Discipline MoP Healing Guide

[Bonkura]

I've never played healer as a main, so I'm just posting here out of curiosity, but from what I've learned you never want to do nothing. The reasoning being the moment you stop casting anything you're likely to fall behind and have to compensate by using less mana efficient heals later on. Smite just seems like the perfect filler for this because you're less likely to heal a target that doesn't need it (i.e. overhealing) and it does damage plus procs Divine Aegis on crits.

[Cookie]

You're not going to fall behind by not casting when there's no significant damage going out, usually you're using 2-3 healers to cover the more intense parts of the fight while the majority of it can be covered by 1-2 healer(s). Depending on your spirit you might have enough regen to actually cast all (or close to all) the time, both to get extra damage out (smite) and to do the small healing required (atonement) so the other healers can use this time to either regen mana and/or dps as well (depending on their mana).

To be fair, this is something that's a bit controversial but for me I'd rather stick around 10k spirit (ub) and have a higher output when I actually need to maximize my healing than have the opportunity to cast 15 more smites during periods where healing barely matters (low damage is basically free to heal for most healers). There are players who play with 12k+ as well, mostly so they can fill every global.

[Kalmah]

I very rarely find myself in a situation where there's both enough downtime to bother casting smite and mana is an issue. Empress is about the only fight where I can see myself sitting around doing nothing to regen (end of add phase is rather low damage).

Maybe it's more of an issue for people who gem intellect.

[Bonkura]

When I check logs from Dpriests in good guilds I rarely see any Greater/Flash or normal heals cast at all while there's plenty of Smiting going on, at least where it seems to be the obvious filler. They might have sick gear backing it up but even when I'm on my own 478 priest that has 8200 spirit unbuffed I only feel I start getting mana issues on fights where I have to use PoH a lot.

I really don't understand what you are doing if not simply waiting for things to happen or spam Heal/Greater Heal (which I don't understand either since Penance/Smite should do the same job but better). You're not convincing me with the playstyle you seem to describe.

[Azrile]

I've never played healer as a main, so I'm just posting here out of curiosity, but from what I've learned you never want to do nothing. The reasoning being the moment you stop casting anything you're likely to fall behind and have to compensate by using less mana efficient heals later on. Smite just seems like the perfect filler for this because you're less likely to heal a target that doesn't need it (i.e. overhealing) and it does damage plus procs Divine Aegis on crits.

With glyph of holy fire and glyph of smite. I do HF, Smitex3, Penance repeatedly and can hold mana near 100%... My ilvl is not that great, but I can´t imagine using that cycle a few times would drain anyone´s mana.

[Cookie]

When I check logs from Dpriests in good guilds I rarely see any Greater/Flash or normal heals cast at all while there's plenty of Smiting going on, at least where it seems to be the obvious filler. They might have sick gear backing it up but even when I'm on my own 478 priest that has 8200 spirit unbuffed I only feel I start getting mana issues on fights where I have to use PoH a lot.

I really don't understand what you are doing if not simply waiting for things to happen or spam Heal/Greater Heal (which I don't understand either since Penance/Smite should do the same job but better). You're not convincing me with the playstyle you seem to describe.

It's mostly not a difference in playstyle, it's a difference in gearing. If you have 'spare time' you are either smiting or not doing anything. The difference is if you gear to smite every break (even in mana heavy fights), = about 12k spirit, or if you gear to spend those few globals where you get a break regging mana, = 10k spirit.

[Engel]

Nice post, useful considering I've just hit 90 on my main priest now I've taken WoW back up. Was good to get an overview of what's good and what's not.

[Rivelle]

When I check logs from Dpriests in good guilds I rarely see any Greater/Flash or normal heals cast at all while there's plenty of Smiting going on, at least where it seems to be the obvious filler. They might have sick gear backing it up but even when I'm on my own 478 priest that has 8200 spirit unbuffed I only feel I start getting mana issues on fights where I have to use PoH a lot.

I really don't understand what you are doing if not simply waiting for things to happen or spam Heal/Greater Heal (which I don't understand either since Penance/Smite should do the same job but better). You're not convincing me with the playstyle you seem to describe.

I'm not particularly geared but like the others said, you'll have plenty of opportunities to keep a good atonement cycle up. It was harder for me to get used to because prior to the talent tree changes I played disc as a full heal spec, especially in Dragon Soul I never used atonement before the changes.

However, if you're interested in keeping your archangel on cooldown, you're going to want to pop off at least a holy fire every time it's off cooldown. It will help tremendously with mana, also assuming you're getting your rapture mana returns every time you should.

At 484 ilvl, I've got 10357 spirit unbuffed right now and never run out of mana if I'm managing it the way I should be. Granted, my guild's resto druid sometimes gets freaked out and tosses me an innervate because I don't think he understands how my mana returns work, but I could get away without that just fine.

[Sevyvia]

Perhaps I'm jumping the gun a little here, but have people considered glyph choices in 5.2? Right now, my regular setup is Penance, Holy Fire and Smite. Come 5.2, I'll still use Penance, I'll still use Smite if Solace also leaves a DoT on the target, but I'm not sure whether a 10-yard range increase on those spells is worth a glyph slot. I've looked through our other options, though, and unless I'm missing something massive, I don't really see any other decent choices. The Mass Dispel glyph is decent, but you don't need to Mass Dispel in every fight, far from it. And really, it's also a sort of bandaid to "oh fuck I wasn't prepared" rather than a true improvement of the spell. In my opinion.

