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Spiritual Guidance: Discipline 101, Page 3

Dawn Moore
Updated ·7 min read

9. Disc healing tips

  • Always use Prayer of Mending when it is not on cooldown. Use it on the tank or anyone you expect to take damage in the next few moments.

  • If you are healing the tank, keep Power Word: Shield on him and refresh it whenever the Weakened Soul debuff isn't present. When he takes damage, use Penance to heal up the larger damage and follow up with as many Flash Heals as you can cast until he's at full or your Penance is usable again. Cast Renew to help stabilize incoming damage.

  • If a tank is taking unpredictable amounts of damage, try to conserve your Penance for the larger bursts and use Flash Heals for anything that is manageable. This will insure you don't lose your tank to a huge spike of damage if Penance is on cooldown.

  • Unless a fight strategy requires your Pain Suppression at a particular time, use it liberally so you don't get in the habit of not using it at all. It's the perfect reaction to a panic moment if your Penance is on cooldown, and the target you're casting it on already has Weakened Soul and a consumed shield.

  • You can also use Power Infusion on yourself during panic moments to get heals to your target faster. Use this ability freely so it doesn't go to waste. If you're in a fight with more predictable or manageable damage, use your Power Infusion on a caster DPS to help the raid instead.

  • If you're shield spamming, work your way down groups that are most likely to take damage. I start with tanks and melee, then get the healers since some of them have the tendency to forget to heal themselves. Until patch 3.3.3, I also prioritize bubbling arcane mages so they can get bonus spellpower from Incanter's Absorption.

  • As a shield spammer, spot heal with Penance but don't concern yourself so much with casted heals like Flash Heal. Only cast if it is absolutely necessary to save a member of your raid. As a shield spammer it is very easy to get sidetracked from bubbling the raid, but stick to it if it is your assignment. For the most part, druid HoTs will tick smaller damage up by the time you get a casted heal off, and other larger damage might be healed by another raid healer's instant cast spell. That doesn't mean ignore dying players, it just means if things are under control and you know someone else will get it, stick to bubbles. Your bubbles being up is what keep things in control a lot of the time.

  • If you're stacked with your group, use Holy Nova to quickly help out with sudden bursts of raid damage. You can also use it when not stacked to keep yourself alive if you've got Weakened Soul but can't stop moving to cast or channel.

  • Don't Renew spam. It's a poor use of time and mana. Save it for single targets you're healing.

  • If you need to use Prayer of Healing, use it immediately after casting a Power Word: Shield so you can get the Borrowed Time buff. You can also use Power Infusion with it to increase the casting time.

10. Gems

I recommend any of the following gems for a disc priest. Find a combination that works for you.

On socket bonuses: Since blue gems are less desirable for throughput as a disc priest, utilizing socket bonuses becomes a personal choice. Make sure the bonus is worth it. I myself will not socket a blue gem for a bonus unless I'm getting +9 spellpower, and even then, only if it's just one blue gem. As I've said before, if you are interested in stacking one stat it is usually better to just gem that one stat, rather than taking hits here and there for a socket bonus.

For meta gems any of the following are useful to a priest in PvE:

  • Insightful Earthsiege Diamond: Use this meta if you find yourself always needing more mana.

  • Ember Skyflare Diamond: This is a good gem for throughput with a small mana bonus.

  • Beaming Earthsiege Diamond: Disc priests love their crit, but picking this gem over the Ember Skyflare Diamond is a personal choice. You will get more throughput from critical spells, but depending on how much crit you already have on your gear this gem could be useful or overkill.

  • Revitalizing Skyflare Diamond: The effect on this gem could be interesting to play with if you're more of a tank healing disc priest. For anything else I think you can find a better option. (If you're slotting it for the MP5, for example, you should probably just take the Insightful instead.)

11. Glyphs

Major Glyphs: Just like with talents, there is a cookie cutter selection for major glyphs for disc PvE. Nothing really comes close to any of the following glyphs. They are as follows:

  • Glyph of Penance: Blizzard designed a mandatory glyph for disc priests. This is it.

  • Glyph of Power Word: Shield: While not mandatory, you will get a lot of free bonus healing every time you use your bread and butter spell with this glyph. I believe the guessed absorbs AddOn to Recount also relies on this glyph to estimate absorbs.

  • Glyph of Flash Heal: This might not be an appealing glyph to a shield spammer, but it's greatly beneficial to a tank healer.

Minor Glyphs:

  • Glyph of Levitate: This glyph is rarely used in combat, but it's worth having so you can always find creative ways to use Levitate.

  • Glyph of Fading: I use fade quite frequently in fights with adds, so I recommend the same for any other priest.

  • Glyph of Fortitude: This glyph is useful for buffing in combat. You know, for when the DPS explode themselves somehow.

  • Glyph of Shadowfiend: I've honestly never seen my Shadowfiend die in PvE, but if you have you may want this glyph.

  • Glyph of Shackle Undead: This glyph is quite useful in Icecrown Citadel, but is obviously situational.


12. Endgame Enchants

13. Disco 101

Finally, if you are going to call yourself a disco priest, you will need to actually familiarize yourself with disco and other electronic dance music. Start with the Beegees and work you way forward. Disco priests also like funk and neo-psych. You may also want to work on getting yourself one of these.


Disco bunny. Just don't believe your combat log when it expires. D.I.S.C.O. isn't dead!




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Want to find more great tips for carrying out your Priestly duties? Spiritual Guidance has you covered with all there is to know! Check out Holy 101 for an introduction to healing as a holy priest, or Assessing yourself for advice on how to improve yourself as a healer and raider.