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Holy Priest Patch 9.2 Survival Guide

· 51 min read
Niphyr
Niphyr

Patch 9.2 brings with it a ton of new content. Set bonuses have return with new 2pc and 4pc set bonuses for this tier. There is a new raid Sepulcher of the First Ones and two new Mythic+ dungeons from both halves of Tazavesh. Finally, and thankfully, Domination Shards from SoD are disabled in raid & M+!

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!

Overview of 9.2 Systems​

A few quick things before we dive into the new Set Bonus and builds. 9.2 brings with it a bunch of new things, and takes away some old things:

  • A number of buffs, nerfs and changes to our toolkit have happened. Read more in the 9.2 change notes article Jump to this spell in the compendium.
  • Domination Shards no longer function in relevant content. Replace all your Domination Socket gear with the highest ilvl items you have straight away.
  • Unity is a new covenant legendary power (read more) Jump to this spell in the compendium which is a legendary that swaps power to your covenant specific power depending on your current covenant. Unity can also be equipped alongside another regular legendary power, granting you two total (One covenant + one other).
  • New item level caps. Mythic raid is 278 with 285 from the last 3 bosses. Mythic+ drops 262s from +15s and gives a 278 in your vault. Similar style to 9.0 and 9.1.
  • Tier sets have been added which drop from Raid and can also be crafted from PVP/Mythic+ items. It's much simpler than it sounds, though.

Holy Priest 9.2 Change Overview​

Lots of change this patch. Read the full detailed list of changes in the 9.2 change notes article Jump to this spell in the compendium. Some highlights:

  • Healing done by all spells increased by ~10.5%
  • Damage done by all damage spells increased by ~15%
  • Holy Word: Chastise damage increased by ~24.5%
  • Symbol of Hope cooldown reduced to 3min and channelling time reduced to 4 sec.
  • Holy Word: Serenity mana cost decreased from 4% to 2.5% base mana.
  • Holy Word: Sanctify mana cost decreased from 5% to 3.5% base mana.

Zerith Mortis​

Zerith Mortis is the new daily/weekly/patch zone where you tire away for The Enlightened. Why bother? Play power of course. We can't use "double legendaries", just "Unity + another non-covenant legendary", and Zerith Mortis is key to unlocking Unity.

  • Cord of Unity obtainable at conclusion of the Zereth Mortis story campaign (no way to upgrade it).
  • Unity at Revered with The Enlightened (works like a regular legendary power).
  • 278 conduits item!
  • Renown catchup for low renown covenants (or alts!) through the story quests

Holy Priest Set Bonuses​

The most exciting feature this tier is set bonuses returning. Unfortunately for us, our set bonus is pretty bland. The 2pc is basically an extended version of the Holy Oration conduit, and the 4pc is an extended version of the Resonant Words. Cutting edge design.

You will find your tier on the following slots. Drop location is mentioned if you're obtaining them from Sepulcher of the First Ones raid.

  • Head - Haste/Mastery. Drops from Anduin
  • Shoulder - Mastery/Vers. Drops from Lords of Dread
  • Chest - Crit/Haste. Drops from Rygelon
  • Hands - Vers/Haste. Drops from Lihuvim
  • Legs - Mastery/Crit. Drops from Halondrus

Keep in mind that the Shoulder and Chest tier items that drop from raid are high item level (as are all items from the last 3 bosses).

There's also the Creation Catalyst which lets you craft an existing item from PVP or Mythic+ into one of the above set items. The new item keeps the item level, any sockets, tertiary stats (leech, avoidance) and upgrades. So if your 9/12 upgraded Mythic+ item with leech and a socket gets turned into tier, your new tier item will be the same item level, will also have leech and a socket, and will also be 9/12 upgraded.

Holy Priest 2-Set Bonus​

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

Our 2-set triggers Divine Conversation with the following casts:

The following spells consume it, and in addition to their normal Holy Word CDR, they also grant an additional 15 sec to their associated Holy Word:

With Harmonious Apparatus equipped, these spells also consume it and grant an additional 15 sec to their associated Holy Word:

When talented into Holy Word: Salvation, these spells also consume it and grant an additional 15 sec to their Holy Word: Salvation:

Holy Priest 4-Set Bonus​

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

This bonus is pretty simple. Any spell you use to consume the Divine Conversation buff, also has its healing or damage increased by 60%. These spells are:

Holy Oration Potency Conduit​

Just a quick note on one thing that has changed that may not be immediately obvious to everyone. The Holy Oration conduit with the new item levels and the new set bonus is going to be worth keeping equipped. In the past we haven't suggested it as a priority choice as Resonant Words provides much more healing and a lot of the small amount of additional cooldown reduction that Holy Oration provides is wasted.

With 9.2 and the new tier set the value of Holy Oration is increased significantly making it a very worthwhile choice in any scenario you need to do more healing - so most scenarios. It really enhances the loop of generating more Holy Words, which gives you more Divine Conversation buffs, which gives you more Holy Words, which gives... you get the idea.

Bugs​

So as with all new systems, we have a few bugs. If you are reading this and don't think a bug is present anymore please let me know so I can update the article! I lose track of all the places I mention bugs.

Notice a bug? Let me know ASAP!

  1. FIXED With Holy Word: Salvation talented, Holy Word: Sanctify and Holy Word: Serenity have weird behaviour with Divine Conversation. Sometimes they proc it, sometimes they consume it, sometimes they benefit from it - it depends on your casting order. Nothing specifically you can do to avoid this bug munching or ignoring your procs - hopefully it's fixed by the time you're reading this!
  2. FIXED Blessed Soul also heals you. When you press certain buttons with the 4pc buff active. It will sometimes also heal Holy Priests nearby if they also have the 4pc buff active.
  3. FIXED Holy Word: Chastise is buffed by and refreshes Divine Conversation if present - this means if you chastise with DC up it does a bit more damage. Not worth playing around or worrying about at all.
  4. FIXED Renew from Benediction (and Salv but that doesn't really matter) consumes your Divine Conversation procs. This is both good and bad. On the upside you get some freely juiced up Renews and 15 more seconds off Holy Word: Sanctify. The downside is you lose control over what spells are consuming Divine Conversation which can hurt that big juicy Heal you had lined up to top the tank.

Holy Priest Raid Builds​

So this is meant to be more of a quick-reference survival guide, not a complete how-to-play guide. This section presumes you have a grasp on the spec and how to play, all of which can be found in one of the guides Jump to this spell in the compendium.

tip

Regardless of the build you choose your stat priorities will not change. It still remains the same as in the guides Jump to this spell in the compendium. Likewise there are no covenant requirements for any of the builds, as our covenant abilities do not impact with our kit in any meaningful way.

Holy Priest Flash Concentration Build​

Flash Concentration is the dominant build in 9.1.5, and has been since Shadowlands launch. The core of it is you run the Flash Concentration legendary, then take all of the talents that interact with Flash Heal and Heal and improve efficiency.

Flash Concentration Setup​

¹ Note: Binding Heals has really variable value. Take it if you find the survivability will be useful. Good for parsing, though.

Flash Concentration Rotation​

Basically the playstyle is keep the Flash Concentration buff up, keep things on cooldown and then spam a ton of Heal. Utilise Smite when healing isn't required for the Surge of Light procs to reduce the mana cost of maintaining Flash Concentration.

What's the normal rotation again?

Your regular healing priority is much the same as it has been all expansion. As usual it presumes targets actually need the healing. The exception is Prayer of Mending is not worth casting unless you have Benediction - and even then it's not worth casting over Heal during periods of heavy damage, save it for lower periods of damage where people aren't in danger of death (kind of similar to how you should be triage healing now anyway).

Holy Word: Chastise is missing from the above priority list. This is primarily because at the time of writing on the latest build 9.2.0.42423 on PTR, Divine Conversation is behaving really inconsistently with regards to what it buffs, and when it's consumed or refreshed.

tip

Don't see spell listed here? No Renew or Prayer of Healing? There's a good reason for that, avoid casting these spells when using Flash Concentration.

What should I use my Resonant Words procs on?

With Resonant Words procs, your priority for consuming these should always be Heal. The exception is if Flash Concentration is going to drop soon, you want to ensure it doesn't even if it means Flash Heal consumes Resonant Words instead.

What should I use my Divine Conversation procs on?

Divine Conversation is the 2pc and 4pc set bonus buff. When you have a Divine Conversation proc you want to prioritise consuming it with:

  1. Holy Word: Sanctify
  2. Heal
  3. Holy Word: Serenity ¹

¹ Note: In a situation where you need to get the cooldown of Holy Word: Salvation down faster for an additional cast, prioritise Serenity over Heal despite it being less overall healing.

Keep in mind if you don't need the healing instantly, you can still cast spells that don't consume Divine Conversation, like:

Avoid casting Smite to consume Divine Conversation buff wherever possible.

What about Prayer of Mending and Circle of Healing?

The tier bonus obviously encourages casting as many holy words as possible. This means casting as many spells as possible that reduce our holy words. This is especially true in scenarios where you pushing to get an extra Holy Word: Salvation out. That said, both Circle of Healing and Prayer of Mending typically have very low overheal which improves their efficiency even vs low overheal casts like Heal.

Firstly, Circle of Healing is slightly worse HPCT and HPM than Heal with this build. It's enough you shouldn't prioritise CoH over Heal, but in situations where you need to move and people need healing it's still fine to cast. Likewise if people are only missing a bit of health and you want to snipe some healing. There is a really good argument to be had to just ignore CoH outside of periods of heavy movement, and just let everyone's HoTs top the raid up.

Whether you cast Prayer of Mending or not depends on Benediction and the current raid health. PoM with Benediction is very efficient HPM and similar HPCT to your average Heal cast. Factoring in the time/mana spent on something that doesn't contribute to more Divine Conversation leaves PoM as a spell that is still worth casting when you're interested in mana efficiency. It's a great cast if you are moving or when the raid health is high enough that Heal will likely overheal.

tl;dr 4pc Tier makes CoH is fine to cast while moving, or if you're looking to snipe some healing and raid health is too high for Heal. PoM worth casting, but only with Benediction.

What about using Prayer of Healing?

Casting Prayer of Healing to consume Divine Conversation, then using Heal to consume the Resonant Words proc is slightly less HPCT over just casting a Heal with RW + DC, then casting another plain Heal. In terms of HPM though, the two Heal casts are much much more efficient.

Without Prayer Circle buffing Prayer of Healing, it just doesn't stand up to Heal with the power of Flash Concentration.

What about using Divine Star and Halo?

With Prayer of Mending falling behind due to having very few interactions with bonus powers in Shadowlands, Benediction has lost a bit of value. Couple that with recent changes to Divine Star and Halo - there is a bit more balance on the on the 45 talent row.

Divine Star really excels in any situation where you can fairly regularly hit 8-10+ with it. It typically doesn't overheal too much on most bosses as it doesn't heal a lot itself, which really helps its efficiency. Any fight he raid is stacked up is heavily suited for Divine star, as hitting around 20 targets makes it one of the most potent spells we have in terms of both HPM and HPCT. It also has the added bonus of doing a bit of damage, especially nice on any bosses with multiple targets.

