A disc guide!  Now with 50% more flailing. Current through 4.2.

Spells

Healing Spells

Spell Name	What it Does	More Info
Heal	Basic Direct Heal	Medium, Slow, low mana cost
Flash Heal	Small Direct Heal	Small, quick, high mana cost
Greater Heal	Big Direct Heal	Large, slow, high mana cost.
Binding Heal	Direct Heal to target AND yourself	You no longer have to worry about whether to heal the target or yourself. Mana-efficient for 2 targets.
Penance (Disc spec only)	Powerful Direct Heal to target or damage to enemy	Channeled, 3 ticks
Prayer of Mending	A heal that procs on impact and bounces to the next target. 5 charges.	Incredibly mana-cheap. Should be cast on the tank at every cooldown.
Renew	Single-target Heal over Time	A bit mana hoggy in disc spec
Power Word: Shield	A bubble that absorbs damage on your target	A signature spell of the spec.
Atonement (Talented)	A smart heal that heals targets when you smite or use holy fire	Some specs focus around this spell while others do not.
Prayer of Healing	AOE heal	Group based, with cast time. Can be cast on any group in your raid, not just your own group.
Holy Nova	AOE heal centered around the priest. Damages hostile targets.	Situational. Mana hoggy and not that effective. Not often used.
Resurrection	Resurrects your target	Technically this is HEALING FAIL.

When to Bubble

The short version is:

• The tank.  Always the tank.
• Possibly the off-tank.  Mana permitting (see section below on Rapture, etc)
• And possibly the DPS who gets targeted by the unavoidable single-target boss ability that you just have to “heal through.”

I’m dead serious here, folks.  A lot has changed since Wrath.  First, our bubbles are mana hogs.  Second, they are usually overkill on anyone but the tank.  If you chain bubble, enjoy that for like 20 seconds until you go OOM.

Is Prayer of Healing Totally Awful for Disc?

No, not that bad.  I wouldn’t spam it, but sometimes it IS the most efficient choice if a lot of people are hurting.  Because it’s pretty lame mana-wise (in Disc spec), pair it with Inner Focus.

Binding Heal

How many freakin heals do we need?  Binding heal is often forgotten, but it should be used.  You should almost NEVER heal yourself.  If you have taken damage, you should binding heal other people until you’re back topped off.  This will save mana.  It’s a tough habit to get into because you’re used to selecting the target you are intending to heal.

Prayer of Mending

Throw it every cooldown.  EVERY COOLDOWN.  I mean it.  Anybody want a peanut?

Cooldowns

Spell Name	What it Does	More Info
Pain Suppression (Talented)	Reduces incoming damage to one target. Reduces threat by 5%.	This is primarily a tank cooldown. Be careful because it doesn't stack with everything.
Power Word: Barrier (Talented)	Creates an AOE dome that reduces incoming damage to everyone underneath.	Think of it as "group pain suppression"
Divine Hymn	Extremely powerful channeled AOE heal	Use it every boss fight.
Leap of Faith	Yanks your friendly target to you.	Better by prearrangement than on the fly.
Fade	Sheds Aggro temporarily	Good for when you're getting roflstomped
Desperate Prayer (Holy, Talented)	Instant self-heal	Did I mention getting roflstomped?
Power Infusion (Talented)	Boost to haste and reduction in mana cost of spells.	The haste part does NOT stack with heroism/bloodlust, but you will still get the mana savings.
Inner Focus (Talented)	Trigger before certain heals to get a mana-free heal more likely to crit.	Saves mana AND more likely to crit!

Pain Suppression and Its Threat Reduction

There’s no good reason to panic about the 5% threat reduction on Pain Suppression.  Just be careful.  Don’t use it on the tank in the first 20 seconds of the fight before aggro is established.  Don’t use it right after an aggro reset or tank swap.  Check your threat meter before using it to make sure the tank has a solid threat lead.

When to use The Dome

The best way to use the Dome (Power Word: Barrier) is by prearrangement.  It’s very hard to spontaneously pop a dome and save the day.  The raid needs to plan for the popping of the dome on a gross ability and know that they need to be clustered up waiting for dome-goodness.  The dome is so short that you can’t have people reacting to it once it’s up.  They need to plan beforehand.

If the fight doesn’t call for a convenient dome (people are spread out) it’s totally fine to use it as a second “Pain Suppression” on the tank.  Yeah, it’s overkill.  Whatever.  Dead tanks are bad too.

Further Reading

• Using Raeli’s Spell Announcer (an addon that helps you notify the group that you’ve popped a cooldown)

Who Gets Power Infusion?

