Hey everyone! My guild recently recruited a new Discipline Priest for Legion raids, but we have had some comments about low healing in 5 man dungeons. I know Discipline has changed some, but people were getting killed in current (WoD) Mythic dungeons that are normally breezed through.
I had one of my tanks log an evening of mythic dungeons in the hopes that I could get a few pointers on what he may be doing wrong, so I can talk to him about it as I know virtually nothing about Disc.
Shadow Mend is the go-to single target heal. The DoT generally doesn't matter if the target is taking steady damage, as it applies to all damage taken, so it often drops off right way.
Their highest used spell is Plea, which makes no sense. Plea is used to apply Atonements only, not for its actual healing value. They don't even have 'Grace' which would increase its healing by 30% (It would still be bad to spam Plea even with that talent). Using plea in this way is a sign that they don't understand the class very well.
The priests health just slowly drops, and they were attempting to keep themselves up with Atonement. A single Shadow Mend would have saved them. Also, they got hit by both the traps and lava blast, which is why they died to begin with. Both these sources of damage are avoidable.
Over 20 seconds the tank was just taking the standard melee hits. Priest only use Atonement for healing. Once again, Shadow Mend would have saved the tank.
The tank had 10 total deaths and from what I can tell, they all look like that.
An example of Plea spam. This leads to the tank dying from standard damage. Plea should really only be used as an Atonement applicator. Its healing is abysmal compared to literally anything else.
They also started the fight spamming it on the tank. They cast 3 Plea's on the tank for a total of 675% SP worth of healing. By comparison, a single Plea + Power Word: Shield (With 'Grace') would be 940% SP.
So a lot of the bosses were dying very quickly so the lack of healing didn't interfere with success, but had the rest of the group not significantly outgeared the content, I doubt you would have been able to complete the dungeons.
For solo healing always have Grace as lvl 100 talent. When healing through dmg isn't enough (and penance is on cooldown), you are going to use targeted heals, mostly shadowmend. Grace would increase healing of targeted heals by 30 % if they have atonement up.
On logs I don't see Rapture. It is good cooldown when things go wrong. For 10 seconds you can spam Power Word: Shield on any target. Grace works for shields as well.
As an emergency abiltiy to save people that are surrounded by multiple enemies, Shining Force is really nice(pushes enemies away from targeted friend).
Also I think he is trying to cast Shadow Word: Pain on most targets. Only cast dots on targets that will remaing alive for 20seconds and only cast them when your group has full health.
Disc 5 man and Disc raiding are totally different in terms of what and when you cast. As the others have mentioned, you're primarily going to be taking Grace and spamming the tits off of Shadowmend. I could appreciate your Disc not doing this and trying to Atonement heal in an attempt to learn to play 'properly' as far as raiding goes (as in, if they were trying to see how Disc would play if they were in a raid setting), but the constant Plea-spamming makes no sense - it's not a heal to use as a heal, but rather to apply Atonement immediately and relatively cheaply to the target.
In the raid setting, Disc has a specific ebb-and-flow of healing, and Shadowmend should rarely (if ever, short of niche situations) be used, so I can understand if your guy is trying to avoid using it as a way of conditioning himself not to rely on it in raids (leave spot healing to others), but again, there doesn't really seem to be a rhyme or reason to the way he is playing in those logs. Maybe have a conversation with your guy, ask him what his rationale is and why he was choosing the spells he chose, then you can start to break it down to him on how he 'should' play in both a raid and 5 man setting, and explain how the styles for each are quite different.
I'll just describe my way to play the disc in mythics and maybe your healer can use some of these ideas:
-> You will only spam shadowmend when the tank is taking so much damage that the healing done with damage is not sufficient (aka. sustained heavy damage)
//Small edit here: As you see I am not using Grace at the moment. It is the better talent for dungeons as mentioned above.
- This is what I do and I healed a fair chunk of mythics by now:
--> Apply shield on the tank and keep it on Cooldown
--> Cast Schism on Cooldown, if you start the fight also cast Purge of the Wicked (and keep it refreshed)
//Schism is a must have in dungeons, otherwise the needed burst heal simply is not reachable
--> Cast Penance on Cooldown
--> Cast Solace on Cooldown if specced
If the group takes damage:
--> if a single dd takes one-time damage, apply atonement with plea and do damage
--> if the group takes damage apply atonement with Power Word: Radiant and do damage (you will need to apply an extra atonement with plea if everyone takes damage since radiant only applies 3 atonements based on the location atonement is targeted to)
// I prefer to cast atonement on the player with the lowest HP at that moment (if you are used to it: Cast it depending on the position of the group members)
--> Use rapture and divine star if you cannot keep up and everyone is dying
Cooldowns:
- Use Painsup early! Especially if you are facing a lot of trash at once (e.g. in the mines or docks and the tank pulls more than one bigger trashpack (this comes down to experience)) or the group is low and the tank needs to survive. Do not hesitat, just use it!
- Rapture as mentioned above, very good for emergency help if you are moving
- Mindbender / Shadowfiend if you expect a lot of damage incoming
So when do I use shadow mend you say?
- You use shadow mend as an emergency heal! Penance and Schism on CD and the tank is dropping or a group member is dropping fast? Use Shadowmend and spam it on the tank
- Use it with strong tank damage and alternate between smite and shadowmend (of course, keep penance, Schism and Shield on CD!)
This is how I successfully play the disc in Mythics.
Last edited by mmocbcfb286c49; 2016-08-28 at 08:51 AM.
A discipline priest is the best class to have in a 5-man in my opinion. The burst healing is just unlike what any other spec can do, and the damage is , well, damage. Most amazing spec ever. I don't know what your priest was doing, maybe he's just a bad player?
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