Discipline Priest Leveling Guide From 1 to 80 for WotLK Classic

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Your first talent unlocks at Level 10.

• Levels 10 to 12 — 3 points in Spirit Tap.
• Levels 13 to 17 — 5 points in Holy Specialization.
• Levels 18 to 22 — 5 points in Divine Fury.

Spirit Tap is great for Mana generation between fights. Holy Specialization is some good added crit, and Divine Fury is needed for the reduced cast time on Smite and Holy Fire.

• Levels 23 — 1 point in Desperate Prayer.
• Levels 24 & 25 — 2 points in Healing Focus.
• Levels 26 & 27 — 2 points in Improved Renew.
• Levels 28 & 29 — 2 points in Searing Light.

Desperate Prayer is a good emergency heal. Healing Focus is useful for emergency heals when you are being attacked. Lastly, Searing Light is a great damage boost to Smite, Holy Fire, and Holy Nova.

• Levels 30 to 34 — 5 points in Twin Disciplines.
• Levels 35 to 37 — 3 points in Improved Inner Fire.
• Levels 38 & 39 — 2 points in Improved Power Word: Fortitude.

Twin Disciplines gives you a great damage and healing boost. Both Improved Inner Fire and Improved Power Word: Fortitude are good stat boosts.

• Levels 40 to 42 — 3 points in Meditation.
• Level 43 — 1 point in Inner Focus.
• Level 44 — 1 point in Improved Power Word: Shield.
• Levels 45 to 47 — 3 points in Mental Agility.
• Levels 48 & 49 — 2 points in Improved Power Word: Shield.

Meditation and Mental Agility are great to reduce your Mana usage. Inner Focus gives you a free spell cast and increases the chance it crits by 25%. Improved Power Word: Shield further increases how much your Power Word: Shield absorbs, which is a huge part of your rotation.

• Levels 50 & 51 — 2 points in Reflective Shield.
• Level 52 — 1 point in Soul Warding.
• Levels 53 & 54 — 2 points in Mental Strength.
• Levels 55 & 56 — 2 points in Focused Power.
• Levels 57 to 59 — 3 points in Enlightenment.

Reflective Shield is some good free damage since you will always have Power Word: Shield on yourself. Mental Strength and Enlightenment are some nice stat boosts. Soul Warding helps with Mana sustain and Focused Power further boosts your damage and healing output.

• Level 60 — Be sure to respec now.
• Levels 61 to 63 — 3 points in Spirit Tap.
• Levels 64 to 68 — 5 points in Holy Specialization.
• Levels 69 to 73 — 5 points in Divine Fury.
• Level 74 — 1 point in Desperate Prayer.
• Levels 75 & 76 — 2 points in Healing Focus.
• Levels 77 & 78 — 2 points in Improved Renew.
• Levels 79 & 80 — 2 points in Searing Light.

Be sure to respec at Level 60! Power Infusion and Pain Suppression are great cooldowns for large AoE pulls or elites. Rapture is a great talent for keeping your Mana high. Penance is your new best single-target damage spell. Borrowed Time is a great haste boost after using Power Word: Shield. You will start re-taking talents that you previously had before.

Your leveling glyphs will differ from your endgame glyphs. Glyphs can be a huge boost to your leveling speed as some greatly improve the baseline power of your key abilities. Be sure to check the price of these glyphs on your server to vastly improve your leveling experience.

1. Glyph of Smite
2. Glyph of Penance
3. Glyph of Holy Nova

1. Glyph of Fortitude
2. Glyph of Levitate
3. Glyph of Shadowfiend

1. Power Word: Fortitude keep this buff up before entering combat.
2. Inner Fire keep this buff up before entering combat.
3. Divine Spirit keep this buff up before entering combat.
4. Smite your target until it is dead.
5. Smite your target from max range.
6. Shadow Word: Pain your target after you enter combat. Run away from the target while doing this to keep your distance.
7. Continue using Smite on your target until it is dead.
8. Holy Fire your target from max range.
9. Power Word: Shield yourself while running away from the target. This gives you Borrowed Time, letting you get your rotation off much quicker.
10. Devouring Plague your target after you enter combat. Run away from the target while doing this to keep your distance.
11. Shadow Word: Pain your target. Run away from the target while doing this to keep your distance.
12. Penance on cooldown.
13. Mind Blast on cooldown.
14. Continue using Smite on your target until it is dead.
15. Smite as a filler if your target is high health.
16. Smite as a filler if your target is high health, but generally you will not need to.
17. Shadow Word: Death if a target did not die from DoTs and would take too long to wand down. Ideally this would kill the target to prevent you from taking the backlash damage.
18. Shoot your target if they are low enough to die from DoTs and wand damage.

