Introduction
This guide is written by FTM, who joined Method’s healing roster right before Amirdrassil. Before joining Method he was an Officer and Raider in BDG where he had played since Shadowlands Season 4.
Discipline Priest Overview
In essence Discipline Priest is all about keeping your team alive through applying Atonement with spells like Power Word: Shield, Renew and Power Word: Radiance. After applying the buff you will want to follow up with strong damage spells to take advantage of the additional healing it provides. How this process is done works differently depending on if you are doing raids or dungeons.
In raid you will be trying to cover as much of your raid as possible with the Atonement buff. This is done through so-called “ramps”, where you apply as many Atonements as possible before they start running out, which usually comes out to around 18-20 targets. After this is done you will take advantage of the small window where all your targets have the buff applied and deal as much damage as you possibly can to fully utilize the raw potential of Discipline Priest.
In dungeons however you have a much smaller target count to worry about, which means you can focus more on individual targets and you are able to cover your whole team with Atonement with just one cast of Power Word: Radiance. This means that in dungeons your playstyle works much differently, as you are no longer focusing on building up large ramps but rather being able to take care of those 5 targets. Sometimes dealing damage and healing through Atonement is not always enough in dungeons, and that is where tools like Power Word: Shield, Rapture, Power Word: Life and Penance come in. These spells help you out in situations where members of your party are taking heavy single target damage, rather than the whole group taking a sustained amount of damage spread evenly where Atonement usually shines.
Discipline Priest Strengths
- Can deliver exceptional AoE burst healing to counter heavy damage intake.
- Has access to some incredibly potent damage reduction talents in Power Word: Barrier and Pain Suppression which can greatly aid your group/raid.
- Brings a lot of passive damage due to the spec being designed to heal through dealing damage, as well as being able to damage during downtime periods of low damage intake.
- Satisfying learning curve, as when you finally master the Discipline Priest you will always feel in control and able to cover designated mechanics.
Discipline Priest Weaknesses
- Weak burst mobility.
- One of the squishiest specs in the game. Requires you to be alert of what is happening so you can prepare with defensives.
- Sparse emergency healing, requiring you to always prepare ahead of time if you want to put out a meaningful amount of healing. This makes discipline extremely punishing, but also rewarding as you learn to anticipate upcoming mechanics that put your group/raid in danger.
- Due to a large amount of the rotation requiring you to stand in place to put out significant healing you are susceptible to being caught out during moments where you need to be on the move.
- Struggles to keep up in raid content where your raid goes over 20 players, such as heroic, normal and LFR raiding. Due to the nature of the spec you are hard capped to being able to heal a certain amount of targets at a time, while some other healers like Holy Priest get stronger and stronger the more targets that are present.
What has changed
Discipline Priest Changes for The War Within
Discipline Priest has not received a lot of notable changes going into the new expansion. The main updates come in the form of the two new Hero Talent Trees: Oracle and Voidweaver. We will cover both of these Hero Talents and their impact on the spec later on in the guide.