Disc Advise/Help With Troll Heroics

[Sayier]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/doomhammer/Syliah/simple

There is my armory, I just recently decided I felt comfortable with healing so I decided to give a go at the troll heroics and see if I can start reaching the Valor cap each week. I have done 2-3 of ZA and the second half of ZG. The only bosses in ZA I really have problems with are the dragonhawk boss and depending on what spirits Daakara. The rest of the bosses I can practically sleep through, however the trash has just been killing me. Depending on the size of the pull I'm often using 30%-50% of my mana and the tank just keep pushing (even though every time I have come in the healer had left and the timed event had already been missed).

I think the major issue is I don't feel like as disc I have a good system for reacting to non-single target damage. Typically on the trash pulls I bubble the tank then do two either heals or g. heals depending on how hard the damage is coming (in most cases it has to be g. heals) and then either penance or PoM to fill the half a second to a second until I can rebubble. The damage to the tank is usually so high that I can't afford to take the time to throw them a heal or a g.heal and I usually just let them stay damaged until they are at risk to die and start flash healing.

Any help would be nice, I don't know if I should change around my reforges, it seems like since I don't feel like I have enough time to throw an extra heal haste is what I should be looking towards. I know I'm missing a lot of chants as well which could make a difference, I'm sure some heartsong procs would help the mana issue. The other option is is it just easier to heal heroics as holy? I'm sort of feeling disc isn't the greatest as a stand alone healer but work really well when paired with others aka raids.

[JGWentworth]

If you have the JP grab the static int on use spirit trinket. Int is really nice for Disc as rapture mana returns are based on your mana pool. The head and shoulder chants will help with this as well.

For aoe damage I normally will bubble the tank and toss a couple of PoH. I also keep my PoM on cooldown as well. There are some pulls in those dungeons that can be really tough to heal (i.e. the mobs in ZA that have the haste buff and cast lots of fireballs).

With the dragonhawk boss I find most of the AoE damage is from people standing in fire. I eventually hit a breaking point where I don't exert my mana pool trying to keep that one dps out of fire. With Dakara make sure that you are mass dispelling the debuff that he puts out as bear, that will make your life a lot easier.

Finally try not to be a bubble bot, when I fall into that old habit is usually when I see my mana pool disappear.

[zakaluka]

I felt this way for a while when i switched to disc at first. I had played holy for a pretty long time. After switching to disc I felt like all of my good casts were so long that I couldn't react well at all to spread damage.

What I learned: as disc you can't react to outgoing damage - you have to anticipate what's going to happen to some extent. When I started healing this way, most of my problems vanished.

Disc relies on strong cooldowns and procs. PI is on a short cooldown, make sure you're using it often - but try to time it for the moment before a big damage spike happens! Same for PW:B. PW:S isn't just for the bubble, it's for BT. On trash you can afford to dump mana quickly, so when damage starts spreading, penance -> shield/gheal shield/gheal shield/gheal. I've heard people say to use those BTs on PoH as well, but I don't know if this is a net HPS gain over just straight PoH spam. I'd have to do some math.

AA/A could help you pretty significantly in heroics, as long as you don't lean too heavily on your smite button. You're also specced into SoS/insp over either: AA/A or SoL. Either other build gives you another tool for combating spread damage. The SoS/insp build fills a very specific role for raiding that's probably not the best in heroic dungeons.

[Apostolic]

*This is only for entry level Disc Priests - Not geared ones.
Try something like HF > PW:S > Penance (BT) > PoM > PoH - The DoT from HF turns into a HoT when you spec AA/A. Keep HF on CD to stack AA.

1) Unlike other Xpacs, you should not keep PoM on CD unless there is consistent AoE damage going out.
2) Bubble only the tank for Rapture, or if someone is in immediate danger of dying. Don't bubble spam though.
3) Don't heal the idiot standing in fire, not dodging whirlwind, or breaking cc. It is just wasted mana.
4) Insist on having things CD.
5) Don't be afraid to spend a lot of mana at the start of a pull (adds), the tank will take less damage as the adds start to die.
6) As Zukaluka stated, anticipate the incoming damage. That means knowing each fight and watching timmers.
7) Don't be afraid to use your CD's (PI, PS, PW:B), as they have pretty short CDs and should be up for the boss.

