1. #1

    Disc PvE raid healing help

    After several months of being holy (and loving the changes) I was asked to do something by our RL that I have always tried to avoid, and that is going disc. I am 100% comfortable in being holy, however; I want to be open to disc, since I know that they have extremely great CDs. My trouble lies in AoE healing, I guess I am not sure what I am supposed to be doing, Tonight, we were on yor'sahj. We are given a group to heal (in the case of the purple add) and we are told to heal that group only (makes sense to manage the debuffs) and on other parts we are given freedom of all groups/tanks. I was holy for 1/2 the night, and I was disc for the other half. My numbers were far better/more competative as holy. I feel like this is from one of two things. 1. My lack of knowledge of disc, and 2. Me being uncomfortable as disc didnt help either....

    After looking at EJ tonight, and searching for some forums, I have found nothing helpful, a guide to pve raid healing for disc, I still find my habits being much like holy, PoM and PoH spam in heavy situations, but I am still not putting the numbers that I can as holy, and I feel that it can be changed..

    On logs I was holy 1/2 the night and disc 1/2 the night..

    Armory: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...eliea/advanced

    Logs: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/x...?s=8031&e=8407 (Longest attempt as Holy)
    http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/x...=12010&e=12259 (longest attempt as Disc)


    I am not sure exactly what my issue is, however; someone can maybe point it out..


    Thanks

  2. #2
    Deleted
    Well, there are some pointers I can give you, but it's not much.

    I also don't know whether you are raiding 10 or 25 man? The stats needed for either differ much.

    So for now I will give you my advice based on 10 man.

    You can ditch 2 points in Mental Agility and put them into Darkness.
    I can also suggest reforging any Spirit you have into mastery. You have WAY too much spirit for a disc priest. Get around 2000/2200, your trinket HoU will give you the rest. Your should push your mastery to 20+.

    Ditch glyph of Power word Barrier, replace it with prayer of healing.

    I see you took atonement, yet in your WoL I see no smite/holy fire whatsoever. Could be that I'm blind, I don't use WoL often so..
    You should be spamming Smite/holy fire whenever you don't have to heal big time.
    This means that when you are not healing the raid, nor the tank is taking much damage, then you spam smite/holy fire.
    Holy fire/smite is like "Heal" from holy, only better since it heals more and procs your evangelism. Smite also reduces the cooldown on your penance, which is what you should be using to heal tanks.

    Combine your Inner focus with Prayer and/or Gheal (gheal reduces its cooldown!).
    Use "Ingela's Rapture" addon: http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/ingelasrapture
    track your rapture's with it, for effective bubbling.

    I see you don't use POM enough. Use it on every cd, or whenever possible.


    If you are 25 man, I believe the stat priority was crit > haste > mastery, but I'm not so sure about it, since I only raid 10 man nowadays.

    Hope it helps!

  3. #3
    Deleted
    Use PoH/DH on heroism phase, and PWS/GH/Penance on non-heroism phases. Doing heroism phase just spew out PoH like a mad man (remember rapture) rememember to always use pws right before DH. On the other phases don't be affraid to assist with a shield on other groups if stack is low enough so it doesn't blow up. Shields can do almost 40k healing and is pretty much unrivaled in terms of certain healing done, as it will pretty much always break on Yor doing dmg phases.
    Between the phases go nuke the blobs or nuke the boss, if purple debuff is still up be careful, especially with holy fire! If purple blob is comming preshield as many people as you can (use inner will) and then return to the normal PWS/GH/Penance rotation. Use AA at the start of each phase (after mana drain if blue) to boost your healing. Oh, and don't use heal as disc unless you are non-attonement with SoS spec to shield someone even faster.

    Standard Primary glyphs for disc in 25m is PWS/PoH/PWB, though Penance is probably better than PoH for Yor, since you only use PoH for like 1 phase.
    Last edited by mmocff76f9a79b; 2012-01-25 at 11:06 AM.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Earthlady View Post
    I also don't know whether you are raiding 10 or 25 man? The stats needed for either differ much.
    he posted logs, does he really need to add that he raids 25, since you can see 25 ppl on his logs? >.<

    keik12, ill start with your armory:

    * glyphs:
    for discipline raid healer glyph of Prayer of Healing (poh) is a must have.
    if you really do want to keep barrier glyph, use it in place of penance glyph.

