Discipline Priest PvP Guide in Battle for Azeroth (BfA 8.2.5)

Discipline Priests have the most unique style of all the healers. Not only do they do a large majority of their healing with damage, but they are the only healer with 2 healing schools. This makes them a force to be reckoned with when playing with aggressive classes.

• Dispel Magic and Mass Dispel are crucial
• Great defensives versus melee teams
• Multiple crowd control abilities

• Run out of Mana quickly
• Very little mobility
• Easy to crowd control

The stat priority for Discipline Priests in PvP is as follows:

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

Intellect is the best stat in all situations. Haste is the strongest secondary stat at all times due to it reducing the Global Cooldown on abilities and increasing the tick rate of your Dots. Versatility is also important for increasing your healing and reducing the damage you take.

Essences allow players to customize their characters while adding a new ability to use. This section will cover the best overall Azerite Essences for Discipline Priests in PvP. For a general guide to all the essences, as well as how to obtain them and increase their ranks, check out our Essence Guide.

Memory of Lucid Dreams increases your Mana generation by 100% for 12 seconds. This is a powerful trait versus teams that do well in high-dampening. As Discipline Priests are known for running out of Mana quickly, this should be your go-to Major Essence in every matchup.

If you are comfortable with running out of Mana quickly or your goal is to go all-in for a quick kill, The Crucible of Flame is another great choice. This gives Discipline Priests extra damage, resulting in extra healing to players with Atonement.

In addition to having a Major Essence, you can choose two Minor Essences to place in your neck at Heart of Azeroth Levels 55 and 65.

Memory of Lucid Dreams gives your spells and abilities a chance to refund 50% of the Mana spent on them and heal you. This is great for staying at a healthy Mana level throughout a long match.

Conflict and Strife grants a very powerful Versatility Minor Power. Not only do your spells have a chance to give you Versatility, but any loss of control to your character does too. This means that, if teams stun you and try to swap to you, you have additional Versatility and take less damage.

Vision of Perfection reduces the cooldown of Shadowfiend dramatically. This is another solid choice if you want to restore more Mana throughout an arena match.

Azerite traits are unlocked in you helm, shoulders and chest. With each Azerite level in your neck, you get closer to unlocking the center trait in your gear. These traits vary from increasing damage or healing of certain abilities to helping increase your survivability. Depending on what traits you use, it can completely alter your playstyle and what talents you should be using.

Below are the best Outer Ring traits.

1. Depth of the Shadows
2. Moment of Repose
3. Enduring Luminescence
4. Weal and Woe

Discipline Priests do not depend on one single trait to increase their damage. Instead, they want a mix of the above traits. Depth of the Shadows increases your damage and healing output. This trait will make it easier for your team to recover after being at low health. Weal and Woe increases your damage. This results in doing more healing. Moment of Repose gives your Pain Suppression an additional affect and makes it even more powerful. Enduring Luminescence increases your instant healing. These traits are perfect for quickly healing a partner to full health.

Below are the best Middle Ring traits.

1. On My Way
2. Blessed Portents
3. Woundbinder
4. Overwhelming Power

The Middle and Inner Rings are important for additional healing. On My Way, Woundbinder, and Overwhelming Power all give a chance at increasing a stat. These are all great choices and the increase to a stat increase your overall healing output. Blessed Portents will help you heal a teammate who has low health.

Below are the best Inner Ring traits.

1. Resounding Protection
2. Twist Magic
3. Impassive Visage
4. Death Denied

All of these traits give you additional ways of surviving. These are all passive, but are crucial to have.

In general, Discipline Priests do not have a specific cooldown that you need trinkets to line up with. As a result, your trinkets can have a passive or on-use effect. The stat you want to be increasing is Intellect. The reason you want to increase Intellect is because it drastically increases your overall healing and damage output.

To be successful in 3v3 arena, you need to have at least two pieces of gear with either Battlefield Focus/ Battlefield Precision or Depth of the Shadows. You will also want either On My Way or Blessed Portents in the second tier.

Below, we list the items that have these traits.

• Blazewing Hood;
• Charged SP1-R1-73D Synthetic Specs;
• Notorious Gladiator's Silk Cowl;
• Notorious Gladiator's Silk Cowl;
• Notorious Gladiator's Silk Helm;
• Notorious Gladiator's Silk Helm.

• Amice of the Returned;
• Pauldrons of Vile Corruption;
• Notorious Gladiator's Silk Epaulets;
• Notorious Gladiator's Silk Epaulets;
• Mantle of Void-Touched Waters;
• Notorious Gladiator's Silk Amice;
• Notorious Gladiator's Silk Amice.

• Divine Fury Raiment;
• Notorious Gladiator's Silk Chestwrap;
• Notorious Gladiator's Silk Chestwrap;
• Loa Betrayer's Vestments;
• Notorious Gladiator's Silk Raiment;
• Notorious Gladiator's Silk Raiment.

