PvP Discipline Priest Talents, Builds & Glyphs

wotlk pvp discipline priest talents, builds and glyphs
  • Author: Nevermore
  • Date: September 17, 2022
  • Updated: September 17, 2022
  • Expansion: WotLK Classic

In this section of the guide we will go over some of the possible effective builds for a Discipline Priest in PvP. Keep in mind that the builds can be subjected to multiple variations depending on the outcomes you wish to achieve. We recommend that you try every single one of them and then create your own variants to suit your playstyle!

Discipline Priest is one of the few specializations that can be played with a multitude of builds, each of them providing different effects that are strong and entirely viable!

Talent Builds

standardd build

The Standard Build is overwhelmingly powerful, granting you access to many potent effects like Focused Power, Enlightenment, Borrowed Time, and Soul Warding, while also getting you some powerful utility effects such as Grace, Renewed Hope, and Divine Aegis. This build can tinkered with quite a bit, letting you swap the point distribution throughout your active talents, or letting you gain more benefits from a particular talent while still keeping a moderate benefit from a talent you decided take some points from.

You can also customize and optimize this build to gain effects to suit your desired playstyle, ranging from highly increased utility, to very effective damage-enhancing effects.

You have the option of creating any build as long as you stick to crucial talents such as Focused Power, Divine Aegis, Enlightenment, and Borrowed Time!

build 222

This is an example of how you can switch your talents around to gain a variety of benefits! This variant will provide you with effects similar to the standard build, but it will focus on increased defensive options with Spell Warding and Divine Aegis, as well as increased stamina from the Improved Power Word: Fortitude talent.

offensivebuild20

The second variant of the Standard Build focuses on an offensive playstyle, concentrated on aiding your DPS in killing your enemies as fast as possible. This can be achieved through talents such as Twin Disciplines, Holy Specialization, Divine Fury, and Searing Light. The entire idea behind this build is to burst down your enemies together with your ally as fast as possible with spells like Smite and Holy Fire.

However, while it has high offensive potential, this build suffers from reduced crowd control resistance and lower utility.

Notable Talents

  • Unbreakable Will lets you benefit from increased resistance to crowd control, reducing the duration of fear, silence, and stun effects by up to 30%. This talent is extremely powerful, as we do not have many defensive options to protect us from heavy crowd control.
  • Silent Resolve will grant your helpful effects a chance to resist dispel and purge effects. This will be a very useful talent since the meta is pretty much focused on classes that can dispel and purge effects. Since Discipline Priests usually bless their targets with a large number of magical effects, this talent will make it even harder to remove the most important effects, such as our shield.
  • Improved Inner Fire is a mandatory talent that increases the charges available when using Inner Fire while also amplifying its effect by up to 45%. Since we are cloth users, we depend on Inner fire to deal with threatening physical damage dealers. You do not want to skip this talent.
  • Improved Power Word: Shield is a fairly simple talent, amplifying your Power Word: Shield by 15%. Since we are known as the best specialization for absorption effects, you will want to have maximum points in this talent.
  • Improved Mana Burn is a talent you will definitely want to have in the majority of your builds, but not quite all of them. It reduces the casting time of Mana Burn by up to 1 second, allowing you to devour the mana of any other caster.
    • However, when focusing on an offensive build, this talent does not have as many uses, since you will probably want to focus on offensive talents that boost your holy damage.
  • Meditation is an extremely important talent, as one of the main issues a Discipline Priest faces is the huge mana cost of their abilities. This talent allows you to maintain 50% of your mana regeneration in combat, letting you rapidly recuperate after a tiresome fight.
  • Mental Agility further reduces the mana cost of your instant-cast abilities, letting you spam more efficiently. It’s pretty self-explanatory — we will definitely be spamming instant-cast abilities, so you will definitely want this one.
  • Mental Strength is another simple talent: it increases your total Intellect value by up to 15%. In short, put 5 points into this talent no matter what. You will be extremely mana-hungry.
  • Reflective Shield this talent grants your shield effect a powerful offensive trait, allowing you to return up to 45% of the damage absorbed by it back to the attacker. This talent is a no-brainer, since it grants you free damage without any prerequisite. A mandatory talent.
  • Rapture is another talent that will grant you even more mana regeneration. It lets you regain 2.5% of mana every time one of your Power Word: Shields is either dispelled or absorbs its maximum value, while also energizing the target that it has been placed on.
  • Soul Warding is one of the core talents of any Discipline Priest builds, removing the cooldown of your Power Word: Shield while also reducing its mana cost by up to 15%. No Discipline build will come without this talent! Soul Warding will facilitate your shield spam and, without it, most of your gameplay will not even be possible.
  • Aspiration is a mandatory talent that reduces the cooldown of Penance, Pain Suppression, Power Infusion, and Inner Focus by up to 20%. There is no room for discussions here: you will want this talent since it reduces the cooldown of your most important spells.
  • Focused Power is another one of the core talents that allow you to easily cast Mass Dispel while also enhancing your damaging and healing spells by up to 4%. Simply a mandatory talent, for obvious reasons. This talent alone is one of the reasons why most players are absolutely terrorized by Discipline Priests.
  • Focused Will showcases your dedication to the development of your willpower. It allows you to gain a stacking buff that reduces all damage taken by up to 12% while also increasing all healing received by up to 15%. Just like Focused Power, this is one of the talents that makes or breaks an entire build. You simply cannot play efficiently without this talent, since you are a squishy cloth user.
  • Grace lets you stack a beneficial effect up to 3 times on a single target at a time, increasing all healing received by up to 9%. You will definitely want this talent, however, even a single point in Grace will be more than enough, saving you some points for more demanding talents.
  • Enlightenment increases your overall spell haste and your spirit.
    • This talent is extremely strong, however, the number of points you will want to put in this talent very much depends on what type of a build you are trying to put together. You will want full points here when choosing an offensive build, but only one or two points when going for a more stable build.
  • Divine Aegis further emphasizes your dominance over any other healing specialization when it comes to absorption effects. It allows you to create a protective barrier on a target whenever you land a critical heal! The barrier can reach up to 30% of the amount healed if you invest 3 points into this talent.
    • A great thing about this talent is that it does not limit you to a single target at a time, meaning that this effect can be active on multiple targets, all at the same time.
  • Borrowed Time can significantly enhance your gameplay if used properly. This talent grants you 25% spell haste after using Power Word: Shield while also directly boosting it by 40% of your total spell power. This talent has a few implications, the most important one being the raw power it adds to your shield.
    • The ultimate perk that comes with this talent, however, is that you can proc the spell haste effect after every single one of your shield applications, allowing you to weave in spells in between the shields!
  • Desperate Prayer grants you access to a very powerful instant-cast healing ability, letting you provide a large heal to any target in mere moments. This talent is extremely good for surviving bursts!
  • Improved Flash Heal is an optional talent which can be used to improve your Flash Heal. Usually PvP builds ignore this talent, but you should feel free to experiment with it and choose for yourself!
  • Absolution reduces the mana cost of your Dispel Magic, Mass Dispel, and Abolish Disease by up to 15%. This talent is great for situations where know you will be required to spam utility spells. It also works great in conjunction with Glyph of Mass Dispel.
  • Blessed Recovery has seen a lot of play throughout WotLK, even if the bonuses granted by it are pretty low. It allows you recuperate a certain percentage of damage landed on you during 6 seconds after a critical strike. Additional critical hits during the 6 seconds will increase the healing you receive. You should consider using this talent as an additional defensive tool!
  • Divine Fury works great for offensive builds, reducing the cast time of Smite, Holy Fire, and Greater Heal by up to 0.5 seconds. This talent is usually skipped in standard builds, since you do not want to focus as much on the offensive. However, with builds that focus on aiding your ally in bursting down your opponents, this talent is spectacular.

