Page 1 of 2
1
2
LastLast
  1. #1

    Advice for our Disc Priest

    Hey guys and gals, we're a 10 man guild currently progressing in Garrosh. We tried two healing with a Mist weaver and Disc Priest but it proved to be problematic. Unfortunately I didn't think to log until our last attempt which is here
    http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-ot4vbcjkv10htbhd/

    Is this fight possible to heal as Disc secondary? Or would holy be better? I feel like we NEED to two heal it, but wondering if someone could take a look and maybe see what he should be doing better. Not sure if this is just a trade off of Disc's DPS or what. Thanks!
    Last edited by kidstechno; 2013-11-06 at 08:07 PM.

  2. #2
    You basically do need to two heal it, it's not worth 3 healing honestly. Disc is strong, and with a MW monk, a Holy might struggle (ReM on all the things kinda devalues both gearing strats of Holy-- Renew or EoL).

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

    Here is the armory of this priest, for anyone looking.

    Now:

    Gearing--

    1) Way too much Spirit. He's losing a significant portion of effectiveness by gearing for spirit. He has over 15k with the meta gem. Now, he doesn't have HLG (at least, not equiped) and the trinkets he does have are weak for Disc. That's okay though, 15k is still far too much. Ideally he should drop to 10-11k without regen trinks to provide him a safe barrier in 10m assuming no mana cd.s

    2) He needs to be gearing for Crit. He's nearly the same ilvl as me. I have 13k crit and 11k mastery. He has 7k crit, which is way too low for this tier. He passed the "switch to crit" point a LONG time ago. Red sockets should be int/crit, blue sockets should be spir/crit, yellow should be crit. His spellthread should also be crit/int rather than spirit.

    3) Divine Insight is fairly weak IF you compare it with the option-- Twist of Fate. On Garrosh you can have quite the uptime on ToF just by switching to adds and gaming the uptime. I have a 50-60% uptime, which is a HUGE increase in healing over the span of the fight.

    ---------------

    Logs:

    1) He isn't using Penance or HF on CD. This is evident by his... honestly, pathetic, Evangelism uptime (29.4 %). It should be significantly higher. At least 80%. He used HF once in 11 minutes. Smite 8 times. This is absolutely unacceptable. He must use atonement to access Evangelism and thus Archangel. He needs to use Archangel on CD. This will happen if he uses Penance and HF on CD with the occasional Smite filler.

    2) He used infer focus 2 times in 11 minutes. It needs to be used at least 1 per minute (or 1.5 minutes depending on Sprit Shell usage roughly. Anyways more than he does, by a lot) to super buff SS, but honestly he could use it to build a GH DA shell on the MT.

    3) He has the 4pc but never uses AA. Like, at all. And certainly not on CD (using it on CD is an effective 6% crit increase). Probably because he doesn't effectively/if ever use atonement.

    4) He's not even using every free PW: S he could get. He was using PW: S roughly every 20 seconds as opposed to 13. Which is odd because he's taking the talent that allows him to circumvent the debuff from PW: S so you would expect his PW: S to be more of his healing.

    5) Everytime he uses penance as a defensive heal, he's screwing over you raid if you're hitting an enrage timer. There's no nice way to say it. Should Penance be used to direct heal? In emergency situations ONLY. He was using it primarily as a heal. If he was using it offensively, he'd not only be using the strongest smart AoE we have, but he'd be providing damage to the raid.

    6) Unbind renew. Forever.

    7) His FH usage is far too high. It's a waste.

    8) Probably because he doesn't use atonement very much at all, his PoH is very high (84.3 %). He needs to basically only use PoH to apply DA from Inner Focus or to apply Spirit Shell. This is just a waste.

    9) He's not taking full advantage of his lucidity procs. He needs to use a WA to track it, he can squeeze 2-3 PW: S in this window which is a lot of free healing and when it lines up with Rapture returns mana back to him at no cost.

    Long story short, he's not BRINGING dps because he's not playing his class correctly.

