HOLY PRIEST HEALING COURSE

HOLY PRIEST PLAYSTYLE

Welcome to our Holy Priest healing course for the War Within, which is custom designed to equip you with all of the essential knowledge that's needed to excel in PvP. In this introductory video, we're going to be explaining how this spec plays inside of Arena.

You might have heard that Holy Priest is easy to play, and in some ways, well, this is absolutely true, but it can be a little bit misleading. There are multiple spell interactions between passive talents that 99% of Holy Priest PvPers really don't even know about.

Trust us, there is a lot to min-max. The so-called easy part of Holy Priest comes from the fact that it's a reactive healer.

Instead of needing to manage hots and use cooldowns preemptively, the Holy Priest toolkit is really better optimized to react to big damage after it's already happened. Hence the label, Reactive Healer.

Thankfully, the three strongest heals in our toolkit are all instant cast, with Prayer of Mending being a routine maintenance spell that's simply pressed on cooldown, and then two major reactive heals between Holy Word Serenity and Power Word Life, which provide punchy, burst healing when needed. But here's the truth.

Despite that Holy Priest might have a healing kit that is simple on its surface, the spec is absolutely full of depth and power. It's a very simple, reactive healer, and it's a very easy to use.

You can use it to do a lot of things, but it's not a good deal. So, if you're looking for a healing kit that can be used to do a lot of things, then you should definitely check out Holy Priest.

The Holy Priest is a very easy to use healer, and it's a great tool to use. Another defining feature of Holy Priest is how many cooldowns it has.

Between Guardian Spirit, Apotheosis, Spirit of Redemption, Void Swap, Ray of Hope, and more, becoming proficient at Holy Priest really requires using your cooldowns in an efficient and logical way. You can't be just throwing them all out randomly.

Now, like many healers in modern expansions, Holy Priest needs to be balanced somewhere in between a conservative and aggressive playstyle.

While there are some matchups where you can spend the whole game camped at a pillar, maximizing HPS, there are other matchups where you absolutely need to play aggressive, using your primary CC combo of Chastise Fear to control momentum.

And with this, Holy Priest actually brings quite a bit of damage that it can use to support its team offensively with instant cast Holy Priest. But, if you're looking for a team that can be used to counter the Holy Priest Holy Fires, that can pack a punch.

The best Holy Priests transition seamlessly between these two extremes, camping at pillars when needed and then recognizing the key moments to push in and land some game-winning CC.

Now, in fact, because many of your heals are so bursty, you can actually afford to play more aggressive during critical moments, even letting your team drop low to squeeze in a bit of damage or land a CC, knowing that you're going to be able to recover at the end of the game.

So, if you're looking for a team that can be used to counter the Holy Priest, you can actually afford to play more aggressive during critical moments, even letting your team drop low to squeeze in a bit of damage or land a CC, knowing that you're going to be able to recover at the end of the game.

Afterwards, this is where the true skill cap of the spec lies. No pun intended.

With multiple game-winning offensive tools, you need to find the right balance between conservative play and aggression.

If you played Holy Priest in Dragonflight, you'll still have a lot to learn in the war within, as now, with the new hero talent system, there is even more to min-max, especially when it comes to cooldown rotation.

So, in the next video on healing goals, you're going to learn some of the fundamental parts of your maintenance and how they help maximize healing output. So, let's get started.

HOLY PRIEST GOALS

Alright, in this next section we're going to give you some basic healing goals that you can safely follow in every single arena game in order to maximize your output. Our number one goal at all times throughout every game is to use Prayer of Mending on cooldown.

While Serenity and Power Word Life might do some of the heavy lifting, Prayer of Mending is the true hero of your healing toolkit. It is, without a doubt, your most efficient heal and should be used every single time it is available.

Now, on top of representing an absolutely massive chunk of your healing output, Palm even offers cooldown reduction on Serenity, which is our most important burst heal. Prayer of Mending isn't something that you really need to overthink, though.

Even if someone isn't in any immediate danger, you should absolutely prioritize using Palm every time it's available. Since it's going to bounce around and heal passively once pressed, sort of like a healing over time effect.

Our second major healing goal is to use our healing modifiers to avoid needing to hardcast. Our most important healing passives is Desperate Times, which increases the healing we deal to low health targets by 20%.

Now, what this means is that if we afford to wait until someone has dropped below 50% HP, we're going to get more value out of that healing. Now, this might seem a little bit risky, but consider the fact that our mastery converts a percentage of any healing into rolling hot.

So by delaying our burst heals until the moment someone has dropped below 50% HP, not only are we getting a bigger burst heal, but we're going to be leaving the target with a massive hot in the process. Desperate Times is going to even influence the way we use some of our healing cooldowns, especially Ray of Hope.