Decent list, more can always be said.

[Zka]

Enchant your gear!

Use Inner Will for cheaper PWS -> more regen. PWS is your primary regen tool because of Rapture and int is the primary regen stat. Yes, it's better than spirit if you're proccing rapture often. Using IW instead of IF costs you about 3% HPS, but your regen will be much higher + extra mobility is win.

Use a rapture ICD addon and try not to shield the tank before the end of the rapture icd.

Macro inner focus on your GH/PoH.

Get Core of Ripeness, it's much better than that blue trinket.

Pop PI before you know you will spam poh/gh a lot.

Pop PS/PWB before singletarget/multitarget burst will occur.

Don't PoM on cooldown unless most charges will be used.

Use HoH just after fiend is out. HoH will boost your fiend's mana returns and will not be lost after HoH expires.

AA specs are pretty bad generally. AA is just an alternative to the Heal spell, you very rarely need the extra dps. The heal boost is nice but only usable if low damage phases are followed by predictable burst and you can safely heal the low damage part with smite spam.

[Madam]

All the advice given above is solid.

"The only bosses in ZA I really have problems with are the dragonhawk boss and depending on what spirits Daakara."

Both of these fights can be rough regardless of gear. Something I have found that works is stacking DA with PoH on both fights. It may seem like a waste of mana but if you use PI before the dragonhaws spawn, and PoH stacking DA, you will then buy time to heal tank or any low target. Same goes for Daakara, when the cat starts going nuts, if the group has DA shields you can focus on bringing up the cat targets, and softens the damage done.

Like stated above, use your absorbs to your advantage, we as Disc need to focus on preventing damage before it hits.

Gems: If you are going to match sockets for bonus fine, but always use +Int/+other stat, never all spirit/haste/mastery.

Don't be afraid to try AA/A spec (Smite Healing), IMO it makes Disc shine and is a ton of fun, stacking for wings is a learned skill and randoms are the best place to practice. Just remember our job is to heal not DPS.

[Sayier]

AA/A could help you pretty significantly in heroics, as long as you don't lean too heavily on your smite button. You're also specced into SoS/insp over either: AA/A or SoL. Either other build gives you another tool for combating spread damage. The SoS/insp build fills a very specific role for raiding that's probably not the best in heroic dungeons.

I feel like building up evangelism is only really viable if the tank damage isn't really an issue which would be very usable in the regular heroics but I don't feel like I would be able to build up in the troll heroics at least not currently. As for SoL I don't see it being very strong talent, a 6% chance for a free flash heal just feels weaker especially since I would have to give up Inspiration, Veiled Shadows, or Darkness.

The point on rapture is probably something I should work on. I'm probably bubbling every 6 seconds or so with SoS so that would be quite a lot of mana lost. I wasn't sure if I wanted to get Core of Ripeness (although I do know it is definitely better then what I have now), I'm typically not big on on use trinkets because I tend to forget to use them. I was thinking about looking into how much Tsunami would be which I assume would be just as good if not better. I also, definitely could be better about CDs as well so I will work on that.

One thing that hasn't been touched on is stats. I know crit is typically not considered the strongest stat but I'm unsure if having less then 300 rating in crit when I have well over 1k rating in mastery and haste is a little too off balanced. And although it is kind of odd to ask since I'm complaining about my lack of mana but at some point should I start to reforge some of my spirit away. Perhaps with more throughput stats I would be using less mana.

[Zka]

Sure as hell you won't build big evangelism stacks in Zul heroics most of the time, or your tank dies And when you can build it, you won't need the extra heal proc
SoL is bad. The proc rate is very low and you have better choices for regen or survival.
Imho crit is the worst of the haste-mastery-crit trio no matter what you do. For 5mans and 10mans imho haste>mastery>crit.

[Apostolic]

One thing that hasn't been touched on is stats. I know crit is typically not considered the strongest stat but I'm unsure if having less then 300 rating in crit when I have well over 1k rating in mastery and haste is a little too off balanced. And although it is kind of odd to ask since I'm complaining about my lack of mana but at some point should I start to reforge some of my spirit away. Perhaps with more throughput stats I would be using less mana.

