Discipline Priest PvE Guide

The smite build I don't think will be a top of chart healing spec, however, I think its got a HUGE margin of utility. I think it also takes some thinking outside of the normal healer 'box' to get max useage out of it. I take for example the Magmaw fight, when most of the rest of our
healing team is Concentration quaffing, I can pop fiend, and use smite and our bunched up proximity to top up an entire 25man working not only the Head's +50% damage, but also Glyph of Smite and Archangel. With PI and IF it wasn't much of a mana problem at all. As the encounter got near the end, the mana pool was getting lean, but that's to be expected. Did the concentration during the 2nd Head phase along with Hymn. During the other heavy damage phases, it was handy to keep the smites to build up a stack for on demand CD for Archangel and Pennance CD's for the tank healing. Of course your mileage may vary....

Guide updated for patch 4.0.6.

25k bubbles, 10 to 12k hps and not going oom in BoT last night: priceless - Disc is just so much fun again.

Is it me or does disc seem complicated to play? Granted I only have a priest thats lvl 85 that I heal dungeons as holy, but looking at disc changes it makes me wonder if trying it is worth it. But looking at the guide it seems like it would be complex to try to heal a 5 man with. Am I mistaken?

A lot of discipline's healing is based on what cooldowns are available, so at times, I suppose it might feel more complicated than holy healing. Still:

Single-target healing, disc:
If a shield isn't up, shield
If penance is available, penance
If not, inner focus-greater heal
Otherwise: Smite or regen

Single-target healing, holy:
If chakra: heal isn't up, chakra
If renew isn't up, renew
If serenity is available, serenity
Heal if small damage, greater heal if large damage

AoE healing, disc:
If PoM is not up, PoM
If 5 targets, prayer of healing
If less than 5 targets and lots of incoming damage, bubble spam

AoE healing, holy:
If PoM is not up, PoM
If Chakra: PoH isn't up, Chakra
If CoH is available, CoH
If PoH is available, PoH

Both specs have about the same number of things to keep track of in terms of their rotation - after that, it just comes down to cooldown management, which is mostly increased healing versus reduced damage.

Im in abit of a pickle here with al this new stuff.
How are U guys intending to spec. Im currently in a pickle when it comes to say darkness vs inspiration. Inspiration now with crits of PoH and PoM feels really powerfull for say crackle and when helping on tanks a constant 10% reduction feels like a no brainer. However im reading alot of priest speaking against this talking in favor of darkness instead.

Also im considering reforging abit.
Currently at 10% haste 17%crit 13 mastery and with a combat regen that puts me precisly at were I wanna be for most fights. How would U reforge this and why?

Inspiration wouldn't help with crackle since crackle is magic damage, yeah?

Crit is poopy unless you're primarily a tank healer. If you're a tank healer, reforge to crit and DEFINITELY get inspiration. If you aren't running smite spec, you should have enough points to get all the good talents in disc & inspiration. If you are running smite spec, spec out of it. :> Atonement healing is poop and the poopness is multiplied if you're supposed to tank heal.

For raid healing, the value of haste for disc priests has plummeted given the value of mastery. Since PW:S isn't affected by oogobs of haste like PoH is, we want more mastery than before (reforge crit -> mastery). If you aren't casting that many direct heals at all, then reforge your haste -> mastery as well. If you're still casting a fair amount of direct heals, the haste can be beneficial.
As for Inspiration with a raid healing spec, you should still get it assuming you do tank healing at any time ever(which you should, since shielding the tank & tossing him some spare penances is a great idea, especially if you have/get 4pc).

Before this our shields wasnt this good but now togheter with DA this should prove to be a diff story and hence thinking bout dismantling some haste.

Considering inspiration procs out of PoH PoM etc that would now put this uptime also at basicly tankpace even if im going mostly PoH on some fights? That reply acctualy made me think abit clearer even thou I kinda like my smite spec espes for 10s this sounds like a decent plan :P.

But witouht crit I wont hit DA as often with direkt healing? Even if my DA is increased in power it dosent become as effektive if I do not crit as often? Not talking bout PoH now obviosly.

That's the tricky thing with our stats. If you're still casting lots of PoH, then you'll want a balance of crit, haste & mastery (reforging your crit away would balance the stats). But PW:S is now the spell of choice for disc priests again, and is directly effected by your mastery level. If you want to add more absorbs to your PW:S, you'll want more mastery.

Agree there its getting abit more tricky each day to find that perfekt balance will have to try a mastery push I guess to be sure sacrificing crit and haste for starters :P.

Hmm any thoughts on soul warding atm? And likewise AA ofcourse. Decent pusher for some fights but if removing atonment its basicly useless to smite for it? Thinking bout fights like chimearon were a 15% healing increase is kinda nice when ppl are gonna be needed to be healed up fast as hell. Soul warding feels abit over the topp for tank healing now with sos up.

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Originally Posted by Ridan

Agree there its getting abit more tricky each day to find that perfekt balance will have to try a mastery push I guess to be sure sacrificing crit and haste for starters :P.

Hmm any thoughts on soul warding atm? And likewise AA ofcourse. Decent pusher for some fights but if removing atonment its basicly useless to smite for it? Thinking bout fights like chimearon were a 15% healing increase is kinda nice when ppl are gonna be needed to be healed up fast as hell. Soul warding feels abit over the topp for tank healing now with sos up.

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My 2 cents:

Soul Warding is not necessary for 5-mans, however in a raid setting it is a strong talent again. PW:S has been buffed like crazy, and while we can't bubblebot our way the whole raid like Wrath, we can toss up several before a big AOE to mitigate a lot of the damage.

