Table of Contents
•About Me
•Introduction to the Guide
•Talents
•Need-To-Know About Spells
•Keeping Your Raid Up
•Gearing Up
•Interface
•How-To-Do-Encounters as a Disc Priest
•Miscellaneous
•Further Reading
•Credits
•Endnote
About Me
I'm just a WoW player going by the forum name Amples, character name's Nevermourn, and I'm a Discipline Priest player in Frostwolf with a PvE mindset. If you're looking for credentials, then I could say that I'm a proud member of the endgame guild Mutual Hatred. I've help in killing (and farming) LK10 and LK25 with the great people there. Also, I currently don't have a life :D
My current gears and spec, just in case Molten armory gets disabled again.
Introduction to the Guide
Ever been kicked out because of being a Discipline Priest? Because of having 2-3k or even less HPS in ICC gear? Because of the stigma that Discipline Priests are for PvP only? Because of this, because of that? Don't worry, I'm with you.
This is intended for newbs to the spec, and I intend for this guide to help people see what a Discipline Priest actually does in raids. Sure, we don't heal as well as our Holy counterparts, but we're not raiding to heal at all. We will never rank high in healing meters, but we've got our own nifty ways to keep the raid alive. Also, despite the bugs around us, we can perform well.
We're not tank healers, because Holy Paladins are infinitely better for the job. However, we've got awesome tools (some are instant-cast) to help out raid members in distress. So our role is a raid-supporter*.
Interested? Then read on.
*Raid-supporter because we're not really raid healers. Sure, we're tossing a few Penances and Flash Heals here and there, but we're primarily Shielding people and we leave the AoE healing to those Druids/Shaman/Holy Priests.
So what exactly does a Discipline Priest bring to a raid?
•Renewed Hope (raidwide 3% damage reduction)
•Pain Suppression (external survival CD)
•Power Infusion (DPS/HPS CD)
•Spammable Power Word: Shield (also acts as a DPS/HPS booster due to the removal of casting/channeling time lost from damage)
•Burst Healing through Power Word: Shield+Penance+necessary Flash Heals
•Decent single-target healing+shielding thanks to Divine Aegis
•Large longevity (Rapture, Meditation, and Shadowfiend/Hymn of Hope if necessary)
•Faster Mass Dispels (very useful in some fights, like Faction Champions when there's a Shaman using Heroism)
Talents
We can safely say that a Priest's Discipline talent tree would vary very little from one player to another, as our tree is bottom-heavy. Also, dipping in Holy makes us do better in our role, and that is raid survival through absorption and damage reduction (Inspiration on a Tank definitely helps!).
Example Discipline Priest Talent Build
Honestly, I had 7 free talent points to spend, so in the example above, I placed them on Improved Flash Heal, Focused Will, and Desperate Prayer. Feel free to spend those points wherever you want, whether it be Spell Warding+Healing Focus (making it 55/16/0) or somewhere else. As long as you reach Inspiration in the Holy tree, and you fill up tiers 8-11 of your Discipline Tree, then it is good.
Spoiler:
Need-To-Know About Spells
•Power Word: Shield: Gives an absorption shield to a targeted ally. Shield scales with your Spell Power, and target's armor/spell resistance, whichever is applicable to the incoming damage. Meaning, it would last longer if you put it in a tank, because he/she has better armor than most others (while avoiding some physical attacks as well). Also, if you're faced with spell damage, and you have talent points in Spell Warding, the Shield will last longer on you than on others without resistances. Has a spell power coefficient of 80.57%, although Molten seems to use different values at the moment. More into shielding on the next section.
•Penance: Heals a target instantly, and every second for two seconds. It has a missile, though (albeit, a very fast one), so I recommend using a Shield before Penance if the target is really low on health. Has a total spell power coefficient of 160.86%, and 53.62% per tick (compared to the 80.57% of Flash Heal, and 161.14% of Greater Heal). Does not consume Borrowed Time buff (as with all other instant spells).
•Inner Focus: Makes your next spell free cast, and increases its critical chance by 25%. You could have it in a macro with Divine Hymn, but I wouldn't recommend it because it is still bugged. Instead, I've been using it on my Greater Heal, so that it doesn't hurt my mana that much, while having a hopefully bigger bubble from Divine Aegis (make sure you put the script removing error messages in your macro, though!). You could also use it on Penance, or Prayer of Healing.
•Pain Suppression: 40% damage reduction for anyone you wish. Using it depends on the encounter, the available cooldowns the tank has, and the time when the tank actually needs the extra damage reduction. The best way to learn it is to play a tank yourself, but having voice communication with your tank(s) will also do.
