Discipline Priest Healing Stat Priority — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1.5

1. The Basics of Stats for Discipline Priest

Intellect is your most important stat, and thus higher item level will usually provide better results. In terms of secondary stats, Haste has slightly more value than other secondaries, but not enough to reduce your item level to target it. The remaining secondaries are all quite equal in value.

The stat priority is as follows:

1. Intellect;
2. Haste;
3. Critical Strike;
4. Versatility.
5. Mastery;

Please keep in mind any stat "priority" will vary based on your current gear. It is recommended to choose a higher item level piece of gear in almost all cases because of the increased value of Intellect over all secondaries. Tertiary stats (Leech) or sockets can change this factoring slightly. As gear levels get higher, the value of secondaries will get closer to Intellect and eventually surpass it all together. This will NOT change our gearing strategy, as more stats will still be more valuable than specific stats, due to secondaries being so close in value to each other.

1.1. Leech and Avoidance

While we provide stat preference lists, swapping gear to higher item level items - and their higher intellect/total stats - should, usually, provide a larger upgrade than using lower item level items with higher priority stats. The exceptions to this rule are items with important tertiary stats, like Leech and Avoidance, which should still be used ahead of other items without them, unless the difference in item level is 10 or above.

2. Getting a Better Understanding of Discipline Priest Stats

Intellect is your primary stat. You should look for this stat in all of your upgrades. It provides you with Spell Power, which increases the power of your heals.

Haste reduces the cast time of your spells, reduces the cooldown of Power Word: Solace, and also reduces your global cooldown. Moreover, it increases the amount of attacks your Shadowfiend can make, and the number of ticks from Shadow Word: Pain/ Purge the Wicked.

Critical Strike grants your damaging spells and heals a chance to double their value. That said, it is worth noting that it does not double-dip with regards to Atonement healing (Atonement heals cannot be critical hits; they only heal for the amount of damage that was done, which is the only portion that can be a critical strike).

Mastery ( Mastery: Grace) increases your healing on Atonement targets. Please note that this DOES work with your Atonement healing and not just your direct healing.

Versatility increases all your damage and healing done, and decreases all damage taken.

3. Changelog