Healer Rotation & Cooldowns

This rotation offers a general priority list for Holy Priest abilities, along with key cooldowns at the bottom. It's based on a standard build and is here to help while we work on a smarter, build-aware system. If you are very new to the game or this class, we added info on the new assisted rotation features at the bottom of this guide. Updated for the latest patch in World of Warcraft: The War Within (11.2.5).

Single Target

Focus on healing injured allies while maintaining cooldown efficiency.

• Holy Word SerenityView detailsUse on an injured ally.
• Flash HealView detailsUse with 1+ stacks of Surge Of Light.
• HealView detailsUse with Lightweaver stacks for single-target healing.
• Prayer Of MendingView detailsUse on cooldown.
• RenewView detailsApply to tanks or debuff targets.
• SmiteView detailsUse when no healing is required.

Prioritize Holy Word Serenity for single-target healing, followed by Flash Heal with Surge Of Light stacks. Use Heal with Lightweaver for efficient healing and maintain Prayer Of Mending on cooldown.

AoE

Focus on group healing during high raid damage.

• Holy Word SanctifyView detailsUse on clusters of injured allies.
• Divine WordView detailsPair with Holy Word Sanctify for AoE healing.
• Prayer Of HealingView detailsUse with Lightweaver stacks for group healing.
• HaloView detailsUse during high raid damage.
• Divine StarView detailsUse when most of the raid is injured.
• Holy NovaView detailsUse near 5+ injured allies with 16+ Rhapsody stacks.

For AoE healing, prioritize Holy Word Sanctify on clusters, followed by Divine Word for enhanced healing. Use Prayer Of Healing with Lightweaver stacks and Halo or Divine Star during heavy raid damage.

Cooldowns

• ApotheosisView detailsUse to reset and enhance Holy Word cooldowns.
• Divine HymnView detailsUse during intense raid-wide damage.
• Symbol Of HopeView detailsUse to restore mana and reduce defensive cooldowns.
• Guardian SpiritView detailsUse on a tank or ally in danger of death.
• ShadowfiendView detailsUse for mana return at ~80% mana.

Utilize Apotheosis for Holy Word resets, Divine Hymn for raid-wide healing, and Symbol Of Hope for mana restoration. Use Guardian Spirit to save allies and Shadowfiend for mana efficiency.

New to Class? Try Assisted Rotation

Patch 11.1.7 introduced new features that make it eaiser to pick and play new characters. These new settings can be enabled from settings » gameplay enhancements:

• Single-Button Assistant
• Assisted Highlight
• Cooldown Manager

If you are new to World of Warcraft or a certain class, enabling Assisted Highlight and Cooldown Manager can help you learn which abilities to prioritize and use.

While the Single-Button Assistant can be a much easier and more accessible way to play the game, it does come with a slight performance hit due to a small GCD penalty, as you will have to wait 25% longer in between spells and abilities.

To see which specs are best with the Single-Button Assistant feature, you can check out our DPS Rankings which uses SimC to sim every class using this feature.