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Talent Builds
This Discipline Priest build is well rounded and suited for all types of content, without focusing on any one thing in particular. For a deeper look at each talent and more specialized builds for specific activities, see the Disc Priest Talent Guide.
Priority List
- Cast Power Word: Shield to maintain Atonement on tanks or to "ramp up" and cover a large amount of the raid with Atonement before big damage goes out.
- Maintain Shadow Word: Pain or Purge the Wicked on the boss and continue to spread them if it will reach full duration and does not interfere with your preparation before damage goes out.
- Cast Penance if you have a Power of the Dark Side buff or if you are moving.
- Use charges of Power Word: Radiance primarily together, if you are planning to use Evangelism shortly afterwards to extend the mass Atonement that were applied by Power Word: Radiance. In between Evangelism cooldowns you may use them together or separately so long as you have them both back before your next Evangelism cast.
- Use Mindbender or Shadowfiend after or while applying a high quantity of Atonement.
- Use Evangelism after using your Power Word: Radiance charges to extend the duration of all active Atonement.
- Use Halo (if talented) on cooldown just after big damage goes out
- Use Shadow Mend as needed to heal injured allies that can also benefit from Atonement being applied.
- After Atonements are applied you move into the damage rotation below and continue in it until most of your Atonement's durations have expired.
- Mindbender or Shadowfiend on cooldown.
- Shadow Word: Pain on as many targets that will receive near full duration.
- Schism on cooldown (can be held briefly to time for a big hit).
- Halo on cooldown.
- Power Word: Solace on cooldown.
- Penance or Smite.
- Holy Nova (if over 5 targets).
Stats
Discipline Priests primarily favor Intellect through Item Level, along with Haste, though secondary stats are generally close in value.
- Intellect
- Haste
- Critical Strike
- Mastery
- Versatility
Gear in Battle for Azeroth is heavily focused on pursuing item level upgrades on your gear pieces. While haste will be a primary focus to prepare for raids, if you find a non-haste item that is 10 item levels higher than the haste piece, it is quite likely that the higher ilvl piece will be better. Some exceptions to item level can be rings and some trinkets. For further detail, check the gear guide.
Enhancements
Only two gear slots can be enchanted by all players in Battle for Azeroth: weapons and rings. There are also glove enchants which can assist with professions, Enchanter-only bracer enchants which modify hearthstone use, and Tailor-only cloak enchants which reduce threat slightly.
- Weapon: Enchant Weapon - Machinist's Brilliance
- Rings: Enchant Ring - Accord of Haste
- Gems: Leviathan's Eye of Intellect and Quick Sand Spinel
Essences
The essence system offers powerful additional abilities to your toolkit that are unlocked throughout various activities like reputations, pvp and pve. Essences often have various situational or specific benefits, to find out more check out the full Discipline Priest Essences for the Heart of Azeroth - Battle for Azeroth 8.2 here for unlock requirements and breakdowns of specific uses.
Excerpt from the Essence Guide:
The Ever-Rising Tide — The Tome of the Quickening Tides
- Use on: Raids, General Mythic+
The best essence for most raid encounters and general Mythic+ environment. It halts your mana regen over the course of the duration but is excellent for Discipline's ramps in a raiding environment. With a low cooldown there is very heavy emphasis on optimizing your ramp up windows to take advantage of the raw healing buff that is granted by each successive cast. The general plan will be to maximize stacks without severely impacting your build up on Atonements.
The Minor Power is also useful, but entirely passive so you will not need to worry about micromanaging it. Additional primary stats or mana returned are consistently helpful and are well suited to both areas of content.
Effect on gameplay
Through testing on the PTR the most favorable way seemed to include using both Power Word: Radiance charges during the duration, after multiple Power Word: Shield / Shadow Mend casts, so that you could maximize your uptime dealing damage with the healing buff up. This can cut down on a stack or two but will offer a sizeable burst that maximizes buff uptime and Atonement duration. Abilities like Evangelism, Power Word: Solace, and Rapture do not grant stacks so they should not be utilized during the Overcharge Mana buff.
When using this ability with Rapture, it does not increase the value of your absorption effects so it seems favorable to use the Overcharge Mana after you activate Rapture, then cast as many Power Word: Shields as possible during the remaining duration then into a singular Power Word: Radiance for a smaller ramp in between Evangelism uses. You lose out on an extra Power Word: Shield cast but gain an extra stack of healing bonus which is helpful with this smaller ramp not being able to extend the duration.