Cataclysm Classic Discipline Priest Guide

In Cataclysm, Discipline Priests are known for their unique blend of damage prevention and healing through dealing damage. They excel at mitigating damage and providing strong, single-target heals while still being able to heal groups easily as well. Overall, Cataclysm Discipline Priest have a wide variety of utility while still being a versatile healer with a unique playstyle, making them a valuable addition to any raid group.

Discipline Priest is one of the most powerful healers available during Cataclysm. They bring a wide variety of benefits to the group through buffs and powerful heals, and have one of the strongest raid-wide defensive cooldowns in the game with Power Word: Barrier. Discipline is always desirable in raids, making it very easy for you to find a raid spot any time.

Strengths

• Can mitigate incoming damage through talents such as Divine Aegis.
• Great scaling throughout the entire expansion, remaining a competitive healing option.
• Powerful utility raid cooldowns.
• Great single-target tank healing.
• Atonement allows you to DPS during low-damage boss phases, furthering your contribution to the raid.

Weaknesses

• Requires knowing fights well to predict incoming damage.
• Mana management is more difficult as spells are more expensive and talents have been nerfed.
• Low AoE healing in high damage situations compared to other specs.

Alliance Discipline Priest's best options are Gnomes as they give a 5% maximum mana increase with Expansive Mind and Humans for their The Human Spirit, increasing your total Spirit by 3%. Both of these racials give you a nice boost to your mana regeneration.

Horde Discipline Priest's have a few contenders for the best race. Goblins are a strong choice, offering Time is Money and Rocket Jump. Trolls remain a powerful choice, still having Berserking for high healing situations.

Cataclysm balances most professions to be an equal amount of bonus stats, with most professions giving an average of 80 stats increase. That being said, there are always certain advantages and disadvantages to each profession, making certain professions slightly stronger than others.

1. Engineering — Engineering remains the best in slot profession thanks to the new tinker Synapse Springs. Grounded Plasma Shield, another new tinker, is a decent on use defensive shield that can save your life. Nitro Boosts remain a solid option for movement speed bursts during fights.
2. Tailoring — is a great choice for the Lightweave Embroidery or Darkglow Embroidery unique cloak enchants.
3. Blacksmithing — Allows you to add an additional socket to your gloves and bracers with Socket Gloves and Socket Bracer. While this is about the same stats gain as most other professions early on, once epic gems are introduced this profession becomes much stronger.

Addons and Macros can greatly improve your quality of life during Cataclysm. Listed below are some of our recommendations on Addons and Macros to help get the most out of your time playing the game.