Since by stacking one healing, we're going to be able to deal with a lot of the healing we need to deal with. Since by stacking multiple healing multipliers together, we're able to do massive healing with a single Serenity or Power Word life, which again, results in a massive mastery hot.

Abusing these modifiers is absolutely crucial, since we want to avoid being in a position where we're forced to stand still and hardcast flash heals for an extended period of time. Now, this will happen from time to time, but our entire healing toolkit is tied to the Holy Spell School.

So a single interrupt can be incredibly disruptive. Our third major goal, especially in Solo Shuffle, is to use some of our healing cooldowns early.

In the first 30 seconds of each round, you should expect to use Divine Word if it's talented, and then always Spirit of Redemption and possibly even Apotheosis.

Using these cooldowns early on not only guarantees that you'll be able to keep your team alive during the intense pressure of the early game, but two minutes later, you'll be able to use the Holy Spell School. So a single interrupt can be incredibly disruptive.

But two minutes later, when pressure once again peaks, you're going to have your cooldowns back at exactly the right time, allowing you to play the so-called scripted PvP game perfectly.

You might think you're playing smart by holding onto your CDs and trying to punch through the early game with your heals alone, but honestly, by doing this, you're just disjoining your ability to deal with increased pressure later on in the game.

The other reason it's often better to be more liberal with your cooldowns as opposed to conservative as a Holy Priest is related to our fourth goal, which is to use our big heals as a way to play offensive.

Now, as we mentioned earlier, Holy Priest is a reactive healer, and your strong, bursty heals encourage you to heal targets that have already taken a bit of damage. Now, what this means is that you can often afford to let your teammates drop low if it in turn means you can make a key offensive play.

If Chastise and Fear are ready, you can use the Holy Priest to make a key offensive play. If Chastise and Fear are ready, you can use the Holy Priest to make a key offensive play.

If Chastise and Fear are ready, you can use the Holy Priest to make a key offensive play. If Chastise and Fear are ready, you can push in to CC the enemy healer, knowing that you have Guardian Spirit or simply a big Serenity heal as an insurance policy.

If Chastise and Fear are ready, you can push in to CC the enemy healer, knowing that you have Guardian Spirit or simply a big Serenity heal as an insurance policy.

If Chastise and Fear are ready, you can push in to CC the enemy healer, knowing that you have Guardian Spirit or simply a big Serenity heal as an insurance policy. Guardian Spirit or simply a big Serenity heal as an insurance policy.

Remember balancing your aggression with your healing output is key to playing Holy Priest at a high level. Our fifth and final goal, also related to cooldowns, is to avoid doing what we call an empty trinket.

What this means is simply using your PvP trinket without combining it with a major healing cooldown or other major ability. This is one of the most common healer mistakes here and is super punishing as a Holy Priest because of the fact that we are such a reactive healer with so many cooldown combinations.

Trinket Guardian, Trinket Swap, Trinket Ray and even Trinket Serenity are all potential game saving plays. Now as a healer your role is to keep your partners healthy and offensive and if you're trinketing to get out of CC out of convenience it's a really bad trinket.

Again just have a real heal. Is it to void shift?

Is it to dispel your partners so they can secure a kill? Is it to grip your partner to safety?

Just be productive with your trinket. If you can manage to follow all five of these goals at all times, you're already on the right path to truly climb as a Holy Priest in Arena.

But be sure to stay tuned because in the next video we're going to break down your basic healing priority.

HOLY PRIEST MAINTENANCE HEALING PRIORITY

So now that you know your healing goals, let's dive into how you need to prioritize your maintenance heals. Here we're going to break down how you deal with passive sources of damage, teaching you exactly how you can keep health bars stable at any stage of the game when there isn't much damage happening.

Note that this is not a rotation, but instead a priority system, meaning spells at the top of this list should be used over any spell below. Next up, we want to use Prayer of Mending on cooldown.

Even as the gates open, this should always be your very first global, before anyone has taken damage. Not only is it one of your best sources of passive healing, but it will help reset the cooldown of Serenity, which is our bread and butter spot heal.

Note that with the Oracle healing tree, Prayer of Mending will now even apply Power Word Shield to the target, which will then add any other benefits of shield, including Body and Soul, and even Crystalline Reflection, turning Palm into an even stronger burst heal.

Next up on our healing maintenance is Renew, which these days actually has a cooldown when playing Empowered Renew. With that in mind, we're going to want to keep it up at all times on the kill target, passively reapplying it whenever there's a spare global to do so since it gives our target increased healing taken.

