Updated for Warlords of Draenor
The Discipline Priest is well suited for PvP. Very effective healing and very hard to kill, what more is there? Your shields and heals and abilities almost make the job too easy.
Depending on the current patch Discipline may or may not be the “Flavor of the Month” (FOTM) for PvP healing. We’re not interested in the FOTM game and will assume that you actually want to play Discipline, regardless. 😉
Scroll down for the info.
Warlords shifted things around, just a bit (snort.) Here are all of the Priest changes in WoD. Among a whole bunch of other things, you achieve Enlightenment at level 90, crowd control isn’t nearly what it used to be, and a bunch of abilities have been removed, shifted, or changed.
And Resilience, Hit, Expertise, and PvP Power are all dead.
Note: if you’re more interested in Discipline for Raids and other PvE then see our other Discipline Priest page.
Feel Free to like, share, or comment on this page if you find it useful. Add your bit in the comment form, at the bottom of the page, especially if I missed something here or you want to see something added.
Discipline Priest PvP Contents
This Page
The builds and info on this page are for Discipline Priest PvP, of max level, though lower levels can still get some use from them. If you need to get to the level cap ASAP then save yourself a lot of time and trouble and treat yourself to an in-game leveling guide. |
Other Priestly Guides |
Discipline Priest PvP Build
Depending on what you’re doing (2s, 3s, 5s, world PvP, BGs, duels) you might find that one talent is more interesting than another and that for the next fight a different talent is best. Keep a stack of tomes handy and swap talents as necessary. (It’s quick and easy.) Talent descriptions are below the image and our picks are checked:
Tier 1: Acquired at level 15 – Control
Tier 2: Acquired at level 30 – Movement
Tier 3: Acquired at level 45 – Healing and Damage
Tier 4: Acquired at level 60 – Emergencies
Tier 5: Acquired at level 75 – Bonuses
Tier 6: Acquired at level 90 – Mass Heal The “best” one here depends on what you’re doing. None are particular good for arena and the heals are underwhelming.
Tier 7: Acquired at level 100 – More Healing
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Discipline PvP Glyphs
There are a number of useful Discipline Priest PvP glyphs. You will want to buy all of them (need the gold?) and experiment to find the best set for any given fight. Grab the first three depending on what you are doing.
- Penance – Cast Penance while moving. Very nice, even with the increased mana cost.
- Shadow Magic gives immunity to silence and interrupts for 5 seconds, but the cooldown of Fade is now 1 minute.
- Weakened Soul – The Weakened Soul effect of PW: Shield is reduced by 2 seconds. This allows you to cast more shields over the time of a battle.
- Fear Ward for fighting Warlocks or Priests or other scary types.
- Reflective Shield – reflects 70% of damage done, from one shot, back at the attacker.
- Inquisitor causes your PW: Solace and your Inner Fire to do more initial damage and a portion of that increased damage comes back to you. This damage will break you out of CCs, such as Polymorph. Best used against mages, not so much use against others.
- Mass Dispell – Allows you to dispel the undispelable, including Paladin bubbles and Cyclones.
- Prayer of Mending – the first hit heals for 60% more. Great for small groups. Goes well with your Words of Mending talent (if you took that.)
- Binding Heal allows your Binding Heal to heal a third target, but at a higher mana cost.
- Leap of Faith removes roots and such from your target.
- Restored Faith causes your Lap of Faith to pull you to the target instead of pulling him to you.
- Levitate is a levitate speed increase.
- Glyph of Shadow Word: Death can be used to break certain “break on damage” CCs cast on you, Frost Nova for example (since casting it on high health targets does damage to you.)
Minor Glyphs are all cosmetic. None (in 5.3) have real use.
- Borrowed time makes the effect visual.
- Heavens and Shackle change the look of the powers.
- Glyph of Confession – forces a friendly target to confess a secret. Good for blackmail purposes. Of course, they might not be friendly after that. 😈
Discipline Stats
In Warlords your Hit, Expertise, PvP Power, Resilience, and Reforging are all dead and buried. Did youi want to perform the last fights for them? We’ll pause.
You have two new stats, Versatility and Multistrike. You now achieve Enlightenment at level 90, whcih adds 5% crit from all sources, giving you a 10% base Crit rating. Int now only adds to Spell Power, it no longer adds anything to any other stats.
Priorities:
The ‘>’ symbol = “greater than.”
- Int > Versatility > Mastery > Crit > Multistrike > Spirit > Haste
Int is point by point you best stat.
Vesatility is a direct add to your damage, your healing, and (at 50% value) your damage reduction. The last why it rates as highly as it does. If you’re not under a lot of pressure then go for the Mastery.
D. Priest Mastery is a pretty solid stat, perhaps the most important of ALL of your stats, as it improves your heals and your shields. Of course, those shields can be purged…
Crit helps with your shields via your Divine Aegis. Because of this high crit builds are quite viable. Crit, however, is random. Most will prefer the reliability of high Versatility/Mastery over the randomness of Crit. Note that Crit only does 150% effect in PvP (200% in PvE.)
Multistrike gives you a chance (two chances in PvE) for one copy of your attack/heal at 30% effect (based off a new roll and not that mighty crit you just got.) Like Crit, Multistrike is less effective in PvP than PvE, as you only get 1 chance at the extra shot.
Haste speeds up everything you do, which has obvious value. It does nothing for your shields, which is where the majority of your value lies.
Spirit really depends on your mana usage. If your mana use is fine, then get other stats. If you can’t last through a fight then check your routine and get more Spirit.
Discipline Priest PvP Gems
There are no gem sockets in Warlords Season 1 PvP gear, so there is no gemming.
If you seed more gold to buy more gems and stuff, then see Hayden’s guide to massively improve your cash flow.
Gear before Warlords
There are plenty of sockets on lower level PvP gear. If you’re doing that then gem for Int and Crit (below 80) or Int and Mastery from 80 to 90.
The slots | Int Build | |
Meta | Revitalizing Primal Diamond | |
Red, belt buckle | Brilliant Primordial Ruby | |
Yellow | Artful Vermilion Onyx | |
Blue | Purified Imperial Amethyst |
More on Warlords Gemming
- Gem sockets are not available on PvP gear. They have a (small) random chance to appear on Raid gear, so perhaps they’ll also appear on PvP gear and other items as well.
- The gem themselves are actually available. They are all prismatic, meaning they fit into any socket. None have Int, they all have secondary stats (Mastery, etc.)
- Older (Mists of Pandaria) gems work until item level 600, but the item squish cut them down a bit. What used to be 160 Int is now 10, for example. The new Prismatic gems are 50 points of Mastery or whatever.
- Older gems (Mists of Pandaria and lower) that used to code for Hit now do Crit, gems that had Expertise are now Haste.
So, Assuming the gems actually become available for level 100 PvP or that you’re using socketed PvE gear (gasp!!)
