Constructive Criticism - Discipline Healing

[Bobatea]

Alright, hello everyone.
I'm just looking to get a little advice from some better Disc Priest's then me of course, so I thought I'd throw up my armory and some logs for you too see what I'm doing and what I could improve on.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...isora/advanced - Armory
http://worldoflogs.com/reports/ubt2t...vc/details/90/ - Logs.

The logs should basically cover our Farm night of a Wednesday after reset (Australia).

At the moment I guess I'm basically open to anything, changing my spec, going into Atonement, and etc.
A lot of the time I spend Tank Healing, instead of healing the raid (except for Majordomo), so that's something to take into consideration when critiquing I would gather.


Thanks heaps,
Kam.

[Slutty]

Hallo.

Not an expert on the matter, but some recommendations:

1. As a disc priest, Power Torrent over Heartsong. I set up my SCT addon to tell me when I gain the proc, and I usually try to pop my arcane torrent/hymn of hope when the proc is up for bigger mana gains. It also allows you to get at least one improved rapture and bigger replenishment for the duration.

2. Do you have items with better stat budgets than your tier 11? tbh, I don't even have heal on my bar so the 2 set is useless for me. Both have nice stats for aoe healing, but I think haste is better than both for the single target department. I run with 2 sets of gear, even buying 2 of each faction reward (like the belt from Avengers of Hyjal) so I can reforge each set differently. I have a mastery/crit set for aoe fights like Bethtilac, Shannox, Majordomo and Rhyo and a haste/crit set for Baleroc, Ragnaros, Alysrazor, etc. Thanks to this encounter based gear switch, my divine aegis can reach 35% of my total heals on Majordomo for example. So in short, I'd suggest going for one stat (haste/crit probably since you say you seldom aoe heal) as opposed to balancing all three out.

3. Any better options than Jar of Ancient Horseshit? >_<

4. I'm guessing your pve spec is the 31/8/2. It's a good spec, but are you really sure you want to give up 2% haste? In my experience, shadowfiend cooldown is useless 90% of the time, and once you get the fights down and you're smart with the rest of your cooldowns you can squeeze 2 of them in anyways. I run with this spec: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bfMorRsbsRMochMZb I don't need the mana returns from Mental Agility, and the beauty of this spec is it works as both a SoS and AA/A spec depending on each fight. You get 1 point in SoS only, which is enough for rapture to be off CD again. You can coordinate with your other tank healer so he covers you when you get evangelism stacks on single target heavy fights, and just spam smite all day if for example, you're healing the Shannox tank or something. Since I'm kind of obsessive and carry my 2 gear sets around all day, I really like the spec's versatility. If you don't wish to take my spec, at least spec out of veiled shadows for juicy 2% haste :P

5. I also change glyphs for some fights. I'll swap PW:S with Barrier for Majordomo and PoH with Flash Heal for Baleroc (we suck at Baleroc and usually at least one tank dies ).

That'd be pretty much it from my side. Sorry I can't help you with WoL, I don't understand them hope it helps.

[SonsofDisaster]

One of the biggest things that I am seeing is that you are NOT using Power Infusion or Inner Focus... at all. There's really no reason for you to not take advantage of these very powerful (personal) buffs. I find it handy to macro my Inner Focus to my GHeal and PoH keybinds so that, whenever it is off cooldown, it gets used automatically. Power Infusion can be extremely potent as a personal cooldown, to the point where I almost treat PI + PoH spam as its own "healing cooldown" on par with Divine Hymn and Barrier. If you find yourself never, ever needing it, at the very least, give it to one of your Caster DPS. Personally, I think it's so much better to use on yourself, but, at least this way it's not going to waste.

Other than that, your spell usage seems fine. You tend to use Renew a bit more than I do, but that's not actually a bad thing- you'll have to let me know if that works out well for you.

My other big question, though, is, why do you guys run with 6-7 healers on every fight instead of 5-6? Looking at your logs, your healers' HPS numbers indicate that there just isn't enough damage to BE healed for them to pull the numbers that I'm accustomed to seeing. Have you tried dropping a healer or two? I suspect that your healers could almost definitely handle it and it would hopefully allow them to... stretch... their healing prowess a bit more. Maybe I'm wrong about this, just something that kind of made me do a "double-take".

[Bobatea]

In response to the comments left on this topic;

Slutty: Really? I always have had a slight problem with Mana which is why I went with Heartsong, but I'm going to try out running Power Torrent anyway on my Main Hand and see if that can help me push a little more HPS.
No, unfortunately if I could I would have eliminated those pieces of gear a long time ago, but they are still the Best in Slot until I'm getting constant loot from Firelands, or getting my Tier 12, which I am going to have replaced the gloves in 2 weeks time (provided I don't get lazy and don't cap every week). Chest will be achieved much later, and hopefully going to be able to get legs from a Baradin Hold Pug (would usually do it with the guild but I don't have enough EPGP to keep up with the other members of the raid going for items).
Jar of Ancient Remedies: Is this Trinket really that bad? It's always seemed to help with my regen, and I have read numerous times that it is a BiS item for T11 content, and even T12 (provided Heroic iLvl piece of gear).
Changing Glyphs isn't going to always be the most convenient thing for me, my UI doesn't allow it so I generally run with a stock build, but I definitely need that 2 second reduced cooldown on Penance, and I also need the 12% reduced mana cost of all instant cast spells (first tier of talents in Discipline, far left, don't remember name).


