Dicipline Tank Healing

[Powerwurdhug]

Ok heres what I have to say. Last night I ran Blackwing Decent, with both full raid geared wartanks and hpallys. These Hpallys were spamming their big heals for 5 min straight (surprisingly didn't go oom) and BARELY kept the tanks up (each tank with 160k hp and at least 75% avoidance). That being said (and I tried) a disc priest CAN NOT tank heal in cataclysm. Our absorbs arent enough (my PW;S absorbs 13k aka 3/4 of a trash mob hit) and our heals are no fast enough nor big enough to sustain a tank even on trash. As holy in the right chakra state yuo would have to be a MONSTER of a healer and have had to use EVERY DROP of mana during a trash pull to keep A tank up. I'm thouroughly pissed of at Blizzard for nerfing heals in general (all healers) and a priest (which should be the epitamy of heals due to TWO healing specs) should be able to efficiently TANK and raid heal. Right now we raid heal fine thats not why my panties are in a knot and im QQ'ing we just can not sustain a tank and as a disc/holy priest im quite upset. Priest have never been the top dog healer thats not our niche, thats a palls job to PWN at, but I also think that we should at LEAST be able to the job. What are your thoughts/opinions/experiences. No trolls please if you wish to troll please politely edumacate me.

[Preacherman]

Wall of text says what?

[Lysdexic]

You misspelled Oregon.

Also, how bad is your gear? Also, please do your best to make your post clearer so we can attempt to help you. However, given some of the other posts of yours I'm not quite sure where to begin.

[Kellytm3]

@OP...are you on BurningBlade?Im a Holy Pally and was doing BWD last night and there was another Hpally as well as a priest in the raid.I had no problem doing 13k+ hps and not going oom,and kept the tanks up.

[Denzion]

Discipline can certainly tank heal and actually that is one of their stronger points right now.

When I tank heal I use my instincts and at a certain point I can just tell that there is something else wrong. If you are sure you are doing all that you can and your gear is good enough but the tank is still dying then you can be sure there is something other than healing that needs to be fixed. This can be many things such as CC a mob or two, some sort of debuff that needs to be dispelled or avoided, not standing in bad stuff, etc.

[ummok]

My guild runs with a disc priest and he doesn't seem to have too much of a problem keeping tanks up with the help of our hpally. If the tanks are decked out in raid gear they are probably not avoiding things that would make it harder for healers to heal ie stand in fire or popping their CDs also, I was just wondering y you would have 2 warrior tanks instead of a mix with a pally/dk/bear just curious

[[-Spiritus-]]

My post from a recent, similar question asked:

I can personally attest to Disc being both an effective and efficient tank healer, having done so on most fights available in T11.

Remember that PW:S has been nerfed to the ground and penance isn't the powerhouse it once was. With 2/2 ToT, your GH nearly has the same HPM as Heal. GH does not need to be occasional to be efficient.

As far as your OOMing, I have had very little trouble with going OOM and tank healing as disc. Without an armory link, it would be difficult to point you in a direction for maximizing your regen/throughput potential.

As far as gearing, most of the disc crafting community has identified crit as a top stat for tank healing disc priests, with some disagreement over haste v. mastery.

Personally, I try to get my single target, raid buffed crit to around 30%, then bump my mastery to about 30% increased abosrbs, then push the rest of my item budget into haste [For T11]. I do believe that having a healthy balance of stats is a good thing for a tank healing disc priest, however, there isn't enough ilvl budget at this time to have all three stats at an effective threshold.

Also, a parse could be useful to help you with spell selection and to see what the damage-in was on your assigned target.

[Powerwurdhug]

You misspelled Oregon.

Also, how bad is your gear? Also, please do your best to make your post clearer so we can attempt to help you. However, given some of the other posts of yours I'm not quite sure where to begin.

For one if you following me to troll please don't thats just...immature. The point I was making was that if a fully geared Hpally (best tank healers in game) has difficulty sustaining a tank even the slightest a disc priest stands no chance. I was a disc priest for 6 years and know the spec in and out, even so, I've tried every build with every rotation and Blizzard just beat us down to the group face in the dirt with the nerf bat. Instead of trolling how about giving some helpful insight on what may be the issue because from what it sounds like your a super elite megasauce pro

[Lysdexic]

If you've tried every build with every rotation then clearly I cannot help. What I've gleaned from other posts of yours however, is that your gear is still sub par and therein lie your problems.

Since people are clearly making good progress through the content, the problems you're describing have another answer: bad players.

[Powerwurdhug]

My guild runs with a disc priest and he doesn't seem to have too much of a problem keeping tanks up with the help of our hpally. If the tanks are decked out in raid gear they are probably not avoiding things that would make it harder for healers to heal ie stand in fire or popping their CDs also, I was just wondering y you would have 2 warrior tanks instead of a mix with a pally/dk/bear just curious

Ok one the Hpally I bet is doing most of the work. If the tanks are decking in raid gear the only wat to attain that gear is to avoid uneccessary damage. In a 10m raid 3 tanks aren't needed and with warr's being most OP class atm (read the 1001 threads) shouldn't need a pally or bear. Again guys this isn't just ME QQ'ing 3/4 of the priest in the healing world are unhappy with the changes made.

