Discipline Priest Castle Nathria Raid Tips - Shadowlands 9.1

By AutomaticJak Updated: 2022/07/28

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Discipline Priest Castle Nathria Talents RaidsDiscipline Priest Castle Nathria LegendariesClarity of MindSpirit ShellAtonementsSpirit ShellPower Word: ShieldRaptureAtonementCastle Nathria Boss Tips

Talents Changes: Use recommended build

Soulbinds & Conduits: Kyrian | Necrolord | Night Fae | Venthyr

Legendaries: Clarity of Mind

Wave of Blood is cast about every 30 seconds. This starts around 8 seconds into the encounter so you should start ramping before the fight starts to ramp for the 1st and 4th casts. After 4 casts the intermission begins.

The 4th ramp hits around 1:34 so you'll have a bit of time to hold onto Spirit Shell before your next burst. Always look to ramp around 20 seconds before damage hits.

Watch for as the intermission is ending, as the next Wave of Blood will go out around 2:40 when the intermission ends and the fight continues in the same order. Again start ramping around 15-20 seconds before the wave.

My Spirit Shell timers for this fight were 0:09 seconds (preramp), 1:28, 2:37, and 3:40. So I was applying Atonements about 15 seconds before those listed timers.

Staying close to the pillars will allow you to more easily dodge the bosses sonic ring casts.

Talents Changes: Use recommended build

Soulbinds & Conduits: Kyrian | Necrolord | Night Fae | Venthyr

Legendaries: Clarity of Mind

The boss will Spreadshot the raid about every 10-15 seconds, stay spread to reduce overall damage.

Sinseeker timer is around one minute but spell queuing can delay it. In Phase 1 and 2 you should look to be conservative, producing smaller ramps around the Sinseeker timer. Timers around 0:28, 1:38, 2:41, 3:25 and 4:29. After this point you should look at where you are and how close you are to P3. P3 is the primary area you want to allocate more off your mana and your resources to be as aggressive as possible.

One boar casts Rip Soul every 30 seconds until it is killed spawning copies of players that must be healed to full. Make sure to assist with spot healing the tank souls and have other healers use raid cooldowns for the souls that will come from the Sinseeker in P2/P3. You can also use mouseover macros or add them to your vuhdo frames by creating a panel for your focus target and using a mouseover macro to set a new focus.:

My Spirit Shell timers for this fight were 0:18 seconds, 1:35, 2:43, and 3:45. So I was applying Atonements about 15 seconds before those listed timers. The Sinseeker has a lengthy cast time so some of these were close to the incoming damage from those but thankfully the boss gives you about 4-5 seconds to finish your shield application beforehand.

The last boar needs to be "walked" to remove stacks unleashing Shattering Stone. While moving it deals heavy damage to the entire raid. Begin ramping shortly after the tank picks up the boar and inform your team that you have coverage of the team to get them to move the boar. They can drop a great many stacks at once with shields up.

Talents Changes: Use recommended build

Soulbinds & Conduits: Kyrian | Necrolord | Night Fae | Venthyr

Legendaries: Clarity of Mind

High raid damage will come from the Vanquisher's Concussive Smash. The first smash came out around 45 seconds and has around a 30 second cooldown. As long as that vanquisher is up it will continue pounding the raid so you can begin ramping shortly after the Vanquisher lands. Other ramp windows will be while the Shade is out. This is an awkward fight for Discipline but you can fill the road as a raid healer while the rest of your healers focus on Kael.

Assassin's deal heavy DoT damage from Crimson Flurry. Make bleeding allies a priority throughout this fight.

Generally one healer will be in charge of spamming Kael'thas the most but all healers will support on this encounter, a Disc Priest's support will largely be on maintaining Atonement on Kael when possible and helping top Essence Fonts when they spawn. If you use Vuhdo create NPC frames to better see them. Keep in mind that when his Shade is up, Kael receives no healing.

On Mythic, you may consider specing into Holy to take advantage of the power of Guardian Spirit. Check the clip below for the Holy explanation.

Talents Changes: Use recommended build

Soulbinds & Conduits: Kyrian | Necrolord | Night Fae | Venthyr

Legendaries: Clarity of Mind

Hyperlight Spark was the highest damage overall on the fight. It deals light damage but it jumps to the entire raid and is cast about every 30 seconds.

Generally, it will align with Glyph of Destruction which also has a similar ~30 second cooldown. Xy'mox will cast the Glyph starting at ~30 seconds then again at 1 minute and again around 1:30. After that he will wait around 1min 15 seconds for the intermission/annihilate phase then resume his 30 second cast order. Make sure to add the Glyph to your boss mod timers. In Big Wigs this is labeled as a TANK ONLY mechanic so you won't see timers unless you manually change it.

My Spirit Shell timers for this fight were roughly 0:28, 1:30, 2:37, 3:49, and 4:58. Some of your ramps can be messed with depending on if you get targetted by ghosts. Check the clip below for handling this particular situation.