•Power Infusion: Boosts spell casting speed, and reduces mana costs by 20% for 15 seconds. Usually, this is used in the highest DPS caster, but it works better on some than on others (Affliction Warlocks and Shadow Priests gain more mileage with it for example). However, when everyone is a pinch because of huge raidwide damage, this is best cast on a Restoration Shaman/Holy Priest. Why them? Because they have group heals with casting times. Shaman are better because Chain Heal is a smart heal and is spammable, unlike Circle of Healing which has a cooldown. This spell has a short cooldown, so you'll get to use it two or more times in a single fight. Good targets for PI are Shadow Priests (all times), Affliction Warlocks (all times, but better on BL/Heroism and Eradication procs or on Drain Soul phase), Demonology Warlocks (35% boss HP), and Arcane Mages (when their mana pool is still high and they're using 4x AB>AM). Balance Druids are also good PI targets, when coincided with a Lunar Eclipse (personally I prefer to toss it on another caster, though, as watching his Lunar proc troubles me more).
Right now, Power Infusion stacks with Bloodlust/Heroism, when it should not.
•Shadowfiend/Hymn of Hope: Your primary mana regen abilities. Shadowfiend is best used if you're at 50% mana or so, but it is even better when used at around 30% and combined with Hymn of Hope (Hymn of Hope "lends" you some more max mana, and Shadowfiend works off your current max mana pool, so you could recover 70-80% of your max mana after that).
Keeping Your Raid Up
Power Word: Shield is your bread-and-butter spell. It is so important to learn when and how to use it, and that is something that comes with experience. Also, Penance has a 8-second cooldown, so timing it is also essential.
Flash Heal, Binding Heal, Renew, Greater Heal, Prayer of Mending, and Prayer of Healing each have their own places as well, depending on the situation.
Raid Priorities:
1.Target near-death and taking damage? Shield him, then cast Penance to the rescue!
2.Target near-death but no predictable damage incoming? Shield him, then leave a Flash Heal+Renew if it's not so urgent, or let the incoming heals patch him up (there's always got to be some incoming heal).
3.Target medium health with predictable damage incoming? Shield+PoM him.
4.Seeing raidwide damage coming (such as Whiteout)? Shield as many as possible; prioritize healers, then preferably the better DPS (just use your gut feeling here), then everybody else.
5.Target medium health with no predictable damage incoming? Give him a Renew/Flash Heal and let others patch him up.
6.Got a GCD to spare? Then cast Shield or PoM on random raid members. We will never know, but it might go a long way towards the survival of the raid.
7.Everybody at a crappy situation and your AoE healers can't keep up? Shield+Inner Focus+Divine Hymn (for BT buff) to help them, or continue Shield-spamming everybody. Your call.
Also remember:
•Tank having trouble thanks to enrage or something? Pain Suppression on him, and if it's not enough, then Shield/Penance him to help your tank healer catch up.
•No one in dire need of a shield/heal? Cast Power Infusion on your best caster DPS, or if you're having trouble with heavy AoE, then use it on a RShaman/HPriest.
•Also keep Prayer of Mending on CD. It really helps in every encounter with AoE damage.
If somehow, you're being designated as a healer in those dungeons... then cast Flash Heals on the tank as well as the mandatory pre-Shielding+PoM (casting Shield before pulling; pulling when Weakened Soul wears off). Save your Shield/Penance when the tank takes spike damage. Shielding your party goes a long way, and PoH will see more use here.
If you're tank healing in raids, boss damage can be severe for Flash Heal alone to handle, so you should cast Penance and Power Word: Shield on CD (while filling up with Prayer of Mending, Renew, Flash Heal, and Greater Heal). Try getting more Haste and Crit (without gimping Spell Power), because you'll be relying on Divine Aegis for extra absorbs. A Discipline Priest's HPS output is generally too small for heroic raid bosses, even while taking into account your absorbs.
Gearing Up
The stats that we're looking the most is Spell Power because of the very good scaling that your Shields receive from it (and all those talents). So we're gonna stack it wherever possible, i.e. gems, enchants, flasks, etc. That is considering if you're exclusively shield spamming (and even if you're tank healing, having all Runed Cardinal Rubies is still good).
Next in consideration would be Haste. Discipline Priests have a low GCD cap (Haste soft cap) with complete raid buffs and Borrowed Time up (see misc. section), so too much Haste is pointless if you're purely Shield-spamming. Also, that Penance would be coming in fast enough with BT. However, if you're healing tanks, you'll want more Haste, because you can only shield a tank every 15 seconds. Also, you could deliver that Penance/Flash Heal even faster, which is definitely useful in 10-mans, and mechanics in which your Shields are really that necessary (*cough* Infest *cough*).