---------- Post added 2011-01-05 at 10:06 AM ----------

If you've tried every build with every rotation then clearly I cannot help. What I've gleaned from other posts of yours however, is that your gear is still sub par and therein lie your problems.

Since people are clearly making good progress through the content, the problems you're describing have another answer: bad players.

My av IL is 344 so basic raid status and I can attest to the fact that maybe bad players is a cause but I sincerely doubt it with our Hpally being 7th highest geared on server and 1 tank 3rd highest geared on server with all dps pushing 13k+

[Liliyah]

Spiritus's post is rather good and directly addresses your issue, but it seems like you're more inclined to just wildly proclaim that you have tried everything already and nothing works.

I do not specifically gear or spec for tank healing. I am often assigned to a tank, but that is usually for the purpose of keeping inspiration up rather than keeping the tank alive. As such, I ditched ToT for Strength of Soul. However, on the occasions that I am actually tank healing with the intent of keeping said tank alive (Heroic Conclave, for instance) I still do not have major issues. PW:S on CD with filler Heals, penance for large damage if it's off CD, GH for large damage if penance is on CD, PoM on CD.

[Powerwurdhug]

(Heroic Conclave, for instance) I still do not have major issues. PW:S on CD with filler Heals, penance for large damage if it's off CD, GH for large damage if penance is on CD, PoM on CD.

Im talkin about raiding in disc i can tank heal fine in a H

---------- Post added 2011-01-05 at 10:28 AM ----------

it seems like you're more inclined to just wildly proclaim that you have tried everything already and nothing works.

Sorry about this im just tired of asking for advice and all I get is trolling or ambigous answers that don't give reasons. IE. Spiritus your a successful disc tank healer (or whoevers thread that was) givin such it would be GREAT to post some stats IE mana regen, mana pool, haste, mastery, his rotation. Simply saying "well i do it fine (end of post)" doesn't help

[harky]

Disc is designed to be a raid healer at the moment. You can keep up for a time with GH spam with ToT/IF, but you'll be spending 100% of your time making sure the tanks are okay, while Paladins and Druids can both relax and throw out help on the raid while tank healing. On the flip side when Discipline is raid healing they have very strong options for helping on tanks. You have good bursty single target healing and good sustainable raid healing. The best use of it is definitely not to tunnel vision tanks. You're wasting your best heal (Prayer) and unless you have a strange raid comp you're throwing off the healer balance of the group.

I know it's a let down, but if you don't roll with the punches you won't have any real fun. Any fun you have will be at the expense of someone else covering for you.

[necrotic]

Actually using 'heal' in the chakra state with holy makes tank healing the easiest job in the planet. getting of an instant ~18k heal is just wonderful, and if you spam 'heal' tanks should go too low if im going to be honest

[[-Spiritus-]]

Sorry about this im just tired of asking for advice and all I get is trolling or ambigous answers that don't give reasons. IE. Spiritus your a successful disc tank healer (or whoevers thread that was) givin such it would be GREAT to post some stats IE mana regen, mana pool, haste, mastery, his rotation. Simply saying "well i do it fine (end of post)" doesn't help

I actually solicited several sets of data from you to help and I also detailed the way I went about gearing in my post. But, I'll try bullet points if its more effective for you to read:

(1) 30% single target crit [meaning 2/2 RH, 15% from gear, and 5% from raid buff]
(2) 30% Shield Discipline mastery [this bumps the value of your crits from 180% to 200%]
(3) After these thresholds have been, loosely, reached, put remaining itemization into haste.
(4) Gems & Chants should be INT whenever possible.
(5) INT is a more valuable regen stat than SPI, given proper Rapture management. [At very high levels of INT and very low levels of SPI, this can swap, but its unlikely that you'll be in that position if you are picking up "healer" gear].

As far as any "rotation," well, the best thing I can say to you is to forget about the word "rotation." You must know exactly how each of your spells work and know, within a GCD, what you will be casting next. There is no magic rotation that you can press that will work no matter what. Sometimes your tank has a string of bad avoidance. Do you FH? Do you pop PI and GH? Do you pop PS and GH? Do you pop PS & PI and GH? All of these could be right answers in any given situation. Sometimes your tank has a string of awesome avoidance. It would not be wise to be spamming GH at this point, rather heal would be most efficient, since it can stack DA for the next time he is hit.

