Disc Question: Transitioning from Heal Spam to Greater Heal?

[Azelric]

Hey folks!
Obligatory Armory Link: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...Azereil/simple

Let me start this by saying that this is a question on Discipline Priest Tank Healing.

So I'm looking at the posts here and it seems like most people are saying to spam greater heal as a replacement for healing spam.

I'm a bit confused on this, because I was testing it on myself. I know it's not regarded as good, but I spam bubble on cooldown, heal spam, and penance on cooldown (assuming the healing is needed). When I am doing this on myself in Stormwind I can continue indefinitely with zero loss of mana. On the flip side, when I start spamming Greater Heal my mana drops like a rock. While greater heal heals for 4-5k more than flash heal, it costs only ~200 mana less. I realize this makes the HPM much better, but the actual mana cost of this seems exceptionally high compared to heal's ~1.8k mana cost.

On the flip side, I realize that being able to spam Greater Heals will also DRAMATICALLY increase my HPS output. I tried this out in a heroic setting and even with rapture procs every 15 seconds my mana was falling to zero after boss fights.

I'm curious about how exactly people are keeping their mana up while spamming Greater Heal in raids? I just don't see how I can pull the mana out to carry that on for a 5-6 minute fight.

[Lysdexic]

I don't think I've ever needed to chain cast more than 3 GHeals in a row. Switching from Heal to Greater isn't absolute per se, it's merely an available upgrade in HPS and MPS for similar HPM.

When you need to toss out bigger heals you have that alternative. If don't need the additional healing, just stick to Heal.

Regarding the differences between raids and heroics, you have to remember there are other healers. You'll have access to raid buffs that increase mana regen (most notably mana tide) and you'll have the benefit of them healing. If the tank took a beating you probably won't have much time for more than 1 Greater Heal after PW:S/Penance because of the other healers.

[Azelric]

I should add that I do a 10 man, and I two-heal with a shaman, though we started with Conclave of Wind so more often than not I'm without totems for this fight. We will be moving to BWD this week, however, so I will start benefiting from that. I'm just a bit concerned that because we're 2 healing it that there will not be that extra support to fall back on, so I want to make sure I'm 100% maximizing my HPS while being able to heal for an extended period of time.

So basically what you're saying is to stick with heal spam unless I need the Greater Healing spam for short periods? On the flip side, I COULD see the balance with: because GH heals for so much more than heal I wont need to spam it back to back (I did in the heroic, the tank was squishy), but what are people doing in that "new-found" spare time? It feels uncomfortable to have a few globals where I'm not doing anything, but I don't know what to do with them?

Also, in terms of Inner Focus, do people have this macroed to greater heal? I have it macroed to Prayer of Healing from when I was doing heroics (aka heroic SFK), but I wasn't sure if I should move this to GH, Flash Heal, save it as an emergency cooldown (this doesn't seem right?) or how exactly to deal with it.

[Deleted]

You shouldn't need to gheal spam. Either Heal spam or slowly GHeal (think cast, wait 4s, cast). That will give a hps closer to heal and you should find your mana holds up better.

[Azelric]

You shouldn't need to gheal spam. Either Heal spam or slowly GHeal (think cast, wait 4s, cast). That will give a hps closer to heal and you should find your mana holds up better.

Well the point of switching to Greater Heal would be to increase HPS compared to heal spam, I'm just not sure how people who are saying to do this are supporting the mana cost of it.

Edit:

Just found our World of Logs from a few weeks back (We didn't get to run them last week)
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...m/healingDone/

My healing done is a fraction of the shaman healers. While I am with 1 tank most of the time, that just seems extremely low. o_O I'm using the right abilities I think, I just am not putting out the healing I think I should be. Thus Id like to increase my HPS.

[[-Spiritus-]]

What Lysdexic said is pretty much spot on. As far as IF, I have it macroed to PoH, GH, & FH. I cast GH often enough for it to be around rather frequently.

