Discipline Priest Healing Spec, Builds, and Talents — The War Within (11.2)

Recommended Build Import Codes:

1.

The War Within Talent Builds for Discipline Priest

Oracle Raid Voidweaver Raid Oracle Mythic+ Voidweaver Mythic+/Delve

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Oracle Raid Build for Discipline Priest

Note: This talent build intentionally talents into Miraculous Recovery without being talented into Power Word: Life. While in game this will highlight as red indicating an issue, this is done on purpose. Waste No Time front-loading the Atonement duration to the beginning of the GCD without compensation results in an HPS loss.

This build will be your primary build for raiding content. Utilizing the strong burst of Premonition of Insight and Premonition of Piety together combined with every Evangelism results in incredible bursts of HPS.

While this specialization may not be able to hit as frequent of timings as Voidweaver, it brings a lot to the table. Twinsight on every Penance cast (automatically targeting an injured raid member), stronger Power Word: Shields, Premonition of Solace, and even stronger Pain Suppression via Foreseen Circumstances all contribute to improved Spot Healing capabilities. Increased Atonement duration via Preemptive Care provide much longer healing window as well allowing Oracle to do very well into extended damage events or sometimes even slightly covering multiple in a single ramp.

Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the best build directly into your game!

While the above build is the default recommendation, there are a handful of ways to modify your build slightly depending on the situation. The following are alternatives and why you may want to run them:

Multi-Target Oracle Show Copy

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Run this build in scenarios where you have multiple targets to spread Shadow Word: Pain to via Encroaching Shadows. This build can, depending on the encounter, provide a significant amount of mana return via Throes of Pain by naturally spreading your dot via Penance casts to adds that quickly die.

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Voidweaver Raid Build for Discipline Priest

This build is an alternative build for raiding content. Utilizing the extremely short cooldown of both Mind Blast and Voidwraith, this build can push solid HPS very frequently. With the addition of Ultimate Penitence as well, this build can meet a high variety of potential fight timers/incoming damage patterns.

Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the best build directly into your game!

2.

Oracle Mythic+ Build for Discipline Priest

While Oracle has the ability to push significant AoE HPS via the various Premonition effects, it also brings much better single target HPS comparatively via Power Word: Shield as well as uneven damage patterns via Premonition of Piety.

With the new tier set providing Premonition of Insight charges to both Premonition of Piety and Premonition of Solace, cycling through your Premonitions properly will be a massively part of the specialization's power in keys. Make sure you understand what each of them do including the impact the tier set has!

While this talent build recommends Luminous Barrier as a default, as you proceed higher in key level, Power Word: Barrier will eventually outscale. You need the group to take approximately a full health bar of damage under a Power Word: Barrier for the DR to overtake in value. This generally will not happen until well past weekly vault keys and into title range keys.

Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the build directly into your game!

2.

Voidweaver Mythic+/Delve Build for Discipline Priest

This build is incredibly strong at pushing frequent AoE HPS to cover a variety of HPS checks through the combination of Entropic Rift and Voidwraith. This build will also contribute a significant amount more DPS to the group compared to the Oracle alternatives.

However, keep in mind that this build struggles heavily with single target healing requirements, so any dungeon where there are heavy DoT effects more frequently than can be handled with Pain Suppression, consider swapping to Oracle instead.

Voidweaver also gains a significant amount of their power this season via the 2/4 piece set bonus, so it is recommended to stick to the Oracle alternative until you at the very least have the new two piece.

While this talent build recommends Luminous Barrier as a default, as you proceed higher in key level, Power Word: Barrier will eventually outscale. You need the group to take approximately a full health bar of damage under a Power Word: Barrier for the DR to overtake in value. This generally will not happen until well past weekly vault keys and into title range keys.

Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the build directly into your game!

In the following section, we will break down the more situational options or choices to be made within the talent tree. Talent nodes that have value but may not be good or generic enough to be played in all situations. If a talent node is not mentioned, it is due to it either being an instant pick already or too bad to ever take. Please refer to the above-linked talent builds if you are unsure of which category a talent falls into. If you are looking for a description of all talents/spells, please take a look at our spells page linked below:

While we do not have the most flexible tree possible compared to some other classes/specializations, we do still have some points that are considered low value that can be moved around when needed. The following are some points in both the class and spec tree that are not high value that can be flexed around to fit the specific situation:

• Mental Agility is mostly taken as a pathing point and not because the point itself is super relevant. You're welcome to path through either Inspiration or Body and Soul instead, but both of those are also low value and come with their own issues. Inspiration requiring a crit from a defensive Penance cast or Flash Heal to provide a tiny physical defense reduction when such a large percentage of damage is magic damage anyway results in the node being insanely low value. Body and Soul will struggle to provide value due to Power Word: Shield being an actual strong spell for discipline's healing kit. In addition, random movement speed increases are rarely useful. Since one of these is needed to path to Unwavering Will, pick whatever one you wish as they're all incredibly low value.
• Crystalline Reflection provides a solid DPS increase and a tiny direct heal onto Power Word: Shield. This is far from a mandatory talent, but can provide some solid damage benefit specifically in keys if the points do not need to be spent on CC, dispels, or defensives.
• Light's Inspiration provides a solid increase in HP percentage gained when using Desperate Prayer. This talent can be a solid defensive choice in situations where you feel you need Desperate Prayer to be even stronger than normal.
• Phantom Reach is a single point to gain some added range. The value of this point heavily depends on the key/encounter you're in and the group you are playing with. In scenarios where the encounters allow the group to stay close together and your group is likely to do that, this talent loses a lot of value. There are also some niche mechanics that can be outranged as a result of this talent.
• Painful Punishment's primary value will come from bosses where you're fighting a single target for extended periods of time. On trash packs, Revel in Darkness plus Encroaching Shadows spreading capability will cover the majority of your DoT needs. Feel free to run this in situations where you expect to need less single target healing and are more worried about saving globals during dangerous heal check bosses.

Luminous Barrier provides a solid, easier to use alternative to Power Word: Barrier non-bleeding edge dungeons. In higher tier content, Power Word: Barrier will being to out-scale the absorb of Luminous Barrier and should be used unless there is a positioning reason as to why it cannot be. Luminous Barrier is still quite lacking in Raid content and is not recommended there.

While Enduring Luminescence is the default in both the recommended Raid and Mythic+ builds above, Bright Pupil is still viable dependent on the exact incoming damage needs and will be found in various alternative builds and boss specific talent selections.

Unfortunately, with how little damage our Shadow Word: Pain does per tick, investing multiple talent points into a multiplier is not efficient and very low value.

While Dark Energy is our default for both forms of content as having a high uptime movement speed buff is generically valuable, keep an eye out for opportunities where the movement speed slow attached to your Entropic Rift via No Escape can provide significant value.

In The War Within, there remains the option to go into "War Mode." Enabling War Mode provides the following benefits:

• PvP talents enabled in the outdoor world.
• 10% increase in World Quest rewards at maximum level.
• 10% more experience gained while leveling.
• Earn Conquest Points, which can reward gear every week.

With the benefits of enabling War Mode for PvE content minimal in this expansion, it is not recommended to enable the feature. War Mode remains an attractive option for leveling purposes due to the increased experience gain.

In this section, we will rank the PvP talents best for leveling and doing solo / small group PvE content. Below is a ranking of Discipline Priest-specific PvP talents. For more information on what is valuable in a competitive PvP setting instead of an open-world focus, please take a look at our PvP guide.

1. Inner Light and Shadow is a toggleable 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 solid amount of damage when doing solo content as disc. If you're doing group content where you are not the one taking heavy damage, swap this for Trinity
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.