Now, as for Critical Strike. I've been blabbering about it before, and about Divine Aegis and Inspiration feeding off it. Crits are good, however, if you're primarily Shield-spamming, then Crits are below-average (sure they provide some extra oomph here and there via Divine Aegis). Gemming for crit is bad, because SP is way better for Shield-spammers (Crit is a distant second). If you're a healer, though (which is probably what you're not doing in 25-mans), then crits are decent. You would be choosing between Spirit/MP5 and Critical Strike Rating in gear anyways, so I suggest you take Spirit until you have no mana problems. You'll want more Critical Strike if you're tank healing, because you'll be relying on fast heals with Divine Aegis.
I didn't say that getting Crit from items is pointless, it's just that SP and Haste (before GCD cap) take higher priority than Critical Strike in itemization.
For Intellect, you'd ideally want to have as much as possible, seeing that Rapture, Hymn of Hope's mana bonus, Shadowfiend, Replenishment, and Mana Tide from a resto Shaman are all based on maximum mana pool. Also more mana=more Shield spam. It's way hotter than Spirit/MP5 because we don't have Holy Concentration and Spiritual Guidance. Normally, you'd not want to gem for it, but since Rapture activating on simultaneous shields is not working here, you might want to put a few Intellect gems here and there on good socket bonuses (at the +9 SP sockets if you could help it).
As for Spirit and MP5, itemization usually lets you choose between 2 Spirit and 1 MP5. I recommend going for MP5 (I bought my cloak absentmindedly, though), even for Humans. MP5 gives slightly more mana while casting than Spirit (Spirit has its uses on fights like Sindragosa, though). However, Spirit scales better thanks to GBoK, while MP5 doesn't (while being usable on a Holy/Shadow offspec). If your mana is still bleeding (which shouldn't be happening when Rapture gets fixed), then gemming a few into Spirit/MP5 is useful. Although if your mana is fine already, rolling for more Haste/Crit is more useful.
If you've got scrolls, I suggest you use Scroll of Intellect VIII or Scroll of Stamina VIII, depending on your mana needs. Flask should be Flask of the Frost Wyrm, however, you could settle for Elixir of Mighty Thoughts+Guru's Elixir or Flask of Pure Mojo if your mana is bleeding.
General Stat Priorities:
Fresh 80 Dungeon Healing: SP (which would come naturally from gear) ≥ Spirit/Intellect/MP5 to get the job done > Haste > Crit
Endgame 10-man Shielding/Healing: SP > Haste > Crit > Intellect > MP5/Spirit
Endgame 25-man Shielding/Healing: SP > Haste (until soft cap) > Crit > Haste > Intellect > MP5/Spirit
Reasoning:
1. For fresh 80s and for 10-mans, you'd prefer more Haste, because depending on your partner (on 10s), you might be healing more than usual. Haste on Flash Heals without Borrowed Time buff is appreciated.
2. For 25-mans, you'd be shielding more, only healing with Penance when needed. Your main tool is Power Word: Shield, and other than SP, Crit buffs it because the Glyph healing is capable of doing critical heals. Don't lose sleep over getting Haste gear instead of Crit ones, though. Although for a typical boss fight, Divine Aegis (mostly from Glyph of PW: S crit heals) ranks a distant second from my healing+absorbs meter, around 20-30% of my absorbs with PW: S.
3. Of course, if your mana is going dry despite those Shadowfiends/Innervates/Hymns/Mana Tides, going for more Intellect/Spirit/MP5 is recommended.
For Enchantments:
Head: Arcanum of Burning Mysteries/Arcanum of Blissful Mending
Shoulder: Greater Inscription of the Storm/Greater Inscription of the Crag (Master's Inscription of the Storm/Master's Inscription of the Crag for Scribes)
Back: Greater Haste (Lightweave Embroidery is an option for Tailors, however, the unpredictability of the effect makes the Haste better in my book. Darkglow Embroidery is another Tailor-only option for mana, equivalent to 25 MP5)
Chest: Either Exceptional Mana, Major Spirit, or Powerful Stats
Wrist: Superior Spellpower (Fur Lining - Spell Power for Leatherworkers)
Gloves: Exceptional Spellpower (Hyperspeed Accelerators for Engineers who prefer the Haste-on-demand).
Legs: Brilliant Spellthread (Sanctified Spellthread for Tailors).
Boots: Tuskarr's Vitality (Nitro Boosts is also an option for those who prefer the MS-on-demand).