I'll be expanding on disc tank healing spell selection with an upcoming guide on disc priestery.

[Azelric]

What Lysdexic said is pretty much spot on. As far as IF, I have it macroed to PoH, GH, & FH. I cast GH often enough for it to be around rather frequently.

I'll be expanding on disc tank healing spell selection with an upcoming guide on disc priestery.

Thanks, I'll macro it into all of those then. Im also going to be reforging crit via your suggestion on the other forum.

Thank you for the explanation btw, it was VERY helpful. It's actually what got me to start trying this, and to look up that log... now I'm just REALLY concerned with me doing 19% compared to the other healers 55%. Gah, must fiddle with this some more.

[Ciah]

In that log, your overhealing is more than twice that of the Shaman. Were you to cut down on overhealing, your HPS numbers would be a lot closer.

Your active time is also less than half of that of the shaman... perhaps the disparity in numbers is just a strat related issue? I mean, if there's not much for you to heal due to your raid's strat, that's not really your fault if you're falling behind on meters.

If anything I think your main issue is the mentality of "spamming" any spell at all. Think more, spam less. Greater heal with pauses in between, stopcasting it if the tank is still high halfway through, is one method of using more greater heals. If you really have to spam, stick with just Heal.

[Azelric]

Yeah, I'll have to work on the spamming feeling. It just scares me to be a healer and not healing my a** off every second of the fight.

On the over healing thing, how can you tell that? I don't understand how my over healing affects % of healing done? Is that something I am missing with how these logs work? o_O

I noticed the over healing, and it seems like half of that is from PW:S and Glyph of PW:S, so maybe I should drop the glyph for Glyph of PW:B. I've held off on that ONLY because of heroics and it's nice when DPS take a tick of something before I bubble to have that heal top them off and have a bubble on them.

(Sorry for the 10,001 questions, and thank you for all of the help so far. It's GREATLY appreciated.)

[Deleted]

Sounds like you shield way to much. Once every 12seconds for rapture is all you really should shield. Also for greater heal "spam" you need to use inner focus every time its ready for the HPM of Greater Heal to be worth it vs Heal and make sure it doesn't go to overheal .

[Ciah]

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...y0v/details/6/

I was just looking at this. Overhealing is wasted mana, pure and simple, and you were asking how to increase mana efficiency to use more greater heals. I was just suggesting this as one way to help with mana.

Might also have to work on the "everyone must be topped off" mentality too heh. Over the course of my first cata raids my overhealing went down about 60% due to getting more used to not spazzing out the instant anyone wasn't 100%.

[Azelric]

Ahhh!!! Now I am starting to see how it works together. I just switched my reforging around and got a substantial amount of crit and mastery for a .04 second cast change in heal and greater heal. I also am getting 22k DA bubbles off of GH crits. I definitely will be readjusting my play style a bit. The kicker is going to be remembering to use PW:S every 12 seconds if I'm not using it on cool down any more.

Maybe it's time for power auras!

Thanks a TON guys, I'll keep plugging around where I can find things on my own and see how this works out. I'm very excited to give these changes a whirl. Much appreciated!

[Psilar]

Hey folks!
Obligatory Armory Link: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...Azereil/simple

Let me start this by saying that this is a question on Discipline Priest Tank Healing.

So I'm looking at the posts here and it seems like most people are saying to spam greater heal as a replacement for healing spam.

I'm a bit confused on this, because I was testing it on myself. I know it's not regarded as good, but I spam bubble on cooldown, heal spam, and penance on cooldown (assuming the healing is needed). When I am doing this on myself in Stormwind I can continue indefinitely with zero loss of mana. On the flip side, when I start spamming Greater Heal my mana drops like a rock. While greater heal heals for 4-5k more than flash heal, it costs only ~200 mana less. I realize this makes the HPM much better, but the actual mana cost of this seems exceptionally high compared to heal's ~1.8k mana cost.

