Priest builds

From WoW-Quest.NET

Classes:
Class races:	Dk	Dr	Hu	Ma	Pa	Pr	Ro	Sh	Wl	Wr
Quests:	Dk	Dr	Hu	Ma	Pa	Pr	Ro	Sh	Wl	Wr
Abilities:	Dk	Dr	Hu	Ma	Pa	Pr	Ro	Sh	Wl	Wr
Trainers:	Dk	Dr	Hu	Ma	Pa	Pr	Ro	Sh	Wl	Wr
Talents:	Dk	Dr	Hu	Ma	Pa	Pr	Ro	Sh	Wl	Wr
Talent builds:	Dk	Dr	Hu	Ma	Pa	Pr	Ro	Sh	Wl	Wr
Tactics:	Dk	Dr	Hu	Ma	Pa	Pr	Ro	Sh	Wl	Wr
Armor sets:	Dk	Dr	Hu	Ma	Pa	Pr	Ro	Sh	Wl	Wr
Starting a:	Dk	Dr	Hu	Ma	Pa	Pr	Ro	Sh	Wl	Wr
PvE guide:	Dk	Dr	Hu	Ma	Pa	Pr	Ro	Sh	Wl	Wr
PvP guide:	Dk	Dr	Hu	Ma	Pa	Pr	Ro	Sh	Wl	Wr
Useful macros:	Dk	Dr	Hu	Ma	Pa	Pr	Ro	Sh	Wl	Wr

Leveling Builds

Shadow tree considered fastest leveling build

The shadow tree is widely considered the fastest solo method for leveling a priest in PvE. Discipline and Holy have extremely useful applications in PvP, Areana, and Raid environments, of course, but the high DPS and safety of a Shadow build makes it the most popular choice for general leveling.

See this fine page (recently moved) on leveling a priest from 1-70 through the shadow tree: Priest leveling builds

If you adore instances or want to try leveling as a Holy spec for a challenge, see this guide: Leveling a Holy Priest

Level 70 Builds

This section concerns content exclusive to The Burning Crusade.

Standard Healing Builds

Primary Disc/Holy

These are standard level 70 builds for a primary healers, which should include Circle of Healing. Unlike previously implied, Mental Agility is a must. Changes to Lightwell, though nice, have been inconsistent. However that is not to say that the large boost to the bonus of +healing it receives is not welcome. Some players are able to expend all charges by rapidly clicking the Lightwell, while others are forced to wait out the duration of the buff.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxG0khxZfMxcfMaVhVo

This build focuses on maximum efficiency and accentuates the well-rounded qualities that comprise the raiding priest's abilities.

Variations include:

-Taking one point out of Absolution into Silent Resolve. One point in Absolution will have a small impact on your mana usage when casting Dispel, or Mass Dispel. However, it is an impact nonetheless. Silent Resolve may be the difference between pulling aggro with Circle of Healing from an offtanked mob.

-Taking the two points out of Holy Specialization into Spell Warding. Crit percentage may be nice, and a well timed crit heal may seem satisfying, but the Priest class was not meant to effectively take advantage of crit, as can be seen by our class mechanics and itemization. The damage a priest receives in a typical raid environment is most likely spell damage, thus Spell Warding is effectively a percent boost to Stamina, per point.

-Taking one point out of Healing Prayers and putting the last point into Spiritual Guidance. This is generally not recommended, as Prayer of Mending should be cast often, and its mana costs can add up. Also, the mana cost reduction to Prayer of Healing is very desirable. As a rule of thumb, if Prayer of Healing was cast at least once in a boss encounter, then it was worth it.

-Alternatively, Inspiration may be skipped and used to max out Spell Warding or Holy Specialization, though it is wise to have Inspiration available to you in a raid situation, whether you the raid is heavy on Restoration Shamans or not.

Secondary Disc/Holy

Another common build for a level 70 holy priest who is raiding is listed below. This spec is for the priest who does not focus on crit, is able to manage their mana efficiency (HPM) without the need for Serendipity and Mental Agility, but would like to have Circle of Healing, Desperate Prayer, and Holy Concentration.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVhb0hZfotcfMqVhVcs

Also, a variation on this is for the Priest who between talents and the Glyph of Flash Heal and Glyph of Power Word: Shield want to focus on mana efficiency by stacking crit and using Flash Heal and Power Word: Shield as their primary healing spells. This variation is also good for the Shadow Priest who has respeced Holy but is still wearing gear which stacks crit and has a lower mana regen.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVhbhhxZfxucc0qwhV

Secondary Disc/Holy (Divine Spirit Priest)

A common build that complements a priest with a deep holy build as above. It gets a useful caster buff of Divine Spirit with Improved Divine Spirit and sacrifices Circle of Healing and healing bonuses. A guild with two priests raiding together will likely prefer for one of them to have this build. Still a capable tank healer and raid healer. Not much changes when going from Circle of Healing to obtaining Improved Divine Spirit, except for that Silent Resolve may not be of much use, as untanked targets will aggro from healing, regardless of how many points into Silent Resolve you may have.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxMhkhxzbZfMxcfMaVhc

For variations, refer to the section above.