Short Answer: You.

Long answer: you have mana issues.  Do you really want to give away mana reduction?  HELL no.

Just don’t hit it during Heroism because the haste buff will be wasted.  Kthxbye.

Inner Focus and Mana

Inner Focus is made of awesome.  You can macro it with your mana-hoggy spells and get a freebie every 45 seconds.  I recommend Prayer of Healing (yes, you will use it) or Greater Heal.  Also, it helps with crits.  Hey, you know what happens when you crit?  Divine Aegis, that’s what.

Leap of Faith? How the Eff Does That Work?

It’s really hard, in a raid situation, to figure out who is in a bad position and would be better off in YOUR position.  Most times, if someone is running from something awful, you sure as hell don’t want to bring the person, and consequently, the awful, near YOU.

However, some people have been able to use it effectively as a tank cooldown to get the tank out of the bad or kite a mob, etc.  This would need to be done by prearrangement, or it is damn disconcerting.

TL;DR – it’s hard to use on the fly, but you can use it as a planned maneuver in a particular boss fight if the situation warrants.

(I still think it’s Leap of Fail, but I have been shown the error of my ways.  Other people seem to like it for things OTHER than griefing your group members…)

Further Reading:

• Tales of a Priest: Leap of Faith

Buffs

Spell Name	What it Does	Target	More Info
Power Word: Fortitude	More Stamina	AOE on group/raid	Does not stack with the evil warlock imp.
Shadow Protection	Shadow Resist	AOE on group/raid	Does not stack with pally shadow resist aura.
Fear Ward	Absorbs one fear effect	Single Target	Lasts 3 min, Cooldown of 3 min, useful in PvP or on the tank in certain encounters.
Levitate	Target levitates over ick and falls slower.	Single Target	You think this isn't a buff? I'll let you FALL next time.
Inner Fire	Self-buff for armor and spellpower	Self-only	Does not stack with Inner Will
Inner Will	Self-buff for movement speed and mana reduction on instant spells	Self-only	Does not stack with Inner Fire. Does not stack with movement-enchants (such as boots).

Inner Will versus Inner Fire

When do I use Inner Will and when do I use Inner Fire?  Generally speaking, the thoroughput of Inner Fire combined with the survivability of its armor boost make it a solid choice.  You won’t miss the speed boost too badly if you have a boot enchant that gives a minor run speed increase.  Most of our spells are not instants, so the mana reduction for Inner Will largely goes to waste.

However, if you find yourself in an encounter where you’re hopping around like a coked-out ferret throwing mostly instants, then Inner Will is probably better.

Inner Will is also nice for learning an encounter.  The speed boost gives you a little more wiggle-room when you’re unfamiliar with when to start running out of the bad.  Sure, you’ll probably run out of mana.  But so what?  You’re probably going to wipe anyway.  Once you are more comfortable getting out of the bad without a speed boost, then you can swap over back to Inner Fire.

Pro tip: Use Inner Will when running back from a wipe.

Mana Regeneration

Spell Name	What it Does	More Info
Shadowfiend	Bites the ankles of the boss for mana	A Macro helps.
Hymn of Hope	Mana for lowest-mana raid members. Channeled.	Hard to find time to channel it
Archangel (Atonement Spec)	Consumes Evangelism stacks for 1% per stack (total 5% with full stacks)	This should be used every cooldown, but only with 5 full stacks. The cooldown is 30 sec.

Getting the Most out of Your Mana-Restoring Abilities

OK, you want to pop Shadowfiend early enough so that you can get 2 of them in a fight, but not too early so that your mana gains are wasted.

To get the most out of your Shadowfiend:

• First hit Shadowfiend and immediately swing into Hymn of Hope.  (Don’t do it the other way around or you’ll interrupt your Hymn of Hope channel by casting Shadowfiend and feel like a moron.)  See, Hymn of Hope raises your maximum mana by 15%.  Shadowfiend returns a set percentage of mana.  Soooo if your maximum mana is higher, you get more out of the fiend.  It’s hard to find a good time to channel something and not have people croak, so this may not be viable, or you might have to cut off Hymn of Hope early.
• Use a Shadowfiend Macro to make sure the stupid thing is attacking when it’s released.
• Release the Shadowfiend before Heroism, Bloodlust, or Time Warp is hit.  The fiend will hit faster and give you more mana!  But if you release the fiend after the buff has already been activated, it does not benefit.

Also, coordinate with your shaman friend.  Nothing is more of a /facepalm moment than letting loose the fiend and then 2 seconds later, Mana Tide is dropped, and you’re topped off and wasting all those mana ticks.