    His eDPS on that fight: 5887.1
    Mine when pushing DPS was relevent for us: 48k-67.5k depending (Legendary DPS cloak equiped, plus Glyph of Smite is the 67k figure)
    Last edited by Sillychan; 2013-10-30 at 01:12 PM.

  3. #3
    Hey Naer,

    I've been giving the whole AA on CD a lot of thought and was wondering if there was any math behind this. I'll often get into situations where I know high damage is coming up so I'll hold onto AA, so that I can use it with Spirit Shell and than halo after the damage goes out. I'd much rather have 25% extra healing there than just during a low damage atonement spot.

    Also to take into consideration is the mana cost of using AA. You are giving up the 30% reduced mana cost on your atonement spam thus increasing the necessary spirit to maintain mana until the end of the fight and also giving up those potential secondary stats to increase the heals when they matter. And of course the 10% crit from 2pc makes atonement healing more effective, but it also scales well with SS and Halo so you're giving up of a lot of healing if AA has faded and on CD when you need to use those abilities.

    Also what's the advantage of using HF on CD if you are able to cast smite? I've been doing it this whole expansion, but with the switch to ToF as the go to talent this tier, I've been considering holding onto holy fire specifically for ToF so I can instantly hit an add that's below the 35% threshold without having to worry if it will die before a smite cast gets off.
    Last edited by MattCauthron; 2013-10-30 at 05:13 PM.

  4. #4
    HF is more hpm iirc, plus when you switch to an add at say, 35%, you can have it ticking and activate ToF. HF and Penance are more effective for atonement than smite. Casting smite is kinda like casting heal. It's good "atonement" practices to choose penance >= HF > smite because of the relative cost vs effectiveness. Obviously offensive penance, coming out of the other end like a smart AoE heal is the most potent. But HF quite good.

    Remember that AA is available for 18 seconds. So when waiting for damage to "happen" (which, I might add, isn't as big of an issue this tier. There's is literally always something to heal it seems), the thing you're waiting for needs to be outside of that timeframe. With that being said, with the 2pc, assuming perfect uptime, you get 6% extra crit throughout the fight. That's a huge deal. Once you get the 2pc, you need to be using AA on CD.

    I hit AA nearly on CD (I'm far from perfect) and run with 7-8k spirit with no amp trinket and no current tier regen trink. The need to have low cost smite spam is GENERALLY outweighed by the need to heal and gain the 2pc buff. That being said if you're a 3rd healer in a 10m group, I suppose I could see you holding it, but honestly most fights could just be 2 healed anyways.

    tl;dr cast AA on CD if you have the 2pc with no exceptions. Without the 2pc, try not to hold onto it longer than a few seconds, because remember you have 18 seconds to use up AA anyways. It's not like you cast it and it's gone. This tier isn't oging to penalize you like ToT did for not having AA up at the correct times. Most of the fights have some pulsating damage or heavy tank damage where it won't go to waste. Don't be a drone and hit it on CD unless you have the 2pc. But don't sacrifice your uptime either.

    It's a delicate balance.
    Last edited by Sillychan; 2013-10-30 at 05:23 PM.

  5. #5
    I wonder if this balance is different from a 10 man vs 25 man perspective. I see your reasoning but due how the scaling nature of our spells, I lose A LOT of healing if I don't have AA up for when I need to use halo that is going to hit 25 people. I run with 10k Spirit on 25 man and though on some fights I'm fine, other times I'm scraping the barrel at the very end (It doesn't help that we have anywhere from 0 to 2 shamans depending on what healers we bring in, and of course I'd rather be scraping the barrel than end with 50% mana) which makes that 30% mana reduction on evangelism more important for those mana tight fights.

    My WA for AA now just has it on the Derevka cascading CD bar of all our abilities but possibly I'll make a separate WA to see if it really is off CD all that often. I find myself begging for it to come off CD most of the time anyways, so I may be using it all the time anyways.

