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Table of Contents
General Information
On this page, we list your Discipline Priest core abilities and how they should be used together (rotation) in World of Warcraft Legion 7.3.5. We also explain when to use your various cooldowns. Then, we go deeper and present all the subtleties that you will need to know if you want to excel at playing a Discipline Priest.
The other pages of our Discipline Priest guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.
About Our Reviewer
This guide has been reviewed and approved by Mend, admin and editor at Focused Will (Discord and Blog for healing Priests). You can also follow Mend on Twitter.
1. Rotation for Discipline Priests
The Discipline specialisation revolves heavily around healing through
dealing damage, thanks to the 
Atonement passive ability. We detail
this below, but for now all you need to
keep in mind is that dealing damage is an integral part of healing as
Discipline.
In the sections that follow we will look at which abilities you should use to deal damage (in order to generate Atonement healing), as well as how to handle single target and AoE healing.
1.1. DPS Rotation / Atonement
The ideal rotation for dealing damage in order to generate
Atonement healing is as follows.
- Maintain
Shadow Word: Pain (or 
Purge the Wicked, if you have
taken this talent) on the target. - Use
Schism on cooldown (if you have taken this talent). - Use
Penance on cooldown. - Use
Power Word: Solace on cooldown (if you have taken this
talent). - Use
Smite as a filler.
From now on in this guide, whenever we mention dealing damage for Atonement purposes, we mean that you should use this above rotation.
1.2. Raid Healing
For healing damage on multiple raid members at once, your primary tool is
Atonement. The general idea is very simple: proactively
place Atonement on the required players through the use of such spells as
Plea, 
Power Word: Radiance, 
Power Word: Shield, or
Shadow Mend, so that when the damage starts
coming in, you can already begin healing them through dealing damage. You
want to avoid being caught without having Atonement up on players when damage
starts coming in, since this will leave you unprepared.
If you must heal a rather low number of players or if the damage taken is
low, then you should use
Power Word: Shield and Plea to apply and maintain Atonement on
them, and, if needed, use Shadow Mend to prevent someone from dying.
Throughout this time, you should continue to DPS. You should try to maintain around 5 Atonement buffs up. Since
you will be able to cast Power Word: Radiance in between
Evangelism casts (assuming you are using this talent), you should
use it as needed when the group takes damage.
If the number of players you have to heal or the damage received are high, then you should use the following rotation.
- Apply around 5
Atonement buffs (using
Plea and 
Power Word: Shield). - Use
Power Word: Radiance twice about 4-5 seconds before the damage
occurs. - Use
Evangelism. - Use
Light's Wrath or
Shadowfiend/
Mindbender. - Use Penance to deal damage.
- Keep using Smite until Atonement buffs begin to
expire.
Depending on your talent choice, you will also supplement your AoE
healing with 
Halo or 
Divine Star, but keep in mind that only
the first target that these abilities damage generates Atonement healing
(so you should view them as direct healing spells rather than means of
doing damage).
1.3. Dungeon Healing
Dungeon healing relies on Atonement when the damage amounts are low to medium. For
higher amounts of damage, you will need to make use of additional spells.
When the damage is low to medium, you should maintain
Atonement on the target through using Power Word: Shield on cooldown and
simply perform your DPS rotation. This
should provide enough healing to keep the target alive. Using Power Word:
Shield this way should ensure that Atonement is always up on the
target, but if it somehow expires, use Plea or Shadow Mend to
re-apply it.
When the damage is high, Atonement healing will no
longer suffice. In addition to casting Power Word: Shield on cooldown,
you should spam Shadow Mend.
Please keep in mind that if you are expecting to have to heal high amounts
of single target damage, you really should choose 
Grace as a Tier 7
talent.
In case of group-wide damage, you should use Power Word: Radiance to
quickly apply 5 Atonements.
1.4. Atonement Applicators
Plea is best used in situations when you are on the move or there
is low or moderate damage going out. On the other hand, Shadow Mend can
be a great way to spot heal and apply Atonement in situations where
you have the time to stop moving in order to cast it and when the death of the
target is imminent.
You should aim to maintain around 5 Atonement buffs active at any
given time, as regularly applying and maintaining more will strain your Mana
consumption.
2. Cooldown Usage for Discipline Priests
Pain Suppression should be used on a tank, before a damage
spike. Alternatively, it can be used on a raid member who is targeted by a
very damaging ability.
Power Word: Barrier should be used to mitigate intense AoE damage; it
requires the raid to be stacked in one place. Note that the
Barrier for the Devoted artifact trait causes targets inside your
Barrier to receive 100% extra Atonement healing.- Shadowfiend should be used for additional DPS (and therefore
Atonement healing) when this is needed.
Rapture should be used when you anticipate a large amount of
AoE damage. This allows you to pre-shield a large number of targets, which also
serves to set up Atonement on them for subsequent healing.- Light's Wrath (your Artifact ability) should be used when there
is high raid damage you need to heal (provided that you have many
Atonement buffs active; 12+ is recommended). Alternatively, in case your raid is in
dire need of extra damage, you could use it offensively.
Fade reduces the damage you take (provided you have the
Vestments of Discipline trait), and should be used as often as
needed.
We expand more on the cooldowns that you gain from your talents in a subsequent section.
