Holy Priest Healing Ny'alotha Raid Guide — Dragonflight 10.2.5

For the Holy Priest Boss Advice we got together with Shelanne, moderator for Warcraft Priests and author of their popular Quick-Start Holy Priest guide.

In this section, you will find information and guidance for healing Nyalotha, the Waking City raid as a Holy Priest. These are not complete encounter guides, but rather provide specific tips for healing as a Holy Priest.

For Major essence recommendations, The Ever Rising Tide ( Overcharge Mana) is a strong potential major to use on most encounters. It can however be the most difficult to use effectively and can run you out of mana if used improperly. Memory of Lucid Dreams ( Lucid Dreams) or Worldvein Resonance ( Worldvein Resonance) are both viable substitutes on virtually all encounters and are easy to use.

To go along with the Minor essence recommendations below, Worldvein Resonance is a very strong essence when you have many people in your raid also running it and Lucid Dreams is a good choice.

We advise you to use the following essences against Wrathion, the Black Emperor.

• Major Slot
  • Life-Binders Invocation — Rank 3: Life-Binder's Invocation + Seed of Eonar
• Minor Slots
  • The Ever Rising Tide — Rank 3: The Ever-Rising Tide
  • Conflict and Strife — Rank 3: Strife
  • The Formless Void — Rank 3: Symbiotic Presence

The main focus of Wrathion is to minimise your movement while maximising your healing. This is made even more difficult in Mythic due to the stacking debuff Creeping Madness which increases as you move, slowing you and dealing damage. Try to avoid over-using Angelic Feather by not casting it when not needed, using it primarily when you need to move large distances or quickly avoid standing in fire. While there shouldn't be any dangerous damage going during movement, if stacked you can use Holy Nova to heal the whole raid group. Try to avoid too much Renew and focus instead on filling with Prayer of Healing as there are plenty of opportunities with light and medium levels of raid damage to be healed up. You can also save casts of Holy Word: Serenity, Holy Word: Sanctify and Circle of Healing if movement is coming up in a few seconds, to allow yourself some meaningful healing casts while on the move.

If you find yourself in position before some of your slower raid members, Leap of Faith can be used to help pull them into position. Holy Nova can also be useful in phase 2 to pull the Assassins out of Stealth if your group is lacking AoE damage or Hunter flares.

For more information, please refer to our Wrathion, the Black Emperor guide.

We advise you to use the following essences against Maut.

• Major Slot
  • Life-Binders Invocation — Rank 3: Life-Binder's Invocation + Seed of Eonar
• Minor Slots
  • The Ever Rising Tide — Rank 3: The Ever-Rising Tide
  • Conflict and Strife — Rank 3: Strife
  • The Formless Void — Rank 3: Symbiotic Presence

There is increasing damage to players throughout phase 1 from Consuming Shadows as Maut's mana increases. Utilise the downtime in this phase to contribute to boss and add damage using Smite and conserve more mana for the second phase. Angelic Feather is perfect to counteract the Dark Manifestation which drags you towards the centre of it, allowing you to easily keep your distance.

During Phase 2 there is a lot of damage going out, between raid healing cooldowns that are used you should be focusing on using as much as your mana as possible to keep your raid alive, roughly pacing your remaining mana with the bosses remaining mana. Due to the mana gained back from your allies correctly exploding Forbidden Mana on you, there should be ample mana available to keep up with the healing required allowing you to cast a lot of Prayer of Healing.

Also during Phase 2 you can also put out Angelic Feather around the arena to assist the people soaking orbs to reach them faster as there will be very little movement for yourself. Be careful dispelling Drain Essence as the balance here is between quickly removing the debuffs but also ensuring the debuff targets are away from the raid to prevent extra damage being taken, and healer mana being burnt.

For more information, please refer to our Maut guide.

We advise you to use the following essences against The Prophet Skitra.

• Major Slot
  • Life-Binders Invocation — Rank 3: Life-Binder's Invocation + Seed of Eonar
• Minor Slots
  • The Ever Rising Tide — Rank 3: The Ever-Rising Tide
  • Conflict and Strife — Rank 3: Strife
  • The Formless Void — Rank 3: Symbiotic Presence

Shining Force can be used to reposition the Image of Absolution adds to help keep their patrolling away from the area your raid is in. Censure can also be a good choice, providing a more controlled way of making a gap in the wall of adds.

For more information, please refer to our The Prophet Skitra guide.

We advise you to use the following essences against Dark Inquisitor Xanesh.