What's important to know about this, however, is that if you're playing with Benediction, keep in mind that Prayer of Mending does have a chance to heal. I'm not going to be doing that right now, but I will be doing that in the next few minutes.

There's a chance to automatically apply Renew every time it heals, which helps circumvent its cooldown. Now, at this point we've run out of our true healing maintenance, but instead of doing nothing, we can contribute offensively by prioritizing our offensive dispel on any high priority buffs.

We're going to be aiming to dispel the most powerful buffs from enemy players, things like Alter Time, Power Infusion, or even Hots and buffs from other healers. By doing so, we can achieve our goal of getting rid of the best buff from any enemy player in the game.

This is the goal of staying ahead on tempo without even needing to hardcast, so if there's no healing to be done, look to dispel enemy players as needed. Next up on our priority is to maintain Shadow Word Pain on at least one target.

This isn't because of its damage, but instead because it will give us stacks of From Darkness Comes Light, which can dramatically increase the healing done by our Flash heal. If there's nothing to dispel, the next best contribution we can make is with damage.

Heal, then heal. Here we have two main options, Holy Fire or Smite.

If we want to maximize damage in the moment, we're going to prioritize Holy Fire, especially immediately after using Chastise, since our next two Holy Fires are going to be instant with Imperial Blaze.

If our goal is to reset Chastise as quickly as possible in order to do a setup with our team, we're instead going to press Smite. Even though it will do less overall damage.

Smite is a good option. Smite does have a greater CDR effect compared to Holy Fire.

But remember, while you're doing damage or you're dispelling, make sure you are not neglecting healing. Prayer of Mending should be pressed every single time it is up.

In the next video, you're going to learn the true strength of Holy Priest, spot healing, and how you should be prioritizing your bigger burst heals.

HOLY PRIEST SPOT HEALING PRIORITY

Now that we've covered our healing maintenance, let's move on to spot healing combos. These are the spell sequences that you're going to use to recover larger amounts of damage.

First up, it is crucial to understand when spot healing is most effective as a holy priest. Because of the Desperate Times passive, you get 20% more value on any heal when used on a target below 50%.

What this means, for the most part, is we want to start prioritizing our strongest spot heals once this threshold is met. What's also important to remember is that we want to prioritize using our instant cast heals over trying to hard cast with flash heal if there are kicks available.

Remember that holy priest is a one-spell-school healer, which means getting locked out is extremely punishing. The other thing we want you to keep in mind is that Prayer of Mending will once again be the highest priority spot heal, as we're still aiming to use it on CD even when someone has taken a lot of damage.

But if even more healing is needed in a pinch, we have some other options as well. While Serenity has been our bread and butter spot heal, Power Word Life will take priority but only if it is actually usable on the target since it can only be pressed if they're below 35% or 50% depending on your hero spec.

With that said, if both charges of Serenity are available, be sure to use one first. Since not only will it do more healing, but it will also be able to heal more people.

So, if you're looking for a hero that's more effective on a target, you can use it on the first hit. If you're looking for a hero that's more effective on a target, you can use it on the second hit.

We're not going to be using it on healing, but we want to have Serenity on CD ideally since Power Word Life can reset its cooldown. We know this was a lot of information to take in here, and if you just want to keep things simple, use Power Word Life when it lights up.

Now, what that means is that our next highest priority spot heal is Serenity, which will not only burst heal for a large amount, but will also leave the target with a huge Mastery Hot. Following this, our next priority spell for spot healing is our Flash heal when we have a Surge of Light proc.

Again, we want to be relying on our instant cast heals first before resorting to hard casting. If we have the additional modifiers of Resonant Words and From Darkness Comes Light, a single Flash heal can do a crazy amount of healing.

So following this logic, our next heal is Sanctify, which we'll want to use on as many targets as possible. This is not only important as a minor pad heal, but it'll also give us Resonant Words, which will increase our other spot heals by 40%.

Our next priority spell for spot healing is Sanctify, which will increase our other spot heals by 40%. Our next priority spell for spot healing is Sanctify, which will increase our other spot heals by 40%.

Our next priority spell for spot healing is Sanctify, which will increase That said, if there's no interrupts available and you're in a safe position to free cast, then you can and should press it, if you want to keep HP bars stable and nobody's in need of a huge burst heal. That's what we can see Zen do here.

Even though he could press Serenity, he's saving the cooldown for when it might be needed later, and instead, doing a bit of triage with some quick flash heals. Last up on our spot healing priority is Power Word Shield.

This isn't a button you should be pressing often, as now it's automatically applied with Prayer of Mending when you're playing Oracle.

That doesn't mean Power Word Shield can be taken off your bars, because there is a greater than zero chance that you will need to press it in order to save someone on the brink of death with no other quick instant heals available.

