Discipline Priest Leveling Guide from 1 to 90 — Midnight Season 1

While leveling as a healer is viable, it will generally be much slower when playing solo compared to swapping to shadow. However, it is still possible to level as a Discipline Priest if you are ok with a slower leveling experience. Additionally, leveling as a healer allows you easy access to dungeon queues with the healer role generally being in high demand resulting in very short queue times.

If this is your first character, or you simply want to find out more about leveling in WoW in general, we got you covered!

When leveling as a Discipline Priest, always target the gear with the highest item level available. Looking for specific stats on leveling gear will not matter, as you will most likely have a fairly large item level gap on items when you get another of the same slot.

When leveling, Heirlooms are an option to allow the gear you are wearing to scale with your level instead of needing to constantly replace your gear with pieces from quests or dungeons as you level. For more information on Heirlooms, take a look at our dedicated Heirlooms page below.

If you are just starting your journey into Midnight, we have a Level 80 import string for you. You can follow the point-by-point allocation of the below tree once you start gaining levels in Midnight.

Move the slider below to make the guide update to your level!

1. Cast Power Word: Shield on yourself if your HP has begun to drop.
2. Cast Power Infusion on cooldown.
3. Maintain Shadow Word: Pain on all targets unless the target will die before a significant portion of the DoT ticks.
4. Cast Shadow Word: Death if the target is below 20% HP. Be careful not to kill yourself with this spell.
5. Cast Penance on cooldown.
6. Cast Mind Blast on cooldown.
7. Cast Smite as your filler.

Starting at level 15, you can queue for dungeons with the in-game group finder. The following is a general priority list of healing spells in dungeons:

1. Cast Power Word: Shield on cooldown if a single player is taking damage.
2. Cast Power Word: Radiance when it is available and you have multiple people that need Atonement at the same time.
3. Cast Flash Heal when you need to direct heal someone if your Atonement healing is not enough.

In situations where your passive Atonement healing or shields are not enough, you have some Cooldowns to fall back on. The following is a list of the cooldowns you can utilize when incoming damage is high:

1. Cast Ultimate Penitence on an enemy after applying Atonement to your full group with a Power Word: Radiance.
2. Cast Evangelism if there is a lot of damage occuring for an instant heal and Atonement coverage.
3. Cast Pain Suppression on either the tank or another player that is taking significant single target damage.

In addition to these baseline abilities, there is a passive effect that is crucial to understand leveling as a Discipline Priest:

Atonement causes your damaging spells to heal all targets with Atonement on them. It is crucial that you DPS to utilize your Atonements applied instead of getting stuck in the habit of spamming direct heals. Follow the healing spell priority list above to apply Atonement, and then once all players taking damage have Atonement on them, follow the damage spell priority list.

1. Inner Light and Shadow is a toggle-able ability that grants you either 10% increased spell damage and Atonement healing or 15% less Mana cost on healing spells. Leaving this on the damage increase portion while leveling will result in a solid DPS and survivability gain.
2. Catharsis provides a fairly substantial damage increase when soloing content that is actually dealing significant damage to you. In cases where you are playing with others or the content is easy enough you are not taking significant damage, feel free to replace this talent with another.
3. Dark Archangel increases your damage and the damage of all allies with your Atonement by 15% for 8 seconds. This is great for small group world content where giving your group a DPS buff will be more impactful than taking a small boost to your own damage via any of the above three talents.

While leveling, adjusting some enchants to focus on speed can help reduce downtime when moving from quest to quest. The following is a list of movement speed enchants to consider:

• Enchant Boots - Scout's March
• Enchant Cloak - Chant of Burrowing Rapidity
• Enchant Bracer - Chant of Armored Speed

Additionally, there are a variety of consumables that can assist while leveling in regards to either mobility or combat power. The following is a list of items to consider acquiring prior to the release of Midnight:

• Goblin Glider Kit - These can be useful to traverse terrain quickly, especially in scenarios where you are prevented from mounting.
• Gunshoes - These give a large boost of movement speed to quickly move across large distances on the ground.
• Thunderous Drums - If you are leveling with someone that provides Bloodlust or a similar effect, these are not necessary, but in scenarios where you do not have access, these can be a solid boost every 10 minutes.
• Draught of Silent Footfalls - Invisibility potions can be used to skip areas of mobs that you do not need to kill for a quest to speed up your leveling experience.
• Fried Bonefish or Bear Tartare - Both of these foods will provide a large burst of movement speed when you kill an enemy.