Discipline Priest Healing Spec, Builds, and Talents — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1

1. Talent Choices for Discipline Priest

Level	Choices
15	✗ Castigation	✓ Twist of Fate	✓ Schism
30	✗ Body and Soul	? Masochism	✓ Angelic Feather
45	✗ Shield Discipline	? Mindbender	✓ Power Word: Solace
60	? Psychic Voice	? Dominant Mind	? Shining Force
75	✓ Sins of the Many	✗ Contrition	? Shadow Covenant
90	? Purge the Wicked	✓ Divine Star	✓ Halo
100	✓ Lenience	? Luminous Barrier	✓ Evangelism

Talents can be freely changed when out of combat and in a rested XP area (such as an inn or a capital city). Moreover, Tome of the Tranquil Mind and Codex of the Tranquil Mind can be used to temporarily allow players to change talents anywhere, as long as they are out of combat.

2. Talent Cheat Sheet for Discipline Priests

While optimizing talents on a contextual basis is the highly recommended method of setting up your build, the talent builds listed below work great for specific purposes.

2.1. Raids

The talent setup below is a good starting point for raiding. It is highly recommended you read the individual talent points further down the page, as level 90 and 100 talents in particular have other situational talent options. Talent recommendations also depend on the type of encounter you are planning on doing. For more information on specific talent builds per boss encounter in the current tier, please check out our Uldir Boss by Boss Discipline Priest guide.

• Level 15: Schism
• Level 30: Angelic Feather
• Level 45: Power Word: Solace
• Level 60: Any
• Level 75: Sins of the Many
• Level 90: Halo
• Level 100: Evangelism

2.2. Dungeons

The talent setup below is a good starting point for dungeons. This build in particular aims to maximize your ability to keep the tank and other focused targets alive by boosting your single target healing as well as providing some additional group healing, however, it does sacrifice your potential DPS output. For more information on talent selection in Mythic+ content, please check out our M+ guide for Discipline Priest.

• Level 15: Twist of Fate
• Level 30: Angelic Feather
• Level 45: Power Word: Solace
• Level 60: Any
• Level 75: Shadow Covenant
• Level 90: Divine Star
• Level 100: Lenience

3. Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents for Discipline Priests

✘ Castigation

✔ Twist of Fate

✔ Schism

• Castigation causes Penance to fire an extra bolt of holy light over its 2-second duration (thus increasing its damage, and through Atonement, increasing your healing).
• Twist of Fate grants you a 10-second buff each time you heal a target whose health is below 35%. The buff grants you 20% increased damage and 20% increased healing, and it does not stack.
• Schism is an active ability with a 24-second cooldown. It deals Shadow damage to the target, and causes your damage dealt to that target to be increased by 40% for the next 9 seconds.

We consider Schism the best choice for both progression raids and difficult dungeons. Schism provides an on-demand damage cooldown that, through Atonement, will also increase your healing output.

Twist of Fate is a great alternative for dungeons when spot healing is needed more than Atonement healing, typically at lower gear levels or high Mythic+ keys. For raiding, Twist of Fate also has potential in a progression setting when it can maintain a high uptime (players will frequently drop below 35% Health) and Schism does not line up with specific abilities.

Castigation is a relatively weak talent in this tier and is not recommended for any content.

4. Tier 2 (Level 30) Talents for Discipline Priests

✘ Body and Soul

? Masochism

✔ Angelic Feather

• Body and Soul causes Power Word: Shield and Leap of Faith to increase the targets movement speed by 40% for 3 seconds.
• Masochism causes Shadow Mend's DoT to act as a HoT instead, when cast on yourself, and also causes you to take 10% reduced damage while it is active.
• Angelic Feather is an active ability with 3 charges and a 20-second recharge time. It places a feather at the targeted location, which grants a 40% increase in movement speed for 5 seconds to the first ally who comes in contact with it. Only 3 feathers can be active at any given time.

Angelic Feather is the recommended choice in this tier if you wish to provide movement speed increases. It is much more flexible and easy to use than Body and Soul, since the latter is tied to usage of Power Word: Shield.

Masochism should only be taken if you have no need to provide movement speed buffs, or if you are assigned to some specific tasks during the encounter that put you in danger and therefore require that you heal yourself. In most cases, movement speed will be better than a minimal buff to survivability.