Ring: Spellpower for Enchanters.
Weapon: Greater Spellpower if you use a Staff, or Mighty Spellpower if you use a MH+OH combo.
For Shield-spammers, best-case-scenario gems should be:
Red - Runed Cardinal Ruby
Blue - Runed Cardinal Ruby
Yellow - Runed Cardinal Ruby
If you feel like your mana is bleeding, then use one or more of the following:
Purified Dreadstone
Royal Dreadstone
Luminous Ametrine
Dazzling Eye of Zul
Seer's Eye of Zul
For those who are more into tank healing than raid shielding (what, you've got no HPala or something?), I recommend inserting a few Quick King's Amber or Reckless Ametrine in yellow sockets. You usually would want to save your Shield in bad situations, and thus, you would be relying more often on Flash Heal (which is more mana-efficient due to talents+glyph). More Haste on those is appreciated.
I highly suggest skipping socket bonuses for the best-case-scenario gemming, except for the head slot (which provides +9 Spell Power). Put a Sundered Eye of Zul, Energized Eye of Zul or Dazzling Eye of Zul in there to satisfy socket bonuses and activate Insightful Earthsiege Diamond. Choose whether you need the Intellect from Dazzling EoZ, more crit rating from Sundered EoZ, or more haste from Energized EoZ.
As for Major Glyphs, Penance and Power Word: Shield glyphs are must-haves. Third major glyph is up to you (toss-up between Flash Heal, Renew, or Prayer of Healing, depending on how often you use those aforementioned, while Glyph of Hymn of Hope is great for mana, and you can actually spare the glyph spot for it, unlike our Holy counterparts). For minor, get whatever you want; I recommend Shadowfiend (and Levitate for flying through a pack of opposing faction members camping the entrance of ICC :p).
Items that you should shoot for (first one is recommended, the rest are alternatives; Heroic versions if you can get those):
Head: Sanctified Crimson Acolyte Hood (T10 Healer Set)
Neck: Holiday's Grace (Rotface 25) or Blood Queen's Crimson Choker (Blood Queen Lana'thel 25) or Bone Sentinel's Amulet (Lord Marrowgar 25)
Shoulders: Sanctified Crimson Acolyte Shoulderpads (T10 Healer Set)
Back: Drape of the Violet Tower (Emblem of Frost Quartermaster) or Frostbinder's Shredded Cape (Valithria Dreamwalker 25) or Greatcloak of the Turned Champion (Deathbringer Saurfang 25) or Cloak of Burning Dusk (Halion 25)
Chest: Sanctified Crimson Acolyte Robe (T10 Healer Set)*
Wrists: Bracers of Fiery Night (Halion 25) or Death Surgeon's Sleeves (Rotface 25)
Hands: Sanctified Crimson Acolyte Gloves (T10 Healer Set)
Waist: Crushing Coldwraith Belt (Lord Marrowgar 25) or Lingering Illness (Festergut 25) or Circle of Ossus (Emblem of Frost Quartermaster)
Legs: Sanctified Crimson Acolyte Leggings (T10 Healer Set)*
Feet: Plague Scientist's Boots (Festergut 25) or Sandals of Consecration (Item Level 264 Crafted)
Ring 1: Ashen Band of Endless Wisdom (The Ashen Verdict - Exalted)
Ring 2: Marrowgar's Frigid Eye (Lord Marrowgar 25) or Ring of Maddening Whispers (Lady Deathwhisper 25) or Incarnadine Band of Mending (Blood Prince Council 25)
Trinket 1: Glowing Twilight Scale (Halion 25) for throughput or Purified Lunar Dust (Emblem of Frost Quartermaster)
Trinket 2: Solace of the Defeated/Fallen (Lord Jaraxxus 25) or Sliver of Pure Ice (Lord Marrowgar 10)
Main Hand: Royal Scepter of Terenas II (Lich King 25) or Frozen Bonespike (Lord Marrowgar 25)
Off Hand: Shadow Silk Spindle (Blood Prince Council 25) or Sundial of Eternal Dusk (Sindragosa 25)
Wand: Nightmare Ender (Valithria Dreamwalker 25) or Corpse-Impaling Spike (Rotface 25)
Ring of Rapid Ascent (Gunship Battle 25) can replace your second ring for more throughput
Althor's Abacus** (Gunship Battle 25) could replace Purified Lunar Dust and/or Solace of the Defeated***
*Get only one of these: you only need 4 pieces of T10. Look at the offset items below.
**The usefulness of Althor's Abacus can be debatable, as some players (myself included) prefer using Shields early on encounters like PP, when there would be constant AoE damage. Thus, in that scenario, Althor's Abacus would most likely activate even before the pull, starting the ICD.
