Holy Priest FAQ

These questions are asked on many websites all over the internet, I think it is vital as a healer that I know the very basics behind my class, and that all others know them too.

I hope these simple answers to being a Holy Priest will help you through your career in WoW Healing!

Q: What Talent Spec Should I Take as a Holy Priest?
A: There are two standard 'templates' for a holy build, the first is a slight hybrid, with 23/38/0, with 23 in discipline giving improved divine spirit and improved fortitude. The second is based on a fuller holy tree, with some points still in discipline for mana conservation, this is usually along the lines of 1x/4x/0. With the discipline, meditation and inner focus mixed with a holy tree upto Circle of Healing.

Q: Should I take Spirit of Remption?
A: Definately, if you dont find the angel practical the 5% + Spirit is fantastic for any priest.

Q: Should I take Lightwell (LOLwell)
A) While it can heal for around 4500 a click its break on damage removes a lot of this spells usefullness, especially with both the raidwide damage and unpredictability of bosses in The Burning Crusade.

Q: Should I take Circle of Healing?
A: Circle of healing is a great spell for getting out of a tight spot, it reaches to 1k-1.6k healing to all members of a party every second if used correctly. It is great for 5mans and raids alike. Some people however still prefer to have a better overall heal rather than this spell in their inventory.

Q: Should I take Holy Concentration?
A: Holy Concentration is a powerful talent, though choosing between this and reduced spell damage (AoE Spell damage being the nuumber one priest killer) is often a close call.

Q: Is Holy Reach Worth it?
A: It really does depend on your style of play, if for instance you use AoE heals a lot this is invaluable, whereas if you mainly single target heal you may find it more profitabel to move these talents somewhere else.

Q: What Gear do I need to run instances?
A: For Karazhan you can start at 1300 +Healing, 180 Mp5 or 400 Spirit, you should become a comfortable kara healer you should have around 1650 - 1850 +Healing 200 - 250 Mp5 or 500 - 600 Spirit.

When you reach the end of Kara you will be ready to move into higher instances, T5 Content will require you to beat the end of Teir 4 content by about another 15% and to heal comfortably you should have around 2000+Healing, 230-290 Mp5 or 600-700 spirit.

Q: As a Holy Priest Should I Stack Mp5 or Spirit.
A: The easy answer is you should be stacking both, each of these are vital, though in patch 2.3 Spirit became much more powerful for Holy Priests.

With a good ehaling talent build the following formula should be usid to figure out your Mp5 in and out of the five second rule. For Example


500 spirit and 135 Mp5 from gear.
[(500/4)+13]*2.5 + 135 : 480 Mp5 (OO5SR)
345 * 0.3 + 135 : 238.5 Mp5 (II5SR)

Q: Should I downrank spells?
A: Definately, Downranking is key to mana conservation by reducing overhealing. Dont become obsessed with overhealing though, it is much more important to keep the healer up than shave a few% off your overhealing mark.

Q: What is stopcasting and should I use it?
A: Definately, Stopcasting is much more efficient than jumping out of a spell. Stopcasting can be done by pressing escape, or alternatively by setting up a /stopcasting macro to a button of your choice.

Q: Overhealing what should I do?
A: Before the burning crusade most healers would blanche at any over healing over 20%. Nowdays however with different game mechanics overhealing should bemore at the 30% mark. Take your overhealing too low and you may find your raid dieing because of the oh so regular spike damage that is dished out in end game instances in the Outlands.