! Holy Priest Primer
Updated for Patch 4.3

!!! Healing Role and Priorities
_Use the lightwell!_

The main role for holy priests is that of raid healing. This means you have a superior ability to spread your heals out amongst many members of a group in a short amount of time. That is not to say that holy priests cannot tank heal. While there are several better tank healer options (such as a holy paladin), there may be situations where you have no choice (such as in 5-mans).

The key to holy healing is knowing the encounters, knowing the trash pulls, and making sure you are in the correct Chakra stance. Chakra is a new mechanic introduced in Cataclysm which can increase various spells we have at our disposal. Chakra stances are entered by first casting chakra and then casting a "trigger spell". While there are three distinct chakra spells, only two will be common for use in raids while the third is extremely situational. Additionally, entering a chakra stance will change your Holy Word: [SOMETHING] into a spell specific to the chakra stance.

!!!! Chakra: Serenity
Trigger: Heal, Greater Heal, Flash Heal, Binding Heal
Holy Word benefit: Serenity. Instant-cast heal with 25% increased crit on the target for 25 sec
Serenity chakra is the single-target healing stance. This stance increases crit by 10% for your direct healing spells (heal, greater heal, binding heal, flash heal) and refreshes renew on the target of your direct heals. When in this stance, your holy word is your most efficient direct heal, so it should be used on cooldown to increase the efficiency (via crit) of your other direct healing spells.

!!!! Chakra: Sanctuary
Trigger: Prayer of Healing, Prayer of Mending
Holy word benefit: sanctuary. AoE region-based healing (stand in the circle)
Sanctuary is the AoE healing / raid healing stance. This stance increases the power of your AoE healing spells (Prayer of Mending / Prayer of Healing / Circle of Healing) and renew by 15%, and reduces your Circle of Healing cooldown by 2 sec. While in this stance you should use circle of healing and prayer of mending on cooldown, and cast prayer of healing as needed. Holy Word: Sanctuary is a ground-based AoE heal that requires people to be standing inside the spell effect circle to benefit. However, keep in mind that if more than 6 people are standing inside the effect is diminished.

!!!! Chakra: Chastise
Trigger: Smite, Mind Spike
Holy word benefit: chastise. 15% increase to holy and shadow damage-dealing spells.
Chastise is a damage-boosting chakra stance. As such, there are very limited opportunities in which this is useful. This should only be entered at the direction of the raid leader whenever a call goes out for everyone (including healers) to burn the boss (such as burn phases on Burning Tendons in the Spine of Deathwing encounter)

!!!! Divine Hymn
Priests finally have a viable alternative to the druid Tranquility spell! Fully talented (via Heavenly Voice) Divine Hymn can do wonders to bring a large number of people back from low health, and should be used when appropriate based on the encounter. With a cooldown of only 3 minutes, coupled with the T13 2pc set bonus, this is an invaluable cooldown that can be used at least twice on most fights.

!!!! Lightwell
Lightwell should always be used during a boss fight, and re-placed if the encounter is long enough to warrant it. With the boost received post-Cataclysm, lightwell is a holy priest's single most efficient heal in terms of healing done / mana spent. However, it does take practice on the part of DPS / tanks who must actively click on it. Several fights in Dragon Soul seem built for lightwell, such as Yor'sahj (just before a mana void spawns)

!!!! Circle of Healing and Prayer of Healing
Circle of Healing is a holy priest's most efficient AOE heal, followed by Prayer of Mending and Prayer of Healing. Unless your raid leader has (for some reason) assigned you to be a tank healer, be in Serenity chakra while casting the multi-target spells due to the increased throughput. Due to gear inflation over the life of the expansion, Greater Heal should be used as a filler heal. Flash Heal should be avoided unless absolutely necessary. Due to the Serendipity talent, it makes sense if using Flash Heal to immediately follow with a Greater Heal for increased efficiency.

Mana regen remains the same as in previous expansions, as priests will be using shadowfiend followed immediately by hymn of hope. However, especially for long encounters, it makes sense to pop shadowfiend by itself early in order to ensure it will be off cooldown toward the end of the encounter.