Cleansing

Now that hybrid classes can’t clean much more than the kitchen table, we healers are stuck with most of the cleansing duty.

Spell Name	What it Does	More Info
Cure Disease	Cures Disease	Depending on the disease, sometimes it's cheaper to just heal through it.
Dispel Magic	Cleanses friendly or hostile target's magic	You may be asked to use this on boss fights if there is no mage to spellsteal. You can cleanse 2 spells off a friendly, but only 1 off yourself.
Mass Dispel	AOE: Cleanses friendly or hostile targets.	It's pretty mana-expensive and the targeting circle is a pain.

Crowd Control

Though you probably won’t be doing much crowd controlling in raids, you may be doing a bit in heroics.

Spell Name	Works on...	What it Does	More Info
Shackle Undead	Undead	Immobilizes and prevents attacking (including casting) Breaks on damage.	Limited use, depends where you are.
Mind Control	Humanoids	Controls a hostile target. Channeled.	In a tight spot, you can crowd control a healer mob and fulfil your healing duties using their mana.
Mind Soothe	Humanoids	Reduces aggro radius.	... so you can get closer to mind control
Psychic Scream	Everyone	AOE fear	Useful in PvP but will get you in trouble in PvE

Talents

What’s the deal with Smite?

There’s this newfangled healing style where you smite/holy fire to heal.  Crazy right?

The 3 basic talents that you NEED for an Atonement (smite) spec:

• Evangelism: Stacks up to 5.  Makes your smites and holy fire hit for more and cost less.  (Stack is on YOU not the mob).
• Archangel: Consumes your Evangelism stacks to give you a bit of mana and a boost to all your healing. (1 min cooldown)
• Atonement: When you smite or holy fire, you heal a nearby target with low health. A nearby target within 15 yards of the mob.  So the tank or melee.

Now, these 3 work together very well.  When you smite or holy fire, you are building up Evangelism.  You are also healing low health people near the mob (i.e. the tank).  With 5 stacks of Evangelism up, your heals from Atonement are bigger and cheaper.

Archangel can be triggered every minute, and should be used when the cooldown is up, not saved for an “emergency.”  Just make sure you only trigger it when you have 5 Evangelism stacks, except if your stacks are about to fall off, in which case, use it or lose it!

Now, Smite/Holy Fire (with Atonement) will not be your only heal.  It’s a common misconception that you will not be directly healing the tank.  You WILL be directly healing the tank.  You will be bubbling.  You will be Penance-ing.  You will be hitting Prayer of Mending every cooldown (or else).  But what you will NOT be doing is hitting “Heal” as a filler spell.  You will be reaching for Smite or Holy Fire.

Further Reading

• Laral’s Guest Post on Smiting
• Wow Insider: How to Play An Atonement Priest
• Jinxed Thoughts: Archangel 101
• World of Matticus: How to Smite Your Way Through Heroics and Raids
• Jinxed Thoughts: Archangel versus Evangelism.  (i.e. Is it better to pop the wings, or leave up 5 stacks of evangelism)

Is an Atonement (Smite) Spec Better than a Non-Atonement?  Or Vice Versa?

I’m sure there are theorycraft answers for this, but in practice in a non-hardcore raiding environment, they are roughly equivalent.  Both are viable specs. Any significant differences between the output of the specs are likely due to player skill in that spec.

Talent Evaluations

There are a hell of a lot of “mandatory” talents in the Disc spec.  Sorry that the tree is full of PURE AWESOME.

	The Talent	What it does	Evaluation
Mandatory	Pain Suppression	Your main oh-crap cooldown for the tank	Totally yes.
	Power Word Barrier	A signature spell, an aoe oh-crap button	Again, seriously, yes.
	Divine Aegis	When you crit, you get a mini-bubble on the target.	Bubbles are what we do. This talent benefits from mastery and boosts utility.
	Improved Power Word Shield	Stronger bubbles	Bubbles are our BAG, baby. DO EET.
	Grace	Increases healing done to your target after you do a direct heal. Stacks 3 times.	This has great synergy with Renewed Hope to increase the healing done to single-target. Good for Atonement specs too as it is not difficult to keep the stacks up.
	Renewed Hope	Improves crit on a target with Weakened Soul OR Grace	Your tank will always have Grace up, so that's even MORE healing on the tank. If you do an emergency bubble on someone followed by a heal, it will heal for EXTRA. Totally win/win.
	Rapture	Extra mana when your bubble pops.	Extra mana? Yes please.
Mandatory for Atonement Spec	Evangelism	Stacks to increase damage and decrease mana for your smite/holy fire.	You can't half ass it. You take all 3 of these or take none at all.
	Archangel	Consume Evangelism stacks to gain mana and a healing buff.
	Atonement	Smite/holy fire heals the lowest health target.
Good	Divine Fury (Holy)	Reduced cast time for smite, holy fire, greater heal, and heal.	A very solid talent for all specs, even more for atonement spec.
	Inspiration (Holy)	Damage mitigation on the target after a crit	Even though it's pretty deep in the Holy tree, it works well with Disc emphasis on crits (for divine aegis) and for disc's main role (tank healing). It is less useful for atonement specs since it does not proc from atonement healing.
	Power Infusion	Reduces mana cost and gives a haste boost for 20 seconds.	The selfish priest will use this on him/herself to conserve mana and gain thoroughput. However, the cooldown is a little long.
	Inner Focus	The next fheal, gheal, binding heal, or POH is mana-free and more likely to crit.	This is a great talent for conserving mana on hoggy spells. Plus you are really likely to get a Divine Aegis proc. With a cooldown of 45 seconds, it's hard to say no.
Useful (solid boosts to healing)	Twin Disciplines	Increases healing by 6%	Duh. Yes please.
	Mental Agility	Reduces mana cost of instant spells	Prayer of mending, BUBBLE. Nice.
	Empowered Healing (Holy)	15% increase to direct heals.	Yes. Absolutely yes. Disc mostly DOES direct heals to the tank.
YMMV (Depends on your role, gear, and regular raid makeup)	Darkness (Shadow)	Haste (3% for 3 points)	There's no real "hard and fast" rule for haste, since an extra tick on renew is no biggie for Disc.
	Train of Thought	Reduces cooldown on Penance when you smite. Reduces cooldown on Inner Focus when you use Greater Heal.	The cooldown reductions are not that significant. Non-atonement specs will get little benefit from this.
	Soul Warding	Lowers Cooldown on Bubble	One might think that this talent is indispensable, but since the bubbles are so strong and expensive, you probably will only be bubbling the tank. Therefore, this talent can be skipped.
	Strength of Soul	Lowers duration of Weakened Soul when you heal with direct heals	See discussion, above, about mana gains. This talent may be wasted in an atonement spec, since Atonement heals do not trigger this talent.
	Borrowed Time	You get a haste buff for 6 seconds when you bubble. Is consumed by your next cast-time spell.	This used to be mandatory. However, you're not bubbling as much anymore, only the tank. If you take Strength of Soul, you will be shielding more frequently and Borrowed Time will complement it.
	Desperate Prayer (Holy)	Instant self heal	It heals you for a good amount and is a good panic button for when you're getting roflstomped.
	Veiled Shadows (Shadow)	1 minute shaved off the Shadowfiend Cooldown	Very nice for extra mana. Skip it if you're comfortable with mana
	Focused Will	Reduces damage taken after getting roflstomped	Primarily PVP, but may be good for hardmodes.
	Surge of Light (Holy)	Procs an instant flash heal off your single target direct heals or smite.	It's pretty far into the Holy tree for a mediocre talent with a low proc rate.
	Inner Sanctum	Boost to speed of Inner will and armor of Inner Fire	Not worth it. However, some people find the speed boost great, for non-atonement specs.
Not Recommended	Reflective Shield	Damage taken is reflected back	PvP talent
	Improved Renew (Holy)	Better renew	Meh, you really shouldn't be using renew much. There are far better things in that tier of the holy tree.

Grace Uptime

Grace is pretty much mandatory.  If you hit someone with a direct healing spell, then the person takes 8% more healing from YOU, stacked 3 times.  That’s 24% extra healing from you.

But that’s not all!  Renewed Hope, which is also pretty much mandatory, increases your crit chance on targets with Grace or Weakened Soul.

So… extra 24% healing?  Extra crit? Yes please!  This is where you’re going to shine at tank healing.

Application of Grace is very easy.  One penance.  That’s it.  Penance ticks 3 times, there are your 3 stacks right there.

Now, keeping up Grace shouldn’t be that tricky.  Grace has a 15 second duration and is refreshed by any direct single-target healing spell (Fheal, Gheal, Heal, or Penance – and possibly Binding Heal).  If you are non-Atonement specced, you will keep up Grace without even thinking about it.  However, if you are Atonement specced, you might be letting your atonement procs do the healing, and you may not be doing that much direct healing of your target.

So here’s a good rule of thumb for smitey priests: Hit penance when it’s off cooldown.  Glyphed Penance should be off cooldown every 10 sec, which easily gets you in the 15 second window.  And EVEN IF your stacks drop off, Penance will reapply them ALL with a single Penance.