    * talents:
    generally fine, but considering both Molice and Nihune provide 10% dmg reduction after crit heal, id consider dropping inspiration for maybe darkness (output)

    * gear:
    i realize that you are geared mainly for holy, but since you decided to use aa spec, if you will have a chance, consider dropping some spirit, 2,8k for aa disc priest is really a lot!

    now logs!
    usually aoe healing for a discipline priest means spamming poh, eventually pre-spamming poh to have da stacked.

    i decided to look at 2 of your attempts, one that you linked and also (4'09)
    http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/x...=10848&e=11100 - 4'11

    * poh
    try 4'09: i see that you have over 50% overhealing with poh. that would be perfectly fine, if you used it to pre-stack divine aegis (da), but

    * da
    you have over 40% overhealing with da. thats not good. if you already decided to stack it, make sure you keep refreshing it so eventually it gets consumed.
    on try 4'11 its even worse, 58% overhealing with da, imagine how much healing is wasted when you let that much da to drop.

    proper management of your da is one of keys to playing discipline priest. make sure your frames show da on ppl and timers on it (vuhdo! and prbly all the others, but i fancy vuhdo :P).

    * heal - (4'11) this is your 5th top spell (above pom, above penance, above gheal)
    you shouldnt be using this spell at all when in aa spec (no sos specced)
    the fact that you did more healing with spell you shouldnt be even using in your spec then with gheal or pom or penance - this is really disturbing

    you mentioned you had problem on purple phase and from your logs i see you spam heal and almost never use gheal or penance - makes me think horrible thing - did you use heal on your group on purple phase?

    * greater heal - (4'11) 0 uses
    this is a bit like a joke, you had time to cast 12 'heal's and no time to cast even one greater heal? it feels like you really dont like playing disc and you do everything you can to sabotage this spec

    4'09 - here you used greater heal 4 times and heal 19 times. seriously, why did you pick to use heal and not greater heal?
    and in case anyone will go with brilliant answer - stacking grace - on 4'11 attempt he used penance literary once.

    * penance - why dont you use it, why do you pick to use heal instead? since im already picky im gonna remind you that you actually glyphed penance, not using this spell makes glyph all wasted

    * ATONEMENT
    (i have nothing against aa spec if used properly)
    why do you spec atonement if you dont use it at all?
    atonement is specced (in general, since youre beginner disc) to stack archangel stacks and pop archangel for +healing and some mana return.
    if you dont use it, it means that your 5 talents points are being wasted

    another thing for aa, if you are bored enough to have time to spam 'heals' why not spamming smites instead, to stack more for archangel?
    just remember not to ever use holy fire on purple phase.

    * power infusion

    use it. on yourself preferably.

    * inner focus
    macro it with poh and gheal, its really worth using on every cd and gheal reduced its cooldown timer

    now back to your question, disc healing on purple, lets say you are assigned to group X:
    - pre-shield group X in the way that everyone is shielded before purple debuff appears
    - if anyone in your group takes damage, you either heal this person with greater heal or with penance. never use 'heal' on purple phase. ever.
    - feel free to re-shield people who are on low purple stacks.
    - use PoM on cd, id doesnt add stacks
    - never ever use PoH and never ever use holy fire on purple phase. and never ever use 'heal' on purple phase.

    can ofc add soem situational fheal or bheal, can personalize it once you get more comfortable with discipline spec, but really the above general tips to purple phase should be enough.

  5. #5
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by babylon View Post
    he posted logs, does he really need to add that he raids 25, since you can see 25 ppl on his logs? >.<
    sorry, I'm a noob with WoL XD :P

  6. #6
    Deleted
    what babylon said with a few points from myself:

    I'm replacing the PWS glyph for PoH, not the penance/bubble one, but that's 'cause I only use PWS just for emergency and as rapture machine.

    In 25 man, especially when not tank healing, it's worth dropping inspiration. And you can also drop Train of Though to pick up 3/3 darkness and probably 1 in veiled shadows, at least if you plan to reforge.

    And speaking of which, your stats suck for disc. Mastery is very weak unless you are spamming shields and generally you want crit and haste, not mastery and spirit. Than again, with your stats, consider keeping PWS glyph and doing a PWS PoH or PWS PoH PoH rotations for AoE healing since you have so much freaken spirit to waste. Myself I run with 1.4k spirit and I'm dreaming of the times when my guildies will stop hogging all non spirit drops so I could drop below 1k >_<

    This is generally the reason I hate going holy in my gear, the stats are just so different.

    Also, speaking of AA, use the time between oozes to stack it, use a smite right before boss starts using his skills and pop wings when you need extra healing. And remember that it's a 30 sec cd so don't wait too long.

    And generally speaking, there is no need for 2 holy priests in a raid and a druid. I mean look at your attempts as holy and just notice how you screw over your druid friend... His HoTs barely get to tick with you 2 spamming the raid with CoH and PoHs. Not to mention that you'll leave purple up in most cases and holy CD's are a raid wipe button in that case. Speaking of CD's, I found that barrier best used on purple+red+something that can murder you, like yellow, or more commonly black, leave tranq and hymn for red+black+yellow and use AM whenever you feel like people might die.

    Oh, and ofc your healing will be much higher as holy, it's 25 man and even if your only healing 1 group your CoH and HWS will splash to others, bloating your overall healing. As disc only your AA heals can splash around, and in this fight you should not be even healing with it, just stacking evangelism.
    Last edited by mmoc485edc1e5f; 2012-01-25 at 11:34 AM.

  7. #7
    Don't ditch 2 points from mental agility. Ever. Also most discipline priests are going for 16%+ haste unbuffed without darkness so you might want to reforge something there. Glyph of PWB and PoH are mandatory for raid healing. HPS loss from ditching the PoH hot will be MUCH larger than 2 sec off Penance CD. Now, secondary stat for discipline is a matter of your style and gameplay. Personally I have 2000 spirit + HoU trinket and i reforge mastery to crit since I didn't feel the whole haste mastery build. Also, you have to know if you don't feel comfortable in disc spec you will probably play it worse than holy and the simple lack of experience.

  8. #8
    Deleted
    Disc is different from holy, u dont use Heal unless u miss press a button.
    Smite/Holy Fire is ur heal, dont Smite/Holy Fire on a Purple ooze make sure u got ur 5 stacks before it hits the boss as u dont want to accidental heal the one on 4 stack being it a smart heal.

    Advise given is enough for u to test out more of disc's potential.
    I would suggest to run some LFR's to get use to it, but still aint the best due to the lack of certain abilities and damage in LFR but atleast it gives u time to adjust to the smite/holy fire healing.

    If u dont feel comfy with DIsc, than basicly dont play it ur gimping ur raid with it not tomention ur own fun in playing wow.

  9. #9
    lot of good information for you on this thread. specifically, you should spend some time understanding babylon's reply.

    Looking a little more at your spec, you choose a couple tank healing talents that you probably aren't getting ANY mileage from. ToT, Inspiration specifically. Those could go to Darkness, DP, SoL. Checking the log you linked, you cast GHeal a total of 4 times and inspiration uptime on your tank was 8.7%. You can raid heal with an SoS spec, but it only makes sense if you're providing a certain amount of tank support. AA is the right choice for you, but as babylon points out you have to use wings once in a while to justify it. At a very minimum, figure out how to fish up 5 stacks of evangelism for wings on every phase.

    It's too bad there aren't any somewhat challenging dungeons this tier, because that's what I used to understand disc a little before raiding with it - ZA and ZG when they were tough. The biggest difference between healing disc and healing holy is your mentality, reactive healing vs proactive healing. Holy is far more reactive, for disc you have to be a bit prescient. And of the two general disc builds, AA/A is more difficult to execute properly. It's too bad the only time you can learn it this patch level is during your guild's raid time.