    Thanks for the reply. It's just so hard to compare 10 man to 25 man sometimes.
    Last edited by MattCauthron; 2013-10-30 at 05:36 PM.

  6. #6
    I'm 25m, for reference.

    I rarely oom, even on heroic iron juggernaut. But we've been 4.5 healing (hybrid caster filling the 5th spot with their healing OS) which has made it harder to stay afloat.

    It's no problem. In 10m, I'd be even MORE concerned with the usage of AA. You need to be aware that yes you bring damage that is much needed, but don't forsake your healing for it.
    Last edited by Sillychan; 2013-10-30 at 05:43 PM.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by MattCauthron View Post
    I wonder if this balance is different from a 10 man vs 25 man perspective. I see your reasoning but due how the scaling nature of our spells, I lose A LOT of healing if I don't have AA up for when I need to use halo that is going to hit 25 people. I run with 10k Spirit on 25 man and though on some fights I'm fine, other times I'm scraping the barrel at the very end (It doesn't help that we have anywhere from 0 to 2 shamans depending on what healers we bring in, and of course I'd rather be scraping the barrel than end with 50% mana) which makes that 30% mana reduction on evangelism more important for those mana tight fights.

    My WA for AA now just has it on the Derevka cascading CD bar of all our abilities but possibly I'll make a separate WA to see if it really is off CD all that often. I find myself begging for it to come off CD most of the time anyways, so I may be using it all the time anyways.

    Thanks for the reply. It's just so hard to compare 10 man to 25 man sometimes.
    I concur with this as a 25m raider. I'm using AA Halo on meta gem procs (AA+Halo>PWS) and it just hits so many people for so much (and the DA is amazing on it) that not taking advantage of AA with it feels wrong. Also, I'm getting enough meta gem procs that I'm not really losing that many AA uses anyway.

    Just my 2 cents. I'm open to math showing the other approach is better.
    "I don't always play my warlock, but when I do, I prefer destruction."
    - The Most Interesting Player in the World . . . of Warcraft

  8. #8
    AA should nearly always line up with Halo if used on CD.

    You use AA + Halo
    AA comes back up 30 seconds later. Hit AA
    Hit Halo when Halo comes off CD (10 seconds into AA).

    Am I missing something?
    Last edited by Sillychan; 2013-10-30 at 05:53 PM.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Naer View Post
    AA should nearly always line up with Halo if used on CD.

    You use AA + Halo
    AA comes back up 30 seconds later. Hit AA
    Hit Halo when Halo comes off CD and AA will still be up (with 3 seconds to spare)

    Am I missing something?
    Are you using Halo on CD or on meta gem procs? I'm using it on CD with meta gem procs or if we really need the healing. So it doesn't always line up.

    I'll pay closer attention to it and see if I'm really doing anything different than you're saying or just feel like I am (sometimes sitting here at work it's hard to review these things).
    "I don't always play my warlock, but when I do, I prefer destruction."
    - The Most Interesting Player in the World . . . of Warcraft

  10. #10
    I generally save my meta proc for PW: S spam to be honest, more likely to line up with rapture which since i run ultra low spirit is a big part of my gameplay. If I want Halo DA, I generally want it NOW, you know?

    I'm sure both ways are effective, but using AA on CD increases your theoretical maximum healing under ideal conditions.

    And, well, we all know, we do not heal in ideal conditions.
    Honestly, if you're using AA and keeping a 40-50% uptime you're probably fine. A lot of min/max is lost in the real environment.

    The OP's priest wasn't using it at all.
    Last edited by Sillychan; 2013-10-30 at 06:10 PM.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Naer View Post
    AA should nearly always line up with Halo if used on CD.

    You use AA + Halo
    AA comes back up 30 seconds later. Hit AA
    Hit Halo when Halo comes off CD (10 seconds into AA).

    Am I missing something?
    Well if you run that math one more iteration, halo will come up again 2 seconds after AA falls off and then they should both come up again for your 4th halo. So you would (If used perfectly on CD) lose one halo with AA up out of every 3.

