When most players think of a healer in Vanilla World of Warcraft, they think of a Priest. The Priest class has the strongest healing toolkit in the game, offering the broadest variety of spells as well as solid buffs and utility. Of the Priest’s two healing specializations, Holy offers the most direct buffs to healing where Discipline focuses more on utility.

In Season of Discovery, other healers have been given new abilities to help flesh out their spell lists, but the Priest has some powerful spells of their own which should help them stay on top.

Build Summary

Priests are well equipped for healing, with a diverse toolkit that includes just about every type of healing spell you can think of. Season of Discovery has changed things up between the lower level cap and the new abilities you get from Runes, but that hasn’t affected the Priest’s dominance.

Now that we’re in Phase 2, Priests can access all of their abilities with the lone exception of the party-wide versions of their buffs (Prayer of Fortitude, Prayer of Spirit, and Prayer of Shadow Protection). Powerful abilities like Power Infusion and Spirit of Redemption are now within reach in talent trees. You also have access to Circle of Healing, Penance, Prayer of Mending, Pain Suppression, and Dispersion through rune engravings, all of which make incredible new additions to your arsenal in Vanilla WoW.

Most groups in Season of Discovery’s 10-player raids will have two healers, with some of the most hardcore groups even running one lone healer. You won’t be dividing up responsibilities like you would in a 40-player raid. You’ll have to keep the tank up while also keeping an eye on everyone else. Triage is the name of the game here, and your spellbook is overflowing with situationally useful spells that you’ll want to learn how and when to put into action. We’ll cover them all in the sections below.

Runes

Chest

Serendipity

This rune will help you rapid-fire heals without having to purely spam Flash Heal. It’s much more useful in this phase now that you have Greater Heal and Prayer of Healing. Just remember that these spells cost a lot more mana. Using this rune with down-ranked Heal spells is a much more efficient way to use it if you don’t need the bigger heals.

Strength of Soul

This is a strong option for tank healing or PvP, allowing you to place a Power Word: Shield on a target more often. It also makes it so that Warrior, Druid, and Paladin tanks will not miss out on Rage or threat due to the shield preventing them from taking damage. Power Word: Shield has a bad rap in Vanilla WoW for that reason, but with this rune, you can use it on any tank with no issues.

Gloves

Circle of Healing

Circle of Healing can instantly heal an entire party, and unlike Prayer of Healing, it can be used on another party in your raid group and not just your own. While it does cost a good bit of mana, it’s actually very efficient as long as at least 3 people in the same party need healing. And more importantly, it’s fast.

Penance

If you’re not going to need Circle of Healing for raid healing, Penance is great for everything else – tank healing, PvP, even throwing out some DPS. This spell is channeled, so you’ll want to be careful that you don’t cut it off before the last tick goes off. It does a significant amount of healing quickly and cheaply, making it a great alternative to Flash Heal during heavy incoming damage. You just won’t be able to spam it due to its 12 second cooldown.

Legs

Prayer of Mending

It would be easy to underestimate Prayer of Mending. Normally you’ll toss it up on a target and forget about it until it comes off cooldown again. But during that time, it’s bouncing around your group, healing people on its own. You’ll want to cast this ahead of any boss pull and toss it out again every time it comes off cooldown. Even in PVP, it’s an extra bit of reactive healing on your target the next time they take damage, which can make a big difference. For all that, it costs very little mana as well.

Homunculi

This rune is a bit of an oddball, and it doesn’t really help your healing at all, but it will make you very popular with any Warriors in your raid (and other physical DPS as well). That’s because this ability effectively replaces the Warrior’s Sunder Armor, allowing your DPS to benefit from its effect without your Warrior(s) having to burn GCDs applying the debuff. It does cost you the use of Prayer of Mending, though, so you’ll have to weigh the cost and benefit for yourself and your group. Also keep in mind that you have no control over the Mini-Mes that spawn when you use this ability, and they die pretty easily, so you may still want to swap this rune out for certain fights.

Power Word: Barrier

While Prayer of Mending is too strong to pass up in most situations, Power Word: Barrier can be useful for any boss fight that has a heavy AOE damage phase. The barrier will protect your team for 10 seconds, reducing the damage they take and helping you heal them up without any spell pushback. It can only be used once every 3 minutes, though, so this isn’t a spell that will help with regular raid healing. You can probably skip this rune for Phase 2 since Gnomeregan doesn’t have any fights where it’s particularly useful.

