[7.0] Legion Discipline Priest Guide and Discussion

[Deleted]

Again a very extreme example but lets compare 100% haste with 100% crit. using only Shadowmend both would result in the same hps with the crit variation also gaining +100% hpm.

However, the 100% haste build makes twice the amount of casts and can do so on different ppl, leaving twice as many ppl with atonement. Meaning that SW:P will grant more ticks AND heal more ppl. Meaning that if you consider +x% haste equal to "+x% atonement count" Then spells like penance will grant the same HpM with both methods. The one will grant +x% more healing while the other will affect x% more ppl. SW:P actually achieves the higher HPM via haste than via crit.

I am not at all saying that haste gives the same or higher hpm (since the applying of atonment happens faster, it will also cost more) But haste does grant some hpm since there will be more atonements out. (This is what total meant with the static 15sec atonement duration)

Oh and just a little bonus, don't forget that mindbender actually also generates more mana with haste.

[Totaltotemic]

Again a very extreme example but lets compare 100% haste with 100% crit. using only Shadowmend both would result in the same hps with the crit variation also gaining +100% hpm.

However, the 100% haste build makes twice the amount of casts and can do so on different ppl, leaving twice as many ppl with atonement. Meaning that SW:P will grant more ticks AND heal more ppl. Meaning that if you consider +x% haste equal to "+x% atonement count" Then spells like penance will grant the same HpM with both methods. The one will grant +x% more healing while the other will affect x% more ppl. SW:P actually achieves the higher HPM via haste than via crit.

I am not at all saying that haste gives the same or higher hpm (since the applying of atonment happens faster, it will also cost more) But haste does grant some hpm since there will be more atonements out. (This is what total meant with the static 15sec atonement duration)

Oh and just a little bonus, don't forget that mindbender actually also generates more mana with haste.

Yes, in fact I even wrote a very detailed explanation of the math behind this and how it translates into more HPM instead of just HPS. It is linked at the bottom of the guide, but here it is again: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...UKd2672Ntg/pub

Here is a very simple scenario:

You want to cast Power Word: Radiance 3 times and then Penance and Light's Wrath. PtW is ticking the entire time.

Normally it would look like this:

0.00 - PW:R cast finishes, 3 Atonements - 15 seconds duration
2.50 - 2nd PW:R finishes, 3 Atonements @ 12.5, 3 Atonements @ 15.0
5.00 - 3rd PW:R finishes, 3 Atonements @ 10.0, 3 @ 12.5, 3 @ 15.0
7.00 (ignoring Borrowed Time for now because it's annoying to calculate) - Penance finishes channeling @ 9 Atonements. 3 @ 8, 3 @ 10.5, 3 @ 13 seconds remaining.
9.50 - Light's Wrath finishes casting @ 9 Atonements. 3 @ 5.5, 3 @ 8.0, 3 @ 10.5 seconds remaining.

So at the end of this sequence, there will be 6 of these Atonements hit by the next Penance, and of course all Atonements have PtW ticking the entire time during them so there's 72 "Atonement seconds" remaining (just add them all up) that PtW will hit, as well as things like Mindbender, any other incidental Smites that are cast.


Now let's add 50% haste and cast no additional spells i.e. no more mana is spent.

0.00 - PW:R cast finishes, 3 Atonements - 15 seconds duration
1.67 - 2nd PW:R finishes, 3 Atonements @ 13.3, 3 Atonements @ 15.0
3.34 - 3rd PW:R finishes, 3 Atonements @ 11.64, 3 Atonements @ 13.3, 3 Atonements @ 15.0
4.67 - Penance finishes channeling @ 9 Atonements. 3 @ 10.33, 3 @ 12, 3 @ 13.67
6.34 - Light's Wrath finishes casting @ 9 Atonements. 3 @ 8.66, 3 @ 10.33, 3 @ 12 seconds remaining.

So now we have finishes that sequence, and none of the Atonements will fall off before the next Penance, there are now 3.16 extra Mindbender seconds if you choose to use that now, Light's Wrath and Penance were used much sooner so there may be additional Atonements healing via those spells if they were cast in that 3.16 second window of the sequence starting that would not be caught by scenario 1 but were caught by scenario 2.

PtW healing is the same, but that scaled with haste anyway, although overhealing may be less because you likely coincided these casts to occur right around a large raid damage event and the ~3 seconds of it ticking before on all of the Atonements may have overhealed.

Any extra Smites that would have occurred are no longer rushed to happening within 5.5 seconds of LW finishing to fit in as many PW:Ss as possible (2 in the second scenario as opposed to the 1 in the first before the first PWR falls off).

So that's how you can cast the exact same number of spells and increase healing output. In technical terms, that is an increase to healing per mana.

[Supliftz]

That's exactly what he's talking about. Haste affects the HPM of Mindbender and SW:P/PtW and nothing else. 10% haste is 3250 rating which makes MB and SW:P tick one extra time over 12 seconds and 18 seconds respectively. Haste's affect on HPM is a joke.

