Holy Priest Healing Spell List and Glossary — The War Within (11.0.5)

If you are new to Holy Priest, this is a great place to start understanding how the spec works. On this page, we will discuss your abilities, what they are used for within the specialization, how they interact with each other, and important cooldowns. If you already have experience with Holy Priest and are comfortable with it, it is recommended you skip this section and move on to the rest of the guide.

Mana is your only resource as a Holy Priest. All your healing abilities cost Mana, so managing it so you stay supplied throughout each encounter is crucial to healing competitively. The best way to track this for most encounters is to keep your remaining Mana around the same percentage as the remaining boss's health.

Managing your Mana well is one of the more challenging parts of being a healer and, as a result, can often be a contributor to reduced performance. Many mistakes made concerning Mana management are discussed later in the guide and are aimed at helping you improve your gameplay and Mana usage.

Note that this page lists all the different abilities, assuming you are at max level. If you are leveling, check out our dedicated Holy Priest Leveling page, which has detailed information on when you unlock all of these abilities.

These are your core skills that are available regardless of talents and form the core gameplay of the specialization.

Ability	Also Known As	Description/Effect
Desperate Prayer	DP	An active ability with a 90-second cooldown. It heals you for a portion of your maximum health and increases your maximum health for a while. The maximum health increase fades progressively over 10 seconds.
Fade	-	Removes your threat on all targets for 10 seconds on a 30-second cooldown. This is extremely useful if you take the aggro of newly-spawned mobs. It also reduces the range at which enemies will attack you while active.
Flash Heal	FH	Heals for slightly less than Heal, but its cast time is shorter, and its Mana cost higher. It is useful in more pressing situations where the target is in danger of dying.
Focused Will	-	Reduces the damage you take after being melee'd. This is mostly relevant in open-world content and PvP, as you typically are not hit by melee attacks often in Dungeons and Raids.
Heal	-	A simple single target heal with a long cast time. It is generally used to heal targets when they are not taking heavy damage and not in immediate danger.
Power Word: Shield	PW:S	Provides a short-duration shield on the target. Similar to Renew, it is not generally considered worth casting in raids, except in the rare situation that no other spell will save someone's life.
Smite	-	Our default single target DPS filler spell. Despite some cooldown reduction towards Holy Word: Chastise, in scenarios where your Mana matters, such as a raid encounter, you still want to avoid spending Mana on Holy Word: Chastise anyway.
Holy Fire	HF	A hard-hitting single-target spell with a short cooldown. Great for adding some damage in situations where Mana is not a concern.
Shadow Word: Pain	SW:P	An instance cast Damage over Time ability. It is quite efficient for Mana spent and is a great way to add extra damage
Holy Words	HW	This hidden passive ability that causes Heal and Flash Heal to reduce the remaining cooldown of Holy Word: Serenity by 6 seconds. It also causes Prayer of Healing to reduce the remaining cooldown of Holy Word: Sanctify by 6 seconds and Renew to reduce the remaining cooldown of Holy Word: Sanctify by 2 seconds. While you do not need to actively manage this ability in any way, it is crucial that you are aware of its existence and constantly monitor the remaining cooldowns of your Holy Words so that you can use them soon after they become available.
Levitate	-	Niche ability that can prevent fall damage on your target if timed correctly.
Mind Soothe	-	Now an AoE, Mind Soothe provides a unique buff reducing the distance at which an enemy will aggro on to yourself and your allies. This has fairly niche usage but can be used in some scenarios to avoid having to pull a pack of enemies and instead walk right past them.
Power Word: Fortitude	Fort	Grants all party or raid members with increased stamina for an hour. It is essential you cast this before each encounter to ensure everyone in your group has it.
Psychic Scream	-	Fears up to 5 enemies within 8 yards for 8 seconds. It can be useful for interrupting large groups of enemies, or sometimes even just on single ones.
Purify	Dispel	Removes all harmful magic and disease effects from your target with an 8-second cooldown. You will find yourself using this spell regularly in dungeons, raids, PvP, and world content.
Resurrection	Res	Resurrects a dead ally so long as you remain out of combat.
Spirit of Redemption	SoR	Allows you to continue casting healing spells for 15 seconds after you die. During this time, your spells cost no Mana, and you cannot perform any other actions. You can not cast damage spells or use special effects like Trinkets during Spirit of Redemption.

