[EN] Discipline Priest 5.4.8 PvE Guide

[Wipe]

Mists of Pandaria Guide, Freakz Edition

Content:

1. Intro
2. Patch Changes
3. Recomanded Race choices
4. Stats, reforging and gemming
5. Talents
6. Glyphs
7. Enchants
8. Usefull professions
9. "Rotation"

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Feel free to leave coments about this guide, like the post or +rep if it helped you out. Cheers!

1. Intro
Discipline priests are the masters of absorbs and damage reduction. They may use damaging spells and also heal party/raid members with Atonement . This spec is usefull in preventing the damage encounter types, so, as they say: "Better prevent a wipe if you can't handle, than feeling sorry after..."
I hope this guide will help you if you choose playing Discipline, at least introducing you to the amazing world of The Wad. Good luck!

2. Patch Changes
Spells:

• Grace can no longer be dispelled.
  
• Rapture now energizes the Priest for 100% of the mana cost of Power Word: Shield When the shield is fully consumed or is dispelled (used to energize the Priest with mana equal to 150% of their spirit). This is the modified mana cost for Power Word: Shield , after being reduced by Rapture ’s passive effect.
  
• Spirit Shell duration has been reduced to 10 seconds (down from 15 seconds), and the damage absorption shield's effectiveness can now be reduced through Battle Fatigue.

Talents:

• Angelic Feather now increases allies' movement speed by 80%, up from 60%, and feathers placed in the world have a duration of 10 minutes (up from 5 minutes).
  
• Cascade 's effect can now bounce up to 4 times (up from 3), and its effect should no longer bounce between minor guardians (Wild Imps, Bloodworms, Snakes from Snake Traps, etc.).
  
• Divine Insight for Discipline Priests now has a 100% chance to activate its effect after using Penance (up from 40%), and now displays an effect in the UI when it's active.
  
• From Darkness, Comes Light: Discipline, Holy: Now also has a chance to activate its effect on cast for these following spells; Penance , Circle of Healing, Prayer of Mending , and Prayer of Healing .
  
• Twist of Faith 's damage and healing threshold to activate has been increased to 35% (up from 20%).

Glyphs:
Major Glyphs

• Glyph of Dark Binding's effect is now baseline and has been replaced with Glyph of Focused Mending.
  
• Glyph of Focused Mending causes Prayer of Mending to only bounce between the target and the caster.
  
• Glyph of Purify now causes Purify to heal the target for 5% of their maximum health after successfully dispelling a magical effect or disease (up from 3%).
  
• Glyph of Reflective Shield now causes Power Word: Shield to reflect 70% of the damage absorbed (up from 45%).

New Minor Glyphs

• Glyph of Angels: Causes the Priest's healing spells to momentarily grant angelic wings.
  
• Glyph of Inspired Hymns: A spirit appears above the Priest while channeling Hymns.
  
• Glyph of Shifted Appearances: Void Shift causes the Priest and their target to exchange appearances for several seconds.

3. Recomanded Race Choices
Alliance:

• Worgen: Viciousness
  
• Human: The Human Spirit
  
• Draenei: Gift of the Naaru

Horde:

• Blood Elf: Arcane Torrent
  
• Troll: Berserking
  
• Goblin: Time is Money

4. Stats, reforging and gemming for Discipline Priests

• Intellect is your most important stat, boosting your healing, followed by Spirit, which controls mana regeneration. Mana pools are now fixed in size. In MoP, you’re likely to find you need to reforge for additional Spirit until you’re comfortable with your new mana regen.
  Crit is our most useful secondary stat.
  
• Gemming: Gem for socket bonuses ( Purified in Red sockets, Sparkling in Blue sockets, Misty in Yellow sockets).
  
• Reforging: Reforging depends on your mana. Reforge to Spirit if you need mana regen, which is very likely. Then reforge to Crit.

