[Priest] PvE Discipline Priest Guide

[[-Spiritus-]]

Due to real life catching up with a not so young man anymore, I no longer feel I am able to keep the MMO-C PvE Discipline Priest Guide both up-to-date and to the standards I would wish it to be.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

[Deleted]

I liked the crit stuff... i was mindless folowing the haste criteria, because i read it somewhere in this forum and found it quite acurate. Anyway these last days i was seeing some very nice heal crits (aprox 20k+ with aegis). very helpful to heal the tank at less mps than mp5

Will try changing some armor and stuff to get crit to a higher lvl


I'm looking forward to the next part of the guide =)

[zito]

Wouldn't it be better to do 2/2 surge over darkness since haste is not as valuable as crit/mastery. Plus with borrowed time it becomes less attractive?

[Kooja]

Very interesting, informative, and helpful read. I've been healing as disc for heroics just to shorten my queues, and I've been doing fairly well. I've grown to adapt a lot of the strategies you talk about in the guide, just by playing and getting a feeling for my mana, throughput, etc. However, you bring up some points and tips that I probably never would have gathered on my own.

I'm definitely looking forward to the raid healing (party healing) section of the guide. Basically I want to know if your raid healing strategies match mine, and hopefully I can take away a few tips and bits of advice to further improve my skills.

Great guide!

[[-Spiritus-]]

Wouldn't it be better to do 2/2 surge over darkness since haste is not as valuable as crit/mastery. Plus with borrowed time it becomes less attractive?

I think those points may be debatable at higher haste levels, however, starting out I think you can use the extra 2% haste more than anything else. Let me put it this way, I would at least be walking into a raid at 10% raidbuffed haste. If you can do this while keeping your other stats up w/o 2/3 Darkness, then 2/2 SoL starts looking better. Its basically a choice between having the possibility of having an extra IC heal on the move or more a more steady throughput increase.

I don't like using BT as an excuse to not pick up haste because BT isn't a constant.

[harky]

A good start on the guide, but you really need to filter the bias some. This is going to lead Priests, especially those interested in tank healing, down a misleading path. You really shouldn't have posted this knowing full well that it was inaccurate. You're over-simplifying the argument and drawing some false comparisons.

Starting with your two Priests.

Your 'CritPriest' has these stats: 32.5% Mastery, 30% Crit, 10% Haste

We'll assume 5k Int. So we can then reverse this amount of Crit.

30% -7.7% (Int) -5% (buff) = 17.3%

I'll break here and assume two cases. The first is that you intended for 17.3% on gear (rather than 15%) and the second is that you intended for RH to be considered, which is 7.3% on gear. This means either 3,101 Crit, or 1,308. Because the first is impossible we will assume +1,309 Crit.

10% raid buffed haste is easy to compute as (1.1/1.02/1.05-1)*12805 = 347 Haste.

32.5% from Mastery is of course (32.5/2.5-8)*179.28 = 897 Mastery

So we have our stats: 1,309 Crit, 347 Haste, 896 Mastery

Now our second Priest you claim has 20% Crit.

20% - 7.7% (Int) -5% (buff) -10% (RH) = 22.7%

This means our second Priest has either -484 Crit, or has 22.7% Crit. Your claim is 5% on gear, but I'm going to dismiss this as 0% on gear and 22.7% crit as this is the minimum possible with 5k Int (our comparison for the first Priest).

You go on to claim 20% raid buffed haste. Using the same methodology as before this is 1,404 Haste (using 3/3 instead of 2/3 Darkness). Your Priest is missing 252 stats. I'll assume these go into Haste. This means our Priest's total haste raid buffed is at 22.1% Haste.

So we can now compare our two Priests:

Critpriest - 30% Crit, 10% Haste, 32.5% Mastery
Hastepriest - 22.7% Crit, 22.1% Haste, 32.5% Mastery

In this comparison it is not actually 17 vs 17, but 17 vs 17.88 in favor of Haste.

Now you go on that your Critpriest raises his crit by 10% (1792 Crit) and Haste by 5%. Assuming the same 2/3 Darkness this means going up to 945 Haste, or +598 Haste. This is +2,390 secondary stats. Our Hastepriest already had 1,656. This spikes it up to 4,046. This means they will now have 42.3% Haste.

So in this comparison it is again not 21.2 vs 19.6, but actually 21.2 vs 21.6 in favor of the Haste stacking Priest. This means in both cases Haste actually wins.

You can not over-simplify the question or it will absolutely lead to misunderstandings of real answer. In this case simply ignoring the 5:7 Haste/Crit ratio was ignored just to make a point. When using real numbers and your methodology we find Haste wins.

I won't get into the idea of posting this without the raidhealing section, which is of prime importance to a Disc guide. We've been over that enough times and I'm tired of discussing it. I would suggest a title change and a shift of focus to a tank healing guide, rather than a 'Discipline Priest Guide' as the latter would require a large focus on raid, not tank healing.

[[-Spiritus-]]

So we can now compare our two Priests:

Critpriest - 30% Crit, 10% Haste, 32.5% Mastery
Hastepriest - 22.7% Crit, 22.1% Haste, 32.5% Mastery

In this comparison it is not actually 17 vs 17, but 17 vs 17.88 in favor of Haste.

Now you go on that your Critpriest raises his crit by 10% (1792 Crit) and Haste by 5%. Assuming the same 2/3 Darkness this means going up to 945 Haste, or +598 Haste. This is +2,390 secondary stats. Our Hastepriest already had 1,656. This spikes it up to 4,046. This means they will now have 42.3% Haste.

So in this comparison it is again not 21.2 vs 19.6, but actually 21.2 vs 21.6 in favor of the Haste stacking Priest. This means in both cases Haste actually wins.

You can not over-simplify the question or it will absolutely lead to misunderstandings of real answer. In this case simply ignoring the 5:7 Haste/Crit ratio was ignored just to make a point. When using real numbers and your methodology we find Haste wins.

I won't get into the idea of posting this without the raidhealing section, which is of prime importance to a Disc guide. We've been over that enough times and I'm tired of discussing it. I would suggest a title change and a shift of focus to a tank healing guide, rather than a 'Discipline Priest Guide' as the latter would require a large focus on raid, not tank healing.

Thank you for running the stat weights on this. However, I'm not certain exactly how you came to the total amount of healing done represented in GH casts given the total number of completed GH casts in a 30sec period. I will recalculate based on the more accurate data:

Given:
Critpriest - 30% Crit, 10% Haste, 32.5% Mastery
Hastepriest - 22.7% Crit, 22.1% Haste, 32.5% Mastery

I calculate the following given a 30sec period:
Critpriest:
(1) 13 total competed casts
(2) