[7.0] Legion Discipline Priest Guide and Discussion

[Havn]

Does Penance atonement healing surpass Smite atonement healing + absorb for single target at 110? From the numbers I can see at 100 it looks like if the tank is the only one taking damage it is better to skip Penance and use Smite until more players are damaged. Is that right?

[PosPosPos]

Literally cannot heal Timewalking as Disc.

Timewalking gear set with 16 sockets, full BiS enchants and gems, DPS trinkets to proc more Atonement healing.

Last boss in Gundrak melees for ~14k. Shadow mend heals for 7k and crits for 14k. If someone other than the tank gets hit by impale they die and there is literally nothing I can do to save them. Throughput simply isn't high enough. Tanks can survive the impale with cooldowns but dies in the last phase when the Rhino enrages.

Anyone else having issues in Timewalking healing as Disc. Am I retarded and missing something or are they WAY overtuned since the patch?

Considering I don't have that many sockets and still using mastery gear, obviously you must be doing something wrong if my shadowmend heals for more than you do. You simply don't have grace specced.

[Saiyoran]

Healed my 5 Timewalkers and all 8 of the Mythic dungeons today just fine with someone who had never played Brewmaster before tanking. I really don't see these issues. Didn't log my 5 man runs sorry, but seriously just use your Shadowmend button and Pain Suppression on the bosses that look remotely scary and you're golden.

[Rife]

It's an issue with WotLK timewalking being overtuned and having many bugged bosses. Not an issue with Disc.

[PosPosPos]

It's an issue with WotLK timewalking being overtuned and having many bugged bosses. Not an issue with Disc.

I don't have any problem whatsoever as disc in timewalking, as do others.

It's your own personal problem.

[Kasoy]

Does Penance atonement healing surpass Smite atonement healing + absorb for single target at 110? From the numbers I can see at 100 it looks like if the tank is the only one taking damage it is better to skip Penance and use Smite until more players are damaged. Is that right?

I think it would be safer anyway to save Penance for when you have to AOE heal - unless perhaps you know you won't need the Penance before the next CD comes off?

[Deleted]

Soo yesterday on beta, my boyfriend said he feels like I will loot a legendary today. And I actually did lol. Got the hands for disc, and as I am reading the effect, which can be really cool especially in 5 man dungeons, I was thinking if it might be beneficial to switch to the talent that allows penance to heal if you have this legendary. Thinking of trying this out, only in dungeons tho.

[phyx]

So far, my impression on Disc's state is this: There are few people here vigorously defending the spec saying it is actually viable for raids - it almost seems they have a hard time of letting go of the spec, and facing the reality that Disc will probably sit the 1st couple of tiers (if not the expansion if they don't fix it) of Mythic progression out. And then the rest of the people (including a boatload of RL's) saying it's utter shit.

The problem here is, in my opinion, that Disc's skill cap is way, way, way higher than that of the other healers, and one does not get enough in return. As much as it pains me to say, my prediction is that all the high skill discs will switch to holy because it holy can just pump out more healing (if the player is equally skilled in Holy), and Disc will sit this one out. Until Blizzard realizes that the spec is broken and fixes it in 8 to 10 months.

[anon5123]

my prediction is that all the high skill discs will switch to holy because it holy can just pump out more healing (if the player is equally skilled in Holy)

Why do people keep saying this? In H HFC, I'm keeping up with other healers just fine, as Disc, even when they're much higher geared than me. Disc is harder to play than the other healers, yes, but it's not impossible.

Please stop perpetuating this "lol disc sucks" meme.

[Deleted]

As much as it pains me to say, my prediction is that all the high skill discs will switch to holy because it holy can just pump out more healing (if the player is equally skilled in Holy), and Disc will sit this one out.

If Holy didn't heal more than Disc there would be 0 reason to bring Holy because of how much DPS Disc does.

[zekataz]

Hello

I need some Shadow Mend help.

I honestly have not been using Shadow Mend very much during raids. I haven’t figured out where to put it in my "rotation". My healing seems fine for lfr/normal/heroic but as soon as I hit Mythic raids I’m having a horrible time keeping up with the other healers. I’m behind the 2nd to last place healer by 40%.

I recently found out (via this forum) that the Shadow Mend dot damage can be circumvented by other incoming damage to the target. So I want to take a second look at the spell.

So, how is everyone using Shadow Mend during raids?
I’m assuming PW:S and Penance on cool down, but when and where for Shadow Mend?
Are you using it just as filler on the tanks when they are low? Are you using it as an “Oh crap” heal because little bobby just stood in fire? Do you use it at all during heavy AOE damage?
Is anyone even using Shadow Mend regularly?

Any feedback would be appreciated.


Thanks all!

[anon5123]

Yes, the DoT from Shadow Mend is removed from any damage taken, not just damage from the DoT.

In raids however, I also don't really use it very often. I only use it as an emergency heal on low health targets, really. The rest of the time, I'm applying Atonements and smite/penance'ing like usual.

[Atharaxie]

I found Timewalking dungeon harder than (nerfed) mythic dungeon. Pit Of Saron was a nightmare with a Blood DK 690.

[Djriff]

Why do people keep saying this? In H HFC, I'm keeping up with other healers just fine, as Disc, even when they're much higher geared than me. Disc is harder to play than the other healers, yes, but it's not impossible.

2 problems.
Heroic HFC is a joke damage wise and shouldn't be used to estimate anything.
We're balanced at 110, not 100 so take everything in pre patch with a giant grain of salt.

[Totaltotemic]

So far, my impression on Disc's state is this: There are few people here vigorously defending the spec saying it is actually viable for raids - it almost seems they have a hard time of letting go of the spec, and facing the reality that Disc will probably sit the 1st couple of tiers (if not the expansion if they don't fix it) of Mythic progression out. And then the rest of the people (including a boatload of RL's) saying it's utter shit.

The problem here is, in my opinion, that Disc's skill cap is way, way, way higher than that of the other healers, and one does not get enough in return. As much as it pains me to say, my prediction is that all the high skill discs will switch to holy because it holy can just pump out more healing (if the player is equally skilled in Holy), and Disc will sit this one out. Until Blizzard realizes that the spec is broken and fixes it in 8 to 10 months.

Well then let me give you my impression.

My impression is that there are tons of people that only ever played Disc because it was completely faceroll and you could look like a far better player than you actually were by just using Archangel and PW:Sing everybody. They are having a very hard time reconciling the fact that other people seem to be performing fine with Disc, yet when they try they fail horribly.

Rather than try to get help or figure out what they might be doing wrong, they blame the spec and everyone else saying it is fine to either try to justify buffs or excuse poor performance until they can reroll to whatever the next FotM easy spec is (hint: it's Druid right now if you can find your Rejuv, Wild Growth, and Lifebloom buttons, which is still quite a bit harder than WoD Disc was so be prepared).

Typical markers of this behavior are:

1) Completely ignoring that anything could possibly be wrong with their own play. If you skip the "trying to get help with the spec" step by even just copying what it says to do in something like a guide, it's pretty clear that the no-effort overpowered aspect of Disc is what you were after, because having to actually be good at the game is apparently a foreign concept.

2) Refusal to acknowledge that other people do actually perform fine with the spec. This is when you see things like "the spec is too hard" or "not enough reward for the effort" or my personal favorite: "not viable." Acknowledging that it's actually possible to play the spec at a competent level and be balanced while doing so heavily implies that there's something wrong with your own play, so obviously it must be made clear that nobody can possibly play Disc at a level that makes it useful, no matter how much evidence of it you see.

3) Failure to realize that in WoW, you can't just play specs however you want and perform well unless they are horribly overpowered. If you wanted to ignore Archangel as Disc or spec Clarity of Will for every fight, you could do that and most people wouldn't even notice because you would still be there spamming your PW:Ss. Many people ignored Archangel entirely (those delicious complaints about how attacking enemies while also healing allies being somehow much harder than in WoD) and were able to do fine with Disc before. However, healing is no longer horribly unbalanced and you can't just go play whatever the most overpowered spec is and be terrible at it, picking whatever talents you like and ignoring entire abilities. Even if you want to reroll to something like Druid or Shaman because people perceive them as much stronger, you still have to play them correctly. Nothing is as broken as WoD Disc or Holy Paladin where you could still be bad at the game and still be far more useful to your raid than someone that was good playing another spec.

Yes, it's a pretty rude wake-up call if you've been coasting on specs so horribly unbalanced that you didn't ever have to actually try to be desired in a raid. That time is over now though, and there is no other spec you can go to to get that back. So either start actually trying to be good at the spec, or go play another one. Continuing to be bad at Disc and just complaining for buffs is just a waste of everyone's time, and frankly it's a little insulting to have people constantly claiming that if you don't share the opinion that your poor play is acceptable because Disc is "not viable" that you must be somehow crazy or "can't let go" of Disc.

[Pearl1717]

So far, my impression on Disc's state is this: There are few people here vigorously defending the spec saying it is actually viable for raids - it almost seems they have a hard time of letting go of the spec, and facing the reality that Disc will probably sit the 1st couple of tiers (if not the expansion if they don't fix it) of Mythic progression out. And then the rest of the people (including a boatload of RL's) saying it's utter shit.

The problem here is, in my opinion, that Disc's skill cap is way, way, way higher than that of the other healers, and one does not get enough in return. As much as it pains me to say, my prediction is that all the high skill discs will switch to holy because it holy can just pump out more healing (if the player is equally skilled in Holy), and Disc will sit this one out. Until Blizzard realizes that the spec is broken and fixes it in 8 to 10 months.

And you clearly don't understand how disc works. First off, the skill cap really isn't that high. Its essentially the same thing as 6.x disc. I played for about an hour total in beta before prepatch, and with only playing disc during 2 M HFC farms I'm sitting at #2 world (1st US). If you were decent at 6.x disc, theres no reason youre not decent at 7.x disc. It is not hard.

Second, The only reason why disc's hps is lower than the other healers is because in the low damage phases, disc does little amounts of healing. What disc brings is ridiculously strong burst on a relatively short CD (about 1 min). We have a raid level CD every minute. Do you not get how strong that is for progression? Who cares if we do little healing outside the heavy damage phases, we heal at the times we need it. That's why we don't solo heal on progression. Let the other healers take care of all the other meaningless random damage.

Third, on early progression, do you not get how valuable healer dps is? Sure adding in a disc that does 2-3% of the raids damage doesn't seem meaningful, but it is. Inb4, just drop a healer and bring another dps then. Too bad you can't always do that. Especially when 4 healing is too much, and 3 healing is too little, but you need that extra dps.

Fourth, Please don't bring up the fact that disc doesn't have an "oh shit" button. I see this get brought up all the time, and when has disc ever had that? Basically never (sure we had dhymn at one point, but it was still weak). Again, this is the reason we don't solo heal progression. We have other reactionary healers to react to those oh shit moments (see MW: the ultimate in oh shit recovery). And I also see how disc is only effective when we can predict damage, so they'll be bad for progression cause we don't know fights yet. But cmon, realistically, how many pulls does it really take you to learn damage patterns? Not very many.

Fifth, Add in everything Total said in the post above.

[Djriff]

Second, The only reason why disc's hps is lower than the other healers is because in the low damage phases, disc does little amounts of healing. What disc brings is ridiculously strong burst on a relatively short CD (about 1 min). We have a raid level CD every minute. Do you not get how strong that is for progression? Who cares if we do little healing outside the heavy damage phases, we heal at the times we need it. That's why we don't solo heal on progression. Let the other healers take care of all the other meaningless random damage.

Speaking of this particular part, what do you guys do where there's low steady damage? Like archimonde Desecrate pillar or Fel Hellfire Storm on Manno? I've just been tossing out atonements and DPS'ing a bit and Halo'ing on CD. It doesn't feel entirely right.

[Totaltotemic]

Speaking of this particular part, what do you guys do where there's low steady damage? Like archimonde Desecrate pillar or Fel Hellfire Storm on Manno? I've just been tossing out atonements and DPS'ing a bit and Halo'ing on CD. It doesn't feel entirely right.

It doesn't feel right because mana conservation is something nobody has really had to do for the past few years. Currently I just keep PWRing anyway because the fight is over in 3 or 4 minutes, but if your fight is any longer than that you will have to deal with some points where you're not throwing out your maximum HPS (and this is across all healers, not just Disc. Try POH spamming for a while fight as Holy and you'll find the same thing).

It'll take some time, but after a couple months of no Spirit people will get used to the idea that there are times when it's a good idea to spend a lot of mana and times when it's not a good idea because you're already covered.

[Djriff]

No I didn't mean about mana, I meant more about atonement distribution. For burst healing i'll have anywhere from 12-18 Atonements out (Rapture is amazing) but for sustained low damage I'm not sure what's a good rough figure in a 20m. I'm guessing 5-6 which puts me right at the PW: R threshold.

[Pearl1717]

Speaking of this particular part, what do you guys do where there's low steady damage? Like archimonde Desecrate pillar or Fel Hellfire Storm on Manno? I've just been tossing out atonements and DPS'ing a bit and Halo'ing on CD. It doesn't feel entirely right.

Basically this:

It doesn't feel right because mana conservation is something nobody has really had to do for the past few years. Currently I just keep PWRing anyway because the fight is over in 3 or 4 minutes, but if your fight is any longer than that you will have to deal with some points where you're not throwing out your maximum HPS (and this is across all healers, not just Disc. Try POH spamming for a while fight as Holy and you'll find the same thing).

Im still putting out lots of atonements and dpsing. But that's only cause its nerfed HFC with short kill times. If this was actual progression, then maintaining a few atonements with pws, maybe plea, and dps'ing normally. You just really need to make sure you conserve your mana for the times you really need it. You just need to get into the mindset that youre healing with other people, and those other people are much more suited towards healing the small damage.

No I didn't mean about mana, I meant more about atonement distribution. For burst healing i'll have anywhere from 12-18 Atonements out (Rapture is amazing) but for sustained low damage I'm not sure what's a good rough figure in a 20m. I'm guessing 5-6 which puts me right at the PW: R threshold.

If you're talking about how many to maintain during low periods, it really depends on the fight. Id say anywhere between 3-6ish. Probably on tanks for sure and then just a few other spread around other people