Void Stone is a mandatory trinket. This trinket absorbs a lot of damage and can completely negate the enemy team's offensive cooldowns. This should be used when you see the enemy team use a powerful cooldown and rotate this trinket with your other cooldowns.

Notorious Gladiator's Maledict is absolutely the best trinket you can have. The on-use damage and healing absorption is capable of forcing defensives by itself. This can be used by itself or while you are using your burst rotation to force multiple cooldowns out of enemy teams.

Notorious Gladiator's Safeguard is a mandatory trinket if you think the enemy team can swap to you and kill you. This provides and additional defensive for when you drop to low health. If you do not think a team will swap to you and kill you, you can use replace this one with any of the trinkets below.

Notorious Gladiator's Badge is strong for the Versatility and the on-use Intellect effect. The 2-minute cooldown is long, but should be used every time you are using your burst healing rotation.

Notorious Gladiator's Insignia has a good amount of Versatility on it and has a passive effect. This effect increases your Intellect. This increases your sustained healing and damage output.

Enchant Weapon - Oceanic Restoration is best weapon enchant. This increases your primary stat, Intellect, and has a chance to restore your Mana. These two effects are great for keeping your team-mates alive and keeping your Mana at a healthy spot.

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

While the above table provides a generally accurate overview of the viability of talents, some finer points are discussed in the sections that follow, and we recommend you read those for a deeper understanding.

Twist of Fate is the best choice in this tier. This will help you keep your team alive once you leave crowd control or if you are playing against a team with strong single target damage.

Angelic Feather is the best choice in this tier. This will help you run to or from enemy players. This is crucial for getting a Psychic Scream on an enemy healer. If you find yourself not using Angelic Feather often or you think the enemy team will focus you, Masochism is the better talent in this tier.

Power Word: Solace is the best choice in this tier. This talent restores a decent amount of Mana and works well with the Trinity PvP talent.

If the goal for your team is to setup crowd control on the enemy healer, Psychic Voice is the best choice in this tier. This makes Psychic Scream a very strong crowd control ability.

If your team is focusing on surviving against a team with two melee on it, Shining Force could be the better talent. If you take this talent, you are sacrificing crowd control for survivability.

Sins of the Many is the best choice in this tier. This is a flat increase to your damage, resulting in overall more healing dealt. It is important to note that it does not decrease damage done when you have Atonement on yourself. This talent also works great with the Trinity PvP talent.

Purge the Wicked is the best choice in this tier. When using this talent it is important to use it often to get value from Atonement. Using Penance to spread Purge the Wicked will help you save Mana.

Lenience is the best choice in this tier. This talent is crucial to keeping your teammates alive. Atonement should be active on all of your partners and increases your overall healing output.

The first PvP talent tier is will give you a choice between Gladiator's Medallion, Relentless, and Adaptation. Gladiator's Medallion is the best choice in this tier. It is great for removing crowd control on you that a teammate could not stop. You will normally use Gladiator's Medallion on a stun followed up by Rapture or a Psychic Scream on the enemy healer.

Trinity increases the duration of Atonement and the healing transferred through Atonement. However, Atonement can now only affect up to 3 targets and can only be applied through Power Word: Shield. This is by far one of the strongest PvP talents you can have. This is an overall large increase to your damage, which results in even more healing.

Dark Archangel increases your damage, and the damage of all allies with your Atonement for 8 seconds. This is a strong talent if your team is relying on large bursts to kill a target.

Ultimate Radiance makes your Power Word: Radiance instant and increases the healing done by 200%. This, in combination with talents like Twist of Fate, is crucial to keeping your team alive. Power Word: Radiance costs a lot of Mana and should only be used when your team is low on Health.

Purification gives Purify a maximum of 2 charges. Against teams with crowd control like Polymorph or Fear, this is crucial to be able to dispel your teammates. This will help your team have as much uptime on an enemy as possible without being slowed by crowd control. In this case, you should replace Dark Archangel with this talent.

Premonition heals nearby targets and applies Atonement to yourself. It also deals damage to yourself for each Atonement you have active, and increases their duration by 5 seconds. This is a great talent against teams with multiple crowd control abilities that will be used on you. Use this ability at the end of the incoming crowd control to break it. In this case, replace Ultimate Radiance with this talent.

Archangel refreshes the duration of your Atonement on all allies when cast. It also increases your healing and absorption effects for 15 seconds. This talent is on a Global Cooldown and it is difficult to find a useful time to use it. If you are healing a team that will play defensively and you want to keep them at high health, you can replace Archangel with this talent.

Racial bonuses can provide interesting PvP benefits. Here are the best races to choose for each faction. The races are sorted from highest impact in arena to lowest. However, all races below have their own unique ways of making an impact in a PvP match.