Gems for Warlords of Draenor | ||
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Prismatic | Greater Mastery Taladite: +50 Mastery Mastery Taladite: +35 Mastery Greater Critical Strike Taladite: +50 Crit Critical Strike Taladite: +35 Crit Greater Versatility Taladite: +50 Versatility Versatility Taladite: +35 Versatility |
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Mists of Pandaria Gems, for gear under ilevel 600. | ||
Meta | Burning Primal Diamond: +14 Int & 3% Increased Crit Effect Ember Primal Diamond: +14 Intellect and +2% Maximum Mana Forlorn Primal Diamond: +14 Intellect and 10% Silence Reduction Revitalizing Primal Diamond: +27 Spirit & 3% Increased Crit Effect |
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Red | Brilliant Primordial Ruby: 10 Int | |
Yellow | Fractured Sun’s Radiance: +20 Mastery Smooth Sun’s Radiance: +20 Crit |
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Blue | Sparkling River’s Heart: +20 Spirit Rigid River’s Heart: +20 Crit |
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Orange | Artful Vermilion Onyx: +5 Int & +10 Mastery | |
Green | Zen Wild Jade: +10 Mastery, +10 Spirit Sensei’s Wild Jade: +10 Crit and +10 Mastery |
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Purple | Purified Imperial Amethyst: +5 Int, +10 Spirit Veiled Imperial Amethyst: 5 Int and 10 Crit |
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Cogwheel | Sparkling Tinker’s Gear: 38 Spirit – requires an engie helm, such as this. Quick Tinker’s Gear: 38 Haste Smooth Tinker’s Gear: 38 Crit Fractured Tinker’s Gear: 38 Mastery |
Discipline Priest PvP Enchantments
Short on gold? If you want to buy the best enchants, fund all of your alts, donate to the guild, etc., but don’t have the cash, then see what the Tycoon Addon can do about about fixing your poverty.
Warlords Notes: There are no head enchants, all shoulder enchants come from the Inscription profession and are only for items under items level 600.
There are new enchants for Neck, Cloak, Weapons, and your Rings. Not for any other pieces. (Not yet, anyway.)
Enchant for Versatility – as with the gems, enchants for somewhat lower level items are also included.
Warlords of Draenor Enchantments | |
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Weapons, Main & Off-Hand |
Mists:
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Cloak |
Mists:
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Rings |
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Neck |
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Enchants for item levels below 600. | |
Shoulders | Greater Crane Wing Inscription: +15 Int and 5 Crit |
Chest | Enchant Chest – Glorious Stats: +9 to all Stats Enchant Chest – Mighty Spirit: +25 Spirit |
Bracers | Enchant Bracer – Super Intellect: +15 Int Enchant Bracer – Mastery: +25 Mastery |
Gloves | Enchant Gloves – Superior Mastery: +25 Mastery |
Belt | Livingsteel Belt Buckle: Gem slot for a nice Int gem |
Leggings | Greater Pearlescent Spellthread: +19 Int and +11 Spirit Greater Cerulean Spellthread: +19 Int and +11 Crit |
Boots | Enchant Boots – Pandaren’s Step: +10 Mastery, slight run speed increase. |
Discipline Priest PvP Gear
We have a full page for all the Discipline Priest PvP Gear, with all the items and all the details. This section is the short version of that page. If you’re strapped for gold then take a look at the Tycoon addon.
At 90 you can get the Crafted Malevolent PvP set or the Timeless Isle gear. You’ll replace it soon enough, but it’s a nice jump in item level from your questing gear at 90.
At 91 you can equip some pretty decent drafted pieces. They’re not nearly as good as the level 100 PvP gear, but they’re way better than anything you’ll find questing or in the dungeons. You can equip three pieces of crafted gear, there is no crafted PvP set in Warlords. Yet.
- Get the Inscription staff. (ilevel 630)
- Chest and legs from Tailoring. (ilevel 640)
- Escape Trinket (unless you’re human.) Crafted Malevolent Gladiator’s Medallion of Tenacity
- Have Alchemy? Get the trinket: (Draenic Philosopher’s Stone, requires Alchemy 500)
PvP or PvE Gear?
PvP gear, as soon as you can get it. Why? The PvP gear has two item levels, one for PvE and one for PvP. The honor gear, for example, is 620/675. So it’s 620 in the dungeons and 675 in any PvP situation. That makes it a higher ilevel than any PvE gear you will find.
Grinding for Gear
Because going into the RBGs or Arena with full honor gear will be much less painful than doing it with questing, or even dungeon, gear.
PvE gear is uprated in instanced PvP to 650, but the PvP gear starts at 660 and so is clearly better. There are actually three tiers of PvP gear in Warlords.
