Discipline Priest Best Covenants, Soulbinds, and Conduits — Dragonflight 10.2.5

Last updated on Jan 15, 2024 at 15:00 by Clandon 24 comments
General Information

Covenants, Soulbinds, and Conduits are the most important character customization options in Shadowlands. They have a substantial impact on your toolkit and performance as Discipline Priest. This page's purpose is to help you pick the right options according to the content you intend to do in Shadowlands.

1.

Dragonflight Disclaimer

Please be aware that as of the Dragonflight Pre-Patch and Dragonflight expansion, all Covenant abilities, Soulbinds, and Conduits will only function while within the Shadowlands. This page will temporarily remain as a reference.

2.

Introduction: Prerequisites

This page assumes that you are already familiar with Covenants, Soulbinds, and Conduits. If that is not the case, we have a number of pages that can help you get up to speed:

  • Covenants Guide, which explains what Covenants are, what perks they bring, and how you can join one;
  • Priest Covenant Abilities, which lists all the abilities that Priests gain by joining each Covenant;
  • How To Change Covenant?, which tells you how you can switch Covenant (rejoining a former Covenant will require you to perform a number of tasks to regain their trusts);
  • General Soulbind Guide, which explains what Soulbinds are and how you can pledge yourself to them to open up their Soulbind tree;
  • Priest Conduits, which lists all of the Conduits available to Priests.
3.

Best Covenant / Soulbind for Discipline Priest

Focus Covenant Soulbind Recommended Tree
Raiding (Default) Kyrian Pelagos Pelagos Raiding tree
Raiding (Situationally) Kyrian Forgelite Prime Mikanikos Mikanikos Raiding tree
Raiding (Situationally) Venthyr Theotar the Mad Duke Theotar Raiding tree
Mythic+ Kyrian Forgelite Prime Mikanikos Mikanikos Mythic+ tree

Kyrian will be the best option for mythic plus content. For raiding, both Kyrian and Venthyr will have their place. Both Necrolord and Night Fae remain incredibly far behind the other two.

For more information about Discipline Priest Covenants, please read our Covenants and Soulbinds analysis section at the end of this page.

4.

Best Conduits for Discipline Priest

We will list below a summary of our best Conduits, by type. If you are interested in the full details, continue reading through the next section of the guide. Please refer to our Priest Conduits list if you want to see all Priest Conduits.

  • Best Potency Conduits — When running Evangelism Icon Evangelism: Courageous Ascension Icon Courageous Ascension / Shattered Perceptions Icon Shattered Perceptions, Shining Radiance Icon Shining Radiance, and Rabid Shadows Icon Rabid Shadows will be your go-to. When running Spirit Shell Icon Spirit Shell: Courageous Ascension Icon Courageous Ascension / Shattered Perceptions Icon Shattered Perceptions, Exaltation Icon Exaltation, and Shining Radiance Icon Shining Radiance will be your go-to. Once you gain access to your four piece tier set bonus, Swift Penitence Icon Swift Penitence gains significant value and becomes your second best potency conduit.
  • Best Endurance Conduits — Condensed Anima Sphere Icon Condensed Anima Sphere followed by Translucent Image Icon Translucent Image and then Charitable Soul Icon Charitable Soul.
  • Best Finesse Conduits — Clear Mind Icon Clear Mind is the only Finesse Conduit expected to carry consistent benefit due to the others being extremely situational.

With Patch 9.1.5, we can now swap our Conduits at will instead of being limited by Conduit energy. The only thing this really changes for disc is that its far easier to swap Exaltation Icon Exaltation in and out when swapping between Evangelism Icon Evangelism and Spirit Shell Icon Spirit Shell in raid or swapping to the ideal mythic plus tree that only runs two Potency Conduits when Kyrian.

5.

Discipline Priest Conduits

Regardless of which Covenant you pick, you will be able to gather and use the same Conduits, with the notable exception of the Potency Conduit that enhances your Covenant class ability.

