Holy Priest Professions
Welcome to the Holy Priest Professions page! Professions are a set of skills that allow your character to collect, craft, build or enhance items to improve your character. In this guide we’ll be focusing on the professions that improve you as a healer and these professions may even give you the opportunity to make a bit of gold on the side. Each player character is allowed 2 Primary Professions and all Secondary Professions and when choosing a profession must level from 1 to maximum level each time they choose a new profession, so choose wisely.
There are two types of Primary Professions: Gathering & Crafting. Gathering professions involve you collecting things throughout the world for use with crafting professions, while crafting professions give you a skill set that can use said gathered items to create potions, armor, gadgets, glyphs, gems and other item enhancements.
Primary Professions
Gathering Professions
Herbalism
Collect herbs from the ground throughout the world that can be used for Alchemy or Inscription purposes if you choose Alchemy or Inscription as your other Primary Profession. Otherwise herbs and such can be sold on the Auction House or to other players through trade. Herbalism is a good profession that you can use for potions if you’re an Alchemist or for Glyphs and other items if Inscription is your other Primary profession.
Skinning
Skinning is a Primary Gathering profession that allows you to skin creatures or “mobs” that you or someone in your party/raid has killed and looted. Creatures with items still on them or haven’t been looted cannot be skinned. Skinning a creature can provide you with trade goods such as leather, which can be used to craft things such as armor should you choose Leatherworking as your second Primary profession, though this would not be very beneficial as a Holy Priest’s ideal armor type is Cloth.
Mining
Mining involves finding nodes or even some mobs around the world which can be mined to obtain materials that can be used in crafting professions such as Jewelcrafting, Engineering and Alchemy. It goes hand in hand best with Blacksmithing, Engineering and Jewelcrafting for crafting purposes, making armor, gadgets and gems to name a few. Due to the nature of these professions and their usefulness, especially Jewelcrafting, Mining can become quite a profitable profession.
Crafting Professions
Alchemy
Alchemy is a crafting profession that uses materials gathered mostly from herbalism to craft consumables such as potions, elixirs and flasks. These potions can provide your character with an increase to stats to increase your healing ability. This profession in general can be quite beneficial to any of the healing classes, including the Holy Priest. If you’re struggling to meet a stat requirement such as not enough spirit, a flask such as Flask of Falling Leaves can sometimes be enough just to tip you over the edge. Other examples of that prove useful are such potions as Master Mana Potion or a “Mana Pot” that returns some of your mana should you be running low.
To see what potions are beneficial to the Holy Priest, navigate to the Holy Priest Consumables page.
Blacksmithing
Blacksmithing is a crafting profession where you use materials often gathered from Mining or purchased from another player or the Auction House to craft armor or weapons.
Enchanting
Enchanting is a profession that uses certain materials to basically enhance several pieces of gear that your character wears. The materials used to create these enchantments are gathered by “dis-enchanting” Common, Rare and Epic qulity gear. As you’re levelling up you will collect gear rewarded from quests, killing mobs or from dungeon drops, which can be disenchanted for use to create these enchants. You can also sell enchants or enchanting materials to other players through the AH(Auction House) or trade.
Along with the normal item enhancements(chest, weapons etc), the enchanter also has the opportunity to enchant their rings with enchants, such as +160 Intellect on each ring for a possible total of +320 Intellect, something non-enchanters aren’t able to do. Enchanting is something that all characters use and as such there is quite a demand for enchants, in which case you actually have the opportunity to make a decent amount of gold. This profession can work well with any other profession as you can gain a lot of materials through quest rewards etc and levelling another crafting profession can also help as you will be crafting and disenchanting constantly.
Enchanting is almost a gathering and crafting profession all in one. To see what enchants are recommended for a Holy Priest, navigate to the Holy Priest Enchanting page.
Engineering
The quirkiest of all the professions, this can be used to craft gadgets and item enhancements that can do out of the ordinary things. These include such gadgets as the Mekgineer’s Chopper/Mechano-Hog, a 2 person mount that can carry another character as well as the driver. As far as enhancing your healing, this profession is a completely viable option now.
Inscription
Much like enchanting and Jewelcrafting, Inscription is a profession to create items all players are going to make use of. Glyphs are the main craft for the Scribe or Inscriptor, providing players with a way to enhance or change the way their spells work. Along with glyphs, you can also craft tomes that are held in the off-hand, relics and Dark Moon Cards or trinkets.
Scribes can also have profession-specific enchants applied to their shoulder slot, which for a Disc Priest would be 520 Int/100 crit in place of the usual reputation-based shoulder enchant which adds an extra +320 Int is quite a difference in stats.
