Coping as a new Disc Priest in LFR

[Deleted]

Hey just looking for a little advice and any pointers.
My char is Xcentia on Saurfang Oceanic Can't link yet, if anyone wants an armory.

Having recently hit 90, I started my best to gear up, scenarios -> Heroics -> LFR and having recently acquired the iLvl for LFR and done them for this week I found a few problems.
Firstly I only aim to do LFR(not normals etc) as my internet/Laptop are rubbish(Situational but won't change for a while) due to getting low FPS in LFR and high MS I am trying to come up with a strategy to be of most help to the raid.
Having read up on the bosses to get a rough idea what to expect etc, I tried to follow the guides on how best to switch between atonement and shielding etc as needed but with the (im just going to blanket ms and fps together as Lag) lag that I am experiencing I cant seem to be effective, having a GCD feeling like its 2second is a struggle!

So apart from the "Stop burdening everyone else" thoughts is there a best way to combat this? I'm currently Keeping PWS on the tanks then shielding various groups really early for the predictable damage. Using Divine star on CD pretty much, and penancing either tanks or low raid members after I've shielded. Shell on melee usually before an aoe(not getting best use out of this yet, trying to be better)
The other option I guess is to just to do damage and let atonement heal up those that are needed, PWS tanks and Divine star on CD.

In heroics I seem to not do too bad as fps higher, and unless I miss a cd or the tank is crazy we get by fine. This has improved greatly from when i first did a heroic as a fresh 90, the ilvl increase has helped mostly in the regen department as I can now aford to spam heal the tank in a high damage situation when before i was oom before i knew it. Usuallyjust atonement heal, with PWS and the odd GHeal on tank.

I guess im asking if any of you play/played with bad fps/ms reguarly and how you dealt with it.
Thanks for any hints or tips

[Siri]

You seem to have the game plan down at least so I'll just provide what help I can in regards to the "lag" you're having.

Personally I don't consider high ms to be much of an issue as long as it is not above 400 or so, the problem is if your ms is not only high but also fluctuates a lot. It's important to realize that you can actually queue up your next spell before your previous GCD has expired. I'm going to assume you're playing with some kind of tool to evaluate numbers. If that tool is Recount, try Skada, it's more lightweight. If you're already using Skada then try disabling it and rely on others to provide numbers for you. Really, any addon that runs through the combat log (this also includes any scrolling battle text addon) is a bad idea. If you're not using any such addons then you'll probably just have to get used to it.

[Frederick]

I used to play on a US server from Europe with around 300ms, so I feel your pain. I don't think you should worry about burdening anybody else, but the main thing is to make sure you're always casting, no matter what. I dealt with playing with bad ms by turning graphics as far down as possible and abusing the spell queue - you can queue up spells as your old spell is finishing.

[Deleted]

I used to play on a US server from Europe with around 300ms, so I feel your pain. I don't think you should worry about burdening anybody else, but the main thing is to make sure you're always casting, no matter what. I dealt with playing with bad ms by turning graphics as far down as possible and abusing the spell queue - you can queue up spells as your old spell is finishing.

following up from what people have mentioned, there is an option if you go into interface>Combat called "Custom Lag Tolerance" and you can set it to what you want, now if it's your first time using that DO NOT just set it to your current MS, play around see what feels the most comfortable and making use of the spell queue system.

The smartest way of dealing with a lag as a healer is practicing the fight. knowing when damage is gonna come and queueing up heals for it.

[Deleted]

Thank you all so much, did the next wings of lfr today after disabling Skada for actually a marked increase in fps. Just running Healbot and bartender now.
Got a friend to report how I was doing and I know one run isnt a proper test etc but the numbers and my contribution was meaningful, finally actually felt like i was actually contributing!
Did a heroic after with ~600 MS and had issues with queing. read your posts and now it all makes sense! Still breezed through the dungeon though, yay for geaed tanks lol.
Just found the latency bar, and will play with that just now because I had heard of spell queing but it never seemed to work very well(I didnt have it enabled lol)
I feel good about this now, I know its just LFR but thats where i'm at and it matters to me.
Thankyou all for your help, my playing enjoyment has jumped up tenfold!
/bow

[Tidezen]

The nice thing about playing Disc in high lag, is that you can use atonement and shields with hardly any drawback. It's almost like a dps rotation, with very few reactives (in LFR I mean). Smite spam, HF on cooldown, keep shielding the tank, and you can buy A LOT of extra time to react to situations, with all your passive healing/mitigation. PoM on CD gives you a somewhat decent blanket too, and penance even (although I'd probably save at least one big gun for a reactive).

Once you get the fights down in LFR, you know when the damage is soon to come, and since it's a 25-man, you can let other healers do the emergency stuff, while you focus on smart- and preventative healing. The biggest thing for high-latency healers is mana management, since you're going to be wasting mana on some overhealing, and spending casts on, say, flash heal when a greater heal would've worked if only you could see it coming sooner. You just have to realize that, in a multi-healer situation, others will snipe your heals much more often in a high-lag situation. So focus on your strengths instead, focus on your shields and atonement, which, properly used, will not be wasted.

In short, trust in your other healers, and play in such a way that your heals will not go to waste, and you should be successful, even if you never top the numbers game.

Cheers, good luck.