WotLK Classic Discipline Priest Spec, Builds, Talents, and Glyphs

Discipline Priest has a fairly cookie-cutter spec that aims to boost your healing output as much as possible. There are a few talent points that can be moved around depending on your gear.

This build takes all of the key talents in both the Discipline tree as well as the Holy tree. The only real alternative choice you have is Improved Healing, requiring you to drop 1 talent point from Renewed Hope and all 3 points from Focused Will. Doing this reduces the Mana cost of your Penance by 15%, which equals out to 58 Mp5 in combat on paper. Realistically the amount of Mp5 this talent grants will be lower as you will not always cast Penance on cooldown; expect around 40-45 Mp5 from this talent. In very low gear you may need this additional Mp5 to help with your sustain, but with more gear it will not be needed.

In this section we will go over some of the key talents you will use when you are playing a Discipline Priest. Be sure to understand your most important talents as they are vital to play the build to its fullest strength.

• Soul Warding

This removes the cooldown from Power Word: Shield, allowing you to cast it constantly, and reduces the Mana cost by 15%. This is the main talent of the spec; without it this build would not work.

• Rapture

This is the main Mana regeneration of the build. Whenever your Power Word: Shield is fully absorbed, you gain 2.5% of your maximum Mana. While this does have a 15-second cooldown between procs, if multiple Power Word: Shields break at the same time, you will gain Mana for each shield. This allows you to sustain Mana easily when there is large, predictable damage being dealt to multiple targets at once.

• Divine Aegis

At first glance this talent seems underwhelming, but over a long period of time, these absorbs will be one of your highest-healing spells. The absorb from Divine Aegis can stack to a maximum of 10,000, giving your target a hefty shield.

• Borrowed Time

This talent massively buffs the Discipline spec, being almost entirely responsible for how strong it is. First, it gives your Power Word: Shield an additional 40% Spell Power scaling, which is a huge boost to the amount it will absorb. Next and more importantly, after casting Power Word: Shield, it increases your Haste by 25%. This along with Enlightenment make it very easy for you to reach the global cooldown cap of 1 second, allowing you to use even more Power Word: Shields.

The tooltip of this talent is deceiving, as the 25% Haste increase does not go away until you actually cast a spell. Other instant casts such as Prayer of Mending and channeled spells like Penance do not remove the buff. A crucial part of playing Discipline Priest correctly is keeping this buff active as much as possible.

• Penance

This is a Discipline Priest's main healing spell, dishing out a massive heal over a very short channel. Over the course of the channel, Penance heals 3 times, giving this spell 3 chances to proc talents like Grace and Divine Aegis. When paired with Glyph of Penance and Aspiration, the cooldown of Penance will be reduced down to 8 seconds.

Glyphs are a new consumable of sorts introduced in Wrath of the Lich King. Glyphs greatly improve certain spells when you learn them, supporting and even enabling some builds. Glyphs are not permanently learned, so you will want to carry multiple glyphs on you so you can change them quickly depending on the raid or boss encounter you are in. Certain glyphs perform better in different scenarios, so be sure to swap them around appropriately.

1. Glyph of Power Word: Shield — Seeing as Power Word: Shield is the central focus point of the Discipline spec, this glyph is required. The heal generated by this glyph is also capable of Critting, making it even better as you have multiple talents that increase your Crit Chance, as well as both Inspiration and Divine Aegis that only proc when you Crit.
2. Glyph of Penance — Penance is your best healing spell, making this glyph easily one of the best choices you have. When paired with Aspiration, the cooldown of Penance will be reduced down to 8 seconds.
3. Glyph of Flash Heal — Helps with your Mana sustain, especially when paired with Improved Flash Heal.
4. Glyph of Prayer of Healing — You may want to use this glyph when you need to AoE heal, mostly in 10-man Raids. Replace Glyph of Flash Heal if you decide to use this.

1. Glyph of Fortitude — This helps save Mana through an entire raid night, and especially if you need to rebuff someone who died in combat.
2. Glyph of Shadow Protection — Is pretty minor, but will save you a bit of Mana throughout an entire raid night.
3. Glyph of Levitate — Is simply a quality of life feature, saving you some reagents.