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Holy Priest Dragonflight Launch Survival Guide

· 13 min read
Niphyr
Niphyr

Shadowflight: Dragonlands Launch.

Patch 10.0.2 began the start of the Dragonflight expansion launch.

This page is intended to be a bit of a quick reference to help answer some of the easier questions for this patch, as well as point you in the right direction for some of the common questions. As always, if you have any Holy Priest-related questions please visit us in #holy on the Warcraft Priests Discord and we'll be more than happy to help you out!

Help Me Help You

As many of the new systems and tuning changes were unavailable to completely test on PTR, some of the below information may be different to what goes live. As usual, I will do my best to keep the article updated as things change, but if you notice something you think is incorrect or should be added/removed please let me know ASAP via the Warcraft Priests Discord (Niphyr#3419) or on Twitter @MechPriest. Thanks!

TL;DR​

  • This is not a guide on how to play Holy Priest, just a few notes to help out on Dragonflight launch. See Guides.
  • You can now level to 70.
  • Shadowlands borrowed powers (Covenants, Soulbinds, Legendaries) still don't work outside of Shadowlands and will not be of use as you level in Dragonflight.
  • There's a bunch of new gems, enchants & consumables with multiple ranks.
  • Profession doesn't really matter.

The major change in Dragonflight is the new talent system. We have 2 talent trees. The left-hand one is the Priest class tree shared between all 3 specs, and the right-hand one is our Holy Priest tree with Holy specific talents. These new talents can change our playstyle. Thankfully the playstyle changes for Holy Priest when changing up your talents are rather obvious but we'll talk about that more in a bit.

Tuning Changes​

There has been some change to the tuning of our spells but nothing dramatic or really worth worrying about.

Dragonflight Talent Builds​

The following builds presume you are already a little familiar with the talent tree. Have a quick look at the introduction to the talent trees from the pre-patch survival guide if you are uncomfortable or unfamiliar with the current Holy Priest talent tree.

Dungeon Healing Starter Build​

This build is intended as a quick and easy build to dive into healing dungeons immediately. This isn't a hardcore Mythic+ pushing build but is intended to keep your group alive as easily as possible, without sacrificing too much potential damage or adding too many keybinds. Import Code:

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This build keeps things simple while giving you the tools you need to get through the dungeons as you gear up.

Overview of priest class tree breaking types of talents out by colour

The nodes are coloured Green if they're important and you should nearly always take them, and Orange if they're more optional and it doesn't matter so much if you have them.

Important talents of note in the Priest tree are listed below.

  • Shadowfiend is back and can be cast basically on cooldown for some added damage/healing.
  • Protective Light currently triggers off the heal from Binding Heals so there is no need to Flash Heal yourself to trigger it, just enjoy the free damage reduction.
  • Improved Purify isn't super useful in a lot of the dungeons but you're better off having it than not needing it, than needing it and not having it - at least until you learn the dungeons.
  • Mass Dispel should be a button you're used to having keybound and can be a really handy fallback if you mess up your dispels and get the wrong person or dispel the wrong thing while you're learning the dungeons.
  • Power Word: Life is quite strong and should be used whenever you think it will heal someone under 35%.
  • Empyreal Blaze is a fun button to press and lets you blast Holy Fire on all of the things.
  • Lightweaver is the majority

Optional talents are more situational and will depend on your comfort level with Holy Priest and/or desire to add more keybinds. Some worthy mentions:

  • Shadow Word: Death is a good extra damage button to have, but you will want Tithe Evasion to go along with it.
  • Shackle Undead doesn't have a lot of use, but if ever you're going to hard-CC mobs in challenging packs, it's now when heroic/Mythic+0 aren't timed.
  • Mindgames is also a good bit of extra damage. To take it and its supporting talents you will need to drop some damage reduction/survival talents in the lower half of the tree like Light's Inspiration and Angelic Bulwark
  • Divine Word is great for both damage and healing throughput. YOu 100% want this talent if you aren't taking either Miracle Worker or Restitution.
  • Miracle Worker and in particular the 2nd charge for Holy Word: Serenity improves your burst healing in dungeons, making it a solid choice.
  • Restitution isn't for everyone, but if you are unfamiliar with the dungeons and worried that dying here and there will cause your group issues, you can pick this up to help recover in the event you stand in fire too long.

This build and any variations you choose will get you through your dungeons and help you gear ready for raid. How do you play it though? The Icy Veins Dungeon Healing Rotation section runs through your priority for both healing and damage. No point repeating it all here, as it's fairly straightforward and should feel very familiar for anyone who has done dungeons throughout Shadowlands.

Raid Healing Builds​

For raid builds including details on how to move talents around, see the Icy Veins Talent Build page.

Consumables and Gear​

All consumables and enchants now have 3 ranks, and each rank (copper, silver, gold) increases the benefit. While obviously, you want the very best enchant at the very best rank, while gearing up in particular it can often be worth just having any enhancement over nothing at all. Balance out blowing all your gold early for expensive enchants you might replace quickly, with buying slightly poorer but much cheaper alternatives.

