[Healing] Hellfire Citadel Discussion

[Thirteen]

If you came here from the front page: You're on the priest forum.

Same as the thread for Foundry, except here we discuss all things related Hellfire Citadel. Jumping the gun a but, but eh, might as well get some pre-raid hype going on.

Useful Links:

Discipline priest discussion - MMO-Champion
Discipline priest guide - HowToPriest
Holy priest guide - HowToPriest
Holy priest PvE guide and discussion - MMO-Champion
T18 Boss/Talent Discussion - HowToPriest
Raids & dungeons useful threads - MMO-Champion
EU/US priest forum - BattleNet
Manapriest Healing Tools (Alpha) by Manaberry - Manapriest
Healing Priest Stat Weights by Red - MMO-Champion

Encounter-specifics:

Hellfire Assault:
Iron Reaver:
Kormrok:
Exorsus Raid Tools Kormrok module - Curse
Hellfire High Council:
Kilrogg Deadeye:
Gorefiend:
Shadow-Lord Iskar:
Exorsus Raid Tools Iskar module - Curse
Spectral Guise (disjoints Chakram)
Socrethar the Eternal:
Tyrant Velhari:
Spectral Guise (removes Annihilating Strike), Phantasm (Mythic: removes slow from Edict of Condemnation)
Fel Lord Zakuun:
Xhul'horac:
Mannoroth:
Archimonde:

[Shinra1]

hey thirteen

[The Funder]

This is sort of related to the citadel. So a few questions.

1) What is the disc stat priority?
2)How does gearing work in regards to item level? At what point is a higher ilvl piece better regardless of the secondary stats?
3)Which set bonuses are disc priests shooting for?
4) Mindbender or Solace?
5) Any changes with t90 talents?

[Myllior]

This is sort of related to the citadel. So a few questions.

1) What is the disc stat priority?
2)How does gearing work in regards to item level? At what point is a higher ilvl piece better regardless of the secondary stats?
3)Which set bonuses are disc priests shooting for?
4) Mindbender or Solace?
5) Any changes with t90 talents?

1) Generally something like Mastery > Haste > Multistrike >= Critical Strike > Versatility, often with Spirit ahead of Mastery or between Mastery and Haste.
2) For weapons, 5 item levels is enough for the higher level piece to be better, due to the extra Spellpower. For other gear, 15 item levels essentially guarantees that the higher level item will be better but, unless you're losing two of your best stats for your two worst, 10 items levels is usually enough. Trinkets, due to their special procs and abilities, need to be analysed on a case-by-case basis, which is why they usually receive so much individual attention.
3) The 2 piece is definitely worth getting; initial assessments make the 4 piece look promising, but I can't provide a definite yes/no on it yet.
4) Once you've lost the T17 2 piece bonus, I'd go for Solace. The other situations (e.g. having T17 2 piece bonus and T18 2 piece bonus), I don't have a definitive answer for.
5) I'll leave this to people who are actually healing the encounters.

[Deleted]

But what about http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...del-Discussion ?

[reyu]

1) Generally something like Mastery > Haste > Multistrike >= Critical Strike > Versatility, often with Spirit ahead of Mastery or between Mastery and Haste. (I'm working on getting my spreadsheets ready for 6.2, so they can hopefully be linked in the OP).
4) Once you've lost the T17 2 piece bonus, I'd go for Solace. The other situations (e.g. having T17 2 piece bonus and T18 2 piece bonus), I don't have a definitive answer for.

Wont losing the T17 2p and picking up solace not cause haste to be valued less?

[Deleted]

Wont losing the T17 2p and picking up solace not cause haste to be valued less?

Haste wasn´t only valued high for Mindbender. Its makes your gcd cast lower wich is good for pw:s naming one.

[Thirteen]

But what about http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...del-Discussion ?

i cri evrytiem. I'll ask for a mod to merge them.

2)How does gearing work in regards to item level? At what point is a higher ilvl piece better regardless of the secondary stats?

15 iLvls is considered the cutoff point when the extra int makes up for whatever stats you're losing (even if it's best vs. worst). Anything lower and you'll have to weigh your stats, but usually if it's top 2 stats and lower iLvl vs. second 2 stats and higher iLvl, the cutoff is 5-10 iLvls.

