Holy Priest Best Covenants, Soulbinds, and Conduits — Dragonflight 10.2.5

Please be aware that as of the Dragonflight Pre-Patch and Dragonflight expansion, all Covenant abilities, Soulbinds, and Conduits will only function while within the Shadowlands. This page will temporarily remain as a reference.

This page assumes that you are already familiar with Covenants, Soulbinds, and Conduits. If that is not the case, we have a number of pages that can help you get up to speed:

• Covenants Guide, which explains what Covenants are, what perks they bring, and how you can join one;
• Priest Covenant Abilities, which lists all the abilities that Priests gain by joining each Covenant;
• How To Change Covenant?, which tells you how you can switch Covenant (rejoining a former Covenant will require you to perform a number of tasks to regain their trusts);
• General Soulbind Guide, which explains what Soulbinds are and how you can pledge yourself to them to open up their Soulbind tree;
• Priest Conduits, which lists all of the Conduits available to Priests.

Note: Our Covenant recommendations have not changed with Patch 9.2. This patch has, however, given us the opportunity to eventually use both our Covenant legendary alongside a regular legendary power, which slightly changes how the covenants compare.

Holy Priest is in a unique situation where multiple Covenants rank similarly. Night Fae, Kyrian, Necrolord and Venthyr are all currently doing quite well in both Mythic+ and Raid, with no particular one pulling ahead in performance. Since the Covenant class abilities rank so similarly, it is important to also take into account the Soulbinds and signature abilities, as they can provide extra survivability or mobility, both of which Holy Priests lack in their current toolkit. Here are some notes to help you choose the Covenant that feels best for you.

Kyrian, due to the positional requirements of Boon of the Ascended is slightly more difficult than the others to use well in a raid environment. However, it is much easier in Mythic+ and solo content. Boon not only provides good healing and damage, it also increases your movement speed and grants access to numerous instant-cast spells for its duration. The signature ability Phial of Serenity provides you with a consumable similar to a Healthstone, which aids in our survivability. This is great as Holy Priest's personals are a bit lacking.

• Raid: Good — difficult to properly use Boon of the Ascended reliably.
• Mythic+: Great — strong damage through Boon of the Ascended and an additional personal with Phial of Serenity.

Necrolord is one of the easiest Covenant abilities to play with. Unholy Nova healing scales well with group size, and provides additional damage and healing when used amongst enemy targets. Fleshcraft can provide you with a shield every 2 minutes. This can be helpful as it gives us extra survivability.

• Raid: Good — Unholy Nova is a reliable healing increase.
• Mythic+: Good — good damage and healing from Unholy Nova and an very strong personal with Fleshcraft.

Night Fae with Fae Guardians creates 3 Faeries; each granting a different benefit. The Faeries will provide benefits to you and a select few targets, including damage reduction, Mana return, and cooldown reduction. While it may take a bit of extra work to prepare the spell, it is extremely versatile, being able to provide both damage reduction and cooldown reduction to yourself or an ally. The signature ability Soulshape provides added mobility with a short-cooldown blink and increased movement speed, which is a wonderful addition to our toolkit.

• Raid+: Great — strong tank external with Guardian Faerie, and CDR either on a DPS or yourself through Benevolent Faerie alongside solid Mana return from Wrathful Faerie and extra movement with Soulshape.
• Mythic+: Great — strong tank external with Guardian Faerie, CDR on a DPS through Benevolent Faerie and extra movement with Soulshape.

Venthyr is the weaker Covenant. It has a very straight-forward class ability. Mindgames is a short cooldown spell that you cast on an enemy, which prevents some of their upcoming damage and causes that damage to instead heal their target. The signature ability Door of Shadows gives us a teleport on a short cast time, which is a welcome addition to our limited number of movement related abilities.

• Raid+: Good — Mindgames does not add much to your raid toolkit, but Door of Shadows can help a lot with movement.
• Mythic+: Good — Mindgames does not really shine in Mythic+ either, and Door of Shadows has limited uses.

Depending on the Covenant choice you make, there will be an appropriate Soulbind to suit the content you plan on doing. Further down in in our Holy Priest Covenant Deep-dive we discuss the Soulbind and Conduit options, and how to make the most of your chosen Covenant.

Below is a summary of the best Soulbinds for each Covenant. For a more detailed look into each Soulbind and their strengths and weaknesses check out our Holy Priest Covenant Deep-dive section.