5. Tier 3 (Level 45) Talents for Discipline Priests

✘ Shield Discipline

? Mindbender

✔ Power Word: Solace

• Shield Discipline causes you to gain 0.5% of your maximum Mana whenever one of your Power Word: Shield is completely consumed by damage.
• Mindbender replaces Shadowfiend. Mindbender has a 1-minute cooldown and 12-second duration (down from a 3-minute cooldown and 15-second duration for Shadowfiend), and it restores 0.5% of your maximum Mana with each of its attacks (whereas Shadowfiend does not restore any Mana).
• Power Word: Solace is an active ability with a 12-second cooldown. It deals Holy damage to the target, and restores 1% of your maximum Mana.

For raiding and dungeons, Power Word: Solace is an extremely powerful choice, especially paired with Schism. Power Word: Solace is the only talent in this row that benefits from Schism, but it also rivals the Mana gains from Shield Discipline if it is used as close to on cooldown as possible. The reason Mana returns are so comparable is that Power Word: Solace also replaces a Smite cast (0.5% of your Mana) and thus can be assumed you are actually saving 1.5% of your Mana when you cast Power Word: Solace. It is highly recommended to cast Power Word: Solace after Schism, so waiting for Schism to come off cooldown before casting it is advisable if needed.

Shield Discipline is not ideal in most situations currently due to it being rather lacking in providing any throughput as well as it being so comparable to the Mana savings provided by Power Word: Solace. Shield Discipline in Legion was balanced around a relatively cheaper Power Word: Shield and an old version of Rapture that allowed you to take more advantage of this talent. The current version is balanced around Power Word: Shield having no cooldown making this talent slightly less valuable in Battle for Azeroth.

In case Mana regeneration is not too important in the encounter (for example, because the encounter itself provides Mana), then you can consider using Mindbender. This talent is also a good choice in raids or dungeons if you are needing a cooldown approximately every minute to handle frequent raid damage or if the encounter is very short.

6. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents for Discipline Priests

? Psychic Voice

? Dominant Mind

? Shining Force

• Psychic Voice reduces the cooldown of Psychic Scream by 30 seconds.
• Dominant Mind changes Mind Control to allow you to also control your own character during this time (by turning the mind-controlled target into a pet). However, Mind Control can no longer be used against players, and it gains a 2-minute cooldown (up from not having a cooldown).
• Shining Force is an active ability with a 45-second cooldown. It knocks back all enemies located around your (friendly) target, slowing their movement speed by 70% for 3 seconds.

For raiding, Shining Force has the most potential utility in this tier. Encounters that require mobs to be knocked back to avoid them interacting with another mechanic are ideal for this talent. Shining Force is also ideal in Mythic+ when you need to move mobs out of Sanguine or knock mobs back away from the tank to drop Necrotic stacks.

Dominant Mind has some use in specific dungeons to handle troublesome trash packs, specifically on Mythic+ keys.

Psychic Voice is normally not an ideal talent unless you expect that you would need to fear frequently in dungeon content, which is not common.

7. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents for Discipline Priests

✔ Sins of the Many

✘ Contrition

? Shadow Covenant

• Sins of the Many provides a damage / healing buff decreasing with each Atonement in your group to a minimum of 3%.
• Contrition provides Atonement healing when using Penance defensively (on an ally).
• Shadow Covenant is an instant cast spell with a 12 second cooldown that heals up to 5 allies within 30 yards of the target, but also places a healing absorption effect on them that lasts for 6 seconds.

Currently, the best talent for raiding and dungeons is likely Sins of the Many, but Shadow Covenant has some potential benefits as well. Contrition provides some added utility in encounters where you would not be able to cast Penance offensively (when targets will be out of range) or in situations where you know you will need to be casting Penance defensively frequently. In most castes, Contrition will have limited value and thus is not recommended in its current state due to the alternative choices being better.

As for recommendations for both raids and dungeons, Sins of the Many is a good passive choice and provides a nice increase in DPS and healing, while Shadow Covenant can be used as a nice intermittent burst heal every 12 seconds.

