Hello recently ive leveled a priest, started as holy, tried disc and am having a lot of fun in lower keys.
I keep seeing people say their primary way of getting atonement up is through PW:S. Should i be speccing more into the shield talents? Is leaning on the shadow side of the tree generally better? Also what is my stat priority? Also any general tips for disc healing are welcome, thank you!
This is my priest if anyone sees any issues with my talents etc
Disc is aight, still not as a good as Evoker at burst healing.
Are you planning on mostly playing M+?
In that case, your one-off atonement applicators should mostly be PW:S for the tank/ST when it’s up, and Renew for ST otherwise. Generally though, the vast majority of the time I’m applying atonement it’s through radiance in keys, and PW:S will be something you’re most often putting on the tank.
Your stat prio is basically Haste > Crit > Verse > Mastery. Generally verse gets more valuable the higher the key you’re doing. So once you’re in the +20 area of keys, you’ll want to be going Haste > Verse > Crit instead.
As far as what talents you should take, there’s a few ways to spend your points. And they’re MOSTLY going to come down to preference.
If you don’t need a ton of healing and want to bring some damage to your group, the standard is to go mostly shadow-side talents and get the mindbender/void summoner talent line because it does a lot of damage.
That will look something like this:
With a few points in there being personal preference (painful punishment, the mindgames talents, Abyssal Reverie vs Twilight empowerment, etc.)
Goal here is to get mindbender out basically off cooldown, and while it’s out use Mind Blast/Shadow Word: Death to proc inescapable torment in mob packs. On boss, same thing but generally drop SW:D casts. Other than that, you’re playing with harsh discipline mostly (see below). You’ll get a ton of mana back from Mindbender uptime, and mindbender itself does a lot of damage.
Another build is to go all-in on dark reprimand/expiation. Basically gives you a lot of burst AoE healing by beefing up penance/mind blast as much as possible, so in shadow covenant you can do a ton of damage all at once - very good for high AoE damage fights like Hyrja or Storm elemental in Nokhud.
That looks something like this: https://www.wowhead.com/talent-calc/priest/discipline/DAQAEEVFEQRUVEqVKAQCBEMVUVVFVCRkQigCRA
Again, there’s some optional talents here - and I’m taking this mostly from what I see top players taking. Honest opinion though in this build is you should drop abyssal reverie for divine aegis, because it will always out-heal reverie above 20% crit.
The idea here is to build up harsh discipline (with smites, mind blast and solace), and when big AoE damage happens you radiance → shadow covenant → Schism → Penance → Mind Blast x2.
Personally what I would do if I was new to Disc would be a very PW:S heavy build that still retains a lot of the AoE healing from the second build here.
Something like this:
The idea here is to still do your AoE burst by building up harsh discipline, then Shadow Covenant → Schism → Penance → Mind Blast x2
When not dealing with AoE burst, you just build up that big penance and burn it outside of shadow covenant.
But what you gain by doing this is HUGE shields after every penance that you can put on your tank. Aegis of Wrath + Exaltation also makes Rapture a much more reliable cooldown, which is great for low level disc priests IMO.
Basically this is a good build for getting you pretty used to the standard big-penance build while having much stronger tank/emergency healing with giant PW:S casts, since every time you 7 bolt penance you’ll have a giant shield to drop on whoever you might need to funnel a ST heal on. And if that PW:S crits, you’ll be seeing huge shields, for like 200k as your gear improves.
If you have any specific questions, let me know.
Dang bro this was extremely helpful. More than i could ever ask for. I appreciate this, im going to mess around with some of those builds tomorrow. Right now im just getting used to my spells/what they do and when to use them.
Here the best tip. Dont heal hunter or warlocks. Reason cause
Just got 4th piece for my tier set and it really makes difference with that buffed shield lol
Putting that buffed shield on tank after Penance feels great 80k+ shield every 6-8secs is nice.
I run Void summoner + Twilight equilibrium.
Mana hasnt been a issue at all till +17. Havent healed any higher yet.
Power Word : Radiance is great for aoe healing and applying atonement (personal opinion) and then just going dps mode.
Still learning to play with Equilibrium + Inescapable Torment to maximise my dps.
Thats one thing I am lacking so far. Some runs i can do easy 20k+ overall and some runs I am at 13k overall. Pug life.
Disc in raid is a completely different beast than disc in M+ content. Outside of an organized raid where you are basically used as a healing CD you are going to really suck it up on the meters. at least this has been my experience. Disc in raid performs well and I hear feels very rewarding but you are going to need to heavily plan out each encounter to get the most out of it. Figuring out your burst healing window and setting up for it 17 seconds before the big dmg. My experience is Holy requires way less work and pumped harder on the meters. Unless you are in a super organized raid healing team that wants to utilize disc I recommend sticking holy.
For M+:
super simple nowadays and a blast to play.
-on pull bubble tank and throw out some purge the wickeds.
-cast PW: Life on someone below 35%
-cast empowered penance if you have Harsh discipline stacked.
-cast PW:shield on tank after an empowered penance (Tset bonus)
-cast mindbender on CD
-Mindblast > Solace > SW:D (if mindbender is active) > smite
-Divine Star for juicy AoE dmg
If someone takes a chunk of dmg flash heal them once then go back to the above.
If the group is about to take a bunch of group dmg prep atonements by flash healing / bubbling the party (one each) then go back to the above.
If the group needs a big heal now or there is sustained group dmg you didnt prep for throw out that sweet PW:Radiance for burst group healing and a shorter atonement on everyone then mash that mind blast button.
Above is the basics. Once you get more comfortable start working in Schism, Shadow Covenant, Vamp Embrace, Pain suppression as needed. Rapture is for prepping for dmg or for during movement. If the group is already taking massive amounts of dmg do not try to hit rapture and recover. Stick to PW:Radiance and dpsing.
Mind blast and PW:Death eat a portion of your purge the wicked duration on the target. I recommend queing up a Purge the wicked after every second Mindblast.
Try to avoid penancing defensively. It doesnt really feel worth it especially with the tset bonus. There are emergency exceptions but in general try not to get in the habit of doing it.
Want to reduce the dmg you take? flash heal yourself and fade for 10 seconds of 20% dmg reduction. (10% each).
Mind blast is cheap now mash that button! Get ragefeather and voidmenders shadowgem for trinkets then macro voidmenders into your mindbender. These are the same trinkets shadow uses so cheers to that!
On CoS the jumping debuff on the boss roughly matches your CD on mass dispel if you go into improved. Mass dispel the first one then whenever mass dispel comes off CD be ready to cast it again. EZ PZ.
You basically just use PW:Shield on your tank right after using Penance because of your tier 4 set bonus.
Then use Renew to get atonement on people taking damage because that also applies atonement. If more than 3 people are taking dmg you want to use PW: Radiance for big group healing and that also applies atonement to everyone. That’s when you really want to pump some damage out. Most of the top disc priests are using this build:
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This is a very aggressive build but it can pump damage and does a ton of healing with CDs up. Atonement + Vampiric Embrace will let you pump the damage/healing meters but you need to be doing damage to heal so the big combo is:
Purge the wicked on a few targets
Powerword shield / Renew or PowerWord: Radiance ( depends on the situation )
Shadow Covenant + Vampiric Embrace ( Just macro Vamp into Shadow cov)
Schism
PowerWord: Solace ( Gives next Shadow spell 15% more dmg)
Mindbender
Mind Blast
Mind Blast
Purge the wicked ( Gives next shadow spell 15% more dmg)
**If you’re fighting a boss you can use ShadowWord Death, if it’s a regular pack of mobs wait until 20% hp and use SWD twice **
Divine Star
Penance enemies
Powerword shield Tank
Repeat
The enemy pack is usually getting close to being dead at this point and you want to start saving Schism, MindBender, Dark Cov, for the next pack. The cooldowns are short so you can use that combo basically every pack, Vamp Embrace every other pack.