[ummok]

[QUOTE=Powerwurdhug;9992068]Ok one the Hpally I bet is doing most of the work. If the tanks are decking in raid gear the only wat to attain that gear is to avoid uneccessary damage. In a 10m raid 3 tanks aren't needed and with warr's being most OP class atm (read the 1001 threads) shouldn't need a pally or bear. Again guys this isn't just ME QQ'ing 3/4 of the priest in the healing world are unhappy with the changes made.[COLOR="red"]

I might have misunderstood what you initially were talking about but it seemed to me that you were healing as disc with a hpally with you. im srry if this is wrong. but i also raid 10 man as a dk tank, and since im not the "most OP class atm" my healers, (hpally/dpriest) dont have trouble keeping me and my other tank up when we communicate when to pop what cds and such. i guess my guilds priest are the 1/4 of the priests not complaining that much...

[Malania]

*Puts hand up* I can tank heal fine as Disc. Managed fine on Magmaw 10 solo healing the tank. Managed to heal tank on Maloriak with 9 adds as Disc and they were hitting harder than the boss. It's just you mate. But personally, I prefer Holy in raids currently, due to their very OP raid healing.

[Powerwurdhug]

*Puts hand up* I can tank heal fine as Disc. Managed fine on Magmaw 10 solo healing the tank. Managed to heal tank on Maloriak with 9 adds as Disc and they were hitting harder than the boss. It's just you mate. But personally, I prefer Holy in raids currently, due to their very OP raid healing.

You are also VERY geared, it takes a priest with much higher GS to heal a tank as effectively as a paladin. Did you solo heal the tanks during the 2 big trash before magmaw? If you say you did there is just no way, and if there was explain your rotation. I ask this because each one hits for a solid 30k and unless you spammed flash heal (which even then i doubt could heal the tank due to how little it hits for in comparrison to a paladin) a greater heal takes to long to cast unless u stack 2 stacks of serendpity which would make u oom fast and Heal, takes to long to cast to be effective and doesn't hit hard enough. With 6k spell power a shield of yours absorns what? 13k? With a 15 sec CD due to weakened soul or if specced with heal reduce it to 13 seconds but even then I doubt it. I'm not sayin your bad im actually asking for advice because im now saying disc priest are bad and the 101010 other threads agree.

[Marraphy]

You are also VERY geared, it takes a priest with much higher GS to heal a tank as effectively as a paladin. Did you solo heal the tanks during the 2 big trash before magmaw? If you say you did there is just no way, and if there was explain your rotation. I ask this because each one hits for a solid 30k and unless you spammed flash heal (which even then i doubt could heal the tank due to how little it hits for in comparrison to a paladin) a greater heal takes to long to cast unless u stack 2 stacks of serendpity which would make u oom fast and Heal, takes to long to cast to be effective and doesn't hit hard enough. With 6k spell power a shield of yours absorns what? 13k? With a 15 sec CD due to weakened soul or if specced with heal reduce it to 7 seconds but even then I doubt it. I'm not sayin your bad im actually asking for advice because im now saying disc priest are bad and the 101010 other threads agree.

fixed that for you.

I haven't had any problems healing tanks as Disc, and I'm not that geared. And, either healers on my server just suck at conserving their mana, or I must pretty good since the other priests oom before the end of the fight while I'm still at 40% -_-

[Malania]

You are also VERY geared, it takes a priest with much higher GS to heal a tank as effectively as a paladin. Did you solo heal the tanks during the 2 big trash before magmaw? If you say you did there is just no way, and if there was explain your rotation. I ask this because each one hits for a solid 30k and unless you spammed flash heal (which even then i doubt could heal the tank due to how little it hits for in comparrison to a paladin) a greater heal takes to long to cast unless u stack 2 stacks of serendpity which would make u oom fast and Heal, takes to long to cast to be effective and doesn't hit hard enough. With 6k spell power a shield of yours absorns what? 13k? With a 15 sec CD due to weakened soul or if specced with heal reduce it to 13 seconds but even then I doubt it. I'm not sayin your bad im actually asking for advice because im now saying disc priest are bad and the 101010 other threads agree.

Actually yes I did solo 1 of the tanks on the trash before Magmaw, Holy Paladin did the other? Yes they hit hard and you have to keep on top of it but its not massively hard, we used 1 healer for each tank and 1 healer for the aoe damage they do.

It's mainly just Greater heals and flash heals if they're low, stick a renew on him as well and use heal to reduce WS if they're full. I can't believe you find it amazing, I honestly thought anyone could do that trash solo healing. You can't solo heal both obviously but 1 is fine.

All blame aside, Tank healing is pretty much the only thing Disc Priests can do decently at the minute. I think Paladins and Druids can do it better but theres no massive problem with it as long as you time your Cooldowns and bring mana regen food/flasks/potions. I bring Potions of Concentration for Magmaw due to the downtime you have when he's stunned. Heal is pretty useless for a raid unless your AA spec so I just use it when the tank is full for a DA proc and to reduce the cooldown on shields if he's full.

And I should point out 6K Spell Power is Holy, with Disc's 15% Int and Inner Fire I'm @ 7.3K Spell Power, shields are absorbing for about 14-15K+ fully raid buffed with a Spell Power of 8-9K+