consumables in regards to flasks, elixirs and potions. In later phases, you will be able to craft high-level trinkets: Redeemer’s Alchemist Stone, and the inferior, Sorcerer’s Alchemist Stone.

Blacksmithing: The only advantage of picking Blacksmithing as a Priest is the ability to craft keys in order to open locked chests without a Rogue. You can also craft high-level equipment, such as Hand of Eternity, but the important thing to keep in mind is that it is Bind-on-Equip (BoE) and can be purchased via Auction House or other players.

Enchanting: By picking Enchanting, the Priest can enchant their rings with enchants only usable by high-level Enchanters. The enchant that we would be interested in is Enchant Ring – Healing Power. Enchanting also provides a means to making some extra gold, while also allowing their guild members to have enchants completed, potentially for free, depending on your role within the guild.

Engineering: By choosing Engineering, the Priest can craft high-level helmets like Powerheal 4000 Lens beginning in Phase 2, later upgrading to Powerheal 9000 Lens in Phase 5. Engineers also have the opportunity to benefit their groups by crafting Field Repair Bot 110G, which may save your raid some time in the long-haul.

Jewelcrafting: By choosing Jewelcrafting, the Priest is able to craft highly-unique gems that are only usable by them, such as Kailee’s Rose. It should be noted that these are unique gems, and can only be equipped once at a time. The other benefit to choosing Jewelcrafting is the ability to craft trinkets such as Figurine – Living Ruby Serpent in Phase 1. In later phases, you can craft Figurine – Crimson Serpent. Alchemist Stone, which is a material required to craft Redeemer’s Alchemist Stone, another potential trinket, wouldn’t be comparable to the two trinkets mentioned.

Leatherworking: By picking Leatherworking, the Priest would be able to craft various versions of Drums of Battle, potentially improving their raid’s performance by a significant amount. Apart from that, Priests don’t see any benefit from choosing Leatherworking, and it’s recommended that you do not pick this profession.

Tailoring: By picking Tailoring, the Priest can craft their own set of gear: the Primal Mooncloth Set and the Whitemend Wisdom Set. This will carry you into later phases. The second most important thing that Tailors can craft are the different levels of Spellthread – Golden, Silver, Runic, and Mystic – which can potentially save you some gold.

Gathering Professions: Neither Enchanting nor Tailoring requires you to have a gathering profession, but it should be noted that each gathering profession (Skinning, Mining, and Herbalism) has potential to make reasonable amounts of gold.