Discipline Priest Healing Spec, Builds, and Talents — Shadowlands 9.0.5

Level	Choices
15	✗ Castigation	✓ Twist of Fate	✓ Schism
25	✗ Body and Soul	? Masochism	✓ Angelic Feather
30	✗ Shield Discipline	✓ Mindbender	✓ Power Word: Solace
35	? Psychic Voice	? Dominant Mind	? Shining Force
40	✓ Sins of the Many	✗ Contrition	? Shadow Covenant
45	✓ Purge the Wicked	✗ Divine Star	✓ Halo
50	✓ Lenience	✓ Spirit Shell	✓ 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 Still Mind and Codex of the Still Mind can be used to temporarily allow players to change talents anywhere, as long as they are out of combat.

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 generalized purposes. To learn how to use the active ability talents. Take a look at our Discipline Priest Rotation guide.

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 30 and 50 talents in particular will change based on the specific encounter. For more information on specific talent builds per boss encounter in the current tier, please check out our Boss by Boss Discipline Priest Raid guide.

• Level 15: Schism
• Level 25: Angelic Feather
• Level 30: Power Word: Solace / Mindbender
• Level 35: Any
• Level 40: Sins of the Many
• Level 45: Halo / Purge the Wicked
• Level 50: Evangelism / Spirit Shell

The talent setup below is a good starting point for dungeons. This build is your standard Mythic+ build. For more information on talent selection in Mythic+ content, please check out our M+ guide for Discipline Priest.

• Level 15: Twist of Fate / Schism
• Level 25: Angelic Feather
• Level 30: Power Word: Solace
• Level 35: Any
• Level 40: Sins of the Many / Shadow Covenant
• Level 45: Purge the Wicked
• Level 50: Lenience

✘ 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 25% for the next 9 seconds.

We consider Schism the best choice for progression raids. Schism provides an on-demand damage cooldown that, through Atonement, will also increase your healing output. Twist of Fate has significantly more use in mythic plus content compared to raids but schism will still have its place being more controllable compared to requiring allies to drop low first to get a benefit.

Twist of Fate is a great alternative for dungeons when spot healing is needed more than Atonement healing or when healing is high enough that your uptime is significant, 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, however these occasions are very rare.

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

✘ 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.

Body and Soul can have some niche uses depending on the encounter. It should not be used unless you have a clear understanding of why you are taking it. Angelic Feather is the better option in most scenarios.

✘ 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.
• Power Word: Solace is an active ability with a 15-second cooldown. It deals Holy damage to the target, and restores 1% of your maximum Mana.

For raiding content, Power Word: Solace versus Mindbender will continue to mostly rely on your Tier 7 choice. Power Word: Solace will get played when you run Evangelism and Mindbender will get played when running Spirit Shell. For Mythic Plus content, both can be used effectively, There, Solace can provide more mobility and leave access to the stronger Shadowfiend cooldown for difficult moments while Mindbender can provide a more frequent, smaller cooldown.

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 Discipline Priests current iteration.

? 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.

✔ 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 30 second cooldown that heals up to 5 allies within 30 yards of the target. It then increases the damage and healing of your Shadow Spells by 25% for 9 seconds, but prevents you from casting Holy spells for the duration of said buff.

Currently, the best talent for raiding and dungeons is likely Sins of the Many, but Shadow Covenant has some potential benefits as well. Shadow Covenant can bring significant on demand group healing and amped power at the risk of locking yourself out of important utility for a duration. 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.

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:

Atonements	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10+
Damage Increase	12%	12%	10%	8%	7%	6%	5%	5%	4%	4%	3%

✔ 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.

Both Purge the Wicked and Halo are viable and should be chosen depending on the situation at hand. Halo would be best in situations where there is only a single enemy to hit and you cannot abuse multidotting with purge the wicked. Purge the Wicked does 10% more damage than Shadow Word: Pain and 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 or 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.

✔ Lenience

✔ Spirit Shell

✔ Evangelism

• Lenience provides a buff to your Atonement targets reducing damage taken by 3%.
• Spirit Shell is an active ability with a one minute cooldown which\ replaces Rapture. Spirit Shell causes your healing from Atonement, Penance, and Power Word: Radiance to create an absorption shield on the ally instead of healing them.
• Evangelism is an active ability with a 90-second cooldown that extends the duration of all your active Atonement buffs by 6 seconds.

We recommend both Evangelism and Spirit Shell for raiding depending on the specific encounter. Evangelism enables higher overall throughput and on a 45 second cycle (via alternating Evangelism and Rapture) where Spirit Shell fits 1 minute cycles. Spirit Shell is also very powerful when you expect to overheal significantly with Evangelism and want to prioritize negating the incoming damage instead of healing it whereas Evangelism thrives when the damage is expected to be high and sustained.

Lenience is recommended for dungeon content and a very niche pick in raiding.

In Shadowlands, there remains 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 PvE content minimal this expansion, it is not recommended to enable the feature, especially when within The Maw. War Mode remains an attractive option for leveling purposes due to the increased experience gain.

In this section we will rank the PvP talents best for leveling and doing solo / small group PvE content. Below is a ranking of Discipline Priest-specific PvP talents. For more information on what is valuable in a competitive PvP setting instead of open world focused, please take a look at our PvP guide.

1. Trinity increases your Atonement duration and healing transfer rate, but limits the spells atonement can be applied through to only Power Word: Shield. This allows you to spend less time applying atonement and healing yourself and more time dpsing.
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, 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.