We will be listing the Conduits you can obtain below, ordered by perceived power and accompanied by an explanation on their place in the list.

5.1.

Discipline Priest Potency Conduits

  1. Courageous Ascension Icon Courageous Ascension is a significant damage increase to an already hard-hitting spell.
  2. Shattered Perceptions Icon Shattered Perceptions increases both the initial damage of Mindgames Icon Mindgames as well as the amount of damage it can absorb, making a very potent spell even more so.
  3. Swift Penitence Icon Swift Penitence (with 4 piece tier set) provides a bonus to the first bolt of your penance that gains significant strength with the 4 piece tier set bonus.
  4. Exaltation Icon Exaltation (with Spirit Shell Icon Spirit Shell) increases the duration of Spirit Shell by a small amount, as well as giving a decently-sized increase to the absorption rate.
  5. Shining Radiance Icon Shining Radiance drastically increases the healing of your Power Word: Radiance Icon Power Word: Radiance.
  6. Rabid Shadows Icon Rabid Shadows (with Mindbender Icon Mindbender) increases the attack speed of your Mindbender Icon Mindbender, allowing you to get a few extra attacks during the abilities duration based on a variety of factors.
  7. Rabid Shadows Icon Rabid Shadows (with Shadowfiend Icon Shadowfiend) increases the attack speed of your Shadowfiend Icon Shadowfiend, allowing you to get a few extra attacks during the abilities duration based on a variety of factors.
  8. Swift Penitence Icon Swift Penitence remains a very solid choice and comes in slightly behind most of the Covenant specific Conduits.
  9. Festering Transfusion Icon Festering Transfusion increases the damage, healing, and duration of Unholy Nova Icon Unholy Nova.
  10. Pain Transformation Icon Pain Transformation grants your Pain Suppression Icon Pain Suppression target a percent Max HP heal in addition to its normal effect. Due to Pain Suppression's long cooldown, the overall benefit of this Conduit is fairly low and not very impactful overall.
  11. Exaltation Icon Exaltation (with Evangelism Icon Evangelism) increases the duration of Rapture Icon Rapture by a minuscule amount, as well as increasing the strength of your shields slightly.
  12. Mind Devourer Icon Mind Devourer provides Discipline with a small damage buff to Mind Blast Icon Mind Blast, which is, unfortunately, not very significant.
  13. Fae Fermata Icon Fae Fermata provides a weaker version of an already weak buff for a short duration on one additional target, when you move one of the Fae Guardians. It is not currently recommended you take this Conduit.
5.2.

Discipline Priest Endurance Conduits

  1. Condensed Anima Sphere Icon Condensed Anima Sphere heals you for a percentage of your Maximum Health whenever you take damage once every 10 seconds. This provides a very solid amount of passive self-healing.
  2. Translucent Image Icon Translucent Image provides an on-demand damage reduction to Fade Icon Fade. This is a very solid defensive when used during high damage periods and should be taken as your best Endurance Conduit whenever you feel you will remember to use it.
  3. Charitable Soul Icon Charitable Soul provides passive self shielding. Due to being entirely passive, this can be moved to number 1 on this list if you struggle with using fade well.
  4. Light's Inspiration Icon Light's Inspiration provides an additional heal to yourself when using Desperate Prayer Icon Desperate Prayer.
5.3.

Discipline Priest Finesse Conduits

Due to most of these Conduits being extremely situational, it is impossible to provide a ranked list. We recommend utilizing Clear Mind Icon Clear Mind as your first choice as it is the most generally applicable. Past that, it will depend heavily on your current situation. Feel free to pick whatever you would like if you end up with multiple Finesse Conduit slots.

6.

In-depth Covenant Ability Analysis

Unfortunately for Discipline Priest, there is a very large gap in strength between the top two Covenants in Kyrian and Venthyr versus the bottom two in Necrolord and Night Fae. Our current recommendation is to go with the Kyrian Covenant as the default choice for both Raiding and Mythic Plus with Venthyr gaining significant power once double legendaries and the 4 piece tier set bonus have been aquired.

