Return to Priest Talent Guide

Discipline Talent Guide

This discipline talent guide goes over each of the talents in the Priest's discipline talent tree. This tree is focused on survival and damage reduction. Most priests that spend their points in the Discipline tree are doing so to be PvP healers. In PvP a discipline priest is very hard to hurt or kill, and if not for being slower than a Druid Healer would reign supreme as the 2v2 and 3v3 healer of choice in arenas. The tree also offers some excellent talents that focus on mana efficiency and long term spell casting.

• Unbreakable Will - Max 5 points, up to 15% chance to resist stun, fear and silence effects
  • Mainly a PvP talent although it has its uses in some PvE content, extremely useful in PvP though
  • Recommended for all PvP players
• Twin Disciplines - Max 5 points,
  Increases the damage and healing done by your instant spells by 5%.
  • A nice all around talent. It allows your quick spells to do additional damage or healing.
  • Great for shadow priests as your Shadow Word: Pain and Death are both instants.
  • Recommended for Shadow Priests

• Silent Resolve - Max 5 points, reduces threat generated by holy and disciple spells by up to 20% and reduces the chance your spells will be dispelled by up to 30%.
  • Excellent talent for healers to reduce the chance of drawing healing aggro.
  • Of some value in PvP so that spells can not be removed as easily
  • Highly recommended
• Improved Inner Fire - Max 3 points, increases the armour provided by inner fire by 15% and increases the total number of charges by up to 12.
  • Inner Fire is used mainly when leveling or when PvPing to prevent damage. The 15% extra armour is not a significant boost.
  • The 12 additional charges allow you to cast it less often thereby saving mana.
  • Skip it unless you are leveling or PvP
• Improved Power Word: Fortitude - Max 2 points, adds up to 30% health to your fortitude abilities.
  • While 30% sounds like a lot, it isn't even at max level. Because it is not a lot of health you can skip it unless you raid.
  • If you raid then one priest in the raid will be expected to have this ability so that the group has as much health as possible.
  • Can be skipped
• Martyrdom - Max 2 points, provides up to a 100% chance to gain focused casting for 6 seconds after being critically hit.
  . The Focused Casting effect reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting Priest spells and decreases the duration of Interrupt effects by 20%.
  • Very useful in PvP where you are going to be a prime target and can be critically hit easily.
  • Combined with other pushback prevention abilities it can almost remove pushbacks from your spells.
  • Recommended for PvP

• Improved Power Word: Shield - Max 3 points, adds up to 15% damage absorption to your shield.
  • While this sounds like a significant amount it really isn't that much on your shield.
  • Unless you plan on taking Improved shield or aegis later on in this tree it is not worth the points.
  • Can be skipped
• Meditation - Max 3 points, Allows up to 30% of your mana regeneration to continue while casting
  • Very useful for long fights both for damage and healing. Becomes more useful the longer the fights you are in become. Therefore almost critical to have for raiding or arenas. In these situations there are fights that last a very long time (5 minutes or more).
  • Must have for raiders or arena players
    
• Inner Focus - 1 point, reduces the mana cost of your next spell by 100% and increases its critical effect chance by 25%. 3 minute cooldown.
  • Amazing ability! Any spell you want for free, and does not start to global cooldown or the 5 second timer and greatly increases the chance of a critical.
  • Can be used in macros with your favourite spell.
  • Insanely useful for both healing (holy) and DPS (shadow)
  • Highly recommended
    

• Absolution - Max 3 points, up to 15% reduction in mana cost for dispel magic, cure disease, abolish disease and mass dispel.
  • Nice when you need to use these abilities a lot, as in certain raids or PvP, but a heavy investment in talent points for a low return in most situations.
  • Situationaly useful
• Mental Agility - Max 5 points, reduces the casting cost of instant spells by up to 10%
  • Since many of your spells are instants this can provide a nice reduction in the time you spend out of mana.
  • Recommended
• Improved Mana Burn - Max 2 points, reduces the casting time of your mana burn spell by up to a second.
  • By lowering the casting time by 1/3 you are also upping your damage output of that spell by 50%, since you can now cast it 3 times in the same amount of time it took for 2 castings.
  • Very useful if you are using the spell all the time.
  • Situational

• Mental Strength - Max 5 points, increases your total Intellect by up to 15%.
  • Can add a significant amount of mana at high levels.
  • Scales extremely well with gear, as 15% is a huge amount for any talent.
  • Useful in almost any situation.
  • Recommended
• Divine Spirit - 1 point skill, increases the targets spirit for 30 minutes.
  • 80 spirit (at max level) adds considerably to a players mana regeneration rate and is very useful for long fights or grinding.
  • A must have for at least one priest in every raid
  • Recommended
• Improved Divine Spirit - Max 2 points, your Divine Spirit and Prayer of Spirit spells also increase the target's spell damage by an amount equal to 100% of the Spirit granted.
  • This is a situational talent, if you are casting these spells on casters regularly then it can be a benefit, especially in raids.
  • If you are just healing in small groups or healing in PvP without a caster partner then is probably not worth it. At max level it is only 80 spirit which does not translate to a lot of spell power unless it is for multiple targets.
  • Skip unless raiding

• Focused Power - Max 2 points,
  increases damage and healing done by your spells by up to 4%. In addition, your Mass Dispel cast time is reduced by 1 sec.
  • Useful in PvP for the mass dispel cast time reduction.
  • Increasing all damage and healing by 4% for 2 points is better than most other talents.
  • Strongly Recommended
• Enlightenment - Max 5 points, increases your stamina, spirit, and spell haste by up to 5%.
  • This talent helps in many ways. You can take more damage, regenerate more mana and cast faster.
  • This deep in discipline you should take it, although it is not critical.
  • Recommended

