[Disc] Low active time

[Deleted]

Hello healers,

I was looking over the logs of our Disc priest and noticed his active time was quite low, 84%. I've seen this for him on other fights as well. I was wondering if Disc is known to have a low active time or if there's something he could improve on? He's low on healing compared to other disc priests so any advice for him would be much appreciated.

Council of Elders Log:
http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-n1...?s=7097&e=7516

[Shahad]

I remember looking into the active time thing sometime in Cata, and from what I remember it's because WoL separates dps and healing active times. And since Disc spends a considerable amount of time dpsing for Atonement healing, it lowers the healing active time.

Now, for some tips.
It looks like he could use Spirit Shell a bit more, or use it more effectively. On my own logs I have much more Spirit Shell absorption. Is he covering both groups with it or just one?

He seems to have a lot of his healing come from prayer of mending, which is not something I can see on my own logs. But at the time of our kill I did not have the set bonus so that might influence it. What I can see though is that he isn't using PW:S as much as he could. I casted it 34 times on our kill and he casted it 16. PW:S is a very potent spell and it's usage should definitely be higher.

His Halo healing is also quite low. My Cascades did twice as much healing as his Halo, and Cascade isn't that good because the raid is often stacked up. His Atonement healing is also a bit low compared to mine. It seems like he could Archangel a lot more as well. I usually use it almost on CD and couple it with Spirit Shell half the time, unless there is a specific mechanic it's needed for.

Here are my logs for our first kill: http://worldoflogs.com/reports/btc4g...?s=3709&e=4159
Later logs with 4pc and Halo, no 600 cloak: http://worldoflogs.com/reports/ull8w...?s=4241&e=4688
Bear in mind I'm far from the best priest, but I hope this helps at least a little.

Edit: I just noticed you have a Holy paladin in your raid as well. Holy paladins reduce the amount of healing other classes do because of Illuminated Healing and stuff, so that has to be factored in as well.

I took a look at your priest's armory as well and we seem to have a similar gearing strategy, although he has better gear (need to enchant those glove though!).
Eramagmi: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...magmi/advanced
Shahada: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...ahada/advanced
(I might be in Shadow gear/spec depending on when you see this, but my healing set's ilvl is 533)

[Mazi]

WoL also considers time spent casting Spirit Shell as inactive time since nothing is actually being healed. It's weird and stupid. Disc's active time will always be lower.

[Noradin]

WoL also considers time spent casting Spirit Shell as inactive time since nothing is actually being healed. It's weird and stupid. Disc's active time will always be lower.

Which also makes their HpS appear higher since they divide healing/absorbs done by 'active time', or did they change this?
-> WoL is bad for directly comparing disc to other healing specs.

[Shahad]

Which also makes their HpS appear higher since they divide healing/absorbs done by 'active time', or did they change this?
-> WoL is bad for directly comparing disc to other healing specs.

That is still the case, but you can check the effective HPS which takes encounter length rather than active time to determine the value.

[Vrai]

Kevkul is incorrect in regards to atonement. In the expression editor, it is a HEAL event.

Noradin is sort of right but WoL is not bad for comparing Disc to anything, you just have to know what you're looking at.

andreas1999: Any period of 10 seconds where you do not register a HEAL event you become inactive. The same applies for DAMAGE events for dps. Each event starts a segment, if there is not another event within 10 seconds, that segment is closed and you are not considered active until a new one begins. At the end of the fight, all of the active segments are summed up. SS is unique to this expansion and has caused most of Disc's low uptimes because it does not count as a HEAL event. PW:S and DA are the same but DA always procs off of a heal to begin with. There's a post detailing this function on the WoL forums. On Tuesday this should be almost non-existent once SS is reduced to 10 seconds.

Your priest's uptime is not the issue though.

HPS is Healing/Active Time
HPS(e) is Healing/Combat Time

This causes Raw HPS to be inflated, because the Active Time is being reduced. HPS(e) is still accurate. The only other thing that kills uptime is of course if someone dies.

Here's the math:
Healing Done: 27,543,396
Active Time: 352.9s
Combat Time: 419.2s

HPS: 27,543,396 / 352.9 = 78,048 (WoL listed 78,045 but also it rounds decimals)
HPS(e): 27, 543, 396 / 419.2 = 65,704 (WoL lists 65,579)

The point to take away is to disregard raw HPS, look at total healing and effective HPS.

[snaxattax]

your disc isn't using anywhere near enough PWS. 16 PWS with 15 lucidity procs is atrocious. if you are casting any hardcast heals, you should be casting PWS instead.

4 archangel? your priest is doing nothing but atonement. you should be alternating archangel spirit shell and PWS spam every 30 sec. it smooths out damage a *ton* to be more proactive on absorbs.

[Noradin]

Noradin is sort of right but WoL is not bad for comparing Disc to anything, you just have to know what you're looking at.

This is why I included the word 'directly' in that sentence, because it is possible, but not without background knowledge. Its what people from Blizzard always point out when confronted with WoL data; WoL looks like it can be readily used to compare specs, but if you try it is much less precise than it seems. To get accurate comparisons you have to take the raw data from combat logs and do your own evaluation. Because we are lazy we get around that by simply including a margin of error we got from past experience, but people who just look at some logs of some spect (often for the first time) to try and find out what is wrong often can't do that.