The primary reasoning behind Kyrian in Mythic+ comes from a few factors as well. Mythic+ dungeons are often limited by certain moments of extreme difficulty, whether self inflicted by pulling much larger than usual or by a few boss/trash mechanics being significantly stronger than their surrounding peers. Boon of the Ascended Icon Boon of the Ascended offers a brief period of extreme HPS to allow you to manage those moments when most others cannot. Due to Mythic+ having, on average, a higher available enemy target count than in most raid situations, the AoE portion of Boon is also relevant compared to Mindgames only hitting a single target regardless of whats available. Keep in mind that this is strictly relevant for damage as you don't heal via Atonement Icon Atonement for every hit of an AoE spell. Kyrian also has access to the Legendary Spheres' Harmony Icon Spheres' Harmony as well as Forgelite Prime Mikanikos for a total of a potential two minutes of cooldown reduction on Boon of the Ascended, which is a significant power increase.

Necrolord's Unholy Nova Icon Unholy Nova suffers a few issues that make it less than ideal. With it just being tuned fairly low compared to its competition combined with it having a square root calculation on its damage, it remains a poor choice competitively. The more targets you hit, the less damage each individual dot ticks. Since you only get healing via Atonement Icon Atonement from one dot, hitting more than one enemy target with this spell makes it heal for less.

With Night Fae's Covenant spell Fae Guardians Icon Fae Guardians being as both clunky and unimpactful as it is, the rest of the Covenant package is not quite enough to make up for it and is one of the worst Covenants you can pick for Discipline.

7.

Kyrian Discipline Priest Deep Dive

Boon of the Ascended Icon Boon of the Ascended provides a very powerful ability on a fairly long cooldown that is well suited for both mythic plus content and raid. Kyrian's signature ability Phial of Serenity Icon Phial of Serenity can act as an on demand heal as well as removing many dangerous debuffs from yourself that you normally would have no way of removing. While not the most interesting signature ability, it is definitely powerful depending on the situation.

7.1.

Kyrian Discipline Priest Soulbinds

Pelagos provides a very strong stat buff and will be your general go-to Soulbind for raid while you belong to the Kyrian Covenant.

Forgelite Prime Mikanikos will be your go-to Mythic Plus Soulbind and will see situational play in raid due to his final trait Effusive Anima Accelerator Icon Effusive Anima Accelerator granting up to a minute off the cooldown of Boon of the Ascended Icon Boon of the Ascended.

7.1.1.

Discipline Priest Pelagos Soulbind

Below is our chosen path and Conduits for this Soulbind:

7.1.2.

Discipline Priest Kleia Soulbind

Below is our chosen path and Conduits for this Soulbind:

7.1.3.

Discipline Priest Mikanikos Soulbind

Below is our chosen path and Conduits for this Soulbind:

Note: When attempting to utilize Forgelite Prime Mikanikos in Mythic+ content, you only utilize two Potency Conduits due to the third Potency being far weaker than Hammer of Genesis Icon Hammer of Genesis. The below tree is an example of what you would use when utilizing Mikanikos for raiding. See the top of the page for the recommended Mythic+ Mikanikos tree.

8.

Venthyr Discipline Priest Deep Dive

Mindgames Icon Mindgames is a very powerful single-target nuke that contributes to Atonement Icon Atonement healing, making it an extremely potent spell in regards to amplifying our burst sequence's potential output while also being fairly straightforward to use. Door of Shadows Icon Door of Shadows being a mobility spell for one of the more immobile classes in the game is also a positive and will see significant use.

8.1.

Venthyr Discipline Priest Soulbinds

Theotar the Mad Duke will be your go-to Soulbind while Venthyr for all situations.

8.1.1.

Discipline Priest Theotar Soulbind

Below is our chosen path and Conduits for this Soulbind:

8.1.2.