***Replacing one of the latter two trinkets is a trade-off between throughput and regen. If you get one of the possible replacements, replacing Purified Lunar Dust is generally better, because 52 MP5>29 SP.
Viable Offset Items:
Leggings of Woven Death (Item Level 264 Crafted)
Meteor Chaser's Raiment (Emblem of Frost Quartermaster)
Lightweave Leggings (Item Level 264 Crafted)
Ermine Coronation Robes (Emblem of Frost Quartermaster)
Sanguine Silk Robes (Blood Prince Council 25)
Sanctified Crimson Acolyte Cowl (T10 Shadow Set)
Sanctified Crimson Acolyte Mantle (T10 Shadow Set)
Sanctified Crimson Acolyte Raiments (T10 Shadow Set)
Gloves of False Gestures (Emblem of Frost Quartermaster)
Gloves of Ambivalence (Emblem of Frost Quartermaster)
Special mention should be given to Illustration of the Dragon Soul. If you absolutely don't need the regen from Sliver of Pure Ice, then you could replace it with this for maximum throughput. You could always get Illustration from the Vote Shop.
IMPORTANT! Know that the items that I have listed were just the best possible options; it is still your final decision on how to gear your Priest (you might take some items in favor of others due to drop issues or different priorities, for example), because I don't know what exactly would your Priest need as you're the one who's at the helm.
Interface
I highly suggest you replace the WoW raid frames with custom-made ones (Healbot, Grid, Pitbull, VuhDo or Xperl does it), and get a click-to-heal addon (Healbot, Clique or VuhDo) to shield the most out of everybody. Every split second counts; even more so if you're always at/near the GCD cap thanks to BT+Enlightenment. Delays can be costly, even more so to a Discipline Priest considering our preventive and very proactive play style.
Also, you could also download Skada Heals+Absorbs, so that you could show off your Absorbs+Healing to those Discipline Priest bashers in PUGs :D
How-To-Do-Encounters as a Discipline Priest
Since multi-proccing Rapture is broken in Molten, players here need to modify their approaches in shielding. Of course, giving the tank with a Shield every now and then is always applicable and recommended. Know that this is just a beginner's guide, and you can modify it based on your and your raid's needs.
Spoiler:
Miscellaneous
Haste Soft Caps:
5%, 3%, Enlightenment, and BT - 154 Haste Rating
5%, Enlightenment, and BT - 257 Haste Rating
3%, Enlightenment, and BT - 325 Haste Rating
Only Enlightenment and BT - 434 Haste Rating
These soft caps values are useful in assessing how much Haste you need when you are the raid shielder. If you're tank healing, feel free to increase your Haste values, because you won't always have Borrowed Time active by then.
Absorption of Power Word: Shield (this is how it should be):
Total Absorb = (base absorb+(0.8068+BT)*SP)*(1+ImpS)*(1+FP+TD)*(1+ICC Aura)
Total Absorb = (2230+(0.8068+0.4)*SP)*(1.15)*(1.09)*(1.3)
Right now, there are very minor differences between the calculated amount and the actual amount. Nothing gamebreaking, but just good for people to know.
Further Reading
Elitist Jerks' Discipline and Holy Guide
Elitist Jerks' Article About the Value of Haste
Spiritual Guidance Discipline 101
Revisiting Power Infusion
Credits goes to their respective owners. Gonna update this section if I find more :)
Credits
Credits go to the Discipline supporters in this thread, which inspired me in making this, as well as Elitist Jerks for the awesome guide there*. Also the countless other pages I've read elsewhere in the internet, which are too many to remember. And thankfully I manage to unearth what little knowledge I had in guide-writing, through my ancient guide at PD** :D
I'm even more thankful to those who're contributing here and in the Priest forums in general.
Also thanks a LOT to my guildmates in Mutual Hatred, as without them, I can't possibly say that the guide is complete.
*Special credits also go to Noella for linking it in his Holy Priest guide :)
**Brings back memories, and I still managed to make a good feedback rating even with only colors, walls of text and stuff... especially for a screenshot-reliant hero...
Endnote
So, here concludes my Discipline Priest guide. Hopefully this could help you in your Shielding voyages in ICC and beyond. Good luck, have fun, and get ready to convert people to the awesomeness of Discipline Priests (and be ready to get flamed in the process)! Thanks for reading!
Feel free to ask questions, or engage in intelligent discussions here. I will answer to the best of my ability, and hopefully make this guide better with the help of others :)
最終更新：2015年12月30日 07:01