So, when putting this priority list into practice, simply remember to rely primarily on your instant cast burst heals first before opening up your cast bar for a potential interrupt.

Remember that you will always get the most value using your burst heals on targets lower than 50% HP, which makes Power Word Life the button to press if someone is low. But whenever it's not available, then look for Serenity as your next best option.

And while this is happening, don't neglect your maintenance. Be sure to use Prayer of Mending on cast.

Be sure to use Prayer of Mending on cooldown since it will help reset the CD on Serenity, giving you more burst healing options later on in the game. And with that in mind, the next video in this series will guide you through your new hero talents, so be sure to stay tuned.

HOLY HERO TALENTS: ORACLE

Hey everyone, welcome to the next video in our Holy Priest healing course. Now as you likely know, while talents have mostly stayed the same in the War Within, one major new feature is the introduction of Hero Talents.

Now luckily there is one tree that is already well optimized for PvP, it's the Oracle Hero Tree for Holy Priest, which grants an entirely new cooldown, Premonition, which is actually three cooldowns in one, having a different effect each time that it's pressed, similar to a Holy Paladin's Blessing of Summer.

Now the first press of Premonition will grant Premonition of Insight, which reduces the cooldown of the next three spell casts by around 10 seconds.

Now what this means is that you can use this Insight buff to cast Prayer of Mending or even Dispel four times in a row, which seems very, very exciting, you know, because it's a very, very powerful skill.

But it's also a very, very powerful skill, and it's a very, very powerful skill, and it's a very, very powerful skill, at first. We get that, but there might be other ways we can get even more value than that.

That's because Premonition of Insight also affects any major cooldown, which means you could also reduce the cooldown of Spirit of Redemption and Divine Hymn together, giving you powerful CDR on one of your most important combos in Solo Shuffle.

And then use the remaining buff for two Prayer of Mending in a row, or a Serenity. So how do you know when it's better to use Premonition for Prayer of Mending or for Angel Form and Divine Hymn?

Well, a simple rule you can follow is to think about how much CC the enemy team will have available for you. Here, we're playing against a Rogue and Mage in Solo Shuffle on a large map, meaning we're very susceptible to CC chains and interrupts, which makes an early game Angel very, very important.

Now, because of this, Zen uses his Premonition on Solo Shuffle, and he's able to use it on a large map, meaning we're very susceptible to CC chains and interrupts, which makes an early game Angel very, very important.

Now, because of this, Zen uses his Premonition on Spirit of Redemption, Divine Hymn, and then a Serenity since he wants to be avoiding as much CC as he can during this time while getting cooldown reduction on a Burst heal.

But notice, in a different game, Zen was playing against a Feral Druid and Enhancement Shaman, which means less CC to worry about and more raw PvE damage. Now, because of this, he uses his Insight to Prayer of Mending.

So, the rule to follow is simple. If there's a lot of CC on the enemy team, it's going to be good to pair Premonition with Spirit of Redemption.

Otherwise, in damage-heavy matchups, it's strong to pair with Prayer of Mending. But don't forget that Premonition works on every Spirit of Mending spell with a cooldown, which even includes Purify.

This is specifically good when playing into Frost Mages with two melee on your team, since by using Premonition, you can keep your partners out of CC during the early stages of the game.

Now, do be careful, though, since you're going to want to avoid pressing abilities like Angelic Feather or Power Word Shield while you have your Insight buff up, for the obvious reason that you have significantly more useful spells that you could CDR.

Anyway, once Premonition of Insight is used, you'll be able to immediately press it a second time since it has two charges.

The second time you press Premonition, you're going to get a buff called Piety, which is a bit more straightforward, granting you more healing and causing any over-healing to splash over to injured targets.

Premonition of Piety will ideally be used with Guardian Spirit or Apotheosis as a way to bridge your healing from the mid-game to the end-game. Here we can see Xen using Premonition for the Piety buff, and then using the Piety buff to get the Piety buff to the Endgame.

While his Mage has Guardian Spirit, giving him enough healing to stabilize while we wait for Spirit of Redemption to come back off CD. Here in a different game, he pairs his Premonition with Apotheosis, knowing that he's going to be pressing a lot of Holy Words and Flash Heals during this time.

The Premonition Piety buff is not that strong on its own, but works best in situations where you're going to be doing increased healing, which is typically during Guardian or Apotheosis, and when multiple players are taking damage, since any over-healing is going to splash over.

The third press of Premonition makes your next healing spell grant the target a big shield and reduces their damage taken while it's active. This absorb won't be as strong as Life Cocoon from Monks, but it will be a strong buffer during stressful situations.