Support 25-Man Raid Healer

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxMhuhxtb0oZfbxcf0VV

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxMhkhxzZbxtcfMqVzV (with more healing and less utility)

This build should not be widely used. Its main focus is enabling the support healer (as opposed to the main healers) in the raid to efficiently assist in healing the raid while the main healers heal the tanks. Since not many raids actually need support healers this build is very specialized for large raids. The build retains enough Holy talents to replace killed main healers for a short time.

Caster Boosting - Using both the Improved Divine Spirit and Power Infusion talents these priests can improve the performance of any caster in the raid dramatically. This combined boost of spell damage and healing can boost a raid's DPS or healing dynamically as required during raid engagements.

Improved Decursing - Decreased mana cost of decursing spells, combined with a larger mana bank make these priests decursing machines. When facing one of those pesky raid bosses or even trash, who take a fancy to debuffing the entire raid or large portions of it, these priests prove to be a valuable asset.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxghzhZfVt0fMqVhV (with holy nova, inner focus, and binding heal)

This spec is an off-shoot of the above two, but tweaked to reduce threat and spell damage, whereas the above two do not reduce aggro threat. This is an effective spec for PvE as well as PvP, but purely built for healing.

Notes

These builds avoid Holy tree abilities that require a critical hit on the priest to proc, such as Blessed Recovery and Blessed Resilience. They also avoid offensive abilities, in particular Searing Light and Surge of Light. These are generally PvP talents.
Critical heals are often a waste since they have a tendency to overheal, especially in raid situations with multiple healers. However, with Inspiration critical heals gain an important secondary effect. It's possible to spam low-rank heals to trigger the effect.
A great deal of threat reduction is not usually necessary with expert tanking, but helpful in some encounters and will help deal with poor and undergeared tanks.
Mental Agility gives a mana reduction on most of the spells affected by Absolution, but given the scarcity of useful low-tier talents in the Discipline tree, Absolution is a popular choice.
Some priests choose to put extra points in Wand Specialization, but many guilds ask healing priests not to use their wands in a raid as doing so can delay healing at a critical moment.
Lightwell has been changed to give a great deal more healing and Spirit of Redemption now lasts 15 seconds after death and increases spirit by 5%, so depending on your playstyle and the amount of Spirit you have these may be viable talents.

PvP "Face Melter"

This build is a pure PvP build. The build is only slightly viable for raiding, but in the new arena system, as well as normal PvP, it will truly "melt faces."

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxxrz0MZZVMGtMtRhtVo

Notes:

Mana Burn and Silence are powerful tools. They are vital against healing classes.
Silent Resolve's dispel resistance might be worthwhile against dispelling classes.
Martyrdom could be useful in various situations.

Raid Shadow

The Shadow Priest is an extremely powerful group supporting spec, which deals steady damage and offers a lot of utility.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxMhzhZZxGxpMLohtEo

Notes:

Shadow Focus: Shadow Focus can be adjusted based on your spell hit rating. If you have 76 hit rating, you need 5/5 Shadow Focus. If you have 101 you can go 4/5, 126 hit for 3/5. If you have more than 126 hit rating, you should re-think your gearing.
Unbreakable Will vs Wand: Normally, UW is preferable, but depending on the Priest's use of wands, the second one might be the better choice.
Blackout vs Spirit Tap: Neither really qualifies for raid use. Both very occasionally proc in a raid environment, and as such, the decision mostly depends on what one prefers outside of raiding.
Silence and Improved Psychic Scream are left out due to their largely limited raid use.

Smiter

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxgMzhMtbxoZfxt0bbVb

Designed for maximizing Holy damage, the build provides enormous and reliable damage (due to Holy damage not being subject to resistances). In addition the Priest retains their ability to heal, making them useful as a healer and DPS. The downsides are the lack of possible damage sustainability and utility. Unlike the shadow tree, which allows a priest a consistent and efficient damage output, the Smiter is able to quickly deal large amounts of holy damage.

Another powerful tool used by the holy warrior is the ability of Power Infusion. This becomes incredibly useful for buffing not only yourself for healing or attacking, but also as a utility for other spell casters in a party.

The major downsides of this build are the relatively high mana consumption (both healing and damage) and the vulnerability to interrupts. For these reasons a priest is expected to have decent gear before attempting this build.

