Discipline Priest Healing Spell Summary — Shadowlands 9.0.5

If you are new to Discipline Priest, this page is a great place to get a general understanding of what spells you have available and how they work. If you already have experience playing the spec and are looking for more gameplay focused resources, feel free to skip this section. For macros to help utilize the below spells better, please refer to our macros page.

Mana is your only resource as a Discipline Priest. All of your healing abilities cost Mana, so managing it so that you do not run out over the course of each encounter is crucial to being able to heal competitively.

These are your core skills that are available regardless of talents, and form the core gameplay of the specialization.

Atonement is integral to the Discipline specialisation. This is a buff that certain spells (listed below) place on the target, lasting 15 seconds. During this time, a percentage (affected by your Mastery) of all damage you deal heals the target.

Shadow Word: Pain deals Shadow damage over time to the target. This is used in order to heal through Atonement and in order to proc Power of the Dark Side.

Penance is a channeled ability that deals Holy damage to the target, or that heals an ally.

Mind Blast deals Shadow damage to the target and absorbs a portion of the next damage the target deals.

Smite deals Holy damage to the target. It is used primarily as a filler in your rotation, to deal damage that heals through Atonement.

Mind Sear deals Shadow damage to the target and all enemies around the target. Mind sear will only heal through Atonement for a single enemy cast per tick of Mind Sear damage, so utilizing this in AoE situations will not result in more healing. It will be used primary for AoE DPS or as the replacement filler in situations where you don't have access to the Holy spell school.

Power Word: Shield places a damage absorption shield on the target, which lasts up to 15 seconds. It applies Atonement to the target. Due to Weakened Soul, you cannot apply Power Word: Shield to the same target within 7.5 seconds. This debuff is not global and will not affect multiple Discipline Priests.

Shadow Mend heals the target, but also debuffs them to take damage over time until they have taken 50% of the amount for which Shadow Mend healed (including any damage that they take from other sources than this debuff). Shadow Mend applies Atonement to the target.

Power Word: Radiance heals the target and their 4 nearest allies, and applies Atonement to the targets at 60% duration. The range of the jump from the initial target is only 30 yards compared to the 40 yard range of the spell itself, so be conscientious of who you are casting this spell on.

Fade removes your threat on all targets for 10 seconds, on a 30-second cooldown. This is extremely useful if you take aggro of newly-spawned mobs. This spell also reduces the range in which you will aggro an enemy allowing you to more easily sneak past mobs. This second effect will mostly only matter in open world content.

Leap of Faith pulls the targeted ally to your location. It can be useful for helping your tanks kite, or simply for saving careless allies from avoidable damage.

Desperate Prayer increases maximum health by 25% for 10 sec, and instantly heals you for that amount.

Mind Soothe allows you to reduce aggro range of a single or multiple enemies, allowing you to potentially sneak by them without being seen. This utility can be potentially useful in situations where you can avoid killing trash packs and instead sneak by them.

Rapture is an ability with a 1.5-minute cooldown that increases the absorbs of your Power Word: Shield by 200% for 10 seconds. It is used primarily to allow you to spam Power Word: Shield, and through that to spread Atonement. Be aware that after Rapture expires any new Power Word: Shield casts will replace the previous buff on the target. While Rapture is active, Power Word: Shield will ignore Weakened Soul.

Pain Suppression reduces the damage the target takes by 40% for 8 seconds, with a 3-minute cooldown. It is generally used on tanks before a damage spike, but you can also use it on other raid members you know will take high damage.

Power Word: Barrier places a barrier at the targeted location for 10 seconds, which reduces all damage taken by allies located inside it by 25%. It has a 3-minute cooldown, and you should primarily use it to mitigate intense AoE damage.

Shadowfiend is a healing cooldown (summoning a shadowy fiend that attacks your target for 15 seconds), with a 3-minute cooldown. The damage that the Shadowfiend deals results in Atonement healing, which is its primary purpose. This should be used at high Atonement counts, primarily in conjunction with Evangelism in raids and with Power Word: Radiance in dungeons. Note that, the damage this deals is not amplified by Schism and should therefore be cast before you use Schism. If you are talented into Mindbender, it works the same as Shadowfiend but on a shorter cooldown and for less damage per cast.

Power Infusion grants the targeted player, either yourself or an ally, 25% Haste for 20 seconds on a 2-minute cooldown. This can be utilized to either grant a DPS player a large damage increase during their cooldowns or used on yourself to further amplify the impact of your burst healing.

Schism deals Shadow Damage to the target and increases the damage that target takes from your spells. This damage increase, in turn, increase the Atonement healing you do form hitting said target.

Angelic Feather is our primary mobility spell. By placing a feather at your own feet or on the ground for allies to pick up, you can increase the targets movement speed by a decent amount.

Power Word: Solace deals Holy Damage to the enemy as well as returning a small amount of mana back. Due to the mana return portion of this spell, you should aim to use it on cooldown as best as possible outside of interrupting a ramp sequence.

Shining Force knocks back all enemies around the target and slows them. This spell can be useful in a variety of situations where you need to control the location of enemies or assist a tank with kiting.

Shadow Covenant heals your target and 4 other allies around them for a significant on demand heal. For 9 seconds afterwards, your Shadow spells deal increased damage and healing, but you cannot cast Holy spells. This talent gives you an on demand heal to the group as well as increased throughput from some of your spells but at the risk of locking you out of a large amount of your utility and cooldowns for the duration. It can be powerful and impactful but also risky to use.

Divine Star deals damage and heals in a line in front of you before returning to your location. Due to its competition on the talent row as well as not being numerically there, it is very rarely used.

Halo deals damage and heals in a large area around you. This spell is generally used within a burst sequence for a significant heal to the group during a period of high intensity.

Spirit Shell replaces Rapture when taken. This talent as a baseline spell has a large opportunity cost, due to it replacing both Rapture and your ability to take another talent in that row, most notably Evangelism. While the spell may see niche use as is, its use will primarily require the involvement of other external systems.

Evangelism is Discipline's strongest Raid cooldown, allowing you to reach high uptime on a large number of atonements. Expect to take this the vast majority of the time in Raid content.

For information in regards to how to utilize the above spells in actual gameplay, please refer to the below rotation guide.

If you are in the process of leveling or have just starting leveling a Discipline Priest, you may not have access to all of the spells discussed above. Please refer to the leveling guide, which will go over when you obtain your different abilities.