Belt

Empowered Renew

Renew is a fairly underwhelming spell in Vanilla WoW, but it does have its uses, and this rune makes it a little more worth casting. With this rune, your main HoT will now tick immediately when cast, and it will heal for progressively more each time it ticks. That makes it especially useful for PvP or any situation where you can plan ahead for incoming damage. You’ll also be able to put your Renew on a target even if another Priest has already done so, which is useful if you’re running a double Priest comp.

Renewed Hope

This rune makes your single-target heals stronger on a target who has recently been shielded. You won’t want to bother with this rune unless you’re frequently using Power Word: Shield. But it can be great in PvP or any fight where you expect heavy tank damage.

Boots

Dispersion

Dispersion is by far the most useful rune for any Priest in Phase 2 due to the mana regeneration it provides. It’s basically Evocation on a significantly shorter cooldown (sorry, Mages). It’s true that it takes you out of the game for six seconds, but you can cancel it if you need to, and you can effectively reset your mana bar with this ability mid-combat. The two-minute cooldown is short enough that you can freely use it during trash and not have to lag behind every pull trying to drink up. Beyond the mana benefits, it’s also an incredible defensive cooldown, reducing your damage taken by 90%. It can even be used while stunned, feared, or silenced, and makes you immune to crowd control while in effect, making it a mandatory rune for PvP.

Pain Suppression

If Dispersion wasn’t so incredibly powerful, we might be more excited about getting our hands on this powerful external cooldown. There may still be niche situations where reducing your target’s damage taken is more useful than having a defensive and mana regeneration cooldown for yourself, but for the most part you’ll want to stick with Dispersion.

Spirit of the Redeemer

This rune requires you to spec into the Spirit of Redemption talent, which means going deep into the Holy tree and missing out on some really useful Discipline talents. If you do choose to go the Holy route, this rune turns what is otherwise a rarely-worthwhile talent into a powerful mana and healing cooldown. But again, Dispersion is going to be better in the majority of situations.

Talent Builds

The Priest class is the only one that has two talent trees for healing. The Discipline tree offers the most utility and mana, making it the superior choice for most players in the current meta. Holy Priests are still perfectly effective, but your raid group will miss out on some powerful buffs if you choose to go that route.

Discipline Talents

The Discipline tree offers the strongest utility as well as the best mana management talents. This build offers Improved Power Word: Fortitude, which can make a big difference in your party/raid members’ health at this level. You’ll also gain Divine Spirit and Power Infusion which will make your fellow mana users very happy.

• Wand Specialization x5 will get us to the higher tiers. You should be getting a lot of use out of your wand whenever you’re not healing, so this talent will also allow you to contribute some damage at no mana cost.
• Unbreakable Will x1 will help us access tier 4 talents. You could also put this point into Silent Resolve or Martyrdom if you think you’d get more use out of either of those.
• Improved Power Word: Shield x3 will make your Power Word: Shield much stronger. Your shield can’t overheal like your other heals, so boosting its strength is always going to be useful (as long as you’re putting it up on someone who is taking consistent damage, like a tank).
• Improved Power Word: Fortitude x2 will significantly boost the Stamina of every person you buff. It’s not a glamorous talent but it is a very useful one.
• Meditation x3 will allow 15% of your mana regeneration to continue while you’re casting. Without this talent, the only regeneration you’ll be able to get will be by waiting at least 5 seconds between spell casts. The amount of mana you get back from this talent at this level will be fairly small, but every little bit helps.
• Inner Focus is a useful cooldown that will make your next spell free to cast. Use this on an expensive spell like Circle of Healing, or for a Flash Heal on your tank in a moment of desperation. It also makes the spell more likely to crit.
• Mental Agility x5 makes all of your instant cast spells cheaper to cast, including Circle of Healing, Power Word: Shield, Prayer of Mending, Renew, Abolish Disease, and Dispel Magic as well as your buffs.
• Divine Spirit x1 allows you to buff everyone’s Spirit, improving your raid’s health and mana regeneration.
• Mental Strength x5 increases your total mana so you have more of it for healing, dispelling, buffing, and whatever else.
• Force of Will x4 will get you to your capstone talent. These points could really go anywhere in the tree, but the extra spell damage is nice when you’re questing solo or just want to help kill a boss faster.
• Power Infusion x1 is going to make one of your caster DPS buddies very, very happy. You can also use it on yourself if you want to see just how big your heals can get.

Key Spells and Abilities

Heal/Greater Heal

At level 40 you have access to 4 ranks of Heal and 1 rank of Greater Heal (which is effectively the 5th rank of Heal). You won’t want to go around spamming your biggest heal – you’ll just wind up wasting a lot of mana on overhealing. This is a good level to start learning to gauge how much each rank of your spells heals for and when to use it based on how much health the target is missing. Using the cheapest version of the spell that can do the job will save you a lot of mana over time. At the same time, if you’re picking a rank that’s too low, you won’t be healing very effectively. It’s a balancing act.

Lesser Heal scales poorly with your Spell Power and doesn’t benefit from many of your talents. You’re better off not even having it on your bars. Even if you’re desperately low on mana you can go for a downranked Flash Heal or Renew instead. You’ll want to avoid using rank 1 of Heal for the same reason that Lesser Heal isn’t very good – spells that you get before level 20 have a poor spell power coefficient. Rank 2 will give you significantly better healing per mana (HPM) and should be the lowest rank you use. Greater Heal is only worth using when your target is missing a lot of health.

Flash Heal

This spell is faster and cheaper than Heal, but it also does less healing. Heal is going to be much more mana efficient as long as it doesn’t overheal. But Heal is also very slow, especially without 5 points in Divine Fury in the Holy tree. Flash Heal is frequently going to be the better choice for this reason. Using Flash Heal will also trigger Serendipity if you’re using that rune, allowing you to alternate and get quicker Heals or Prayer of Healings. Rank 1 of Flash Heal doesn’t suffer from a low coefficient, so feel free to use it to top someone off, trigger Serendipity, or get your Prayer of Mending bouncing again. Otherwise you’ll usually want to use the max rank since this spell doesn’t heal for as much as its slower counterparts.

Power Word: Shield

This spell can be very powerful, but it can also really annoy your teammates if you put it on the wrong person. That’s because the absorb effect prevents the target from taking damage, which can rage-starve warrior and bear tanks. Luckily the Strength of Soul rune eliminates that downside, so you can and should shield your tank if you have that rune. Otherwise you should be more discriminating about who you use it on.

Power Word: Shield can be especially welcome for any caster or healer who is going to be taking damage, as it will completely prevent spell pushback for as long as it holds. The fact that you can put it out ahead of damage going out can make it especially useful for helping someone survive a big hit. Always use the max rank for this spell, which at level 40 will be rank 6.

Two things to note about this spell in Vanilla WoW are its cooldown and the debuff it places on its target. You can only cast this spell every 4 seconds, so don’t expect to be able to spam this ability and blanket the raid in bubbles. The spell also leaves the target with the Weakened Soul debuff, so they can’t be shielded again for 15 seconds. The Strength of Soul rune allows you to reduce this debuff in Season of Discovery, but it’s still something to keep in mind.

If you’re co-healing with another Priest, keep in mind that only one of you will be able to shield a target. If one of you has specced into Improved Power Word: Shield in the Discipline tree and the other hasn’t, that Priest will have more powerful shields and should take priority on casting it.

Renew

Renew is a heal-over-time spell that is best used on a target who is going to be taking steady damage. Put it on the tank or a teammate who has a debuff and let it do its thing. Generally, your cast-time heals are going to be more effective and efficient, but Renew has the advantage of being an instant cast, so you can throw a couple out to let them tick while you do something else, like use Dispersion. You can also put rank 1 of this spell on your teammates to force Prayer of Mending bounces.

Prayer of Healing

Prayer of Healing is effectively a Heal for your entire party. Rank 2 of this spell costs almost 3x the mana as a rank 2 Heal and heals the same amount x5, assuming everyone in your party is missing health. Unfortunately this spell is only usable within your own group. Circle of Healing is cheaper, instant, and heals the same amount on any party in your raid, so you’ll pretty much always want to use that instead unless you’re using the Penance rune and don’t have it.

Abolish Disease

(Upgraded from Cure Disease) You’re one of only two classes who can remove diseases in Phase 1, the other being paladins on Alliance/shamans on Horde. So you’ll definitely want to have this bound.

