Mists of Pandaria Classic Discipline Priest Stat Priority

The stat priority for Discipline Priest is as follows:

1. Intellect;
2. Critical Strike Rating;
3. Spirit;
4. Mastery Rating;
5. Haste Rating.

Intellect is the main stat for all casters as it increases their Spell Power, boosting the effectiveness of damage and healing spells. Intellect will be found on all gear you use and will continually increase throughout the expansion as your gear steadily improves.

Critcal Strike provides the most healing out of all secondary stats, allowing you to stack up massive absorption shields on your allies, preventing some mechanics damage entirely. Mists of Pandaria improves Crits across the board, making all spells and abilities crit for 2x damage; previously, casters would only crit for 1.5x damage, greatly improving this stat for DPS. As you will be doing a ton of healing via DPSing with Atonement, Critcal Strike becomes by far our best stat.

Spirit is needed by all healers to some extent, and while Discipline may not be so desperate for Spirit as are some of the other healing classes, you will still need some amount of Spirit regardless. Spirit is only found on healer gear, meaning that you will likely get plenty of it by simply acquiring gear upgrades. Find a sweet spot with your Spirit; if you are running out-of-mana often, get more. If you are ending fights at high mana, you likely have too much Spirit and have neglected other stats.

Discipline gets Mastery: Shield Discipline as its Mastery trait, increasing the effectiveness of your absorption spells and direct healing. This is a great stat to grab once your Spirit is taken care of.

Haste Rating changes to become our worst stat, as most of our toolkit is instant cast and none of our spell cooldowns scale with haste. Haste still remains a powerful stat for AoE healing, but you will likely not find yourself doing that much as Discipline.