Discipline Priest PvP Guide (Legion 7.2.5)

Table of Contents

• 1. Spec Overview / Place in the Current Meta
• 2. Gear
• +3. Artifact Traits
  • 3.1. First Golden Trait
  • 3.2. Second Golden Trait
  • 3.3. Remaining Traits
• 4. Relics
• +5. Talent Choices
  • 5.1. Regular Talents
    • 5.1.1. Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents
    • 5.1.2. Tier 2 (Level 30) Talents
    • 5.1.3. Tier 3 (Level 45) Talents
    • 5.1.4. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents
    • 5.1.5. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents
    • 5.1.6. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents
    • 5.1.7. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents
  • 5.2. Honor Talents
    • 5.2.1. Tier 1 Talents
    • 5.2.2. Tier 2 Talents
    • 5.2.3. Tier 3 Talents
    • 5.2.4. Tier 4 Talents
    • 5.2.5. Tier 5 Talents
    • 5.2.6. Tier 6 Talents
• +6. Racial Bonuses
  • 6.1. Horde
  • 6.2. Alliance
• +7. Playstyle
  • 7.1. Before Gates Open
  • 7.2. The Opener
  • 7.3. Healing Techniques
    • 7.3.1. Burst Healing
    • 7.3.2. Sustained Damage Healing
  • 7.4. Cooldowns/Defensives
• 8. ChangeLog

Introduction

This guide will walk you through everything you need to know to play a Discipline Priest in a PvP environment. The guide will cover everything from talent choices, artifacts, gameplay and rotation, and useful racial bonuses. It is most applicable to Arena content, but most talents and racial bonuses will work in Rated Battlegrounds and skirmishes.

About The Author

This guide has been written by Mysticall, a seasoned PvP player who has repeatedly achieved Arena Master and 2300 rating. You can watch his stream on Twitch, and you can also check out his YouTube channel.

1. Spec Overview / Place in the Current Meta

Discipline Priest 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.

2. Gear

With regards to gear, the biggest change in Legion is that there is no more PvP gear. Your strength in PvP will be determined based on the average item level of your gear (as displayed on your character sheet). For example, the base item level at level 110 is 800, so your stats in PvP will be adjusted accordingly. For every 10 item levels you gain, your stats are increased by 1%.

The implication is that it does not matter where your gear comes from, and all that matters is its item level. Gear from quests or PvE content is just as good as gear you get as a reward from PvP (which, in fact, will be very similar to PvE gear; there are no more PvP stats on gear).

Practically, you will simply look to collect gear with the highest item levels possible, and the stat distribution on the gear will not matter.

3. Artifact Traits

Below, we will explain what the recommended order for artifact traits is, if you wish to maximise your PvP potential. It is quite possible that your artifact path (at the time of reading this guide) differs from our suggestions. If this is the case, do not worry, and use the information below to help you understand your traits and guide your future choices.

If you recently decided to make a Discipline Priest and are behind on your Artifact weapon, or you have decided to venture into PvP with your Discipline Priest, try to first get the closest Golden trait. Picking up some of the more crucial traits ( Pain is in Your Mind, Doomsayer and Speed of the Pious and Vestments of Discipline) is highly recommended to begin PvP.

3.1. First Golden Trait

The first Golden trait you want to reach is Barrier for the Devoted.

1. Take Invoke the Light.
2. Take Confession. Penance is one of your primary healing abilities. With this trait your overall healing output will be increased.
3. Take Vestments of Discipline. Although most teams will not focus you, this is a great trait if they try. This trait increases your survivability.
4. Take Pain is in Your Mind. Pain Suppression is one of your strongest healing cooldowns for single target pressure. By decreasing the cooldown you immediately have a better chance at surviving versus teams like that.
5. Take Barrier for the Devoted. This makes you Power Word: Barrier a much stronger cooldown. While active, you will want your entire team to be inside and use damaging abilities to keep your team alive.

3.2. Second Golden Trait

The second Golden trait to go for is Sins of the Many.

1. Take Doomsayer. Rapture is a strong ability with a long cooldown. With a longer duration you increase the survivability of you and your teammates.
2. Take Borrowed Time. This trait will allow you to deal damage faster and is an increase to your healing output.
3. Take Sins of the Many. A large source of your healing comes from damaging enemies. Maintaining Atonement on as many teammates as possible will increase your damage. This will result in an increase to your healing output.

3.3. Remaining Traits

After this, you should try to pick up the last Golden trait, Power of the Dark Side, picking up the remaining traits after that. There is no specific order for the rest, but a recommended trait to get is Speed of the Pious.

4. Relics

Relics are disabled in PvP, so they are not a concern to you.

5. Talent Choices

Regular talents work in both PvP and PvE content (although they may sometimes work differently in the two environments, which is indicated by their tooltips). In other words, they are always active.

On the other hand, Honor talents are inactive outside of a PvP environment.

5.1. Regular Talents

5.1.1. Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents

If you are playing with teammates with strong single target damage, Castigation is the best choice in this tier. This increases both your damage and healing output.

If you are playing against a team with a lot of crowd control, Twist of Fate is the best choice in this tier. This will help you keep your team alive once you leave crowd control.

5.1.2. Tier 2 (Level 30) Talents

Angelic Feather is the best choice in this tier. This will help you run to or from enemy players. If you find yourself not using Angelic Feather often, Masochism is a good talent if the enemy team will focus you.