Covenant	Soulbind	Recommended Tree
Kyrian	Kleia (raid) / Forgelite Prime Mikanikos (Mythic+)	Kleia Tree (raid) / Mikanikos Tree (Mythic+)
Necrolord	Emeni	Emeni Tree
Night Fae	Dreamweaver	Dreamweaver Tree
Venthyr	Theotar the Mad Duke	Theotar Tree

This is a quick summary of the more powerful Conduits of each type. For more detail on each of the Conduits and discussion on their optimal usage continue reading further down the guide. Refer to our Priest Conduits list if you want to see all Priest Conduits.

• Best Potency Conduits: Resonant Words > Courageous Ascension = Holy Oration = Focused Mending = Shattered Perceptions = Festering Transfusion.
• Best Finesse Conduits: Clear Mind > Power Unto Others.
• Best Endurance Conduits: Translucent Image > Condensed Anima Sphere.

Regardless of which Covenant you pick, you will be able to gather and use the same Conduits, with the notable exception of the Potency Conduit that enhances your Covenant class ability.

While you are often given a choice between Conduit types when selecting a path through a Soulbind tree, Potency Conduits are the best healing increases. Resonant Words, followed closely behind by Holy Oration, and the Covenant-specific Conduits Courageous Ascension and Shattered Perceptions provide the most healing throughput in both raid and Mythic+.

Below is a complete list of all available Conduits, ordered by perceived power and accompanied by an explanation on their place in the list.

Two of these can (and generally should) be chosen once you unlock their slots at your chosen Soulbind. By order of preference:

1. Resonant Words is our best Conduit, providing a frequent healing increase to our main single-target healing spells, Heal and Flash Heal. The only caveat to keep in mind is that casting a Holy Word with the Resonant Words buff active will over-write the buff, effectively losing one potential buffed Heal or Flash Heal cast each time this happens.
2. Holy Oration is a reliable but very small boost to our Holy Word cooldown reduction. As with anything that enhances our Holy Word usage, it remains vital you keep your Holy Words on cooldown as often as practical to maximise the potential benefit of this Conduit.
3. Courageous Ascension and Shattered Perceptions are the Covenant Conduits for Kyrian and Venthyr. Both of these provide a solid and simple healing increase to their respective Covenant class ability.
4. Focused Mending is another very reliable but small healing increase, particularly if you are good at keeping Prayer of Mending on cooldown.
5. Festering Transfusion, the Covenant Conduit for Necrolord, increases the amount of damage and healing the DoT provides by a small amount.
6. Lasting Spirit is a sizable bonus to Guardian Spirit and pairs well with the Guardian Angel talent, especially when cast on tanks in both raid and Mythic+.
7. Fae Fermata, the Covenant Conduit for Night Fae, provides a minor increase to Fae Guardians benefits in situations they will be frequently swapping targets. A short-duration copy is left on the most recent target and applies a portion of the benefit the regular faerie does.

Our Endurance Conduits are quite clear cut in terms of priority:

1. Translucent Image turns Fade into an on-demand damage reduction defensive ability making it strong in all content types.
2. Condensed Anima Sphere is a steady amount of incoming healing over the course of an encounter.
3. Light's Inspiration is a small addition to the healing provided by Desperate Prayer.
4. Charitable Soul unfortunately provides very little value due to Power Word: Shield for Holy Priest being a weak spell we rarely cast.

All four Finesse Conduits have some situational uses. While they are ranked in a rough priority order below, it is much more up to your personal preference which one you use.

1. Clear Mind grants some Mana savings to our allies and offensive dispels. This is especially potent in Mythic+ where you may be using Purify, Mass Dispel, and Dispel Magic much more frequently.
2. Power Unto Others grants a slight boost to Power Infusion when using it on an ally and is a solid alternative to Clear Mind in any scenario where you are regularly using Power Infusion on someone else.
3. Mental Recovery has some very niche usage, particularly for Mythic+ and Torghast.
4. Move with Grace providing some extra cooldown reduction on Leap of Faith is nice but due to how infrequently this ability is used, that additional cooldown reduction usually goes to waste.

Holy Priest is in a fairly unique position compared to many specs in that each of the Covenants provide fairly similar overall value with no one Covenant pulling way ahead. In this section, we will dive into each of the Covenants and look at their strengths and weaknesses to help you choose and optimise each Covenant.