You have very few spells early on. At the start of a pull you will want to be at max range. This helps you get off more damage before the mob reaches you. Running away from the mob while casting instant-cast spells like Shadow Word: Pain help keep that distance from the mob, reducing your damage taken. Overall, this helps reduce how often you need to drink as you will need to heal yourself less.

Now your rotation starts taking a more solid form. Holy Fire will be the ideal spell to use on pull as it has a long cast time, making it difficult to cast in combat; it also has a good damage-over-time component. Next you will want to cast Devouring Plague and Shadow Word: Pain on the target while running away from it if possible, allowing you to keep some distance on it. Mind Blast and Smite the target until it is low enough to die to DoTs and Shooting from your wand. Be sure to use either Renew or Power Word: Shield whenever you are taking damage.

Make sure to respec at Level 60! Holy Fire will be the ideal spell to use on pull as it has a long cast time, making it difficult to cast in combat; it also has a good damage-over-time component. Now you will want to cast Power Word: Shield on yourself to benefit from the Borrowed Time buff as it does not go away unless you hard cast a spell, allowing you to get the rest of your rotation off much more quickly. Be sure to run away from the target when using Power Word: Shield to maintain distance between the two of you.

Next you will want to cast Devouring Plague and Shadow Word: Pain on the target while continuing to run away from it if possible, allowing you to keep some distance on it. Now you can stop kiting and fight the mob, starting with Penance, dealing massive damage over a quick channel. If the target is still high health, Mind Blast it down and it should be low enough to die to DoTs. Shoot it down with your wand until it dies, or Shadow Word: Death if it will take too long to wand down. Be sure to use Renew or Power Word: Shield again if you are getting low on health.

An alternative to single-target damaging is AoEing with Holy Nova. This can be an effective way to level, but requires decent gear to sustain the Mana cost of Holy Nova. If doing this, follow the AoE rotation below:

1. Gather mobs with Shadow Word: Pain.
2. Renew yourself while gathering mobs to recover lost health.
3. Pain Suppression to reduce your damage taken if needed.
4. Shadowfiend to sustain your Mana if needed.
5. Power Infusion whenever available to save Mana and increase damage done.
6. Power Word: Shield yourself to activate the Borrowed Time buff, capping out your global cooldown.
7. Holy Nova as much as possible until everything is dead.
8. Reapply Renew and Power Word: Shield if needed.
9. Penance and Mind Blast any remaining single enemies if Holy Nova is not worth using.
10. Penance, Shadow Word: Death and Mind Blast any remaining single enemies if Holy Nova is not worth using.

Training spells can be rather expensive, especially if you try to learn every spell available to you. Here we will give you a list of your top-priority spells that you will want to train so you know which ones you can avoid and save some money.

• Be sure to keep these spells at max rank — Power Word: Fortitude, Smite, Shadow Word: Pain, Power Word: Shield, Renew, Mind Blast, Inner Fire, Psychic Scream, Devouring Plague, Holy Fire, Flash Heal, Holy Nova, Divine Spirit, Penance, Shadow Word: Death.

• Psychic Scream — You can delay upgrading this if you are low on money, but eventually you will want to learn higher ranks.

• Dispel Magic — You only really need 1 rank of this spell; train the second rank when you have the money to spare.

• These spells only have 1 rank and should be trained as soon as possible — Cure Disease, Fear Ward, Abolish Disease, Levitate, Shadowfiend.

• Save your gold instead of training these spells — Lesser Heal, Fade, Shackle Undead, Resurrection, Heal, Mind Soothe, Mind Vision, Mana Burn, Mind Control, Prayer of Healing, Shadow Protection, Greater Heal, Prayer of Fortitude, Prayer of Shadow Protection, Prayer of Spirit, Binding Heal, Prayer of Mending, Mass Dispel, Mind Sear.

Congratulations on hitting Level 80 in Wrath of the Lich King! Now that your leveling process is over, you can learn more about Level-80 Discipline Priest gameplay by reading our Discipline Priest guide, which covers everything you need to know to properly play your Discipline Priest.