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Discipline Priest Healer Beginner's Guide - Battle for Azeroth 8.3
By AutomaticJak
Last updated
2020/01/20 at 3:13 AM
View Changelog
Table of Contents
Quick Facts
Table of Contents
Guide Navigation
Looking to start playing a Disc Priest in World of Warcraft and just want simple advice? Look no further! In this guide, we will cover everything you need to start easily playing a Disc Priest in , without all the fuss of detailed guides Whether you're new to the spec, a casual achievement hunter, or a returning player looking to refamiliarize yourself with Disc in Battle for Azeroth, these easy guidelines, covering simple and effective talents, rotation, and gear setup, will get you into the action as easily as possible.
Please keep in mind that this page is meant to get beginner players started quickly, and does not contain much in the way of detailed explanations, mechanics, competitive options, gearing, simulation comparisons, or nuance. For more in-depth information, including all those optimizations and more, check out the complete Disc Priest Guide pages linked in the navigation on the left-hand side of the page.
If you need help leveling to 120 in Battle for Azeroth, check out our
leveling tips
.
Overview
Beginners
Azerite
Essences
NEW Corruptio̵̦͚̽̿n-̴̤̤̗͓̘̖̖̖̜̊̎̈́͗̀͗̅͂̌͑̚͠
Talent Builds
Rotation, Priority, and Abilities
Advanced Concepts
Stats
Gear
Consumables
Simulations
Correcting Mistakes
Mythic+
NEW Ny'alotha Tips
Macros & Addons
WeakAuras
Common Terms
About the Author
This guide is written and maintained by
Jak
, Healer for
Future
on EU-Twisting Nether, author of the
Holy
,
Discipline
, and
Advanced Mythic+
Priest Guides.
He is also the Host of the official World of Warcraft
Mythic Dungeon International
events. You can catch Jak on
Twitter
and streaming on
Twitch
.
Watch live video from automaticjak on www.twitch.tv
Talents
This Discipline Priest build is well rounded and suited for leveling and dungeon content. For a deeper look at each talent and more specialized builds for specific activities, see the
Disc Priest Talent Guide
.
Rotation
This section is meant to give a good point of view for a standard ramp up when using
Evangelism
. This section gives a general overview, but more optimizes, talent variations, and advanced tips can be found in the
Disc Priest Rotation Guide
. When Ramping your focus is on spending time building up
Atonement
count on the raid and then you Follow-Thru with the damage priority in order to maximize the value of the
Atonement
s.
Maintain
Shadow Word: Pain
or
Purge the Wicked
on the boss and continue to spread them if it will reach full duration and does not interfere with your preparation before damage goes out.
Cast
Power Word: Shield
or
Shadow Mend
to maintain
Atonement
on tanks. When "ramping up" you'll use
Shadow Mend
if the target is injured and
Power Word: Shield
if the target is not to cover around 6 or 7 allies with
Atonement
before big damage goes out.
Cast one
Power Word: Radiance
.
Use
Mindbender
or
Shadowfiend
.
Cast the second
Power Word: Radiance
.
Use
Evangelism
to extend the duration of all active
Atonement
.
After Atonements are extended you move into the damage rotation tab and continue in it until most of your
Atonement
's durations have expired.
Maintain
Shadow Word: Pain
or
Purge the Wicked
on boss.
Cast
Schism
(can be held briefly to time for a big hit
Cast
Halo
if talented
Cast
Power Word: Solace
if talented
Use
Holy Nova
if you have a
Sudden Revelation
proc
Cast
Penance
Cast
Smite
until
Atonement
s drop off
Stat Priority
Discipline Priests primarily favor Intellect through Item Level, along with Haste, though secondary stats are generally close in value. Find out more about how stats work, including sample stat weights and scaling plots in the
Stats Guide
, or get an overview of gear to look for from dungeons and raids in the
Disc Priest Gear Guide
.
Intellect
Haste
Critical Strike
Mastery
Versatility
Gear in Battle for Azeroth is heavily focused on pursuing item level upgrades on your gear pieces. While haste will be a primary focus to prepare for raids, if you find a non-haste item that is 10 item levels higher than the haste piece, it is quite likely that the higher ilvl piece will be better. Some exceptions to item level can be rings and some trinkets. For further detail, check the gear guide.
Essences
The essence system offers powerful additional abilities to your toolkit that are unlocked throughout various activities like reputations, pvp and pve. Essences often have various situational or specific benefits, to find out more check out the full
Discipline Priest Essences for the Heart of Azeroth - Battle for Azeroth 8.3
here for unlock requirements and breakdowns of specific uses.
Excerpt from the Essence Guide:
The Ever-Rising Tide -
Tome of the Quickening Tides
Source: Nazjatar Bodyguards (click for details!)
Rank 1: Complete
A Brief Respite
/
Down Into Nazjatar
.
Rank 2: Complete
Friends In Need
/
Down But Not Out
.
Rank 3: Obtain
Nautical Battlefield Training
/
Nautical Battlefield Training
.
Rank 4: Obtain
Aqua Team Murder Force
/
Aqua Team Murder Force
.
Use on: Raids
The best Major essence for most raid encounters. It halts your mana regen over the course of the duration but is excellent for Discipline's ramps in a raiding environment. With a low cooldown there is very heavy emphasis on optimizing your ramp up windows to take advantage of the raw healing buff that is granted by each successive cast. The general plan will be to maximize stacks without severely impacting your build up on
Atonement
s.