!!! Gearing a Holy Priest
_all cloth spirit gear is priest gear?_
The rule of thumb for gearing any healing priest (and any dual specced DPS/healing priest) is to choose cloth gear with spirit. Mana regen in Cataclysm is brutl, and the more spirit your gear has the longer you can last in an encounter. For dual-specced priests who feel like occasionally melting faces, this also has the benefit of converting to Hit via Twisted Faith.

Generally the rule of thumb for holy priest stat order is Spirit > Haste (to 12.5% when fully raid buffed) > Mastery > Crit. All cloth gear has Intellect on it, so that is a non-issue. The haste plateau of 12.5% is important because it will grant one extra tick of renew for the same duration which increases throughput. Once one reaches 12.5% haste via gear & buffs, reforging, and gemming one should reforge away crit to mastery.

As far as gemming, gem int/spirit if you need more regen, int/haste if you are below 12.5% haste, and pure int otherwise. It does not make sense to place pure gems for anything other than intellect, as (in most cases) appropriate purple and orange gems will still activate socket bonuses.

Although there are many good options out there for staves, there is a slight advantage to having a 1H/OH combo instead. This is because the main-hand weapon enchants give a larger benefit than the staff enchantments. If you can afford it, Power Torrent is thought to be the BiS enchant for main-hand weapons. Alternately, Heartsong is a great enchant to provide a large amount of regen via a spirit proc. The offhand should always have a +40 Int enchant.

[url:(4/32/5)|http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bcoZfuMrRzrkcdohb:Vzo0q] is one accepted talent build, with the points taken by Veiled Shadows, Surge of Light (not selected in this build), and Mental Agility being "floaters" that can be distributed as you please. However, keep in mind that Veiled Shadows is good to have for longer healing-intensive fights (Madness of Deathwing, Warmaster Blackthorn)

[url:Ask Mr Robot|www.askmrrobot.com] how to set up your gear. He does a wonderful job and is quite knowledgable about priest stat priorities.

! Holy Priest Primer
Updated for Patch 4.3

!!! Healing Role and Priorities
_Use the lightwell!_

The main role for holy priests is that of raid healing. This means you have a superior ability to spread your heals out amongst many members of a group in a short amount of time. That is not to say that holy priests cannot tank heal. While there are several better tank healer options (such as a holy paladin), there may be situations where you have no choice (such as in 5-mans).

The key to holy healing is knowing the encounters, knowing the trash pulls, and making sure you are in the correct Chakra stance. Chakra is a new mechanic introduced in Cataclysm which can increase various spells we have at our disposal. Chakra stances are entered by first casting chakra and then casting a "trigger spell". While there are three distinct chakra spells, only two will be common for use in raids while the third is extremely situational. Additionally, entering a chakra stance will change your Holy Word: Chastise into a spell specific to the chakra stance.

!!!! Chakra: Serenity
Trigger: Heal, Greater Heal, Flash Heal, Binding Heal
Holy Word benefit: Serenity. Instant-cast heal with 25% increased crit on the target for 25 sec
Serenity chakra is the single-target healing stance. This stance increases crit by 10% for your direct healing spells (heal, greater heal, binding heal, flash heal) and refreshes renew on the target of your direct heals. When in this stance, your holy word is your most efficient direct heal, so it should be used on cooldown to increase the efficiency (via crit) of your other direct healing spells.

!!!! Chakra: Sanctuary
Trigger: Prayer of Healing, Prayer of Mending
Holy word benefit: sanctuary. AoE region-based healing (stand in the circle)
Sanctuary is the AoE healing / raid healing stance. This stance increases the power of your AoE healing spells (Prayer of Mending / Prayer of Healing / Circle of Healing) and renew by 15%, and reduces your Circle of Healing cooldown by 2 sec. While in this stance you should use circle of healing and prayer of mending on cooldown, and cast prayer of healing as needed. Holy Word: Sanctuary is a ground-based AoE heal that requires people to be standing inside the spell effect circle to benefit. However, keep in mind that if more than 6 people are standing inside the effect is diminished.