Dispel Magic

This spell has two uses: offensive and defensive. Defensively, you’ll almost always want to immediately dispel any debuff your teammates have on them, unless there’s a specific reason not to. Removing debuffs can be more effective in keeping your group healthy than actually healing. As with Cure Disease, you’re one of only two classes who has this capability, the other being paladins. Shamans can’t do it, so on Horde you’ll be the only one.

Offensively, there are more classes who can purge enemy buffs, and it’s better not to waste your mana or GCD on it as a healer as long as there’s someone else who can take care of it.

Power Infusion

The Discipline tree’s capstone ability is sadly better used on someone other than yourself in most situations. You’ll usually want to give this buff to your raid’s highest caster DPS so they can kill the boss faster. Be sure they have mana and are in a good position to do some damage before you cast it.

Shadowfiend

One of our quality-of-life skillbooks this phase, Scroll of Shadowfiend, gives us the ability to summon this little guy, which gives us an extra mana and damage cooldown that we can use every 5 minutes. Just remember to actually use it! Also remember that you’ll have a pet bar while it’s active and can control where it goes and what it attacks.

Power Word: Fortitude

Our other quality-of-life skillbook this phase, Scroll of Increased Fortitude, makes our primary buff spell easier to use, with a lower mana cost and longer duration. That’s great because you’ll want to keep this buff up on every member of your raid at all times, including pets. With rank 4 of this spell and 2 points in Improved Power Word: Fortitude, you’ll be giving each of your teammates 41 points of Stamina, which comes out to 410 extra health – definitely nothing to scoff at.

Divine Spirit

Before you get too excited about that reduced mana cost for Power Word: Fortitude, note that you’ll be using those mana savings to put another buff on your teammates. Rank 2 of this spell gives 23 Spirit, which is a nice regen boost for all of your mana users. Technically Spirit also boots health regeneration, but only when you’re out of combat, so it’s not really worth putting this buff up on characters who don’t have a mana bar.

Notable Equipment

• Miniaturized Combustion Chamber
  • This trinket has an on-use that channels health into mana. You can use this at the same time as Dispersion to minimize the health you lose while still gaining the mana. (As if Dispersion wasn’t already amazing.)
• Minor Recombobulator
  • Trinket options are slim at this level. This one restores 250 mana when you use it, and your target doesn’t actually have to be polymorphed for you to use it.

Race Choice

Priests in Vanilla WoW get extra spells based on their race, which makes your choice of race very important.

Dwarf

Fear Ward once made dwarves the best race for an Alliance Priest in Vanilla WoW, but with paladins getting the Inspiration Exemplar rune, its value is not as strong. It’s still a useful ability, though, and you’ll also get Desperate Prayer, which is a free, instant self-heal. Stoneform is situationally useful, especially in PvP. Find Treasure might also see some extra usefulness at this level due to the value of items found in chests. Frost Resistance is nice to have, but Gun Specialization is totally useless for a Priest.

Human

Humans get The Human Spirit, which boosts your Spirit, making them a pretty good option for a Holy Priest. The other human racials that don’t really help you as a Priest healer: Diplomacy, Mace Specialization, Sword Specialization, and Perception. As far as Priest racials, they get Desperate Prayer, which is very useful as a free, instant self-heal. Feedback is less useful outside of PvP.

Night Elf

There’s not much here to help your healing, but there’s also nothing that is totally useless. You get Wisp Spirit, Shadowmeld, Quickness, and Nature Resistance. As a Priest, you also get Starshards and Elune’s Grace. Some of these racials can be nice for PvP and solo play, but overall night elf is the weakest choice for an Alliance Holy Priest.

Troll

Berserking is a fantastic cooldown for any spell caster, which makes troll the best choice for Horde PvE. You also get Regeneration, which can be nice to have. Their other racials are not useful to you: Beast Slaying, Bow Specialization, and Throwing Specialization. As for their Priest racials, Hex of Weakness and Shadowguard both have their uses, especially in PvP, but aren’t helpful for your healing.

Undead

You won’t get anything as an undead that will help you as a Priest healer, but undead have Will of the Forsaken, which is great for PvP. Their other racials are only marginally useful: Cannibalize, Underwater Breathing, and Shadow Resistance. As far as their Priest racials, Touch of Weakness is nice in PvP, but Devouring Plague is mostly good only for Shadow Priests.