Patch 9.2 Holy Priest Changes

Incomplete List

This is not a comprehensive list and may be missing some changes, for example undocumented hotfixes or uninteresting bug fixes.

Patch 9.2 was released on February 22, 2022. This page will have relevant changes from data-mining and testing on the PTR until release.

Spell Changes

• Holy Priest Spec Aura healing aura increased from 5% to 16%.
  • Note: This is ~10.5% increase to the healing done by all spells.
• Holy Priest Spec Aura damage aura increased from 25% to 44%
  • Note: This is ~15% increase to the damage done by all spells.
• Guardian Spirit no change, just a tooltip update to make it clearer.
• Holy Word: Chastise damage increased from 112.5% SP to 140% SP.
  • Note: This is ~24.5% increase to the damage done.
• Symbol of Hope cooldown reduced from 5 min to 3min and channelling time reduced from 5 sec to 4 sec.
  • Note: This is an overall buff in mana returned and a significant buff to the personal defensive time returned... if people use them.
• Holy Word: Serenity mana cost decreased from 4% to 2.5% base mana.
  • Note: This helps offset the increased mana usage from the Tier bonus.
• Holy Word: Sanctify mana cost decreased from 5% to 3.5% base mana.
  • Note: This helps offset the increased mana usage from the Tier bonus.

Talent Changes

• Binding Heal removed.
  • Note: Finally.
• Binding Heals replaces Cosmic Ripple on the level 30 row.
  • Note: Heals based on the raw FH/Heal healing done. Likely the defacto choice for parsing well, or you can do the right thing and take Guardian Angel.
• Cosmic Ripple replaces Binding Heal on the level 40 row.
  • Note: This row will mostly come down to SoL vs CR for the FC playstyle and CR vs PC for all other playstyles. Acronyms!
• Afterlife allows you to cast Resurrection on a dead ally, but casting it will end Spirit of Redemption.
  • Afterlife also reduces the base cast time of Resurrection from 10 sec to 6 sec.
  • Note: Having to die to battle res someone seems like just another excuse to give Holy Priest something other people have, but with more downsides/caveats/conditions for no reason. Can be paired with APT to res someone "for free". Could also be used with Xanshi, Return of Arcbishop Benedictus but trading a legendary for an additional battle res is very situational.
  • The Res cast is full length. It ends SoR. It does not count towards the "battle res" count.
• Guardian Angel has received an additional effect preventing the healing buff from dropping off if Guardian Spirit is consumed by saving someone's life.
  • Note: Small passive healing increase on targets with GS on them. Good change, probably should have been like this from the start.
  • Note: Once the life saving portion procs, it can not proc again a second time.
• Prayer Circle now also reduces the cost of Prayer of Healing by 25% for 8 sec.
  • Note: Very good change for non-FC playstyles.

Shadowlands Systems

• T28 2pc Knowledge: Your Holy Words begin Divine Conversation , increasing the cooldown reduction of your next Holy-Word-affecting spell by 15 sec.
• T28 4pc Blessed Soul: Divine Conversation increases the effectiveness of your next Holy-Word-affecting spell by 60%.
• Covenant legendary will be able to be crafted in a belt slot which will change effect when you change covenant.
  • Bwonsamdi's Pact legendary can move the Haunted Mask around without triggering the GCD. It is still restricted by the GCD, though.
• Domination Shards will not function in the new raid or any Mythic+ dungeons.

Other Systems

No notable changes.

Notable hotfixes

• Mar. 23, 2022: Players affected by Spirit of Redemption will no longer trigger Interdimensional Wormholes during Artificer Xy'mox.
• Mar. 18, 2022: Fixed an issue where mouseover macros would not work for Fae Guardians (Night Fae Ability).
• Mar. 08, 2022: Holy Priest’s healing Anduin's Hope with Guardian Spirit active should now reduce the cooldown of Guardian Spirit.
• Mar. 07, 2022: Fixed an issue where Priest’s Unholy Nova (Necrolord Ability) was unusable on Halondrus except in specific spots.
• Mar. 03, 2022: Holy Priest’s Guardian Angel (Talent) will now correctly reduce the cooldown of Guardian Spirit when cast on the Withering Seeds.
• Feb. 23, 2022: Fixed an issue that caused Shadow Word: Death to only deal 50% bonus damage instead of 150% bonus damage while targets were below 20% health.