Inscription goes almost hand-in-hand with the gathering profession Herbalism, as it requires quite a lot of herbs over other materials. You can most likely make a profit from crafting and selling items created by a Scribe, but it can be a competitive market.
To see what Glyphs are beneficial for a Holy Priest, navigate to the Holy Priest Glyphs page.
Jewelcrafting
One of the most sought after item enhancements in the World of Warcraft for improving stats is the Gem. Gems go into sockets on many pieces of gear and are always needed, in which case it’s beneficial to you as you can craft as needed and you can make a handy bit of gold selling Gems on the AH(Auction House) or to other players through trade. Also, as a Jewelcrafter, you have the bonus of placing 3 stronger ‘Jewelcrafter only’ Gems into your sockets, improving your chosen stats instead of the typical versions, meaning extra Intellect(or other stat) in total.
Mining and Jewelcrafting go hand-in-hand with each other, as many raw gems are prospected from ores and metals, which are in the beginning, mined from nodes around the World. These raw gems are then crafted by Jewelcrafters into useable Gems. However, mining is not completely essential, as you can purchase metals and ores from other players by Auction House or trading, and prospect them into raw gems, or buy raw gems themselves from the Auction House or by trading.
To see what Gems are most beneficial for a Holy Priest, head to the Holy Priest Gemming page.
Leatherworking
Leatherworking is a crafting profession that craft mostly Leather and Mail armor. Leatherworking can be great for creating healing armor, but unfortunately for Holy Priests, the armor created by Leatherworkers is for leather and mail wearers and unwearable by the Priest class.
Much like Enchanters and Jewelcrafters, Leatherworkers gain a profession based bonus that allows you to create a stat specific item enhancement for your bracers, such as +500 Intellect for a Holy Priest. This can be a major benefit when you’re trying to get the most out of your character.
Leatherworkers are also able to create leg enchantments that will increase stats of many kinds for classes other than healers. As there aren’t any normal “Enchantments” for legs, these enchants or Leg Armor Kits are highly sought after by non-healing classes and you can make a tidy profit on the AH.
Skinning and Leatherworking practically belong together as a skinner collects materials that a leatherworker uses.
Tailoring
Tailoring is an armor crafting profession more than anything, with the option to craft Cloth armor with Healing based stats. However, recipes for these cloth items, which a Holy Priest can wear, with healing based stats are quite rare and there’s usually only a couple of recipes to start with and a few more recipes released with content patches, but these pieces can help you get started.
Tailors can also create leg enchants like leatherworkers can, but unlike leatherworkers, these leg enchants are made for Healers. These are useful as they give you a big boost to your most beneficial stats, Intellect and Spirit. These leg enchants or “Spellthreads” can also be sold on the Auction House or directly to other players, sometimes for a tidy profit.
Tailors also craft bags and shirts that can be used or sold to other players. But this shouldn’t be a reason to take a profession to enhance your healing as a Holy Priest.
Secondary Professions
Cooking
Cooking is a secondary profession that all players of any class can pick up and all classes can benefit from. It allows players to use all kinds of materials from fish to berries to make food for yourself, party and raid members. Cooking recipes often creates food that when eaten, gives those who eat it a specific buff that can enhance important stats.
Cooking can be a beneficial profession to have, but is not completely essential as you can always purchase food from the Auction House or other players through trade to use as buffs. Levelling up your cooking can be a hard and slow task, so don’t feel bad should you get bored with it.
To see what cooking recipes can benefit you as a Holy Priest, navigate to the Holy Priest Consumables page.
First Aid
First aid is a secondary profession that uses cloth items found through the world to create bandages that when used on players, heal them for a moderate amount. Bandaging must be channeled and isn’t to be used as a Healer’s main heal, unless you’re completely out of mana. It’s more for those down times in between fights to get health up faster and conserve mana.
Fishing
Fishing is a secondary profession that should be the last thing on your mind as far as professions go. Yes, it can give you fish that you can use for food, but fish can also be bought more easily from the Auction House or other players. If you’ve got the time and the patience, then go for it!
There are many profession that you have to choose from, and it can become overwhelming, so we’re going to give you a lending hand and give you some recommendations for a Holy Priest. These are only a guide to follow and it of course it’s completely up to you, but these should get you started.
We recommend:
Mining & Jewelcrafting (for the extra Intellect Gems)
Jewelcrafting & Enchanting (for the extra Intellect Gems and Ring Enchants)
Now to finish up enhancing your character, head to the Holy Priest Consumables page.