The Undead racial bonus ( Will of the Forsaken) removes any Charm, Fear or Sleep effect from you. This is a great racial versus specializations, like Destruction Warlocks, that are able to fear you constantly throughout an arena match. It is important to note that this does share a 30-second cooldown with Gladiator's Medallion, so it is advised to only use it when you do not want to waste Gladiators Medallion.

The Blood Elf racial bonus ( Arcane Torrent) has multiple effects. The primary use for this ability is that it removes 1 beneficial effect from all enemies in range. This is great for removing abilities such as Blessing of Protection from Paladins or Soul of the Forest from Restoration Druids. It can also be used versus players using the The Crucible of Flame Major Essence to remove the stacks it creates. The other effect is that it restores resources based on what specialization you are.

The Human racial bonus ( Every Man for Himself) is a great way to get out of stuns. If you think you will be the focus target versus teams with multiple stuns, this race allows you to play Relentless. This will help increase your overall survivability. It is also important to note that Humans also have The Human Spirit. This increases your secondary stats (Haste, Critical Strike, Mastery, Versatility). This is another beneficial reason to play Human.

The Night Elf racial bonus ( Shadowmeld) is always a strong choice. This racial has a high skill cap, but using it to avoid crowd control can be very powerful. For example, if a Mage is casting Polymorph on you, use Shadowmeld to avoid it. If you use Shadowmeld at the same time that a Priest uses their Psychic Scream, you will not be feared.

The Gnome racial bonus ( Escape Artist) removes any movement speed reduction effects on you. With only a 1-minute cooldown, this can be used both defensively or offensively. You can use this to help kite incoming damage or use it to remove slows on you while chasing down an enemy. Another racial that Gnome provides is Expansive Mind. This will increase your maximum Mana, which helps with not running out of resources.

The Dwarf racial bonus ( Stoneform) removes Poison, Disease, Magic, and bleed effects. In addition to this, it reduces all Physical damage taken by 10%. This racial can make a large impact versus teams that have multiple Bleed or Magical damage over time abilities. It is also important to note that this racial lines up with the cooldown from Maledict trinkets and can be used to remove the absorption that is placed on you from Maledict. Another example is removing bleeds versus Assassination Rogues or Feral Druids that are focusing you. This will significantly slow down the damage being dealt to you.

The main role for a Discipline Priest is to use both your healing and damaging spells to keep your team alive. The passive ability, Atonement, allows you to directly heal from your damaging spells.

Before the gates open you will want to coordinate your crowd control. Discipline Priests have Psychic Scream, a great way to fear an entire team. The only weakness about this ability is that you need to be in melee range to use it. It is important for your teammates to try to stun the enemy healer before using Psychic Scream so they cannot run away. Make sure to use Power Word: Fortitude on your teammates. It can be dispelled by abilities like Purge or Spellsteal, so be prepared to apply it often.

The other team is going to try to force your trinket in the opener so they have an advantage later in the game. As soon as the gates open you want to use Power Word: Shield on your teammates to apply Atonement to them. Then start using Purge the Wicked on enemies. This way, if you are put into crowd control you will still be healing with Atonement.

It is important to note that, after using Power Word: Shield, your target will get a debuff called Weakened Soul. This means that you cannot use Power Word: Shield on that target for 7.5 seconds. As a result, the primary purpose for Power Word: Shield is to just apply Atonement. However, while Rapture is active, you are able to use Power Word: Shield on targets that are affected by Weakened Soul.

The great thing about Discipline Priests is that they have the multiple ways to keep teammates alive and high on health.

• The first method is best when the enemy team has strong single target pressure:
  1. Use Power Word: Shield to apply Atonement.
  2. Make sure to maintain Purge the Wicked on multiple targets.
  3. If they are very low, use Pain Suppression.
  4. Use Penance on an enemy player to spread Purge the Wicked.
  5. Cast Shadow Mend until your teammate is fine or you get interrupted.
  6. Use Power Word: Radiance as soon as you get interrupted on Shadow Mend.
• The second method is best used when your team is taking strong spread pressure:
  1. Use Power Word: Barrier if your entire team is stacked.
  2. Use Power Word: Shield to apply Atonement.
  3. Make sure to maintain Purge the Wicked on multiple targets.
  4. Use Memory of Lucid Dreams.
  5. Use Power Word: Radiance.
  6. Use Shadowfiend.
  7. Use Penance on an enemy player to spread Purge the Wicked.
  8. Use Shadow Mend to heal up lower teammates.
  9. Use Power Word: Radiance as soon as you get interrupted on Shadow Mend.
• You can use Rapture for either of these situations. It is ideal to use it after you have been crowd controlled so you do not lose value while it is active. While it is active, make sure to use and maintain Power Word: Shield on all teammates. Use Penance to spread Purge the Wicked.