Trinkets​

Trinkets from Dungeon, Raid & Crafting, group in order of how much benefit you gain from them:

The following trinkets are fine if you're catching up, but aren't as good as the ones mentioned above:

  1. Sustaining Alchemist Stone
  2. Alacritous Alchemist Stone

Crafting​

This isn't a complete guide on crafting, as it's a bit more complex now than it has been in previous expansions. For that, check out your favourite guide site. But the tl;dr:

Every two weeks you will obtain 1x Spark of Ingenuity from the campaign story. These are required to craft gear through professions. Most items require either one or two Sparks. You can have others craft you a profession item that is Bind on Pickup by using the Work Orders system. Work Orders allow you to package your materials together and have someone else craft the item, which is then sent to you.

As part of creating your Work Order you can add various components to modify the resulting craft:

Your goal with crafting should be to have two Embellishments whenever possible, and to improve item slots with the worst item level. Speaking of Embellishments...

Embellishments​

Embellishments are effects on crafted items, they come in two forms:

You can only have two Embellishments equipped at once.

So what do I craft?

Ideally you will get Elemental Lariat with either Allied Wristguards of Time Dilation or an item Embellished with Magazine of Healing Darts.

Embellishments in order of priority are:

** Note: The Azureweave Vestments and Chronoweave Vestments require both of your Embellishments as two pieces are needed to activate the set bonus granting a proc. Azureweave presumes you are dealing some damage regularly.

Relevant items that come with Embellishments:

Relevant Embellishments you can add to items without one:

Professions​

Thanks to work orders being able to supply you with some of the Bind on Pickup items from other professions, there are very limited perks specific to having a profession yourself. Two of note are:

  • Alchemy - Decayology perk reduces damage taken from Rotting from Within after consuming Toxic potions. We don't really use any so small benefit.
  • Engineering - S.A.V.I.O.R which is a post-combat mass resurrection. Potentially useful in Mythic+ if it works as expected.

So, take whatever profession you want and anything you can't make, just ask a friend/guildmate/trade chat to make it through a work order.

Secondary Stats​

Gearing is really easy, as our secondary stats are closer than ever. Haste has been brought up closer to the other secondaries thanks to increased value from more Renew healing, and increased healing done by Prayer of Mending and Circle of Healing. Our Mastery Echo of Light took a slight hit with the introduction of Prismatic Echoes, bringing it back in line with Crit and Vers, particularly for raid. This means you can prioritise item level as you pick up new gear, and be confident you're making the right choice.

For the most up-to-date stat recommendations, check out the Icy Veins Holy Priest Stat Priority page.

Enchants​

Enchanting your gear is always a bit daunting with a new expansion, trying to keep on top of all the new options. A complete list of the relevant item enhancements can be found on the consumables page Jump to this spell in the compendium. The most likely ones you'll use are listed below:

SlotPreferredAlternative
WeaponEnchant Weapon - Sophic DevotionEnchant Weapon - Burning Writ
CloakRegenerative LeechEnchant Cloak - Writ of Leech
ChestEnchant Chest - Waking Stats
Enchant Chest - Reserve of Intellect		-
LegsTemporal SpellthreadVibrant Spellthread 106 int
WristEnchant Bracer - Devotion of LeechEnchant Bracer - Writ of Leech
FeetPlainsrunner's Breeze
Watcher's Loam		-
RingEnchant Ring - Devotion of Critical StrikeEnchant Ring - Writ of Critical Strike
GemOne of: Inscribed Illimited Diamond
Crit/Mastery: Sensei's Alexstraszite
Crit/Vers: Radiant Alexstraszite
Crit/Haste: Crafty Alexstraszite		Crit/Mastery: Sensei's Sundered Onyx
Vers/Mastery: Zen Mystic Sapphire
Crit/Haste: Crafty Queen's Ruby

The stat ones aren't locked in. For weapons, feel free to exchange Enchant Weapon - Burning Writ with any of the other Stat Writ's depending on your preference. The same goes for ring enchants, where any secondary stat enchant is the main priority, regardless of which stat. Likewise for Gems, above are the Critical Strike focused ones but any gems will do, following the Icy Veins Holy Priest Stat Priority page for your preferred content type.

Consumables​

TypePreferredAlternative
Weapon RuneBuzzing RuneHowling Rune
Personal FoodFated Fortune Cookie
Filet of Fangs		Crit/Mastery: Thousandbone Tongueslicer
Crit/Vers: Revenge, Served Cold
Mastery/Vers: Great Cerulean Sea
Haste/Crit: Feisty Fish Sticks
Mana PotionAerated Mana Potion
Potion of Frozen Focus		-
Throughput PotionElemental Potion of Ultimate PowerElemental Potion of Power
Health PotionRefreshing Healing Potion
Potion of Withering Vitality		-

Weakauras and Macros​

With regards to Macros, the old [talent:] modifiers were removed and replaced with [known:] and [noknown:]. You can use it to modify a talent based on if you know a talent, for example:

#showtooltip
/cast [known:Lightwell]Lightwell; [known:Miracle Worker]Miracle Worker

For talents like the Divine Star / Halo choice node, putting one on your bar will change to the other when you change talents.

For weakauras, most people have updated their packs. Some functional Holy Priest HUD-style packs:

Priest As Any Race​

As of 10.0.0, race restrictions for priests are gone. All races have seen the light! if you're considering a race change I would suggest looking through all of the races to see which one you like the look of most, but some common reasons people choose a specific race as a priest:

Patch 10.0.0 Sources​

  • Pre-patch announcement - (source)

You can follow me on Twitter at @MechPriest and support me on Patreon.