Rapture, Internal Cooldowns, Bubbles, and Strength of Soul

Rapture gives you back mana when your bubble bursts from damage.  Therefore, you want every bubble to burst.  Your bubble is very strong, so it’s hard to burst.  Your bubble is also mana hoggy so you NEED the Rapture proc when it does burst.  TL;DR you cast your bubble on the tank, as I said above.  Duh.

Now, this works quite well, only bubbling the tank.  You can only bubble the tank every 15 seconds.  Meaning your bubbles will burst about 15 seconds apart, give or take.  Rapture has a 12 second internal cooldown.  Every time your bubble bursts, you’re getting a lovely rapture proc.

You see here why bubbling multiple targets will run you out of mana.  Because you’re not getting a Rapture proc every time a bubble bursts.  If you’re bubbling 2 targets, you’re probably getting procs on half the bubble bursts.  And the other half of the bubbles are eating your mana up.  So yeah, back to one bubble, one tank.

Further Reading

• Tales of a Priest: Rapture Mana Restoration

Add Strength of Soul

Strength of Soul is a cool talent.  Every time you direct heal the bubbled target (minus penance) you’re going to shave 4 seconds off Weakened Soul.  If you are chain-healing the tank, this means that you will be able to bubble the tank every 8-10 seconds instead of every 15, give or take.

Oh noes, 10 second bubble bursts means that not every bubble burst will be a rapture proc, because the Rapture internal cooldown, as you recall, is 12 seconds.

What does this mean?  It doesn’t mean that Strength of Soul is a bad talent.  Your shield, after all, is your strongest “heal.”  Rebubbling the tank earlier means that you are not having to fill in as much with direct non-penance heals.

Therefore, you have to decide what costs more mana:

• Shields 10 seconds apart with fewer Rapture Procs
• Shields 15 seconds apart with all Rapture Procs, but 5 additional seconds of direct healing that does not benefit from your mastery (2 casts?) between bubbles.

There’s no absolute right answer, but you need to make an informed choice.

Sample Specs

Atonement

Mandatory talents for this spec take up 5 points of your talent budget.  Plus then you need the mandatory discipline talents.

• Ensidia’s Standard Atonement Spec
• Ensidia’s Extreme Atonement Spec
• Liala’s Atonement Build
• Laral’s Atonement Spec
• Orange Slice’s Atonement Build
• Bee’s Atonement Build
• Jasyla’s Atonement Build

Non-Atonement

The non-atonement builds are pretty limited, and you end up taking a lot of mediocre talents in tiers 1 and 2.  In addition, Inspiration is a very smart choice for a non-atonement build but it’s so far into the Holy tree that it further limits choices.

• Ensidia’s Standard Hybrid Disc Spec
• Rades’s Build
• Liala’s Build
• Jasyla’s Build (with 3/3 Inner Sanctum)
• Minstrel’s Build (with Surge of Light)

Glyphs

Type	Glyph	What it Does	Evaluation
Prime	Penance*	Lowered Cooldown on Penance	You'll get it and you'll LIKE it.
	Power Word: Shield*	Heal for 20% of shield value	Heals on your bubbles, what's not to like?
	PowerWord Barrier	Increases healing taken under the dome.	Unfortunately, the cooldown on PW:B is 3 minutes making this glyph of limited usefulness.
	Renew	Better renew	Renew isn't exactly a strong spell for discos.
	Flash Heal	Extra crits on people below 25%	Ok for tank healing, but hopefully the tank isn't below 25%.
	Prayer of Healing	Extra hot on the end of POH	Can't hurt, but hopefully you won't be casting POH that much.
Major	Prayer of Mending*	Increased first bounce heal	An extra heal on your first target who is usually the tank. YES.
	Divine Accuracy*	Increases your hit with smiting and holy fire.	Unless you want to gear for hit, this is mandatory for an atonement build.
	Smite	Increases smite damage if your target has holy fire.	With 4.1, this is useful for Atonement spec because it increases your smite damage, thereby increasing atonement healing.
	Mass Dispel	Lowered Cast time	Can't hurt to get the ick off people faster. It takes a while to place the targeting circle.
	Fade	Reduced cooldown for fade	Situational. Good if there is healing aggro from a lot of adds.
	Dispel Magic	A small heal on your dispel target	Chances are the target of your dispel is getting eaten by a dot, so this is reasonable, but weak.
	Inner Fire	Buffs your inner fire armor bonus	Situational. You might want it for the increased damage of hardmodes.
	(Holy Nova)	reduces GCD by 1/2 sec	Do not SPAM holy nova. /facepalm
	(Fear Ward)	Reduced cooldown by 30 sec	Lousy and near-useless in PVE
	(Desperation)	Cast Pain Suppression (and Guardian Spirit) while stunned.	Mostly PvP, but possibly useful in hardmodes.
Minor	Fading*	Lowered fade cost	This is one of the rare minor glyphs that helps you IN COMBAT
	Levitate*	No reagent	Running out of reagents is embarrassing.
	Shadowfiend	5% max mana if dies from damage	It's not likely to die from damage anymore.
	(Shadow Protection)	Increase duration by 10 mins	The duration is 1 hour already. Fail.
	(Fortitude)	Reduce mana cost	It's been reduced in a recent patch, so it's not significant.

