As I am a heroic Holy Priest raider myself I decided to create a guide for all our Holy Priests out there!
So to quote Deckard Cain ''Stay awhile and listen''.
Content
1. Talents & Glyphs.
2. Spells.
3. Gear & Stats
4. Enchants, gems and consumables
5. Addons & Macros.
6. Hints and tricks.
Before I continue I want to point out that there is a difference in being a 25 man Holy Priest and a 10 man Holy Priest, I'll do my best to cover both.
1. Talents & Glyphs.
Tier 1 - Crowd Control tier.
Void Tendrils, Psyfiend, Dominate Mind
Some may say this is mainly a PvP talent tier, while mostly correct, Void Tendrils and Psyfiend have their uses, especially in Siege of Orgrimmar. Dominate Mind however has to my knowledge no use in any of the Mist of Pandria raids. Consult guides to see what creatures can be feared and or rooted.
- Void Tendrils: summons Shadowy Tendrils out of the ground that will root up to 5 enemies in 8 yards for 20 seconds. The tendrils are targetable and killable.
- Psyfiend: Summons a Psyfiend that stands in place for 10 sec. The Psyfiend casts a Psychic Terror on a nearby enemy within 20 yards every 2 sec, preferring anything attacking the Priest.
Psychic Terror causes enemies to flee for 30 sec. Damage caused may interrupt the effect
- Dominate Mind: Controls a mind up to level 94 for 30 sec. Does not work versus Mechanical beings.
Tier 2 - Mobility tier.
Body and Soul, Angelic Feathers and Phantasm.
This is tier is based on preferences, I prefer the Angelic Feathers because they give me the most mobility in PvE.
- Body and Soul: Everytime you cast Power Word: Shield or Leap of Faith on a friendly target, they will receive a 60% running speed bonus for 4 seconds.
- Angelic Feathers: Places a feather on the ground, anyone who will walk through this feather will receive a 80% run speed bonus for 6 seconds, and has a 10 second cooldown and 3 feathers in total can be dropped on the floor.
- Phantasm: Removes all the movement impairing effects on you and makes you immume for movement imparing effects for 5 seconds.
Tier 3 - The ''Mana'' tier.
From Darkness, Comes Light (FDCL), Mindbender, Solace and Instanity
This is the first talent tree that will change your play style, if you're comfortable with your mana, I advice you to use FDCL, else Mindbender or Solace and Instanity are both a good pick.
-From Darkness, Comes Light: Has a 15% chance on giving you a free of mana cost, instant cast Flash Heal whenever you cast Smite, Heal, Binding Heal, Flash Heal or Greater Heal. This has two charges.
-Mindbender: This is a different version of Shadowfiend, it has a 1 minute cooldown instead of the 3 minutes the Shadowfiend has and will last 15 seconds. It will atack 10 times, restoring a total of 13% mana per use. Picking this talent will replace the Shadowfiend spell.
-Solance and Instanity: This talent will grant us the ability: Power Word: Solace and replaces Holy Fire for Discipline and Holy Priests. It does the same as Holy Fire and is instant cast, costs no mana, and restores 1% of maximum mana on each cast. The Damage dealt by Power Word: Solace will heal a nearby friendly player within 40 yards of the target for 100% of the damage dealt (50% when healing the Priest).
Tier 4 the survivability tier.
Desperate Prayer, Spectral Guise and Angelic Bulwark.
For most fights, this is again preference based. There are however some fights where Spectral Guise is a must to avoid certain mechanics, consult your boss guides or scroll down to the hints and tricks section of this guide.
- Desperate Prayer: Instantly healing youself for 30% of your total health on a 2 minutes cooldown, no mana cost.
- Spectral Guise - This will leave an illusion of yourself behind, and you will be stealthed for up to 6 seconds, or until you are hit by 3 times.
- Angelic Bullwark - Anytime a damaging attack brings you below 30% health, you gain an absorption shield equal to 20% of your total health lasting for 20 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once every 90 seconds
Tier 5 - Throughput tier.
Twist of Faith, Power Infusion and Divine Insight.
For Holy, I recommend going for Divine Insight, Prayer of Healing will be a spell you'll always use, and isn't situational as the other two choices are.
