Build Shop: Priest 41/20/0
by Elizabeth Harper 
Oct 16th 2007 at 11:00PM
It's Tuesday again -- and you know what that means. It's time for your weekly dose of talent spec dissecetion with Build Shop! This week we're checking out another Priest build, this one focusing on the much maligned Discipline tree. Though the tree is still an odd assortment of talents (some mana management, some damage improvement, some buffs for our buffs...) with no easy path to the top, it's slated for major improvements in the next expansion and is getting a bit of love in the upcoming patch 2.3. With the 41-point talent, Pain Suppresion, being re-envisioned for patch 2.3, I'm thinking Discipline may be worth a whirl for a healing Priest. And, hey, even if things don't work out, it can't be as bad as Lightwell.
Will Discipline really be a viable alternative build in 2.3? Read on for my thoughts.
Will Discipline really be a viable alternative build in 2.3? Read on for my thoughts.
First off, some thoughts on what you lose by speccing this deep into Discipline:
- Spiritual Guidance: increases your damage and healing by 25% of your spirit. But while I like loading my healers up on spirit and love this talent -- but in the end, with the amount of spirit you're likely to have (while also trying to pick up enough intellect, stamina, healing, mp5..) tends to make this talent a bit weak, in my opinion. My personal rule of thumb is that if you run around 300 spirit, it's a worthwhile DPS talent, and if you run around 400 spirit, it's a worthwhile healing talent. It's in my builds regardless, because a buff is a buff, but I don't think I would miss it much.
- Spiritual Healing: increases the amount healed by your healing spells by 10%. There's no question about it -- losing this will hurt. However, I hope it can be made up with utility found in the Discipline tree.
- Lightwell: Though there is some argument that Lightwell is much improved in recent patches (the healing has been much improved from its original version and players can no longer clickclickclick the lightwell to run it out of charges), I don't think I'd miss this talent.
- Empowered Healing: Gives your Greater Heal an additional 20% of your bonus healing effects. The usefulness of this talent improves as your gear improves -- so if you're thinking about keeping or dropping this one, you just have to get out your calculator and do the math.
- Circle of Healing: Yes, this AoE heal can be useful in a lot of situations. And then there's a lot of other situations where it will collect dust on your toolbar.
- Mental Strength: increases your mana pool by 10%. The age-old argument of the Priest class has been whether a bigger mana pool is more important than bigger heals. I'll let you in on a little secret: they're both important, though in different amounts at different times.
- Force of Will: This talent doesn't have anything that will help your healing -- but it does provide a nice boost to soloing by giving you +5% damage and crit on your offensive spells.
- Power Infusion: The gem of the three, PI is a 15s buff on a 3m cooldown that increases spell damage and healing by 20%. It can be used to buff your abilities -- or someone else's. A very nice buff, all in all.
- Enlightenment: +5% to your intellect, stamina, and spirit. 5% isn't a lot, really, but you're getting a little of your three most important stats. It's nice, but I still envy Druid's Heart of the Wild talent and its lower position in their tree.
- Pain Suppression: Though on the live realms this is more of a PvP talent, I believe its changes make it PvE-viable and even desirable. At present, Pain Suppression is a self-buff that reduces damage taken by 65% for 8 seconds on a 3 minute cooldown. Really more of a PvP ability (and even then, it seems like it's only going to delay the inevitable). However, come patch 2.3, the skill is either being nerfed or buffed -- and your opinion in this matter seems to side squarely with whether you have the talent now or not. Come 2.3, Pain Suppression will be castable on others, but will only reduce damage taken by 40% for 8 seconds on a 2 minute cooldown. And, in addition, it will reduce your target's threat by 5%.
- Healing Focus: though you may argue its usefulness (since Priests can't take many hits, anyway), it's only 2 talent points to get what most other classes pay 5 for. Totally worth it.
- Improved Renew: I use Renew a lot.
- Holy Specialization: Since I'm not picking up Inspiration in this build (I've decided I simply don't crit enough to make it worthwhile), I could take this one or leave it. However, I need to put points somewhere to get up to tier 4...
- Divine Fury: Reducing the cast time of your healing and damage spells is a no brainer. If you're putting any points in Holy, it should be for this.
- Searing Light: Doesn't help my healing at all, but it's a nice buff to my damage, and with most of my favorite talents further up in the tree than I can go, I have points to spare.
- Improved Healing: You could swap this out for Inspiration, too -- when 2.3 hits the live realms, I could go either way, myself. But while an Inspiration proc can be a lifesaver, this will provide a continuous benefit.
- Unbreakable Will: Honestly, I don't entirely like either of the first tier talents here, but I usually go for this one because I hate getting silenced.
- Silent Resolve: Less threat means I die less, and I'm all about that.
- Improved Fortitude, Inner Focus, and Meditation: All of these talents provide excellent benefit for a tiny number of talent points. If you're this far into Discipline, there is no good reason to skip them. (Plus, Meditation in 2.3 will provide twice as much mana regeneration!)
