LF Advice from more experienced Priests

[klaugh]

Using my current gear, in WoWHead profiler, switching talent specs and changing all yellow gems to SP+Int, plus a few of the Blue gems to SP+Int as well, keeping 1 blue SP+MP5 to keep my meta active, puts my (according to WoWHead profiler) at roughly 28.5k mana unbuffed, and ~3400 sp unbuffed, 22% haste unbuffed and 25% crit (without the holy crit +% from talent). This seems decent to me, not perfect, but decent, switching back to holy spec with that same gear, everything seems decent except the haste is a bit low, but I'd be staying Disc primarily, with Holy only really when/if needed.

Another question, about how Borrowed Time works exactly. If I cast PW:S, Borrowed Time procs, giving me 25% haste for my next spell, that doesn't apply to my actual haste number correct? Meaning it won't decrease my next GCD by whatever (albeit small) % that would decrease the GCD as if I had that much more haste, since I am not even close to the haste-GCD cap, it only would really apply to a casted heal, i.e. Greater Heal, Penance, Flash Heal, PoH?

WoWHead Profile - Current Gear - Gems Swapped -- I swapped out my current t9 shoulders for the 251 t10 shoulders, since I'm < 10 badges from them.

[Revitalize]

Wow, I was not aware that MP5 came out above Spirit by that much for Disc.

Thanks.

I have been looking to try Disc at the least, I'm playing around with WoWHead profiler with my current gear, swapping gemming and talents to see how it'll work out, will check out swapping SP+Spirit gems, using SP+MP5 for keeping my meta active and then maybe the others to SP+Int and checking stats of both holy and disc spec.

Thanks guys, don't stop though, I know I still have a lot to learn.

As for playstyle of Disc being more raid-oriented than tank-healing. My primary role would be PW:S on as many as possible, keeping Renews on tanks and PoM on CD, correct? PoH potentially, but rarely. Flashes to fill in any gaps when Weakened Soul is up on the people that need the healing?

Is weakened soul on the target? If no, cast.
Is Prayer of Mending on cooldown? If no, cast
Is Penance on cooldown? If no, cast
Is everything else on cooldown? If yes, filler flash heals.


Most of your bread an butter is power word shield.
To become an effective disc priest you have to learn how to predetermine damage with your shields.
Preventing damage is the best role a discipline priest has on tanks or the raid.

But as many have mentioned, having one discipline priest makes a well balanced raid.
Nobody has the ability we have with shielding/preventing damage other than us.

[Mystspecimen]

Is Penance on cooldown? If no, cast

I don't fully agree with this. Although Penance is the most mana efficient heal we've got, I mostly use it for when things go wrong, heavy damage is incoming (ofc, I'll use it when it lands) or when someone is targeted by some abi that needs quick response. Other than that, I try to keep Penance off CD, for these situation. This might not be ideal for you HPS, nor mana effiency (as I use FH instead, to fill those health bars), but it saves lifes on those occasions that Penance is used as an emergency-burst-heal.

Wrong. If you were saying the words "steady healing" to a druid, you'd be correct, or even a Disc if you were saying "steady pseudo healing". Priests are glorified whackamole with many tools to get the job done. They are the most bursty of the raid healers full stop.

You're right here, although you're there to keep everyone topped (thus a bit of steady healing) and preventing them from getting damage in your Disc role. You're not one to pump up your HPS in recount.

If you got any additional questions, I'd be happy to answers as good as I can. Although, I'm not that active anymore - but I still got over 5 years experience with the priest class as a healer

[Revitalize]

I don't fully agree with this. Although Penance is the most mana efficient heal we've got, I mostly use it for when things go wrong, heavy damage is incoming (ofc, I'll use it when it lands) or when someone is targeted by some abi that needs quick response. Other than that, I try to keep Penance off CD, for these situation. This might not be ideal for you HPS, nor mana effiency (as I use FH instead, to fill those health bars), but it saves lifes on those occasions that Penance is used as an emergency-burst-heal.

You're right here, although you're there to keep everyone topped (thus a bit of steady healing) and preventing them from getting damage in your Disc role. You're not one to pump up your HPS in recount.

If you got any additional questions, I'd be happy to answers as good as I can. Although, I'm not that active anymore - but I still got over 5 years experience with the priest class as a healer

I don't think you understood what I meant.
This is if someone is taking damage, and what spell you should prioritize.

[Mystspecimen]

I don't think you understood what I meant.
This is if someone is taking damage, and what spell you should prioritize.

For me, it's still depending on who's taking damage. A DPS that's taking random DMG from a random-targeted spell, will indeed get a shield if I can prevent the damage (or one for might it happen anytime soon before I think I can top him), and get a flash heal unless the damage is too heavy to cover in 2 flash heals (roughly).
I'd rather spare the CD on Penance for real life-saver, than using it to top people. And PoM always goes to the tank for me in raid-situations. Unless, for example on Deathbringer, one is taking damage when you actually know it, so the buff doesn't decay on the person (making PoM useless).

It's just a playstyle.

But you're correct, in general (think of MT-healing):
1. PW:S
2. PoM
3. Penance
4. Filler
And you might consider putting renew between 3 and 4, for MT healing (or even between 1 and 2 or 2 and 3, depending on playstyle ofc).

[klaugh]

So, I made the switch of my second spec yesterday, only had about 10 minutes, so I just did the spec change and set up my Clique and bars, I also got Dr.Damage recently, and I was wondering if anyone has any experience with this addon as Disc, is the number it gives for PW:S accurate? Mine was showing 10k+ and after self-casting with some SP procs, it went up to nearly 13k at one point, that seems a little high, from what I've been reading, shields seem to be sitting around 9k? Is there a known thing with Dr.Damage in regards to Disc PW:S?

[harky]

Dr. Damage puts out some odd figures at times and in general isn't too reliable. Just cast PW:S on yourself and take the non-crit and multiply by 5 for a good estimate of your shield size.

[Mystspecimen]

Dr. Damage puts out some odd figures at times and in general isn't too reliable. Just cast PW:S on yourself and take the non-crit and multiply by 5 for a good estimate of your shield size.

The means the PW:S Glyph heal multiplied by 5 - if you didn't figure that out ;-)

But that's the best option I suppose, as it is a flat 20% heal of your PW:S absorbtion amount

[Art3x]

Not sure if this has been said, reading on my phone is. irritating, but the soft haste cap for disc is around 425. At that point with raid bufs and borrowed time, flash is 1 sec cast.

Once that is reached and mana is a non-issue, go straight spellpower.

[HolyPriest10]

Hi, I was in a similar situation myself. Had always considered Holy my 'main' spec, Disc off spec. I have just joined a new guild however and they have lots of raid heals already so I will be playing disc most of the time while raiding. So atm, apart from my helm which I switch in and out (Between Thaumaturge's cracking cowl for holy, to Corp'rethar Ceremonial Crown for Disc) I am running the one set of gear, which is mainly consisting of the non tier frost badge 264 items and other icc pieces.

I am going to pick up the tier now that they are changing the bonuses and use that as my holy set (lots of spirit and CoH 10%). I use mainly the 12 sp 10 int gems and I find this works well for moving between the two specs when needed. I still have sp spirit gems in my blue slots though, because I only have one set of gear atm, I cant afford to lose that spirit if I need to change to holy and I never run out of mana in disc so I dont think it is much of an issue for me and its only about 3 or 4 gems I think currently. I think in disc, once you have over 30k mana unbuffed you can start to look at other stats like sp to build up, that is what I have gathered from info anyway

Hope this helps, its a shame holy is a bit subpar at the moment but disc is a lot of fun and I feel a lot more useful to the raid in current content as disc tbh.. although I hate not having GS lol xD

Goodluck

[luthe]

Not sure if this has been said, reading on my phone is. irritating, but the soft haste cap for disc is around 425. At that point with raid bufs and borrowed time, flash is 1 sec cast.

Once that is reached and mana is a non-issue, go straight spellpower.

Yes and no, more haste is always nice, because you can't always assume you're going to have borrowed time 100% of the time, and in the case that you do need a gheal or some such, all that extra haste is a lot of hasted GHeal.

As far as gemming goes i agree with you, though. don't avoid haste on gear (crit haste is your best gearing option in realistic cloth drops), but crit/mp5 rings and necks are probably the best overall.