Discipline Priest Changes: Legion to BFA

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Spell Changes
• Talent Trees
• Spell Power Changes
• Warmode
• Notable Artifact Traits Lost
• Levelling in BFA

Introduction

Hello everyone and welcome to the changes for Discipline Legion to BFA. I am Hellpriesto, a Mod here at Warcraftpriests. All feedback and discussion is welcomed. Feel free to contact myself KCR or Clandon. The best place to reach us is in the Warcraftpriests Discord.

There have been numerous changes to Discipline over the course of the BFA Beta, many of which have been advantageous to the spec overall. The focus of the spec has been strongly shifted towards making Atonement application far more important in the sense that you must be very specific with who it's applied to. This is due to Atonement being far more mana expensive to apply whilst our damage spells have become cheaper to cast.

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Spell Changes

New Spells Added

• Power Word: Fortitude
• Desperate Prayer
• Holy Nova
• Power of the Dark Side - Previously an artifact trait, now baseline with its own proc graphic.

Baseline Spells Removed

• Plea
• Mastery: Absolution
• Light's Wrath

Baseline Spells Modified

• Atonement - Damage trinkets and Racials no longer heal through Atonement. Atonement is now 60% transfer baseline.
• 40% Increase Aura - Various spells have a 40% healing increase aura on top of the base spell power coefficients to account for stamina increases across the board. Absorption effects and Atonement were buffed separately.
• Power Word: Shield - No longer has a cooldown. This will not make it spammable as our only source of healing due to mana constraints and a weak shield.
• Mastery: Grace - Our mastery has now adopted the name of a removed talent. This also increases Atonement healing from damaging spells similarly to Mastery: Absolution
• Rapture - Now increases the amount shielded by PW:S by 200% and is also on the GCD.
• Pain Suppression - Changed to a 3min cooldown (down from 4min).
• Shadowfiend - Now lasts 15s (up from 12s).
• Mass Dispel - Changed to a 45s cooldown (up from 15s).
• Power Word: Radiance - 20s recharge (up from 18s)

New Talents Added

• Sins of the Many - Scaling damage decreasing per Atonement.

  Expand

  Atonement Count	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
  Damage Percent	12%	12%	10%	8%	7%	6%	5%	5%	4%	4%	3%

• Contrition - Applies a separate heal SP to Atoned targets through a Defensive Penance only.
• Lenience
• Luminous Barrier

Talents Removed

• Clarity of Will
• Sanctuary - While its no longer a talent, it's still a baseline passive onto smite.
• Power Infusion
• Grace

Talents Modified

• Schism -  Now increases damage by 30% 40% for 6 9 seconds with a 6 24 second cooldown.
• Body and Soul - Now has a 6s internal cooldown
• Shield Discipline - Now restores 0.5% mana (down from 1%).
• Shadow Covenant - Now has a 12s CD

Mana cost Adjustments

• Schism - 0.5% (down from 2.5%).
• Shadow Word: Pain - 1.8% (down from 2.2%)
• Purge the Wicked - 1.8% (down from 2%).
• Penance - 2% (down from 2.8%, down from 2.2%).
• Power Word: Shield - 2.5% (up from 2.3%).
• Shadow Covenant - 2.8% (down from 5%).
• Shadow Mend - 3% (up from 2.8%)

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Talent Trees

Legion

Battle For Azeroth

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Spell Power Changes

Warmode

If you choose to activate war mode you gain access to various PVP talents and increased XP. Also puts you permanently into PVP mode in all BFA zones. Here are the available options:
Level 1

• Adaptation
• Gladiators Medallion
• Relentless

Other Levels

• Archangel
• Dark Archangel - Recommended
• Dome of Light
• Premonition
• Purification
• Purified Resolve
• Searing Light - Recommended
• Strength of Soul - Recommended
• Trinity - Recommended
• Ultimate Radiance

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Notable Artifact Traits Lost

• Shield of Faith
• Lights Wrath
• Confession
• Vestments of Discipline
• Speed of the Pious
• Power of the Dark Side - Now Baseline
• Leniences Reward - Now a talent.
• Aegis of Wrath
• Sins of the Many - Now a talent (in a slightly different form as shown above in the "talents added" section)
• Barrier for the Devoted

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Levelling in BFA

Discipline is probably the easiest/fastest healer to progress through the levelling process. We won't want fall too far behind shadow due to the tankiness in the later levels and the ability to mass pull packs (still slower than shadow).

Talents

Below is my preferred setup. Castigation/Mindbender/Halo/Divine Star and various PVP talents are very good. 

Gear

As far as gearing goes while levelling its pretty much always go for Ilvl. If you are stuck for choice I would aim for haste/crit gear to push as much dps as possible (purely for fast levelling only)
AoE Trinkets such as Terminus Signalling Beacon are great to have as they empower the disc mass pull levelling style. (this trinket is also scaling very well with all the stat changes, if there are any other great contenders please let me know and I can add them)

Legendaries

Anything that gives a dps boost is what you want for levelling. I have ranked the below to what I perceive to be the overall better options. This may alter for various situations.

1. Kil'jaeden's Burning Wish - The damage on this trinket is insane for both AoE and ST
2. Sephuz's Secret - Great to have secondaries
3. Muzes Unwavering Will - You will be casting a lot of smite at full HP
4. Archimonde's Hatred Reborn - Nice shield and high damage for massive pulls
5. Insignia of the Grand Army - Now a flat damage increase
6. Cord of Maiev, Priestess of the Moon - Penance resets are always good, a better option without warmode enabled.

Addons

• Azeroth Auto Pilot