Below is a summary of the Covenants in alphabetical order:

• Kyrian has Boon of the Ascended, which when cast, temporarily provides you with two new abilities. Smite becomes Ascended Blast, which provides healing through dealing damage. Boon of the Ascended itself becomes Ascended Nova, which does both damage and healing in a similar style to Holy Nova. When Boon expires, you create an Ascended Eruption of damage and healing, which is increased depending on your ability usage during Boon. Boon, with a well timed Ascended Eruption, can provide great damage and healing.
• Necrolord has the slow moving and hard hitting projectile, Unholy Nova, which detonates at your target's location. The detonation heals nearby allies and puts a DoT on all enemies in range. The Unholy Transfusion DoT also doubles as a heal, healing allies who attack enemies with the DoT active. This also provides a solid combination of damage and healing with a very easy to use ability.
• Venthyr hits a single target hard with Mindgames, a short cooldown with high damage and high healing effect. The damage absorb and heal combined can reduce and help smooth out a period of high damage. Mindgames has a short cooldown, allowing for more frequent casts than the other Covenant abilities.
• Night Fae grants the unique Fae Guardians ability. While this ability does not provide any direct damage or healing itself, the effects it does provide through the Guardian Faerie's damage reduction, Wrathful Faerie's Mana return, and the Benevolent Faerie's cooldown reduction, all enhance the throughput of you and your allies.

Like most direct healing effects, each of our Covenant abilities that provide healing also trigger Echo of Light to provide some additional healing.

Factoring into your decision on choosing a Covenant though should not just be the Class Ability, but also their Signature Abilities and their Soulbind trees which we discuss in-depth in each Covenant deep-dive next.

The Class ability Boon of the Ascended, commonly referred to as just Boon, alters your gameplay slightly when cast. Upon expiring, it explodes outward from you with a powerful Ascended Eruption that is buffed based on how many stacks you built up during Boon of the Ascended. During Boon you gain a movement speed increase and also get the following two abilities:

• Ascended Blast replaces Smite. Ascended Blast is a hard hitting ability that also heals a nearby injured target for a significant amount and grants 5 stacks of Boon of the Ascended. You should aim to cast this on cooldown as much as possible.
• Ascended Nova replaces Boon of the Ascended. Ascended Nova provides a small amount of healing and damage to nearby targets. Most of its strength lies in generating increased Boon of the Ascended stacks by hitting multiple enemies at once. This should be cast in between Ascended Blast whenever you can hit multiple enemies or allies at once.
• Ascended Eruption triggers when Boon expires. The eruption damage and healing is increased based on the number of Boon stacks you generated by casting Ascended Blast and Ascended Nova. Ideally Eruption is timed to land when allies are damaged, to provide the maximum healing benefit from Boon.

You have two goals to keep in mind when using Boon of the Ascended. First, you should aim to time Boon of the Ascended during periods of incoming group damage to get the most out of Ascended Blast and Ascended Nova. Secondly you should also aim to time the usage of Boon to get as much benefit from the Ascended Eruption as possible.

While casting Ascended Blast on cooldown, you need to fill in the gaps with other spell casts. In situations where you are unable to get in range of multiple enemies or 6 allies to cast Ascended Nova , you should fill with your normal healing spells. Pay special attention to continuing to cast as many Ascended Blast as possible, prioritising it as soon as it comes off cooldown.

Summon Steward is the Kyrian Signature Ability which calls a friendly NPC to your side, from which you can get a Phial of Serenity. This does not share a cooldown with Healthstone and functions as an additional Healthstone style personal heal. It also removes most harmful debuffs from you when used. Overall, this is a good ability from which you can always gain some benefit, and which has a few very strong niche uses.

Kyrians also get access to special perks in the The Necrotic Wake dungeon. Using Summon Steward near any of the Malfunctioning Goliath constructs grants each party member with Anima Exhaust, increasing their AoE damage and healing.

While all 3 Kyrian Soulbinds have situations they are useful, the one that shines the most in the majority of raid situations is Kleia, for Mythic+ it is Mikanikos.

Kleia has relatively useful first trait in Valiant Strikes, which provides priority healing to targets that need it the most, with very little overhealing. This is the best overall tree for Kyrian, especially once you have unlocked the final row of traits.

Pelagos is a solid Kyrian Soulbind with easy access to double Potency Conduit slots without having to sacrifice any performance enhancing Soulbind traits. The most useful trait in this tree is Combat Meditation, providing a solid Mastery increase which can be extended by walking through the Sorrowful Memories that appear nearby. Due to the increased movement speed granted by Boon of the Ascended and the long duration the Sorrowful Memory orbs remain for, it is usually quite easy to pick them all up each cast.

Finally, Forgelite Prime Mikanikos has a more defensive focus better suited for solo and 5-man content. His best trait is the first one you pick up, Bron's Call to Action, which after some time will summon Bron to help you out in combat. Effusive Anima Accelerator pushes Mikanikos ahead in Mythic+, granting a significant amount of additional cooldown reduction to Boon of the Ascended when used in large packs of enemies.