Glyphs

Major Glyphs

Glyph of Penance is extremely powerful. So powerful, in fact, that we will call it mandatory. It lets you reduce the cooldown of Penance by up to 2 seconds, allowing you to cast it again much faster. Since Penance is the most powerful healing ability in our arsenal, we will definitely want to have this glyph.

Glyph of Pain Suppression allows you to cast Pain Suppression even while under the effect of a stun. This glyph is mandatory, since it will let you mitigate a potential disaster. Considering that many classes have the power to kill an opponent during a single stun effect, you will want to have this glyph at all times. Another good thing about this glyph is that it allows you to cast Pain Suppression on another friendly target, even if you are stunned!

Glyph of Mass Dispel reduces the mana cost of Mass Dispel by up to 35%! This glyph will be extremely useful in arenas and battlegrounds as you will often find yourself spamming the ability. The only downside of Mass Dispel is its high mana cost, so, by choosing this glyph, you will lessen the burden of destroying so many harmful effects on your allies!

Glyph of Power Word: Shield allows you to also heal your target when using Power Word: Shield, by up to 20% of the absorption effect. This glyph can very helpful, especially when dealing with situations where your allies require immediate aid. You can bring this glyph confidently to arenas, knowing that your shields will also provide the much-needed healing!

Glyph of Inner Fire is on the weaker side of glyphs, only granting you a beneficial effect. However, since we are cloth users, we may choose to use this one, since it can help us survive physical damage dealers in a more efficient way.

Glyph of Renew empowers your Renew spell by up to 25%, at the cost of reducing its duration by up to 3 seconds. This glyph can be quite useful in arenas, as it will allow you to heal more, in a shorter duration of time. However, it may also consume one of your global cooldowns to achieve the effect, which is why this glyph is only considered to be decent.

Minor Glyphs

Glyph of Fortitude reduces the mana cost of your fortitude spells by up to 50%, allowing you to rebuff your allies more efficiently. Considering that the meta is full of classes that love to purge and dispel beneficial effects, this glyph is a very welcome addition to your toolset!

Glyph of Levitate removes the pesky requirement of a reagent for your Levitate spell. Let’s just say, Harry did not need a feather to cast his levitation spell, and neither should you!

Glyph of Shadowfiend is a neat glyph that allows you to gain 5% of your maximum mana back if your loyal Shadowfiend is murdered by a mischievous enemy instead of succumbing to natural causes. This glyph is pretty much mandatory, especially since players have the tendency to kill a Shadowfiend as soon as it is unleashed to deny the priest any mana regeneration.

 

About the Author

Nevermore

Hey there folks, I am Nevermore and have been deeply passionate about WoW for more than a decade. Whether we talk about the hidden mysteries of Azeroth or the otherworldly Outland, my journey brought me here to share the things that I have experienced with you all.
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WEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
WEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
1 year ago

Why is the levitate glyph recommended for pvp?

avxcv
avxcv
Reply to  WEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
1 year ago

it’s a minor glyph so it doesn’t play a huge role in your dps. levitate is just nice for world pvp/bgs for making an escape without having to bring any light feathers.

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