Hey guys, after extensively testing all of the talents and spells I've got some info to share. My views are based on 5-man PUG only. It's a lot of stuff and most of it might have been said already. However, I want to share how Disc has been working for me and pinpoint how exactly I'm making it work. Especially my macro section is going to be interesting for people who do not like Mouseover. To make it easier to read, I put the gist of every section in italics. If some of my thoughts are of sufficient quality to you, OP, feels free to add them to the guide.
Clarity of Will, Divine Star, Halo
CoW is good at what it does (highest single target HPM spell), but it also has the lowest HPS, so when things get really busy you don't have time to cast this. You will lose the mana you save when you can't keep up with AoE damage. Therefore I think that CoW is bad. Divine Star offers more sustained AoE healing than Halo, but you have less GCDs to heal the tank to make the most out of the 15s CD on it, therefore Halo is better than Divine Star.
The Penitent, Castigation, Schism
The Penitent is good for healing non-tanks on the move that took a chunk of damage and aren't going to take damage anymore. Sadly, that is very specific and its only use. For tank healing Shadow Mend is superior. Therefore I say that The Penitent is bad. Castigation is very similar to Divine Star in what it does. Schism, however, works with Halo, Mindbender, Light's Wrath and Penance, so you're able to gain 30% more burst healing. Remember though that you have to hit your closest target with Schism for it to work with Halo since it only applies Atonement healing on the first enemy hit. On other hand, you have to use a considerable amount of time to set up Atonements to get the most out of Castigation (just like with Divine Star) and that's why I think Schism is better than Castigation.
Purge the Wicked, Grace, Shadow Covenant
Sometimes tanks just take ridiculous damage and that's why Grace is the best talent here. Not only does it increase our already good single target spell Shadow Mend, it also works with Halo's healing portion as well. Purge the Wicked is strictly an AoE healing tool and it's only useful when there's multiple targets for the DoT spread to shine. Shadow Covenant is very interesting, the idea here is to only use it once every 6 seconds, so the heal absorb falls off. This is our only option to heal the party outside of combat, but sadly I think that Grace is just too good. Sadness.
Power Word: Solace, Shield Discipline, Mindbender
To be fair, I haven't had mana worries. For Power Word: Solace to be good you have to invest way too many GCDs on it. It deals slightly more damage than Smite, but doesn't have the absorb, so because of HPS reasons, I conclude that Power Word: Solace is bad. As I'm pointing out in my tips and tricks section, you should not use Power Word: Shield on the tank, but rather save it for AoE situations or as an emergency off-heal. Therefore you cannot guarantee that you get most value out of this. I don't know if this has a maximum amount of procs per minute or if it works with Rapture. Mind Bender is sadly the best choice here. For only 1 GCD you gain a HoT on everyone with Atonement AND mana on top of that, while the other talents do not increase throughput at all. That's very neat for AoE healing, but since you also have other options, you can just keep this spell on Cooldown for the mana. Why do I say "sadly" though? We cannot seem to control the pet at all and sometimes it just returns to us when its target dies and tends to think of itself as a cat for the remaining duration.
Contrition, Power Infusion, Twist of Fate
Twist of Fate is amazing when your tank is just being blasted with damage. Sadly the talent does nothing while you're not behind in healing and I personally prefer Power Infusion to avoid that in the first place. Contrition is another talent for sustained AoE healing and once again I prefer having more burst options, because of how long it takes to apply Atonement to everyone. Power Infusion is best here, because it's the most versatile and also grants an offensive option for burning down an important add and trolling weak dps players.
Angelic Feather, Body and Soul, Masochism
Since you have to save Power Word: Shield for emergency off-heals, Angelic Feather is the best movement option. Masochism is bad, because if you are taking damage yourself, you have to either A) move out of the bad or B) set up for AoE. Mobility is more important than a very situational heal.
Shining Force, Psychic Voice, Dominate Mind
Shining Force is bad, because it spreads out the enemies, reducing the dps of your group. Psychic Voice is also bad, because you don't even need this spell once per minute, which is baseline. I only use it to interupt a long cast of a mob. Dominate Mind is the best choice here. Read the tips and tricks section for how to make most use out of it.
General tips and tricks:
- Never use Power Word: Shield on the tank. You still always want Atonement up on them. If he's taking low damage, apply it with Plea, otherwise with Shadow Mend. Power Word: Shield is neither your most mana efficient spell nor does it offer the highest HPS. There's almost no reason to cast it on the tank.
- Everyone took unexpected AoE damage: Use Shadow Mend on the tank. Use Power Word: Shield on someone else and than cast Power Word: Radiance on another person to apply Atonement to 5 people in total. Now you cast Schism -> Halo and while Halo is traveling you can Power Word: Shield the tank or someone who needs it to get a massive AoE heal out on everyone.
- You are expecting AoE damage: Use Power Word: Shield, then Rapture and spam Power Word: Shield on everyone else. Rapture is a good tool to setup for AoE healing in movement-heavy fights in general.
- How to use Dominate Mind correctly: Your controlled target will always attack you after the 30s are over. Since we have Fade, it's going to attack someone else instead. The tank will most likely not realize this, especially if the Mind Control ends after a fight. If you use it to pull and Fade immediately I am not sure if the enemies will kill your controlled target immediately. If yes, then hooray for cheese, because that is going to be a massive advantage for disc in mythic+ dungeons. I haven't experimented enough on it to be able to tell this, however, I'm manually controlling it to run ahead of the group when the current fight is almost done. In harder content, the fights are probably going to last at least 30s, so if controlling your minion is too much of a hassle, you can just avoid using it in timewalking dungeons or other easier content.
- Your group is taking heavy AoE damage. The most obvious answer here is to use Power Word: Barrier, but when it's on Cooldown, you can actually also use Pain Suppression on the tank. This allows you to focus on AoE healing (#2), because you don't have to spam Shadow Mend on your tank.
- Plea is a trap most of the time, so I rarely use it. It's very effcient at low Atonement stacks, but also low on HPS. If I have to apply Atonement to someone, I'd rather use Shadow Mend if they are going to keep taking heavy damage or Power Word: Shield otherwise. It has been extremely rare for me to see PW:S fall off. If you can't stand still to cast, use Rapture and spam Power Word: Shield. Spamming Plea on the move kills your mana and HPS.
- If your mana permits it and you have free GCDs, use Schism and Penance on Cooldown. Setting up for AoE takes time (#2, #3) and casting Schism followed by one of your big hitters Halo > Mind Bender > Light's Wrath is more important than Penance anyways.
My keybindings
I'm using 3 bars of abilities.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Q, E, R, F, G, C for the first bar (lower left). Add Shift to these for the second (upper left) and Alt for the third bar (upper right). For the pet bar I'm using the standard keybinds (ctrl + 1 for attack and ctrl + 3 to send it somewhere to suicide).
Since keybinds with Alt are pretty annoying to use, I only put very situational stuff on my third bar. Instant cast abilities and anything that I use regularly are on the first bar to make them easier to access. Cooldowns and cast time abilities that I use less often are on my second bar.
My macros
The first thing I do in a dungeon is to set the tank as my focus target (Alt + 4).
All of my damage spells use the following macro:
Code:
#showtooltip Shadow Word: Pain
/cast [harm][@focus, harm][@focustarget, harm][@targettarget, harm] Shadow Word: Pain
If I have an enemy selected, it will cast Pain at that enemy.
If I don't have an enemy selected, it will cast Pain at my Focus target. Since the tank is usually my focus target, this isn't used much. It's just there to give the option of setting a boss as focus.
If I don't have an enemy selected and Focus is not an enemy either, then it will cast Pain at my focus target's target. So basically, it assists my tank!
If I don't have an enemy selected, my Focus is not an enemy and my Focus doesn't have an enemy targetted either, it will cast Pain at the target of my target. This rule is usually never used. I only put it there so I don't have to put the Focus target every single time I play in a group.
If neither of these apply, the macro fizzles. It basically does everything that normally binding the spell would do and everything else is a bonus.
What's the benefit of these macros and why not simply use mouseover? I like to adjust my camera a lot. Mouseover macros force me to have an enemy selected all the time, because otherwise I can't use my damage abilities. Now, if I have an enemy selected and hold down right mouse click, I can't actually use mouseover to heal. With my setup I can move freely, adjust the camera by holding right mouse click, cast Power Word Shield and Penance on the move all at the same time without breaking a sweat. These macros save a lot time and unnecessary clicking.
These macros actually made me so lazy after a couple of hours, that when I switched to Shadow I forgot to click on enemies before casting my spells. True story.
I'm using the same macro for these spells: Shadow Fiend (automatically replaces itself with Mindbender if you have it spec'd), Dispel Magic (that one is questionable for sure, but it doesn't hurt, because I can still manually select an enemy with a buff if I choose to), Penance, Schism, Smite, SW:P and Light's Wrath.
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MMO-Champion
Originally Posted by Davryn
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