In this article, we present you with various talent trees for Discipline Priests (WoW 4.3) that you can use in specific situations. We also explain in detail what the talents do, how they work together, and how you can customise your talent tree in order to adapt it to a particular boss. The other articles of our Discipline Priest guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the left.

1. Tank Healing Builds↑top

This build is the standard tank healing build for Discipline Priests. It also works very well in Heroic dungeons.

This build provides you with Atonement healing (turning your Discipline Priest into a hybrid healing/DPS class), but it has less mana regeneration than the previous build.

2. Raid Healing Build↑top

This build is the standard build for raid healing. It provides you with all the useful tools for raid healing, including Atonement healing and Desperate Prayer.

3. Customising Your Build↑top

Discipline Priests have several options at their disposal to customise both their tank healing and raid healing builds. We detailed both of them in this section. We also discuss the glyphs that should be taken.

3.1. Talents

In the image below, the fixed talents have been highlighted in green, while the optional talents have been highlighted in red.

3.1.1. Fixed Talents

3.1.2. Differences Between Tank Healing and Raid Healing

There are a great many variations of the talent build that you should use. These depend, primarily, on whether you are interested in tank healing or raid healing. For raid healing, you will want to skip out on Strength of Soul and Inspiration and take talents that are more beneficial to raid healing, such as Darkness (as spell haste has raid-healing benefits). There are also many talents that are suited to specific situations.

Keep in mind that the distinction between tank healer and raid healer is really only possible in 25-man raids. In 10-man raids, each healer will have to perform several, different tasks, in the same encounter (especially if the raid is only using 2 healers). As such, you cannot always use a purely tank healing build or a purely raid healing build. Rather, you will need to adapt your build to your raid's requirements.

3.1.3. Atonement Healing Variation

Atonement healing is an entirely optional playstyle, which is viable in tank healing and raid healing. Atonement healing can be very useful in fights where there are times when healing is not strained, as it allows you to contribute to the DPS while still doing very mana-efficient healing. Below, you will find the list of talents that you should take for Atonement healing:

• 2/2 Evangelism: this talent allows you to stack a buff on yourself ( Evangelism), each time you deal damage with Smite or Holy Fire. At the maximum 5 stacks, the buff increases the damage that you deal with these abilities by 20%, and also reduces their mana cost (as well as the mana cost of Penance) by 30%.
• 1/1 Archangel: this gives you the Archangel ability. Using this ability will consume all of your Evangelism stacks, and instantly restore 1% of your total mana and increase your healing done by 3%, per stack. So, at 5 stacks, you will gain 5% of your total mana and a 15% healing increase. The healing increase lasts for 18 seconds.
• 2/2 Atonement: this talent allows you to heal targets by dealing damage with Smite and Holy Fire. The lowest health raid member, within 15 yards of the target you are damaging, will be healed for the amount of damage that you deal with Smite and Holy Fire. If you yourself are benefiting from the heal, its effects are reduced by 50%.

Additionally, because Archangel grants you a 15% healing increase for 18 seconds, you can use this buff to your advantage, by stacking Evangelism up to 5 stacks before a time where a lot of healing will be needed, and then using it to boost your healing.

3.1.4. Other Filler Talents

• 1/3 Inner Sanctum: this is a filler talent that you can take, in case you have not taken any of the Atonement talents, in order to unlock further talent tiers. It reduces all damage taken by 2% while Inner Fire is active and increases your movement speed by a further 2% while Inner Will is active.
• 2/2 Strength of Soul: healing a target affected by Weakened Soul with Heal, Flash Heal or Greater Heal reduces the duration of the Weakened Soul debuff by 4 seconds. This is an excellent tank-healing talent, as it allows you to cast Power Word: Shield a lot more often on the tank.
• 2/2 Train of Thought: each time you heal a target with Greater Heal, the cooldown of Inner Focus is reduced by 5 seconds. This is another useful tank healing talent (although it does have some merit in raid healing situations), as it allows you to benefit from Inner Focus a lot more often, all while casting Greater Heal on the tank (which you will do often).
• 2/2 Inspiration: each time you heal someone with a critical heal from Heal, Flash Heal, Greater Heal, Binding Heal, Penance, Prayer of Healing or Prayer of Mending, they receive a buff which reduces physical damage taken by 10% for 15 seconds. This buff is also provided by Restoration Shamans ( Ancestral Healing).
• 1/1 Desperate Prayer: this talent gives you the Desperate Prayer ability. This is large, mana-free self-heal, which is off the global cooldown. This talent can be useful on fights where you receive a lot of damage.
• 3/3 Darkness: increases your spell haste by 3%. This talent is useful if you are raid healing (where Haste Rating is beneficial) or if you simply wish to cast faster. You can also take 1/3 or 2/3 points in this talent, depending on what other talents you have chosen.
• 2/2 Veiled Shadows: this is a mana regeneration talent, as it reduces the cooldown of your Shadowfiend (a mana regeneration ability) by 1 minute, allowing you to cast it more often.

3.2. Glyphs

3.2.1. Prime Glyphs

There is one mandatory Prime Glyph, as a Discipline Priest:

• Glyph of Power Word: Shield: instantly heals the target for 20% of the amount that your shield absorbs. As you are using Power Word Shield often, this glyph is of great benefit, especially as it provides you with a (small) heal which you can cast will moving.

For your other glyphs, you should choose two from among the following:

• Glyph of Penance: reduces the cooldown of Penance (a great single-target and tank healing spell) by 2 seconds. This is useful in most cases, unless you are preparing for a heavy raid damage encounter.
• Glyph of Prayer of Healing: grants your Prayer of Healing (an AoE heal) a healing-over-time effect, which heals for 20% of the initial heal, over 6 seconds. This is an excellent glyph on fights with heavy raid damage.
• Glyph of Power Word: Barrier: increases the healing received by all targets within the barrier by 10% (from all sources). If the encounter allows you to efficiently use Power Word: Barrier, then this glyph will likely be very useful.

3.2.2. Major Glyphs

• Glyph of Prayer of Mending: this increases the first heal of your Prayer of Mending spell by 60% and it is an excellent healing increase glyph.
• Glyph of Divine Accuracy: ensures that your Smite and Holy Fire spells will always hit, regardless of your Hit Rating. This is mandatory any time you wish to make use of Atonement healing, but is rather useless otherwise.
• Glyph of Smite: increases the damage you deal with Smite against targets affected by Holy Fire. This greatly enhances Atonement healing, but is useless otherwise.
• Glyph of Mass Dispel: reduces the cast time of your Mass Dispel ability by 1 second.

3.2.3. Minor Glyphs

• Glyph of Fortitude: reduces the mana cost of your Power Word: Fortitude spell by 50%. This is useful in case you need to re-apply the buff during combat.
• Glyph of Fading: reduces the mana cost of your Fade spell by 30%. This can be useful on encounters where you find yourself using Fade often.
• Glyph of Shadowfiend: instantly grants you 5% of your maximum mana if your Shadowfiend dies from damage. Shadowfiends rarely die in PvE content (as they benefit from a lot of AoE damage reduction), but there are no better alternatives.