Halo at the time of writing has an annoying bug where it's only hitting a maximum of 20 targets, and it is regularly hitting pets and guardians. Without this behaviour it's quite competitive, but is unlikely to be a staple choice until this bug is fixed. If fixed, it will be nice to run on fights where the raid spends a lot of time spread out and it comes with the added benefit of freeing up a few more globals for spells that give us more holy words, like Heal.

Holy Priest Harmonious Apparatus Build​

Harmonious Apparatus is looking like the best legendary for anyone not running Flash Concentration. It has good synergy with the tier set by facilitating more Holy Words through regular gameplay. Your playstyle becomes focused around utlising the newly buffed Prayer Circle talent and casting Prayer of Healing during these buff windows. Outside of that, keeping up the regular "rotation" of keeping things on CD where possible, and Smite to conserve mana but stay active.

Harmonious Apparatus Setup​

¹ Note: Which talent you choose here will depend on personal preference. Bene gives you a zero cost healing increase, Divstar gives you a very efficient healing increase whenever you are able to reliably hit 8-10+ targets throughout an encounter.

Harmonious Apparatus Rotation​

There's two main parts to playing with Harmonious Apparatus. Firstly, you want to try and cast Prayer of Mending and Circle of Healing as often as you can. Second, you want to maximise the Prayer Circle from casting Circle of Healing by following it with multiple Prayer of Healing casts.

Obviously this doesn't mean just spam Circle of Healing on cooldown with a bunch of Prayer of Healing casts after it like a robot. You still want to only be pressing healing spells when the raid has taken enough damage to warrant them. To that end, you should try to be aware of upcoming damage and be prepared to sit on Circle of Healing for a few seconds if it means getting more of the Prayer Circle buff during that period of damage. Don't sit on Circle of Healing forever, just when there is damage coming up.

What's the rotation again?

I'll forgive you for forgetting, Flash Concentration has been pretty dominant but you can put away Heal and bust out your trusty Prayer of Healing. As usual it presumes targets actually need the healing. The exception is Prayer of Mending which can be cast when there is no damage.

Holy Word: Chastise is missing from the above priority list. This is primarily because at the time of writing on the latest build 9.2.0.42423 on PTR, Divine Conversation is behaving really inconsistently with regards to what it buffs, and when it's consumed or refreshed.

tip

Don't see spell listed here? No Renew or Heal? There's a good reason for that, avoid casting these spells when using Harmonious Apparatus.

What should I use my Resonant Words procs on?

Ideally you use a different conduit. If you do have Resonant Words, you shouldn't really be casting much Heal at all, and hopefully little need for Flash Heal. You can basically ignore Resonant Words exists and let it passively buff the majority of your emergency Flash Heal casts.

What should I use my Divine Conversation procs on?

Divine Conversation is the 2pc and 4pc set bonus buff. When you have a Divine Conversation proc you want to prioritise consuming it with:

  1. Holy Word: Sanctify
  2. Circle of Healing
  3. Prayer of Healing with Prayer Circle buff
  4. Prayer of Mending
  5. Holy Word: Serenity OR Prayer of Healing without Prayer Circle buff

Basically you just keep playing normally. The main thing is you want to try and avoid using Divine Conversation on Smite. If someone needs emergency healing to survive then go ahead and use it on Flash Heal to save them but obviously it's going to be less overall healing.

Keep in mind if you don't need the healing instantly, you can still cast spells that don't consume Divine Conversation, like Divine Star or Halo if talented.

Avoid casting Smite to consume Divine Conversation buff wherever possible.

What about other stuff?

Other stuff? The Flash Concentration section had lots of other interactions because for some reason talents, conduits and legendaries buff Heal/FH to high hell making what should be obvious decisions, not so obvious. HA simplifies all this and Holy Priest plays much closer to "how it should", without all of these other borrowed powers juicing something out the wazoo.

Holy Priest Divine Image Build​

Divine Image plays a lot like Harmonious Apparatus, with the exception of your Divine Conversation not being able to be consumed by Circle of Healing or Prayer of Mending. Most of your fillers will be Prayer of Healing with Prayer Circle up, and you will be using Smite to not only conserve mana but also generate more Holy Word: Chastise casts, which in turn means more Divine Image and Divine Conversation procs.

You can learn more about the mechanics of Divine Image on the legendary compendium page Jump to this spell in the compendium.

Divine Image Setup​

¹ Note: Which talent you choose here will depend on personal preference. Benediction gives you a zero cost healing increase, Divine Star gives you a very efficient healing increase whenever you are able to reliably hit 8-10+ targets throughout an encounter.

Divine Image Rotation​

Without a Divine Image proc, you'll be following the below with a primary goal of trying to maximise the Prayer Circle from casting Circle of Healing by following it with multiple Prayer of Healing casts.

  1. Holy Word: Sanctify
  2. Holy Word: Serenity
  3. Holy Word: Chastise
  4. Divine Star / Halo
  5. Prayer of Healing (with Prayer Circle up)
  6. Prayer of Mending
  7. Circle of Healing
  8. Flash Heal (Emergency triage)
  9. Smite

Nothing unexpected here, prioritising your Holy Words where possible for more Divine Conversation and Divine Image procs. Smite is a great filler to save mana for your Circle of Healing / Prayer Circle combos with Prayer of Healing. It also reduces the cooldown of Holy Word: Chastise which can be used on cooldown to also contribute to the number of Divine Conversation and Divine Image procs.

What is the priority with a Divine Image proc?