Stats

Stat priority is thus:

Intellect » Spirit » Crit = Mastery (choose depending on role, more on this later) » Haste

Spirit

EJ advises stacking spirit until you feel comfortable with your mana.  WTF does “until you feel comfortable with your mana” mean?  Well, uh, it means just that.  It’s a pretty stark tipping point where one day you’re really struggling and you get a few upgrades and suddenly you can breathe again.  Sorry for the touchy-feely non-numbers.

However, Spirit won’t do you as much good as Holy’s spirit gains do.  If you’re running out of mana, instead of adding more spirit, take a look at how you can improve your Rapture gains.

Crit, Mastery, and Role

TL;DR Pick Crit for tank healing (which you should be doing).  Pick Mastery for raid healing (bubble spam, which is a bad idea).

Crit procs Divine Aegis and Inspiration (you have that, RIGHT?).  Critting gets us extra mitigation.  Woot.

Mastery applies to shields.  This means Power Word: Shield, Divine Aegis, and our Power Word: Barrier cooldown.  Not a long list.  ”Bubble more” is a poor raid healing option, considering the internal cooldown of Rapture and the fact that on many targets, bubbling is overkill.

Haste

12.5% will get you that extra hot tick on renew, and that’s a reasonable number to shoot for anyway.  But it’s less of a big deal for you than for Holy since you probably won’t be casting renew much.

Before, haste calculations were based around Borrowed Time, on the assumption that you’d be bubbling like crazy and almost always be in a Borrowed Time state.  Now, not so much.

For an Atonement spec, haste may be a bit by “feel” in that you want to make sure you’re able to efficiently stack your Evangelism.  If the smites/holy fires feel sluggish and you’re having trouble keeping up, add a little haste and see if it helps.  In general, if you “feel” slow, you’re going to feel less confident that you can deliver heals when you need them.  A little haste (don’t go nuts) may make you more comfortable.

Gearing

Pick gear based on the stat priority, above.  Because our secondary stats are about equal (and can be reforged anyway), generally the highest ilevel gear is the better choice, with a few caveats.

• If it has hit on it, it is just a waste of your stat budget, even if some of it gets reforged off.  Unless it’s a HUGE level boost compared to what you have, let the mage have it.
• An item with spirit is usually better than an item without spirit if they are of equal level. Unless you’re rolling in spirit.  Dream on.

Reputation, Justice Points, Crafting, Heroics, and Other Gear Choices

To get a solid gear foundation:

• Do all the quests in Twilight Highlands and you will get a few key ilvl 333 pieces without setting foot in a dungeon.
• Do Hyjal (revered) and Therazane (at least honored) for the appropriate enchants.

Afterward, take a look-see at the loot lists and go from there.

I’m not going to tell you what to do first, because it completely depends on what your most needed gear slot is, and after a few lucky drops, your priorities will suddenly shift.  I will say that before grinding up rep, spending your Justice Points, or having something crafted, LOOK at all that is available, and make a tentative outline of where to get your stuff.

Further Reading

• Saga at Spellbound has a complete list of Cataclysm Reputation Gear
• 4.2 Shopping List for Priests- Clothing Edition (WTS Heals)
• 4.2 priest loot! (Disc flavored) guess should work for holy as well  (Slice 213)
• 4.2 Gear For Disc Priests: Firelands, The Regrowth & The Molten Front (Disciplinary Action)
• Gearing Strategies for All Play Schedules

The Sad Truth About T-12/Firelands Gear

How do I say this so that it doesn’t totally suck?  Cloth gear in Firelands does not have spirit.  In previous tiers, you could totally get away with ignoring VP gear.  Now, you’re going to have to grind the VP for the tier gear for spirit.  Don’t freak out.  It will be OK.

