1. #1

    help me raid heal!

    I got to 80 leveling as shadow and dual spec disc healing pugs. I geared up doing mostly random heroics, weekly raid quest and VoA. I don't really have much experience at all raid healing since vanilla.

    I saw someone LFHealer for ToC10 the other day and thought I would give it a try. I've done ToC before as a tank and DPS and know the fights fairly well and my gear shouldn't have been an issue for that level. For whatever reason it seemed really hard, I guess it was because it was a new experience to me. In 5 mans I mostly keep rolling shields and sometimes renews if I know its an aoe damage pull or if a particular DPSer gets agro consistently.

    In this group I found I was going OoM keeping shields up on all 10 people and most fights don't really require them. The group pointed out my low HPS compared to the pally that was tank healing, although I noticed the tanks getting to 50% health at times so I tried to keep them shielded and renewed. I know its hard to 2 heal pugs but it was just frustrating trying my hardest and being blamed for low HPS even when people weren't dying.

    Armory
    Stats are (unbuffed) 2142 spell power, ~25% crit, 350 haste

    How am I supposed to be raid healing in pug 10 mans as disc? Is it just shield then flash heal whack-a-mole? How importatnt/helpful is it to dual spec holy/disc for serious raiding?

  2. #2
    first off....anyone that says a disc priests hps are low...are completely ignorant of an entire class and shouldn't be leading raids

  3. #3
    Well, if you're two healing a ten man with a hpally and a disc priest, i'd keep PoM on CD, only use shields when you think there is going to be incoming damage, and on a heavy raid damage fight, i'd use shield to get borrowed time and hit each group with a PoH. Other than that its mostly a spot heal sorta thing.

  4. #4
    as a disc healer you heal mostly by absorbing dmg with your shields aka keep shield up on tanks keep POM on cd and if needed even renew the tanks. id flashheal the dps that need healing and see what dps takes the most dmg and keep those shielded so the shield would break thus proccing rupture!

    also if your using recount as a dps/healing meter you should also get guesabsorbs so you can show them your maybe doing 2k Hps but also doing 3-4K absorbs! aka add em together and your on a whooping 5-6K HPS!!!

    still it's mostly a experience issue for you atm just keep on raiding and you will see what spell works the best in what situation.
    still thanks for rolling a healer and doing your best! we really lack good healers in wow on my server so give it your all get some gear upgrades in ICC and see your healing go up tons!

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by zephurwitch View Post
    first off....anyone that says a disc priests hps are low...are completely ignorant of an entire class and shouldn't be leading raids
    And anyone who says this should just learn to play, in general.

    Anyway to the OP: You said you know the fights in ToC, but how well do you know them from a healing standpoint? The way you heal each fight is substantially different in ToC. You said you were shielding the entire raid, so that right there is a big sign of trouble. There are only two fights (and a third of another) in ToC where you can do that: Twins, Faction Champs and P3 Anub. Other then that you shouldn't be shielding the raid full time. You actually shouldn't be shielding the raid much at all. You can shield the melee before Gormok's stomp, you can shield before massive crash, etc. For the most part though, despite the ignorant comments that a lot of Disc Priests will make about LOL HPS... yeah, you're not exempt from judgement just because you're Disc.

    There isn't just one strategy for healing that works though, you need to learn how damage is going to come in fights. With the exception of Faction Champs and Anub, I would recommend being Holy. However, if you have a decent group even those fights Holy does a bit better. People favored Disc due to Ulduar and went into ToC thinking the same thing applied and have no carried that into ICC, but not every fight is Twin Valks, you can't just raid shield and expect to be doing your job. Your shields should, in general, be saved for specific times. Otherwise you're just a healer, you need to be spot healing and remain active.

    You spotted the problem yourself though. You were shield spamming on fights that didn't require shield spamming. It shouldn't surprise you that you ran into both mana problems and HPS problems. Live and learn.

  6. #6
    Healing is all about being vocal, just like with tanking "I'll tank Acidmaw because I can charge back when he sweeps.". But for healing it's like saying "I'll keep up the raid with my shields and spotheal, could you keep both tanks up?" in the case with the paladin healer on say Twins in ToC10.

    "Healing done" or "HPS" should get a new meaning so as to include all absorbs. Having said that, your healing and absorbs on fights normally makes you nr.1 in "Healing and absorbs done".

    PW:Shield has a 10k HPS on aura fights (absorbs about 8k and heal for 2k), but it's not handy. You'd much rather just keep your PoM on CD and Shield + PoH. It's way easier to keep people up since you'll have time to heal the ones that get hit harder with Penance.

    On non-aura fights, it all depends on if you can see what's going on. Did someone get a nasty debuff that will tick hard (Jaraxxus), small adds hitting them (Rotface), some ticking debuff (Blood Queen) or maybe even a mortal strike effect (Precious & Stinky) etc..

    For Sindragosa HC I recommend going holy though, but it's possible as disc.

    If you want to use healingmeters, I recommend using Skada.

  7. #7
    tbh renew is a tool of holy priests. When i was healing as disc i wouldn't even use it, Penance is extremely low mana cost for what it does you really should be using it. Tank goes low, bubble him, penance,flash....renew is a waste of time. Disc's strength is in its shielding and direct healing.

    Bubbling the whole raid is not practical 100% of the time. You need to be smarter about your healing, spot heal dmg in the raid, if you know big dmg is incoming, bubble all, or bubble the tank and hit power infusion and Pray of healing the raid. You should also be keeping POM on cooldown.

    Really if you want to raid heal or have to, use Holy. Its designed for it. POH, COH are really strong AOE heals.

  8. #8
    Oh pls, we're not Pally's, we dont bubble, we shield.

    Ontopic: i always raid disc, but plan on trying Holy soon. Disc is mostly about FH to heal minor damage, where i keep shield up for the tanks and use the borrowed time for a GH/PoH. Ofc, PoM on CD, but i'll have it cast on a tank.
    On intens AoE, Shield>PoH>Shield>PoH> or Shield>Shield>PoH>Shield>Shield>PoH
    Last edited by archiel; 2010-06-22 at 11:15 AM.

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