As part of the The War Within overhaul to the talent system, Holy Priest has received numerous new passive effects and active abilities. To break the list of every possible effect down into manageable chunks, we have grouped these abilities into active and passive effects, organized by the rows you will come across them from top to bottom in each tree.

If you would like to know more about which of these talents to select for your own Holy Priest, please see the builds and talents section of our guide.

Ability	Also Known As	Description/Effect
Renew	-	Heals the target over 15 seconds. It is not generally considered worth casting in raids except in periods of heavy movement when no other instant-cast spells are available.
Dispel Magic	Purge	Removes 1 beneficial magic effect from an enemy target. This spell can be potent, granting you the ability to remove strong buffs from dangerous enemies. There is a high Mana cost to this spell, so it is not advised to be casting it too often in situations where Mana is a concern.
Shadowfiend	SFiend	Summons a pet to attack your target for a short period, with each attack granting you a small amount of Mana.
Prayer of Mending	PoM	Places a buff on the targeted ally, which heals them when they take damage and jumps to another nearby ally (up to 5 times). This is one of your most efficient spells and should be used as often as possible.
Shadow Word: Death	SW:D	A hard-hitting spell when used on targets below 20% health that deals damage back to you.
Holy Nova	HN	An AoE spell capable of both healing allies and damaging enemies within range. This is primarily used for AoE damage, as the healing amount is quite small.
Angelic Feather	Feather	The primary movement enhancing ability for Holy Priest. It is typically used to enhance your own movement. However, up to 3 feathers can be placed at once to grant a movement boost to any ally who walks through them.
Leap of Faith	Life Grip	Pulls the targeted ally to your location. It can be useful for helping your tank kite or simply for saving careless allies from avoidable damage.
Shackle Undead	Shackle	A crowd-control ability that holds a single Undead enemy in place, rendering it unable to attack or move for 50 seconds or until attacked.
Void Tendrils	-	Will root some enemies when placed for a short period or until the tendril is killed.
Mind Control	MC	Controls a target for 30 seconds that is not Demonic, Mechanical, or Undead. Because it shares diminishing returns with other disorient effects, you must be mindful that a cast may not last for the full duration, particularly when using it on powerful enemies.
Holy Word: Serenity	HW:Serenity	A strong instant cast, single-target heal with a 60-second cooldown that can be further reduced by casting Heal or Flash Heal. It is an important spell to use during times of serious single-target damage.
Prayer of Healing	PoH	Heals the target and the 4 nearest allies within 40 yards of them. It has a cast time and is one of your most reliable sources of AoE healing.
Guardian Spirit	GS	Places a buff on the target, which lasts for 10 seconds and increases all healing received by the target by 60%. If the target receives a killing blow during this time, they will not die and instead be healed for 40% of their maximum health, consuming the Guardian Spirit effect. This ability should generally be used to help tanks survive large amounts of damage or to save raid members from dying.
Holy Word: Chastise	HW:Chastise	An instant cast damage spell with a long cooldown but provides a short disorient to its target.
Holy Word: Sanctify	HW:Sanc	A strong instant cast spell that heals up to 6 allies in a targeted 10-yard radius. It has a 60-second cooldown, which can be further reduced by casting Prayer of Healing or Renew.
Circle of Healing	CoH	An instant cast, short cooldown spell healing your target and 4 other injured allies within 30 yards. This spell is extremely Mana efficient.

Ability	Also Known As	Description/Effect
Improved Flash Heal	-	Provides a basic, small increase in healing to Flash Heal.
Improved Purify	-	Adds the ability for Purify to additionally dispel diseases.
Psychic Voice	-	Reduces the cooldown of Psychic Voice.
Focused Mending	FM	Increases the healing Prayer of Mending does to its first target.
Protective Light	PL	Grants you a small amount of damage reduction for a short time after casting Flash Heal on yourself.
From Darkness Comes Light	FDCL	Increases the healing done by your next Flash Heal by a small amount, each time your Shadow Word: Pain or Holy Fire damages an enemy. This effect stacks.
Phantasm	-	Removes all snare effects from you when you cast Fade.
Death and Madness	D&M	Resets the cooldown of Shadow Word: Death when it hits and fails to kill a target below 20% health. This effect has a short cooldown, preventing it from triggering repeatedly.
Spell Warding	SW	Reduces all magic damage you take by a small amount.
Blessed Recovery	BR	A primarily a PvP focused passive, causing you to heal a portion of any Melee or Ranged critical strike damage taken.
Rhapsody	-	Grants you a buff that quickly stacks up to 20 times. This buff causes your next Holy Nova cast to consume the buff, dealing increased damage and healing.
Sheer Terror	-	Increases the amount of damage required to break Psychic Scream
Guardian Angel	GA	Reduces the cooldown of Guardian Spirit to 60 seconds when it expires on a target without having saved them from dying.
Guardians of the Light	GotL	Applies Guardian Spirit to you when you cast it on an ally.
Censure	-	Causes Holy Word: Chastise to also stun the target for 4 seconds.
Empyreal Blaze	EB	Casting Holy Word: Chastise makes your next 2 casts of Holy Fire to have no mana cost, incur no cooldown, and cast instantly. It also causes the Holy Fire DoT to be extended instead of overwritten when it is reapplied.
Revitalizing Prayers	RP	Gives Prayer of Healing a small chance for each target it heals to apply a short duration Renew to them.
Sanctified Prayers	SP	Holy Word: Sanctify casts grant you a short-duration buff, increasing the healing done by Prayer of Healing. This is a great synergistic buff as more Prayer of Healing means more Holy Word: Sanctify casts, further increasing the uptime during periods of heavy healing.
Cosmic Ripple	CR	Causes 5 nearby injured targets to be healed for a small amount when either Holy Word: Sanctify or Holy Word: Serenity comes off cooldown.
Afterlife	-	Increases the duration of your Spirit of Redemption by 50%, cast range by 50%. It allows you to cast Resurrection, bringing one ally back to life at the cost of ending Spirit of Redemption. Care should be taken when casting Resurrection to ensure enough time remains on Spirit of Redemption to complete the cast.
Renewed Faith	RF	Provides a small increase to your healing done to any ally with your Renew present on them. This works on Renew from all sources, pairing it well with other talents that apply it to allies.
Burning Vehemence	BV	Increases the damage of Holy Fire and causes it to also damage some nearby enemies.

Ability	Also Known As	Description/Effect
Mass Dispel	MD	Removes all harmful magic effects from up to 5 friendly targets, and 1 beneficial effect from enemy targets. This spell has a long cooldown and a high Mana cost but can be invaluable at removing dangerous debuffs from your allies and buffs from your enemies. Mass Dispel can also remove some beneficial effects from enemies that regular dispel abilities cannot, such as Ice Block and Divine Shield.
Power Infusion	PI	A miniature Bloodlust/ Heroism effect you can cast on yourself, or an ally. While this is not technically a healing cooldown, paired with the Prayer Circle or Apotheosis talents, it can provide significant additional throughput. Depending on the situation, you may find it more beneficial for your group to instead be casting this on someone else, primarily lining it up with DPS players using their own cooldowns.
Vampiric Embrace	VE	Heals a nearby ally for a portion of your shadow damage done. Unfortunately, you do not do much shadow damage, so the healing provided is negligible in nearly every situation.
Divine Hymn	DH, Hymn	A channeled spell that heals all raid members within 40 yards over 8 seconds, and also increase the healing they receive during that time. It is a powerful raid cooldown that can be used to mitigate serious raid damage.
Symbol of Hope	SoH	is a unique cooldown that provides all healers in your raid with Mana when you channel it. It also reduces the remaining cooldown on a defensive ability for all targets. A good guide is either when you are at 20% mana or the boss is at 20% health remaining. You can view a full list of all of the defensive spells that Symbol of Hope reduces here.