This is just arrogance at this point. Total in this thread and in his guide has linked multiple reasons why haste is a HPM increase.

But don't let a "bad" player stop you there

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...Siory/advanced

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...Zosyn/advanced

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte.../Sups/advanced

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte.../Evry/advanced

All these good players are stacking haste. I wonder why

My reasoning is that HPM is important and Discs don't have the mana to support high haste. Every single log (including yours) proves this.

So your suggestion for increasing HPM is taking stats that don't increase your HPM as much as haste?

Wrong.

? How is he wrong here mate. Shadow Mend doesn't scale off haste like atonement does, that's just a fact. As for artifact traits, while yes, shadow mend has 1 trait that benefits it's healing by a minor amount, you simply cannot compare that to the rest of the artifact benefiting atonement.

So if your raid is good you don't need spot healing? But you do need raid-wide damage periods in order for your playstyle to function. Got it lol.

Why play a sub-optimal hps style to do spot healing? Why not just play holy at that point and do more healing.

[nguyenmb]

Now I'm just waiting for people to realize:
- that haste is the only stat that doesn't increase HPM.

The Higher your haste, the more you can use your efficient spells over your inefficient spells.

When put into the context of battle where a healer must heal X amount within Y time and within Z mana. Given a fixed Y and Z, more haste will increase X.

Every spec has two spells with these trade offs,
Heal1: High HPS but low HPM
Heal2: High HPM but low HPS

The higher your haste, the more you can use Heal2 to reach the HPS necessary for the encounter at hand. Which in turn, lowers the amount of mana you need to spend.

[pseudoJ]

Every spec has two spells with these trade offs,
Heal1: High HPS but low HPM
Heal2: High HPM but low HPS

I might have missed it. But what would be the two again for Discipline?

- - - Updated - - -

BTW: Is there an addon/spreadsheet to calculate stat weights based on my current stats? I believe I saw something around here, however I can't seem to find it.

[Djriff]

I might have missed it. But what would be the two again for Discipline?

Shadowmend - Fast expensive Big Heal
Smite - Fast cheap Small Heal.

[Deleted]

How are you guys doing on Mythic+? I did HOV (+5) and NL (+6). HOV was surprisingly easy. We failed the timer in NL due to the AoE damage. Even if starting the fight with all atoned, the AoE damage was surpassing my atonement healing, plus tank damage, so I had to go into shadow mend spam and never managed to catch up and people actually died. This includes bowlers and scorpions. Bosses were absolutely fine.

[anon5123]

While I'm doing rather fine in Mythic +2 as Disc, I always find myself thinking "okay, if I'm just spamming Shadowmend most of the time....why don't I just go Holy?"

There's not much time to really DPS when there's so much damage going out, so I constantly feel like I should just go Holy instead and have stronger burst AoE healing, better cooldowns, and a 5 second stun. The only time I can really DPS is if there's only 1 or 2 mobs up and the tank isn't taking much damage.

Though I suppose it doesn't help that pugs are treating Mythic+ like heroics and STILL not doing mechanics correctly, not interrupting shit, standing in fire, etc and just barely meeting the timer even on +2.

[Holtzmann]

Decided to give Discipline a try, having fun with it so far. I sometimes get bored playing my Resto Druid... but nope, none of that with the Discipline Priest. Always something to do!

And since we're here, I got three questions for you fine Disco folks, from the standpoint of someone who doesn't raid:

1 - How do you deal with Monks, particularly after the fight ends and they still have a Stagger ticking down? In a related vein, how do you deal with DoTs that are still rolling after the fight ends? So long as there are enemies around, I can just keep dealing damage and healing, but once the enemies are gone my healing possibilities kind of dry up. Plea takes forever and a day to top people back up and depending on the DoT it might not even be powerful enough to compensate for it.

2 - Do you have any tips on target selection during trash? It's not a huge issue, but losing half a Penance because the DPS decided to go all-out on the thing you were attacking is a bit annoying. I tried just tab-targeting until I found a good, full-health mob, but sometimes I ended up selecting a mob that wasn't in combat and unintentionally pulled a new group.

3 - Just checking: sometimes (be it questing or grouping) when I use Shadowmend it doesn't seem to deal any damage. What's up with that?

[Simulacrum]

Uh... shadow mend stuff that's low out of combat if that's really a problem. Attack the mob least likely to die if you dps for healing. Shadow mend doesn't deal damage out of combat or when the dot is removed by the target taking damage from other sources; read the tooltip. Dunno why you'd need to ask questions with such obvious answers.

Also, you always have something to do on your resto druid. You should be dpsing if you 'get bored', which resto druids are really good at.

[Holtzmann]

Uh... shadow mend stuff that's low out of combat if that's really a problem. Attack the mob least likely to die if you dps for healing. Shadow mend doesn't deal damage out of combat or when the dot is removed by the target taking damage from other sources; read the tooltip. Dunno why you'd need to ask questions with such obvious answers.