    Here's where you run into the issues though, halo used randomly is great, but it's MOST effective either right before a big damage hit (If the raid potentially needs the extra HP barrier or isn't stable before the damage spike) or even more effectively right afterwards especially if damage continues on the raid after the spike. That's all great on paper but most fights don't have big spike hits of damage that revolve around our 40 seconds timer (Aka Sha of Pride, and I always want Halo up when he does his AoE so I have to hold it). Being forced to sit on Halo for an upcoming AoE means that it becomes more difficult to reliably line it up with AA if popped on CD (it's not up about 35% of the time when used on CD)

    You also run into the issue of merely trying to pump up HPS when other healers could easily heal up the damage (Aka using AA when you are purely doing atonement... sure it helps your HPS, but at the cost of hurting other healers who would easily pick up the low sporadic damage) and possibly gimping yourself when the BIG damage happens and you need all your CDs up to get the raid up ASAP to prevent unnecessary deaths.

    This is why I love disc priest. Holy is fun but there's not nearly as much forward thinking. I suppose for fights like Sha with perfect timers you could theoretically plan out your optimal AA use... on fights like Nazgrim when you never know when a warcry is just around the corner it's much more difficult and you just have to wing it every week.
    Last edited by MattCauthron; 2013-10-30 at 06:28 PM.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Naer View Post
    4) He's not even using every free PW: S he could get. He was using PW: S roughly every 20 seconds as opposed to 13. Which is odd because he's taking the talent that allows him to circumvent the debuff from PW: S so you would expect his PW: S to be more of his healing.


    6) Unbind renew. Forever.

    7) His FH usage is far too high. It's a waste.

    8) Probably because he doesn't use atonement very much at all, his PoH is very high (84.3 %). He needs to basically only use PoH to apply DA from Inner Focus or to apply Spirit Shell. This is just a waste.


    His eDPS on that fight: 5887.1
    Mine when pushing DPS was relevent for us: 48k-67.5k depending (Legendary DPS cloak equiped, plus Glyph of Smite is the 67k figure)
    I totally agree with Naer on basically every point made. A few things I'll add or show with my logs from 25m kill: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=3066&e=3120

    As to 4) He did use 9 PW:S during a weakened soul with his talent choice of DI, but only 4 were on tanks(2 each). I actually do take the DI talent. I take DI completely to keep tanks up and mostly during phase 1 while moving for weapons. During progression we were losing tanks too frequently in phase one and that talent switched fixed that. Now we are better with the fight in general I will be going back to ToF. For your Disc, when you drop to two heals if you are having issues with tank deaths during movement, DI could be correct for him, but he would have to by using it more and on tanks. Otherwise I would recommend ToF like Naer said.

    As to 6) You will see 6 renew ticks on my logs. Those are from a renew I put on tank as he is running in before the pull. I never use it again and would never use it during combat. Renew for disc is garbage.

    As to 7 & 8)Yep too high. I suspect his feeling the need for 16k spirit is because he is casting Fheal and PoH way too much. I do not cast any direct healing spells. The only defensive time I use a healing spell is PoH during SS or IF for DA's(very rarely a G Heal w/ IF is tank needs a CD, but non are available). If he or she were doing all their healing with the surprisingly smart Atonement healz they could as stated drop to under 11k spirit(or less MOAR CRIT).

    And reference what dps he could be doing. Without smite glyph or DPS cloak I did 57k eDPS(94k DPS). My gear is quite similar to his and at only 557 ilevle. If you see a disc doing under 35k eDPSin(60k DPS) with that gear lvl they are not understanding the power of atonement.

