Priests are masterful healers who excel at absorbing and reducing the damage taken by their allies. This comprehensive guide covers everything you need to level up efficiently and effectively, including recommended specializations, priority stats, optimal leveling routes, key abilities, practical tips for challenging encounters, and strategies to maximize performance in various combat situations.

Best Specialization

Unlike its other specializations, Discipline Priest doesn't just keep your allies alive. It also offers consistent area damage, great durability, and best of all: incredibly fast dungeon queues thanks to your role as a healer. Who wouldn’t want to spend less time waiting and more time leveling?

But what truly makes this specialization unique is its dynamic healing style. Instead of flat, constant heals, Discipline healing flows naturally. It builds up Atonement stacks to unleash powerful healing bursts, then transitions into rest phases with lower but steady healing giving you time to reposition and prepare for the next surge.

And here’s the crown jewel: Shadow Covenant. This ability, granted through your Mindbender pet, significantly amplifies the damage of your offensive spells. The best part? That boosted damage also enhances your healing, creating a perfect synergy between offense and support.

If you’re looking for a unique, effective, and exciting leveling experience, Discipline is the answer.

Best Talents

As you level up, you'll unlock talent points that can be allocated both in the Priest class tree and the specific Discipline specialization tree.

Hero Talents order

Voidweaver Discipline Priests emphasize Mind Blast for damage and Atonement healing. Smite becomes Void Blast, a Shadow spell empowered by Shadow Covenant. This synergy between MindBlast and Shadow Covenant creates powerful burst healing, making these two cooldowns central to their high-impact, aggressive healing rotation.

1.  Void Blast
2.  No Escape
3. Inner Quietus
4.  Voidwraith
5. Devour Matter
6.  Void Empowerment
7.  Voidheart
8. Void Infusion
9.  Embrace the Shadow
10.  Collapsing Void

Stat Priority

- Intellect: The more intellect you have, the more damage and healing you do with spells.

- Crit: Bonus burst damage, but less reliable

- Mastery: Boosts block chance and mitigation

- Haste: Faster cooldowns and smoother rotation

- Versatility: Extra damage dealt and reduced damage

Priority list

Healing as a Discipline Priest isn’t about following a strict rotation, but rather about understanding a priority system everything revolves around Atonement. In dungeons, you primarily apply Atonement through Power Word: Radiance, minimizing the use of shields. In raids, the strategy shifts: you use Power Word: Shield, Renew, and Flash Heal to cover half the group, then both charges of Radiance to cover the rest.

Discipline follows three key rules:

Always be casting: Your offensive abilities not only deal damage but also extend your healing effects (Divine Procession) and spread DoTs (Encroaching Shadows). Never stop casting Penance and Smite.

Master of “ramping”: This approach involves applying many Atonements before predictable boss damage spikes and then unleashing a torrent of damage abilities. Tools like Lorrgs help you prepare and optimize these moments.

Challenges in Mythic+: Without other healers, managing Shadow Covenant, Pain Suppression, and Power Word: Barrier is crucial. Learn to mitigate damage smartly when your most powerful tools are on cooldown or unavailable.

The 3 Best Strategies for Leveling as a Priest

Dungeons through Group Finder (LFG)

The Protection specialization is ideal for this method since, as a tank, you'll enjoy instant queues and swift, seamless dungeon runs. Currently, this strategy grants excellent XP per hour and consistently rewards you with valuable gear upgrades that will quickly strengthen your character.

Main Campaign and Side Quests

Start by progressing through the main storyline from levels 10 to 70, then continue with the War Within campaign. Completing War Within unlocks Adventure Mode, greatly benefiting the leveling of alternate characters. This path is mandatory for your first character and provides substantial experience. However, you'll need to supplement it by running dungeons, Delves, and additional side quests to efficiently and smoothly reach level 80.

Delves

Formerly a highly popular leveling choice, Delves have recently undergone adjustments that significantly reduced their XP efficiency. However, they remain a viable alternative if you prefer solo gameplay, want variety in your leveling experience, or simply wish to temporarily step away from group activities.

Tips

- Enable Warmode: Want to level up faster? Earn that extra 10%. Just watch out for the enemy faction.

- Calendar = Free XP: Events like Timewalking give you the boost you need. Don’t miss out!

- First Dungeon of the Day: You don’t have to live in dungeons. Just do one daily for easy, fast XP.

- Crafting Worth Gold: Every new craft can give you up to 15k XP. Do it at level 79 for an epic final push.

- Play as a Team: A well-formed group speeds everything up. A tank makes all the difference.