So my holy priest is up to lvl 21. I already have to many healing spells to choose from. The guides go over doing damage rotation but don’t talk to much about which heals to use when.
What should be my default general heal spell?
Which others should be a priority on my action bars?
Are there any that are worthless and I should avoid?
Thanks!
I feel like you will get the gist the more you play to see what play style suits your brain.
I mostly use flash heal, PoM, renew, serenity, circle of healing, and sanctify. Power word life as needed I guess too.
Some people don’t use circle of healing and some people use heal. You can move around talents to build up whatever you choose and go from there.
Happy healing and good luck!!!
Its a reactive healer so they double up on some spells so you can immediately crank out heals when dmg is taken. I like the style, but others think the redundancy is bloat.
The only spell that is worthless in dungeons and most content is Holy Nova and Prayer of Healing. PoH is god tier in raid though, so… don’t totally ignore it everywhere.
Renew is a waste of mana as well.
As you build, you’ll realize what your spells are… Prayer of Mending, Circle of Healing, and triage healing with Flash Heal.
Once you get max level you will have full access to our kit and some really nice spells (and giving some spells two charges) that really help us. Just hang in there.
A lot of buttons… but rotation wise and while running dungeons… not as many as you think.
Join the discord. Warcraft Priests. God tier players answering questions, giving builds, discussing.
I wouldn’t write Holy Nova off completely. That said, you have to know when to use it. I remember thinking it wasnt very good and then looking at some parses where it took my damage way way up giving me the highest percentage damage parse of an entire raid group. Lol!
Most probably dont use it much, but it is a fantastic spell because you can spam it on the move, and it both heals and does aoe damage. In a pack of mobs, for example, when you need to get out, cant plant to heal, and you and others might die, it is your single best spell to cast.
Like most Holy Priest spells, you have to know when to use what to optimize your play. When I was starting out really healing a lot on one, I used to go oom a lot. That was because I was relying on Flash Heal way too much. Heal is a much better spell because it does good healing and is way more mana efficient than Flash Heal. That said, Heal is slower. Hence you have to make the call if you want to optimize the class.
This is another one most write off completely. Admittedly I am a strange creature, I use it a ton on fights with a lot of movement when you cant really do much healing at all. Then when I can plant, I blast damage while the renews are ticking.
Again you have to know when to use what if you want to optimize. If you just want to get through the dungeon or whatever vs optimizing, dont worry about it. But learning what spells are good when will help your play. I would examine all of the priest spells closely and think about how and when you can use them to maximize your play. That said, each to his or her own. Just my two cents.
If we were talking Prayer of Mending I could see the “god tier” designation…
PoH however is VERY far from that, it has a very bad and outdated targeting mechanism that makes it very prone to overhealing, costs a lot of mana and does bad healing in general. It’s just a very lackluster filler spell that you mostly cast when there’s nothing better to cast.
I agree you don’t “ignore” it, it will often be among the top of your “casted spells” list but that doesn’t make it good, much less “god tier”… It will do at most 5% of your healing if you are playing correctly (and that’s on a fight where it didn’t overheal that much).
I never cast PoH in raid. 
Then you’re doing it wrong.
Cool. Thanks!
Yeah, the holy kit is a bit bloated. Thankfully, with the right talent choices and some good macros, you can tweak it to make it manageable.
For a start, anything that is off the GCD and doesn’t need to be specifically targeted can usually be macro’d with something else. Then many of the niche utility spells (LoF, Shackle Undead, Mind Vision, etc.) can be skipped in most content. Your DPS spells can be macro’d into other healing spells (e.g. with a mouseover, harm macro for SW: Pain, Holy Fire, and Smite on other heals with a mouseover fallback for the heals themselves).
Then, some spells are of dubious quality depending on your build and the content - you might find less occasion to hard cast Heal, PoH, and Holy Nova, e.g. in a lot of content in favor of faster, more reactive casts (PoM, renew, flash heal/SoL, and your holy words plus your big CDs often being your bread and butter). You can put things like racials, pots, Symbol of Hope, other less-frequently used spells in less accessible keybinds. And finally, you can favor many of the passive talents over the active abilities to further save keybinds, especially as you gain familiarity with the spec.
Yeah, there’s bloat in the DF version of the priest class - they took a real “throw everything from every iteration of priest in there” approach to the tree in the rushed final design they came up with. But they’ve also made many of the most powerful abilities the more passive, easier to manage options and let you tailor a build that really concentrates power in a small handful of the kit, the rest being filler.