Discipline Priest Healing Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — 12.0.5

The Discipline specialization revolves heavily around healing through dealing damage, thanks to the Atonement passive ability. We detail this below, but for now all you need to keep in mind is that dealing damage is an integral part of healing as Discipline.

In the sections that follow, we will look at which abilities you should use to deal damage (to generate Atonement healing), as well as how to handle single target and AoE healing.

Oracle

Raid

best choice

Mythic Plus

best choice

Voidweaver

Raid

Mythic Plus

Active Talents

Passive Talents

Ultimate Penitence

Power Word: Barrier

Evangelism

Master the Darkness

Mindbender

Inescapable Torment

Expiation

Raid - Evangelism RampRaid - Ultimate Penitence RampMythic+ Rotation

1.1.

Evangelism Ramp Sequence

When you have Evangelism available and are looking to utilize the cooldown for a specific damage event, there is a general rotation you can follow in most situations. There are a few things that can be flexed around depending on the exact moments. For example, whether or not the Power Word: Radiance casts come before or after the Evangelism cast or if you even need to use both Radiance charges to get to 20 Atonement's for full coverage. However, the following is a general guideline for what an Evangelism ramp should look like:

1. Refresh your Shadow Word: Pain to ensure it lasts the entire duration of your Ramp.
2. Cast Penance - used on an ally
3. Cast Power Word: Shield
4. Cast Plea
5. Cast Flash Heal
6. Cast Evangelism
7. Cast Power Word: Radiance
8. Cast Mind Blast
9. Cast Power Word: Radiance x1-2
10. Cast Shadow Word: Death - use Vaelgor's Final Stare and Potion of Recklessness here if applicable
11. Cast Power Word: Radiance
12. Cast Penance - used on an enemy
13. Cast Penance - used on an ally
14. Cast Mind Blast
15. Cast Penance - used on an ally
16. Cast Smite until Penance/Death become available again
17. Cast Void Blast until penance/Death become available again
18. Cast Penance - used on an ally
19. Cast Penance - used on an enemy
20. Cast Shadow Word: Death

FAQWhy is There a Single Flash Heal Cast in our Raid Ramp Rotations?

Binding Heals causes Flash Heal to apply Atonement to both your target and yourself. This means that you can get 2 Atonement applications for the cost of a single GCD. As a result, you should avoid applying Atonement to yourself earlier in the Ramp to ensure that you get the most value out of this cast.

1.2.

Ultimate Penitence Ramp

The goal of an Ultimate Penitence ramp is to get a suitable number of Atonement's active prior to casting the spell. In Raid, all of your uses of Ultimate Penitence should be utilized on enemies to heal through Atonement, not directly on allies.

FAQHow does Ultimate Penitence choose its target?

It's targeting is based on your active target as a player. If you have an enemy selected when you cast this spell, it will prioritize firing all bolts against enemies when possible. Alternatively, if you have an ally targeted when casting, it will prioritize direct healing allies instead.

1. Refresh your Shadow Word: Pain to ensure it lasts the entire duration of your Ramp.
2. Cast Penance - used on an ally
3. Cast Power Word: Shield
4. Cast Plea
5. Cast Flash Heal
6. Cast Power Word: Radiance x2
7. Cast Mind Blast
8. Cast Ultimate Penitence - cast Power Word: Shield while traveling into the air. See the Advanced section below for more details.
9. Cast Ultimate Penitence - cast Shadow Word: Death while traveling into the air. See the Advanced section below for more details.
10. Cast Penance - used on an ally
11. Cast Penance - used on an enemy
12. Cast Mind Blast
13. Cast Penance - used on an ally
14. Cast Smite until Penance is available again
15. Cast Void Blast until Penance/Death is available again
16. Cast Penance - used on an ally
17. Cast Penance - used on an enemy

• Cast Shadow Word: Death

Discipline Priest as Oracle in Mythic Plus plays very heavily into 2 primary nodes on the tree: Master the Darkness and Shadow Mend. The vast majority of Discipline's output will come from these two nodes. As a result, Penance becomes incredibly important as its both your activator for Void Shield procs as well as a way to spread Shadow Word: Pain on multi-target packs for a higher chance to receive Shadow Mend procs. The following is a general priority list to follow in Mythic plus. Keep in mind that Mythic Plus is a very fluid environment and the expectation is that you are reacting to and planning around incoming damage instead of simply following a set rotation.