- Primal Aspirant is ilevel 600/660 and is found in strongboxes won from the BGs of Ashran PvP events. It can also be found as “Warforged,” which adds 6 item levels.
- Primal Combatant is the honor gear. It’s 620/675 and can also be Warforged.
- Primal Gladiator is the Conquest gear and is 660/690. It cannot be Warforged.
Every gear slot has two options for the honor gear and three, with sufficient faction rep, for the Conquest gear. Only one of those options come with a set bonus, the others do not. For example:
- Primal Gladiator’s Satin Robe has the set bonus, which you probably really want. This piece has Crit & Mastery, which isn’t bad.
- Primal Gladiator’s Robes of Prowess has no set bonus and comes with Haste and Mastery, which isn’t quite as good.
- Primal Gladiator’s Raiment of Cruelty, has no set bonus, requires the faction rep, and has Versatility and Multistrike.
The set bonuses are:
Our suggestion is to go for the pieces with the set bonuses.
- 2 piece Set: Penance now increases the movement speed of a friendly target you heal by 30%, and decreases the movement speed of an enemy target you damage by 50%.
- 4 piece Set: Reduces the cooldown of Pain Suppression by 60 sec.
- There is a 10% Damage Reduction (Vs Players) bonus for the PvP trinket pair
How to Upgrade, What Order do I get Stuff?
- Your PvP trinket (escape) is #1, if you don’t already have one. If you already do then save its upgrade for last.
- Honor Weapons do not have any special requirements to buy, beyond the cost. If you’re working on the honor gear then get these items first.
- Conquest weapons DO have a requirement of 7,250 points earned first. Grab those after getting your gloves and a big item (head, chest, or legs.) The points work out best that way.
- Get the “On Use” DPS trinket.
- Finish the 4 piece set.
- Get the neck, cloak, and rings, since these items can be enchanted.
- Boots and bracers.
- Save the upgraded escape trinket for last.
Discipline Abilities
These are what define you as a Discipline Priest. Abilities common to all priests are not shown.
Heals and Damage
- Spiritual Healing – Increases your heals.
- Meditation – Regen more mana while in combat.
- Rapture – Removes the cooldown on your PW: Shield
- Penance – Damages an enemy or heals an Ally
- Holy Fire – A DOT effect
- Holy Nova – Area effect damage and heal.
- Heal – A cheap, slow (to cast) heal
- Greater Heal – A slow (to cast) heal, more expensive than “heal.”
- Atonement – Your damage spells heal a nearby ally.
- Grace – Improves your healing on one target for a few seconds.
- Prayer of Healing – Heals all (close) party members.
- Evangelism – Build stacks and Archangel uses them to improve healing.
- Archangel – Consumes your Evangelism for more healing.
- Mastery: Shield Discipline – More healing and better shields.
Shielding and Defense
- Divine Aegis – Critical heals put a shield around the target instead of additional healing. PW: Shield will absorb twice as much on crits.
- Focused Will – Damage taken by you reduce subsequent damage taken by 15%, the perk also increases the damage that you do by 5%
- Pain Suppression – Reduces the damage taken by the target for a few seconds.
- Power Word: Barrier – Protect a group with a barrier.
Control
- Silence – One of the few silences left in the game. 5 seconds of blissful quiet.
Utility and Buffs
- Borrowed Time – Casting PW: Shield lets you gain 40% more Haste from all sources for 6 seconds.
- Purify – Remove Magic and Disease from targets.
“How to” Discipline
Some Utility Stuff
Leap of Faith – If your partner is CCed, or being heavily pressured, you can yank him away from his attacker. The better your positioning (for example, if you’re on a ledge or platform) the better this works. If you use the glyph you can move to your ally, then get a fear off. Your perk (Enhanced Leap of Faith) modifies your Leap to buff your next heal on that same target, after “gripping” him, by 50%. You yank him out of danger then get off what’s basically a critical heal.