- Mental Agility: This only works on instant cast spells, but when it comes down to it, there are quite a few spells in our arsenal that are instant cast. (Renew, Power Word: Shield, all buffs, Prayer of Mending...) Also, there's not really another good place to dump the points. (Though I do kind of like Improved Inner Fire -- especially if I'm PvPing.)
- Mental Strength: If you're this deep in the tree, I don't see why you'd skip out on +10% mana. Also it's a requirement for Power Infusion, which we want.
- Divine Spirit: This isn't a spirit build, but Divine Spirit is still a nice buff. But dropping these points elsewhere certainly doesn't break the build.
- Force of Will: A pure damage talent. I'd say you could skip it to focus more on healing... but there's not really a good place to put the points that will help your healing at this point in the tree -- so why not help the times you aren't healing?
- Power Infusion: This buff is one of the reasons we're bothering to go this high in Discipline.
- Enlightenment: It's not the best talent ever, but it's not a bad all-around buff, either.
- Pain Suppression: This baby's the reason we're here!
Filed under: Build Shop, Priest
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Hybrys Oct 16th 2007 11:50PM
I stopped reading when I saw the tree include Searing Light and Force of Will.
Kuipo Oct 16th 2007 11:58PM
One thing I noticed is that the new pain suppression tooltip seemed to hit at the fact that it would reduce the person's total threat by 5%, not just reduce any new threat they generate during the 8 seconds. Depending on which one it is, I think they skill could be pretty much useless.
Now don't get me wrong, I used Disc all they way to the late 60's. But as I starting getting more and more mp5 the disc tree fell the way side.
Power infusion, while at first sounds like fun for a mage or DPS caster, it really doesn't help because if they have the right gear they could do the extra dps if they felt like it, they simply choose not to because it would pull agro. So that leaves it for healers, but why give 20% healing for 15secs ever 3 mins when you could just get the bonuses from the holy tree at all times.
Jack Spicer Oct 17th 2007 12:03AM
I believe that I saw a blue post stating that the 2.3 Pain Suppression lowers current threat by 5% but does not effect any threat generated after the intial drop.
Basic Oct 17th 2007 1:01AM
Ditto #1 - Searing Light and Force of Will are smite build talents. PS in 2.3 is an excellent utility talent, but less of a dueling / survival talent than it is currently.
I would only recommend 33/29/0 for holy dps priests. Prior to 2.0 I was a very enthusiastic smite priest... and with that experience I wouldn't seriously consider any pure dps talents in a utility build.
Silent Resolve lost all favor with me since Thunder Clap was improved and it was stopped from affecting shadow spells. It's dispel resistance is only a marginal benefit in the arena, except when paired with Pain Suppression.
Here is what I'm going to do with Pain Suppression:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxgMzhMtrzEofMthc
Abdul Oct 17th 2007 1:29AM
Why do people think that 8 seconds of reduction every 3 minutes is viable? You're a gimpy healer for every 2.45 minutes, I don't call that viable.
Charlie Oct 17th 2007 1:56AM
If you really wanted to heal w/ deep discipline and get PS, a MUCH better spec would be
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxg0khxtbzyofLxcc
If you are trying to heal in raids, any points wasted in DPS talents is just, well that, a waste. Put them in something usefull.
That being said Disc is currently strong for PvP Talents (Imp Mass Dispell, Imp Mana Burn, Silence resist, PS, +5% stam, reflective shield, etc)
babamucha Oct 17th 2007 4:27AM
I think is better on the disc side by 2.3 patch.
u get more mana, and damages for the whole grp/ raid.
With +healing gears, dont think there should be major drops on the healing, maybe 20%?
Only if with current 61 talent pts, we got all the benefits on holy and disc sides (ok healing, buffs up grp and raid team, also some dps for soloing) then now we are bybrid. Then I wont QQ on priest class sux healing when comparing with others.
But still with 2.3 patch,
shadow priest > holy/disc priest. (PVP and PVE)
/SAD
Brainless Blizzard would fix it by nerf'ing SP.
I say go roll a rogue, this class got the best content (Quest/Experiencing) and fun from blizzard. When I compare the content with Priest, Rogue is really king. Tons of content custom-made created by Blizzard. Such as lock picking, sneaking around to do stuff, kick ass dps to solo, at least 3 lvls higher MOB. The most fun part is the combo points, combinations on attacking technique for grp and solo. Oh, I missed evade and stuff to prevent dying.
With all the above contents, priest got nothing to compare with it.
Name me some that I can appreciate with for the priest class when compare with rogue.
Priests EPIC kind of gears dont need to enchant to get Shinny look is the only thing I could think of.
nav Oct 17th 2007 6:10AM
Charlie's spec is good, but I'd drop the point in absolution for one in Improved PW:S. With reflective shield already in the spec, that's a better use of the point I think.
Really, if you're aiming for the shield-like Pain Suppression, I can't see why you wouldn't buff up your normal shield while you're at it.
babamucha wins though. All healers should go roll a rogue instead.
Junzim Oct 17th 2007 6:38AM
I've got to be honest, I'm not looking forward to the upcoming change to PS in the next patch.
Blizzard have come out and said what we always knew, which is that they have no fecking idea what Disc is supposed to be (Worst focused tree in the game imo, even the COMBAT tree knows what it's doing, better than Discipline).
