Atonement Spec: Help Requested

[Antonne]

I currently run a SoS build on my disc priest, but I've been reading (mainly on here, but also on talesofpriest) that Atonement is great - and almost required - for some, if not most, heroic fights. My guild is currently 7/8 in 25m DS and we're pushing Madness hard and fast. Therefore, I'm considering trying out Atonement for a week or two in normals while we're still there, but I know next to nothing about healing as Atonement/AA.

My usual healing setup for our raids (I'm the healing officer) is 2 resto shams, 3 priests (1 disc, 1 disc/holy (me), 1 holy), and 1 holy paladin. Therefore, I sometimes have to tank heal with the hpally as our primary disc priest is sometimes.. subpar. Is Atonement/AA possibly viable for both raid- and tank-healing?

Otherwise, lets assume I would be doing more raid-healing for discussion's sake. In this case, what do I need to know? What are my stat priorities, important glyphs, and useful addons I should have? Basically, if there is a guide somewhere (couldn't find one here) that is widely used and regarded well, where is it? Otherwise, any and all help is VERY much appreciated.

Thanks for your time!

[Deleted]

Most attonement specs include SoS too. Biggest question is probably if you want Inspiration or not.

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bfRorRsbfRMoch
Got 2 (or 3 if you remove 1 mental agility) points left to put in Inspiration, Mental Agility or Darkness.


Stat priorities should be pretty much the same (still depends a lot on how and what you heal). Attonement itself should get more benefit from crit/haste than mastery though, but that's not a big deal.

The fights attonement shine on are the ones with either dmg gimmicks (Halfus, Majordomo etc) or where you really need to push your dps (Ultraxion). I do 12k or so DPS during the first 1-2 minutes on Ultraxion, which i imagine will make a pretty big difference when we get to him on heroic, assuming i can continue doing that.

Get the smite glyphs instead of dispell or w/e you're currently using.
Also find or make a nice Poweraura that tracks stacks and duration of both Evangelism and Archangel and you'll be set. I havn't got access to my own computer until after new years or i'd post mine :/

[Mikayo]

Is Atonement/AA possibly viable for both raid- and tank-healing?

Atonement is Absolutely more than viable for both tank/raid healing. There are specs with both SoS and Atonement, but we all have our personal preferences.
Stats priorities are the same but as with nearly everything, you may come to find you have a preference (maybe reforging some mastery to haste, or balancing the 2 out, etc. Everyone does it differently based on their taste.)

I always run atonement; While I don't think it's "required" for heroic fights (at least not the ones I've done) it is most definitely useful to the point that it doesn't make sense to not have it.

Your glyphs ofc are a no brainer - glyph of smite and divine accuracy / your prime glyphs don't change.

[zakaluka]

I currently run a SoS build on my disc priest ...

Otherwise, lets assume I would be doing more raid-healing for discussion's sake. In this case, what do I need to know? What are my stat priorities, important glyphs, and useful addons I should have? Basically, if there is a guide somewhere (couldn't find one here) that is widely used and regarded well, where is it? Otherwise, any and all help is VERY much appreciated.

This is the only part of your post I can add something new for.

While for SoS stat itemization makes almost no difference, it's almost required for Atonement builds to carry very low spirit and very high haste. How far you go with that pretty much depends on how often you use wings. Reason is this: AA spec, properly played, has ridiculously good mana efficiency - probably better than any other class in the game. The problem here, though, is building evangelism stacks and playing efficiently steals some throughput. Make up for those both with high haste and also by sacrificing some regen. As stated by someone else, crit is more attractive from a pure numbers standpoint, but your highest throughput bursts will be long chains of buffed PoH, which makes placing crit as your 2nd priority a very unattractive idea.

I prefer haste > mst = crit with as little spirit as I can hack. I found, though, that how much spirit I carried made almost no difference in the end. I wound up at around 1800 before my guild had me go Holy.

If you do it normally, you'll HF and Penance on cooldown between AAs. Building evangelism stacks makes your atonements larger, and significantly reduces the cost of Penance to the point where both spells are so much more efficient than PoH that you won't want to skimp at all by delaying either cast, even during moderate AoE. The problem here is that both casts are lower HPCT than PoH by a fair margin (30%?) so you're edging UP mana efficiency and sacrificing a little throughput.

Now when the poop hits the fan and you pop AA, you really want to dump hard. You saved all that mana earlier by being efficient, and since you're haste stacked now you can get a LOT more burst out of those wings. Nothing but PoH for the next 18 seconds, interrupted by perhaps one PW:S for rapture. You won't feel a mana crunch playing this way.

I took it to kind of a different level, though - I plan out when my AAs will be required, and make sure those are available when I need them. Then I figure out how to fit in extra AAs. Maximum possible AA uptime is 60%. You won't actually get anywhere near that if you're playing reactively, but if you start approaching ~30% - you've given yourself 10% overall higher casting efficiency and mana return equivalent to 2 extra shadowfiends. Now because of all that you can afford to stack haste to the roof, and dump spirit to bare bones. You can also afford to NOT carry SoS.