Use this to heal sustained damage throughout the match (damage done when the other team does not have burst cooldowns available).

1. Maintain Atonement on all of your teammates. If you are using the PvP talent, Trinity (which you should be), use Power Word: Shield to apply it.
2. Maintain Shadow Word: Pain or Purge the Wicked on the enemy team.
   • Remember to use Penance to spread the damage of Purge the Wicked.
3. Use Penance as soon as it is off cooldown.
4. Use Power Word: Solace as soon as it is off cooldown.
5. Use Shadow Mend if you get interrupted on your Holy abilities.
6. Use Power Word: Radiance if you get interrupted on your Shadow abilities.
7. When there is not much damage happening use Smite when teammates have Atonement.

Because you should be using 1 or more of the Depth of the Shadows traits, it is crucial to maintain Purge the Wicked on all enemies.

Although Discipline Priests can heal with their damage, sometimes this is not enough to keep teammates alive. Below are the cooldowns that they have to deal with heavy damage.

• Memory of Lucid Dreams is one of your strong cooldowns. It does not heal, but it restores Mana. This should be used right before you start casting multiple Shadow Mends or Power Word: Radiance. This will keep your Mana high throughout an arena match.
• Pain Suppression is a strong defensive with a long cooldown. It will primarily be used while you are stunned, but should be used whenever a teammate is taking strong single target damage.
• Power Word: Barrier is also a strong defensive with a long cooldown. It is best used when your teammates are stacked and taking strong spread pressure. The bonus healing you gain when standing in it will help keep your teammates alive.
• Rapture is a powerful cooldown that should not be wasted. Use this when your team is dangerously low and you need a way to recover. This can be used when your team is taking single target or spread pressure.
• Shadowfiend is best used when your teammates are starting to take light spread pressure and have Atonement active.
• Desperate Prayer increases your health by 25% for 10 seconds, and instantly heals you for that amount. This is great for when you get interrupted on Shadow Mend and need an instant heal.

Now that you have the correct talents and understand your damage rotation, it is time to step into the arena with your team. With spells like Purge the Wicked, Penance and Psychic Scream, Discipline Priests play with classes that are very aggressive.

In 2v2 Arena, you want to deal as much damage as you can when your DPS partner is using their burst rotation. Maintain Purge the Wicked on all enemies, including pets. Use Penance as soon as it is off cooldown. Use Dark Archangel when your partner is using their burst rotation for a large amount of damage. Have your teammate stun or slow the enemy healer so you can easily get a Psychic Scream on them. It is important to note that Discipline Priests are the only healer with multiple casting schools. What this means, is if you get interrupted while casting Shadow Mend, you can still use Power Word: Radiance or Power Word: Shield.

Here is a list of the best team compositions for 2v2:

• Discipline Priest + Assassination/Subtlety Rogue;
• Discipline Priest + Arms Warrior;
• Discipline Priest + Windwalker Monk;
• Discipline Priest + Frost Mage.

Your role in 3v3 is similar to 2v2 Arena. You want to always be damaging to maintain pressure on the enemy team. Discipline Priests struggle when they fall behind, so you always want to stay ahead. Maintain and refresh your Purge the Wicked. Try to utilize Mind Control. If you are interrupted while channeling it, you can still cast your Holy spells. Remember to take advantage of having more than one casting school. There will be some match ups where you cannot cross the map to use Psychic Scream on the enemy healer. In those situations, use Psychic Scream on whichever DPS your team is not targeting.

Here is a list of the best team compositions for 3v3:

• RMP (Discipline Priest + Subtlety Rogue + Frost Mage);
• FireRMP (Disciple Priest + Assassination Rogue + Fire Mage);
• Jungle(Discipline Priest + Feral Druid + Marksmanship Hunter);
• Cupid (Discipline Priest + Retribution Paladin + Marksmanship Hunter);
• Discipline Priest + Outlaw Rogue + Elemental Shaman.

Macros are crucial to be successful in PvP. They allow players to use abilities on enemies without having to target them. This helps increase overall damage/healing and general awareness in the arena. Here are a few macros that all Discipline Priests can benefit from.

• #showtooltip Purge the Wicked
• /cast [target=arena1] Purge the Wicked

Using this macro will use Purge the Wicked on arena enemy 1. This makes it easier to damage an enemy while healing your team. If you want macros for the second and third enemies, simply change the arena1 to arena2 or arena3.

• #showtooltip Penance
• /cast [harm][@targettarget] Penance

This makes it so you cast Penance on your party member's target.

• #showtooltip Purify
• /cast [target=party1] Purify

Using this macro will cast Purify on party player 1. This makes it easier to dispel a teammate while healing the rest of your team. If you want a macro to dispel the second party member, change the party1 to party2.