WotLK Classic Discipline Priest Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities

If you have not already, please read the Spells Summary page. Knowing how each spell and ability works in detail will greatly increase your understanding of the topics discussed on this page.

In Wrath of the Lich King, Discipline Priest has a very fast-paced, constant casting rotation. With the Borrowed Time and Enlightenment talents, you will easily reach the Global Cooldown casting cap of 1 second, allowing you to fire off multiple instant-cast spells back-to-back.

1. Penance — Penance is extremely powerful, easily healing almost anyone to full in a very quick channel. This is the best spell to use whenever you need to quickly heal someone.
2. Power Word: Shield — Casting this spell is the main priority of your spec. If you know someone will be taking damage soon, put a shield on them. If you do not have the Borrowed Time buff, prioritize this spell first.
3. Prayer of Mending — This spell remains extremely powerful, even getting buffed in WotLK. Be sure to use this as much as possible.
4. Renew — Remains a powerful heal-over-time. Be sure to keep this on targets you know will be taking constant damage.
5. Greater Heal — A slow, but powerful heal. Use this when a big burst of damage is about to land on a target, or if the target will not die before the longer cast time ends and needs a large heal.
6. Flash Heal — This is your main filler spell, doing moderate healing to a target quickly.
7. Binding Heal — Essentially the same as Flash Heal, but heals you as well as the target. Use this instead if you are missing health.

While this is the normal single-target healing rotation, if someone is on the verge of dying you will want to use a more "emergency"-based priority until they are out of the danger zone.

1. Power Word: Shield — Use this first if the target does not have the Weakened Soul debuff.
2. Penance — Next you will want to use Penance if it is available as this is your best burst-healing ability.
3. Flash Heal — After that you will want to spam this on the target until they are healthy enough for you to return to a regular rotation.
4. Binding Heal — Use this instead of Flash Heal if you are also injured.

1. Prayer of Mending — This spell remains extremely powerful, even getting buffed in WotLK. Be sure to use this as much as possible.
2. Power Word: Shield — Casting this spell is the main priority of your spec. If you know someone will be taking damage soon, put a shield on them. If you do not have the Borrowed Time buff, prioritize this spell first unless the target would otherwise die.
3. Prayer of Healing — This is your only real AoE heal, but it is rather expensive and has a long cast time. Be sure to only cast it when your Borrowed Time buff is active. If the raid is taking very high damage you may need to cast this once or twice without the Borrowed Time buff. Use this when the majority of the raid is taking damage.
4. Penance — Penance is extremely powerful, easily healing almost anyone to full in a very quick channel. This is the best spell to use whenever you need to quickly heal someone.
5. Renew — Remains a powerful heal-over-time. Be sure to keep this on targets you know will be taking constant damage.
6. Divine Hymn — While this is at the bottom of the list, it is technically your strongest AoE heal, but it has an 8-minute cooldown. You will want to use this only in emergencies as you will only get one use in a fight, make it worth it and do not waste it.

Discipline Priest has long been known as a healer that brings multiple, powerful cooldowns, and this continues in Wrath of the Lich King as you have even more spells at your disposal. With the new Aspiration talent, you get 20% reduced cooldown on Inner Focus, Power Infusion, and Pain Suppression, letting you use these abilities even more frequently.

• Desperate Prayer — 2-minute cooldown. If you chose to take this talent, this is a personal emergency button. It instantly heals you for a very large amount, making this a powerful emergency button if you find yourself about to die.
• Pain Suppression — 2.4-minute cooldown with Aspiration. You will mostly use this on tanks right before a boss mechanic goes off, or on large trash pulls. The shorter cooldown allows you to use this a bit more freely, instead of needing to save it for very specific times.
• Power Infusion — 1.6-minute cooldown with Aspiration. An often forgotten aspect of Power Infusion is the 20% Mana cost reduction. With such a short cooldown you will want to use this as much as possible depending on the situation you are in. Most of the time you will use this on a DPS to boost them up a bit, but it can also be used in times when more healing is desperately needed.
• Inner Focus — 2.4-minute cooldown with Aspiration. You will want to use this with your highest Mana spells such as Prayer of Healing or Divine Hymn, saving you a large amount of Mana. In addition to the 100% Mana reduction, it also increases the Crit Chance of the spell by 25%, which is great when you are using an AoE healing spell.
• Shadowfiend — 5-minute cooldown. This one is a very simple Mana-restoration cooldown; use this whenever you are running low on Mana. If possible, you will want to pair this together with Hymn of Hope for the temporary 20% increase to maximum Mana since Shadowfiend now restores 5% of your maximum Mana per attack.
• Divine Hymn — 8-minute cooldown. One of the new spells you get in Wrath of the Lich King. This is a major AoE healing cooldown and should only be used when your normal AoE healing rotation cannot keep up. You will almost always want to pair this with Inner Focus to remove the high Mana cost and get an additional 25% Crit Chance on the Divine Hymn heals.
• Hymn of Hope — 6-minute cooldown. The other new spell you get in Wrath of the Lich King. This restores Mana to nearby allies with the lowest Mana overall and increases their maximum Mana by 20% temporarily. The only downside of this spell is the randomness of the targeting; it is possible that you will not be targeted by any of the ticks. You will want to use this cooldown in conjunction with other Mana-restoring cooldowns, such as Mana Tide Totem or even other Hymn of Hopes, as the temporary 20% increase to maximum Mana amplifies the effectiveness of abilities that restore a percentage of your Mana pool. Try to coordinate this with your other raid members.