Discipline Priest Guide for The War Within

Welcome to our War Within expansion guide for Discipline Priest. Ahead of launch, this page will contain everything you need to know about the Discipline Priest spec in the forthcoming The War Within expansion, including changes, Hero Talent Trees, and some light predictions on the state of the spec going into the expansion.

This page is a constantly evolving work in progress, with regular changes expected as updates hit the War Within beta. This is not meant to be a launch guide for Discipline Priest, but instead serves as a resource for you to keep up to date with how the spec is evolving on Beta, and what you can expect from its playstyle and feel on launch.

Discipline Priest has recieved has received no changes to its specilization talent tree or to its core spells. As of right now we do not expect to see any changes to the core of the spec prior to the expansion release. Most effort will likely come in the form of additional changes to our Hero Talents or numerical tuning.

We did, however see a few small adjustments on the Priest tree, with Mindgames being moved to being a PvP talent and some new options being added in its place:

• Cauterizing Shadows is a new talent node that causes a heal on 1 target within 40 yards whenever your Purge the Wicked expires or is refreshed within the pandemic window. This also works when the target dies.
• Manipulation gives you a small DR per point spent on this node from targets affected by our Purge the Wicked.
• Phantom Reach increases the range of our spells by 15% giving us a general range of 46 yards instead of 40 for most spells.

None of these talents are game-defining or are expected to alter our gameplay in a significant manner.

While very little has changed for Discipline Priest's core features, The War Within still has major implications for all specs thanks to the Hero Talent Tree system.

Discipline Priest gets to choose between the Voidweaver and the Oracle Hero Talent Trees. In the sections below, we will talk more deeply about the implications of these Hero Talents for the spec, and some thoughts on what looks strong and weak ahead of launch.

The Voidweaver Hero Talents primary revolve around the talent Entropic Rift. By casting Mind Blast, you open a rift that will follow your Mindblast target dealing ticking damage in an area around it. While the rift is active, you gain a variety of buffs including access to a much more powerful version of smite in Void Blast.

Gameplay-wise, there won't be a significant change to correctly play around voidweaver. Just be prepared to care more about your non-ramp Mind Blast casts to be more impactful and planned as there is a significant amount more power involved with how strong the Entropic Rift is.

Numerically speaking currently, Voidweaver is looking quite strong with a variety of strong nodes all contributing significantly to both HPS and DPS.

The Oracle Hero Talents primarily revolve around the talent Premonition. Premonition cycles between 3 available spells with a fourth when you include the Clairvoyance capstone talent. Premonition of Insight reduces the cooldown of the next 3 spells you cast. Premonition of Solace causes your next single target heal to apply a large absorb shield to the target as well as granted them a DR for 15 seconds. Finally, Premonition of Piety grants a general healing increase while also granting an overhealing redistribution effect similar to the Velen's Future Sight trinket that we had access to during Legion. With the addition of Premonition of Clairvoyance, you also gain access to a 4th spell which is all 3 of the other spells combined into one at the same time.

Gameplay-wise, utilizing Premonition of Piety within a major Ramp or cooldown window will provide a solid healing increase along with the overhealing redistribution helping keep anyone that drops low healthy. With a base cooldown of 1 minute, two charges, and a talent that can reduce the cooldown to 45 seconds, the talent itself is fairly flexible in regards to making sure you have either Premonition of Piety or Premonition of Clairvoyance available for every Evangelism ramp.

Numerically speaking currently, Oracle is going to have a hard time competiting with Voidweaver. The Oracle talent tree suffers from a lack of strong HPS nodes outside of Premonition itself. The Oracle tree also provides almost no additional DPS bonuses as well as the overhealing redistribution effect being less valuable in an m+ environment providing even more of an uphill battle for the Hero Tree.

Below are the Tier Set Bonuses for Discipline Priest in The War Within. After the wording of the bonus, you will find a brief note/commentary that is italicized.

• Priest Discipline Season 1 2pc — Atonement healing increased by 5%. A fairly straightforward bonus providing a flat increase to your Atonement healing. Boring, but solid for a 2pc set bonus.
• Priest Discipline Season 1 4pc — Smite and Penance increase the damage of your next Mind Blast by 25% or absorb amount of your next Power Word: Shield by 15%, up to 3 times. Having Power Word: Shield also consume this effect makes it very difficult to utilize this to buff Mind Blast, which would be the prefered method as a default. This will end up being something you do not pay attention to at all and it will provide a very small overall bonus. Ideally this bonus is either reworked or replaced before expansion release.

Strengths

• Core gameplay remains similar, Fun new thematic options via Hero Talents

Weaknesses

• No adjustments in the Class tree to address the Classes poor defensive or mobility options, No adjustments to the Specilization tree leading to talent builds likely being stagnant.