    Your high mst/high spirit itemization is a bit of a niche build. It's only viable if you're using PW:S a LOT. You are indeed using PW:S quite a lot, but it's tough for a newbie to make it count. In theory it's also not quite as good as a low spirit hst>crit itemization (that doesn't use PW:S much), but there are also people in top guilds doing the mst/spirit thing with heavy pw:s use. Cool thing about high mst with high spirit is that it's more compatible with Holy's normal itemization for 25. But, AA/A is generally more compatible with spirit on the floor and haste stacked to the roof.

    If you wind up just not being very good at disc, it's always better to be holy. Even if comp dictates that disc would be better.
    Last edited by zakaluka; 2012-01-25 at 03:10 PM.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by babylon View Post
    * ATONEMENT
    (i have nothing against aa spec if used properly)
    why do you spec atonement if you dont use it at all?
    atonement is specced (in general, since youre beginner disc) to stack archangel stacks and pop archangel for +healing and some mana return.
    if you dont use it, it means that your 5 talents points are being wasted

    another thing for aa, if you are bored enough to have time to spam 'heals' why not spamming smites instead, to stack more for archangel?
    just remember not to ever use holy fire on purple phase.
    .
    I should have added that I didnt have AA spec until after raid, that is why I didnt use it, and for use of heal, I guess im just used to it as a holy filler..

  11. #11
    Deleted
    As a disc healer healing 4/8 hc this far (hagara is dieing tonight though) i can say that having A/A spec and timing the healing buff for heavy aoe phase + using PI+jaws (if you have) + 2 set + PoH spam it will make you able to push insane aoe bursts when needed with minimal mana cost. And if you go for a haste/crit reforge like i did (ranked 82 on Warlord heroic on our first kill) in 10 man atleast seems to work very good - atleast for me

    I might add that on ultraxion i did roughly 1.8 million damage and that helped a lot with the enrage which was abit tight on the first tryes with 3 healer setup. 1 wipe at 0.7 and one at 0.6 lol:P
    Last edited by mmocbe795e084a; 2012-01-25 at 05:35 PM.

  12. #12
    Do what most disc priest do. Spam POH, have aegis account for 30% of your heals and blame others for not spaming enough.

  13. #13
    On Yorsahj for purple you should not be POHing because it will raise everyones stacks too quickly. Just preshield everyone going into the phase and push shields/GH'es into them. If you're tank healing specced it makes it even easier. Just refresh shields and push GH'es and you should have no problem keeping your group up. For non purple phases just POH spam is fine mixed with shields. That's how I do Yorsahj as disc and I have no problems.

  14. #14
    Babylon's reply has a LOT of good info in there. A few things of my own to add:

    When you know purple is coming, you should already have a 5-stack of evangalism (hopefully). You should spam PoH on your assigned group BEFORE the purple add hits, to get a big stack of DA up on everyone. You should pre-bubble your group (time permitting). once the phase starts, you should only use FHeal and GHeal as direct heals on your targets. A single PoH is also acceptable to refresh the DA durations if they are close to falling off.

    Also, Inspiration is good for Morchok, if you're disc for that as well, but not very helpful for raid healing Yor'Sahj. idk.

  15. #15
    Small tips;
    - Smite whenever you dont need to do something else, if you need the melee/tank to be topped but no major dmg? Smite! dont waste mana on heal or PoH in that point
    - Big Dmg inc? but 100% sure 3-4 players wont be hit by other dmg before that? Pre shield and start casting 2-3 PoH before the dmg hits
    - Change PW;barrier glyph to glyph of PW;shield.
    - For specific fights i would run with windwad heart trinket if available;morchok,ultrax,hagara,deathwing are good fights where barely anyone is being topped.
    - On for example ultrax you should spam smite untill your raid doesnt above 75% any more by other healers when coming out of the normal realm, Hots will still tick there and when they come out with less then 75/80% hp the healing should be increased and smitespam benched untill right after HoTwilight, since the first seconds after that you are able to get 5 smites before having to swap to PoH again.
    - Heal should pretty much be removed from your bars; Smite takes this function over completely, casting Heal on a dps is a waste of time aswell, if a person must be topped the reason is that he will take damage soon, since if he doesnt take dmg why top him off? also this player has above 80% hp cause if he wasnt you woulda use either flash or greater heal... right? yep... so if he is gonna take dmg depending on if he takes it alone or with others you use PoH or greater heal for divine aegis...

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