Holy Priest Patch 9.2 Changes Analysis and Tier Set Thoughts

This page will go over how the changes in Patch 9.2, Eternity's End, will affect Holy Priests, specifically how the changes might impact its playstyle, best Legendary choices, Covenants, and the like. If you are simply interested in what the current changes are for Priests in Patch 9.2 in general, you can instead read our full list of changes to the entire Priest class on our dedicated page below. For an additional list of content coming with Patch 9.2, you can also check out our Patch 9.2 Overview page.

In Patch 9.2, Holy Priest has received a number of buffs. None of these change how we play, just enhance our existing playstyles.

• Healing from all spells increased by approximately 10.5%.
• Damage of all spells increased by approximately 15%.
• Damage of Holy Word: Chastise by approximately 24.5%
• Symbol of Hope cooldown decreased from 5 min to 3 min, channelling time reduced from 5 sec 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.
• Guardian Spirit received a tooltip update to make it a bit clearer how the spell behaves.

The healing and damage increase is very welcome and will help keep Holy Priest competitive throughout Patch 9.2 and beyond. The mana cost reduction on both healing Holy Words is great and will offset some of the extra mana spent on additional Holy Words from to the new Tier set bonus. The Symbol of Hope change is quite minor but may give the opportunity for two casts during most encounters instead of just one.

For the first time in a while Holy Priest has received some fairly significant talent changes.

• Binding Heal was removed.
• Cosmic Ripple was moved to the level 40 row in place of Binding Heal.
• Binding Heals was added to the level 30 row in place of Cosmic Ripple.
• Afterlife was given two new effects, the ability to cast Resurrection while in Spirit of Redemption, and reducing the base cooldown of Resurrection while in Spirit of Redemption by 4 seconds.
• Guardian Angel was changed to keep the healing boost effect on a target for its duration even if the life-saving effect of Guardian Spirit was consumed.
• Prayer Circle was given an additional effect to also reduce the cost of Prayer of Healing for the duration.

These are some fairly big changes. Firstly losing Binding Heal was not a big deal. This seldom used talent was an odd addition for alongside the others on its row. The new talent Binding Heals provides a bit of additional self healing and being so squishy, Holy Priest always welcomes survival options. The change to Afterlife is unlikely to change how often it is chosen as a talent in Raid or Mythic+. The minor change to Guardian Angel while small, is a nice positive to offset the huge negative of your Guardian Spirit being consumed and the cooldown being reset to the full 3 minutes.

The change to Prayer Circle is a really good one for all playstyles that do not use the Flash Concentration legendary. One of the biggest weaknesses of the Prayer of Healing focused playstyle was the mana consumption. Due to this, this talent change also has the side effect of improving all other legendaries versus the more dominant Flash Concentration.

Within the new Sepulcher of the First Ones raid that will be coming in Patch 9.2, every class will once again earn pieces of a gear set that is uniquely class-themed with its own two- and four-piece bonuses for every specialization. For Holy Priests, these set bonuses currently are:

• Holy Priest 2-Piece — Your Holy Words begin Divine Conversation, increasing the cooldown reduction of your next Holy-Word-affecting spell by 15 sec.
• Holy Priest 4-Piece — Divine Conversation increases the effectiveness of your next Holy-Word-affecting spell by 35%.

As Patch 9.2 is still being developed, this tier set bonus can be changed

The set bonuses for Holy Priest are relatively passive. While there is not a lot of interaction required, and regular gameplay will benefit a lot, there are some things that can be done to maximise usage. With Holy Word: Chastise triggering the Holy Priest 2-Piece bonus, there is some potential to use it to buff other spell casts. This in turn would increase the value in using Smite during downtime. During testing, Holy Word: Serenity and Holy Word: Sanctify were benefiting from the 2-set buff, meaning chaining holy words together would drastically reduce the cooldown of Holy Word: Salvation. It is unlikely this is intended, but as it stands this bonus is much stronger than we would expect it to be due to this interaction.

The Holy Priest 4-Piece bonus during testing was really inconsistent in which spells it would benefit. Presuming some of these inconsistencies are fixed, what to cast and when will depend a bit on the current damage to your group, or upcoming damage.

Overall, these set bonuses are enhanced versions of the Holy Oration and Resonant Words Conduits, which depending on what is a bug and what is not could result in some engaging gameplay. Hopefully this is considered when the bugs and inconsistencies are fixed throughout PTR and we end up with something that is primarily passive but can also reward good decision making.

Although there have been no changes to Covenant abilities or Soulbinds for Holy Priests at this time, it should be pointed out that as of Patch 9.1.5 players may freely switch between Covenants provided they have obtained the Renowned achievement on any character of their account. The only requirement for this achievement is that you must reach Renown level 80 with any Covenant. This has opened up a lot of flexibility for Holy Priests, allowing them to effectively choose the Covenant whose bonuses are most useful at a given time. This is particularly useful as all of the Covenants are relatively close in value, making Holy Priest a particularly versatile Mythic+ healer who can swap as needed to gain a Covenant bonus in a dungeon.

In addition, Conduits will be unlocking their final few ranks, though this will not alter gameplay in any way.

Recall that in Patch 9.1, every class received a Legendary Power that was unique to each Covenant. For Priests, these Powers were:

• Kyrian — Spheres' Harmony — This has great potential in Mythic+, particularly for contributing more damage. Having Boon of the Ascended up frequently is a significant damage and burst healing increase.
• Necrolord — Pallid Command — Provides a passive amount of extra healing for a short duration after your cast Unholy Nova that quickly ramps up in power.
• Night Fae — Bwonsamdi's Pact — This Legendary tooltip is rather unclear; after you cast Fae Guardians you can then cast this on a target that has any of your faeries to duplicate the power of that faerie. For example, casting it on someone who has the Benevolent Faerie will grant them additional cooldown reduction.
• Venthyr — Shadow Word: Manipulation — This Legendary rewards you for having the Mindgames debuff removed quickly by granting you an amount of extra Critical Strike dependent on how much time Mindgames had left on your target.

New in Patch 9.2 is the ability to eventually use a second Legendary Power, provided it is your Covenant-specific effect. In addition, this ability will be tied to a new Legendary Power that automatically switches to match your current Covenant, further encouraging the flexibility of freely changing Covenants that was introduced in Patch 9.1.5.

Most combinations for both raid and Mythic+ will likely use Flash Concentration as the second Legendary Power. It is versatile, reliable and fantastic throughput in all forms of content. As none of the Covenant abilities or their associated Legendaries have any real synergy with our baseline spells or Legendary Powers, it is unlikely that the desirability of the existing Legendary Powers will change too much without any additional tuning.