PvE Discipline Priest Guide

[t('.'t)]

Talent Builds:
Discipline (57/14/0): Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft


Explanation of Points:
Most points in each tree are kind of common sense points, with a few filler points in all builds that can be moved to more fit your play style.

All builds have 14 points in discipline in common:
[Twin Disciplines]: Extra Spell Power, higher output on damage, or higher heals.

[Improved Inner Fire]: Before Wrath a useless talent. With the inclusion of spell power onto Inner Fire, and the buff this talent gives to that spell power, this is now clutch. I see many priests lacking this talent, many of them seem to have not noticed the spell power addition.

[Improved Power Word: Fortitude]: While it could be disputed that this talent is not required based on if you raid has more than one priest, with the other picking up this spell. However since patch 3.1 the additional stamina added to it gives us increased survivability, also if you happen to pick up a group with no other priest to cast improved Fort you are at a loss. There are not very many other talents to chose from to warrant skipping this.

[Meditation]: A Worthwhile talent before 3.1, became a necessity afterward. The 40% spirit regen nerf has made any additional ways to get mana required.

[Inner Focus]: For those "Oh shit" moments, Inner Focus can be the difference between a greater heal with no mana or a wipe.


Discipline:
[Improved Power Word: Shield]: Being that discipline healing depends mainly on your bubble, this talent is very worthwhile. Discipline healing is more about preventing damage than healing it up faster than it is taken. So, stronger bubbles, less damage.

[Mental Agility]: Since 3.1 we need to conserve mana more efficiently, Renew and Power Word Shield are fantastic instant spells that are used fairly often.

[Mental Strength]: Again coming back to 3.1's regen nerf, we need to be better on mana, however if we have more mana our shadowfiend ticks back more mana, and we have more to heal with.

[Soul Warding]: Our bubbles are heavily depended on, reducing mana and cooldown makes it easier, especially later in the tree when we get Rapture in AoE fights the ability to bubble everyone in raid and hope they take enough damage to pop the bubble thus giving you 2.5% of your mana back is amazing.

[Focused Power]: More spell power, bigger heals. Bigger heals, less mana used.

[Enlightenment]: More spirit, more mp5 even if we don't get as much back from spirit anymore. The Haste is also helpful to help top everyone off quicker after AoE.

[Focused Will]: All we are looking for from this is the Spell Crit, the more crit you have, that when you heal after getting the talent Divine Aegis, Divine Aegis is obviously to help us in preventing damage again.

[Power Infusion]: This isn't exactly a required point, but really what else are you going to do with it? Now whether you use this on yourself or a dps is up to you.

[Improved Flash Heal]: Less mana used on one of our top used spells is definitely nice, the crit at less than 50% health is also useful, while no it is not guaranteed crits from it, it will help us top someone off.

[Renewed Hope]: More Crits, more Divine Aegis as weakened soul should almost always be up on whoever you are healing. Preventing Damage is win. Also the second part to it, 3% less damage taken for 20 seconds after bubbling is more preventing damage win.

[Rapture]: This is the bread and butter of discipline imho. It helps the tank, (or dps if they are taking that much damage), keep a constant on threat with more rage, RP, mana, w/e. It also helps you keep a constant flow of mana coming in, as previously discussed.

[Aspiration]: This is another debatable talent on whether or not you need it. I personally like it for Pain Suppression CD reduction, again we are about damage prevention.

[Divine Aegis]: If you have read any of this yet, you should know that this is another form of damage prevention.

[Pain Suppression]: This is useful for fights where you may be moving around a lot, or the tank takes a lot of damage while you are out of commission (i.e. Maexxna)

[Grace]: Grace is extremely useful, increasing the amount healed on the target means you don't have to use as much mana to top them off.

[Borrowed Time]: Combined with Soul Warding and used properly you could have 25% spell haste on all spells. Making this extremely useful if you can multitask.

[Penance]: An amazing heal, stacks grace up to 3 and heals fairly high, it is equivalent to about 3 flash heals in T7.5.

Glyphs:

Major:
[Glyph of Flash Heal]: Reduce the Mana Cost of Flash Heal by 10%. Less mana used = more mana to heal with.