• Major Slot
  • Life-Binders Invocation — Rank 3: Life-Binder's Invocation + Seed of Eonar
• Minor Slots
  • The Ever Rising Tide — Rank 3: The Ever-Rising Tide
  • Conflict and Strife — Rank 3: Strife
  • The Formless Void — Rank 3: Symbiotic Presence

Desperate Prayer should be saved for if you get stuck inside a Torment patch and are going to take damage from it. This is most likely to happen if you are chosen with Voidwoken to play the orb-soccer mini-game and find yourself out of position due to redirecting the orb.

Most of the time you shouldn't need to use Angelic Feather charges on Torment, however if you do, try to keep at least one charge available to give you plenty of time to move away from your spawned Soul Flay copy.

For more information, please refer to our Dark Inquisitor Xanesh guide.

We advise you to use the following essences against The Hivemind.

• Major Slot
  • Life-Binders Invocation — Rank 3: Life-Binder's Invocation + Seed of Eonar
• Minor Slots
  • The Ever Rising Tide — Rank 3: The Ever-Rising Tide
  • Conflict and Strife — Rank 3: Strife
  • The Formless Void — Rank 3: Symbiotic Presence

The Aqir Darter adds that dart around the room can't be interrupted but they can be stunned or knocked back with your Level 60 talents Censure or Shining Force which in turns cancels their current cast, reducing raid damage.

Towards the end of the fight there is a significant amount of raid damage that ramps up from multiple sources. Coordinate with your healing team when best to utilise your Divine Hymn and Holy Word: Salvation so they aren't on cooldown near the end of the encounter when your raid requires them.

For more information, please refer to our The Hivemind guide.

We advise you to use the following essences against Shad'har the Insatiable.

• Major Slot
  • Life-Binders Invocation — Rank 3: Life-Binder's Invocation + Seed of Eonar
• Minor Slots
  • The Ever Rising Tide — Rank 3: The Ever-Rising Tide
  • Conflict and Strife — Rank 3: Strife
  • The Formless Void — Rank 3: Symbiotic Presence

Keep an eye on targets who take the initial stacks of Debilitating Spit as they will take a significant amount of damage over a short period of time. Guardian Spirit can be useful to help heal up or save a raid member getting dangerously low from the spit.

During the Umbral phase there is lots of movement. Try to save your Angelic Feather charges for the latter half of the phase, as the amount of movement required increases as the phase continues, and minimising movement is key to maximising your healing.

For more information, please refer to our Shad'har the Insatiable guide.

We advise you to use the following essences against Drest'agath.

• Major Slot
  • Life-Binders Invocation — Rank 3: Life-Binder's Invocation + Seed of Eonar
• Minor Slots
  • The Ever Rising Tide — Rank 3: The Ever-Rising Tide
  • Conflict and Strife — Rank 3: Strife
  • The Formless Void — Rank 3: Symbiotic Presence

When Throes of Agony is cast, there is a significant amount of raid damage. Coordinate with your healing team when best to utilise your Divine Hymn and Holy Word: Salvation so they are most effective and not overlapping with other healer cooldowns.

The Tentacle of Drest'agath adds spawn surrounded by a cloud which prevents targets inside from being targeted with heals from healers outside of the cloud. Keep this in mind when these tentacles are alive, and organise with your healing team for one of you to be inside the cloud with the melee to heal them up.

The Maw of Drest'agath has an aura Mutterings of Betrayal that applies a healing absorb to players who move too close. This healing absorb needs to be healed off as soon as possible, as a player accidentally hitting 4 stacks will become mind controlled for the rest of the fight.

Mutterings of Insanity will stun allies once it expires, this stun can and should be dispelled quickly.

If you pick up a Void Infused Ichor buff from the patches left behind from dead adds, you should dps the boss primarily with Smite. Try to avoid heavy usage of Holy Fire and Holy Word: Chastise as they both cost mana which is better off spent healing.

For more information, please refer to our Drest'agath guide.

We advise you to use the following essences against Il'gynoth, Corruption Reborn.

• Major Slot
  • Life-Binders Invocation — Rank 3: Life-Binder's Invocation + Seed of Eonar
• Minor Slots
  • The Ever Rising Tide — Rank 3: The Ever-Rising Tide
  • Conflict and Strife — Rank 3: Strife
  • The Formless Void — Rank 3: Symbiotic Presence

In phase 1 Eye of N'Zoth can deal heavy tank damage as their debuff count increases. Coordinate with your tanks to find out when they want Guardian Spirit to help prevent their death, or simply use it regularly on the active tank if they have 2 or 3 stacks.

