Discipline Priest DPS Guide — Shadowlands 9.1

Due to the nature of how Discipline Priest heals, we naturally do a significant portion of our potential DPS by just following our normal healing rotation unless you are willing to sacrifice a large portion of your healing for a minimal DPS gain, which is not advised. Discipline is a full healer specialization first and should in no way be considered a substitute for an actual DPS specialization.

The only minor adjustment to consider to push extra DPS for a minimal loss in regards to healing output is to utilize Mind Sear in AoE situations instead of Smite. Keep in mind that Mind Sear will only heal via Atonement for a single-target hit regardless of how many targets you are AoEing, so utilizing Mind Sear over Smite is done strictly for DPS purposes due to the small healing output difference between the two spells.

For all other situations, please refer to our healing rotation guide and allow your DPS to come naturally by playing Discipline's healing rotation correctly.

Discipline Priests heal by DPSing, so if I optimize for DPS, I will also be optimizing my healing!

This is NOT true. There is a lot more that goes into optimizing Discipline healing that just analyzing the DPS portion will not account for. It is very common for a new Discipline player, especially those who are are either swapping from or main a DPS character, to assume that you can Sim a Discipline Priest's DPS and follow that for healing. Do not do this. Not only will a DPS sim not handle any sort of Atonement application or healing cooldown usage, it will also value Mastery as worthless due to it providing no DPS despite it being a very solid healing stat.

Discipline Priests are the DPS healer, so their DPS will obviously be the highest out of any healer specialization!

This is not always true. While it certainly has the potential to and has in past tiers, Discipline's strength in regards to DPS is the lack of opportunity cost, not its potential ceiling. Discipline Priests will naturally provide a significant amount of damage during an encounter simply by following the proper healing rotation. In many situations, the cost to push further damage past what you will naturally provide tends to not be worth it due to your hardest hitting spells ( Shadowfiend / Boon of the Ascended / Mindgames) being your best healing cooldowns or having Mana costs that are not sustainable to be used on cooldown instead of just when they are needed for healing ( Mind Blast / Penance).