Known issues

Critical

• (Build 9.2.0.42354) - Divine Conversation is consumed by renew procs from both Benediction and Holy Word: Salvation.
• (Build 9.2.0.42521) - Divine Conversation behaves really inconsistently with Holy Words. Sometimes a holy word doesn't benefit from 2pc, sometimes not from 4pc, and some times it doesn't proc or consume DC. Seems mostly related to cast sequencing but even that is really inconsistent.
• (Build 9.2.0.42277) - Haunted Mask from Bwonsamdi's Pact doesn't dynamically update when moving faeries around. This means you can have a faerie and a mask on a target without getting added benefit in typical circumstances.
• (Build 9.1.5.42010) - Halo has a target cap of 20 targets. It hits pets and guardians, so much of the 20-target cap is often taken up by useless overhealing on pets and guardians.
• (Build 9.2.0.42354) - Shadow Word: Manipulation doesn't increase the "damage done heals the target instead" (healing) component by 10%.
• (Build 9.1.5.42010) - When Guardian Spirit is present on an enemy that dies in a way that Guardian Spirit is not given an opportunity to save them (such as some raid mechanics, or players with Forgeborne Reveries), Guardian Angel is not triggered and the cooldown of Guardian Spirit is not set back to 60-seconds.
• (Build 9.2.0.42277) - Podtender can proc then the pod can die (even in raid/mythic+) and you are in SoR but also still pod so unable to cast.

Important

• (Build 9.2.0.42354) - None of the spells the Divine Image casts are affected by the Holy Priest aura Holy Priest Spec Aura.
• (Build 9.2.0.42354) - None of the spells the Divine Image casts are affected by the 5% variance other spells have, presumable a carry-over from Legion.
• (Build 9.2.0.42354) - None of the spells the Divine Image casts are affected by Echo of Light.
• (Build 9.2.0.42354) - Healing reversed by Mindgames is not modified by the Holy Priest aura Holy Priest Spec Aura.
• (Build 9.2.0.42354) - Food buff is lost when entering Spirit of Redemption.
• (Build 9.2.0.42354) - The healing component of Ascended Eruption scales with the damage portion of the Holy Priest aura Holy Priest Spec Aura, not the healing portion.
• (Build 9.2.0.42354) - Fae Guardians can't be used in the new "click to cast" feature, nor can it be bound in addons like Clique/Vuhdo or used in a regular mouseover Macro.

Non-Priest Specific

• (Build 9.2.0.42277) - Podtender debuff Depleted Shell doesn't clear when you wipe.

Minor

• (Build 9.2.0.42354) - Prayer of Mending states it jumps "Up to 5 times" despite only jumping 4 times.
• (Build 9.2.0.42277) - Divine Image will only cast Light Eruption when Holy Nova's initial hit damages more than 1 enemy target.
• (Build 9.2.0.42354) - Power Word: Shield does not scale with the Holy Priest aura Holy Priest Spec Aura.
• (Build 9.2.0.42354) - Symbol of Hope scales with haste and always returns more than 60 seconds of CDR (typically 65-70 seconds of CDR with normal haste levels) to all abilities. (Thanks @Cairngorm)

PTR Opinions

Thoughts on Set Bonuses

Opinion Mar 01, 2022 (9.2.0.42521): Most of the bugs have now been fixed, just really the Chastise DC interaction that needs to be fixed. A+ Blizzard we made it in the end.

Opinion Feb 25, 2022 (9.2.0.42488): Still bugged with DC not proccing properly with both healing holy words, and renew cast procs eating DC procs :(

Opinion Feb 09, 2022 (9.2.0.42257): Finally a mostly bug-free build. Looks as though with Salv that Serenity/Sanc being buffed by DC is intended. This means that ideally the best spell to use DC on will be Sanc or Serenity. If the Chastise-based CDR bug is fixed then it will also mean using Chastise to proc DC will be very worthwhile as well.

Opinion Feb 03, 2022 (9.2.0.42174): Possibly the least functional version of the set bonus yet, due to bugs with Serenity/Sanc.

Opinion Jan 27, 2022 (9.2.0.42069): Day 69: Bugs, bugs as far as the eye can see. The buff from 35% to 60% increased healing is a welcome one, though if it gets much larger using it on an FC+RW buffed Heal cast is going to be far too big to not lose a bunch to overhealing.

Opinion Jan 20, 2022 (9.2.0.41962): One day we will get a set bonus that isn't loaded with bugs. One day.

Opinion Jan 10, 2022 (9.2.0.41726): It looks like the CDR value has been changed from an additional 2.5x CDR to a flat 15-seconds CDR. This is for both fillers and holy words. There is also an outstanding bug with no CDR being applied to Serenity, and the pre-existing bugs with some spells not gaining benefit from the healing increase. Presuming this is all fixed, it'll be a fairly straight forward set bonus to use, with Serenity/Sanc preferred to consume Divine Conversation if the Salv CDR is required, otherwise using it on a filler with its associated Holy Word on CD will be more beneficial. With Apo in dungeons, being able to go Serenity > FH/Heal > FH/Heal > Serenity is also quite nice again, sorely missed after having it for BfA.