Using Censure on mind-controlled raid members can help prevent the mind-control effects chaining and consuming the whole raid, giving dps more time to break the targets out. Censure is also effective for helping control the Blood of Ny'alotha adds.

Due to players being so spread out for a lot of this fight, as well as the lower healing requirements and tendancy to overheal, using the major essence The Well of Existence is fantastic for spot healing. It also has quite a long range, allowing you to heal people your normal healing spells would be out of range of.

In Mythic, care should be taken when dispelling Cursed Blood to try and only dispel targets with smaller circles around them to reduce the amount of raid damage going out.

For more information, please refer to our Il'gynoth, Corruption Reborn guide.

We advise you to use the following essences against Vexiona.

• Major Slot
  • Life-Binders Invocation — Rank 3: Life-Binder's Invocation + Seed of Eonar
• Minor Slots
  • The Ever Rising Tide — Rank 3: The Ever-Rising Tide
  • Conflict and Strife — Rank 3: Strife
  • The Formless Void — Rank 3: Symbiotic Presence

Try to keep tanks topped up where possible during Despair to reduce the amount of raid damage that goes out when it expires. Saving Holy Word: Serenity for use right before Despair expires. You can also use Guardian Spirit to assist in quickly topping up a tank if they are quite low going into a Despair debuff.

When the Void Ascendant add spawns, try to dispel Annihilation off of the active tank at 10 stacks or more to reduce the incoming damage the tank takes from this ability.

For more information, please refer to our Vexiona guide.

We advise you to use the following essences against Ra-den the Despoiled.

• Major Slot
  • Life-Binders Invocation — Rank 3: Life-Binder's Invocation + Seed of Eonar
• Minor Slots
  • The Ever Rising Tide — Rank 3: The Ever-Rising Tide
  • Conflict and Strife — Rank 3: Strife
  • The Formless Void — Rank 3: Symbiotic Presence

Unleashed Void applies a healing absorb to the entire raid, which is a great time to use one your major raid cooldowns, Divine Hymn or Holy Word: Salvation.

As the encounter progresses through Phase 2, the healing requirements ramp up, and ideally both of your major raid cooldowns will be available here. You should be spending most of your Mana on this phase of the encounter.

In Mythic, Corrupted Existence causes targets with the debuff to immediately die if fully healed. Be careful not to use large heals on these players (especially avoid using Holy Word: Serenity and Guardian Spirit, as the +Healing buff from Guardian Spirit can cause other healers to accidentally top them up).

For more information, please refer to our Ra-den the Despoiled guide.

We advise you to use the following essences against Carapace of N'Zoth.

• Major Slot
  • Life-Binders Invocation — Rank 3: Life-Binder's Invocation + Seed of Eonar
• Minor Slots
  • The Ever Rising Tide — Rank 3: The Ever-Rising Tide
  • Conflict and Strife — Rank 3: Strife
  • The Formless Void — Rank 3: Symbiotic Presence

Be wary throughout the whole encounter for allies with the Mental Decay debuff, as they will take the most damage. Similarly, players afflicted with Madness Bomb should be prioritised, so the bomb expiring does not kill them.

During Phase 2, take care not to cast AoE damage spells like Holy Nova, Divine Star, or Halo that may hit any of the Mycelial Cysts. As soon as these enemies take damage, they start a 10-second timer until they become immune to damage then heal back to full, so they should only be attacked once the DPS are ready to target them.

Phase 3 damage is predictable and a great time to organise using your raid cooldowns () Divine Hymn and Holy Word: Salvation) with your other healers.

For more information, please refer to our Carapace of N'Zoth guide.

We advise you to use the following essences against N'Zoth the Corruptor.

• Major Slot
  • Life-Binders Invocation — Rank 3: Life-Binder's Invocation + Seed of Eonar
• Minor Slots
  • The Ever Rising Tide — Rank 3: The Ever-Rising Tide
  • Conflict and Strife — Rank 3: Strife
  • The Formless Void — Rank 3: Symbiotic Presence

N'zoth is an extremely long fight, and as such, you should aim to pace yourself with your Mana usage. As your raid get better with each phase of the fight, the incoming damage will lower and you should find yourself with ample Mana to deal with the following phase. The damage in the final phase increases over time, so there is plenty of room to dump any remaining Mana at the end with liberal use of Prayer of Healing.

Potion of Replenishment Timing: In Heroic, a good time is just after the second Psychus dies and the boss and tentacles stop casting abilities. For Mythic, just before Phase 2 starts is an ideal time to spend 10-seconds replenishing your Mana.

For more information, please refer to our N'Zoth the Corruptor guide.