Dropping portals far from each other will make it much easier to dodge the spirits chasing the raid. If you are selected by a portal along with a melee, you should use everything at your disposal to get as far from the raid as reasonable. You can then use that portal you placed to get back to the team quickly by teleporting to where the other player dropped their portal.

Talents Changes: Use recommended build

Soulbinds & Conduits: Kyrian | Necrolord | Night Fae | Venthyr

Legendaries: Clarity of Mind

Desolate goes out at 0:20 seconds and 1 minute. It is then not cast until about 1:58 then is cast at 2:30.

Gluttonous Miasma is a constant on this fight and must be a constant focus to assist these players, standing near them to heal them. You can also place Atonement on them during Spirit Shell to grant them absorb shields.

My Spirit Shell timers for this fight on Mythic were roughly 0:14, 1:16, 2:17, 3:33, 4:34, 5:34.

On this encounter we found that players were most at risk during the Desolates so I covered the 1st Desolate, followed by the 1st Consume (intermission phase). I then Spirit Shell'd two more Desolates then the third and final Consume. You're effectively able to use Spirit Shell on cooldown on this fight and able to give debuffed players substantial absorbs to help them sustain themselves.

Talents Changes: Use recommended build

Soulbinds & Conduits: Kyrian | Necrolord | Night Fae | Venthyr

Legendaries: Clarity of Mind

This encounter is built off preparing for ramping ticking damage when anima containers are being controlled. The problem on this encounter is when players are in control of releasing the valves, the timers can have some variance.

Watching the containers, preparing for when pressure is reduced or increased and how it affects ticking damage will be key

Stay spread, prepare for valve releases for increasing Loose Anima and be ready to reposition quickly. When working with my team, we worked to have valve releases about ever minute to align with Spirit Shell. Started around 45 seconds, then 1:45 and again at 2:07. Over time this damage will ramp up rapidly so look to keep your same 1 minute window and work with the other healers to position cooldowns around your ramps.

Talents Changes: Use recommended build

Soulbinds & Conduits: Kyrian | Necrolord | Night Fae | Venthyr

Legendaries: Clarity of Mind

On Mythic: the Dancing Fever occurs about every minute and will feature fairly high sustained damage over 30 seconds. With Spirit Shell shields up you can easily have all the players jump at once and reduce some of the immediate impact of the burst damage. Preramping on pull will make sure you can immediately face this challenge.

Successful completion of the dance moves rewards you with increased haste. Don't slack!

On heroic you can choose to ramp when Oppressive stacks are high (i.e. when the boss you're killing is ~60% HP as they dance at 50% or when the boss is at 10-15% hp before they die) or you can help your flat-footed friends during Dark Recital which often is the main cause of death for players.

This encounter is incredibly helter-skelter, watch your feet, and try to stay near the middle of the room so you can more easily get to your dance location without having to cross the entire field.

Oppressive Atmosphere will deal ever increasing ticking damage, the dance moves can interrupt their ramp so be ready to immediately start healing once the dance ends to best handle these high stacks.

Talents Changes: Use recommended build

Soulbinds & Conduits: Kyrian | Necrolord | Night Fae | Venthyr

Legendaries: Clarity of Mind

Every minute, starting around 1 minute, the boss will cast Destructive Impact dealing heavy raid wide damage.

After he breaks out of each stun, he will then immediately cast Colossal Roar and resume his normal mechanics.

Raid wide cooldowns for the impact should be flexible enough to allow players to consistently soak the debris from the pillars. Missing them will instantly cause a wipe.

Seismic Shift is frequent and very high damage in Mythic. Positioning is everything on this encounter, as long as you are prepping your shields for pillar breaks, maximizing damage and supporting the tanks needs to be a priority.

Look to Spirit Shell preemptively before the pillar impact. You should have shields up and rolling well before he impacts so you can focus your attention on soaking debris on Mythic. Generally your ramps will begin as the Chain Slam/Colossal Roar goes out.

As pillars are breaking, look to soak the debris with your partner, you should be on the opposite end of the debris from your partner and work to stay spread from other chain'd allies so you can more easily soak each time without confusion as to who is soaking what.

The endurance conduit Translucent Image is a game changer for the fight. Be sure to use it for every Colossal Roar to help your personal survivability.

Talents Changes: Use recommended build

Soulbinds & Conduits: Kyrian | Necrolord | Night Fae | Venthyr

Legendaries: Clarity of Mind

Wicked Laceration are a constant for this encounter and are only removed via the Crystallize mechanic. Keep in mind when you are removing your bleed effect that you will be stunned for around 5 seconds. Preparing cooldowns around this fact, or delaying your stun/bleed removal will be vital for consistentcy with your raid cd assignments.

The Heart Hemorrhage debuffs will deal substantial damage but can be controlled for when they afflict the players. You can time these triggers so they coincide with Pulverizing Meteor and use heavy damage reduction to get high value.

