disc healing in 5mans?

[calinass]

Just wondering how you all heal as disc spec in northrend 5man dungeons (non-heroic for me, but I am guessing most of you faceroll[or heal for that matter?] heroics).

What i do is PoM the tank when it is off CD
If the tank is taking a lot of damage I cast penance. If that is off cooldown, I throw one or two Flash Heals.
Sometimes I shield the tank or dps before a large pull
When a dps gets aggro, I will bubble or throw a renew on him. If the dps gets too low Ill penance him to full health
While everyone loots at the end of the pull I will throw a renew on those who are hurt enough. If the target can be healed by my glyph of PWS then I wont bother to renew and just shield him

Am I doing it right? Any suggestions? I suppose Ill link my armory to see if you guys have any suggestions on my "priority" rotation and spec/glyphs

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...Ysera&cn=Alide

(note, one talent is missing from my disc spec, I would/am going to be putting that into 2/2 renew.
And Im guessing I should take out Reflective Shield for Strength of Soul. Was using that when I was smite spammin in vanilla/BC :]

[harky]

You didn't mention keeping Weakened Soul on the tank, which you should be doing. Heal is also very worthwhile at those levels for low damage. Holy Nova is useful if the group is clustered up.

It sounds like you're doing fine. Drop Train of Thought and Strength of Soul and get Meditation and Pain Suppression instead. Should help a bit.

[Kelesti]

Get... Meditation? Harky, are you feeling alright?

[calinass]

I believe every healing class has meditation. On my pally right now doing VoA just looked at the talent bonuses and holy pallies have meditation..pretty sure everyone who heals has it. Could be wrong.

[harky]

Get... Meditation? Harky, are you feeling alright?

Err, uh... Mental Agility. I'm awake. Shut up.

[zenkai]

Mediation LOL!

@Caliness Healing is not something to easily explain in 5 man dungeons, you use the right spell for the right fight depending how geared your tank is and how the pull is. I mean you can Preshield the tank before pulls to keep yourself from having to throw out heals or you can use it for a quick life saving alternate state. POM I would only throw out if its a fight where more than jsut the tank is going to be dmged. GH is a good spell for people who have low SP for through put when penance is on CD and you can't shield the tank.

For healing DPS if they are taking dmg throw a quick shield on them, if they don't have aggro just throw a renew on them it will top them off, however if they have aggro then you will need to spam flash heal or hit them with a penance as most dps of your lvls won't live long enough to cast anything slower or les powerful.

One of the biggest mistakes I see pug healers make is not cleansing, sometimes burning a GBC to cleanse is better than trying to heal through it. When ever I am new to a dungeon I always take the time to read and understand what debuffs are on my group so I know how to react to it.

[Aliahna]

Hi there. I noticed you have the Archangel spec which should actually work well for you in 5 mans. I wouldn't worry too much about changing your spec but Divine Fury would have been a better talent to start putting points in versus Improved Renew. With a shield, PoM, and Renew on the tank you should be able to Smite heal a good portion of the time. For raid healing, try macroing Inner Focus to Prayer of Healing. It is a free Prayer of Healing every 45 seconds...hard to beat that. You also have Holy Nova if people are grouped up which works pretty good at that level.

In case you don't know what I mean about the macro referenced above here it is:

#showtooltip Prayer of Healing
/cast Inner Focus
/cast Prayer of Healing

now I use mouseover macros so mine is actually this:

#showtooltip Prayer of Healing
/cast Inner Focus
/cast [@mouseover] Prayer of Healing

The second macro does not require you to target a person to cast PoH on, the first one does. Harky is not a fan of healing using Smite/Atonement, so take that into consideration when reading his advice. Smite/Atonement healing is actually very nice in 5-mans and you are specced that way already so I would give it a chance.

One other thing I would like to point out is that several of our spells have had their cost changed in 4.0.1. Flash heal went from 18% base mana to 28%, and Binding Heal went from 27% to 29%. If you have taken any damage at all, instead of casting a Flash Heal on your tank, cast Binding Heal instead. It's much cheaper than anything else you could possibly do to heal yourself. Renew costs 21% of base mana as a point of reference.

[harky]

Err, say whatnow? Raiding is not the same as dungeon crawling. Smite+Atonement is awesome in 5 mans.

[Kelesti]

Err, uh... Mental Agility. I'm awake. Shut up.

New sig material when I get home!

[ProBubble]

For me healing in 5 man hasnt changed as disc although i reccomend holy as it realy is slam you hand on your keyboard and ppl will be at full health.. lol

But simply for all disc healing raiding included,

Bubble tank, prom tank, renew tank (if really excited, if not it doesnt make a difference in the end)
not tank aggro > insta bubble, prom if off cd, ready on the penannce button just in case
Tank less than 50% >,pennance, flash, stop everything and flash (situational depending ofc)
Pennance of cd or prom off cd, tank holding aggro, > Pennance or prom tank to top off or just to keep a prom bouncing about, renew if he keeps letting his shield be used up)
Bubble off tank, weakened soul off tank > bubble

Simple as that
When you have perfected this and can do it asleep.. then you can move onto the big boy stuff of binding heals, PoH, PW:B (well I use it as a sprkly light rather than anything else as i cant for the life of me find a use for it), g heal and holy nova.