The only options left seem to be either making Shield heal 20% of its absorb, which seems very weak unless they -seriously- lower the mana cost of shield next patch, and then reflective shield, which... Well, more damage is nice, but it seems like a PvP glyph more than a PvE glyph. So overall, I seem to still be stuck with glyphs of Penance, Smite and Holy Fire, purely because I struggle to see any other viable candidates.

[Cookie]

We have plenty of glyphs and one or the other will always be useful on a fight. Inner sanctum, inner fire, PoM, PW:S (if we end up stacking crit it might even be mandatory), the range glyph (if it doesn't benefit penance it'll be really annoying though) & MD are all situationally beneficial glyphs. We'll hardly have a regular setup though (or well mayhaps penance, smite and IS/IF).

[Sevyvia]

Inner Sanctum, I could see that. Inner Fire, when exactly do you need extra armor? You aren't tanking. PoM, worse than regular PoM unless you're tank healing. PW:S, the heal is pitiful, the range glyph, unnecessary, since we've been doing fine with 30 yards. Mass Dispel, yeah, useful for the few fights where we use MD, but otherwise, not really.

Out of all those, I can only see Inner Sanctum as useful for anything more than specific fights.

[NatureDrake]

Awesome guide! Thanks

[Cookie]

Inner Sanctum, I could see that. Inner Fire, when exactly do you need extra armor? You aren't tanking. PoM, worse than regular PoM unless you're tank healing. PW:S, the heal is pitiful, the range glyph, unnecessary, since we've been doing fine with 30 yards. Mass Dispel, yeah, useful for the few fights where we use MD, but otherwise, not really.

Out of all those, I can only see Inner Sanctum as useful for anything more than specific fights.

Well inner sanctum will be my option for most fights (I've actually been using it on a few fights even now, replacing penance/smite). Regarding IF a fair bit of the raids this tier have had physical raid damage (force and verve, wind-lord, etc) where it can be useful. PoM glyph can as you stated be useful for tankhealing or in fights where it doesn't bounce much (ideally you don't want to use pom then, but we don't have 'that' many spells to use while moving). PW:S is an output increase, and especially with high crit (the heal can crit, and also creates an aegis) it's situationally useful (and allows you to proc rapture easier, I use it on wote and garalon hc for that reason). If an extra range glyph will come in handy depends a lot on the fights next tier, but that we are forced to get closer than other healers could be a bad thing depending on the mechanics. Fade is another glyph that has some use (simlair to IS/IF).

I agree that all but IS/IF/fade (you can always use one of them depending on what kind of raid damage is going out) are very situational, but either way you'll always have at least 3 useful glyphs on each fight. I feel like most classes have really boring glyphs in mop though, since blizzard knows that any glyph with a big impact instantly becomes mandatory.

[Turocry]

holy priest is viable on this patch ? or discipline continues to be the better ?

[Sevyvia]

Holy Priest is viable, but you'd be better off bringing practically any other class in its stead outside of Tsulong. And Disc is way better than Holy, anyway. At least for the current patch.

[Rivelle]

Holy Priest is viable, but you'd be better off bringing practically any other class in its stead outside of Tsulong. And Disc is way better than Holy, anyway. At least for the current patch.

I'm curious...judging from attempting discipline on LFR Tsulong I can tell holy is superior for that fight, but my guild made our first attempts at normal mode Garalon last night and it just didn't feel like I was pumping out enough healing in discipline for it. I changed to holy for that fight and even though it felt rusty/clunky I felt like I was getting more done.

Is there a trick to doing Garalon as disc or is holy just as good for that fight?

[Sevyvia]

The trick is the same trick you use on every other fight. Spirit Shell on cooldown (Or time it with a crush if you can), PoH on everybody for absorbs + healing. Cascade + PoM when you have to move. That's what I do, anyway (And I don't at all claim to be top 3 world RL PvP PvE RP Disc Priest, but I'm not awul), and it generally keeps me topping the charts.

Personally, other than its mana troubles, I genuinely don't think Holy is bad. It's middle of the pack, perhaps trailing a bit behind, but not much. It's just that when it has to measure up to Disc's absorbs, it shrivels. Holy unquestionably provides more green numbers. So if you're fine for absorbs but need more actual healing, then Holy is probably a better choice. On Tsulong, Holy is better because it can buff the other (Better than Priest) healers on Tsulong with Guardian Spirit, not because of the healing. Aura-damage like Garalon and Tsulong Night phase will eat your Divine Aegis (And Spirit Shell) first, so Disc is still fine on Tsulong. If you don't need the Guardian Spirit buff on Tsulong healing, you may as well stay Disc.

[HeatM1ser]

I've always been shadow, but my guild needs a DPSer with a healing OS...so I'm speccing disc for heals...what I was wondering is: I thought I saw other disc priest send out bubbles to a group all at once instead of individual Power Word: Shields....am I correct, or were these disc priests just fast with bubbling people?

[Velosi]

I've always been shadow, but my guild needs a DPSer with a healing OS...so I'm speccing disc for heals...what I was wondering is: I thought I saw other disc priest send out bubbles to a group all at once instead of individual Power Word: Shields....am I correct, or were these disc priests just fast with bubbling people?

HeatM1ser,

Right now (5.1) if you cast Prayer of Healing on a group, it gives them a bubble. You can also shield people with Spirit Shell.

[HeatM1ser]

ah...then I need to figure out how to shield them with spirit shell