can disc be reactive?

[pkm]

What if you missed a shield on someone and after they get hit then throw a shield on them and then let the high healing classes put him back up. I'm only use to reactive healing so I'm sure I'll be running into this situation frequently.

[Thirteen]

Well sure you can, but if you're doing it there's really no point in playing disc. Being proactive is one of the biggest reasons disc is always so strong.

[Deleted]

Well sure you can, but if you're doing it there's really no point in playing disc. Being proactive is one of the biggest reasons disc is always so strong.

Difference between good disc priest and bad one is that latter only relies on bubbles

[kheath812]

Difference between good disc priest and bad one is that latter only relies on bubbles

difference between a good disc priest and a bad one is that a good one knows how strong their shield actually is.

[Biomega]

PvE healing is almost entirely proactive by nature. Boss fights are essentially large scripted events, and you have a VERY good idea of what is going to happen next. Planning your healing around that is a big part of being a good healer. Healing reactively either means you're in uncharted waters (i.e. have never seen the fight before), are facing a highly RNG mechanic (can't think of one in current content), or are simply poor at planning ahead (in which case you now know what you need to work on!).

PvP healing is a different matter entirely of course.

[CorpShephard]

Yeah.

If you are throwing out a shield and you don't know what damage is going to break it then you probably shouldn't throw that shield out. You should have a purpose in mind for each PW:S that you cast. Otherwise you will do a lot of "overhealing" with your shields.

If you're adjusting then you could consider the Glyph of Power Word Shield. This makes your Shields do 20% less absorb, but have a 20% heal to compensate. Technically speaking it reduces your wasted reactive healing by 20%. Even if the target takes no damage after you shield then you at least healed him a little.

This is just a band-aid though that will make you weaker at the disc niche. You should learn to use preventative bubbles against boss attacks. It's the right way to do things.

[Tygerlily177]

There are some situations where you will reactively shield someone. For example, if a DPS takes a large random hit (bomb, fire, etc.) and is about to die. They may never take another hit, but the shield ensures that they stay alive in the event that they do take another hit.

That being said, playing entirely in this manner means that a lot of shields go to waste. A good UI with encounter timers (breath, blast, acid torrent, etc.) and debuff tracking (rend, blazing radiance, volatile fire, etc.) will ensure that you get the full benefit from your shields. You will either blanket the raid for an incoming AoE ability or will shield players who get a debuff. Both methods are proactive.

[PosPosPos]

What if you missed a shield on someone and after they get hit then throw a shield on them and then let the high healing classes put him back up. I'm only use to reactive healing so I'm sure I'll be running into this situation frequently.

You could do that, but definitely attempt to learn how the preshield timings as disc for all fights.

Disc is 80% preparation+theorycrafting and 20% mechanical skill+reaction timing.

Do your homework on fight mechanic intervals and adjust your UI to show you the timings intuitively and you can easily achieve >80 percentiles as a disc.

[Genzen Han]

Yeah, we have a shadow priest who very rarely has to switch to heals when our other healers aren't around, and he plays disc like I do. Naturally, given his lack of experience, he kinda 'sees the damage' and then reacts to it. I give him tips and he does try to blanket with PWS as well (even 'at random' blanketing is fairly decent performance from an off-spec). He actually likes to run *shudder* Saving Grace *shudder* because it's good for reactive healing (I've told him it's bad etc).

My advice would be, if you want to be reactive, go Holy, or if you want to be disc but can't 'get the hang' of being proactive, you can spec into CoW and spam that on your tanks as much as possible, since it rarely goes to waste there, and the stability it provides will allow your other healers to focus more on raid-healing. Failing that, just shield spam whomever, whenever - it'll still work out well enough if you're not running Mythic content.

[Deleted]

A good [Insert any Healing class] should not only know his own strengths and flaws, but also that of [insert every other healing class]. He should be aware of what not to heal and rely on the healer in his Party which is doing better on this.

Proactive healing is the one strength of the disc priest. The other one is that you can always determine which target is getting heal since you are not using smart heals. That results in the ability to harmonize overall raid hitpoints (e.g. by shielding a low target and let every one else drop on that same level of HP) to enable very other healer in this raid (special attention to monks uplift) who can not determine exactly what to heal to be more efficient. I'd say that's pretty reactive.

