New to holy, a few questions.

[Healzerbot]

I've been looking over the "rotation" for holy on wow head/icy veins and noticed that power word shield is not on it.

Is power word shield not worth using anymore?

Which spell should I be using as my filler? Heal or flash heal? I'm guessing heal with flash heal as a backup quick heal.

Renew for when I'm moving or when boss is about to do an aoe move or something. Pre hot group before it lands.

Prayer of mending on CD.

Anything else I should know?

[Velerios]

Power Word: Shield as Holy is a bit lackluster and expensive, still sometimes it's worth it. Especially on pull for example.
Filler as Healer don't really exist; sometimes even damage is the best solution (SW:P and/or Holy Fire).
Renew only when you are moving: renew is too lackluster alltogether; only when you are moving and can't cast anything else.
Prayer of Mending on CD yes, absolutely. Especially now since it is finally instant again you should always cast mending

Don't forget your damage abilities: you can cast renew as above said when you are moving, but if there is not much to heal, you can also cast Shadow Word: Pain on the enemy. Every bit helps, and if you can cast SW:P, Holy Fire and Holy Word: Chastise, this can slo do some damage overal.

[Echeyakee]

I'm sorry, "any more"? Have you missed last 5 years?

TLDR of PWS for holy is don't use it. Well, ok, use it if someone is about to die and you know you won't be able to finish flash heal in time. As for filer, smite is usually better, because if you have time to cast heal, you have time to DPS instead. Oh and nobody casts renew, unless you have to move and you need to waste mana while doing it.

[Bloodyleech]

There is nothing like a "filler" for healing spells. You should never ever cast a healing spell when there is nothing to heal (which is the meaning of "filler" - using abilities that fullfill less important priorities when other/better casts are on cd, means, every GCD - as you can see, this is mostly a "DPS" wording), as this would just generate overhealing and is a waste of mana.
The filler for healing specs is "dealing damage" - i.e. smite/holy fire/chastise..

[ZazuuPriest]

always be casting. If there is nothing to heal you should be dpsing

[Sithalos]

Oh and nobody casts renew, unless you have to move and you need to waste mana while doing it.

I guess people are already forgetting that Renewed Faith is a thing now.

[Echeyakee]

I guess people are already forgetting that Renewed Faith is a thing now.

No, renew is just that bad. There is a build that uses renewed faith and benediction, but it's not great, and you still don't manually cast renew.

[Sqeen]

this question is heavily depending on the content you are planing to do. as for myself I am primarily doing mythic+ and I constantly use PWS and renew even tho many think those spells are bad or not worth it. it may be ineffective in raids, but there you got some other healers to fill some gaps (HoTs coming from druids, ...), but in group content I dont want to miss those spells.
regarding heal or flash heal - to be honest 99% of the time I just cast flash heal, mana isnt really an issue in M+ since you can basically drink after each pack and therefore burn nearly your whole mana in every pull but heal got a lot of use in raid environments.

maybe if you give us some insight which content your are going to participate most we will be able to give you some more hints

[Healzerbot]

I haven't played holy since Cata, well I didn't really play it but I lvled up a priest back then.

I'm looking to do raiding and mythic+.

So I should completely drop renew and PW shield from my bars?

I don't like the idea of dpsing as a healer, that's why I left my paladin since I didn't want to be in melee just dropping crusader strikes.

I guess if all healers have to dps now I better get use to it.

[Sqeen]

for raiding you can most probably drop PWS and Renew from your bars, although I personally wouldn't. PWS is still useful if you got the talent "Body and Soul".

for mythic+ I would keep it on your bars since a renew or shield can safe someone long enough to throw another heal on another target before you switch back to your shielded group member.

last but not least, yeah every healer has to dps nowadays (especially in M+) so as you already said - get used to it. Therefore I prefer priest/druid for M+ since I don't like to be in melee range either like you have to when playing pala or fistweaving. It takes some time to get used to it and it helps alot if you know the dungeon/bosses so you know when it is safe to do some dps without loosing anyone.

If you want to play it safe just heal the first few dungeons, healer dps is only "needed" in high keys where time is running out without the little bit extra dps.

[Healzerbot]

Thanks everyone for the input, I really appreciate the help.

[gaymer77]

So I should completely drop renew and PW shield from my bars?

Absolutely not. Even if you don't use it except every so often or once in a blue moon, it is better to have it on your bars so you can use it than to NOT have it or having to search in your spellbook looking for them. I keep a renew on the tanks at all times and when someone had a dot on them that I can't dispel then I throw a renew on them while I prep prayer of healing to heal that person and those around them. Unless someone is about to die within the next 2-3 seconds, I don't direct heal them but instead continue to group heal to hit more people with heals. If they're about to die I'll flash heal them. As for your question about flash heal or heal, I have heal on a toolbar that doesn't even show up on my screen. It is literally never used by me ever. If they need a heal they get a flash heal. The mana cost is around the same with flash being a little bit more mana but not by much. I rarely have mana issues even in a raid environment.

No, renew is just that bad. There is a build that uses renewed faith and benediction, but it's not great, and you still don't manually cast renew.

You can trigger 2 renews on someone with benediction. I've done it myself in dungeons. Only priest in the group and I see 2 renews on someone and I do run with that talent over divine star or halo because I find that the other two can be wonky and not heal enough people especially if people aren't close enough together. With halo if they're 35 yards away (aka within range of every other one of our healing spells) they won't be healed by it and divine star only travels 24 yards in front of us so anyone not in front of us or more than 24 yards is also not healed.

[Malania]

The mana cost vs throughput reward for renew has been too low for a very long time to make it a viable healing spell vs something like classic. Sure you can toss it out if mana isn't an issue and you had nothing better but then you're coming into GCD use and whether what you used was worthwhile to the encounter. If you have the time because there's no damage (and there should always be damage to something because the tanks going to get hit even if he's at full HP at that second) you could have smited instead.

Personally If the tank is full and nothing else needs healing I'd rather just pre-cast heal on the assumption he's about to get hit and cancel it at the last moment if it's about to over heal. I'd leave PWS to the Disc priests but if its dungeon content you can cast it on the tank to get set up to start actually healing, as its very rare to be wasted mana.

What you want to be is efficient in all things. Maximum healing with minimum over healing and ending the encounter with 0 mana. If a spell doesn't help you achieve this, it's an excess you can cut. Filler can be used to help you do this. Smite or precast heal. You don't need to use flash as a pre heal.

[Sqeen]

I did quite a few M0s now and regarding to details "Renew" is 2nd to 4th on overall healing. I haven't used "Renewed Faith" yet, since I am quite happy with "Trail of Light" but I may switch soon, since renew is up on nearly 3-4 targets constantly. To be fair, I switched from "Divine Star" to "Benediction" and it's quite ridiculous how often it procs. Therefore you only have to cast it on one or maybe two players to keep it rolling for 90% uptime on all party members. Pre-Hotting before you start an encounter also helps quite a lot.

[Strawberry]

Someone has to explain to me why they use Flash Heal yet say PW: Shield is not worth it?
It heals for about the same amount. The advantage of PW:Shield is that it actually blocks damage, while Flash Heal triggers mastery heal.
PW:Shield also costs less mana.
One can be used anytime, while the actual heal can only be used when the target is already damaged, and you have to stand still.

[Crionics]

Someone has to explain to me why they use Flash Heal yet say PW: Shield is not worth it?
It heals for about the same amount. The advantage of PW:Shield is that it actually blocks damage, while Flash Heal triggers mastery heal.
PW:Shield also costs less mana.
One can be used anytime, while the actual heal can only be used when the target is already damaged, and you have to stand still.

A lot of times during raid encounters most priests aren't really using a ton of Flash Heal to begin with, only working it in when you need to refresh Flash Concentration stacks to empower Heal or when you get a Surge of Light proc. If you run M+ as Holy you can use more Flash Heal because you can drink between pulls. Heal is far more mana efficient than Flash Heal or PW:S. With the added effect from Echo of Light, Flash Heal should pull ahead of PW:S if you have a decent amount of Mastery.

[Arazen]

• Try to get the Flash Concentration legendary, because it's the highest HPS legendary for dungeons, outhealing even Prayer of Healing for AoE while providing you with excellent spot healing for PUGs. Get used to Trail of Light.
• Cast Renew only while you're moving and if you don't need it cast Shadow Word: Pain instead.
• Power Word: Shield is only worth casting on pull. Not having this spell bound makes little difference.
• Even when preparing for group damage you're better of putting Renew on everyone, because it reduces the CD of your best spell (Sanctify) in case it isn't up.
• Use the Guardian Angel talent and combine it with Holy Word: Serenity to heal your tank for 50% hp or more in one GCD on a 1 minute CD. It's a strong combo that gives you enough time to put up your dots at the start of the pull or catch up when you had to spot heal or do a mechanic.
• If you're struggling tell your team to stack up more often as long as mechanics permit it. That said, Holy is one of the better healers at quickly topping off spread out targets even without using cooldowns.