Reforging

Intellect can’t be reforged.  Boo. Otherwise:

• Anything that does not have spirit should GET spirit. Do not reforge spirit OFF anything. Until you’re just rolling in spirit, that is.
• Reforge the rest based on stat priorities, above

Further Reading

• Brunpal wrote a two part guest post at Jaded Alt on  Reforging In Depth (Part 1, Part 2)

Enchants

Pick enchants based on the stat priority above (seems reasonable enough).  You need Hyjal rep (Revered) for the hat enchant, andTherazane (Honored or Exalted) for shoulders.

For raiders, I recommend a speed boost on the boots to help get out of the bad.  It’s worth the stats that you might give up.  Sure, you can get something similar with Inner Will, but you may not want to use Inner Will for that particular encounter.

The list below has all the best enchants for the class/spec, but also cheaper options if you can’t spend the maelstrom crystals.

Slot	Enchant	What it Does	Notes
Head	Arcanum of Hyjal	+60 intellect +35 crit	Revered with Hyjal
Shoulder	Greater Inscription of Charged Lodestone	+50 intellect +25 haste	Exalted with Therazane
	Lesser Inscription of Charged Lodestone	+30 intellect +20 haste	Honored with Therazane (Get revered!)
	FelfireInscription	+130 intellect +25 haste	Inscriptionist Only
Cloak	Greater Intellect	+50 intellect
	Darkglow Embroidery	+580 spirit for 15 sec proc	Tailor Only
	Lightweave Embroidery	+580 intellect for 15 sec proc
Chest	Peerless Stats	+20 all stats	Requires Maelstrom Crystals (3)
	Exceptional Spirit	+40 spirit
	Mighty Stats	+15 all stats
Bracers	Mighty Intellect	+50 intellect	Requires Maelstrom Crystals (2)
	Exceptional Spirit	+50 spirit
	Draconic Embossment - Intellect	+130 intellect	Leatherworker only. (And what priest is a leatherworker?)
Hands	Greater Mastery	+65 mastery	Requires Maelstrom Crystals (2)
	Mastery	+50 mastery
	Haste	+50 haste
Belt	Ebonsteel Belt Buckle	+socket	Crafted by blacksmiths, usable by everyone.
Legs	Powerful Ghostly Spellthread	+95 intellect +55 spirit	Crafted by tailors (usable by everyone)
	Sanctified Spellthread	+95 intellect +55 spirit	Tailor only. Same effect as spellthread usable by everyone, but materials are cheaper.
Feet	Lavawalker	+35 mastery run speed boost	Requires Maelstrom Crystal (1)
	Mastery	+50 mastery
	Haste	+50 haste
	Earthen Vitality	+30 stamina run speed boost	Cheap, but the speed boost is good for raiding
Ring	Intellect	+40 intellect	Enchanter Only
Off-hand	Superior Intellect	+40 intellect
Weapon	Power Torrent	Proc 500 intellect for 12 seconds	Requires Maelstrom Crystals (4)
	Heartsong	Proc 200 spirit for 15 seconds

Gems

Intellect is our top stat.  You could gem straight intellect OR gem with hybrid gems containing intellect to get socket bonuses.  Per EJ, there’s no hard evidence at this point whether it is best to match the socket bonus or to not.

Color	Gem	Stats
Meta	Ember Shadowsprit Diamond	+54 intellect +2% maximum mana
Red (red socket)	Brilliant Inferno Ruby	+40 intellect
Orange (yellow socket)	Potent Ember Topaz	+20 intellect +20 crit
	Artful Ember Topaz	+20 intellect +20 mastery
Purple (blue socket)	Purified Demonseye	+20 intellect +20 spirit

When choosing your gems and considering whether to match a socket bonus, remember that you cannot reforge more Intellect on gear. If you are low in a specific stat, you may wish to use reforging to get you there rather than using your gem slots on it.

Professions

Elitist Jerks has a nice breakdown, but in the TL;DR version:

• Crafting professions give us +80 intellect, give or take, from profession bonuses.
• The bonuses from the gathering professions of Skinning and Mining are pretty dang useless
• Herbalism does have a nice haste buff from Lifeblood.  Lifeblood is NOT on the GCD and can be easily added to a macro and paired with any of your heals.

Consumables

Use a Flask of Flowing Water until you gear up enough to be comfortable with your mana regen.  Then switch to Flask of the Draconic Mind.

If your raid places down a feast, just use it.  If there’s no feast, whatever you can get your hands on to increase a useful stat, in order of preference listed above for gear (isn’t this easy?).  You may pick spirit over intellect until you’re comfortable with your regen.