Unfortunately not much changes when you do get a proc of Divine Image. The only priority swap is Prayer of Mending ahead of Prayer of Healing. This is because Blessed Light does a good amount of healing.

What should I use my Resonant Words procs on?

Resonant Words is not worth taking with Divine Image. Besides Holy Oration which should be equipped, the others have no synergy with this build. choose your other conduits based on the info in one of the guides Jump to this spell in the compendium.

What should I use my Divine Conversation procs on?

Nothing really changes with the Divine Conversation buff. You want to prioritise it on:

  1. Holy Word: Sanctify
  2. Holy Word: Serenity
  3. Prayer of Healing

It doesn't matter if you have Prayer Circle up or not, the main thing is you don't eat the proc with any of the other fillers not on the above list wherever possible to maximise your healing.

Avoid casting Smite to consume Divine Conversation buff wherever possible.

Using Covenant Legendaries​

Now that everyone will be running a covenant legendary this tier, it's worth quickly going over how to use them. The guides Jump to this spell in the compendium go into much more detail, below is just a quick recap.

Crafting Unity​

Which slot to craft Unity is a hot topic. There are a few decision to make, depending on:

  • Which specs you play and which legendaries they use
  • Which secondary stats your specs prefer and which is your "primary" spec
  • Which tier items you have or are likely to obtain
  • Which items are available at a higher item level from the last 3 bosses
  • What your priority is in terms of gear for progression, or for farm

Depending on the above, will depend on which slot you craft and which secondaries.

Short Explanation​

So the short version is that you should craft Unity on your Waist if you want to have the most flexibility. Waist comes with a free socket and it doesn't really clash with any other legendary powers from Holy, Disc or Shadow.

The "best" slot if you never play Shadow, and presume you can put Tier in any 4 specific slots of your choice, is Head. If you craft it on Waist now, and you're interested in the tiny gain from having Unity on Helm later on in the tier, you can always salvage it and re-craft it on a Head base once you've obtained Tier in the slots required to make it work. Your priority is always to have 4-set Tier and 2 legendaries though, so don't craft it on Head now if it means you miss out on 4-set. This is if you never play Shadow.

Q: Which stats should I craft on it?

There is no perfect answer to this. It depends on the content you do, how much you value that specific content and how much you play your offspecs. Holy Priest is fairly secondary-stat agnostic so you aren't going to be bothered no matter what the stats are. From a Holy Priest only perspective, the best all-round choice will be Crit/Vers, and the best raid choice for most people will be Crit/Mastery. Any combination is fine, though. Disc and Shadow both love Haste so have Haste/??? is also totally fine.

Q: Why not feet?

Feet is also a solid option but it doesn't give you the free socket. Presuming you want to use Divine Image, crafting Unity on Feet allows DI on your Waist if you're unlucky with tier and can't put it on Helm.

If you play disc at all, The Penitent One should be on feet, ruling out feet as an option.

Q: Why not Head/Leg?

If you play shadow at all in any PvE content, **you do not want Unity on a tier slot as their main legendary Shadowflame Prism is on Head/Hands taking up the alternative tier slot already.

Q: Why not Chest/Shoulder/Hands/Wrist/Back?

Besides the above reasons, these slots have 285 options from raid which are better overall value.

Q: Why not Ring/Neck?

We have two exceptional rings in raid, the 285 Rygelon's Heraldric Ring from Rygelon and the 278 Soulwarped Seal of Wrynn from Anduin.

Flash Concentration goes on your neck.

Long Explanation​

Below is a summary of the various slots and their attributes for this patch, including most commonly used legendaries.

Item SlotMax ilvlTier?Socket?Holy LegendariesDisc LegendariesShadow Legendaries
Head278YesYesDivine ImageShadowflame Prism
Chest285YesClarity of Mind
Leg278YesXanshi, Return of Arcbishop Benedictus
Shoulder285YesHarmonious Apparatus
Hand285YesShadowflame Prism
Waist278YesDivine Image
Feet278The Penitent One
Wrist285YesFlash Concentration
Back285Divine Image
Xanshi, Return of Arcbishop Benedictus		The Penitent One
Neck285YesFlash Concentration
Ring285YesHarmonious ApparatusClarity of Mind

As you will use this in all specs, you want to take care not to craft it in a slot that is used by a legendary another spec uses. Likewise for secondary stats. Thankfully Holy Priest values secondaries fairly equally so you aren't going to lose much by prioritising either your Shadow or Discipline stats. That said, there is already a ton of haste in Sepulcher so try to avoid Haste if Holy is your main spec.

Next up is tier, especially early on you won't have a lot of control over which slots you get tier in. For early progression your priority should be to have 4pc ASAP so you will need to craft Unity around the slots you have tier in as well.

Finally, particularly the Lords and Rygelon loot should be taken into account as you can get loot off these to kill Jailer that is slightly higher item level. Rygelon in particular has Rygelon's Heraldric Ring, and Lords of Dread have Shroud of the Sire's Chosen and Cuffs of the Covert Commander. This is Ring, Cloak and Wrists from the final 3 which can be obtained at a higher item level than other slots.

As for stat value, which you will get a few extra stats due to being able to craft your legendary at up to 291. These extra stats are most beneficial in the slots shown in order below:

  1. Head, Chest, Legs
  2. Shoulder, Hands, Waist, Feet
  3. Neck, Ring
  4. Back, Wrist

Factoring all of that in, you of course want Head, Chest, Legs - but they will likely be tier. Shoulder, Hands are also tier slots. This leaves Waist and Feet. If you play with The Penitent One at all then you will it on Feet. Your neck will have Flash Concentration, and your rings will likely end up being Rygelon's Heraldric Ring and Soulwarped Seal of Wrynn.