3. Optional Read: Mastering Your Discipline Priest
While the guidelines we have given so far will enable you to perform very decently as a Discipline Priest, there are some subtleties which you need to be aware of if you want to play your character to its full potential.
3.1. Atonement
Atonement is a passive ability that causes a number of your
spells ( Plea, Power Word: Shield, Shadow Mend,
and Power Word: Radiance) to apply a 15-second buff (also called
Atonement) on the target. While active, part of all spell damage that you deal
is transfered as healing to the target(s) affected by Atonement. There is no
limit to the number of targets you can have Atonement active on at any one
time, and essentially all of your damage done (including from your
Shadowfiend/
Mindbender) except from auto attacks
results in transferred healing.
The exact amount of healing that is transfered to your Atonement targets
is determined by how much Mastery you have, as Mastery: Absolution
increases the amount of Atonement healing.
It is also important to note that Atonement heals cannot be critical hits themselves. They always mimic the behaviour of the damage that is being transferred. If the damage is a critical strike, then this is the amount on which the amount of healing will be based on. The UI will display the healing as a critical hit, but again, it is simply based on the damage amount. The implication here is that your Critical Strike chance does not double dip by increasing your chance for both critical strikes with damages and critical hits with the subsequent heals.
3.2. Absorption Effects
Discipline Priests have two absorption effects by default, and a third one that can be gained from talents.
Power Word: Shield is quite simple. You place
a shield on a target, which absorbs a certain amount of damage, depending on
Shields benefit from your critical strike chance, absorbing twice as much
damage when this effect procs.
Damaging an enemy with 
Smite causes a part of of the next damage
that they deal to be absorbed. This works particularly well against caster
bosses, where you can time your Smite to land during the boss' cast, ensuring
that they spell they use will have part of its damage absorbed.
The absorption effect gained from talents is 
Clarity of Will,
a tier 7 talent, which effectively places a large shield on a player that
lasts for up to 20 seconds.
3.3. Penance
We would like to make a quick note on the usage of 
Penance, which
is to say that you can also use it directly on an ally, as a heal, instead of
using it to deal damage and heal through Atonement. That said,
situations where targeting an ally directly with Penance is superior will be
quite rare; they are most likely to occur during dungeon content (including
high level Mythic+), where it will essentially act as an emergency single
target heal.
3.4. More on Cooldowns
3.4.1. Artifact Ability for Discipline Priests
Light's Wrath, your Artifact ability, deals damage to the target,
which is increased by 10% for each Atonement buff you have active.
Since this damage also heals the Atonement targets, the result is that you
can produce a large amount of both damage and healing when you use this
ability and have Atonement buffs up on many raid members.
Indeed, given its high cooldown of 90 seconds, you will want to use this ability wisely. Generally, we advise you to use it defensively, to heal up the raid during heavy damage. That said, if there is a high priority target that needs to die quickly, or if the fight has a tight enrage timer, or if there is no need for you to heal anyone, then you can also use it offensively.
3.4.2. Tier 1 Talents
You will obtain the benefits of 
Twist of Fate passively, provided
that you hit a low-health target one with one of your spells. Aside from
this, there is
nothing for you to do about this talent except enjoy the increased healing.
3.4.3. Tier 4 Talents
If you are using 
Shield Discipline, then you will want to maximise
your usage of Power Word: Shield, especially during periods of heavy
healing.
Power Word: Solace should be used on cooldown. If you have also taken
the 
Schism talent, then make sure to time it so that you use Power
Word: Solace on the target when they are debuffed by Schism.
Mindbender should be used on cooldown, but you can also
delay it for a short while to line it up with heavy raid damage (since the
damage done by the Mindbender transfers as Atonement healing).
3.4.4. Tier 5 Talents
If you pick Clarity of Will, it is assumed that you have done so
with a specific goal in mind (such as bypassing an encounter ability by
getting a very large shield on a player), so you should stick to your plan.
3.4.5. Tier 6 Talents
Halo and Divine Star should be used as often as possible,
whenever there is a need for AoE healing.
3.4.6. Tier 7 Talents
Power Infusion should be used to allow you to apply
Atonement on multiple targets at a reduced Mana cost (by casting
several Power Word: Radiance), and then to increase the damage you can do
(thanks to the haste buff it offers). You should use your
Shadowfiend (or Mindbender, if you have taken
this talent) while Power Infusion is active, so that they can benefit from the
increased Haste.
4. ChangeLog
- 28 Aug. 2017: No changes needed for Patch 7.3.
- 06 Jul. 2017: Added a section discussing the possibility of using Penance on an ally to heal them.
- 12 Jun. 2017: Considerably revamped the playstyle sections, and made a few other updates to account for Patch 7.2.5 changes.
- 27 Mar. 2017: No changes needed for Patch 7.2.
- 29 Jan. 2017: Removed mentions of using certain trinkets which we no longer recommend.
- 10 Jan. 2017: Checked and confirmed for Patch 7.1.5.
- 10 Nov. 2016: Added a mention of how the Shield Discipline talent affects the playstyle.
- 15 Oct. 2016: Added an alternative playstyle for Mythic content.
- 29 Aug. 2016: Updated for Legion's launch.
- 07 Aug. 2016: Made several improvements to the page following Zolvolt's review.
- 18 Jul. 2016: Updated for the Legion pre-patch.
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