Discipline Priest PvP Talents and Builds (Shadowlands / 9.2.5)

Level	Choices
15	✔ Castigation	? Twist of Fate	? Schism
25	✔ Body and Soul	✔ Masochism	✘ Angelic Feather
30	✘ Shield Discipline	✘ Mindbender	✔ Power Word: Solace
35	✔ Psychic Voice	✘ Dominant Mind	? Shining Force
40	✔ Sins of the Many	✘ Contrition	✘ Shadow Covenant
45	✔ Purge the Wicked	✘ Divine Star	✘ Halo
50	✔ Lenience	✘ Spirit Shell	✘ 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.

Castigation is the best choice in this tier. This will add one bolt to your Penance, effectively buffing it by 33%. With the set bonus empowering Power of the Dark Side this talent is a significant buff to your damage and healing.

Twist of Fate is a good option against teams that will crowd control you for an extended period of time to kill your teammates. If your teammates are still alive when you come out of CC they will often be low enough on health for you to benefit from Twist of Fate, giving you an easier time topping them. However with the set bonus giving so much value to Penance this talent is not necessarily better than Castigation.

Schism is a good option if you are Kyrian and play a comp that allows you to attack almost always, without requiring you to cast heals often. If you play such a comp Schism will significantly increase your sustained and burst damage since it will empower your Boon of the Ascended, your buffed Penance, as well as any other spell that you use alongside it. As a result you will be able to sustain your team with Atonement. However if you are not able to cast almost exclusively offensive spells while playing Schism then Castigation is simply a better option since your best offensive and defensive ability is Penance.

Body and Soul is the best choice in this tier if you are not going to be heavily focused by the enemy team. As a Discipline Priest you use your Power Word: Shield often so having it boost the target's speed while healing and reapplying Atonement is a nice bonus.

Masochism is the best choice in this tier if you are going to be the main target of the enemy team. This talent gives you an extra 10% damage reduction upon healing yourself with Shadow Mend. It will help you stabilize your health when faced with overwhelming damage, and it will help you survive a kill attempt in stuns if you manage to use a Shadow Mend preemptively alongside other spells. The talent also gives you a little bit of extra healing over time on Shadow Mend, but it is mostly picked for the damage reduction component.

Power Word: Solace is the best choice in this tier. This talent is the best one on the row to regenerate your Mana as long as you are able to use Solace on cooldown. It also contributes to your damage output and Atonement healing.

Psychic Voice is the best choice in this tier. Psychic Scream is your main crowd control ability so it is important to have it every 30s rather than every minute. That allows you to use it every time your team sets up a kill attempt, either on the healer to extend the CC chain, or on a DPS that cannot be dispelled and is not the target to make sure your team can freely deal damage.

Shining Force is a very situational talent that has its uses. You can pick it against teams that will not let you have value out of your Psychic Scream very often on maps where having a knockback is valuable. For example against Arms Warrior or Fury Warrior and Restoration Shaman on Blade's Edge Arena, it is a better pick than Psychic Voice. It can also be picked to deny a powerful defensive the enemy team will rely on to survive, such as Power Word: Barrier, Darkness, and Anti-Magic Zone. Shining Force will allow you to knock the kill target out of the area of effect of these spells so that your team may land the kill.

Sins of the Many is the best choice in this tier. This is a flat increase to your damage, and consequently a flat increase to your healing through Atonement.

Purge the Wicked is the best choice in this tier. The DoT can be spread with Penance allowing you to save Mana by not having to apply it yourself to several targets. It is worth mentioning that this spell is on the Fire school, so it can be used if you are locked on Holy and Shadow. The DoT will not spread on targets that are in a crowd control effect that break on damage, unlike the other two talents in the row, so you do not have to worry about breaking CC.

Lenience is the best choice in this tier. Your Atonement should be active at all times on anyone on your team that takes damage. Therefore this talent gives your team a slight survivability buff.

You can choose 3 of the following PvP talents. Each of them has their uses, but some are better for certain strategies than others. The top three choices are the most useful, but can be replaced with other PvP talents depending on your team's goal.