Below is our chosen path and Conduits for this Soulbind:

Below is our chosen path and Conduits for this Soulbind:

Below is our chosen path and Conduits for this Soulbind:

Note: An alternative to the below path is to instead take Hammer of Genesis in any environment you can reliably be hitting new targets like doing your daily quests, Torghast or Mythic+.

Unholy Nova is a very intuitive and simple Class Ability to use. When you cast it, it hurls the Unholy Nova at the target's current location. Upon landing, the nova explodes out, healing nearby allies and applying Unholy Transfusion to all nearby enemies. Unholy Transfusion will continue to damage the enemy targets, as well as heal any allies that damage the debuffed enemies.

It is important to keep in mind when using Unholy Nova that it will land where the target was when you cast it, so if the target is moving really fast at the time you cast, there is a chance it may miss. You should also try to cast Unholy Nova on a target that is near both allies and enemies to maximise both the initial Unholy Nova heal, as well as the Unholy Transfusion damage and healing.

While Unholy Transfusion does reliably heal people who attack these enemies, the healing they receive will be the same regardless of how many of the debuffed enemies they attack at once. It is a common misconception that Unholy Transfusion does significantly more healing to allies who are casting AoE spells, when in fact it does not.

The Signature Ability for Necrolord is Fleshcraft. Fleshcraft can be potentially difficult to use, due to having to fully channel it every few minutes. That said when you can find the time to channel it, the bonus shield it provides is worth the time it takes, and it will rarely go to waste due to the exceptionally long duration.

Necrolord players also get access to special perks in both the Plaguefall and Theater of Pain dungeons. In Plaguefall, using Fleshcraft on the corpses of dead slimes grants you a 3-minute aura which provides a buff to nearby allies. In Theatre of Pain, clicking a Necrolord banner grants you a 5-minute aura increasing the versatility and movement speed of nearby allies.

For Holy Priest, Necrolord has one standout Soulbind in Emeni. Until you have Emeni unlocked though, Bonesmith Heirmir offers the simplest early performance enhancement, with Plague Deviser Marileth being much more situational.

Emeni starts the tree off with a very strong primary stat bonus not just to yourself, but also some nearby allies each time you cast Unholy Nova. The rest of the traits are less interesting, with a small health bonus from Emeni's Magnificent Skin the only other notable node.

Bonesmith Heirmir immediately grants access to a small Intellect increase with Forgeborne Reveries on the first row. Later down the tree, you choose between a second Potency Conduit slot or a small increase to Critical Strike.

Finally, Plague Deviser Marileth is the weakest Necrolord Soulbind with Volatile Solvent being quite situational, and Ultimate Form retaining the same challenges as Fleshcraft in gaining full value.

Below is our chosen path and Conduits for this Soulbind:

Below is our chosen path and Conduits for this Soulbind:

Below is our chosen path and Conduits for this Soulbind:

Fae Guardians has multiple parts to it:

• Guardian Faerie — Damage reduction for its duration, great for tanks.
• Benevolent Faerie — Cooldown reduction for its duration, great for dps and sometimes healers.
• Wrathful Faerie — Mana returned when the target takes damage.

When you initially cast Fae Guardians, you gain Guardian Faerie and Benevolent Faerie on yourself, and if your target is an enemy, Wrathful Faerie will be cast on them. While the bonuses from the faerie's are where the power of the Covenant ability comes from, you should not let this prevent you from casting a life-saving heal on someone just because it might move a faerie from your intended target.

Guardian Faerie will primarily be for your tank, however it can also be useful to have the damage reduction on any other targets taking significant damage, or on yourself if you need to survive a big hit.

Benevolent Faerie provides cooldown reduction for its duration for a major ability that varies by class or spec. Typically the best targets for this will be a DPS ally who can use the extra cooldown reduction to help end the encounter faster. There are also scenarios where using it on a healer (like yourself!) can be great to squeeze in an extra healing cooldown if the timings line up for specific mechanics in raid.

Wrathful Faerie gets applied to your current target if they are hostile, otherwise it needs to be applied using Shadow Word: Pain, which you should always do as soon as possibly. The Faerie will then return a small amount of Mana to you as it takes damage for its duration.

Soulshape is the Signature Ability for Night Fae and provides a much needed movement increasing ability to our toolkit. Casting it blinks you forward a short distance and transforms you in Soulshape form where you move significantly faster for its duration. As long as you remain in Soulshape, a few seconds after the first blink, the ability will come off cooldown letting you blink again. Most healing and damage spells will break you out of Soulshape and once broken out you are unable to re-enter until the longer cooldown expires.