- Glyph of Leap of Faith removes roots and such from your target. Exclusive with:
- Glyph of Restored Faith causes your Leap of Faith to pull you to the target instead of pulling him to you.
Fear Ward – Fire off Fear Ward right before the encounter and it might well be up again before the encounter is over, maybe when you need it. Or wait until right before engaging that Fear using opponent and then Fear him. Or when you see that priest using a feather to come by to Fear you or your DPS/Ally.
- Glyph of Fear Ward (for fighting Warlocks or Priests or other scary types) reduces the cooldown by 60 seconds (to two minutes.)
Dispel Magic & Purify – Dispel your enemy’s buffs and Purify away your ally’s CCs and Diseases. (Yes, this is why DKs hate you.) Purifying away those CCs on your team is very important and will help win games. You can clean the enemy buffs as soon as you’re within range, which will help your team apply effective pressure. Remove their shields, Icy Veins, Pyro! procs, etc.
- Mass Dispel, with Glyph of Mass Dispel, is for removing Ice Block, Paladin Bubbles, and Cyclone. Also removes stuff like Mass entanglement and Warlock DOTs from your whole team (if they’re in range.) Use Dispel Magic for single dispels and and save Mass Dispel for the big stuff. Also, since it’s a targetable area effect you can dispel effects from a teammate even if they’re stuck around a corner, out of your Line of Sight. Point the center of the area at the corner and fire away. It’ll hit everything appropriate in that area, even if out of sight.
Surviving the Assault (on You)
Try to time your defensive cooldown for when the opposition is bursting with their offensive cooldowns.
- Escape trinket
- Pain Suppression – Reduces the damage taken by the target by 40% for a few seconds. That pair of Rogues unloading on you is a good example of when to use this.
- Power Word: Barrier – Protect a group with a barrier. Use it to protect yourself right before the enemy does their “CC to Burst” on you. If the other side is going to blow everything at the start of the game then that’s the perfect time to use it. Try to get your pals to stay in the barrier…
- Psychic Scream works well as an interrupt, too. Best used against healers and such. Against Warriors and DKs you might want to look into Void Tendrils instead.
- Silence – get that Warlock to shut up for a moment, while you keep healing. Best used as an interrupt for spells that have cast times. The glyph reduces the cooldown to 20 seconds, but shortens the duration by 2 seconds. That doesn’t matter much if your primary use of it is as an interrupt. Use it to interrupt Fears, other CCs, Heals, etc. Also it doesn’t share diminishing returns with other fears or similar effects that your team may be casting.
- Assistance from your team. Such as your Paladin helping you out (hand of freedom) of that 8 second stun that Combat Rogue just dropped on you.
- Dwarves have Stone Form as a major defensive cooldown, as it removes all kinds of effects (DOTs, for one) and reduced physical damage by 10%, such as what that Rogue is doing to you.
- Mind game – This depends on you knowing the enemy and being able to make educated guesses about what they might do. Faking a cast to get them to blow an interrupt is an example.
Crowd Control
- Psychic scream. Spectral guise, run to enemy, Fear. You can angle Fears (since they run straight away from you) to get the opponent(s) to run in “the right” direction, such as behind a pillar or away from their DPS. The Glyph of Psychic Scream will cause them to tremble in place, instead of run, so it’s effectively a stun. Might be nice if your ally likes to drop area effect attacks.
- Silence, see above section.
- Void Tendrils is nice against double melee teams or anyone who can easily deal with your Fear. Melee will generally have to hack their way out of the Tendrils. Also, if you team already has Fears then Tendrils is something that doesn’t share diminishing returns with those fears.
Movement
- Glyph of Restored Faith causes your Leap of Faith to pull you to the target instead of pulling him to you. Pay him a visit, cast fear, send baddies running, your ally is now happier. If you ally moves to a higher position you can grip yourself to him.
- Angelic Feather is a really nice sprint which you can use with teammates.
- Glyph of Penance, which allows Penance to be cast while moving.
- Dispel Magic, while not a speed boost, can remove slowing/rooting effects from you, freeing up your movement.
A Basic Discipline How To Guide
Since this video was made he’s decided that he likes Mindbender and Power Infusion. This video will cover the basics of how to be a D. Priest.
Discipline Priest Macros
Go here if you need some basics on macros.
Fear Ward
Cast a Fear Ward on the named player. You can also use party1, party2, etc. instead of healername. mouseover also will work.
#showtooltip Fear Ward
/cast [target=healersname] fear ward
or on yourself, regardless of who you already have targeted.
/cast [target=player] fear ward
Dispelling
Use a set of macros to dispel your team. You can use the name of the player or a focus target or a mouseover or yourself. Just make a separate macro for each: target=NameOfYourBuddy, target=focus, target=party1, target=player (that’s you,) and so on.
/cast [target=player] Dispel Magic
Shadowfiend Macro
#showtooltip Shadowfiend
/cast [nopet] Shadowfiend
/petdefensive
/cast shadowcrawl
/petattack
Prayer of Mending Target – If Target Not in Party then PoM Self
#showtooltip Prayer of Mending
/cast [raid] Prayer of mending
/cast [noraid,target=player] Prayer of Mending
/cast [raid,target=player] Prayer of Mending
Shackle Ebon Gargoyle
#showtooltip Shackle Undead
/target [harm] Ebon Gargoyle
/cast Shackle Undead
/targetlasttarget
Mouseover Shackle
/cast [target=mouseover] Shackle Undead
Shadow Word: Pain/Devouring Plague Macro: Here it is.
#showtooltip [nomod] Shadow Word: Pain; [mod:shift] Dispel Magic; [mod:ctrl] Devouring Plague; [mod:alt] Shadow Word: Pain
/cast [mod: ctrl] Devouring Plague
/cast [mod: shift] Dispel Magic
/cast [nomod] Shadow Word: Pain
The above were taken from ArenaJunkies. You’ll find more scripts and macros on their ArenaJunkies Priest scripts page
How to Get your Priest to the Level Cap, ASAP
Priest leveling is easy, especially for Shadow. Holy and Disc. can level in PvP or Dungeons and Shadow can do all of that and quest effectively. Then you hit the top and the game changes. And then you have those other alts you want to level though those 100 levels.
With the thousands of quests to 100 and a bazillion mobs to kill (not to mention other players, but they don’t count here) sorting out which quests are best and which series of quests will get you to 100 the fastest is important, which is why we highly recommend Zygor’s Guide.
Zygor’s is an in-game guide and it nearly automates the whole leveling process: you just pick your starting point, at any level, and the guide tracks which quest you’re on, tracks the quest objectives, and automatically advances and updates as you complete your tasks and quests. In addition, a waypoint arrow is set automatically, so you never have to wonder where to go. All of the important quest info is included in the guide so you never have to wonder what to do. You’ll find that it’s vastly superior to the in-game questing help.
Playing with Heirlooms and/or Recruit a friend? Gaining a few levels in the dungeons or in PvP? Zygor has your back. The guide knows what level you are and will correctly suggest where to go next and will let you dump all of your obsolete quests. You will probably never need to look at your quest log again.
Grab your copy here and get to 100 as fast as possible, or read our review, first.
Like this page? How about recommending it and/or commenting?
Do you really think Versatility is the way to go? Because right now I’m focusing on crit. (Didn’t know for example that in pvp combat healing crits are only 150% instead od 200%. As a Discipline priest that shouldn’t be a problem though, because you don’t “crit” anyway.
Thanks.
Hey there. Good question.
Is Versatility THE stat? Kinda depends on your game. It’s a direct add to any damage and healing that you do and also provides damage reduction, so is pretty useful overall. Crit and Mastery are still good stats. A Versatility/Mastery build would give you better heals and more Shields.