5. Discipline Priest Talent Choices
The new 5.x talent system means that you may well want to change talents on a per-fight basis. However, if you’re looking for a general-purpose talent build that’ll get you started quickly, we recommend:

• Tier 1: Void Tendrils (not very important)
  
• Tier 2: Angelic Feather – grants a movement speed increasing effect on the ground.
  
• Tier 3: Solace and Insanity
  
• Tier 4: Desperate Prayer (powerful self-heal)
  
• Tier 5: Twist of Faith
  
• Tier 6: Cascade (another powerful group-healing CD)

6. Discipline Priest Glyphs
Glyphs are much more situational in WoW 5.x than before – however, here are some solid general choices:

• Major: Glyph of Penance , Glyph of Binding Heal , Glyph of Mass Dispel .
  
• Minor: Whatever you want – they have no performance effect.

7. Discipline Priest enchants and item enhancements
You should almost always use a profession enhancement item if it provides appropriate stats instead of a general enchant.

• Shoulders – Greater Crane Wing Inscription
  
• Back – Enchant Cloak – Superior Intellect
  
• Chest – Enchant Chest – Mighty Spirit
  
• Wrist – Enchant Bracer – Super Intellect
  
• Hands – Enchant Gloves – Superior Mastery
  
• Belt – Living Steel Belt Buckle
  
• Legs – Greater Pearlescent Spellthread
  
• Feet – Enchant Boots – Pandaren’s Step
  
• Weapon – Enchant Weapon – Jade Spirit
  
• Off-Hand Weapon – Enchant Off-Hand – Major Intellect

8. Usefull professions
Primary Professions:

• Leatherworking: Fur Lining (bracers), +500 intellect
  
• Engineering: Synapse Springs, 1920 intellect, 10s duration, 1m CD
  
• Enchanting: 2x Rings, 160 intellect
  
• Jewelcrafting: 2x Brilliant Serpent's Eye, 320 intellect
  
• Tailoring: Lightweave Embroidery, 2000 intellect, 15s duration, 1m CD
  
• Blacksmithing: 2x Sockets, 160 intellect
  
• Inscription: Secret Crane Wing Inscription, 520 intellect, 100 crit
  
• Alchemy: Mixology, 320 extra intellect

Secondary Professions:

• Herbalism: Lifeblood, 1920 haste, 20s duration, 2m CD
  
• Skinning: Master of Anatomy, 320 crit
  
• Mining: Toughness, +480 stamina

9. Discipline Healing "Rotation" and Priorities
Of course, we don’t really have a rotation – we’re a healing class, dammit! (Well, not unless you count the low-level dungeon rotation of Smite , Smite , Smite , Smite …). But here’s an intro to how best to use your abilities to keep everyone else up.

Tank healing
When you’re healing the tank, you’ll be using:

• Power Word: Shield : One of your primary damage prevention abilities. Re-cast it whenever it drops. Note that when it drops you get mana back!
  
• Penance Fairly powerful and efficient. Use whenever it’s off cooldown.
  
• Greater Heal Primary healing spell if the tank’s taking more damage than Heal can cope with.
  
• Heal Your “spam healing” spell. Use whenever the tank’s taking damage, but if his or her health is going down even with Heals, it’s time to switch to something more powerful.
  
• Flash Heal Your panic button. Will run you out of mana FAST, but will also heal the tank FAST.
  
• Prayer of Mending Will bounce around injured targets healing them. Use on your primary target during moderate or high damage phases, on CD.
  
• Power Word: Solace Use on CD unless you’re in an ntense damage phase. Smart-heals nearby players.
  
• You can also use Smite to smart-heal the tank if no-one else is injured, but most of the time it will be too random to use. However, use it in very low-damage phases to build Evangelism stacks.
  
• Keep Grace running on your primary target with Penance and your Heal spells.

Raid/group healing

• Power Word: Shield : Also very useful for raid healing. Cast on people you know or suspect are about to take damage. Fast and high healing.
  