    ***Oh and one note about that kill I DCed for one complete transition in ToES so my numbers are actually a bit lower then they should be. Extra 5k hps and better up times on things like AA (50% to my 45%).
    Last edited by Brightstar of Korgath; 2013-10-30 at 06:45 PM. Reason: Spelling & Grammer

  13. #13
    Banned Illiterate's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Feb 2012
    Location
    US-Emerald Dream
    Posts
    3,047
    It amazes me how far some ppl can get carried without knowing a single thing about their class.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Illiterate View Post
    It amazes me how far some ppl can get carried without knowing a single thing about their class.
    Eh, it's likely he switched over from Holy (as indicated by his playstyle) or just hasn't kept up with patch notes. Heavy mastery PoH spam was the way to win earlier in this expansion.

  15. #15
    a bit off topic, but having shaman with riptide above chain heal, must be some new trend

    as for the priest - agree with Naer, looks like he is used to playing holy, spamming poh (84% ovearheal....), ds (72% overheal) and single target heals (above 40% overheal). all this overheal is with ~25% crit and 2 set and ZERO archangels used.
    we used to have a good method to make ppl overheal less - make them play with minimum spirit, then they will learn to adjust spells usage better. i know know, so harsh >.>

    He has to change a bit to more atonement, penance offensively (with life-saving exceptions ofc), archangel on cd, spam more shields.

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by kidstechno View Post
    Is this fight possible to heal as Disc secondary? Or would holy be better? I feel like we NEED to two heal it, but wondering if someone could take a look and maybe see what he should be doing better. When we do three heal he's far far below the other two. Not sure if this is just a trade off of Disc's DPS or what. Thanks!
    It's 100% possible. Mistweaver/Disc is a great combo because it brings both heavy HPS through AoE/hots and boosted effective health. It's a lot like Druid/Disc, which is what my group runs. Naer in his second post is right on the money; your priest is not doing everything correctly.

    Here's my stat priority: Spirit (to 10k) > Crit > Haste > Mastery > Spirit. This setup works for me on the mana side. Divine Aegis is so exceptionally strong; he needs to gem crit and consider full crit gems when the socket bonus is Spirit or Mastery. He absolutely needs to WeakAura Lucidity if he's not. The buffed Twist of Fate is pretty easy to get high uptime out of; it's my go-to in that tier unless I'm doing a lot of Atonement (Power Infusion) or explicitly on tank healing (Divine Insight).

    If your priestly type can fix up his stats, spell priority, and mana management, I expect you guys will do just fine. Holy isn't a good idea unless you're crazy good and solo healing, or are partnered with a Disc or Paladin.

    Edit: He might also consider Power Word: Solace if he's not already using it. I find it easier to justify hitting on cooldown than Holy Fire thanks to the mana return (instead of mana cost). With the 2pc set bonus, Archangel on cooldown is an absolute must. One last thing; I don't really like 4pc whilst Disc. Great for Holy, but I prefer crit/spirit or crit/haste off-set pieces. That might just be me though.
    Last edited by Felshatner; 2013-11-01 at 05:13 PM.

  17. #17
    Why would you EVER prioritize haste over mastery?

    I am honestly curious.

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Naer View Post
    Why would you EVER prioritize haste over mastery?

    I am honestly curious.
    I believe I am under-valuing Mastery because I misunderstood how Spirit Shell interacts with it. I'll play with Mastery > Haste this weekend as I suspect I'm shooting myself in the foot on this one.

    This priority change results in the following changes for my character:
    - Mastery: 25.58% to 31.68%
    - Haste: 10.79% to 5.27%
    Last edited by Felshatner; 2013-11-01 at 06:34 PM.

  19. #19
    Mastery is also amazing since you value crit so highly. You'll probably already see your DA so high up because of all of your crits, so just imagine how much Mastery will benefit that as well. Haste is also a mana sink, so it could potentially require you to have more spirit and less crit/mastery forged onto your gear.

  20. #20
    Thanks very much for your feedback.

    Here's some more logs of a full night of some, if not mostly two heals if you'd like to look. Might be a better overall view. Save the herp derping on Siegecrafter to end the night.

    http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-9qzdmiubbfufg2xr/

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •