Best rotation for Holy DPS?

Classes Priest
1

What is the best rotation for damage for a holy priest (to help my group when I’m not healing), for both single target and aoe? Should I throw out several SW: Pains, or is it more advantageous to spam holy fire and smites? Should I use SW: Death?

2

There’s no rotation. Just a priority system:

  1. Don’t let dots fall off/refresh when needed on as many mobs as you can.
  2. Use Holy Fire/Mind Blast on CD.
  3. Use Smite as filler.
  4. SWD in execute range.

Holy Word: Chastise can probably be included in the mix but is also situational depending if you want to save it for CC somewhere.

AoE, you’re capped anyways…so no point in using Holy Nova.

3

macro

/castsequence [@targettarget,harm,nodead][] reset=10 shadow word: pain, holy fire, smite, smite, smite, smite, smite, smite

4

It’s generally priority like Jadetea said.

For Single Target:

  1. Holy Fire on CD every time.
  2. SW:Death on CD unless within 10% of execute range then save it until you get the execute bonus.
  3. Chastise on CD unless you’re saving it to CC an add
  4. SW: Pain to keep DoT up
  5. Smite

For Multi Target:

  1. SW:Pain absolutely everything and keep it up.
  2. Divine Star (if applicable)
  3. Holy Fire
  4. Holy Nova when we get the upgrade at 56 and there’s more than 3 targets.
  5. SW:Death anything in execute range
  6. Smite
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5

I’ve been playing with SW:D, but I don’t feel comfortable with it. I guess I’m trying to figure out if I can include it in my rotation. Does that makes me a bad healer if I don’t cast SW:D?

6

Chastise -> Holy Fire -> SW:P (includes refresh) -> Divine Star (for multi-targets) -> Smite in that priority. Use SW:D when below 20%…

7

Not really no. I only use it in execute range

2 Likes
8

Priority is basically as follows for prepatch,

Single target with apotheosis talented and active:

  1. Use Holy Word: Chastise on cooldown.
  2. Use Holy fire on cooldown
  3. Maintain Shadow Word: Pain
  4. Use Shadow Word: Death if in execute range.
  5. Spam smite when you can’t press anything else.

Single target without apotheosis:

  1. Maintain Shadow Word: Pain.
  2. Use Holy Word: Chastise on cooldown.
  3. Use Holy fire on cooldown.
  4. Use Shadow Word: Death if it wont kill you, on cooldown. Only hold it if your target will soon be killable with it.
  5. Spam smite.

AoE:

  1. Maintain Shadow Word: Pain a few priority targets, but not so many that you only spend your time spamming it.
  2. Use Holy Fire on Cooldown.
  3. Spam Holy Nova.
    3.5 Weave Holy Word: Chastise in if your nova is hitting less than 5 targets.

This is how I’ve been playing. Correct me if I’ve made a mistake.

9

The icy-veins guide created by two of the top holy priests has a dps priority for aoe and single target.

AoE (4+)

  1. Divine star
  2. Holy Fire
  3. SW:Pain
  4. Chastise
  5. SW:Death (if <20%)
  6. Holy Nova

Single Target(1-3 targets)

  1. Holy Fire
  2. SW:Pain
  3. Chastise
  4. SW:Death (if <20%)
  5. Divine star
  6. Smite

SW:Pain moves up to above Holy Fire in both AoE and ST, but below divine star in aoe if you have triple death throes traits.