Ability	Also Known As	Description/Effect
Words of the Pious	WotP	Grants you a buff after casting Power Word: Shield that causes Smite and Holy Nova to deal additional damage for a short period.
Move with Grace	MWG	Reduces the cooldown of Leap of Faith by 30 seconds.
Tithe Evasion	TE	Reduces the damage that Shadow Word: Death does to you by 75%.
Inspiration	-	Leaves a short buff on your target, granting them a reduction to physical damage taken after your critical strike with Heal or Flash Heal.
Mental Agility	-	Reduces the mana cost of Purify, Mass Dispel and Dispel Magic.
Body and Soul	B&S	Grants targets of Power Word: Shield and Leap of Faith a short burst of speed.
Twins of the Sun Priestess	Twins	Makes Power Infusion also apply to you for its duration when cast on an ally.
Void Shield	-	Causes some of your damage done to refill an active Power Word: Shield.
San'layn	-	Reduces the cooldown of Vampiric Embrace and increases its healing done.
Apathy	-	Causes your Holy Fire critical strikes significantly reduce the target's movement speed for a short duration.
Unwavering Will	UW	Slightly reduces the cast time of Heal, Flash Heal, and Prayer of Healing by a small amount while you are above 75% health.
Twist of Fate	ToF	Increases your damage and healing done for a short time after healing or damaging a target which is below 35% health.
Throes of Pain	-	Causes Shadow Word: Pain to deal a small amount of additional damage, and if an enemy dies with Shadow Word: Pain on them, it also restores a small amount of Mana.
Prayer Circle	PC	Provides a temporary increase to your Prayer of Healing casting speed after casting Circle of Healing.
Healing Chorus	HC	Causes each tick of Renew healing to provide you with a stacking buff. This buff stacks and increases the healing of your next Circle of Healing.
Prayerful Litany	PL	Increases the healing done to the most injured target healed by Prayer of Healing, adding a valuable triage component to each Prayer of Healing cast.
Trail of Light	ToL	Causes Flash Heal and Heal casts to also heal the previous target you healed with Flash Heal for 35% of the amount. Casting one of these spells two or more times in a row on the same target does not cause them to benefit from Trail of Light. Instead, the previously healed other target is still healed, no matter how many heals ago you had healed them.
Enlightenment	-	Passively increases your Mana regeneration rate by 10%.
Benediction	Bene	Prayer of Mending has a small chance to place a Renew on each target it heals.
Holy Mending	HM	Heals for a small amount each time Prayer of Mending jumps to an ally who already has your Renew on them.
Orison	-	Reduces the cooldown of Circle of Healing and causes it to heal 1 additional ally.
Everlasting Light	EL	Gives Heal a small increase in healing the less Mana you have remaining. This additional healing is not enough to warrant intentionally dropping to low Mana for the benefit.
Gales of Song	Gales	Buffs Divine Hymn healing and increases the healing bonus from the stacking buff that Divine Hymn applies to your allies.
Divine Service	DS	Increases Prayer of Mending healing done by a small amount for each bounce remaining every time it heals.
Crisis Management	CM	Improves the chance Flash Heal and Heal will critically strike by a small amount. This talent synergizes well with Pontifex and the class tree talent Inspiration.
Prismatic Echoes	PE	Causes your Mastery: Echo of Light to heal for slightly more from all sources.
Prayers of the Virtuous	PotV	Adds a small number of additional total jumps to Prayer of Mending, having excellent synergy with Benediction, Divine Service, and Say Your Prayers.

Ability	Also Known As	Description/Effect
Divine Star	Divstar	Resembles a yo-yo, in the sense that a ball of energy travels in a path away from you (in front of you). After reaching a certain point (24 yards away), it returns. Both on the first, as well as on the second trip, it heals allies and damages enemies in its path. 15-second cooldown.
Halo	-	It creates a ring around you that expands in radius (up to 30 yards). Allies who come in contact with it are healed, and enemies are damaged. 40-second cooldown and a 1.5-second cast time.
Power Word: Life	PW:L	A short cooldown triage heal. If cast on someone above 35% hitpoints, it will only heal for a small amount. If cast on someone below 35% hitpoints, it will heal considerably and reduce the ability's cooldown from 30 seconds down to 10 seconds.
Void Shift	-	Swaps your health percentage with your target's health percentage while keeping both of you above 25%. This can be particularly useful in saving someone on low health that could not otherwise be healed by normal means.
Apotheosis	Apoth	An active ability with a 2-minute cooldown. Casting it immediately resets the cooldowns on Holy Word: Serenity, Holy Word: Sanctify, and Holy Word: Chastise and for 20 seconds, the cooldown reduction to your Holy Words is increased by 300%. The cost of your Holy Words is reduced by 100%.
Holy Word: Salvation	Salv	A potent raid cooldown that heals everyone within 40 yards of you, as well as applying both Renew and 2 stacks of Prayer of Mending to each. While this ability does have a very long base cooldown of 12 minutes, each of your Holy Word: Serenity and Holy Word: Sanctify casts reduces its remaining cooldown by 30 seconds.
Lightwell	-	Places a stationary Lightwell for 3 minutes, which will place a heal on nearby allies under 50% health, healing for a small amount over 6 seconds. It will expire after 3 minutes or until it heals 15 targets.
Divine Word	DW	Divine Word is a spell which, when cast, causes your next Holy Word: Serenity, Holy Word: Sanctify or Holy Word: Chastise to provide a short buff, depending on which Holy Word is cast: Holy Word: Chastise grants a 15-second buff that increases the damage of Smite by 50% and grants Smite a 40% chance to apply Holy Fire. Holy Word: Serenity grants a 15-second buff that causes Heal, Flash Heal, and Renew to heal for more, have an increased chance to critically strike and cost less Mana to cast. Holy Word: Sanctify places a zone of healing light on the ground where it is cast, healing up to 6 targets inside it over 15 seconds.

