[Priest] PvE Discipline Priest Guide

[[-Spiritus-]]

In order for Aragnis to pick up RH, ToT, Grace, AA, Aton, & Insp, he had to forgo both 3/3 IS & 3/3 Darkness. Thus it is difficult for us to utilize his log for our argument, which is the benefit of AA/Aton/ToT vs. RH/Grace/Insp for a raid healing priest. Aragnis' spec is obviously viable, though clearly I value the intangibles of IS and the baseline increase of 3/3 Darkness while raid healing more.

So, lets look at each independently. For the sake of argument, lets throw ToT & Insp out the window for now. What we are comparing at this point is the benefit of AA/Aton vs. RH/Grace.

Now, lets look at Aragnis' Penance and GH casts, which obviously were also affected by AA, but i'll put myself at a disadvantage and attribute it to Grace/RH. These two spells combine for [547914GH+490773Pen] 1,038,679Healing or 16% of Aragnis' healing for his parse. We'll tack on another 166,000 worth of Aegis bringing the grand total to 1204679 or 18.5%.

Atonement was 5.6% of his parse and his AA uptime was 20.9% of a 10:03min fight. So, lets put my side of the argument at a detriment and say that Aragnis blindly clicked AA on CD, meaning we can take his overall healing done [6,489,030Healing] and say AA increased it by 3.14% overall, add in 5.43% from Atonement[minus average bonus from AA] and say that, in total AA/Aton accounted for 8.57% of Aragnis' total healing, or 556,110Healing.

Therefore, in order for Grace/RH to have been more effective than AA/Aton for this particular sample, it would have had to boost the numbers of Penance and GH by 46.16%.

Lets go a step further and say my quick math just isn't indicative of the entire picture. Sure, I agree that I could have adopted a more detailed model. Lets say I'm off by a whopping 15%.

Would you go so far as to say that RH & Grace are capable of representing 31.16% of the total healing done by Penance & GH in this parse?

I will respond to the Inspiration portion of the debate in a following post as I don't have time to properly address it tonight.

[harky]

What are you talking about?

The specs in the discussion are:
Yours - http://wowtal.com/#k=vOjj665h.aei.priest.qHCrQc
Mine - http://wowtal.com/#k=1vWlKbWz.aei.priest.qHCrQc
Aragnis' - http://wowtal.com/#k=veyE-2RL.aei.priest.qOWjQc

You're talking about 'trading' AA/Atonement? All three specs have it. The only 'trade' between yours and his is this:

You took Inner Sanctum (-6% magic damage taken), Darkness (3% Haste).
Aragnis took RH (10% single target crit), Grace (+8/16/24% single target healing) and Inspiration (-10% physical damage taken).

3% haste can somewhat accurately be equated to 3% extra healing. -6% magical damage is quantifiable. In that log he would have taken 59k less damage. Inspiration caused over 200k less damage to be taken by the raid. This means Inspiration was point per point about 5 times better than Inner Sanctum. I won't disagree that skipping Darkness is a bit odd, but you're making comparisons that have nothing to do with the actual discussion. There is no RH/Grace vs AA/Atonement. He has both. Also even if this was an issue you're making the assumption that the time spent casting Smite would net no healing.

[[-Spiritus-]]

I won't disagree that skipping Darkness is a bit odd, but you're making comparisons that have nothing to do with the actual discussion. There is no RH/Grace vs AA/Atonement. He has both. Also even if this was an issue you're making the assumption that the time spent casting Smite would net no healing.

My apologies, I completely misread your argument. I did make a completely erroneous comparison to our discussion.

It is difficult to quantify a 37.3% & 21.1% uptime as damage-in is not a steady constant. If you look at the logs where the heaviest damage occurred on the tanks, Inspiration was rarely up, most likely due to the fact that the priest was raid healing. This to me signifies why Inspiration, for a raid healing disc priest, isn't necessarily optimal. It is less likely to be up when the damage is heaviest.

