Discipline Priest PvP Rotation and Playstyle — Midnight (12.0.1)

Discuss with your team to have a game plan. You and your team need to agree on who to control and who to kill before the game begins. You also need to know who will use their defensive cooldowns first, as overlapping defensives will make it very difficult for you to keep your team alive.

Discipline Priest's PvP Talent choices greatly vary depending on the comps and specs you face. Always make sure that you have the correct ones every game. For more information on the correct talents to play, read the talents section of this guide here:

Buff your team with Power Word: Fortitude and you are good to go!

In the opener, you need to make sure you apply your Atonement to every potential target in your team to be able to heal your damage as soon as combat starts. This can be done by using Power Word: Shield, Flash Heal, Plea, or Penance on your teammate. You also want to apply Shadow Word: Pain to your kill target as soon as possible. It is crucial to do so because not only does it contribute to damage and healing, but it also has a chance to grant you Power of the Dark Side procs upon dealing damage, which is a significant buff as it empowers Penance. With the talent Encroaching Shadows, if you use Penance on an enemy with Shadow Word: Pain, Shadow Word: Pain will spread to a random nearby enemy. Lastly, mind your positioning. As a Discipline Priest, you are not very mobile, so it is important to have a pillar for cover right from the start to avoid crowd control or attacks. Use Fade/ Phase Shift to avoid crowd control on you and stay max range with Phantom Reach.

Before talking about healing spells, it is important to understand healing through Atonement. Whether you play Oracle or Voidweaver, you want to maximize your healing with it. Atonement is a buff you give your teammates by using Power Word: Shield, Flash Heal, Plea, Penance, or Power Word: Radiance on them. This causes your spell damage to heal all targets with Atonement for 50% of the damage done.

One of the strengths of Discipline Priests is the damage they can deal when their team goes for a kill. Before going for damage, always make sure you have Atonement active on any ally who is not at max health or will take damage while you deal damage yourself. Your burst damage rotation is as follows:

1. Make sure Shadow Word: Pain is on your target.
2. Use Power Infusion on a DPS teammate.
3. Use Shadowfiend/ Voidwraith if you are Voidweaver.
4. Use Mindgames if you play this PvP talent.
5. Use Shadow Word: Death if your target drops below 20% health.
6. Use Penance as soon as it is off cooldown.
   • Ideally you want to have a Power of the Dark Side proc ready to empower your Penance. However, you should still use Penance if you do not have one.
7. Use Mind Blast as soon as it is off cooldown.
8. Use Smite when all of the above is done, and your spells are rotating back off cooldown.

If you are playing the Voidweaver, the rotation does not change much. The mindset you need when playing this Hero Talent is that you only heal through damage and you have short windows where you can do this damage. Here is the rotation you want to following:

• Make sure Shadow Word: Pain is on your target.
• Use Power Infusion on a DPS teammate.
• Use Voidwraith.
• Use Power Word: Shield or Renew to apply Atonement to your teammates.
• Use Mind Blast. This summons an Entropic Rift. This is where most of your damage and healing comes from. With 4-set, it grows with more damage you do.
• Use Void Blast. Void Blast replaces Smite while Entropic Rift is active. Essentially, you want to use Void Blast as much as possible during Entropic Rift's duration.
• Use Void Blast.
• Use Void Blast.
• Use Void Blast.
• Use Void Blast.

This is the ideal rotation for Voidweaver Discipline Priests. During these burst windows you also want to use tools like Shadow Word: Death and Fade to avoid crowd control so you can keep dealing damage.

When the enemy team uses offensive cooldowns and has a lot of damage, you need to have a high healing output to keep your team alive. You will most likely also have to use defensive cooldowns. Keep in mind that Discipline Priests are not designed to heal high amounts of damage over an extended period, so you have to make sure you use the right cooldowns to mitigate as much damage as possible. How to best use your defensive cooldowns is detailed in the "Defensive Cooldowns" section below.

1. Use Power Word: Barrier if the enemy cooldowns call for it (see the "Defensive Cooldowns" section). You will have to use it against most standard DPS offensive cooldowns to mitigate the damage.
2. Use Power Word: Shield if it is not on cooldown.
3. If you are Voidweaver, do the following before continuing with your rotation:
   • Mind Blast.
   • Void Blast.
   • Void Blast.
   • Void Blast.
   • Void Blast.
4. Use Penance on an enemy player. Because you are doing damage to an enemy, you will heal your teammates that have Atonement on them.
   • This will also spread Shadow Word: Pain if you used it on the enemy you are targeting.
5. Use Flash Heal if you get a Surge of Light proc.
6. Use Evangelism if you are still falling behind on healing. This is a very strong cooldown that does a large amount of instant healing.
   • Note: This has an instant heal and also makes your next 2 Power Word: Radiances instant cast with 40% reduced mana cost.
   • With the Archangel talent, Evangelism also increases your healing and absorption effects for 18 seconds.
7. Use Plea for an instant heal.
8. Use Power Word: Radiance.
9. Use Flash Heal if your teammates are still in danger and you don't have Penance, Power Word: Shield, or Power Word: Radiance available.
10. If you are still unable to stabilize your team, use your second charge of Power Word: Radiance.
11. Use Pain Suppression if one of your teammates is taking high amounts of single target damage and you cannot stabilize them without damage reduction.
    • Pain Suppression should be held until you are stunned so you have a cooldown to use while crowd controlled. This will help prevent you from having to stack a major cooldown and trinket.