Ultimate Radiance makes your Power Word: Radiance instant and increases the healing done. The Discipline Priest 4-Piece automatically grants you Power of the Dark Side upon using Radiance, and the Legendary The Penitent One has a chance to grant your Penance three extra bolts upon using Radiance. All these effects make Radiance a core spell for the specialization in the current patch, and this talent should always be picked.

Dome of Light reduces the cooldown of one your major healing cooldowns, Power Word: Barrier and increases damage reduction from it. This is the most powerful defensive cooldown in the game at the moment, reducing all damage taken by 50% for anyone who stands in the area of effect, on a relatively short cooldown. In 3v3 you should always pick this talent. In 2v2 Discipline Priest is a specialization that requires a solid damage output in order to be viable. Therefore you will only pick Dome of Light against comps that have very high burst damage and will not take you out of your Barrier when you use it, so Subtlety Rogues and Assassination Rogues, Arms Warriors and Fury Warriors, Retribution Paladins, and Feral Druids. Against other specializations you will favor offensive PvP talents.

Inner Light and Shadow allows you to swap between two stances. Inner Light reduces the Mana cost of your healing abilities by 15%. There are situations in which you may want to use it, but they are rare. The Talent is mostly picked for its second stance, Inner Shadow. It increases your spell damage by 10%, and further buffs your Atonement healing by 10%. It is one of the key talents that you need to play in order to maximize your damage output and healing through Atonement.

Blaze of Light increases the damage of Smite and Penance by 30%, and allows Penance to reduce or increase the movement speed of your target by 40%. This is a very important talent to maximize your damage output and healing through Atonement.

Dark Archangel increases your damage, and the damage of all allies with your Atonement by 15% for 8 seconds. This is a good talent if your team is relying on large bursts to kill a target.

Purification gives Purify a maximum of 2 charges. It is very important against teams with spammable, dispellable crowd control like Polymorph or Fear as you will be able to dispel your teammates multiple times, increasing their uptime and preventing the enemy team from controlling the pace of the game.

Trinity increases the duration of Atonement and increases the Critical Strike change of Smite, Penance, and Shadowfiend by 30% if you have at least three Atonements active. This is a good 3v3 talent, but in the current patch you will usually not have a slot for it.

Archangel refreshes the duration of your Atonement and increases your healing done by 20% for 15s on a 1-minite cooldown. It is a solid healing cooldown but it does not work towards Discipline Priest's strengths this patch, so you will usually not have a slot for it.

Thoughtsteal is a very interesting talent that steals an ability from an enemy. This gives you access to the ability and the enemy cannot use it for 20 seconds. Here is a list of the abilities you can steal from other classes/specs:

• All Druid specs: Rejuvenation
• All Mage specs: Polymorph
• Mistweaver Monk: Renewing Mist
• All Paladin Specs: Blessing of Freedom
• Shadow Priest: Vampiric Touch
• Holy Priest: Renew
• Discipline Priest: Penance
• All Shaman Specs: Frost Shock
• All Warlock Specs: Fear

This PvP talent is especially powerful against Mages as you will deny them their primary crowd control ability. Without it they will not be able to peel for their team, and they will not be able to land offensive crowd control either. However in the current patch you will usually not have a slot for it.

The first PvP talent will always be Ultimate Radiance. The remaining two slots will depend on what you are facing and playing.

In 3v3 you will always play Dome of Light, leaving you with only one more slot. You will play Purification if you are facing a Warlock or a Mage to keep your team out of CC. If you do not need it and your team relies on heavy burst damage to kill you will play Dark Archangel. If you do not need either of these two talents then Inner Light and Shadow will be your default pick.

In 2v2 you want to play talents that focus on damage as much as possible. You will try to play Inner Light and Shadow as Shadow and Blaze of Light almost always. If you are facing a Mage or a Warlock you will remove Inner Light and Shadow for Purification. If you are facing a DPS with heavy burst damage such as Fury Warrior, Arms Warrior, Assassination Rogue, Subtlety Rogue, Retribution Paladin or Feral Druid, or a double DPS team you will you will remove Inner Light and Shadow for Purification. And if you are facing a double DPS team with a Mage or a Warlock then you will remove both offensive talents to pick Dome of Light and Purification.