So, this leaves Waist. Craft it on your Waist. (Shadow and Discipline suggestion at time of writing is also waist so it's win/win/win).

The only caveat is that waist clashes with Divine Image and Talbadar's Stratagem (Shadow) which have slots that are waist and something that clashes with tier. This isn't a big deal as these are not popular legendaries.

As for how Unity works, you can read a bit more about it here Jump to this spell in the compendium.

There is also the Creation Catalyst for the "ultimate bis" but that is outside the scope of this discussion...

Kyrian​

As a Kyrian you get Spheres' Harmony. Single Target there isn't much you can do to min/max the usage of this legendary. You want to keep pressing Ascended Blast as much as you can, and ideally try to time usage of Boon of the Ascended at a time you both need the healing, but can also hit additional targets than just one boss.

In Mythic+ this is really easy, and pairs incredibly well with the Mikanikos soulbind trait Effusive ANima Accelerator and really encourages trying to ensure you get as many casts as possible against packs of 5+ enemies to get the maximum cooldown reduction on Boon of the Ascended

Necrolord​

Just like Unholy Nova, the legendary Pallid Command is very much fire and forget. Ideally you can time Unholy Nova just after damage has gone out and then just let your new undead mate do their thing.

Night Fae​

So Fae Guardians was too easy to use on its own. Enter Bwonsamdi's Pact. The legendary literally no-one ever remembers the name of because no-one ever used it.

Bwonsamdi's Pact lets you press your Fae Guardians bind while Fae Guardians is active to put a Mask on your current target. By default, the mask will be on the target you cast Fae Guardians on initially. To move it, pick which of the buffs are more important to you then send the mask to that target and you now have double the effect for the duration. There is no right faerie to buff, it will depend on the encounter and your priorities as to whether you want to provide additional DR, additional CDR or give yourself some more mana.

warning

There is currently a bug with how the Mask is working. The initial Mask that spawns when you press Fae Guardians will buff CDR as expected. After this, moving any faeries to other targets requires you to send the mask to it's correct target again to reliably get the bonus mask benefit.

More Detail​

So to explain how it works in more detail, first Fae Guardians. Fae Guardians when cast, spawns 3 faeries which can be moved around:

When you cast Fae Guardians, all 3 faeries are applied to targets, depending on who you cast it on:

So now we know how to activate Fae Guardians and how to move them around. On to the Bwonsamdi's Pact mask, Haunted Mask. The simplest way to think of Haunted Mask, is the mask is just another faerie you can move around. When you cast Fae Guardians, the Fae Guardians button becomes Direct Mask, which when pressed will move the mask to your current target. So for the duration of Guardian Faeries (20 seconds) you can move the mask to any target you like, by pressing your Fae Guardians bind again.

  • Haunted Mask - provides double the effect of the Faerie on its target (prioritising the CDR from Benevolent Faerie over the DR from Guardian Faerie), moves to a different friendly when you cast Fae Guardians on them. Your initial cast of Fae Guardians will put the initial Haunted Mask on your current Fae Guardians target.

Now the words are out of the way, here are two common scenarios:

  1. Scenario A: You want to double the DR effect on a particular ally (Guardian Faerie)
  2. Scenario B: You want to double the CDR effect on a particular ally (Benevolent Faerie)

Scenario A​

You primarily care about the DR effect being doubled on a target

You have cast Fae Guardians on a Frost Mage, to give them the CDR effect, but you want to put the DR effect on your Tank, along with the bonus from the mask so they get 40% DR for 20 seconds. Your cast sequencing will be:

First cast: Fae Guardians on the Frost Mage. This does the following:

Casting Fae Guardians on a DPS

Second cast: Power Word: Shield on the Tank, followed immediately by Direct Mask on the Tank. This does the following:

Casting Fae Guardians on a DPS

Note: Don't forget, Direct Mask is just what Fae Guardians turns into for the 20-seconds it's active, it's the same bind.

tip

The Direct Mask cast does not trigger the GCD so can be used to move the mask in between regular spellcasts.

Scenario B​

You primarily care about the CDR effect being doubled on a target

You have cast Fae Guardians on a Tank, to give them the DR effect, but you want to put the CDR effect on your Frost Mage, along with the bonus from the mask so they get increased CDR for 20 seconds. Your cast sequencing will be:

First cast: Fae Guardians on the Tank. This does the following:

Casting Fae Guardians on a DPS

Second cast: Flash Heal on the Frost Mage, followed immediately by Direct Mask on the Frost Mage. This does the following:

Casting Fae Guardians on a DPS
Why not just move Guardian Faerie?

Why not just Fae Guardians the Frost Mage, then move the buffs to the Tank? This way you don't need to cast Power Word: Shield and can instead cast Flash Heal which not only refreshes Flash Concentration but refreshes it so it lasts the length of Fae Guardians.

Bwonsamdi's Pact and how it works mechanically is discussed in more detail on the legendary compendium page Jump to this spell in the compendium, though most of its interactions behave exactly how you would expect.

Venthyr​

Venthyr's Shadow Word: Manipulation is one of the better feeling legendaries to play with. You can use this buff to amplify healing from upcoming casts, especially good for Divine Hymn, Holy Word: Salvation, any Prayer Circle windows when talented into that, or just your regular Holy Word casts. Easy to use, just don't go saving it too long - you still want to maximise the number of times you cast Mindgames each encounter.

You should use Shattered Perceptions with Shadow Word: Manipulation whenever possible.