Also, you always have something to do on your resto druid. You should be dpsing if you 'get bored', which resto druids are really good at.

See, I didn't know Shadowmend doesn't deal damage out of combat. It's not on the tooltip, and even while I was in combat it didn't trigger the DoT for me on occasion. And no, I'm not talking about just tossing a Shadowmend on the tank and the DoT getting immediately overwritten by the tank taking damage. Last dungeon I healed I Shadowmended DPS that weren't taking additional damage, in combat, and it did not apply the DoT. Twice. That's why I was confused about its behavior. Either the spell was bugged, or my UI was, and I wasn't going to try to test it in a random group.

I was wondering if people had a better method for picking a mob that wasn't going to die so quickly than just tab-targeting. I guess not, but I'll hopefully learn how to pick my targets better as I get more used to the spec.

And yep, I actually get bored playing my Druid, because I stay at range and cast and even with Balance Affinity there's not a whole lot to do there. I'm well aware that going cat would give me more DPS, but playing melee in WoW gives me headaches and no additional DPS is worth that discomfort. Discipline in comparison feels more interesting overall, even if both Disc and Resto are proactive healers.

[anon5123]

See, I didn't know Shadowmend doesn't deal damage out of combat. It's not on the tooltip

Yes it is.

"The ally will take X damage every 1 sec, until they have taken Y total damage from all sources, or leave combat."

It's not explicitly stated, but implied by the "leave combat" bit. Hell, you could just try casting it on yourself out of combat and see that it does not debuff you.

[Holtzmann]

Yes it is.

"The ally will take X damage every 1 sec, until they have taken Y total damage from all sources, or leave combat."

It's not explicitly stated, but implied by the "leave combat" bit. Hell, you could just try casting it on yourself out of combat and see that it does not debuff you.

Well, I'm a bloody moron.

I've read that freaking tooltip eight times before posting and didn't notice that. Still, it didn't apply the debuff in combat on a few occasions, which is why I thought it was weird.

(Got egg on my face, but eh. It's gonna make things a lot easier now, so thank you.)

[Puupi]

Well, I'm a bloody moron.

I've read that freaking tooltip eight times before posting and didn't notice that. Still, it didn't apply the debuff in combat on a few occasions, which is why I thought it was weird.

(Got egg on my face, but eh. It's gonna make things a lot easier now, so thank you.)

So you have the artifact trait that gives it 15% chance to not apply the dot, right?

[Holtzmann]

So you have the artifact trait that gives it 15% chance to not apply the dot, right?

Okay, I've definitely checked properly it this time. I don't have Taming the Shadows, nor any relics that affect it.

It must have been an UI glitch. I healed a few more dungeons tonight and Shadowmend didn't fail to apply the DoT at any moment. (Also, topping everybody up between pulls is a lot easier now. Hooray for reading comprehension.)

[Deleted]

Okay, I've definitely checked properly it this time. I don't have Taming the Shadows, nor any relics that affect it.

It must have been an UI glitch. I healed a few more dungeons tonight and Shadowmend didn't fail to apply the DoT at any moment. (Also, topping everybody up between pulls is a lot easier now. Hooray for reading comprehension.)

It could have been insta-removed due to incoming damage.

[Deleted]

I was wondering if people had a better method for picking a mob that wasn't going to die so quickly than just tab-targeting. I guess not, but I'll hopefully learn how to pick my targets better as I get more used to the spec.

Enemy Grid addon is perfect for tracking mobs as disc, it also has its own built in mouse over casting much the same as healing frames so its familiar to those of us who primarily heal it also saves you from tab pulling out of combat mobs which is something I wish I could get some of our dps to stop doing.

[Noradin]

Ah ok thanks, that makes a lot of sense. I forgot that haste interacts with PW:S CD for disc, it's ridiculous as shadow to have a perma B&S at some points.

The real interesting point is the static duration of Atonement thus giving us breakpoints for GCDs (casts) per Atonement duration, thus increasing the healing per mana for atonement applicators. Also note that our 90s CD is free and scales better than the second power of the number of Atonements we have running.

[Helelos]

I did great on fights like Nythendra, Ursoc and Cenarius. However, any fight with constant random burst damage (i.e Illggy) made me feel like I was going to war while loading up my musket after every shot. Raid leaders are trying to talk me into going Holy to keep the tanks alive (?????) on Il'g, but we were dying to the Spew Corruption dot going out often...which is a dps problem. Keeping people alive with 3 Spew Corruptions on HC is a miraculous feat when people are also spread out.

[trimon]

One thing that helps make sure you do not loose any damage from penance is to get the artifact talent that gives you haste after applying atonement to someone. With that buff up, you get your penance out extremely fast. As long as the mob isn't almost dead to begin with, you will almost always get all the healing out of it.