However, at least before it had SOME focus - PVP survivability (even if the other best PvP survivability talent is deep in Holy). Now they're watering it down by reducing the damage reduction bonus on Pain Suppression so they can lower its cooldown and dump it on other players. All this seems to do is give the poor sucker who's gone 24 into Disc to get Imp DS for the raid, something else to contribute.
For a PvP Disc priest (I switched last week) this is just basically a big fat nerf, by over _a third_ of Pain Supression's effect in Arena. All for an ability you can't use on a tank in PvE.
Did we really need a variance on Blessing of Protection? So what if I can cast it on Melee fighters when BoP only works on casters and only stops Physical damage? Rogues who take a lot of sustained damage are tards who've either pulled aggro during a boss fight or are standing in an environmental hazard.
I don't think I'll ever want to use Pain Suppression on someone else in the Arena. When was the last time I saw someone else targeted first?
2 Minute cooldowns typically mean you can shrewdly get 2 uses out of an ability in the Arena (CLOS frequently enjoys 2 uses) but Priests rarely have much to contribute after that period of time in Arena fights. In addition to which I'd rather have an ability that did its job properly ONCE because if it doesn't I'm a stain on the floor. It doesn't matter how many times your abilities cooldown if you're in spectator mode.
Nice one Blizzard. *Sigh*
Volstruis Oct 17th 2007 8:28AM
IMHO this build will provide nothing good to the player. Disc IMO is just a mana boosting tree.
Gabby Oct 17th 2007 9:25AM
My tried and true method:
http://wowhead.com/?talent=bxghzhhtbzZfotcf0aV
Too often do we think we need to fully spec out, a balance of Mana Regen and Healing is important to your healing, especially if you're holding a strong place in your raid. This build moves to give an equal amount to both areas, stronger healing with mana efficiency and a strong mana pool.
Kuipo Oct 17th 2007 1:17PM
@11
I used to have a build almost exactly like this, but the extra starting mana doesn't ever seem to make up for the 6% chance to clearcast in a long battle. In trash, having a large pool to start with is nice, but in a 15 min fight, the procs of 6% chance of clear casting will greatly outweigh it. Plus you have better healing numbers with more into holy.
rafe.brox Oct 17th 2007 2:02PM
As someone who's spent a fair amount of time running a 23/38/0 build, I'm considering a slight shift (29/32/0) to get the bigger mana pool at the expense of a slight decrease in max heal efficiency from Greater Heal (I tend to spam Renews as an abatement technique anyway). I can't see any compelling reason to go for the big-ticket items in the Discipline tree, especially when you have to give up so much consistent healing performance to get an occasional situational buff.
The last thing I want or need is One More Cool Down Of Which To Be Mindful - with two trinkets, Inner Focus, ad infinitum already on board, that's an expensive toy to be ignoring, especially as a highly situational panic button.
Epiny Oct 17th 2007 3:08PM
Deep disc has usually been the undergeared PvP priest build. Since Blessed Resistence and Blessed Recovery are considered better PvP talents when you gear up.
I want Disc to be a fun tree and viable, but it isn't yet.
Evangelin Oct 17th 2007 5:22PM
@12
Sorta. It depends on what kind of healing you do. I'm a heavy renew priest, myself. I have a little over 12000 mana with a 28/33 build that features Mental Strength over Holy Concentration. There's many scenarios, but here's one for spamming max rank GH. Max rank GH is around 715 mana. You'll only get an average of 42 mana per cast return with Holy Concentration. That is, you get on average a 1:17 return ratio on GHs (it takes ~17 GHs on average to get 1 free GH; i.e. 6%).
Since Mental Strength gives me around 1200 additional mana, it takes 1.68 Holy Concentration procs, or on average over 28 GHs to return the same amount of mana.
Keep in mind the problems on proc based effects as well. You may have a streak of no procs, or you may get procs when you don't need them, such as the end of a fight.
I consider them about equal in terms of utility, though, based on what kind of healer you are.
Gabby Oct 19th 2007 9:53AM
Aye, I actually specced out of Holy Concentration as it procced so rarely for me that I couldn't see any real reason not to go for a higher mana pool. I should point out that going one tier down doesn't actually increase my healing output either, you don't heal better based on the amount of ranks in Holy you have, you heal better based on the talents you select.
I can't see myself giving up a higher mana pool and my +20% healing every 3 minutes buff for a talent that doesn't actually give me the return I need for it to be viable. Perhaps if it procced on the spells I actually use right now, PoM, Renew, PW:S, or PoH, I find myself only casting flash heals on an emergency target and Greaters on a tank, and I can't remember when I last casted 28 Greater Heals in any given fight.
...By the way, which fight takes 15 minutes? Almost every boss I recall facing lately has a 10 minute enrage timer.
Oneseraphim Dec 11th 2007 9:09PM
@14
- You have it backwards. You spec BR before you gear up because you will be crit more often. Once your resil gets higher, BR becomes less valuable. Disc is the Arena/PVP spec. View the top rated teams what have a priest on them.