Cataclysm Classic Holy Priest Talent Builds

Holy Priest has one of the most restrictive specs in all of Cataclysm, with 39 out of your 41 talent points being required in mandatory talents. Below you'll find our recommended talent build for all PvE content as a Holy Priest.

The only options you have for talents is swapping a point into Spirit of Redemption, taking it out of either Desperate Prayer or 1 point out of Test of Faith.

In this section we will go over some of the key talents you will use when you are playing a Holy Priest. Be sure to understand your most important talents as they are vital to play the build to its fullest strength.

• Desperate Prayer — Instantly heals you for 30% of your maximum health. Use this in emergencies if you are about to die.

• Surge of Light — Gives your spells a 6% chance to cause your next Flash Heal to be instant cast and have no Mana cost.

• Inspiration — Whenever you critically heal, the target will receive 10% reduced Physical damage taken for 15 seconds. Try to keep this buff active on tanks as much as possible.

• Lightwell — Places a Lightwell at the target location. Group members can click on this Lightwell to receive a strong HoT. With Glyph of Lightwell, this will have 15 charges instead of 10.

• Serendipity — Grants 1 stack, up to 2 stacks total, whenever you cast Flash Heal or Binding Heal. This makes your next Greater Heal or Prayer of Healing cast 20% faster and cost 10% less Mana per stack. Gaining and spending these stacks often are an important part of your rotation.

• Chakra — Causes you to enter a Chakra state depending on what spell you cast next. Casting Heal, Flash Heal, Greater Heal, or Binding Heal will cause you to enter Chakra: Serenity, increasing the crit chance of your direct single-target healing spells by 10%. Casting Prayer of Healing or Prayer of Mending causes you to enter Chakra: Sanctuary, increasing your AoE and Renew healing by 15%, and reduces the cooldown of Circle of Healing by 2 seconds. As Holy, you should be using Chakra: Sanctuary majority of the time.

• Revelations — While you are in Chakra: Sanctuary, your Holy Word: Chastise will be upgraded into Holy Word: Sanctuary. This is a powerful AoE heal that you place on a targeted area, healing all targets in the area with reduced effectiveness when more than 6 players are in the AoE.

• Heavenly Voice — Doubles the healing done by Divine Hymn and reduces its cooldown by 5 minutes. This makes Divine Hymn an extremely powerful AoE heal; try to use it at least twice in fights if possible with its reduced cooldown.

• Circle of Healing — Heals your target and up to 4 other nearby allies instantly. With Glyph of Circle of Healing this will heal 6 targets instead of 5. Use this to quickly heal up groups of low health allies.

• Guardian Spirit — A "cheat death" on demand button, this spell is very unique with how it can be used. In addition to preventing someone from dying to fatal damage, while Guardian Spirit is active on a target, they will receive 60% additional healing from all sources. Oftentimes, this 60% increased healing received is enough to prevent the target from dying, making Glyph of Guardian Spirit a great "defensive" cooldown even when the cheat death is unlikely to be needed.

Prime glyphs are new to Cataclysm, giving you a third "row" of glyphs you can use on your character. You don't really have many options when it comes to prime glyphs as there are very limited options, usually only three avaiable for each specialization.

• Glyph of Renew — Holy has three talent buffing Renew, making this a mandatory glyph.
• Glyph of Lightwell — Gives your Lightwell 5 additional charges.
• Glyph of Prayer of Healing — Holy mostly focuses on AoE healing and Prayer of Healing is one of your main AoE healing abilities. You can swap this out on fights with minimal AoE healing needed.
• Glyph of Guardian Spirit — Reduces the cooldown of your Guardian Spirit by 30 seconds. This can be useful on specific fights, making this is a decent option to swap in sometimes.

Unlike most other classes and specializations, Holy has two major glyphs that improve your combat spells. Your third glyph will typically be Glyph of Mass Dispel to reduce the cast time of Mass Dispel, but can be swapped with Glyph of Dispel Magic on fights where Mass Dispel isn't needed.

• Glyph of Circle of Healing — Increases the number of targets that Circle of Healing hits from 5 to 6, increasing its healing by 20%.
• Glyph of Prayer of Mending — Increases the healing of the first charge of Prayer of Mending by 100%. Try to use this first charge on the tank.
• Glyph of Mass Dispel — Reduces the cast time of Mass Dispel by 1 second. Use this one on trash or bosses where you need to AoE dispel your group or certain enemies.
• Glyph of Dispel Magic — Heals the target for 3% of their max health if you Dispel Magic a debuff off them. Swap this one in on fights where you need to Dispel Magic a large amount of single target debuffs.

Minor glyphs typically provide very minor benefits. Priest does not really have many options when it comes to minor glyphs, limiting your choices down to these three for almost all PvE content.

• Glyph of Fortitude — Reduces the Mana cost of Power Word: Fortitude by 50%. This is mostly useful when rebuffing a player in combat.
• Glyph of Shadowfiend — Grants 5% max Mana if your Shadowfiend dies early. Usually your Shadowfiend won't die, but you don't have many other options.
• Glyph of Levitate — Removes the reagent cost of Levitate, allowing you to cast it for free.