The changes to Spirit made in Patch 2.4 complement this build quite well, since Meditation, Spiritual Guidance, Improved Divine Spirit and Spirit of Redemption invite heavy use of Spirit as a way to both improve spelldamage as well as Mana regeneration, making a Smiter build an excellent choice for a Priest soloing and both dealing damage and healing in small instances with the ability to cast skilled greater heals in 0,5 seconds less time, compared to unskilled Priests like most shadow builds.

Still the mana usage is quite remarkable and is best supported with trinkets like Darkmoon Card: Blue Dragon and/or Bangle of Endless Blessings. An Option is to forego Power Infusion in favour of Spirit of Redemption and Spirit Tap looking somehting like this:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxxzzhgzbLZfxtM0babZx

Playstyle for the different Smiter builds varies slightly, depending on whether Spirit Tap or Power Infusion has been skilled, but usually Freecasts from Surge of Light - which is the Holy Warriors compensation for the +100% Crit Damage that other DDs gain - is used in combination with Inner Focus to gain a few seconds out of the Five Second Rule for some Manareg, when dealing Damage. Since Holy Nova can crit on both party members as well as Mobs, it will frequently give freecasts from Surge of Light, at a very high mana cost though.

The important stats for the Smiter (Hit>Crit>Spirit>Spelldamage) are somewhat hard to find for a priest in endgamge content at the moment (Patch 2.4).

Beginning play you are usually asked to heal and shouldn't discount your own abilities as stats up to 60 should be int/spirit due to spirit increasing damage by such an amount. It is now possible to stack spell crit at lower levels but until you get Surge of Light it is not suggested. After 60 definitely get spell crit over spirit. It should not be hard to get 30% spell crit for Holy Offense spells, note that it will only be listed as 20% crit, 25% Holy crit on your tooltip. You can get up to 35% if you sacrifice spirit but doing so would reduce longevity and damage per hit. Keep Fade hotbarred at all levels as the damage can be quite a bit more than low level tanks are capable of holding. If you are running low on mana use rank 1 Holy Nova since the crit rate is unchanged and surge will give a full powered smite.

Most raids will rather decide for a shadowpriest for the greater utility a shadow brings.

Shadow Healer

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bZfxxcc0qZVGMdMpRht

This build is recommended for versatile priests, occupying good holes in group (as a dps healer, or as support healer, or as main healer, if none are present this is a decent healer spec), and giving survival to priest in soloing.

For this priest, it is well recommended to accumulate Spirit more than Intellect, even if just to rise duff their mana regen from talents.

Depending on what you do when not raiding/grouping, you can always switch Blackout for Spirit Tap.

Strengths - The combination of damage output and good healing.

Weaknesses - Small mana pool

Please note that this spec would only be feasible for 5-man encounters. Do not attempt to use this spec in a 10 or 25 man raid encounter, as you are less useful than a Holy Priest or Shadow Priest using a cookie-cutter build.

UnHoly Shadow Mix

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxMhzZfxt0bbVbZVMxd0xR

This build puts points across the board. The Discipline tree is taken as far as Inner Focus to provide that emergency heal with no mana cost. Since the chance of crit will be much higher a free Smite can be cast because of the talent Surge of Light from the Holy tree. The Shadow Tree is used to get Vampiric Embrace along with the improved version. An alternative would be to strip the points from Shadow Weaving and use them and one point from Improved Vampiric Embrace to get Silence

The standard method of playing would involve landing Vampiric Embrace followed by Shadow Word: Pain. If grouped then in between healing duties a Mind Flay can be used with refreshing VE and SW:P as needed on the main target.

Disc PvP Healer

(47/14/0) http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxTGzhMtrcqtf0tc

A build with increased survivability. Strong buffs, including Pain Suppression and Power Infusion. Mana Burn is the strongest spell to use against opponents if you get caught in a 1v1 situation. A .5 second Mass Dispel, as well as Improved Power Word: Shield, Reflective Shield, and Healing Focus make this a very effective healing build in PvP.

Common Disc PvP Healer (livelong build)

(41/20/0) http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxgMuhgtMcozfVxbc

This build seems to be the best current build for PvP priest healers as it allows you to take plenty of hits while still doing your job. This build is also the most popular among the 25th and up top rated priests in 2v2 3v3 and 5v5!^{[citation needed]}

Common Disc PvP Max Healer Build

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxMGzIxtRMqtf0th

This build I find keeps me alive long enough to top charts in healing in battle grounds. for a more arena spec healer you should see the one above this one. This build is to max out your healing while keeping you alive. The high stats will keep you going for a long time the large mana pool should keep you going for a long time plus the additional bonus healing on yourself while taking damage. Reflect shield will almost kill anyone dealing damage to you. I find this vital when grouping with a friend especially a rogue with high burst damage because if another rogue sneaks up on you and they will then half damage put back on them plus your rogue friend will be able to finish them off with burst damage. Just keep shield up and inner fire at ALL times.