Because of this, you want to treat this third press of Premonition like a panic button, allowing you to keep someone alive who has dropped critically low. Here, we're in a very high-hanging situation, and we're in a very high-hanging situation.

Here, we're in a very high-hanging situation, and we're in a very high-hanging situation. Here, we're in a very high-hanging situation, and we're in a very high-hanging situation.

Here, we're in a very high-hanging stress situation, as our DK has dropped super low. Now, in this moment, we could use Guardian, but it also could immediately proc, which we do want to avoid.

Instead, Zen uses Premonition with a Renew to proc the shield, allowing him to save Guardian for later on. What's important to keep in mind is that Premonition of Solace procs with the next spell cast, which means we can do a bit of min-maxing here.

Notice here that Zen has activated Premonition and his Shaman is below 50% HP, meaning they're going to benefit from desperate times.

In order to proc the shield, he uses Power Word Life, and as a result, the Shaman is stabilized and now has a huge absorb and big mastery hot, allowing Zen to shift his focus to healing the Feral Druid, who is now under pressure.

Once you've used all three of your unique Premonition charges, the next press will be Premonition of Solace. Once you've used all three of your unique Premonition charges, the next press will be Premonition of Solace.

Activating all three at the same time, which you might already guess, is pretty dang strong. Now, because Clairvoyance requires you to cycle through your other Premonitions first, it will typically become usable 2-3 minutes into the game, depending on how you budgeted your cooldowns.

But since we're probably not going to have another chance to use Spirit of Redemption again, we should focus on using our inside stacks on Prayer of Mending, Serenity, or Power Word Life.

Here, Zen pressed Clairvoyance and then Serenity's his Druid under pressure, giving him a shield and allowing him to start healing his Shaman, managing to use the second inside on a Prayer of Mending before being forced into Spirit of Redemption.

This enables him to stack his Premonition of Piety with the healing increase from Divine Hymn, giving him a much needed boost of healing at 46% dampening.

This was an almost ideal use for Clairvoyance, getting some CDR on Palm and Serenity and then stacking the healing increase with Spirit of Redemption in the late game.

Now, there will of course be times where Clairvoyance does not perfectly align with Spirit of Redemption, in which case you want to treat it as a cooldown trade to deal with stressful situations, especially by using the shield to prevent someone from dying at low HP.

Aside from Premonition, the Oracle Tree provides tons of added perks which actually change the way you play.

As we mentioned in our section on maintenance healing, Prayer of Mending will now automatically apply Power Word Shield to targets, which even apply any buffs that you would normally get from shielding, such as Body and Soul, giving the target a sprint, and Crystalline Reflection, giving a small burst heal.

Now, what this means is that you really don't need to worry about shielding much at all. And once again, hard casting a Power Word Shield is the key to a successful play.

Now, if you're a new player, you might want to get a little bit more of a look at the Oracle Tree, as it's the lowest on your priority list.

The Oracle Tree also gives you an optional, but highly recommended passive called Divine Feathers, giving Feathers more movement speed and allowing you to gain their effects when used on an ally.

Now, what this simply means is that whenever you can, you should always aim to Feather your partners, even when you are the one that needs a boost in mobility.

However, if you're playing with casters into double melee, especially DKs, you might get more value from the Feather, in the beginning that will only give you a little bit of a boost in mobility for the next several days. Finally, the Oracle Tree will have you choose between two defensive perks.

Desperate Measures and Prophet's Will. In most cases, you're going to be playing Desperate Measures, since you're unlikely to be the kill target, so bonus healing on yourself isn't necessarily needed.

But in matchups where you're likely to be trained or when you're exposed to a lot of AoE damage, then Prophet's Will does become a little bit more appealing. Overall, the Oracle talent tree is just well designed to fit into PvP.

With the addition of an entirely new ability, it's going to quite literally change the way you played from previous expansions and give you way more ways to min-max your healing output.

HOLY HERO TALENTS: ARCHON

Welcome to the Archon Holy Priest Guide for the War Within. This entire hero spec is based around Halo, transforming it from a forgettable AoE spell into a captivating lightshow with numerous healing benefits.

As Archon, casting Halo will not only automatically create two additional Halos over 10 seconds, but will even cause each Halo to radiate back towards you once it's reached its full radius. This means you essentially get six Halo casts for the cost of one.

And each time they pass through friendly players, they'll not only heal, but will also leave a stacking buff, increasing your healing done by up to 10%. But wait, there's even more to this.

The reason Archon fits in perfectly with Holy Priest is the fact that each Halo will grant a Surge of Light proc, which will make Flash heal instant, allowing us to consistently reset the cooldown of Serenity thanks to its cooldown reduction effect.