On Mythic Heart Hemorrhage debuffs will hit the dispelled player and the dispeller. To deal with this, many mythic strats involve using Mass Dispel, to clear all 4 debuffs, causing the Priest to take massive debuffs and die. When standing in Ancestral Protection Totem you won't have to cost the raid a battle rez and can quickly come back to life. Above is a full kill of Mythic Stone Legion with commentary, check the casts bars in the top left for more info on what I cast and when. This fight has a lot of weird conditionals and spell queuing on Mythic, I discuss a lot of that in my commentary of our kill.

Pulverizing Meteor occurs around every minute start at around every minute starting at 0:20, THEN 1:25, 2:26, 3:24 etc. Ramp for this with Spirit Shell and make sure everyone is in to soak in order to spread the damage most effectively.

Have lock gates set up to give players more breathing room in case they're getting knocked back.

Talents Changes: Use recommended build

Soulbinds & Conduits: Kyrian | Necrolord | Night Fae | Venthyr

Legendaries: Clarity of Mind

Blood Price should be the focus of your ramp in Phase 1. This starts at 20 seconds into the fight and happens every minute thereafter. Almost like this raid was made for Spirit Shell.

This means that in Phase 1 you start ramping immediately on the pull, not prepull, but on the pull. Look to activate Spirit Shell while the adds are out so you can have shields out for the Blood Price.

After Cleansing Pain goes out copies of Sire Denathrius will spawn that need to be soaked on Heroic and Mythic. If you are mid-ramp and cast Mindgames before these copies sprint to their targets it will negate the potential healing Sire will try to do to himself creating MASSIVE absorb effects.

Crimson Chorus in Phase 2 is the heaviest damage that decreases by the time the more enemies die. Ramp IMMEDIATELY upon entering Phase 2, and then watch your timers for the next set of add spawns for your follow up ramp. On my kill on heroic I ramped at around 2:40, 4:00, then 5 minutes before we entered P3.

Hand of Destruction is very heavy damage in the final phase and should be ramped for in P3 but NOT in P2. In the final phase you can't run far enough away from this ability so the damage will be heavy. First hit was around 6:10 with our push timings (yours may vary), then 7:37 and a final one at 8:12 before the fight ended. Ramp for two of these and Power Word: Barrier the third.

On Mythic: Video of my PoV for the entire kill is below.

With our damage being high enough I was fortunate enough to keep my Power Infusion for Phase 1 because we had to stop damage, but in P2 I gave it to our warlock and in P3 I gave it to lock at the start of P3 with lust and then later to the hunter with his cds.

In Phase 1 I ramped 5 sec before the pull for a full 20 Atonement Spirit Shell with Desperate Prayer, finishing the ramp just as the Night Hunters struck. The 2nd ramp in P1 isn't exactly on cooldowns, I wait to begin my ramp about 10 seconds before Spirit Shell comes off cooldown so that I can build my Spirit Shell just before Night Hunters come out. I want to have Mindgames up on the 2nd and 3rd Night Hunter so that Mindgames can reverse the healing that they attempt to do to the boss, damaging him and making your Spirit Shell shields larger. Watch for those on the VoD below on the 2nd and 3rd rounds.

3rd Ramp in P1 is ramping to be ready to activate Spirit Shell as soon as its up.

Once downstairs in P2, I shield the right side squad plus one Power Word: Radiance, then move over to the ranged team on the left for the next Power Word: Radiance and damage the ranged add for my Spirit Shell ramp, using on cooldown from there in P2.

Entering final phase I start ramping just as P3 gets started. Its partially scuffed bc you get knocked back but you wanna have at least 20-40% hp in shields on players when blood price picks you up. Outside of shell I just Smited and kept Atonement on the finesse dot targets, letting the shammy do the heavy healing. Theres a Massacre / Command: Ravagecombo that we lock gate for and I get innervate and start ramping as we dodge, get into position and do another scuffed/early Spirit Shell so I at least have some shielding for the P3 Blood Price.

Discipline Priest Raid Castle Nathria Strengths

Powerful burst healing that can be adjusted to align with damage patterns on any boss fight.

Consistent damage while maintaining high healing.

Absorption effects through a low cooldown with Spirit Shell or Rapture.

High emphasis on maximizing gameplay to improve healing performance, high skill cap.

Strong defensive cooldowns in Pain Suppression and Power Word: Barrier.

Discipline Priest Raid Weaknesses

Decent mobility (thanks to covenant) and middling defensives.

Requires enemy targets to produce substantial healing.

Unforgiving if errors are made in preparing for future damage spikes.

Comments

Comment by Smezny

Awesome breakdown!
At the risk of sounding greedy, I'd like to ask if you happen to have any plans to create weakaura for ramping? A WA that warns you 18 seconds before a ramp to start ramping in 3 seconds would be immensely helpful! This especially applies to disc priests who are new to raid healing as disc.

Comment by Sumregis

What do you use for your spirit shell timers?

Discipline Priest Castle Nathria Raid Tips - Shadowlands 9.1

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