Trying to play atonement well is like trying to ride up a 20% grade on a unicycle. There are so many things to remember that it can be frustrating. The skillcap is way higher than any other healer I've played. Start with the general approach - saving AA, low AA up time . But make sure you're actually using wings or it's no good! A benchmark of how good you are at this spec is the total # of evangelism stacks you consumed during the fight. On WoL you can gauge that from Power Gains. What a 'good' figure is for you depends on how you play.

---
As to the glyph suggestions above, I actually suggest NOT carrying the smite glyph (!). Even if you play like me (and I smite way more than most AA discs) smite doesn't even approach 2% of my total healing. Divine accuracy is required though, as mentioned before.

[Deleted]

As to the glyph suggestions above, I actually suggest NOT carrying the smite glyph (!). Even if you play like me (and I smite way more than most AA discs) smite doesn't even approach 2% of my total healing. Divine accuracy is required though, as mentioned before.

What do you replace it with?

[zakaluka]

What do you replace it with?

I use MD. I guess since smite actually has an effect on healing done, and the rest are just utility glyphs, it can't hurt to use smite.

Might start using Dispel Magic, though, since MD remains so broken.

[Bacon Grease]

I use MD. I guess since smite actually has an effect on healing done, and the rest are just utility glyphs, it can't hurt to use smite.

Might start using Dispel Magic, though, since MD remains so broken.

Seems like the smite glyph is more useful on 10 man than 25 for sure.

[Deleted]

I use MD. I guess since smite actually has an effect on healing done, and the rest are just utility glyphs, it can't hurt to use smite.

Might start using Dispel Magic, though, since MD remains so broken.

I can see dispel magic being useful. MD I don't use in raids as it never really works.

[KidCanuck]

The nice part of playing with Atonement is that it gives you a filler if you have downtime or light damage phases, which builds you up a nice burst for high damage phases. The most mana efficient way to do it (might have been mentioned already) is to Holy Fire on CD, which will give you your 5 stack and keep it up, but slowly. HF is much more mana efficient than smite. Also, I advise writing macros for your Holy Fire and Smite, something like cast holy fire on (target if hostile, focus if hostile, target of target if hostile). Or a mouseover macro, if that's more to your taste.

[Deleted]

In undergeared hardmode progression you will need to maximize raiddps at all cost. You will bring less healer as usual, therefore A/A is a great spec for helping to beat enrage timers etc.

I would not advise to play this spec in any environment where a normal healer would be more beneficial due to linear high dmg encounter with no real dps check like H: Morchok.

A good example is H: Yorsahj 25 prenerf where we progressed with 5 healer total, 2 of them beeing Archangel priests without Attonement due to purple phase. You really need to play aggressive on these dps checks and just heal in crazy phases like black, yellow, red or black, red, blue.

Your healers should now know that youre only there for supporting PW: Barrier and to heal in extreme dmgincome phases. The difficult part of the spec is to decide if your heal is now needed or not. If you find yourself healing all the time on any encounter, do not play this spec there or tell your fellow healers to press more healbuttons.

[Deleted]

I don't agree with the whole no-smite glyph, most fights are catered to have lull phases where you can simply stand still and watch the other healers heal everything, these are the times where you should be holy firing+ smiting.

Just to give you a few examples in 10m heroic:
Morchok: black phase
Yor: Everytime he spawns orbs.
Zon: When black phase ends and right when black phase is about to start.
Hagara: burst phase
Ultra: Till red and after green (assuming u get red and the other healer gets green+blue)
Warmaster: -
Spine (normal): Tentacle burst
Madness (normal): Start of every platform, there's actually loads of periods where you can get a full set of smites in.

[Mikayo]

Silly/Sad Fact: I beat 2 of our casters on Elementium Bolt damage this week with holyfire+smite 0.0 /facepalm

but yes, many good places to holyfire+smite in this tier IMO

[zakaluka]

I was wrong to say don't take the smite glyph. At one point I recall mathing it out and being very disappointed that glyph would be worth less than 0.5% eHPS for me, so I put in a utility glyph instead. There's no other choice that adds HPS, though, save maybe Dispel, but that only applies to one fight this tier.

[Darkener]

Atonement works great on the Madness of Deathwing fight. Not only is it efficient healing that adds dps, but when Deathwing is casting Cataclysm he takes 100% more damage which ends up being a healing buff for Atonement priest healers that the other healers don't get. I get 60K healing crits during that phase which procs a nice big DA bubble. So now,instead of PoH spam during cataclysm I dps. The only heal I cast is PoM to keep it bouncing and the occasional shield for Rapture (both are instants). I feel like not only does it put out more healing but with a target assist macro mentioned in the other posts my dps will automatically switch to blistering tentacles and help get them down faster to get back onto the limb. I use an SoS tank healing Atonement spec.