5.1.3. Tier 3 (Level 45) Talents

Psychic Voice is the best choice in this tier. This reduces the cooldown of your only crowd control Psychic Scream. This is a very powerful AoE crowd control ability. However, if you know that the team will focus you and you are on the Blade's Edge map, Shining Force is a great talent to keep yourself alive.

5.1.4. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents

Mindbender is the best choice in this tier. This is a great talent for not only damage and Mana, but healing through the passive Atonement.

5.1.5. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents

Clarity of Will is the best choice in this tier. This is a great shield that should be used on your teammates right when the match begins. Not only that, but if you get locked on your Shadow spells you will be able to follow up with a Clarity of Will.

5.1.6. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents

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.

5.1.7. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents

Grace 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.

5.2. Honor Talents

5.2.1. Tier 1 Talents

This tier depends on what type of team you are playing against. If you are playing against a team with very little crowd control, Adaptation is the best choice in this tier. If you are playing against a team with multiple stuns, Relentless is the best choice in this tier. Against any other teams, Gladiator's Medallion is the best choice in this tier, which provides a standard PvP trinket effect.

5.2.2. Tier 2 Talents

Vim and Vigor is the best choice in this tier. Because not many teams will focus you, the 20% granted from this talent is a large healing increase.

5.2.3. Tier 3 Talents

If you are playing against a team with strong spread pressure from DoTs, Purified Resolve is the best choice in this tier. This will help you dispel without falling behind in healing. However, if you are playing against a team with multiple crowd control abilities that can be dispelled, Polymorph or Fear for example, Purification is the best choice in this tier. This will help your team have as much uptime on an enemy as possible without being slowed by crowd control.

5.2.4. Tier 4 Talents

If you are playing against a team with very little crowd control, Trinity is the best choice in this tier. With talent will help especially against spread pressure teams. If you are playing against a team with multiple crowd control abilities, Premonition is the best choice in this tier. It is important to use this ability at the end of any incoming crowd control to break it.

5.2.5. Tier 5 Talents

If you are playing against a team with at least one melee on it, Strength of Soul is the best choice in this tier. This talent will help you heal against strong melee classes such as Warriors and Rogues.

If you are playing against a team with no melee on it, Ultimate Radiance is the best choice in this tier. This will help you heal against caster and spread pressure teams much easier.

5.2.6. Tier 6 Talents

Archangel is the best choice in this tier. This is a very strong ability with only a 1 minute cooldown. This matches most offensive damaging abilites that enemies have. If your team is having trouble killing enemies you can use Dark Archangel for the additional damage.

6. Racial Bonuses

Racial bonuses can provide interesting PvP benefits. Here are the best races to choose for each faction.

6.1. Horde

The racial gained from being a Blood Elf ( Arcane Torrent) is really strong. This gives you an additional way to crowd control or interrupt spells.

6.2. Alliance

The Human racial bonus ( Every Man for Himself) is a great way to get out of stuns.

7. Playstyle

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.

7.1. Before Gates Open

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.

7.2. The Opener

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 Clarity of Will on the teammate you think the enemy team will be focusing. You should also start applying Atonement with Plea and Power Word: Shield.

If you are put into a stun you should use Pain Suppression. However, you should use Premonition if the enemy team is casting a crowd control that can break from damage.

7.3. Healing Techniques

7.3.1. Burst Healing

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

1. The first method is best when the enemy team has strong single target pressure:
   1. Use Archangel.
   2. Use Power Word: Shield.
   3. Use Pain Suppression.
   4. Use Penance on an enemy player.
   5. Cast Shadow Mend until your teammate is fine or you get interrupted.
   6. Cast Clarity of Will as soon as you get interrupted on Shadow Mend.
2. 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 Archangel.
   3. Use Power Word: Radiance.
   4. Use Mindbender.
   5. Use Penance on an enemy player.
   6. Use Shadow Mend to heal up lower teammates.
   7. Use Clarity of Will if you are interrupted on Shadow Mend.

Unlike Holy Priest cooldowns, Discipline Priests have strong abilities with longer cooldowns. It is important to take advantage of them while they are active./p>

7.3.2. Sustained Damage Healing

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. There are multiple ways to do this.
   • Use Plea to instantly put Atonement on a teammate.
   • use Power Word: Shield will apply both a shield and Atonement.
   • Casting Shadow Mend on a teammate will apply Atonement.
   • Finally, using Power Word: Radiance will apply Atonement to all teammates in range.
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 Power Word: Shield as soon as it is off cooldown.
4. Use Penance as soon as it is off cooldown.
5. Use Shadow Mend if you get interrupted on your Holy abilites.
6. Use Clarity of Will if you get interrupted on your Shadow abilities.
7. When there is not much damage happening use Smite when teammates have Atonement.

7.4. Cooldowns/Defensives

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.

• 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.
• Light's Wrath should only be used when you have Atonement active on all of your teammates. This is a great cooldown for both single target and spread pressure healing.
• Mindbender is best used when your teammates are starting to take light spread pressure and have Atonement active.
• Fade is a strong defensive with the Vestments of Discipline trait. This should be used as soon as enemies swap to you.

8. ChangeLog

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• 08 Jul. 2017: Guide added.