The Minor Power is also useful, but entirely passive so you will not need to worry about micromanaging it. Additional primary stats or mana returned are consistently helpful and are well suited to both areas of content.
Effect on gameplay
Through testing on the PTR the most favorable way seemed to include using both
Power Word: Radiance
charges during the duration, after multiple
Power Word: Shield
/
Shadow Mend
casts, so that you could maximize your uptime dealing damage with the healing buff up. This can cut down on a stack or two but will offer a sizeable burst that maximizes buff uptime and
Atonement
duration. Abilities like
Evangelism
,
Power Word: Solace
, and
Rapture
do not grant stacks so they should not be utilized during the
Overcharge Mana
buff.
When using this ability with
Rapture
, it does not increase the value of your absorption effects so it seems favorable to use the
Overcharge Mana
after you activate
Rapture
, then cast as many
Power Word: Shield
s as possible during the remaining duration then into a singular
Power Word: Radiance
for a smaller ramp in between
Evangelism
uses. You lose out on an extra
Power Word: Shield
cast but gain an extra stack of healing bonus which is helpful with this smaller ramp not being able to extend the duration.
Corruption
Discipline in Ny'alotha will have access to new corruption effects to further improve their performance. Below is a list of desirable corruption bonuses to pursue for your gear, many of these corruption effects can have niche/situational effects, so be careful on cleansing any of these pieces unless you know you won't be using them.
Top Effects
Discipline Priests look to generally prioritize Critical Strike damage and healing
Strikethrough
for progression healing. Eternal Palace demonstrated how important healer damage can be on meeting tight dps requirements. While
Siphoner
seems to be the highest throughput at present,
Strikethrough
improves your damage and healing which is invaluable when pushing progression.
Passive Effects
Strikethrough
- As mentioned above, healer damage is always very important during progression and Disc will often have enough Haste to start moving towards another secondary stat in Ny'alotha. With this corruption piece, Disc can focus more on Crit after Haste reaches a sufficient level to further their output.
Siphoner
- Increased Leech is always incredibly beneficial for Discipline, especially in progression and especially when encounters favor heavy "rot" ticking damage. Expect this to be a very high throughput increase.
Proc Effects
The above corruption effects all passively increase the value of your secondaries. While these corruption effects all give procs of secondary stats. Secondary stats overall aren't far from each other in value and any of these proc effects are quite good.
Void Ritual
- A weapon corrupted effect that can corrupt other pieces of gear. This corruption price will often be high but looks to be quite potent, especially if other allies share it as well.
Infinite Stars
While recently nerfed they are Infinite so nerfing infinity is still infinity. This is a damage focused corruption that does NOT proc
Atonement
healing. All the same, it is still incredibly good damage that can benefit your raid or M+ runs massively.
Mid-Tier
Deadly Momentum
- Increased Crit strike proc.
Racing Pulse
- Increased Haste proc.
Surging Vitality
- Increased Versatility proc.
Honed Mind
- Increased Mastery proc.
Expedient
- To assist in Haste reaching a sufficient level (many stick to the mid/high 20s region but there is no specific breakpoint) this corruption piece can work well with providing additional secondaries.
Severe
- Similarly, if you receive sufficient Haste and want to move more towards Crit to work with
Strikethrough
, then this corrupted piece can assist as well.
Masterful
- While Mastery is not a weak stat by any means its value with this passive effect depends entirely on how much of this stat is naturally present on your gear.
Versatile
- Similar to the Mastery effect, Versatility is not a poor stat by any means and might be even more crucial if encounters require greater damage reduction in order to survive incoming hits.
Passive Effects
Avoidant
- Avoidance seems incredibly situational but could have specific areas where it shines for surviving a particularly challenging boss encounter in raids or Mythic+.
Glimpse of Clarity
- Cooldown reduction for Discipline looks to be a very niche effect at present with better options for many situations.
Ineffable Truth
- This corruption effect is actually a weapon effect that can be applied to many different pieces. While this effect is stronger than the one above if does not look to be a priority for Discipline at the moment as your ramp windows are often fairly well set in stone and this would have to consistently allow more frequent or better timed windows in order to be worthwhile.
Enhancements
Only two gear slots can be enchanted by all players in Battle for Azeroth: weapons and rings. There are also glove enchants which can assist with professions, Enchanter-only bracer enchants which modify hearthstone use, and Tailor-only cloak enchants which reduce threat slightly.
Weapon:
Enchant Weapon - Machinist's Brilliance
Rings:
Enchant Ring - Accord of Haste
Gems:
Leviathan's Eye of Intellect
and
Quick Sand Spinel
Azerite
Azerite is the new power system in Battle for Azeroth. Throughout completing quests, dungeons, and other activities you will further empower your
Heart of Azeroth
. The higher level the
Heart of Azeroth
, the greater amount of traits that you will be able to unlock on your Azerite pieces. Azerite pieces are the Helm, Shoulders, and Chest pieces that contain a variety of traits and bonuses.
For more information on the Azerite system be sure to check out the
Azerite Trait Guide
or the DIsc Priest Azerite Section!
Our Disc Priest guides are always updated with the latest information from in-game experience, simulations, and logs; make sure to check our changelog to this page, by clicking on
View Changelog
at the top of the page. If you are interested in more in-depth Disc Priest guides for Visions of N'zoth, Battle for Azeroth's third and final content patch, make sure to browse the
Navigation Bar
below, and our list of
Related Guides
just beneath the
Table of Contents
.
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Azerite
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