- Twist of Faith: Increases your damage and healing by 15% for 10 seconds, each time you damage or heal a target that is below 35% health. This talent is very situational, as most of the time your team members will not drop below 35%.
- Power Infusion: This is a 2-minute cooldown that increases your spell casting speed by 20%, reduces the mana cost of all your spells by 20% and increases your damage by 5% for 20 seconds.
- Divine Insight: Grants you a 40% chance, whenever you cast Greater Heal or Prayer of Healing I, that your next Prayer of Mending will not trigger a cooldown, and that it will automatically jump to all of its targets.
Tier 6 - the ''new'' spell tiers:
Cascade, Divine Star and Halo.
This tier is one of the best spell tiers, every option has their strenght and weakness. It's different per fight which spell to pick and it boils down to what suits you and your team the best. All three options can do healing and or damage. For fights where a big part of the raid is stacked up, I use Divine Star. When people are spread out I use Cascade or Halo.
-Cascade: This spell will cast on your target and then bounces to another target, each time it bounces, it will split in 2 bolts, preferring farher away targets, and never hitting the same target twice. Cascade can bounce up to 3 times. This spell is instant, costs 27000 mana and has a 25 second cooldown. It is worth noting that this spell can only go from enemy to enemy or from friendly target to friendly target.
-Divine Star: Fires a divine star that travels 24 yards, healing or damaging everybody in its path in a 6 yards range. After reaching its destination, the star returns to you, repeating the effect. This spell is instant, costs 13500 mana and has a 15 second cooldown. This spell requires very good positioning and the raid to be stacked up in order to get the most use out of this spell. It is affected by diminishing returns past 6 targets.
-Halo: Causes an effect around you, which expands up to a 30-yard radius. Allies who are inside it are healed, while enemies are damaged. The highest amounts of healing/damage are received by the targets who are around the 25-yard mark. This spell is instant, costs 40500 mana and has a 40 second cooldown. This is the most expensive, but biggest (when positioned correctly) healing spell of the three and is amazing if the group is spread out. It is affected by diminishing returns after 6 targets. You will probably need to use an addon to help you with positioning optimally.
Glyphs:
There aren't a lot of major Glyphs that will improve our healing, there are some worth listing however:
Glyph of Inner Sanctum: Spell damage taken is reduced by 6% while within Inner Fire, and movement speed bonus of your Inner Will is increased by 6%. This glyph is very good for fights where there is a lot of magic damage, I often switch this one around with the following glyph:
Glyph of Inner Fire: Increases the armor gained from your Inner Fire spell by 50%. This glyph is good where a lot of physical damage is being thrown at you. Every little bit of damage reduction helps!
Glyph of Deep Wells: Increases the total amount of charges of your Lightwell by 2. There isn't a lot of explaining to do here. But please do not confuse this glyph with the following one:
Glyph of Lightwell: Your Lightwell no longer automatically heals nearby targets, but can be clicked by players to deal 50% more healing than normal. This basically converts the Lightwell to the old version, where players needed to click it in order to receive a heal from it. Experience tells that many won't to do this for various reasons.
Glyph of Binding Heal: Your Binding Heal spell now heals a third friendly target within 20 yards, but costs 35% more mana. If you're okay on mana regen, and the tank plus melee dps are taking a beating, this glyph is a nice addition.
Glyph of Renew: Your Renew heals 33% more each time it heals, but its duration is reduced by 3 seconds. Not worth using in 25 man, since you will hardly use Renew at all there. I suggest considering this glyph if you're raiding 10 man where the spell is used more.
Glyph of Circle of Healing: Your Circle of Healing spells heals 1 additional target, but its mana cost is increased by 35%. A solid glyph in my opinion, again if you're good with mana you can safely use this glyph, especially on heavy AOE fights.
Glyph of Praying of Mending: The first charge of your Prayer of Mending heals for an additional 60% but your Prayer of Mending has 1 fewer charge. This Glyph looks like a good one at first, but in reality, it actually reduces your healing overall in a fight and is only good for ''burst'' healing. Some math comes into play to explain this properly:
Glyphed = 160% + 100% + 100% + 100% + 100% = 560% total healing.
Unglyphed = 100% + 100% + 100% + 100% + 100% + 100% = 600% total healing.
