PvE Discipline Priest Healer Rotation & Cooldowns

Author: Amery
Date: August 16, 2022
Updated: August 16, 2022
Expansion: WotLK Classic

Discipline Priest

Talents, Builds & Glyphs

Stat Priority

Best Races

Gems, Enchants & Consumables

Rotation & Cooldowns

Best Professions

Best in Slot (BiS) & Pre-Raid Gear

Addons & Macros

As Discipline Priests our healing rotation is extremely simple to follow as it’s more of a priority on how you should be healing with certain abilities being way ahead of others.

25 man Raids rotation

Power Word: Shield – Most Used ability, spam on anyone who doesn’t have Weakened Soul
Penance – Burst heal, should be used on tank or low health group member
Prayer of Mending (POM) – Heal that bounces multiple times before it runs out and Heals on damage taken
Flash Heal – Most used Raw Heal as it’s affected by talents
Renew – only useful on tanks
Binding Heal – Heals you and your target, heavy mana cost though.
Prayer of Healing – Only actual Raid Heal, useful when 3 people in group take damage

10 man Raids and Group Content rotation

Power Word: Shield – Most Used ability, spam on anyone who doesn’t have Weakened Soul
Penance – Burst heal, should be used on tank or low health group member
Prayer of Mending (POM) – Heal that bounces multiple times before it runs out and Heals on damage taken
Prayer of Healing – Only actual Raid Heal, useful when 3 people in group take damage
Flash Heal – Most used Raw Heal as it’s affected by talents
Renew – only useful on tanks
Binding Heal – Heals you and your target, heavy mana cost though.

Abilities Overview

In this section of the guide, we will go through each separate ability and explain how to properly use it.

Power Word: Shield: You can always spam this spell, so no brainer that it should be your most used ability. Any raid member that doesn’t have Weakened Soul on them should be shielded instantly, as you’re the only healer who can prevent damage ahead of time.

Penance: Depending on the situation this ability should be used off CD most of the time. As this is our burst heal. This should be used on Tanks when they are about to take massive damage or on any when they are lower on health and shield won’t be enough to save them.

Prayer of Mending: When there is Constant damage this ability is amazing to have bouncing around anytime it can be used. Think of it as 5 heals in 1 GCD.

Flash Heal: As a Discipline priest this should be your most used raw heal when Shield is on cool down. This spell is also boosted by talents. (Improved Flash Heal, Renewed Hope, Grace)

Renew: Only really good as a Heal over time (HoT) on the tanks, otherwise it won’t be used much in 25 man or 10 man content.

Binding Heal: Priest equivalent of Beacon of Light. Amazing spell to use when both you and your raid need healing, be wary this spell costs nearly double as much as Flash heal so not a spell to be reckless with.

Prayer of Healing: While this spell is amazing for group content or 10m raids, it falls behind in 25m raids as other healers have way better raid heals than you do with this spell also having fairly little use outside of group content or 10m raid environments.

Rapture: This spell is the main mana regen tool of a Disc priest, this ability has a 12s ICD (internal Cooldown). Whenever your Power Word: Shield is fully absorbed or dispelled you gain 2.5% of your total mana back, you may have to make tweaks in your healing rotation to proc this ability anytime it is off cooldown in order to make full use of it but also make sure to heal people and not wait till rapture is off cooldown to start healing again.
Power Infusion: As this spell doesn’t stack with Bloodlust/Heroism but does stack with Berserking, Wrath of Air Totem, Swift Retribution and Improved Moonkin Form there are several ways to use this ability. One such way is by boosting heals, the main healers you’d want to boost are the Holy Paladin’s as they are the Main tank healers (Unless their Holy Light is near 1s cast time!), Restoration Shaman if any raid damage is going out, Holy Priest as long as they aren’t Renew Spammers, and Finally Restoration druid’s as they get the least benefit (besides disc priests of course!).
Power Infusion for DPS: This buff also has a major benefit in helping boost overall raid damage with the following Priority being who should get the buff first to last with skill of player over writing priority:
1. Torment the Weak Fire Mage
2. Affliction Warlock (When boss is below 25% Health)
3. Shadow Priest
4. Balance Druids (Only when Eclipse (Lunar) is active)
5. Demonology Warlocks (when in metamorphosis)
6. Arcane Mages (Only outside of Icy Veins since they don’t stack)
7. Elemental Shamans
Pain Suppression: This spell is pretty straightforward as it’s an extra defensive CD. Always talk with tanks before hand so you don’t overwrite one of their abilities with this one or use it on anyone else in the raid that needs an ability to save them.

In certain situations Prayer of Healing can outperform Flash Heal with the general idea being if 3 or more people are damaged in the same group, then Prayer of Healing is better than Flash Heal. If fewer people then Flash Heal is better. The reason for this is that Prayer of Healing‘s casting time is the exact double of Flash Heal and the mana cost is almost 3 times as high. If there are only 2 people damaged you can easily use Flash Heal twice to heal them up with Prayer of Healing being way handier when 3 or more are damaged.

About the Author

Amery

Hey guys! My name is Amery and here is a little something about me: I've been playing WoW for about 15 years now. With that experience, I wanted to share all the things I have learned over the years.