Given how many of our talents in the tree are mandatory or close to it, it seems we're faced with a choice between an A/A spec, or skipping it in favor of some of the nice stuff outside the tree like Darkness. Comparing the utility of A/A to a flat boost to spell haste is... well, I dunno. I'll figure out what I like better sooner or later :-P

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Crit is poopy unless you're primarily a tank healer. If you're a tank healer, reforge to crit and DEFINITELY get inspiration. If you aren't running smite spec, you should have enough points to get all the good talents in disc & inspiration. If you are running smite spec, spec out of it. :> Atonement healing is poop and the poopness is multiplied if you're supposed to tank heal.

For raid healing, the value of haste for disc priests has plummeted given the value of mastery. Since PW:S isn't affected by oogobs of haste like PoH is, we want more mastery than before (reforge crit -> mastery). If you aren't casting that many direct heals at all, then reforge your haste -> mastery as well. If you're still casting a fair amount of direct heals, the haste can be beneficial.
As for Inspiration with a raid healing spec, you should still get it assuming you do tank healing at any time ever(which you should, since shielding the tank & tossing him some spare penances is a great idea, especially if you have/get 4pc).

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I think you're speaking in extremes. Bubble spam is good but very very mana intensive - I wouldn't suggest stacking pure Mastery, at least at this gear level, because you will still be using a lot of casted spells as a raid healer, and will be casting PW:S fairly often (and for a fair chunk of damage absorption) as a tank healer.

Furthermore, you should ALWAYS have Inspiration for PvE. If you're raid healing, you'll still be bouncing stuff like PoM, Penance, and the occasional GHeal on the tank. A/A is good utility, but outside of the old Halfus that's all it was and is - utility. Good for downtime, to top people off during periods of low damage, or to weave between your spells to get 5 stacks for a +15% healing buff when you need it. Just because you specced Smite does not mean you'll be casting it 100% of the time, and certainly is not an excuse for skipping a vital damage mitigation talent.

Let's see, what else. Haste is tremendously useful regardless of your role - you're correct that Crit is very good for single-target and pretty weak with PW:S and PoH, but stacking it for single-target healing makes no sense given our low crit rates. Do you really want to rely on RNG to keep your tank alive? Better to have a good balance of Crit and Haste, as the Haste will shorten the time between your GHeals and thus create a reliable method of throughput. Crit is good but it sucks by itself, much like one M&M just makes you hungry for more. (damn that's a good analogy)

Thank you for the information Zevia. I was wondering if Disc was better at one type of healing then another. Like the holy thread says, holy is better at raid healing then tank healing but can tank heal when needed. Is Disc focused on tank healing or raid healing?

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Originally Posted by Pruke

Is Disc focused on tank healing or raid healing?

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Yes to both. It's a pretty flexible spec.

And I wouldn't say Holy Priests are weak single-target healers, either. Not as strong as other classes perhaps, but still solid. The issue is Chakra - they need to swap Chakra states to get from AoE healing mode to single-target healing mode, and Chakra has a 30 second cooldown.

Most of this idea that one class can only tank heal and others can only raid heal is left over from Wrath, where Holy Paladins were the tank healers and everyone else wasn't. They've done a decent job of giving all the healing specs the tools for single-target or AoE/multi-target healing, even if they didn't do an outstanding job of balancing all the classes.

ty for the thread I see that I have been gemming wrong taking more mastery and less intellect at this point, but I do use my power word shield whenever it's available and also use renew. Use renew alot for the simple matter then when it crits it's put on divine ageis also i'm sad to say I never used greater heal lol been using flash heal will have to switch that up and see haven't really had an issue other than mana going oom but haven't started raiding much one a.m raid on magmaw with guild will be doing more shortly though ty much for the guide will tweak spec and heals I use ty much

Make sure to update this to reflect the +33% cost to PW: Shield that just got Hotfixed in. Definitely going to change the mechanics for Disc priests.

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Originally Posted by Perrian

Make sure to update this to reflect the +33% cost to PW: Shield that just got Hotfixed in. Definitely going to change the mechanics for Disc priests.

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Not really, it's just postponing the inevitable (Disc Priests returning to bubble spam) for another tier or so.

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Originally Posted by Sebadoh

Not really, it's just postponing the inevitable (Disc Priests returning to bubble spam) for another tier or so.

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Bingo. The developers had the right idea with multiple shields when they were brainstorming out loud prior to the alpha, but decided to tack a free DA onto PoH instead. A major design change needs to occur to permanently fix this issue. Unfortunately, increasing the mana cost of heal in the first tier of raiding doesn't do that.

They just make shield viable again then increase the mana cost. Disc priests shield, in fairness they should have reduced the mana cost for Penance or Flash heal to make up for this.

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Originally Posted by Theotherone

They just make shield viable again then increase the mana cost. Disc priests shield, in fairness they should have reduced the mana cost for Penance or Flash heal to make up for this.

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I think you'll see disc raid healers going back to using AA/PoH for raidwide AoE damage, putting up PW:S on critical raid members [whereas in 4.0.3 it wasn't even good for that], and using single target spells for when PoH would result in high overhealing.

I think a lot of things would be different if paladins were to become raid healing viable so more Disc priests can have shots at tank healing roles.

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Originally Posted by Spiritus

I think you'll see disc raid healers going back to using AA/PoH for raidwide AoE damage, putting up PW:S on critical raid members [whereas in 4.0.3 it wasn't even good for that], and using single target spells for when PoH would result in high overhealing.

I think a lot of things would be different if paladins were to become raid healing viable so more Disc priests can have shots at tank healing roles.

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I tend to do this, but was getting back to bubble spam when PoW: Shield started putting 26k bubbles out.