Stats are a very touchy subject that tend to shoot all over the map depending on what your roll is at the moment. You can ask 10 different people and get 20 different answers. Seriously.

But for a quick run down.
1) Int is always, and foremost your number 1 stat
2) Spirit is always number 2 until you have enough to last a 15 min fight (counting in cool downs and external mana regen) as most fights are not longer then that (and those are usually the end of the tier bosses).
2a) Also note, that as the more Int you gain, the less Spirit you need to stay at the same level of MP5.
3) Depending on your roll and raid comp (10 or 25) will determine your Haste/Crit/Mastery preference.

There are a few theories out there.
1) Stack Haste, and only Haste, as it is your best throughput stat for PoH
2) Stack Haste to a soft cap, 12%, then stack Mastery or Crit depending on your roll (raid or tank, respectively)
3) Stack only Mastery for Bubble and PoH spam.
4) Stack Haste to Soft Cap, then Crit for Tank healing (as providing more throughput with more procs of DA).

In my opinion, stacking haste would be the Idea for 5 mans, as it allows you to react quicker to situations. (At lest the soft cap and to a point where you don't run oom in 1.5 mins.)

[Zka]

2) Spirit is always number 2 until you have enough to last a 15 min fight (counting in cool downs and external mana regen) as most fights are not longer then that (and those are usually the end of the tier bosses).
...
2) Stack Haste to a soft cap, 12%, then stack Mastery or Crit depending on your roll (raid or tank, respectively)

Int is better regen than spirit, maybe if there is no replenishment and the fight takes long, spirit comes out a bit on top. In all other cases int is better.
What is the 12% haste soft cap for disc? I can't even begin to imagine. Is that for renew, our least interesting spell?

[Madam]

At 12.5% Haste you get an extra tick from HoH and DH, but wouldn't gear around that benefit.

[zakaluka]

I feel like building up evangelism is only really viable if the tank damage isn't really an issue which would be very usable in the regular heroics but I don't feel like I would be able to build up in the troll heroics at least not currently. As for SoL I don't see it being very strong talent, a 6% chance for a free flash heal just feels weaker especially since I would have to give up Inspiration, Veiled Shadows, or Darkness.

I agree with you on SoL, but some people make it work.

But for what you say about not having time to build stacks of evangelism when tank damage is high: holy fire has better HPCT, as well as higher HPM than Gheal. Even when tank damage is high, building stacks by using HF on cooldown is a net HPS gain over the standard shield-penance-gheal spam.

If tank damage is that much of a problem, sure, SoS is probably stronger than AA. I find much better use of AA/A in heroics though.

I had the exact same problems in heroic that you are having, when I ran with SoS. When I learned how to AA/A in troll heroics, my problems with spread heals slowly went away.

[Deleted]

You've reforged haste to crit on your offhand and wand - don't do this. Otherwise your reforging is good. I find that AA is very strong for troll hcs, even if you're only stacking it by holy firing on CD. As your gear improves and your haste goes up a bit more a lot of problems go away. Try to replace HC Blood with a static intellect trinket (core of ripeness is really good) because intellect will really help every aspect of your healing. I would suggest going for around 15% haste to get 2-2.1 sec GHeals/PoHs which really helps for raiding. Haste also gives you a little more leeway with reaction time and makes Holy Fire/Smite much faster, making it easier to weave the into your healing.

[Sayier]

So I just got done doing some heroics, it did feel a lot better using PW:S only for rupture. I think part of the issue I was probably having was subpar tanks/DPS standing in stupid stuff. I did a ZG that except for Jin'Do went off without a problem. I also went ahead and made an AA/A spec to try out in regular heroics and see what I think about it/get the hang of it. I'm still a bit confused on the AA/A spec though, is it something like HF on cd smite in times of low damage and g. heal and penance when damage is high. Can I count on smites to heal non-tanks if they take say 30k hit from something or is it better to hit that up with a direct heal.

[Zka]

Yeah, HF on cd to slowly stack evangelism, then activate it when you really need it is not a bad idea, but the cost in talent points is quite steep imho. Well at least we have options