Farming Conduits​

So, unfortunately, our potency conduits suck. Even our best conduit for Flash Concentration, Resonant Words, is so minor that going up in ranks is lucky to be a double-digit HPS increases. Yes, upgrading our best all-purpose potency conduit even on a fight where we're doing over 20k hps is still barely a 10-20 hps increase.

You would think that especially with tier, Holy Oration would also be a really valuable conduit. Unfortunately this suffers from much the same problem, with individual rank increases being so incredibly minor it's unlikely it even increases your HPS at all throughout a fight, let alone a meaningful amount.

The covenant conduits Festering Transfusion, Courageous Ascension and Shattered Perceptions also give very very little benefit per additional rank.

Yes it's worth equipping the conduits, obviously - but increased ranks give such a small amount of HPS increase it is very much not worth the time and effort to farm higher ranks. The difference between full 252 and all 278 conduits will likely only be a 0.5-2% increase overall.

Some conduit catchup sources:

Trinkets​

So despite some nerfs and buffs, the trinket landscape hasn't changed a great deal this patch. For people looking to optimise, Mythic+ will be important this tier. Mythic+ gives access to two of the best trinkets in Unbound Changeling and So'leah's Secret Technique. Both of these offer solid value, in particular the Changeling. They also have the added bonus of being able to change which secondary stat bonus they provide depending on what you need, making it really easy to balance your stats and avoid secondary stat diminishing returns.

Mythic+ also has a side benefit of allowing us to obtain 278 items in non-tier slots with more optimal stats. The raid gear from Sepulcher has a lot of Haste, especially from the last 3 bosses which have the higher 285 drops on Mythic difficulty. Typically Holy Priests avoid stacking haste, so obtaining some items from Mythic+ with more favourable stats will be the only way to drop haste at higher gear levels.

Tier List​

I keep getting asked to do a Raid Tier list for trinkets, this is me giving in. I hope you're happy.

  • S-Tier are trinkets that you will actively try to obtain as they offer clear benefits over all others.
  • A-Tier are solid all-round trinkets that are very competitive for their item level.
  • B-Tier are either situational trinkets, or trinkets that have minor issues such as positioning or scaling.
  • C-Tier are trinkets you will generally avoid unless you have nothing else to use.

You will likely end up running one Mythic+ trinket alongside one of the raid trinkets. Don't be surprised later on in the tier for trinkets like The Lion's Roar which do quite well for really short encounters, popping on higher parses. Overall though, trinkets that give stats will scale the best and provide the most value to the exceptionally high parses everyone bases their gear choices on - don't let this make you think other trinkets are not worthwhile, especially when your HPS is lower.

Note: Keep in mind this tier list assumes similar item level. Even "bad" trinkets can be good in comparison to much lower item level trinkets.

Unbound Changeling​

Mythic+ (Mists of Tirna Scithe) - S-Tier

This tier is no different from the others, Unbound Changeling is still really good. It has a fairly high uptime for a proc trinket and can be changed to provide a more preferable secondary stat. While we typically don't like RNG as a healer, on average the proc rate is high enough on this trinket you will reliably get good value from it.

Just a reminder, below are the foods you can eat to change which stat proc you get. The trinket remains changed just for the day, it will revert back to haste and you can then eat food to change it again. You can also get lucky and get the triple buff Unbound Changeling.

So'leah's Secret Technique​

Mythic+ (Tazavesh: So'leah's Gambit) - A-Tier

So'leah's Secret Technique is a really solid choice for a few reasons. Firstly the stat bonus is always present, if there's one thing we don't like when healing it's randomness. Secondly, we can change the secondary to be one to suit us, so if you have really high Mastery you can go and grab Crit or Vers to avoid dipping into the secondary stat DR. There is also a small bonus provided to person you use this on, which is nice too.

Elegy of the Eternals​

Sepulcher of the First Ones (Prototype of War) - A-Tier

Our only real flat "stat stick" of the Sepulcher raid is Elegy of the Eternals. It's biggest downside is that it grants more of your highest secondary stat, which means more chance of losing a little bit to secondary stat DR now we're getting into higher item levels. Constant stat bonuses are our friend, there's no randomness and it scales really well as our HPS goes up. Good trinket, but you may be fighting everyone else in the raid for it for a while.

Auxillary Attendant Chime​

Sepulcher of the First Ones (Vigilant Guardian) - A-Tier

The Auxillary Attendant Chime trinket is the first one in our list that isn't just more stats. The absorb effect is quite strong but like most trinket absorb effects, it doesn't scale that well with more gear or higher HPS, as it only scales off Versatility. This trinket will likely be one you can pick up early as you won't need to fight DPS for it.

The Lion's Roar​

Sepulcher of the First Ones (Anduin) - B+ Tier

First up in the B tier is a special mention for The Lion's Roar. This unique effect has you channelling a large barrier for a short period of time and absorbing 20% of damage taken by everyone in it, until either it ends or the effect is consumed. It's a potentially solid trinket but it comes with some caveats.

  1. You need to get full value from the channel. It's a fairly short duration so you should time it well with incoming damage so none of it is wasted.
  2. The cooldown reduction for Holy Priest sucks. While internally it has an average of 10 procs per minute of the 3-second cooldown reduction (~10 rppm), we don't really crit that much, due to not having lots of AoE/HoT effects regularly critting. Our Mastery can't crit, so its mostly just our casts that have a chance to reduce the cooldown of it. The best theoretical cooldown is around 6 min 40 sec but ours is much more likely to be up around 7.5-8 min.

Any really short fights will be good for the value of this trinkets effect, likewise any fights that you can squeeze in a second cast. This makes it a fairly situational trinket, but in the right situation it is fairly strong and potentially A tier trinket.

