Discipline Priest Healing Spec, Builds, and Talents — Dragonflight 10.0.2

Mythic Plus:

Raiding:

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 active ability talents. Take a look at our Discipline Priest Rotation guide.

The talent setup above is a good starting point for raiding, but there are a few builds that are viable raiding-wise. The default build found above is a Twilight Equilibrium and Harsh Discipline focused build. This will be your standard, go to build in most scenarios. You also have an alternative build that includes Expiation. This is a much more mana-intensive build for a limited hps increase so it is not recommended as a default, but it is an option if you have excess external mana available. Finally, we have a Wrath Unleashed focused build which comes in behind both the other in HPS, but comes in drastically more simple gameplay-wise if you find yourself struggling.

If looking for a talent setup that is a good starting point for dungeons, please check out our M+ guide for Discipline Priest.

In the following section, we will break down the more situational options or choices to be made within the talent tree. Talent nodes that have value but may not be good or generic enough to be played in all situations. If a talent node is not mentioned, it is due to it either being an instant pick already or too bad to ever take. Please refer to the above-linked talent builds if you are unsure of which category a talent falls into. If you are looking for a description of all talents/spells, please take a look at our spells page linked below:

Ability	Description/Effect
Dispel Magic	Can be taken in any situation where there are magic buffs on enemies important enough to need the ability to purge them.
Improved Purify	Allows your dispel to also remove Disease effects. The value of this talent is heavily reliant on whether the enemies you are fighting apply dangerous disease effects.
Protective Light/ From Darkness Comes Light	Both are options depending on the situation. If you are expecting infrequent use of Flash Heal but need that, every once in a while, single target heal to augment your other single-target options, From Darkness Comes Light is not a terrible option. Protective Light gives you access to a small DR if you find yourself desperate for more survivability.
Phantasm	Fantastic utility/situational pick in any instance where you can use it to remove a snare effect. This will likely not be relevant all that often, but when it is, it will be a powerful option in our tree.
Protector of the Frail	A solid option in situations where you expect or need frequent use of Pain Suppression.
Spell Warding	A solid pickup if you have the points to spare, as even though it is "only" 3% DR, that can add up to quite a bit of damage mitigated over an entire dungeon or raid encounter.
Shackle Undead	Is in a solid location to be picked up when needed, allowing you to provide a strong CC against undead enemies.
Void Tendrils	Can be taken when you need to root a small group of enemies in place.
Mind Control/ Dominate Mind	Can both be taken in the case that an enemy has a strong spell or buff that can be used. As a generic damage option, it is very underwhelming, so its heavily reliant on what the specific mob has to offer.
Mass Dispel	An extremely powerful spell in situations where you need to remove multiple magic debuffs at the same time.
Move with Grace	A very niche pickup, but could potentially see play in extreme situations where you need a shorter cooldown Leap of Faith.
Improved Mass Dispel	Can further augment Mass Dispel by reducing its cooldown by a significant amount as well as drastically shortening its cast time. The primary benefit to this talent will be if you need the shorter cooldown to meet specific dispel timings.
Angel's Mercy	A solid option even with Binding Heals being the default choice in this location. In situations where you need more personal survivability and you are expecting to be taking consistent enough damage, Angel's Mercy can reduce the cooldown on Desperate Prayer by a significant amount.
Halo/ Divine Star	both are solid choices that can be taken in different scenarios. You will likely always be taking one or the other. Halo will excel in situations where you need less frequent but stronger bursts or in situations where the group is far too spread out to benefit from Divine Star. Divine Star is a very solid choice if you are looking for more consistent output and enough players are consistently grouped for you hit a decent number of allied targets with the spell.
Translucent Image	A very solid defensive option when needed.
Light's Wrath	A very strong button to utilize in a Raid environment. It does, however, lose significant power in mythic plus due to its Atonement count damage scaling.
Evangelism	A mandatory pickup in Raid environments but loses almost all of its value in dungeon content. Lenience is an overall solid alternative that you can take in dungeon content to get further in the tree.
Mindbender	Replaces Shadowfiend when selected. Mindbender offers a weaker pet but on a significantly shorter cooldown. On average, Shadowfiend will be the better option, but Mindbender can see play depending on the specific damage timers you are trying to meet.
Light's Inspiration	Provides a decent boost in the HP provided by our defensive Desperate Prayer.
Improved Fade	Reduces the cooldown of Fade by a decent amount, which in conjunction with Translucent Image can provide an even shorter cooldown on a small DR.
Void Shift	Provides the ability for you to swap current health totals with another ally on a very long cooldown. The giant cooldown on this spell makes it not very useful outside of situations where you are attempting to avoid an anti-heal mechanic.

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. Blaze of Light increases the damage of your Smite and Penance by 15% while also adding a slow/movespeed increase to Penance. This is a decent DPS increase making soloing as Discipline easier.
2. Inner Light and Shadow is a toggleable ability that grants you either 10% increased spell damage and Atonement healing or 15% less Mana cost on healing spells. Leaving this on the damage increase portion while leveling will result in a solid DPS and survivability gain.
3. Eternal Rest reduces the cooldown of Shadow Word: Death by 12 seconds, giving you access to this powerful spell much more often.
4. Dark Archangel increases your damage and the damage of all allies with your Atonement by 15% for 8 seconds. This is great for small group world content where giving your group a DPS buff will be more impactful than taking a small boost to your own damage via any of the above three talents.

Trinity, Dome of Light, Purification, Purified Resolve, Strength of Soul, and Ultimate Radiance, Archangel, Thoughtsteal, Cardinal Mending, Delivered from Evil, Precognition, and Catharsis have limited usefulness on PvE content in terms of increasing your damage in the open-world, or healing in a small group setting.