Night Faes also get access to special perks in both the Mists of Tirna Scithe and De Other Side dungeons. In Mists, a Night Fae can open a shortcut blocked by roots, open a mushroom grove blocked by roots which grants primary stat bonuses, and unlockable resurrection checkpoints after each boss. In De Other Side there are various Urns located throughout the dungeon which can be broken to stun all nearby enemies for a short period of time.

Night Fae has two really solid progression raiding Soulbinds in Dreamweaver and Niya, with some situational options in Korayn's tree. Going with the theme of the Fae Guardians Class Ability, many of the Soulbind traits also buff or impact your allies in a positive way despite not directly contributing to your own personal throughput.

Dreamweaver is the recommended Soulbind, starting with Podtender which can help you recover from mistakes. As you work on the tree you will gain Empowered Chrysalis, providing small shields to allies you overheal. Field of Blossoms grants a substantial Haste increase when activating Fae Guardians.

Note about Podtender: This trait will trigger before Spirit of Redemption meaning you still only get on activation of Spirit of Redemption per life.

Niya has some nice bonuses and is a great Soulbind to start off with. Grove Invigoration grants a periodic health and Mastery increase which is amplified significantly upon casting Fae Guardians. Conveniently placed after the Potency Conduit slot is Run Without Tiring which grants a small self-heal during Soulshape. Rounding out the tree is either another Potency Conduit slot or Niya's Tools: Herbs which periodically buffs you and your allies with increased Haste for a few seconds.

Finally, Korayn has more situational traits, which can be more difficult to get proper use out of, such Wild Hunt Tactics, Face Your Foes and First Strike. Many of the options make Korayn a viable option for solo content and Mythic+ with enhanced group movement speed, and bursts of damage and healing.

Below is our chosen path and Conduits for this Soulbind:

We suggest following this path, Conduit pick choice, and timing:

Note: Another competitive alternative to Niya's Tools: Herbs is to take the Potency Conduit slot with Holy Oration and then Niya's Tools: Poison despite the latter having no benefit to us.

We suggest following this path, Conduit pick choice, and timing:

Note: Another competitive alternative to Face Your Foes, especially for solo or Mythic+, is to take the Endurance Conduit slot and then First Strike as you can gain increased uptime when there are new enemies to attack often.

Mindgames is a hard hitting, cheap damage spell which leaves a short debuff on the enemy. While the debuff is present on an enemy, instead of dealing damage to allies, the damage is absorbed and also heals the allied target. This effect persists until the debuff expires or is fully used up. Mindgames not only helps smooth out damage by preventing it being done, but also provides a small heal to those who would have ordinarily taken damage.

This ability should be cast frequently with a priority on targets that will be doing harm to you or one of your allies very soon. The healing effect generated by Mindgames also triggers Echo of Light.

Door of Shadows is the Signature Ability which provides a long-range teleport with a short cast time. Due to the cast time, this is not something that is typically used in an emergency, and instead works much better if you can plan its usage ahead of time.

Venthyrs also get access to special perks in both the Sanguine Depths and Halls of Atonement dungeons. Sanguine Depths has Anima Cages which can be utilised to provide a healing and damage bonus to your group. Halls of Atonement allows Venthyr players to turn Loyal Stoneborn gargoyles friendly. These gargoyles will fight alongside your party for a short period of time then fly off.

Venthyr has 3 very solid Soulbind choices. Typically for both raid healing and Mythic+ healing, your first choice will be Theotar the Mad Duke. However if you already have that Soulbind setup for another spec the other two are also good options for Holy Priest.

General Draven has a strong ability in Service In Stone. Service In Stone provides a small increase in survivability and also has some synergy with the X'anshi, Return of Archbishop Benedictus Legendary Power. Move As One all but ensures that you have 30% extra movement speed bonus whenever group movement is needed. Hold Your Ground is the icing on the cake; not only does it also boost your survivability and healing whenever you are able to stand still for 4 seconds, ensuring a very high uptime, but it is also unlocked through the second Potency Conduit slot for the tree.

Theotar the Mad Duke is the best Venthyr Soulbind, overall. It opens up with a fantastic trait: Soothing Shade, granting a large amount of Mastery for its duration (providing you can remain underneath it for its full duration). Token of Appreciation can be very strong and also provides a Potency Conduit slot.

Finally, Nadjia the Mistblade is a great all-rounder Soulbind due to the flexibility of its many of her powers. Thrill Seeker provides small throughput bursts periodically, Dauntless Duelist is great while soloing, Familiar Predicaments is one of the best PvP powers, and Exacting Preparation provides a big throughput boost that is useful on all types of content.

Below is our chosen path and Conduits for this Soulbind:

Below is our chosen path and Conduits for this Soulbind:

Below is our chosen path and Conduits for this Soulbind: