The Discipline Priest has always been unique among World of Warcraft’s healers due to its emphasis on absorption effects and utility. In Cataclysm Classic, the build takes these strengths to the next level with an expanded toolkit that includes some powerful external cooldowns as well as the first iteration of the Atonement mechanic.
Discipline Priest Healer in Cataclysm
In Wrath of the Lich King, the Discipline Priest and Holy Paladin were an ideal pairing for any raid team. That trend continues into Cataclysm, where Disc Priests will again be responsible for smoothing out incoming damage with their absorbs. How they go about this will change a bit though, as Power Word: Shield spam becomes less optimal and the Divine Aegis effects of Prayer of Healing rise to take its place.
But you won’t simply be trading one spell for another. Healing in Cataclysm is more dynamic and complex than it was in previous eras, and you’ll have a lot more spells to choose from, each of which will be optimal in different circumstances. Evangelism and Atonement allow you to sneak in some damage while still maintaining a steady stream of healing. Archangel gives you a new cooldown to follow up with when the damage gets heavier. You’ll still have all of your other healing abilities as well, and most of them will actually be worth using now: Heal, Greater Heal, Flash Heal, Binding Heal, Penance, and Prayer of Mending all have their place and even Power Word: Shield remains invaluable when used appropriately.
In addition to their broad toolkit, Discipline Priests also bring some powerful cooldowns to the table in Cataclysm. Power Word: Barrier, Pain Suppression, Power Infusion, Divine Hymn, and Hymn of Hope will all see a lot of use in raids and contribute to the high demand for a Disc Priest on every team.
Discipline Priest Strengths & Weaknesses
Strengths
- Powerful Absorbs
Between Divine Aegis and Power Word: Shield, you’ll be able to put “bubbles” on your entire raid team and effectively heal a lot of damage before it even lands. Your new Mastery ability, Shield Discipline, will make these absorption effects even more powerful as your gear improves.
- Strong Cooldowns
You have just about every type of cooldown a healer could want. Power Word: Barrier is easy to underestimate, but a 25% reduction to damage taken by your entire raid group is no joke. Pain Suppression gives you a solid tank cooldown, and your caster friends will love you for Power Infusion (if you don’t use it on yourself). Hymn of Hope is a massive raid-wide mana CD and Divine Hymn gives you another raid-wide cooldown to use when Barrier is down.
- Deal Damage While Healing
With the advent of Evangelism and Atonement, the old “Smite Priest” playstyle becomes a legitimate option for Discipline Priests to contribute some damage when healing requirements are low. This is the closest you can get to a true DPS/healer hybrid in WoW.
- Flexible Toolkit
The Discipline Priest has access to every type of healing spell you could think of: absorbs, a HoT, an AoE heal, and single-target heals. They are great at filling in any gaps left by the other, more focused healing specializations. They can also swap more easily between tank healing, raid healing, and damage dealing than other healers.
Weaknesses
- Low Mobility
With Power Word: Shield being more of a niche spell than it used to be, most of your core spells as a Discipline Priest will require casting or channeling, which means that your output will come to a temporary halt whenever you need to move. To make matters worse, you don’t have any talents or abilities that help your mobility like the other healers do. This can cause the Disc Priest to struggle to keep up on movement-heavy fights.
- Weak Direct Heals
To counterbalance the strength of their absorption effects, Discipline Priests’ direct healing spells are weaker than those of other healers. This makes it more difficult for them to catch up when their team has already taken damage, since absorbs only work if they were already up when the damage went out.
- Harder Learning Curve
While all of the healing builds have a lot more complexity in Cataclysm than they did in Wrath, the Discipline Priest may be the most challenging to master. Your diverse array of spells is a strength, but it also means that you have to know when to use them all. Mana management is more of a thing in Cataclysm as well, and the Discipline Priest has few talents to help with regeneration, relying more on their cooldowns than other healers. The nature of absorbs also means that you need to know when to expect damage in order to get ahead of it, making it harder to “wing it” with a new encounter.
Best Races for Discipline Priest in Cataclysm
Horde
Goblin
The new Horde race is a very good option for a Discipline Priest, with a steady 1% increase to your casting speed. They also give you a much-needed movement cooldown with Rocket Jump. Their non-combat racials are useful as well.
- Time is Money gives you a constant 1% increase to your casting speed for a nice steady healing/damage increase.
- Rocket Jump will let you leap across the battlefield so you can quickly get back to casting when you need to move.
- Best Deals Anywhere and Pack Hobgoblin don’t help with your performance, but they’re great quality-of-life features for any character.
- Better Living Through Chemistry is nice if you want to level Alchemy.
Troll
The Troll race is a great fit for a Discipline Priest for the same reason it’s great for any other caster or healer: Berserking.
- Berserking gives you a 10 second Haste buff every 3 minutes, adding you another great healing cooldown that you can weave into your rotation.
- Regeneration gives you a little extra survivability.
- Da Voodoo Shuffle is nice to have, although you can dispel most of these effects on yourself.
Alliance
Gnome
Although the Expansive Mind racial has been nerfed a bit to increase only your mana pool and not your Intellect, it’s still a very strong trait for a Discipline Priest. Gnomes also have a couple other tricks up their sleeve that won’t necessarily help your healing but are still useful.
- Expansive Mind gives you more mana to burn through and increases the amount that you’ll get back from Hymn of Hope and Shadowfiend. Since it’s a percentage and not a flat increase, the bonus gets even better with your gear.
- Escape Artist lets you break out of roots and slows, although you can dispel most of these effects on yourself.
- Arcane Resistance gives you a modest little survivability bonus on any encounters that have Arcane damage.
- Engineering Specialization is helpful if you want to level Engineering.
Human
Humans get a nice buff to their Spirit, which is now an essential stat for any healer’s mana regeneration. They have a couple of nice quality-of-life perks as well.
- The Human Spirit increases your Spirit by 3%, offering a nice boost to your mana regeneration. As a percentage-based increase, this bonus gets better the more Spirit you have from gear and other sources.
- Will to Survive is a free PvP trinket that will let you break out of stuns and other hard CC that you can’t dispel. It’s especially useful in PvP.
- Diplomacy doesn’t help your healing, but it will make it easier for you to reach the reputation caps that are needed for your gear and enchantments.
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