On the flip side, I realize that being able to spam Greater Heals will also DRAMATICALLY increase my HPS output. I tried this out in a heroic setting and even with rapture procs every 15 seconds my mana was falling to zero after boss fights.

I'm curious about how exactly people are keeping their mana up while spamming Greater Heal in raids? I just don't see how I can pull the mana out to carry that on for a 5-6 minute fight.

First of all this is coming from a paladin. Perhaps, however, this is what you might need. We do not have the pleasure of HoTs or bubbles(minus our mastery bubble but it still requires us to cast a heal.) We've got instant, quick and very expensive, cheap and mediocre, and X-large but expensive heal. Flask, heal, and Gheal in priest terms. You said something which is bothering me....two things actually.

One : transitioning to spamming "WHATEVER"
Two: "I can continue indefinitly without losing mana"

First point. If you're spamming anything only one situation is occurring. That is - no one really 'needs' heals and your spamming "heal" or in my case holy light.
Two: You're not supposed to have infinite mana, using this mentality is flawed to begin with.

Solution: Think about it this way instead. You need to throttle your heals. Go from low sustained healing during low damage phases up to high throughput for high damage phases. If u have boss mods you know when the deadly shit is coming. PLAN to use mana. By USE I mean, when you're done with the heavy damage phase you have lost a % of your mana you will never ever get back. An example would be Magmaw. You heal through the phase and the head comes down allowing regen. After the regen if you're sitting at 80% or more you've done your job. Because after the next phase you should be down to about 60%. The third 40% and so on. By the fourth he should be dead.

To increase efficiency and decrease overhealing, I follow a fairly simple rule. Stick with you guns, and "capping off" is 90% and up(roughly you get the idea). As a paladin my guns are Holy Shock(extremely efficient your equivalent would be a bubble) and Word of Glory, another instant along the same veins treated the same for all intents and purposes. The rest of the time I spam holy light. If I'm healing a tank I spam it until his health gets to about 60% and then I'll pop a divine light to boost him up to 90ish. Then back to spamming holy light. Just Heal, or just holy light, will never be enough. In other words you should be spamming heal, while using your "guns" on cooldown. Then throw in a GHeal now and then. Then back to heal. Another rule of thumb, keep your mana above the bosses health %-wise. Various regen mechanics allow you to break this rule, but I can't give you priest advice.

To conclude if you ever get to the point where your mana is never an issue, Blizzard has failed and they will change something. As someone else has pointed out, being a successful healer is about thinking and not about spamming. When do I go for sustainability or when do I go for max HPS? I can sustain 10-11k HPS this way for upwards of 8-10 minutes. My gear is 352ilvl I believe. Also, I play a game called "lets not overheal" And I'll go into a heroic and try to do 0 overhealing. I've never quite gotten 0 before(it's hard because I can't use beacon), but I've gotten sub 5% WITH beacon. Try it out sometime.

PS if Flash heal is anything like Flash of Light, you should probably never ever use it.

[scarryterry25]

I just switched my reforging around and got a substantial amount of crit and mastery for a .04 second cast change in heal and greater heal.

I hope you didn't sacrafice any possable reforging to increase your spirit.

[Azelric]

I hope you didn't sacrafice any possable reforging to increase your spirit.

There are a few pieces (i.e. gloves) that do not come with spirit on them, that I have reforged to have spirit. Other than that, no. Should this not be the case?

One : transitioning to spamming "WHATEVER"
Two: "I can continue indefinitly without losing mana"

First point. If you're spamming anything only one situation is occurring. That is - no one really 'needs' heals and your spamming "heal" or in my case holy light.
Two: You're not supposed to have infinite mana, using this mentality is flawed to begin with.