When the enemy team is not using cooldowns, you do not need to use powerful heals to keep your team alive. Instead, you will use a combination of healing spells and offensive spells to heal through Atonement. That way, you will contribute to your team's damage, forcing the enemy healer to heal more and spend more Mana while not spending much Mana yourself.

1. Maintain Atonement on every team member that is taking damage and needs healing. If your allies are at full health, then refresh it with Power Word: Shield, Flash Heal, Plea, or Penance. If your allies are not at full health use Flash Heal to refresh it as it is more valuable Mana-wise.
2. Use Plea for an instant heal.
3. If you are Voidweaver, do the following before continuing with your rotation:
   • Mind Blast.
   • Void Blast.
   • Void Blast.
   • Void Blast.
   • Void Blast.
4. Maintain Shadow Word: Pain on the enemy team. This is your highest source of damage overall and your highest source of Atonement healing.
   • Remember to use Penance to spread the damage of Shadow Word: Pain rather than using it manually on multiple enemies.
5. Use Penance offensively as soon as it is off cooldown.
6. Use Smite when all of the above is done, and your spells are rotating back off cooldown.
7. Use Mind Blast as soon as it is off cooldown.
8. Use Evangelism if you are still falling behind on healing. This is a very strong cooldown that does a large amount of instant healing.
   • Note: This has an instant heal and also makes your next 2 Power Word: Radiances instant cast with 40% reduced mana cost.
   • With the Archangel talent, Evangelism also increases your healing and absorption effects for 18 seconds.
9. Use Power Word: Radiance.
10. Use Power Word: Radiance.

You can weave in some Flash Heal and Plea in the sustained healing rotation when Atonement alone is not enough to keep your team alive. If needed, Penance can also be used defensively, although it is better to use it offensively as much as possible. Try to avoid using Power Word: Radiance when there is not too much damage going out.

Pain Suppression is very powerful defensive. With the talent Protector of the Frail it doesn't have such a long cooldown anymore. It will primarily be used while you are stunned and anticipate either follow-up crowd control on you, high burst damage on someone in your team, or both. You should still use it outside of a stun if someone in your team is going to die.

Fade should be one of the first defensive cooldowns you use when teams swap or start focusing you. This spell removes slows on you from Phantasm, reduces damage you take from Translucent Image, and you avoid all attacks/spells for 1 sec from Phase Shift.

Power Word: Barrier is your most powerful defensive cooldown when playing with the PvP talent Dome of Light. You want to use it when your team is taking heavy damage. It is usually best to use it as an answer to powerful offensive cooldowns used by the enemy. Typically you will want to use Barrier when an Assassination Rogue uses Deathmark when a Retribution Paladin uses Avenging Wrath when an Arms or Fury Warrior uses Avatar or Recklessness respectively, and so on. That way, half of their burst damage will be mitigated by your Barrier, allowing you to heal the rest of the damage with ease. It can also be used when a Rogue uses Smoke Bomb on one of your teammates. That way, your teammate should stay alive long enough for the Smoke Bomb to end, and you will then be able to heal.

Note: this is on a choice node with Ultimate Penitence. If you want to play more aggressive, play Ultimate Penitence. However, if you want to play more defensively and from maxed range, play Power Word: Barrier.

Power Infusion grants your target 25% Haste for 20s. You can use it both offensively and defensively. If you play with a teammate that greatly benefits from it, such as an Assassination Rogue, a Retribution Paladin, or an Affliction Warlock, you want to use it on them when they use their offensive cooldowns. Otherwise, you can use it on yourself when you are about to do your burst damage. Last it can be used on yourself when you struggle to keep your team alive and need extra Haste to heal faster. Remember that thanks to the talent Twins of the Sun Priestess, you also get Power Infusion for yourself when using it on an ally.

Desperate Prayer increases your health by 25% for 10 seconds and instantly heals you for that amount. This is a good spell to use when you are the target of the enemy team and struggle to keep yourself alive.

Shadow Word: Death is your one way to avoid incoming CC. If you use it and the target does not die, you will be damaged a second later. This is important because it means you can use it preemptively when you are about to be hit by a crowd control ability that breaks on damage to free yourself. And, of course, its primary use remains: executing an enemy low on health.