But can i ask.. okay you have given us a heal, that although the most efficient thing !ever! is sort of the worst thing i could imagine doing.. yeah i will sped a 2 sec cast doing what i can do with a BANDAGE! gimme a break.. (yes i know a bandage is over 8 secs but still...) take 0.5secs off blizz or make it bigger and boost g heal while you are at it.. flashes hit harder and faster and cost the same mana

[gingerlemon]

I think the most wonderful thing about priests is their large toolbox of heals. You can heal in a variety of ways. Of course, there's the most efficient way, the way with the most throughput etc etc. But just have fun in heroics, if everyone is alive at the end of each pull/boss and you're not mana starved, then you're doing it right!

[Ultima]

Get... Meditation? Harky, are you feeling alright?

What? It's sound advice.

I don't know a single healing spec Priest that does not get it.

[calinass]

Well, got my priest to 80. Went fairly quickly, shadow hauls ass.

Anyways after healing 2 dungeons and in queue for a final 3rd one before I go to bed, I want to say that disc healing is super nice :]

With my gs being 2932 (I dont want this to be a gs war, just want to give you all a figure on where I stand item wise), I have to say everything went smoothly in nexus and halls of stone.
Only 2 wipes which was much better than expected.

I wiped in nexus when the first boss feared another group.
AoE damage for disc doesnt seem strong. Shoulda popped barrier, but meh.

I wiped in Halls of Stone when the group meets up with Brann for the first time to encounter 3 stone golems or whatever they are called. Tank pulled 2, did massive aoe damage and was just a mess. hopefully this incoming heroic wont be so bad!

(btw, THANKS for all the help!) :]]]

[Ansa]

Do you happen to know any tanks on your servers, since your tanks dont seem to take precautions for you not being up to date with gear

Better to have a tank that you know that you can throw a ball back and forth to amplify the difficulty to the right amount, also better if he is well geared, just saying
Good luck

[calinass]

My main is a tank, thats about the only true tank that I know. I know some others are tanks in my guild but idk if theyd want to come :P

[Ansa]

Well one of the benefits of being a healer/tank is that you can do people favors, and when you finally need help yourself, most of the time... There's someone to help you out, a tank that doesnt know what hes doing or take too much dmg, is way harder to learn to heal, than one that takes sustainable dmg, and you can switch around to find the best possible rotation*

Theres no such thing as rotations for a healer though^^

[Cupstuntid]

Shoulda popped barrier

Waste of a GCD, if you ask me. better of casting 1 shield then a quick poh.
Barrier is really under powered these days, breaks instantly on most encounters.

[mm1434]

Interesting discussion. I just leveled my priest the other day and have been chain healing heroics (i leveled 70-80 doing dungeons)...

So, I specc'd two ways... smite / atonement and then the regular bubble (everything but the smite /atonement)

I am finding that smite / atonement is easier and more interesting for me. I was struggling where the group would start to take lots of damage - seemed like it was hard to "catch back up" but I seem to have figured that out... (also important to note that I'm a 11/12 HICC raiding Pally not used to any aoe / raid healing type spells)...


What I'm seeing is that I shield, renew and PoM the tank before the pull... Next I start smiting to build up evangelism... If I need to shield someone else or renew, I do, but pretty much just smite and build stacks. (this is cool if you don't have to move, if you do need to move, pop archangel and then shield, renew, PoM while you are moving around)...

If the 5 man starts to take damage, I will pop archangel and then start spamming inner focused macro'd Prayer of Healing until damage subsides and I'm caught up. Then I shield, etc if needed and start spamming smite again. I do cast PoM on the tank off cd...

I've tried Hymn and its ok... I also flash heal when I have to. Penance when only one person is down on damage. Barrier I've used when i know a boss isn't going to move around much. Also used it on the fiends in Pit of Saron and situations like that...

I wonder if this style will be viable in raids come 85. We are a 10 man raiding guild, so with 10 as opposed to 5, might work fine. I just think you have to move more in raids than 5 mans which will make it tough to stand and smite for 2.5 seconds (or whatever it is).

I am finding that by using archangel and my fiend all the time, no issue with mana at all... Even with all the Prayer of Healings.. The big change for me today was doing more Prayer of Healing and less flash heal. Finally got through Pit of Saron.

Gear wise, I am finding that the lunar dust and talisman of resurgence trinks make a diff. Once your spell power starts to get up, it does become a little easier...

I need to start using pain suppression more. I have fear ward on tank at all times and have been fading off cd. Many heroics have stupid adds that can kill a clothy (never had to worry about them as a plate wearing pally)...

I haven't been using heal, greater heal, the mana hymn, holy nova or holy fire at all or much... I ready somewhere that with the smite build, its good to start off a fight with holy fire, but I forget why now..

Was thinking I'd find the spec I liked then figure out Holy, but probably won't mess with that until 85.

[wahush]

for 5 mans you can easily smite heal your way threw, just pop a shld on the tank and pom b4 the pull and smite should keep him up, if there is ever an emergency, shld,pom and renew then continue smiting

[Demilune1]

Not to brag, but I out dps'd a brand new hunter in pit of saron the other day, 1610, he did 1590, disc healing is soooo much fun, esp with atonement, I love that talent, whenever tank isnt taking damage, i just smite all day, which once your gear gets to the appropriate level and you have a decent tank you will be able to dps and heal at the same time, this is why i love disc!!!