Discipline priest as Voidweaver in Mythic Plus plays around Atonement as much as possible with strong output from Entropic Rift and the various pets ( Mindbender, Shadowfiend, and Voidwraith) combined with Inescapable Torment. Playing around your Mind Blast cooldown appropriately is incredibly important as a large amount of your output is tied to your Rift access. Shadow Mend will shore up a lot of your single target healing weakness that isn't covered by Atonement.

1. Cast Void Shield if available prior to casting another Penance
2. Cast Shadow Mend if a proc is available and a player needs single target healing
3. Cast Shadow Word: Pain
4. Cast Shadow Word: Death
5. Cast Penance if available (on allies if direct healing or an Atonement application is needed or on enemies if you need to spread Shadow Word: Pain)
6. Cast Evangelism when you need full party Atonement coverage and a large throughput increase via Mindbender
7. Cast Evangelism when you need full party Atonement coverage and a small HPS boost
8. Cast Mind Blast to access Entropic Rift
9. Cast Mind Blast for a small burst of damage and to proc Power of the Dark Side for your next Penance

Both our Priest Discipline 12.0 Class Set 2pc and Priest Discipline 12.0 Class Set 4pc have no impact on our rotation or have any impact on gameplay decisions. Your two piece set bonus simply increases the power of your direct heals, while your four piece set bonus increases the duration of your Atonement applied by a few spells in your kit.

Combat Information

Talents and Gear

Knowing how to play your rotation is only half the battle. Make sure to grab the best talent build for every situation, and check out which trinkets and other items are worth getting ASAP!

TalentsGear

3.

Important Cooldowns for Discipline Priest

Evangelism Ultimate Penitence Power Word: Barrier Pain Suppression

3.1.

Evangelism

In Dungeon content, Evangelism immediately heals your whole group for a non-insignificant amount on cast. Additionally, it causes your next two casts of Power Word: Radiance to be instant cast. This buff lasts forever, so you can hold those Radiance casts for as long as you need them, making this a very strong tool to assist with mobility heavy encounters.

In Raiding content, this tool is a primary enabler for what we call a ramp. This concept will be described in the next section.

Evangelism also activates either Archangel or Mindbender depending on what one you are talented into. This either buffs all your healing and absorbs for a period of time or summons a pet for a short duration to both deal damage as well as interact with other talents such as Inescapable Torment if talented.

3.2.

Ultimate Penitence

While this spell has an very long cooldown at 4 minutes, its also incredibly powerful. When cast offensively, it will throw bolts at random enemies, dealing significant damage which translates to a large amount of Atonement healing if the group has Atonement active on them. When cast defensively, it will throw bolts at injured allies, healing them directly.

In both Dungeon and Raid content you will almost exclusively want to utilize this spell offensively. As Oracle and in dungeons there can be very niche scenarios where you might want to use this defensively, but those situations are rare. Additionally, as Voidweaver, Void Infusion's buff to Penance Atonement healing does work with the Atonement healing from Ultimate Penitence. As a result, as Voidweaver you should always be trying to use this spell during a rift window to maximize its output potential unless you are specifically holding it as a gap fill tool to get you to your next Entropic Rift.

3.3.

Power Word: Barrier

Power Word: Barrier shares a choice node with Ultimate Penitence, meaning you have to choose between one or the other. Power Word: Barrier can be incredibly powerful in any scenario where the incoming damage during its duration is significant enough. Keep in mind that it does require the group and or raid to be able to stack under the barrier for its duration to benefit, so some encounters it is very difficult to use even if the damage intake warrants it. While we are recommending Ultimate Penitence by default, keep an eye out for good situations to swap to Power Word: Barrier.

3.4.

Pain Suppression

Pain Suppression is a very large Damage Reduction on a single target. Utilizing this either on the tank or on a player with a large damage over time effect on them can have a significant impact. When running the talent Protector of the Frail, you will have a lot of additional casts available of Pain Suppression, so make sure you use it often instead of just sitting on maximum charges.

While the guidelines we have given so far will enable you to perform very decently as a Discipline Priest, there are some subtleties that you need to be aware of if you want to play your character to its full potential.

• Desperate Prayer — This is one of our primary defensive abilities, healing us and bolstering our maximum HP, allowing us to take larger hits while dying. Use this whenever you expect to take a large hit you are worried about surviving or just in general when you drop to low health.
• Fade / Translucent Image — Fade, when combined with Translucent Image becomes a small damage reduction on a short cooldown. With how weak our defensives are in general, using this often when damage is going out is very important. Many players struggle to utilize this effectively when it is one of the only defensive abilities in our kit.
• Protective Light — This is another option in our toolbox to provide damage reduction before dangerous moments. Due to it's usage in our Raid ramps, you will likely have this active already for most high damage moments, but it may require a bit more thought in dungeons. Note that casting Flash Heal on another target will provide the DR to yourself via Binding Heals.

When casting Ultimate Penitence, after your cast finishes but before the channel of the actual spell begins, there is a brief period of time where you are floating into the air. During this time, you can actually cast an instant cast spell without canceling the channel of Ultimate Penitence. This will commonly be used to cast a Power Word: Shield (or a Shadow Word: Death if the target is in execute range) where you would normally do nothing. This is a very important interaction to be aware of and to be utilizing.

The following video shows this mechanic in action:

While the default recommended Raid Ramp rotation has you casting EVangelism first followed by the two instant cast Radiances, the HPS difference between casting Radiance before or after Evangelism is incredibly minimal. As a result, you can easily move the Radiance's exact placement based on when the instant cast portion of the buff is most valuable. If the mechanic you are using Radiance on requires significant movement, feel free to Evang first and use both instant casts on that event. However, if you can safely stand still and hard cast both Radiance's without issue and you know your next Radiance cast would benefit from the instant cast instead, feel free to hard cast them before Evangelism instead to save the buff.

Additionally, in many cases due to the sheer amount of Atonements you can float simply pressing Penance and Void Shield on cooldown during an encounter, many times when you go to press Evangelism, you can very easily get away with using only a single Radiance cast instead of both to hit 20 Atonements with only a minor investment into a few extra single target Atonement casts. This can be very helpful to allow you to be more aggressive with cycling your Radiance casts between your cooldowns. Keep in mind that this can lead to much more inconsistent duration of Atonement on your raid since more of your Atonements are coming from random single target Atonement casts instead of the second Radiance. As a result, during the actual damage portion of your ramp, look for targets with low duration Atonements and prioritize them for your penance casts to maintain full coverage through the whole window.

Raid Content

Raid Optimization

Looking to optimize your in Raid content? Check out our guide for all Season 1 Raid Bosses while playing Discipline Priest!

Discipline Priest Raid

With such a large percentage of our total output coming from Void Shield in the current iteration of Discipline, any potential modifier to make the shields larger is interesting to look at. Casting Void Shield on yourself for the stronger shield, therefore increasing the amount of damage reflected will, in most cases, lead to a fairly decent increase and should be done when possible.

As Surge of Light only reduces the mana cost of Flash Heal by 50%, there will be cases where you get procs that you do not want to use. If both the Flash Heal healing and the subsequent healing from the Atonement applied by said cast are all significantly overhealing, it can be better to not consume the proc to conserve mana. This is highly situational based on your mana consumption and what healing is needed in the moment, but just be careful about not instantly sending every Surge of Light proc without first thinking about how effective that cast will be.

Due to most builds including Twins of the Sun Priestess, which will grant you Power Infusion when cast on an ally, you should never cast this spell on yourself. While there may be some niche situations where you want to utilize Power Infusion on yourself for hard healing checks in mythic plus, the vast majority of your casts should align with a DPS player's cooldowns to help maximize their damage output.

• While we generate healing through dealing damage, the way it is calculated is not as simple. For instance, things that increase our damage and healing (for example, Versatility) will not double dip. This is because only the healing portion of such buffs will modify Atonement.
• Mechanics that reduce our damage dealt do not affect the healing done with Atonement. For example, some raid bosses have phases with 99% reduced damage taken; Disc damage done will still heal for full through Atonement. That being said, immunities will stop our damage completely, which also means our Atonement healing.
• External buffs that increase our damage dealt will also not affect our Atonement healing. There is only one external buff that will affect Atonement healing — Chaos Brand, from Demon Hunters.
• Once Atonement is applied to a friendly target, the range at which the healing applies is extremely far. You will rarely find any encounter room where your Atonement will be out of range unless the encounter phases you and your target apart.
• Damage trinkets and Racials do not heal through Atonement (unless they increase our baseline spells damage).
• AoE damage effects, such as Holy Nova and Inescapable Torment will do healing through Atonement, but only on the first instance of damage.

Clandon

Guide Author

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This guide is written and maintained by Clandon, Healer in Vindicatum and Owner of Warcraft Priests Class Discord. You can often find him streaming on Twitch or by checking out his Youtube channel.