[Glyph of Penance]: Reduces the Cooldown of Penance by 2 seconds. Aside from Flash Heal, Penance is probably our most used direct healing spell.

The last Glyph is disputable,
[Glyph of Hymm of Hope]: Your Hymm of Hope lasts and additional 2 seconds. This is 1 more tick of mana, if ~800 mana is important to you, pick this up.

[Glyph of Power Word: Shield]: Your Power Word: Shield also heals the target for 20% of the absorption amount. I don't personally use this, however this could be useful on high tank damage / high aoe encounters being that you could bubble a member while focusing main healing on the tank still.

Minor:
These are kind of up to you, and how you play. I personally chose the following:

[Glyph of Levitate]: Your Levitate spell no longer requires a reagent. Just for my own amusement honestly, and if you want to have a purpose for it, you can levitate your raid over the slime around Construct Quarter.

[Glyph of Shadow Protection]: Increases the duration of your Shadow Protection and Prayer of Shadow Protection spells by 10 min. I'm often forgetful, 30 minute Shadow Prot at least I know to rebuff it when Inner Fire falls off.

[Glyph of Shadowfiend]: Receive 5% of your maximum mana if your Shadowfiend dies from damage. Useful on AoE fights as to get a bit of extra mana back if nothing else.

Stats:

Intellect: Intellect is always a good choice, the more mana you have means higher returns on Hymm of Hope, and Shadowfiend.

Spirit: Spirit is not as useful now that 3.1 is out. However that in no way means to ditch it completely. It is still vital to healing.

Mp5: More useful as of 3.1 as it's guaranteed mana back, however I still would not suggest stacking it as Spirit will always be infinitesimally better than straight Mp5

Crit: Crit Rating is important as a discipline priest because it helps us proc Divine Aegis, however our actual heals are not all that crit dependant in that we are more looking to prevent damage.

Spell power: Spell Power is always good, for any caster. Bigger heals, is less mana used.

Haste: Haste is nice, but it is not one of our clutch stats. We can use it for faster healing, but given a choice between Haste or Crit / other stats, most likely choose the other. Unless you are extremely low on Haste.

Stamina: Stamina is only nice because a dead healer is no healer.

I can not tell you how to heal exactly, for there is a different situation for anything. One week a raid can give you no troubles, and the next could be brutal. However a few tips for disc healing are as follows:

When going into battle, it is usually a good idea to throw onto a tank
Power Word: Shield
Renew
Prayer of Mending

This gives yourself, depending on gear of the tank, a good 10-30 seconds before healing is needed again. Remember that damage is mitigated before the bubble is touched.

In battle is good to keep these three spells up each cooldown you. Your bubble helps gives the tank and yourself mana / rage / RP. Bubble + Prayer of Mending on a fight that requires you to move a lot can be the difference between yourself or the tank's death.

Remember that is your tank is nearing death ~20% do not try to cast Greater Heal immediately. In many cases the cast is too long that the tank dies before the cast goes off. Penance or Flash heal up to around 45% then Great Heal to top off.

Try to keep Grace, and Weakened Soul up on your target at all times.

Hopefully I have helped someone here. :wave:

(btw, Wall of Text Crits you for 20,000 hp.)
(I do plan on making guides for holy and shadow in the next couple days, however this was enough info for one post ^_^)

This is my first guide, any feedback is appreciated.

[_DEFiANT]

Very well written guide!
I'm sure this will help someone
I'll add you to the list of people I need to +Rep when my 24 hours is up

[t('.'t)]

Very well written guide!
I'm sure this will help someone
I'll add you to the list of people I need to +Rep when my 24 hours is up

Ty ^_^

(I see no filler)

[Daxa]

Common knowledge for the experienced player in my opinion. However this will for sure be usefull for new players.

[LettersFromWar]

You shouldn't be casting Greater Heal as discipline.

[capnjack]

too bad i have 20,001 hp! amazing post though

[Seam]

I'm confused as to why you added using greater heal.
Flash heal costs less mana, is 1 second faster, and heals for about 75% of a greater heal if your a disc priest.
Other than that this is a really nice guide.

[t('.'t)]

Guess I added Greater Heal since I was Holy pre3.1 heh ^_^;
Don't really use it with Disc though. Sorry 'bout that.