• Prayer of Healing : Your primary group heal. Use whenever it will be useful for healing at least 3 people.
  
• Prayer of Mending : The “Bouncing Heal”. Cast on cooldown – as a smart heal, it’ll go where it’s needed (hopefully).
  
• Power Word: Solace : Use on cooldown (on the mobs, obviously), as it’s a smart heal that restores your mana.
  
• Other healing spells: Use Penance when it’s off cooldown, and Greater Heal to spot heal as needed. Only use Flash Heal if someone’s about to die and you can’t use Power Word: Shield . Whenever you don’t need to cast anything else, be casting Smite to build Evangelism stacks and do low-powered healing.

Cooldown spells
For when it’s all gone or is about to go a bit pear-shaped:

• Power Word: Barrier :Best used when the raid’s stacked and you know they’re about to take a lot of damage. Note: this is a powerful CD and can save your raid if used right.
  
• Pain Suppression : Powerful damage reduction – coordinate with your healing target as to when to cast this if possible, as it duplicates the effect of many tank cooldowns.
  
• Archangel : Frequent-use cooldown powered by Atonement stacks from Smite . Use whenever you need a bit more healing punch.
  
• Hymn of Hope : Use during low-damage phases to restore mana to you and nearby casters.
  
• Spirit Shell : Use whenever there’s high damage coming in.
  
• Leap of Faith : Useful for two things: moving slow, DCed or otherwise distracted people out of the Bad, and annoying your fellow raid members!
  
• Inner Focus : Short cooldown, and gives your next Flash Heal , Greater Heal or Prayer of Healing 100% crit chance. Useful frequent-use cooldown. Also grants 5 sec immunity to Silence.
  
• Void Shift is an extremely powerful heal if you’re on high health – but it has a very long CD. Assume it can only be used once per encounter.
  
• Cascade : Use on cooldown or when you know the raid’s going to take heavy damage.

Buffs:

• Keep Inner Fire or Inner Will up (the latter helps with mana costs), remember to cast Prayer of Fortitude if appropriate.

To do list:

• Pictures for different content.
  
• Starter & BIS Gear.

RO: Click aici pentru tutorialul in limba romana!
Feel free to leave coments about this guide, like the post or +rep if it helped you out. Cheers!

[Optikall]

Foarte frumos structurat dar....

Quote:

3. Recomanded Race choices

Recommended****

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8. Usefull professions

Useful****

Cumpar Cioara neagrã / Corb

[Wipe]

Ty, I will correct the text.


Don't touch this

[hujulikes]

Wipe wrote:

[*]Chest – Enchant Chest – Mighty Spirit

Why spirit instead of http://wow.gamepedia.com/Enchant_Chest_-_Glorious_Stats ?

[Wipe]

Good point, I will edit that mistake. If you find any others, please let me know.


Don't touch this

[kraiser]

Hello!

I'm surprised you missed Shadowfiend as one of Disc priest's CDs.

Also I understand that Mindbender is currently bugged on freakz, but that is the GO TO talent (if it were not bugged). It is far more superior than Solace and Insanity.

Explanation: Mindbender is affected by haste and more haste you have, more attacks it does. Regardless, haste is not an optimum stat, but you do get haste buffs from external sources (esp heroism/bloodlust). At 0 haste, Mindbender is scheduled to attack a target 13 times. So 13*0.75 = 9.75% mana return on a minute CD. Taking the same 1 minute rotation into consideration, you can use Power Word: Solace only 6 times, thats only a 6 % mana return. Now the question, is a 3.75% return too small to be considered insignificant: 3.75% of 300k mana is 11,250. Considering a fight lasts 4 minutes, thats 45k mana. Another point to notice, you get the 9.75% mana Over 15 seconds compared to 6% mana over a minute. Also, as stated previously, Power Word: Solace is not affected by haste.