!!!! Chakra: Chastise
Trigger: Smite, Mind Spike
Holy word benefit: chastise. 15% increase to holy and shadow damage-dealing spells.
Chastise is a damage-boosting chakra stance. As such, there are very limited opportunities in which this is useful. This should only be entered at the direction of the raid leader whenever a call goes out for everyone (including healers) to burn the boss (such as burn phases on Burning Tendons in the Spine of Deathwing encounter)

!!!! Divine Hymn
Priests finally have a viable alternative to the druid Tranquility spell! Fully talented (via Heavenly Voice) Divine Hymn can do wonders to bring a large number of people back from low health, and should be used when appropriate based on the encounter. With a cooldown of only 3 minutes, coupled with the T13 2pc set bonus, this is an invaluable cooldown that can be used at least twice on most fights.

!!!! Lightwell
Lightwell should always be used during a boss fight, and re-placed if the encounter is long enough to warrant it. With the boost received post-Cataclysm, lightwell is a holy priest's single most efficient heal in terms of healing done / mana spent. However, it does take practice on the part of DPS / tanks who must actively click on it. Several fights in Dragon Soul seem built for lightwell, such as Yor'sahj (just before a mana void spawns)

!!!! Circle of Healing and Prayer of Healing
Circle of Healing is a holy priest's most efficient AOE heal, followed by Prayer of Mending and Prayer of Healing. Unless your raid leader has (for some reason) assigned you to be a tank healer, be in Serenity chakra while casting the multi-target spells due to the increased throughput. Due to gear inflation over the life of the expansion, Greater Heal should be used as a filler heal. Flash Heal should be avoided unless absolutely necessary. Due to the Serendipity talent, it makes sense if using Flash Heal to immediately follow with a Greater Heal for increased efficiency.

Mana regen remains the same as in previous expansions, as priests will be using shadowfiend followed immediately by hymn of hope. However, especially for long encounters, it makes sense to pop shadowfiend by itself early in order to ensure it will be off cooldown toward the end of the encounter.

!!! Gearing a Holy Priest
_all cloth spirit gear is priest gear?_
The rule of thumb for gearing any healing priest (and any dual specced DPS/healing priest) is to choose cloth gear with spirit. Mana regen in Cataclysm is brutl, and the more spirit your gear has the longer you can last in an encounter. For dual-specced priests who feel like occasionally melting faces, this also has the benefit of converting to Hit via Twisted Faith.

Generally the rule of thumb for holy priest stat order is Spirit > Haste (to 12.5% when fully raid buffed) > Mastery > Crit. All cloth gear has Intellect on it, so that is a non-issue. The haste plateau of 12.5% is important because it will grant one extra tick of renew for the same duration which increases throughput. Once one reaches 12.5% haste via gear & buffs, reforging, and gemming one should reforge away crit to mastery.

As far as gemming, gem int/spirit if you need more regen, int/haste if you are below 12.5% haste, and pure int otherwise. It does not make sense to place pure gems for anything other than intellect, as (in most cases) appropriate purple and orange gems will still activate socket bonuses.

Although there are many good options out there for staves, there is a slight advantage to having a 1H/OH combo instead. This is because the main-hand weapon enchants give a larger benefit than the staff enchantments. If you can afford it, Power Torrent is thought to be the BiS enchant for main-hand weapons. Alternately, Heartsong is a great enchant to provide a large amount of regen via a spirit proc. The offhand should always have a +40 Int enchant.

[url:(4/32/5)|http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bcoZfuMrRzrkcdohb:Vzo0q] is one accepted talent build, with the points taken by Veiled Shadows, Surge of Light (not selected in this build), and Mental Agility being "floaters" that can be distributed as you please. However, keep in mind that Veiled Shadows is good to have for longer healing-intensive fights (Madness of Deathwing, Warmaster Blackthorn)

[url:Ask Mr Robot|www.askmrrobot.com] how to set up your gear. He does a wonderful job and is quite knowledgable about priest stat priorities.