Now, with this in mind, we can start to see when Halo is most effective here, and it's precisely when CDR will be most effective, which is always during your Apotheosis window.

Our goal as Archon will be to use Halo right before every Apotheosis, because by doing so, we'll get guaranteed Surge of Light procs for Flash heal, which will reduce the cooldown of Serenity by 18 seconds each time. And as a side note here, Apotheosis as Archon is even slightly different.

It's a little bit different from the other two, but it's still a little bit different. It's a little bit different from the other two, but it's still a little bit different.

And it's slightly stronger since we get 10% additional healing while inside of it. At this point, you might be asking, wait a second, Halo is a long-casted heal.

How do we ever have time to press it in Solo Shuffle? Well, luckily, that's where Spirit of Redemption comes into play, which is even a few seconds longer as Archon.

Since we're completely immune to CC and Interrupts, our Angel form is the perfect time to press Halo. And typically, we're going to be using it somewhere towards the end of the game. end of Angel, since the next cooldown we press is Apotheosis.

In a way, Halo is the perfect bridge between these two cooldowns. Then, a minute later, we can use Halo again, but this time we might not have the protection of Angel form.

Not to worry though, since we can simply cast it behind a pillar and still benefit from all its downstream effects. The only other major tech that Archon offers is a slight twist on Psychic Scream.

Using your AoE fear will summon an image directly on top of your character, who will fear a second time four seconds later. Now, on its surface, this is already powerful, since it means you can potentially CC somebody's trinket automatically with your extra ghost fear.

But there's something even cooler we can do against Hunters, since the image technically counts as an NPC, which means it can even soak traps. Now, this might look incredible, but it's not.

So, let's go ahead and try it. It's incredibly silly, and it can even be a little bit risky, but if you anticipate a trap coming soon, you can cast Fear and simply just stand still, allowing your ghost to eat that trap for you.

Pretty neat. Overall, Archon just feels great for Holy Priest, and adds a welcome layer of complexity to it as well.

As long as you nail those Halo timings that we covered earlier in this guide, you're going to find it easy to adapt to this hero spec.

HOLY PRIEST OPENER: ORACLE

So let's move past the theory and get to the practical. In this next part of our Holy Priest healing course, we're going to guide you through the best strategies for how to approach openers.

We're going to cover the goals, the thought processes, and the decision making, drawing insights from rank one Holy Priest, Zenlin. The first thing we're going to do in every game before the gates open is do some housekeeping, making sure we buff fortitude and change PvP talents as needed.

Then we need to start thinking about the map and where we might place our light well, but more on that a little bit later. Once the gates open, your first few globals will always be the same.

You're going to prayer of mending the target you expect to take damage first, and then give them a renew, putting both abilities on CD. Then we'll wait for combat to start, using palm once it's ready again, and then renewing a second time if needed, hoping to keep it automatically refreshed throughout the game.

Now, typically by this point, the fight has started or is about to start, in which case it's time to place our light well if we're playing it. Here we need to be careful though, since we want to make sure our light well is going to always be in range of our partners.

What this generally means is placing it far away from any pillars, typically in a wide open place where it's not going to be obstructed by LOS. On wide open maps like Tol Viren or Nagrand, this is easy and you're pretty safe just slamming it directly in the center of the arena without, thinking about it.

Now on other maps, it's going to be more difficult to find the perfect light well position, but the same rule applies. Wait for the fight to start, and then place it somewhere in the general area away from LOS.

You'll also want to do a few offensive things in the opener too. The first few seconds of the game might present you an opportunity to chastise, which you can safely do on any non-kill target, or even on the kill target if your team doesn't have a reliable stun.

Using chastise early is going to help to slow some early game momentum, allowing your team to build more pressure and potentially force an early game trinket. The second thing you want to do offensively is use power infusion on a good DPS target.

Now as a simple rule of thumb here, always PI any caster over most melee the moment any offensive cooldowns are popped, which is what Zin does here on the Ellie Shaman, lining up PI with their burst.

Now, if you're going to use power infusion on a good DPS target, use power infusion on a good DPS target, lining up PI with their burst. And be sure to check out our master in minutes for more information on good and bad PI targets in Arena.

The third and final stage of the opener in Solo Shuffle is always going to involve trading two cooldowns, Premonition and Spirit of Redemption. Remember that against teams with lots of AoE damage and limited CC, you can almost always safely Premonition to Prayer of Mending up to four times in a row.

But against teams with more CC and interrupts available, and stronger burst damage, you should instead pair your Premonition with Spirit of Redemption and Divine Hymn, giving you the ability to avoid CC and interrupts to deal with heavy pressure.'s With this, if you hit carry areas with au6, you can eat a pretty white C6 and at least a 3SS in Senior level. and interrupts is absolutely vital.

And as the icing on top of the cake here, using Angel early on is going to ensure you'll have it again around the two minute mark where dampening has started to ramp pretty high, giving you an absolutely perfect cooldown trade twice in the game.

Now, while this video is designed to give you a cookie cutter opener that works in almost every single matchup, do keep in mind that the chaos of solo shuffle might force you to make on the fly adaptations to this.

Things don't always go as planned, but as long as you can make it through all three stages like we discussed here, you're going to have a much easier time surviving the early game.

HOLY PRIEST OPENER: ARCHON

Welcome to our guide on how to approach openers as a Holy Priest. We're going to separate the opener into three phases, with the first being the pregame.

Luckily, there isn't much to do here besides buff Power Word Fortitude, but before the gates open, you should already be thinking about who the enemy team will attack.

The reason is because when the game starts, we've now entered Phase 2, where we'll immediately use Prayer of Mending on whoever we think will be attacked, and then we'll apply Renew to the same target. Now, let's pause here.

In the event you're playing Light well, you should also place it somewhere in an open area of the map where you expect the fight to take place.

At this point, Palm will be on cooldown and there might not be any immediate damage to heal, so we'll try and use Shadow Word Pain on at least one enemy target in order to build stacks of From Darkness Comes Light.

And as long as we're in no threat of being CC'd, we could also use this time to try and dispel enemy buffs while we wait for the fight to start. So, let's get started.

Okay, now let's get ready for Phase 3. Phase 3 is the first cooldown exchange of the game, and luckily for us, our first few cooldowns will be the same in over 90% of games.

If we have it talented, the first cooldown we're going to press is Divine Word, which will not only give us more Serenity healing, but will also buff our Flash heals. Then, the next cooldown we'll press, no matter what, is Angel Form once the initial clash has nearly started.

While we're in Angel Form, we'll also be able to use Angel Form to heal our team. While we're in Angel, we'll be spamming out Flash heals, which will be buffed by Divine Word for 15 seconds after we've used Serenity.

While in Angel, your goal is to reset one of your Serenities by spamming Flash heal, and somewhere during its duration, we'll also want to Divine Him. And towards the end of our Angel, we'll use Halo if we're playing Archon, and at this point, we're ready to enter the mid-game.

While this seemed like a lot, we understand that. You might be repeating this exact opener, but you're not.

You're just going to play 90% of the games you play, and it is crucial you sequence your spells in this order.

HOLY PRIEST COOLDOWN ROTATION: ORACLE

All right, in this guide, we're going to be guiding you through an entire solo shuffle game, breaking down how each individual cooldown was used in order to win a stressful round.

So to do this, we're going to be following rank one Holy Priest, Zenlin, in a matchup against Unholy DK, Feral, two classes with absolutely huge potential damage. Now, even though it's not technically a defensive CD, notice how Zen has already pressed Power Infusion on his Elemental Shaman.

With the enemy team stacked and with Bloodlust being used, now is the absolute perfect time to PI as it's going to allow our alley to get huge early game burst. All right, and if we advance the game just a few seconds here, we're going to have our first major cooldown exchange.

As you can see, the enemy DK has used offensive cooldowns, and our team is taking massive AoE damage. In order to deal with this, Zen uses Premonition, Angel Form, and Divine Hymn to deal with the early game pressure while avoiding interrupts in CC.

And here is about to correct what seems like a small mistake that was made in the opener by placing his Lightwell during his Spirit of Redemption. This isn't actually bad, since during Angel Form, all spells are free, and Lightwell is not.

Lightwell is one of our most costly spells. Now, let's fast forward just a few seconds, where we can see Zen use Shadow Fiend.

Using it early like this is so important, since it's going to help restore the small amount of mana we've already spent, while potentially allowing us to use it a second time if the game draws on long enough. All right, let's skip ahead again to see the next cooldown exchange.

Here we can see Zen get put into a small micro CC, which he easily recovers from, by combining his Premonition of Piety with a Serenity and a Sanctified back-to-back. Now we have all of our holy words on cooldown, and you know what that means.

It means we have the perfect time to use Apotheosis in order to bridge some healing and regain tempo. But notice how Zen uses his Aboth to immediately CC the Druid, in order to help his team build pressure on the Feral.

Once this is done, he turns his attention back to healing, using his other two holy words again, then using Guardian on his last charge of Premonition, with a Serenity in order to top his Elemental Shaman. Now while this might seem like overkill, we're once again aiming to keep up with tempo.

That's because we're about to enter the late game, and our Spirit of Redemption and Premonition of Clairvoyance will be ready soon, so we just need to try and stay ahead, until that happens. Skipping ahead to the end of the game, we can see that our early game Angel form is about to pay off.

Let's pause the game here to highlight a few things for you. For one, notice how PIs come back off CD.

And once again, Zen has used it on the Ellie Shaman to maximize our late game pressure. Secondly, Dampening is really starting to get high.

And thirdly, we have an unholy DK right next to us with Abomination limb up, ready to stop, any of our cast. But not to worry because we have... our...

Angel Form? Okay, well let's not panic here at the fact that our Shaman is suddenly at 10 HP.

This can happen, but luckily we do have a solution up our sleeve. Cancel Aura, Life Swap.

But, we're in a pickle once again since now we are the ones that are suddenly low. Hello, right next to a DK popping off.

That's why Zin immediately trades out Fade and DP. And now we're rewarded for using our premonition early too since Clairvoyance comes off CD right as we get stunned, allowing Zin to trinket premonition himself to prevent a potential death at 45% dampening.

Woo! The most important takeaway from this video is that the decisions Zin made very early into this game helped cement the win later on in the game.

By committing to his premonition and his Angel form in the opener, he gave himself an opportunity to use them when the pressure was at its peak late in the game. And to help ridge that gap, he relied on his tempo cooldowns like Apotheosis and Guardian in order to give him the healing that's needed.

To stay ahead and survive until that endgame. Even though the finish was stressful, his decision to budget CDs around tempo definitely paid off as he had exactly the right amount of juice to finish the game.

HOLY PRIEST COOLDOWN ROTATION: ARCHON

Welcome to our guide on cooldown trading as an Archon Holy Priest. Now if you haven't already, we highly recommend watching our Opener's Guide, as the first few moments of every game are very, very scripted as a Holy Priest, and there are a few cooldowns we're going to trade almost immediately into every game.

The first is Divine Word if we're playing it, which will pair with our very first Serenity in order to increase its healing, all while giving us a 15 second buff on our Flash heals. Always pair this with your first Serenity of the game, and when you do, your next trade is Angel Form.

Now in Solo Shuffle you might need to press this ability incredibly early if you anticipate an early CC chain. Your goal when using Angel is to press it in order to avoid the chaos of the early game by having a 15 second window to freely cast Flash Heals which will be buffed with Divine Word.

While you're in Angel Form, you're going to be pressing two more cooldowns. The first is Divine Hymn.

This is a very important skill, which deals considerable AoE healing and gives everyone a healing buff. You have some flexibility on when you press this.

If you can squeeze it in at the beginning of an Angel, perfect. If not, try using it somewhere in the middle of Angel Form.

But we're not done yet, because at the very end of Angel Form, we're going to want to press Halo.

This is, of course, the keystone ability of our Hero spec, and will not only help bridge the healing gap for the next 15 seconds, but more importantly, it will conveniently buff the next cooldown we press, which is our Apotheosis. We're going to use Apoth to keep momentum rolling.

And as a reminder here, before we press Apotheosis, we want at least one charge of Serenity to be on cooldown. And ideally, we want to have pressed Chastise and Sanctify as well.

As a reminder, the reason we Halo before Apotheosis is because each Halo will give us a Surge of Light proc, which we can then use to get multiple instant Flash Heals to reset the cooldown of Serenity by nearly 20 seconds.

So, if you're in a situation where you're going to have to use the Apotheosis, you can use the Apotheosis to get the Serenity to be on cooldown.

But if you're in a situation where you're going to have to use the Apotheosis to get the Serenity to be on cooldown, you can use the Apotheosis to get the Serenity to be on cooldown.

So, if you're in a situation where you're going to have to use the Apotheosis to get the Serenity to be on cooldown, you can use the Apotheosis to get the Serenity to be on cooldown.

So, if you're in a situation where you're going to get the Serenity to be on cooldown, you can use the Apotheosis to get the Serenity to be on cooldown. nearly 20 seconds for each press. Alright, let's stop here.

Divine Word, Angel Form, Divine Hymn, Halo, and Apotheosis, they're all used in this very scripted manner in the opener of each and every game. We assure you that 90% of the time you are going to sequence your abilities in this exact way.

That obviously leaves a few more cooldowns that we haven't touched on yet, including Guardian Spirit and Life Swap, which are very, very flexible. We cover both of these spells extensively later in this course.

The benefit of scripting your Angel Form and Apotheosis is because both of these abilities have the exact same cooldown, 2 minutes, which is conveniently the CD of most offensive cooldowns.

So, as long as you use them back-to-back in the opener, that means they're going to be available in the late game once more, exactly during the time where healing will be super nerfed. By dampening, your goal is to reach this second set of cooldowns in order to finish out the game with Angel and Apotheosis.

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