PvE Holy Priest Healing Rotation, Cooldowns, & Abilities

Holy Priest Healing Guide

Stat Priority

Talents & Builds

Pre-Raid & Best In Slot (BiS)

Gems, Enchants, & Consumables

Rotation, Cooldowns, & Abilities

As a Healer, there isn’t a set-in-stone rotation when it comes to our spells since, in most cases, the spells we use to heal will depend on the situation, which will be different for everyone:

• Your tank may not be defence-capped, and thus may take more unpredictable damage
• Your tank may not be able to maintain aggro control and thus your DPS will be taking some damage
• Your group may not know the specific mechanics of each fight, and they may take Cleave damage that was otherwise avoidable
• Pulls may turn into extra mobs, leading to increased damage being taken by your tank

Buffs to Maintain

• Power Word: Fortitude / Prayer of Fortitude
• Shadow Protection
• If you choose to spec into the Discipline tree, you’ll also want to maintain Divine Spirit (Especially if you have Improved Divine Spirit for your friendly casters)
• For any encounters with Fear, we will want to maintain Fear Ward as much as possible

Healing Spells to be Familiar With

1. Power Word: Shield – The only time you should be using this on a Warrior or Druid tank is if they are going to die before you’re able to get your next heal off since as long as they are shielded, they don’t generate rage until the shield either expires or the shield is used up. When healing a Paladin tank, you can use Power Word: Shield whenever since they don’t rely on incoming damage to maintain their threat output. It is good practice to place this on DPS whenever a boss has a Cleave ability to help soak some of its damage.
2. Renew – The reason Renew is placed second on this list is that it is simple enough to place it on each of your party members in anticipation for incoming damage (realistically, it should be maintained on at least the tank) – this, combined with Power Word: Shield, affords the Priest the opportunity to provide healing to their DPS (and/or other healers, if in a raid) while not diverting their attention from either tank, depending on their assigned healing target.
3. Prayer of Mending – This is a great proactive spell to use when you are expecting one or more targets will be taking heavy incoming damage.
4. Circle of Healing – One of our couple AoE healing spells. The ideal strategy behind this spell is to make sure to hit at least three targets – in most encounters, this won’t be an issue.
5. Binding Heal – This is a special little heal that provides healing to both you and your target – useful if you and the target both have taken damage, or will before the cast time is finished.
6. Flash Heal – By late-game content, you will likely be very familiar with this spell. It provides nearly half the healing that Greater Heal does, in half the time. Flash Heal is great for clinch heals, to save a party member’s life.
7. Greater Heal – Ideally, the focus on this spell will be to combat heavy incoming damage – you may notice you using this spell more often on tanks that are not defence capped, or haven’t reached crush immunity.

Key Notes to Remember

• Be mindful of your mana pool at all times – even with Shadow Priests, Shamans and various mana-regenerating buffs, you can still run out of mana. Once you become familiar with healing endgame content, you’ll start to realize which spells to use in which situation, allowing for you to prioritize certain spells over others.
• Downranking spells is a great way to expend less mana, but remember that each spell you downrank will provide less and less healing, the more you downrank. Greater Heal is a good spell to downrank.
• In endgame content, there are typically three different types of healing roles: Main-Tank, Off-Tank, and Raid Healing. It’s recommended that if you are assigned to either tank, you communicate with them prior to your first run with them to discuss their strategies on pulls so that you can better prepare yourself with what spells to use, what ranks you may need to use, etc.