Although every little bit of stat counts, you’ll be eating after every freakin wipe.  There will be a lot of wipes.  You may go through a stack 0f 20 in one night.  Unless you’re in a hard core raiding program, don’t break the bank on food.

Further Reading

• Upyursh has a list of Cataclysm Food Buffs and Flasks (though the ingredients for the flasks are out of date)

Addons

Raid Frames

Most healers use Vuhdo or Grid, with a few using Healbot and others using more generic frame replacement, such as Xperl, Pitbull, or Shadowed Unit Frames.  I strongly recommend Vuhdo or Grid because I think they are the most configurable to see what healers generally need to see.  P.S. Grid is better.

What to Track On Your Raid Frames

You should be able to show:

• Who has aggro
• Who has a bad thing that you can cleanse
• Who has a bad thing that you CAN’T cleanse (optional but useful for knowing what to heal through)
• Raid debuffs, preferably with stacks and a timer (for knowing what to heal through, whom to avoid, etc)
• Hots (yours) so you don’t overwrite
• A vague indicator of others’ hots.
• Your shields.
• Other people’s shields.
• Tanking cooldowns (from the tank or from a healer) that have been popped
• Who are the main tanks.

If you use Grid, check out the grid page for how to show these statuses in your frames.  For other addons, there are guides linked to the healer addons page.

Notifications and Timers

Several Choices

Look, there is no RIGHT answer for how to track your stuff.  Some people do fine with the default UI.  Some people like a lot of auditory noises.  Some people like bars, some like icons, and some like battle text.  Check out the Addons for All Classes Page and figure out what will work for you.

What to Track with Your Notifications and Timers

You need to know:

• when you have certain auras (like Evangelism stacks)
• when stuff comes off cooldown (like Pain Suppression)

How you track this all is your business.  If you decide to go with Power Auras, I have some strings posted that you can start with.

Healing Strategies

Tank Healing

Easy!  That’s what you do best.

Tank Healing Spells

In Atonement Spec you’ll primarily use:

• Smite/Holy Fire (duh)
• Bubble (every time you can)
• Prayer of Mending (on cooldown)
• Penance
• Greater Heal (with Inner Focus)
• Renew (maybe)

In Non-Atonement Spec you’ll primarily use:

• Bubble (every time you can)
• Prayer of Mending (on cooldown)
• Penance
• Greater Heal (with Inner Focus)
• Heal
• Renew (maybe)

Tank Healing Talents

Disc spec is geared toward tank healing, so most disc specs will be fine at tank healing.  Recommendations (besides the obvious):

• Inspiration.  Damage mitigation on the tank is bad-ass.  Even for atonement spec.
• Grace and Renewed Hope are absolutely mandatory, as they additively increase healing on the tank.
• Divine Fury: Faster smites, holy fires, and Gheals
• Empowered Healing to improve the Gheals.  Probably not that good for atonement spec.

Tank Healing Glyphs

Penance, Power Word: Shield, Prayer of Mending, Flash Heal (?)

Raid Healing

AGH PANIC!

Raid Healing Spells

For Atonement Spec…

• Smite/Holy Fire (at least the melee will be healed up)
• Prayer of Mending
• Flash Heal
• Penance
• Power Word: Shield (sparingly)
• Prayer of Healing (I’m as shocked as you are)
• Power Word: Barrier
• Divine Hymn (Don’t forget)
• Pain Suppression (help a tank)

For Non-Atonement spec

• Flash Heal
• Prayer of Mending
• Penance
• Penance
• Power Word: Shield (sparingly)
• Prayer of Healing (I’m as shocked as you are)
• Power Word: Barrier
• Divine Hymn (Don’t forget)
• Pain Suppression (help a tank)

Raid Healing Talents

• Inner Focus.  You will NEED this for Prayer of Healing
• Power Infusion: needed to pump up your pitiful AOE Prayer of Healing

Raid Healing Glyphs

Prayer of Healing, Power Word: Barrier, Flash Heal (?)

Discipline Priest Resources

• Disciplinary Action: Discipline Priest Handbook and Priesting Page
• Twisted Faith: Maintaining Discipline.  Part 1, Part 2
• Elitist Jerks Discipline Priest Compendium
• Ensidia’s Discipline Priest Guide
• Disc Tank Healing Strategy at Plusheal.com
• Disc Priest Basics on Plusheal.com
• Healer Addon Page for suggested addons and guides to those addons
• Grid Page because Grid is the awesomest
• Power Aura Page for sample power auras
• Macro Page for some useful macros or Disciplinary Action’s Discipline Priest Macros
• Posts Tagged “Discipline Priest“