We would like to note that Sins of the Many does not linearly decrease the damage increase it provides, however, it decreases as shown in the table below based on the number of Atonements you currently have out:

8. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents for Discipline Priests

? Purge the Wicked

✔ Divine Star

✔ Halo

• Purge the Wicked replaces Shadow Word: Pain. It deals Fire instead of Shadow damage, and it lasts 20 seconds (up from 18). While Purge the Wicked is active, using Penance on the target causes Purge the Wicked to be applied to another nearby enemy target.
• Divine Star is an active ability with a 15-second cooldown. It resembles a yo-yo, in the sense that a ball of energy travels in a path away from you (in front of you), and after reaching a certain point (24 yards away), it returns. Both on the first, as well as on the second trip, it heals allies and damages enemies in its path.
• Halo is an active ability with a 40-second cooldown and a 1.5-second cast time. It creates a ring around you that expands in radius (up to 30 yards). Allies who come in contact with it are healed, and enemies are damaged.

We believe Halo or Divine Star to be an ideal choice for both raiding and dungeon content. Halo would be best in situations where your group is spread out, whereas Divine Star is ideal in situations where your group is stacked or Halo has the chance to pull extra mobs. Purge the Wicked does 10% more damage than Shadow Word: Pain but has the ability to cleave the DoT to nearby targets, making this a viable option in raids or dungeons when you can get sufficient uptime on the DoT’s as well as have additional targets available to cleave it to.

One note on Divine Star; in order for the spell to do damage or heal, the projectile has to travel completely through your intended target, not just hit the target with the projectile. Also something to mention regarding Halo, if you use it in a hallway or in an area where there are clear breaks in the line of sight to other enemies, it will not pull from another room making it safe in those types of situations.

9. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents for Discipline Priests

✔ Lenience

? Luminous Barrier

✔ Evangelism

• Lenience provides a buff to your Atonement targets reducing damage taken by 3%.
• Luminous Barrier replaces Power Word: Barrier and provides you with a 1-click spell that provides a moderate absorb to anyone within 40 yards.
• Evangelism is an active ability with an 80-second cooldown that extends the duration of all your active Atonement buffs by 6 seconds.

We recommend Evangelism for raiding; this talent provides a major throughput increase.

Lenience is recommended for dungeon content and potentially some raid encounters with constant damage.

Luminous Barrier has likely the least use in this tier since it replaces Power Word: Barrier. There could be some limited use in Mythic+ content and on raid encounters that require the raid to be spread for a majority of the encounter making it hard to utilize Power Word: Barrier. In addition to being an encounter where you are spread it also needs to be an encounter where Evangelism is also not ideal, which currently seems like a rare occurrence. Luminous Barrier will likely only be used in very niche situations because of this.

10. PvP Talents (War Mode)

In Battle for Azeroth, there will be the option to go into "War Mode". Enabling War Mode provides the following benefits:

• PvP talents enabled in the outdoor world.
• 10% increase in World Quest rewards at maximum level.
• 10% more experience gained while leveling.
• Earn Conquest Points which can reward gear every week.

With the benefits of enabling War Mode for leveling and PvE content, it is recommended to enable the feature to maximize your leveling and rewards at maximum level. However, you will make yourself available for open world PvP, and the possibility to be "ganked" while leveling or doing World Quests exists.

10.1. Discipline Priest War Mode Talents

In this section we will rank the PvP talents best for leveling and doing solo / small group PvE content. Below is a ranking of both General PvP Talents and Discipline Priest-specific PvE talents.

10.1.1. General PvP Talents

1. Relentless is also a passive ability but it does not automatically remove crowd control abilities but instead reduces the duration.
2. Gladiator's Medallion is an on-use ability that removes all movement impairing effects and all loss of control effects.
3. Adaptation is likely your most passive choice since it will automatically remove loss of control effects over 5 seconds. It is recommended for leveling to take this PvP talent.

10.1.2. Discipline Priest PvP Talents

1. Trinity increases your Atonement healing and duration but limits your maximum potential Atonement targets to 3. This is not an issue in open-world leveling making this rather strong for self healing.
2. Searing Light increases the damage of your Smite by 15% and each Smite reduces your Penance cooldown by 1 second. This obviously is quite a DPS increase making soloing as Discipline much easier.
3. Dark Archangel increases your damage, and the damage of all allies with your Atonement by 15% for 8 seconds. This is great for soloing or small group world content.

Dome of Light, Premonition, Purification, Purified Resolve, Strength of Soul, and Ultimate Radiance have limited on PvE content in terms of increasing your damage in the open world, or healing in a small group setting. Archangel is a good choice if you are anticipating heavy healing in an open-world setting but for the purposes of leveling and World Quests in Battle for Azeroth, the choices above are better options.

11. Changelog