I will agree, however, than Inspiration is a much better investment for a raid healing disc priest in 10man than 25man. It is also a good investment if no shaman is in the raid. In 25man it will loose value over 10man simply due to the increased number of targets not taking physical damage.

6% reduced magical damage, however, is a constant and good for nearly 100% of the damage taken by the priest. Would the priest have died if he had not taken this damage? Difficult to say. Would the tanks have died without the uptime provided by Inspiration? Also difficult to say, but since Inspiration was rarely up during the heaviest damage taken by tanks, it can be assumed the kill would have happened regardless.

The time spent casting Smite is also difficult to quantify because we don't know what spells, if smite was not being cast, would have been optimal in their stead. This, however, is moot because my comparison was misguided.

It is also difficult to quantify a 16% runspeed increase vs. 10%.

==============================

Nonetheless, I think including a few more build variations into the raid healing section and explaining their relative strengths and weaknesses will make for a more robust guide.

[Inception]

Spiritus/Harky, I enjoy reading a lot of the posts from the both of you and you have a lot of great insight for all of us here on the priest forums. I'm usually just a daily browser of the forums, but had to register to ask if either of you would mind sharing what it is you will be using for stat weightings for a tank specced Disc healing priest once the patch is live? I've been collecting some good mastery gear hoping to bump that up a bit when it's more valuable, as well as getting myself up to the 15% or so crit mark while keeping a comfortable amount of haste for my likings. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Also, thanks for the hard work on the guide for us Disc lovers Spiritus!

[[-Spiritus-]]

The stat "benchmarks" that I recommend in the tank healing section are for 4.0.6, so reading that should give you insight into what I would suggest. The only stipulation is if you are in a guild that flexes you a lot between tank and raid healing from fight to fight [for w/e reason]. In this instance I'd value haste over crit, but weight MST the same.

MST will become more valuable for a tank healing disc priest in 4.0.6, but you'lll still want a decent level of crit to proc DA on a semi-regular basis, and to boost your sustainability.

NOTE: Should have some additions up soon to reflect some of the discussions had in the past week; been very busy.

[harky]

I never do more than help on tanks during periods of light raid damage. This may change in 4.0.6, but it's more likely that I'll be going back to Holy at that point due to some shifts in our roster. I've been Discipline because we need two Barriers for a few fights and one of our Priests went inactive more so than by choice. I think Discipline is wasted as a full time tank healer and has been since early Ulduar. 4.0.6 is making it more viable, but the stat requirements are daunting.

I disagree strongly with pushing Mastery and Crit in either role though. I reforge all Mastery and Crit to Haste and Spirit when possible. If you wanted a weighting it would be something like: Int - 100, Spirit - 45, Haste - 50, Mastery - 20, Crit - 15. If we had more fights with damage auras this would shift dramatically (likely to Mastery being our best stat), but we don't have that. The idea that Crit and Mastery are valuable is based on napkin math that does not account for the actual pace of damage in T11, or in general. I'm sure there are plenty who will disagree, but I have yet to see anything in T11 where I thought more Mastery, or more Crit would help in any way. At the same time I have yet to find a point at which I felt I had enough Haste.

[Deleted]

Quick question: Does archangel affect PW:S?
Seems like it doesnt to me, and then another question arises: is it intended?

[Kelesti]

I'm about 95% certain it doesn't, and that it's working as intended.

Healing increases don't affect absorbs, because healing decreases don't.

[Deleted]

I'm about 95% certain it doesn't, and that it's working as intended.

Healing increases don't affect absorbs, because healing decreases don't.

I suspected that, cheers.

On a side note, eva\aa is incredible.

[scarryterry25]

i just tested this out with and w/out the +15 healing from archangel my shield absorbed the same amount. Not sure why you would ask something you can test for yourself in game and why you would provide a guess for the answer also.