Ability	Also Known As	Description/Effect
Binding Heals	BHs	Heals you for a portion of your Heal and Flash Heal casts on allies.
Angel's Mercy	AM	Reduces the cooldown of Desperate Prayer by a small amount each time you take damage, depending on the amount of damage taken.
Translucent Image	TI	Enhances your Fade to also reduce the damage you take for a small amount.
Cauterizing Shadows	-	Causes Shadow Word: Pain to heal a nearby ally when expiring or being refreshed late.
Surge of Light	SoL	Causes your healing spells and Smite to have an 8% chance to make your next Flash Heal instant cast and cost no Mana. Getting a Surge of Light proc, while you already had an unused one, will grant you two charges of the proc (which is the maximum you can have at any one time.)
Light's Inspiration	LI	Increases the temporary health gained by Desperate Prayer.
Crystalline Reflection	-	Adds an instant heal portion to Power Word: Shield and reflects a portion of the damage it absorbs.
Improved Fade	-	Reduces the cooldown of Fade by a small amount.
Manipulation	-	Enemies with Shadow Word: Pain or Holy Fire debuffs deal less damage to you.
Benevolence	-	Increases the healing of your spells by a small amount.
Angelic Bulwark	-	When an attack brings you below 30% health, you gain an absorb for a small portion of your maximum health. This can only occur once every 90 seconds.
Essence Devourer	-	Attacks from your Shadowfiend also heal a nearby injured ally for a small amount.
Phantom Reach	-	Increases the range of most spells by a small amount.
Pontifex	-	Causes Flash Heal, Heal, Prayer of Healing and Circle of Healing to grant a stacking effect that increases the healing of your next Holy Word spell.
Miracle Worker	MW	Provides Holy Word: Serenity and Holy Word: Sanctify an extra charge each. This is a great quality of life improvement, but depending on the content is not a significant healing improvement.
Say Your Prayers	SYP	Grants each jump of Prayer of Mending a chance to not consume a charge, effectively increasing the maximum potential number of times each cast of Prayer of Mending will jump in total.
Resonant Words	RW	Casting any Holy Word increases the healing of your next Flash Heal, Heal, Prayer of Healing or Circle of Healing. Due to the number of Holy Words being cast, this can provide a significant number of buffed casts if played properly.
Light of the Naaru	LotN	Reduces the cooldowns of your holy words by an additional amount when you cast the relevant spells. An easy-to-use and reliable increase to your healing by increasing the number of powerful Holy Words you can cast.
Answered Prayers	AP	Grants you a short duration Apotheosis (without the Holy Word cooldown reset effect) after Prayer of Mending heals a certain number of targets.
Voice of Harmony	VoH	Provides additional Holy Word cooldown reduction when casting specific short-cooldown spells: Circle of Healing reduces the cooldown of Holy Word: Sanctify Prayer of Mending reduces the cooldown of Holy Word: Serenity Holy Fire and Holy Nova reduce the cooldown of Holy Word: Chastise
Desperate Times	DT	Increases all healing you do to targets below 50% health. The value of this talent will vary greatly depending on the content you are healing and your group composition.
Epiphany	-	Your Holy Words have a small chance to reset the cooldown of Prayer of Mending.
Lightweaver	LW	A strong increase to the healing done by Heal when cast after a Flash Heal. This increase provides a relatively Mana-efficient way to heal with Heal and Flash Heal, synergizing well with other talents that increase their healing like Trail of Light and Crisis Management.
Divine Image	DI	Your Holy Word spells spawn the image of a Naaru beside you. This image will cast its own version of spells, replicating in its own style, most of your spells.
Restitution	-	Brings you back to life when Spirit of Redemption expires. The amount of health you revive with depends on the healing you do during Spirit of Redemption. After Restitution brings you back to life, you cannot trigger Spirit of Redemption again for 10 minutes.

Since nearly every primary ability for Holy Priest interacts with each other, it can be challenging to figure out how they are meant to be prioritized. But now that you know what they do, our rotation page can help you see how to balance your spell casts and manage your Mana while effectively healing your allies.