But yeah, Shadowfiend is a very powerful mana return spell. It returns 24% of your mana in 12 seconds (this again considering 0 haste, more haste = more mana return). This has a 3 minute CD compared to Mindbenders 1 min CD.

A point to consider is "when to use Shadowfiend? (or Mindbender once it starts working)"

The ideal time to use it would be when you are at about 60% mana. Considering your mana regen from spirit and other sources, this would be the ideal time. Your Hymn of hope should be used as a Raid wide CD and not a personal mana regen CD. Hymn would ideally be used when you are at 25% mana. If you've reached 25% mana, the other healers should be either slightly closer, if not worse, or at about 50%, which again is a good enough point to use Hymn.

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Now coming about the stat priority -- Spirit is actually a disc's second worst stat after haste. You only need like 7k spirit tops, not more than that. You can probably go for 8k, but anything more than that is a waste for any encounter at any ilvl. As far as I know, 7k spirit should be easily obtainable even with the current content available. Once done, Crit is your next best stat, but hold on, thats not all. Even for crit, there's a softcap. This softcap is either 30% or 40%, depending on how much you want to go for, but i highly doubt you'll reach this much % with the current content available on freakz, however if and when SoO comes out, that should be easily attainable. Also with the t16 4p bonus, the softcap for crit will be 30% (or even 25%), after which you should always spec into mastery. No matter how you look at it, your mastery is your highest heal always.

Here's the ideal stat priority:

Intellect > Spirit (till 7k) > Crit (till 25% unbuffed) > Mastery > Crit (post 25%) > Spirit (post 7k) > Haste

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"Tank healing" and "Raid Healing"

The spell "Heal", yeah, remove that from your action bars . Wastes space. Use smite instead of heal, saves the effort of target switching via atonement. (Same as nourish for druids) I understand there are some bugs with atonement, but regardless of that, atone healing will still be more effective than target switch healing. Smart heals are literally the best heals ingame. They make healing stupid easy, which is why blizzard got rid of them in the next expac. Just keep PW: Shield on tanks, and start atoning for raid heals. When you go into a raid group, you generally shouldn't assign tank heals and raid heals. It should be self explanatory that every healer should be having some passive hot or spell active on the tanks (riptide, hots from druids, renew, sacred shield/EF/ beacon healing, and so on), for disc priests this is PW: Shield. This is why having 2x (or more) discs in a group can reduce their effectiveness in healing, not only in each other's healing, but also the other healers -- they just snipe all the heals via absorbs.

TLDR - Unless you are seriously having tank problems, assigning "tank healers" and "raid healers" doesnt make any sense. Every healing class is a viable raid heal/tank heal. If every class can do both, why not do both at the same time and not have specific assignments? only makes more sense because of -- yes, smart heals .

That's all for now! Cheers! Please do reply/PM for any further questions/corrections/additions to my post.

[Wipe]

I agree with wou mostly. The spirit issue for D Priest is that although freakz patch is 5.4 actual items are 5.0-5.1 and you can't have 7k spirit (pretty much) or any of crit/haste caps.

Anyway, nice explanations. TY.


Don't touch this

[kraiser]

Hmm, I've gotta recheck stats on items from MSV, but i remember getting 7k very easily (on retail). Reforge if you have to,but try not to go beyond 7k . I'll try posting the BiS gear that is obtainable from the available content on Freakz.

[Wipe]

Yes you can get 7k spirit, but if you do, other stats will suck, and mana regen is not quite a problem if you have 5k spirit. Still is better to rise your crit.

Creating a BIS gear list for actual content is kinda useless becouse there are 2 bosses scriptet in MSV + Sha + Galleon and Raid Finder random items. You can't estimate how it would look like. But, it can be made for the general patch 5.1, and updated as the freakz development plan goes on.


Don't touch this

[kraiser]

Ow ok, I dint know content was so limited, but I do know new content will come out soon nuff =) Guess i wont make the BiS list right now then xD

[Wipe]

This is the reason I didn't do it yet.


Don't touch this