Titanic Ocular Gland​

Sanctum of Domination (Eye of the Jailer) - B Tier

It's not a surprise, but Titanic Ocular Gland is still pretty solid in Sepulcher. You will keep your Mythic version of this for a few weeks as you work on gearing in Sepulcher, replacing it with a heroic Elegy or a new Changeling, but none of the normal difficulty trinkets.

Shadowed Orb of Torment​

Sanctum of Domination (Remnant of Ner'zhul) - B Tier

Especially towards the end of Sanctum of Domination, Shadowed Orb of Torment as it's potent Mastery proc during farm on high-HPS encounters heavily outweighed any negatives over using the trinket. You will keep your Mythic version of this for a few weeks as you work on gearing in Sepulcher. Nothing new to mention here, still a solid trinket till you replace it.

Spiritual Alchemists Stone​

Crafted (Alchemy) - B Tier

With 9.2 comes the ability to craft the Spiritual Alchemy Stone at 262 item level. This makes it really competitive with the normal trinkets from Sepulcher, and even some of the Heroic trinkets. If you're only doing Heroic raiding or an alt, and you can afford to pick this up, it's a solid trinket you likely won't replace at least for a long while. That said don't go out of your way to spend a lot on it. The benefit this gives compared to some of the other competitive options is very minimal.

Soulletting Ruby​

Mythic+ (Theatre of Pain) - B- Tier

Already a really situational trinket, Soulletting Ruby is not really one you will seek out this coming tier. While it's not a bad trinket, especially if you're catching up on gear, Holy Priest doesn't benefit as much as some other classes from short bursts of stats, as our healing is fairly consistent outside of Divine Hymn and Holy Word: Salvation. That said if you do have one, try to pair it in particular with these abilities for maximum effect.

The First Sigil​

Sepulcher of the First Ones (Prototype of War) - C Tier

Unfortunately The First Sigil has a really long cooldown and the bonus it provides isn't really worth how long you need to wait for it. Couple that with the secondary benefit being a reset on your covenant ability and it's this weird trinket on most fights you will only get one brief usage out of, and depending on if you're using it for the secondary effect, may not even get the most healing benefit out of it.

It has a similar problem to Ruby in that Holy Priest just really doesn't take advantage of burst windows like some other healing specs, reducing the value of this trinket. Maybe if they reduce the cooldown or increase the buff duration it might claw its way up the rankings a bit.

Reclaimer's Intensity Core​

Sepulcher of the First Ones (Halondrus) - C Tier

Subject to some last minute changes, Reclaimer's Intensity Core made it a bit worse than it was looking. The mana return is now abysmal, but the healing has been significantly increased. Unfortunately the heal doesn't scale with haste, it can't crit and it doesn't proc mastery so its scaling is pretty poor. It's also fairly "random" in that you're a the mercy of nearby Automa's dying. Thankfully because the mana from having the trinket yourself is virtually zero you have reasonable control over when yours procs.

All of this said, it's still a 30-second HoT on 5 random targets which is unlikely to be great on most of the fights. The healing amount on them is small but you should still expect to see a decent portion of it lost to overheal.

If you have a lot of Automa trinkets in your party, then this trinket is a B Tier, without others though it'll struggle to get out of C Tier.

Special Items​

Creation Catalyst​

The Creation Catalyst is a method to transform gear you already have into Sepulcher of the First Ones items. Items you transform keep their item level, upgade level, sockets and tertiares (speed, leech, avoidance). The items you create are from the list below, with the same stats as below - scaled to whatever item was put into the creation catalyst. Crafting an item requires a base item, and some Flux.

The main takeaways:

  1. The created item keeps the base item's item level
  2. The created item keeps the base item's socket
  3. The created item keeps the base item's tertiaries (Leech, Avoidance, Speed)
  4. The created item does not keep the secondaries (Crit, Haste, Vers, Mastery), instead inheriting the Empyrean item's secondaries
  5. The created item keeps the base item's upgade path. Mythic+ or PVP items with specific upgrade levels/ranks are obtained, and if not fully upgraded, the created item can be upgraded further

As an example, you get a 278 Crit/Mastery helm in your vault that has leech on it and a socket. You throw this into the Creation Catalyst and get back out a 278 Tier helm with leech and a socket (and the tier helm's stats of Haste/Mastery).

Tier Items

  • Head - Haste/Mastery Head
  • Shoulder - Mastery/Vers Shoulder
  • Chest - Crit/Haste Chest
  • Hands - Vers/Haste Hands
  • Legs - Mastery/Crit Legs

Other Items

  • Back - Mastery/Crit Back
  • Wrist - Haste/Vers Wrist
  • Waist - Crit/Haste Waist
  • Feet - Vers/Mastery Feet

Soulwarped Seal of Wrynn​

Screenshot of Soulwarped Seal of Wrynn in-game tooltip from PTR

The Soulwarped Seal of Wrynn or "Anduin Ring" is dropped by Anduin Wrynn inside Sepulcher of the First Ones. You are periodically granted a large int buff, with an increased chance to proc when targeting allies or enemies at lower health.

The ring was changed right before Sepulcher launched to be granted full secondary stats like a regular ring. This means the intellect effect that Hope grants is all additional value and it comes with a very high uptime, meaning no matter the outcome of below it will still end up being our best possible ring.

FAQ​

Q: How good is Soulwarped Seal of Wrynn, the Anduin Ring?

A: Very good. With near 100% uptime on the proc it's essentially free Intellect, as the ring already has regular item budget on the secondaries.

Analysis​

Firstly, we need to make some assumptions. We have a pretty good idea on stat weights on average, for people doing different amounts of HPS.