Discipline Priest Draven Soulbind

Below is our chosen path and Conduits for this Soulbind:

8.1.3.

Discipline Priest Nadjia Soulbind

Below is our chosen path and Conduits for this Soulbind:

9.

Necrolord Discipline Priest Deep Dive

Unholy Nova Icon Unholy Nova, while easy to use and contributing okay damage, provides little in regards to healing contribution compared to the Venthyr or Kyrian alternatives. With Unholy Nova utilizing a square root calculation for the damage it deals per dot, the more enemies you hit with this ability, the less Atonement Icon Atonement healing you receive in return due to only a single DoT transferring through atonement. Fleshcraft Icon Fleshcraft on its own is not a very interesting or powerful cooldown due to its long channel time requirement but has multiple very interesting improvements from Soulbinds. Any form of defensive for a class that has few defensives is always going to find value regardless of its difficulty of use.

9.1.

Necrolord Discipline Priest Soulbinds

Bonesmith Heirmir's first trait Forgeborne Reveries Icon Forgeborne Reveries is a very interesting trait that hides its trues strength in the most uninteresting part. While the "continue to fight past death" portion of this trait is very thematic, the flat 3% intellect it provides at all times is very powerful and makes this your go-to Soulbind for Necrolord.

Emeni is a well balanced Soulbind that is solid in all content types. Unfortunately it is beat out by Heirmir in most situations.

Plague Deviser Marileth does not compare to the other two options outside of the very unique capstone Ultimate Form Icon Ultimate Form offering crowd control immunity. This always has potential to see use based on the situation and mechanics you are currently dealing with.

9.1.1.

Discipline Priest Heirmir Soulbind

Below is our chosen path and Conduits for this Soulbind:

9.1.2.

Discipline Priest Emeni Soulbind

Below is our chosen path and Conduits for this Soulbind:

9.1.3.

Discipline Priest Marileth Soulbind

Below is our chosen path and Conduits for this Soulbind:

10.

Night Fae Discipline Priest Deep Dive

Fae Guardians Icon Fae Guardians, while a very thematically interesting ability, has a few issues that leave it one of the worst options for all content. Being the only Covenant that provides no immediate throughput increase on top of both of Discipline's single target Atonement Icon Atonement applicators being tied to a guardian, makes getting full value of any of the buffs on a single target very difficult. Soulshape Icon Soulshape being a mobility spell is very valuable for a class with limited mobility options. Comparing Soulshape to the other mobility spell, Door of Shadows Icon Door of Shadows from the Venthyr Covenant, Soulshape will provide superior movement in long distances but on a longer cooldown.

10.1.

Night Fae Discipline Priest Soulbinds

Dreamweaver is the overall best choice for progression content for Night Fae with Podtender Icon Podtender providing a cheat death mechanic. The capstone ability Field of Blossoms Icon Field of Blossoms is also solid.

Niya forces you into a dead last tier ability in order to get both Conduit slots leaving you effectively an entire ability down compared to Dreamweaver, but Korayn is in a similar position. Niya's first ability Grove Invigoration Icon Grove Invigoration provides a larger gain over Korayn's first ability, making her the desired choice if you aren't utilizing Dreamweaver.

Korayn's Soulbind tree leaves a lot to be desired with a fairly poor final row after the Potency slot as well as the first tier ability, Wild Hunt Tactics Icon Wild Hunt Tactics being worse than Niya's alternative. This leaves Korayn in a situation where they are unlikey to see play over either of the alternatives.

10.1.1.

Discipline Priest Dreamweaver Soulbind

Below is our chosen path and Conduits for this Soulbind:

10.1.2.

Discipline Priest Niya Soulbind

Below is our chosen path and Conduits for this Soulbind:

10.1.3.

Discipline Priest Korayn Soulbind

Below is our chosen path and Conduits for this Soulbind:

11.

Changelog

  • 25 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
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