Opinion Dec 03, 2021: A lot of the feedback for this will depend on how/what it interacts with... still. Looks like there's a bunch of bugs and inconsistencies in how the set bonus functions at the moment.

Opinion Nov 19, 2021: A lot of the feedback for this will depend on how/what it interacts with. Overall 2pc on its own would introduce some additional in-the-moment decision making "on its own" but when combined with 4pc it may drastically reduce the agency in what you cast to be optimal.

T28 Interactions

Updated Mar 01, 2022 (9.2.0.42521)

Spell	Procs 2pc?	Bonus 15s CDR?	Buffed by 4pc?	Consumes Buff?
Heal	-	Yes	Yes	Yes
Flash Heal	-	Yes	Yes	Yes
Renew	-	Yes	Yes	Yes
Prayer of Healing	-	Yes	Yes	Yes
Binding Heal	Good	Bye	Binding	Heal
Smite	-	Yes	Yes	Yes
Circle of Healing (HA)	-	Yes	Yes	Yes
Prayer of Mending (HA)	-	Yes	Yes	Yes
Holy Fire (HA)	-	Yes	Yes	Yes
Holy Word: Serenity	Yes	Depends¹	Yes¹	Depends¹
Holy Word: Sanctify	Yes	Depends¹	Yes¹	Depends¹
Holy Word: Chastise	Yes	-	No	No
Holy Word: Salvation	Yes	-	No	No

¹Note: With Holy Word: Salvation talented, both Holy Word: Sanctify and Holy Word: Serenity should be buffed by, and consume Divine Conversation. However, if you cast Holy Word: Chastise then cast something that doesn't consume it, like Circle of Healing or Prayer of Mending - the next Holy Word: Serenity or Holy Word: Sanctify will be buffed by 4pc, will not consume the DC buff, and will not grant a bonus 15s CDR towards Salvation. So depending on the situation, a Holy Word may or may not provide the +15s CDR. It also may consume the buff, re-apply the DC buff or refresh the DC buff... depending on your cast sequencing.

We can presume anything in red/orange above are likely a bug as this behaviour is either unexpected or inconsistent.

T28 2pc

T28 2pc Knowledge: Your Holy Words begin Divine Conversation, increasing the cooldown reduction of your next Holy-Word-affecting spell by 15 sec.

Other things to test & think about:

• Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Holy Oration
• How does the buff work?
  • See above table for detailed spell interactions
  • Does it have a duration? (9.2.0.42521) - The buff has no duration and persists until consumed
  • Does it have stacks? (9.2.0.42521) - The buff has no stacks
  • Is the CDR a flat 15-seconds for all affected spells? (9.2.0.42521) - Yes.
• How does this interact with Light of the Naaru?
  • Presumably LotN only affects the base CDR amount and this buff is added on top? (9.2.0.42521) - LotN doesn't add additional CDR
• How does this interact with Apotheosis?
  • Do the resets from Apotheosis trigger this effect? (9.2.0.42521) - No
  • Presumably works additively with the CDR bonus similar to Holy Oration? (9.2.0.42488) - Yes, you get 39 seconds CDR for Flash Heal for example. (300% increase to 6-second base + 15 seconds from set bonus)

T28 4pc

T28 4pc Blessed Soul: Divine Conversation increases the effectiveness of your next Holy-Word-affecting spell by 35% 60%.

Blessed Soul also causes a single additional heal on yourself called Blessed Soul which heals for approximately 15% of the amount of the spell that triggers it.

• This always heals yourself.
• ... or another nearby Holy Priest for "reasons" - if you both have Divine Conversation buff up. (Thanks @Cairngorm)
• It's 15% of whatever spell triggers it and scales with some other modifiers like Versatility.
• It can proc from Sanc causing multiple blessed soul procs on yourself all together.
• It can proc when consuming, or generating Divine Conversation.
• It is triggered by any spell that consumes Divine Conversation.
• It can also be triggered by Holy Word: Serenity and Holy Word: Sanctify even without Divine Conversation present.
• ... It can be triggered by just about anything. Circle of Healing, even Divine Hymn ticks!

Other things to test & think about:

• Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Resonant Words
• How does the buff work?
  • See above table for detailed spell interactions
• [Math] What spell should be cast to consume this?
  • Opinion: Presumably Heal with Flash Concentration, barring any Harmonious Apparatus shenanigans. Depends if it buffs Holy Words or not a bit too.
  • Opinion: (9.2.0.42521) - Looks as though with Salv that Serenity/Sanc being buffed by DC is intended. This means that ideally the best spell to use DC on will be Sanc or Serenity. If the Chastise-based CDR bug is fixed then it will also mean using Chastise to proc DC will be very worthwhile as well.

tip

Below is a WA that helps test the various CDR mechanics. A little.

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