Below are the estimated HPS values for a regular ring with regular amonts of secondaries on them, for someone doing around 16,000 HPS. This might sound a bit on the higher end but the comparison doesn't change much at all from 12,000 to 20,000 HPS levels. Plus we are trying to figure out our BiS for when we are blasting, and given 20,000+ was doable in Sanctum of Domination, you'll be doing 16k HPS in Sepulcher yourself in no time!

Item LevelSecondary HPSInt Proc HPS
239665400
252720483
265783579
278839697

So as we can see here, regardless of the version of the ring you have, you won't be taking it off. A normal version will be better than a Mythic ring. A normal version will be an increase over a 278 Mythic ring.

Genesis Lathe​

Screenshot of Genesis Lathe in-game tooltip from PTR

The Genesis Lathe is dropped by Lihuvim, Principal Arcitecht inside Sepulcher of the First Ones. Every 30 seconds you are buffed with Ephemeral Effusion which is consumed by your next Flash Heal cast. When consumed, the buff it grants depends on the targets HP with it providing either a direct heal, a HoT or an asborb.

FAQ​

Q: Should I use Lathe over another weapon of the same item level?

A: Yes, unless you're doing like 30,000 HPS+. Lathe at typical levels of HPS is worth around 5-10 item levels.

Q: Should I use Lathe over a weapon that's a higher item level?

A: Use Lathe unless your alternative weapon is more than 10 or so item levels ahead.

Q: Why is Lathe good for Holy Priest? X said it's bad for their healer???

A: Mostly the trigger spell. Even without tracking the buff we are going to trigger it pretty close to on-cooldown with just regular gameplay. Some healers never or rarely cast their trigger spells giving it really variable value. Other healers have a lot of their healing inside a short space so stats help out much more to properly maximise that.

Q: I've checked 4 websites and asked 3 discords, 16 CE raiders, 2 world first Holy Priests and my neighbour's cat and I keep getting different answers on if I should use Lathe, help?

A: You're putting far too much thought into something that is around ~100hps either way. Use it, or don't use it. Your playstyle will dictate your performance much more than the small gains in trying to min/max this RNG proc in the heat of progression.

Q: What could have been done to make this better?

A: It would have been nice if it kept its secondary stats, if the idea was a truly special and unique feeling weapon. Having it make the trigger spell free and instant cast would also be really nice, especially for the specs with poor trigger spells.

Q: How exactly does it work?

A: Read ###this page### it has more details on how it functions.

Analysis​

The following analysis makes the assumption that you have around 800 mastery, 500 versatility and 300 haste. This said, your actual stats doesn't matter much for the sake of this comparison, as 10 stats either way is only a 1-2 hps difference. To view more about which parts of the weapon proc scale with which stats, check it out on the gear page of the compendium.

Target StatusHeal TypeNormalHeroicMythic
Low HealthDirect heal10.3k12.3k14.8k
Medium HealthHeal over Time8.3k10.0k12.0k
High HealthAbsorb8.8k10.5k12.7k

So for the sake of comparison, lets presume you're deciding between the heroic version and another heroic weapon. There are a number of factors to consider, the first is overhealing. Realistically the procs don't overheal much. In that sense, despite being rather dull, they're designed pretty well. Next we need to consider proc rate. Sure the buff is up every 30-seconds but if you're playing Flash Concentration you don't want to be casting Flash Heal more often than every 17-20 seconds where possible. That means you will sit on each Ephemeral Effusion proc for around 4-10 seconds per cycle. Realistically this will be around 5 seconds or so for most people, as leaving Flash Concentration until the last second is a good way to drop your stacks, or ~15% less procs used.

If you aren't running Flash Concentration then your Flash Heal casts will vary a ton depending on the fight. Especially as this means you should be running Prayer Circle and not Surge of Light. If your proc window is up right as AOE damage goes out, by the time you cast a couple of holy words, Circle of Healing and the follow-up Prayer of Healing casts, you could end up delaying as long as 10-11 seconds or more.

ScenarioNormal HPSHeroic HPSMythic HPS
Perfect World372448537
5-sec Delay320384461
5-sec & 10% Overheal288346415
10-sec Delay281337403
10-sec & 10% Overheal252303363

Now, a regular item instead of this dull proc, has some secondaries. These secondaries also add healing value, and how much they add depends on how much healing you're doing with your gear, which in turn depends on a ton of different factors. Using a range of logs from Heroic/Mythic, below are some estimated HPS increases from the secondary stats gained from an equivalent item level weapon.

Weapon VersionAvg SecondariesEst HPS (12k)Est HPS (16k)Est HPS (20k)
Normal80164204276
Heroic85174217293
Mythic89182227307

So the verdict? Using the above two tables we can see that the new weapon is superior to a similar item level weapon, even if you're doing very high HPS.

The final thing to talk about, is how does it compare to higher item level options?

Weapons provide a very high amount of primary stat, Intellect. Going from a Heroic 1-handed weapon to a Mythic one is an increase of 44 Intellect and 4 secondaries. This is quite significant, and even at ~12k HPS adds around 200 HPS alone. There is no circumstance you should stick with Genesis Lathe if you have a higher item level weapon. Especially if it's a staff or if you have a higher off-hand as this will even further increase the value.

All that said, once you have the Mythic version you won't be taking it off, even at very high HPS levels it should still perform really well. During farm if we start getting up around 25-30k reliably it might be worth throwing on a 278 staff instead, but for your progression journey you will use this all the way through.

See something missing? Something you found out about that Holy Priests should know or you want to share? Let me know and I'll update the article.

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