Blessed Resilience PVP Disc/Holy build

(28/33/0) http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxLGzhgzMZfVthcMoV0h

Not as popular of a PVP arena spec as the full discipline build, at low levels of resilience (less then 250 to 300) and gear blessed resilience is more beneficial for survival then focused will, as the priest may not be able to live through enough crits for the stacking buff. Unfortunately, this build also must skip out on pain suppression, but gains better healing power, and still retains the ability to heal 5-man instances quite well.

Multi-purpose PvP build

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxMGzIztbZbZVMgzztR0t

While this build leaves out the powerful 41-shadow-point Vampiric Touch ability and Misery, it incorporates Shadowform, Meditation, Inner Focus, Divine Spirit and Improved Divine Spirit, the latter four to try to prolong the priest's mana as long as possible. This build should be used for PvP battles, where a priest can damage and heal (secondary healer perhaps) concurrently. Shadowform here is debatable, due to its restrictions on healing while used, and can be switched (along with the 2 point Healing Focus) into the build to get Power Infusion if wanted. However, already with the discipline talents of Mental Strength, Matrydom, Improved Inner Fire, and the Divine Spirit talents, this build hopes to increase the survivablility and longevity of the priest while battling, at the same time leaving enough Shadow talents to increase the damage output of the priest.

note: Spirit Tap/Blackout is also for the priest to choose.

Unorthodox Disc Priest Arena Build

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxMRkhgtMcqufZV0gz

Mainly the standard Discipline build but with more emphasis on 2v2 Arena PvP. The method of using a rank 1 Mind Flay to keep an opponent from kiting a less mobile partner and a rank 1 Shadow Word: Pain to procure Blackout make it extremely specialized. The addition of Improved Psychic Scream can be stacked with the effect from Vengeful Gladiator's Mooncloth Gloves (or any version of a priest's Arena Reward gloves,) reducing the cooldown on Psychic Scream to 23 seconds. The use of Power Infusion is noticeable when used to push damage as an opponent is near death and the addition of the priest's damage would end the match quicker. Despite the damage talents, the main focus of this build is to provide support by both healing and harassment towards an opponent's healer through a variety of interrupts, Mana Burns, and dispels. A Priest paired with a Rogue would see the most benefit from this build.

Angel's Light (Level 70)

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxgMzhMtbxoZfxt0bbVb

A rather unorthodox Raid healing build. Focues on healing crits and overhealing does not affect this build much. If balanced with decent set of spirit gear, this build can survive multiple pulls in heroics as well as prolonged raid boss fights. The Guardian Spirit will allow healing crits that can put a T4 geared tank to full life, as well as serve the purpose of saving a unit form death during rather healing intensive situations. Origionally seen by Angellife

Level 80 Builds

This section concerns content exclusive to Wrath of the Lich King.

Until the Wrath of the Lich King expansion is actually released, all talent info is subject to change, especially over level 70.

Smiter with Spirit of Redemption and Pain Supression

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bEhbzhgtrxo00oZfxt0bbqb (Snowlord of Thrall)

Crit heavy Holy build: Bliz seems to be itching to open up an intellect build for healers. In fact, it is difficult to choose talents in the holy tree while avoiding crit considerations. Holy specialization and Test of Faith increase crit chance 5% or 11% if target is under 50% health. Holy concentration * Imp Holy conc, together with Surge of Light give an almost 50% chance of a clearcasting state after a healing crit. The clearcasting state with this build procs a mana-free flash heal, a mana-free greater heal, and 30% spell haste for two greater/binding/flash heals. I need verification, but a holy crit would seem to open up a spell hasted sequence of greater heal + greater heal + flash heal for the mana cost of a single greater heal cast. Alternatively, if casting mana-free spells does not reset the 5 second timer, healers could use a critical heal to cast a mana-free greater heal + flash heal and quickly thereafter begin to recharge mana.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVhbzhZsxt0fMqiuVcst

High spirit Holy build: A more traditional build focusing on high spirit. This build extends to Mental Agility to receive the 10% mana reduction bonus to instant cast spells.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVhbkhxZfVt0fMqVzVost

Solo PvE Shadow build: High damage build focused on solo PvE play. For a raid environment, priest could take Shadow Affinity and/or Psychic Horror instead.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVcbzhZZG0fwofkfiqfzAo

Angel's Light (Level 80)

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bE0bzhhZfxt0fMqVbVost

A further extension of the level 70 build, this one allows more combat mana regeneration with Meditation as well as Mental Agility. A rather unorthodox Raid healing build. Focues on healing crits and overhealing does not affect this build much. If balanced with decent set of spirit gear, this build can survive multiple pulls in heroics as well as prolonged raid boss fights. The Guardian Spirit will allow healing crits that can put a good geared tank to just below their maximun hit points, as well as serve the purpose of saving a unit form death during rather healing intensive situations. Origionally seen by Angellife