[Djriff]

But i had mine first :P Its cool, I was waiting for you to create one and wasn't sure if you were going to this time.

[The Funder]

What's this stuff I hear about cascade nerfs? From PTR logs it looks like people are casting it much less often?

What do you guys think about CoW vs WoM? To me it seems like CoW will be more useful on more fights in HFC. Thoughts?

[Djriff]

Cascade did receive a nerf on the healing side, but it is still useful.

Really it depends on your comp. WoM is very usefull if there is damage out there to bounce it around, and you don't need CoW. CoW is dead useful for tank healing or giving someone a big shield to counteract a debuff (iron maidens). If you have at least 1 holy pally, you don't really need CoW.

[Yunzi]

Haste wasn´t only valued high for Mindbender. Its makes your gcd cast lower wich is good for pw:s naming one.

Yes, but it also causes us to cast more spells and burn out of mana faster, which isn't a problem with the high spirit on BRF trinkets but will probably be something of a problem in HFC. That's why I'm starting off HFC with a Mastery/Multistrike crafted weapon. I'll work more haste into my gear as fights allow.

[Djriff]

Healed a few of these as holy on heroic. I feel overall were doing fine. My comp is Hpally, Disc, 2 rdruids, and me. Here's my 2 cents on the bosses I've healed.

Iron Reaver
Talents - Normal
Glyphs - BH, CoH, Deep Wells

Cascade was wonderful here as well as CoH as we were pretty spread out. Definitely a holy fight.

Council
Talents - Normal
Glyphs - BH, CoH, Deep Wells

You can cheese ToF here quite a bit from the tank damage. Overall this felt like a normal fight without really much to look out for. The dispels can get a little crazy, but we just followed the colors like you would a BrM stagger and dispelled accordingly. Good to note, Mass Dispel does not remove all of them, even if everyone has it and it has no one left to bounce to.

Gorefiend
Talents - Normal
Glyphs - BH, CoH, Deep Wells or Light Well

The only part I struggled was on gorefiend and healing the adds in the stomach there were times I couldn't get them up to full. Is there a better way to burst heal than Serenity, FH, FH, Heal? For this fight in particular PoM sees some wonderful bounces during Feast. This is also one of the few fights you can glyph lightspring into a lightwell and use it instead of a CD as our strat is to stack up and power heal through feast.

Iskar
Talents - Normal
Glyphs - BH, CoH, Deep Wells

We had a few attempts on Iskar, should get him down tonight. Fire seems very annoying and seems to love going on guys that had to run out for chakram. Love the mechanics of this fight and passing the Eye isn't as much of a hassle as I thought it would be. Defintely recommend Exorsus Raid Tools over the Iskar addon as of last night it wasn't highlighting people that need it like Exorsus does. I saved lightspring for the air phase and we have a 3 person rotation setup with the eye for interrupts and dispels. PoM can see some great usage, but its pretty niche in this fight. Be sure to Life Grip a player if they are close to getting blown off the edge.

If you want logs just search Djriff on Stormrage. I would link them myself but I'm currently at work and cannot.

[Deleted]

Guys, what do you think about surge of lights? I want to listen your opinions about this talent.
And what about Halo vs Cascade?

[Djriff]

Surge of Light can be useful, it's to RNG for my tastes.

Depending on your raid size Cascade can reach a cap of total healing, Halo has no such cap. The main difference between these to is that Halo is much harder to position and has a very high mana cost. Cascade on the other hand is just fire and forget and can do more healing than Halo in smaller groups due to multiple bounces.

[decnalabnu]

We overhealed most of the fights so keep that in mind:

I used cascade/CoW on all fights.
Hellfire Assault: - Do damage
Iron Reaver: - Do damage
Kormrok: Do damage, shield pounding, Shield the Hands
Hellfire High Council: Steady aoe in phases so disc shields shine.
Kilrogg Deadeye: CoW'd the heartseeker targets. Can shield b4 death throes.
Gorefiend: Down below just flash/penanced the draenei to full. Up top shield/Prayer is really strong during the aoe damage phase. Rest of the fight you can spot shield people with debuffs.
Shadow-Lord Iskar: Shield debuffs/Fire fixates and then prayer the giant beam.
Socrethar the Eternal: CoW the green debuff circles players get. Shield spam/prayer the aoe.
Tyrant Velhari: The first semi-hard fight. Lusted in p2 to minimize the time with reduced hp. Shield spam/prayer. Shamans are op on this fight because of their mastery.
Fel Lord Zakuun: Pre shield the raid everytime seeds go out to save people from other's triggering the waves. The raid damge seemed really negligible outside of player errors.
Xhul'horac: All about managing your debuffs properly and not taking different damage types in a row. Pre shield the black hole soakers and in the burn phase shield/prayer spam is strong.
Mannoroth: Fights fun. Can grip to assist people having troube with the push off mechanic and or the tank if necessary. Can't dispel gaze anymore so make sure you run out to soak people who aren't in position when it goes off.
Archimonde: Got this to 20%. Phase 1 damage is pretty negligible. Tanks get trucked if the adds aren't brought down quickly since no light buff. Phase 2 is damage intensive if the raid mismanages allure of flames or having the raid gather the light buff between desecrates. Phase 3 is pretty intense if people don't move out of teh aoe circles for the dogs or mismanage the ra'den type mechanic. Phase 4 didn't get to experience the down phase so can't comment. Up top is a slight spread fight where you have some significant movement due to infernals falling.

Instance is good so far. Archimonde will probably get nerfed.

[Faithis]

I curently using de 2 T17 set bonus with a Shoulder and Chest (685) piece. Today I get Amice of Phantasmal Power (695) and Felgrease-Smudged Robes (690). Should I drop the 2 t17 bonus for that gear or should i stay with it?

PD: I has a Mythic off set hands, head and legs (700)

[Thirteen]

My guild's doing split-raids on heroic, and my group got to, and including Iskar with me as holy (26m, 6 healers - we notoriously overheal stuff for no reason). Just dropping my first impressions since I'm tired as hell atm.

Hellfire Assault
Yaaaawn, much easier than trash before Gorefiend.

Reaver
Hate this fight so much, the hitbox on her Blitz is enormous. But Cascade is really cool. Spent most of our kill-pull dead though ;_;

Kormrok
Solid fight, and probably the first that was remotely challenging to heal. We used a stacking strategy, so Divine Star might be a good pick.

Council
Kinda disappointed in this fight honestly. I was hoping the debuff would be similar to Wrack, but we ended up not dispelling them at all until the last phase where we just blew MDs. A stacking strategy is possible so DS might work here too.

Kilrogg
Not too impressed with it. I got to go into the realm which was kinda cool. Glyphed Binding Heal is amazing. Also hate that you can't stand still and channel when the ground AoE is going out #RIPFox.

Gorefiend
Probably the first truly fun fight. Loads of damage/healing going out, and Serenity is really great in the soul room too. HW: Sanctuary actually isn't terrible during his Feast of Souls, believe it or not. Would still recommend Cascade just because you should be able to go through Feast of Souls rotating CDs, but healing is pretty intense outside of it, especially since your cooldowns are limited.

Iskar
Love this fight too. Sadface that I'm never on orb duty cause I can't interrupt (literally the only spec that can't in the entire game...), but handling the winds was really fun, and emergency Grips for people that got the orb too late was cool to do. Damage patterns were really odd - must of the damage came from a missed dispel or something, so it's hard to know when/if to save cooldowns.

-

Why aren't you glyphing Renew, silly goose?

[blargh312]

Surge of Light can be useful, it's to RNG for my tastes.

Depending on your raid size Cascade can reach a cap of total healing, Halo has no such cap. The main difference between these to is that Halo is much harder to position and has a very high mana cost. Cascade on the other hand is just fire and forget and can do more healing than Halo in smaller groups due to multiple bounces.

Actually if you consistently cast them on cooldown, Halo costs slightly less mana than Cascade.

[Djriff]

Why aren't you glyphing Renew, silly goose?

Becuase we have 2 druids and my renews would just be OH. I do toss out renews and keep them up as much as possible. Difficult to decide which glyph to drop since I want another glyph spot. I personally find I get more healing out of CoH than renew, glyph or unglyphed, excluding overhealing. I use BH a lot as well since when its glyphed its a decent AoE heal.