Solution: Think about it this way instead. You need to throttle your heals. Go from low sustained healing during low damage phases up to high throughput for high damage phases. If u have boss mods you know when the deadly shit is coming. PLAN to use mana. By USE I mean, when you're done with the heavy damage phase you have lost a % of your mana you will never ever get back. An example would be Magmaw. You heal through the phase and the head comes down allowing regen. After the regen if you're sitting at 80% or more you've done your job. Because after the next phase you should be down to about 60%. The third 40% and so on. By the fourth he should be dead.

That's a very interesting change. My mentality has been (and is now changing) that with my regen and procs (i.e. trinket) I can spam heal, bubbles, and pentance on cooldown indefinitely without running OOM. My mana regen is that high when factoring in trinkets and procs from weapons, etc.) This sets me at X HPS that I can do without any issues for the fight. My mana goes down, however, when I need to switch to using a Greater Heal or Flash Heal. So 100% of my mana is dedicated to moments in the fight that require my mana usage.

The problem I understand this now is that this is eating up regen. I can have Higher HMP, HPS, and more regen (rapture, trinkets, spirit...) going towards the greater heals if I switch from spamming heal to pausing a second and using a greater heal, particularly if it's macroed in well (I was testing this standing in SW, and it was going much better with things macroed and me waiting 2-3 seconds between casts)

To increase efficiency and decrease overhealing, I follow a fairly simple rule. Stick with you guns, and "capping off" is 90% and up(roughly you get the idea). As a paladin my guns are Holy Shock(extremely efficient your equivalent would be a bubble) and Word of Glory, another instant along the same veins treated the same for all intents and purposes. The rest of the time I spam holy light. If I'm healing a tank I spam it until his health gets to about 60% and then I'll pop a divine light to boost him up to 90ish. Then back to spamming holy light. Just Heal, or just holy light, will never be enough. In other words you should be spamming heal, while using your "guns" on cooldown. Then throw in a GHeal now and then. Then back to heal. Another rule of thumb, keep your mana above the bosses health %-wise. Various regen mechanics allow you to break this rule, but I can't give you priest advice.

That's actually a great mentality to counter overhealing. I've never seen a tank drop where 100% health would save him, but 90% wouldn't, at least not in cata if things are going well), so I will definitely try out this strategy for healing. I play the over-heal game quite a bit in heroics (I get bored), but I get a little bit flustered in raids and want to keep the tank topped off. I think part of this is because I'm the only healer with the tank ~75% of the raid, so I am a bit nervous about him not being 100% all of the time. I will work on this mentality, maybe in a few heroics to get the feel for it.

To conclude if you ever get to the point where your mana is never an issue, Blizzard has failed and they will change something. As someone else has pointed out, being a successful healer is about thinking and not about spamming. When do I go for sustainability or when do I go for max HPS? I can sustain 10-11k HPS this way for upwards of 8-10 minutes. My gear is 352ilvl I believe. Also, I play a game called "lets not overheal" And I'll go into a heroic and try to do 0 overhealing. I've never quite gotten 0 before(it's hard because I can't use beacon), but I've gotten sub 5% WITH beacon. Try it out sometime.

PS if Flash heal is anything like Flash of Light, you should probably never ever use it.

My mana is definitely an issue with both mentalities, just with slightly different methods of spending my bar. I like the mentality you have suggested directly, and the ones others have pointed out here much better than my own. I'll have to give it a shot and see how it goes, and what I can tweak to get it to flow for me. Thank you for the AWESOME feedback and post. It was very, very helpful.

[sp101]

That's actually a great mentality to counter overhealing. I've never seen a tank drop where 100% health would save him, but 90% wouldn't, at least not in cata if things are going well), so I will definitely try out this strategy for healing. I play the over-heal game quite a bit in heroics (I get bored), but I get a little bit flustered in raids and want to keep the tank topped off. I think part of this is because I'm the only healer with the tank ~75% of the raid, so I am a bit nervous about him not being 100% all of the time. I will work on this mentality, maybe in a few heroics to get the feel for it.

To be fair, disc overhealing usually means a maxed out Divine Aegis buffer, so at least it isn't 100% wasted 8)