MoP Classic Discipline Priest — Guide (Phase 5)
viewsAbout the Class
Discipline Priest is an absorb healer who doesn't so much heal damage as prevent it from ever landing.
Passive 
Atonement turns 
Smite, 
Holy Fire and 
Penance into healing on injured allies, while 
Spirit Shell converts all of your output into shields for a minute. In a raid this is the ultimate "heal-to-the-script" spec: if you know when the damage is coming, you can pre-empt it. On top of that, Discipline has the best external cooldowns in the game — 
Pain Suppression and 
Power Word: Barrier.
Strengths
- Absorbs a colossal amount of damage, so allies often don't need to be healed at all.
- An extremely flexible kit: tank, spot and group healing are all covered equally well.
- Some of the strongest raid-wide and external defensive cooldowns of any healer.
- Deals noticeable raid damage and heals through it via Atonement.
- Spirit Shell lets you pre-shield scripted damage — a huge amount of effective output.
- Excellent mana economy through
Rapture and 
Mindbender.
Weaknesses
- Few personal defensive cooldowns.
- Struggles wherever a lot of reactive healing is required.
- Absorbs are wasted if the damage doesn't come the way you expected.
- Heavily reliant on knowing fight timings to line up Spirit Shell and
Archangel. - Overhealing and overwriting shields punish sloppy play hard.
Stat Priority
- 1Intellect
- 2Critical Strike rating
- 3Spirit
- 4Mastery
- 5Haste
A healer needs neither Hit nor Expertise. Critical Strike is the best secondary stat here: crits heal twice as hard and directly fuel the healing from Atonement. Take just enough Spirit to keep your mana topped up: if you run dry, add some; if you finish fights nearly full, cut it. Haste is Discipline's weakest stat, because almost the entire kit is instant and cooldowns aren't reduced by it.
Talents
Rotation (Ability Priority)
The opener is a set sequence of abilities you use as you engage an enemy. Memorising it helps initiate your rotation in the most optimal way possible.
- 1
Power Word: Fortitude - 2
Inner Fire - 3
Power Word: Shield - 4
Prayer of Mending - 5
Potion of the Jade Serpent - 6Holy Fire
- 7Smite
- 8Smite
- 9Penance
- 10Archangel
- 11Power Word: Shield
- 12Mindbender
- Archangel — consume 5 stacks of
Evangelism for +25% healing - Penance — on cooldown, the best healing per cast
- Power Word: Shield — refresh every 12 seconds for the mana return from Rapture
Greater Heal — main cast under sustained tank damage- Prayer of Mending — when there's someone nearby to pass the bounce to
Binding Heal — when both you and the target are low
Flash Heal — emergency heal for a critically low target
Renew — while moving and under light sustained damage
Heal — an economical filler when damage is light
Key Abilities
Evangelism stacks and grants up to +25% healing and damage
Shadowfiend that returns a lot of manaPower Word: Shield is fully consumed
Best in Slot (BiS)
Best in Slot (BiS)Tier 16 Set — Robes of the Ternion Glory
Tier 16 Set — Robes of the Ternion GloryIn practice you collect 4 set pieces and fill the head slot with a non-set item.
Enchants, Gems and Consumables
Enchants
Gems
ConsumablesRaces
Atonement damage window.
Best Professions
Lightweave Embroidery on the cloak is the single best cloak enchant in the game.
Synapse Springs and Nitro Boosts give an on-demand stat burst and mobility.
Fur Lining - Intellect on the bracers gives more intellect than the standard enchant.
Two 
Brilliant Serpent's Eye gems beat regular intellect gems.
Author
Fouren
Fouren has been playing World of Warcraft for over 15 years. He is an active player with 12 Cutting Edge achievements under his belt, and has reached the top 1% and 0.1% multiple times on various classes. His main classes are healers, particularly Holy Paladin.
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