SonsofDisaster

I have now bound those spells to the spells that you recommended and saw a big boost in the healing I was putting out, not as significant as I feel my throughput was a lot better on Ragnaros today then any other time, but because I was using the spells you recommended and I would really like to thank you for that!
Yeah, Renew does work a treat, usually chuck it on both tanks and always have it running so even for those small ticks of damage with a shield or something on the tank it is taking them back up to full, and a clean bar on my Grid is what I like to see as a healer at least, none of that messy stuff.

I'm not too sure why we run with 6-7, it is just the way the raid is composed and it has seemed to work for us, I think it would help even more on Ragnaros, some extra DPS on those elementals would definitely go a long way, but I don't think they're going to change the raid just based on your own and my solemn opinions.

[Hamacus]

I agree with SonsofDisasters recomendation that you drop a healer or two if possible. Looking at the overheal numbers for all healers also adds credence to this suggestion. Looks like you guys are snipping each others heals. I only do ten mans so not sure how well overall damage and healing required compares though. As far as stats I have started using a higher haste build and love it. I heal tanks and raid of course but I just love how it plays at the moment.

If you are having mana issues I'd ease off the renews as you have two Druids for hots and maybe also try using a haste increased heal instead of GH as I noticed a high has overheal rate for all three. Increased haste make heal godly at minimal mana cost to maintain the tank and a better chance it hits the tank before it ends up being unneeded. Even if you need to blast a GH the haste boost helps. Again if you drop a healer the overhealing should go down

Mana is manageable between using trinkets, pet, and Archangel though we are just starting Firelands and may have issues as the fights get more intense. As far as Jar of Ancient Remedies I still use it on occasion but usually go for a trinket with Int for better throughput. Good luck.

[Slutty]

Slutty: Really? I always have had a slight problem with Mana which is why I went with Heartsong, but I'm going to try out running Power Torrent anyway on my Main Hand and see if that can help me push a little more HPS.

I guess it benefits me as a BE more than it will you... but still, it's free throughput and timing it with your rapture will still give you nice mana gains.

No, unfortunately if I could I would have eliminated those pieces of gear a long time ago, but they are still the Best in Slot until I'm getting constant loot from Firelands, or getting my Tier 12, which I am going to have replaced the gloves in 2 weeks time (provided I don't get lazy and don't cap every week). Chest will be achieved much later, and hopefully going to be able to get legs from a Baradin Hold Pug (would usually do it with the guild but I don't have enough EPGP to keep up with the other members of the raid going for items).

That's fine, but try to reforge for haste if you're mainly tank healing as Sons said.

Jar of Ancient Remedies: Is this Trinket really that bad? It's always seemed to help with my regen, and I have read numerous times that it is a BiS item for T11 content, and even T12 (provided Heroic iLvl piece of gear).

Sorry, didn't know you had mana issues. The trinket is TERRIBLE for throughput, but if you're struggling it probably will near the BiS, lol.

Changing Glyphs isn't going to always be the most convenient thing for me, my UI doesn't allow it so I generally run with a stock build, but I definitely need that 2 second reduced cooldown on Penance, and I also need the 12% reduced mana cost of all instant cast spells (first tier of talents in Discipline, far left, don't remember name).

I don't quite have experience in 25 mans, but are you really using that many instants? as Sons said, I'd drop renew out of the rotation, go for a haste build and TALK TO MY HEALERS to cut some and actually make my healing worth it. I really think that if you're tank healing in a 25 man, 2/3 points in Darkness will do more for you than Mental Agility.

[Deleted]

The Jar is terrible for Disc. I recommend you get either Core of Ripeness or Fall of Mortality. INT INT INT!!! :P

[Deleted]

1) You have a lot of potential mana gain by optimizing your Rapture-timing. I compared your log to ours and while the fights took approx. the same time I got more Rapture-Procs on most of the fights while I don't actively optimize my Rapture-timing at all (because I don't need to).
2) I wouldn't touch 3/3 mental agility because it's a huge mana saver for disc.
3) Change 2/2 Veiled Shadows to 2/3 Darkness. Shorter CD on Fiend is just too rarely beneficial. Haste is trump for tank healing.
4) Replace Jar by some int-trinket because of throughput gain, which will increase your mana gain through Rapture/Replenish/Fiend and by this will offset the loss of spirit to a certain amount by itself. To my taste, The Eye of Blazing Power is the only viable new trinket for Disc in 4.2 which, when you need more mana regen, leaves you with DMC:T, Core of Ripeness and Fall of Mortality. The spirit proc of those then comes on top of that effect first mentioned, lessening the gap to Jars mana regen even further.

I don't think Archangel/Atonement makes much sense for tank healing in Firelands. But that might be just my personal preference.