• Focused Will - Max 3 points,
  After taking a critical hit you gain the Focused Will effect, reducing all damage taken by up to 4% and increasing healing effects on you by up to 5%. Stacks up to 3 times. Lasts 8 sec
  • An amazing passive ability for situations where you are going to be taking damage, such as in PvP. It means that if you are under attack you will be taking up to 12% less damage and healing for up to 15% more.
  • This combined with shields and your heals over time can keep you alive for a significant amount of time. When you get into real trouble you can use power infusion or pain suppression to survive even longer.
  • Not useful in most PvE situations.
  • Strongly recommended for PvP
• Power Infusion - 1 point skill, increases the targets spell casting speed by 20% and reducing the mana cost of all spells by 20% for 15 seconds. 3 minute cooldown.
  • Amazing burst damage or healing for yourself or a party member.
  • Does not start the global cooldown, so can be strung together with a spell cast in a macro
  • Recommended
• Reflective Shield - Max 5 points, causes up to 45% of the damage taken by Power Word: Shield to be reflected back at the attacker
  • Everyone uses PW: shield anyway, so if you are this deep into Discipline, you should grab this ability. At max level it will return upwards of 1500 damage per shield casting.
  • Also works with Divine Aegis the tier 9 talent, making it even more effective.
  • Almost a must have if you are into PvP as it allows you to prevent damage to yourself while still doing damage to the enemy.
  • Recommended, Strongly recommended if you are taking Divine Aegis or if you PvP

• Renewed Hope - Max 2 points,
  increases the critical effect chance of your Flash Heal, Greater Heal and Penance spells by up to 4% on targets afflicted by the Weakened Soul effect.
  • Weaken soul is the effect that Power Word: Shield places on your target, this allows players that have been shielded to be healed with a greater chance of getting a critical heal.
  • Skip it, there are better places to spend the points

• Rapture - Max 5 points, causes you to gain mana equal to up to 2.5% of your maximum mana each time you heal with Greater Heal, Flash Heal and Penance, or damage is absorbed by your Power Word: Shield or Divine Aegis. Increasing the amount healed or absorbed increases the mana gained.
  • This is an amazing mana regeneration ability, that will allow you to heal far longer than you normally would.
  • No other talent has the potential to return as much mana as this talent will.
  • Must have talent
• Aspiration - Max 2 point talent that reduces the cooldown of your Inner Focus, Power Infusion, Pain Suppression and Penance spells by up to 20%.
  • These abilities are three of your key abilities and cutting the cooldown time good thing.
  • The issue is that this far down in the tree it really isn't worth the 2 points unless you constantly use the abilities, for example when you are in the Arenas for PvP, then it may be worth it.
  • Skip unless you PvP

• Divine Aegis - Max 3 points,
  Critical heals create a protective shield on the target, absorbing up to 30% of the amount healed. Lasts 12 sec.
  • This is great talent for as any time your critically heal you also prevent some additional future damage.
  • Better yet, over healing counts towards the amount the shield protects.
  • Any new critical heal refreshes the shields timer and adds to the amount it can absorb.
  • Strongly Recommended
• Pain Suppression - 1 point skill, Instantly reduces a friendly target's threat by 5%, reduces all damage taken by 40% and increases resistance to Dispel mechanics by 65% for 8 sec.
  • Very useful in PvP when facing a rush to take you down, or as a last defence when you draw aggro after a tank dies.
  • The 5% threat reduction can be used to save a trigger happy DPS player late in a raid boss fight, not as strong as in PvP though.
  • Must be careful to never use on a tank unless you can see their threat is much higher than the raids, or they could move down the aggro list.
  • Strongly recommended for PvP
• Grace
  - Max 2 points,
  your Flash Heal, Greater Heal, and Penance spells have up to a 100% chance to bless the target with Grace, reducing damage done to the target by up to 1% and increases all healing received from the Priest by 2%. This effect will stack up to 3 times. Effect lasts 8 sec.
  • This allows you to single target heal (as in raid main tank healing) much better. It lowers the damage incoming on your target by up to 3% and increases healing by 6% when stacked.
  • This ability will almost always be active when single target healing and can effectively be counted as a 10% healing bonus (less damage, more healing).
  • Strongly Recommended for Main Tank Healers or PvP healers, recommended for others.

• Borrowed Time - Max 5 point talent that grants up to 25% spell haste for your next spell after casting Power Word: Shield, and increases the amount absorbed by your Power Word: Shield equal to up to 40% of your spell power.
  • This talent drastically improves you Power Word: Shield as at level 80 raid geared it will add at least another 800 damage to your shield. At the raiding level you will need it as the hits are big.
  • The spell haste after a shield cast is great, as it allows you to shield someone, then heal someone else quickly, then go back to the person you shielded or anyone else that needs help.
  • Recommended

• Penance - 1 point skill that launches a volley of holy light at the target, causing light Holy damage to the enemy, or does a stronger heal to an ally every 1 sec for 2 sec."
  • The damage caused from this spell is very light, and even though it is instant is not used that much.
  • The heal does substantially more though and provided a fair amount of healing it a short amount of time.
  • Penance is also very mana efficient as a heal and should become part of your normal rotation.
  • Recommended

Comments or questions? Email us ([email protected]) or post on our forums!