[Java]

What if you missed a shield on someone and after they get hit then throw a shield on them and then let the high healing classes put him back up. I'm only use to reactive healing so I'm sure I'll be running into this situation frequently.

Yes, select talents saving grace and solace. Use mostly flash heal, saving grace, penance and heal. It isn't as effective as shield spamming but it works great if you have too many disc priests.

[Haywire5714]

You are rewarded for proactive play with any healer so in that sense I wouldn't consider any healer to be reactive. However as a disc priest you are rewarded and punished more for your proactive play or lack thereof.

[PosPosPos]

You are rewarded for proactive play with any healer so in that sense I wouldn't consider any healer to be reactive. However as a disc priest you are rewarded and punished more for your proactive play or lack thereof.

Not really, as a throughput healer you still need to wait for raid damage to land before you can heal. Like sure, you can be, to a limited extent, proactive and try to cast big heals right as raid damage mechanics are resolving and land the heal instantly after the damage hits, but it's still reactive.

[Biomega]

Even non-absorb healing is to a large extent proactive in PvE. Just because you hold off on your spells until people have taken damage doesn't mean you don't do what you planned to do regardless of what happened; it's not that common to be surprised by incoming damage, outside of someone being a silly goose and stepping into the poo-poo.

I suppose you could quibble about the definitions of proactive and reactive in this respect. To me, reactive still means changing what you do based on what you see is happening, while proactive means doing what you do because of what you expect to be happening. That doesn't necessarily mean ahead of time - it just means that you have a plan, instead of adapting ad-hoc.

[Nythiz]

Not really, as a throughput healer you still need to wait for raid damage to land before you can heal. Like sure, you can be, to a limited extent, proactive and try to cast big heals right as raid damage mechanics are resolving and land the heal instantly after the damage hits, but it's still reactive.

As former Resto Shaman (one of the MOST reactive healers) I can say that mastering your proactive skills goes a long way into making you a better healer.

Making sure that you have a Healing Rain down on the melee before a cleave, or a healing stream totem down at the right times; or having your buff (e.g. Tidal Waves) up so that your reactive heals get that extra umph; is a big part in being a better healer as well.

I think that proactive healer and reactive healer are too often misinterpreted into being a bit too black and white, when it's more a darker and lighter shade of gray :P

[Thirteen]

Not really, as a throughput healer you still need to wait for raid damage to land before you can heal. Like sure, you can be, to a limited extent, proactive and try to cast big heals right as raid damage mechanics are resolving and land the heal instantly after the damage hits, but it's still reactive.

Eh, I hear what you're saying, but it's not like playing a non-disc is just 100% whack-a-mole on the raid frames. You've also got to know when the damage is coming and save your spells with a CD (CoH, PoM, Cascade, etc.) for then. With disc, you have to know the damage patterns because PWS only lasts so long. With the other healers (I can only speak for holy, but I assume it's like that for a lot) you have to know it so you can time your cooldowns. Two sides of the same coin.

edit: okay, just read the other posts before mine. Beaten to the punch qq

[Java]

Eh, I hear what you're saying, but it's not like playing a non-disc is just 100% whack-a-mole on the raid frames.

I haven't played holy paladin in a while but last time I tried it was pure whack-a-mole.

[MegaVolti]

Get a healthy mix. And make sure you see debuffs on your raid frames.

Often enough a boss will cast some type of DoT on a player. He will take initial damage but he will also keep taking damage over time. In that case it's totally fine to simply react to the DoT application and put a shield on him.

Generally you just don't want your shields to expire without getting used. That's why you cast them on people you expect to be taking damage. It doesn't really matter whether they got damaged already or not. If there is constant raid wide damage going out you can pretty much shield whoever you want. If you don't know who will get damaged shield random people (might as well target those that are currently at low HP) is fine, too.

Most encounters have some form of AoE damage so that it's pretty much impossible to pick a wrong target and waste a shield.

[Deleted]

No.

10chars

[Deleted]

The way you think is correct, I'd not count on Kromag for example to leave anyone bellow 50% without a shield, especially that we 3-4 heal that fight depending.