[TiduZ]

I disagree with a lot of things in this guide. Disc can tank heal very well after the patch but can raid heal MUCH better than tank heal. You recommend stacking haste but I would say haste is probably the worst stat for discipline in 4.0.6 given that you have a very powerful spell for raid healing, pw:s, which is greatly boosted by mastery and is costly in mana. PW:S should be making up the bulk of your healing in 4.0.6. For those reasons I'd say stack spirit/mastery, ignore haste since it just increases how fast you cast shields which isn't really that important since your going to be limited by mana for the moment. Crit is not great but it can give you crits on pws glyph for a larger heal and divine aegis for no extra cost in mana, so its better than haste.

Reforge crit/haste to mastery if possible or spirit, try to get pieces with spirit/mastery. Get trinkets with intellect and regen.

[Deleted]

With current pw:s you're sitting with BT up so much that haste is less necessary anyway. Even with my significantly lower than Tiduz usage of pw:s (roughly 30% of my healing) I had 44% uptime on BT overall last raid.

I was quite haste stacked, but I'm much less so now - been reforging towards mastery and a bit more spirit.

[[-Spiritus-]]

I disagree with a lot of things in this guide. Disc can tank heal very well after the patch but can raid heal MUCH better than tank heal. You recommend stacking haste but I would say haste is probably the worst stat for discipline in 4.0.6 given that you have a very powerful spell for raid healing, pw:s, which is greatly boosted by mastery and is costly in mana. PW:S should be making up the bulk of your healing in 4.0.6. For those reasons I'd say stack spirit/mastery, ignore haste since it just increases how fast you cast shields which isn't really that important since your going to be limited by mana for the moment. Crit is not great but it can give you crits on pws glyph for a larger heal and divine aegis for no extra cost in mana, so its better than haste.

Reforge crit/haste to mastery if possible or spirit, try to get pieces with spirit/mastery. Get trinkets with intellect and regen.

Please read the big bold red letters at the top of the guide that state disc raid healing is in a situation of flux. As soon as intended design is confirmed, I'll switch the guide.

I do not wish to steer people down a rabbit hole.

[Nimladris]

Part comment, part question ...

C: I really enjoyed the read and the looking back over the history of the spec - I was that priest in Vanilla WOW who spec'd into disc for the spirit buff.

Q: You mention multiple times in this post that Mastery should reach 32.5% but I can find no rationale for this. Is this now considered to be the soft cap of mastery, and is this still likely to be the case with the changes in 4.0.6.

C: To give some context I am the only priest in a 10man raid team, my usual fellow healers are a paladin and a druid (sometimes one or other replaced by a resto shaman), we are currently working on the end bosses of the Cata raids.

Q: I enjoy the Attonement mechanic, and as such have recently picked up Theralion's Mirror - what are your thoughts on this item.

[[-Spiritus-]]

C: I really enjoyed the read and the looking back over the history of the spec - I was that priest in Vanilla WOW who spec'd into disc for the spirit buff.

Thanks!

Q: You mention multiple times in this post that Mastery should reach 32.5% but I can find no rationale for this. Is this now considered to be the soft cap of mastery, and is this still likely to be the case with the changes in 4.0.6.

Its the bench mark that turns your crits into ~x2 a normal heal. It is not a "soft-cap" by any means, and is only relevant to tank healing.

C: To give some context I am the only priest in a 10man raid team, my usual fellow healers are a paladin and a druid (sometimes one or other replaced by a resto shaman), we are currently working on the end bosses of the Cata raids.

Q: I enjoy the Attonement mechanic, and as such have recently picked up Theralion's Mirror - what are your thoughts on this item.

Atonement is fun, however its really only in play in raid healing, which, as the big red text says at the top of the guide, is in a state of flux b/c of the current viability of PW:S spam as max HPS. Theralion's Mirror is an interesting choice for a disc raid healer that is using all of his tools and not having issues with mana. I like the idea of x5 smite to activate mirror, followed by popping AA and throwing out some prayers. Personally, I've always been a fan of the +INT static & +SPI proc/stack trinkets.

[Spawnxxx]

Your Thread is Fantastic I do have one bone to pick though. I am a Disc Healer I use a 31/8/2 Build with Veiled Shadows for mana effiecience.
You make it seem as though Disc priests shouldnt try to be raid healers unless theres already a Pali Tank Healer and you have no option but to do so.

I find this very missleading its been my experience as Disc that not only are we fantastic tank healers but also amazing raid healers.
As a Tank healer i can usaully pull around 15khps pretty comfertably without any mana issues throughout a average 5min boss fight.
But as a Raid healer I have a average sustainable 18k hps as Disc.

Also just cause we take the roll of raid healer doesnt mean we cant be effiective secondary tank healers aswell. my raid composition disc / druid / pali healers allow me to tank heal and raid heal at the same time with little mana problems without MTT.

Plus also you appear to be simplifieing disc raid healing to much as a raid / tank healer which i love the challenge of doing both at the same time its defently not recommended for everyone. but your not including keeping your prayer of mending up at all times. also dont just use PoH as your primary raid heal PW:S / GH combo is very effiective cause you get the Borrowed time buff and 10% crit from WS

I guess what im trying to get at is your kind of homoginizing the spec and making a very linear 1 way set of calculations. Disc priests are the most versatile and powerful healers in the game they take alot of sec by sec split decisions to make the correct spell casts and keeping up specific CD's. Played correctly a Disc priest can easly overwhelm any healer in sheer HPS as Tank or raid healer.

[[-Spiritus-]]

Your Thread is Fantastic I do have one bone to pick though.

Thank you for reading!

I am a Disc Healer I use a 31/8/2 Build with Veiled Shadows for mana effiecience.

You make it seem as though Disc priests shouldnt try to be raid healers unless theres already a Pali Tank Healer and you have no option but to do so.

I find this very missleading its been my experience as Disc that not only are we fantastic tank healers but also amazing raid healers.
As a Tank healer i can usaully pull around 15khps pretty comfertably without any mana issues throughout a average 5min boss fight.
But as a Raid healer I have a average sustainable 18k hps as Disc.

The only Disc raid healers I'm seeing getting anywhere close to 18k HPS is by leaning almost exclusively on PW:S. It is very powerful indeed, however, it is against the WoW developers' stated design goals for Cataclysm. As such, I suspect that this playstyle will not be around for long and I will not modify the guide for this playstyle until it is confirmed as intended by the developers. While it is still viable, I readily admit the only position a disc priest should take is this role. I wrote the guide without having the foresight to see the viability of leaning on PW:S.

Also just cause we take the roll of raid healer doesnt mean we cant be effiective secondary tank healers aswell. my raid composition disc / druid / pali healers allow me to tank heal and raid heal at the same time with little mana problems without MTT.

Plus also you appear to be simplifieing disc raid healing to much as a raid / tank healer which i love the challenge of doing both at the same time its defently not recommended for everyone. but your not including keeping your prayer of mending up at all times. also dont just use PoH as your primary raid heal PW:S / GH combo is very effiective cause you get the Borrowed time buff and 10% crit from WS

Disc is very capable of flexing from raid to tank healing, however, most guilds have dedicated assignments to reduce cross heailng which can result in overheal [reducing efficiency]. When assigned to a tank, it is perfectly viable to assist the raid and strong disc healers do it on a regular basis.

Under the HST heavy raid section, under how to use your spells, I explicitly state the ProM should be used on CD during ticking raid damage and precast it before hand so it is available for a second cast during damage after charges are up.

I don't know if you read the guide fully, but I showed several examples of how to counter single target damage w/ PW:S->x combos at the end of the HST heavy raid healing section of the guide.

I guess what im trying to get at is your kind of homoginizing the spec and making a very linear 1 way set of calculations. Disc priests are the most versatile and powerful healers in the game they take alot of sec by sec split decisions to make the correct spell casts and keeping up specific CD's. Played correctly a Disc priest can easly overwhelm any healer in sheer HPS as Tank or raid healer.

It is very difficult to write a healing guide because healing has so many variables to consider, but I appreciate your criticism. By writing the guide, I hoped to give people who are not fully comfortable with the spec a baseline to start with, then tweak it to the way their raid works. As far as "overwhelming any healer in sheer HPS" as a raid healer is concerned, I don't expect it to last long. I do, however, expect disc to remain at least equal to Paladins in tank healing capacity.

[Spawnxxx]

Thank you for reading!


The only Disc raid healers I'm seeing getting anywhere close to 18k HPS is by leaning almost exclusively on PW:S. It is very powerful indeed, however, it is against the WoW developers' stated design goals for Cataclysm. As such, I suspect that this playstyle will not be around for long and I will not modify the guide for this playstyle until it is confirmed as intended by the developers. While it is still viable, I readily admit the only position a disc priest should take is this role. I wrote the guide without having the foresight to see the viability of leaning on PW:S.


Disc is very capable of flexing from raid to tank healing, however, most guilds have dedicated assignments to reduce cross heailng which can result in overheal [reducing efficiency]. When assigned to a tank, it is perfectly viable to assist the raid and strong disc healers do it on a regular basis.

Under the HST heavy raid section, under how to use your spells, I explicitly state the ProM should be used on CD during ticking raid damage and precast it before hand so it is available for a second cast during damage after charges are up.

I don't know if you read the guide fully, but I showed several examples of how to counter single target damage w/ PW:S->x combos at the end of the HST heavy raid healing section of the guide.


It is very difficult to write a healing guide because healing has so many variables to consider, but I appreciate your criticism. By writing the guide, I hoped to give people who are not fully comfortable with the spec a baseline to start with, then tweak it to the way their raid works. As far as "overwhelming any healer in sheer HPS" as a raid healer is concerned, I don't expect it to last long. I do, however, expect disc to remain at least equal to Paladins in tank healing capacity.

oh sorry I should have specified better my 18k hps raid healing is Pre 4.0.6 and PW:S spamming I actaully havent had a chance to do a full PW:S spamfest yet kinda makes me wonder how high my hps will go then. Could also be that I use PoH Glyph and rotate bettewen groups to maximize the glyphs full hot rotation. Ill find out come Tuesday and let you know my PW:S numbers.

[Grizzlokk]

Thanks for the guide.

I again, am new to the healing community, but I'm thoroughly enjoying myself. I have my own opinions on issues like the Inner Sanctum discussion, but I feel that it is personal preference.

I am curious to know if you guys are "stance dancing" between Inner Fire and Inner Will. I assume that if/when you go into a bubble-spam playstyle, Inner Will would reign supreme. Clearly, if you are spamming PoH, Inner Will is useless. Does the mana cost reduction really make up for the reduced throughput with PW:S? I'm trying to track down any math on the issue and would appreciate any responses.

[[-Spiritus-]]

Thanks for the guide.

I again, am new to the healing community, but I'm thoroughly enjoying myself. I have my own opinions on issues like the Inner Sanctum discussion, but I feel that it is personal preference.

I am curious to know if you guys are "stance dancing" between Inner Fire and Inner Will. I assume that if/when you go into a bubble-spam playstyle, Inner Will would reign supreme. Clearly, if you are spamming PoH, Inner Will is useless. Does the mana cost reduction really make up for the reduced throughput with PW:S? I'm trying to track down any math on the issue and would appreciate any responses.

Yes, in the bizzaro-world of 4.0.6, and while the developers are mum on their botched design, Inner Will is the only "stance" you should be in as a disc raid healer, because PW:S should be nearly every cast you perform.

Prior to 4.0.6, however, I would often "stance dance" when I needed to move, but I never would if I were flat footed, as it just was not worth the GCD.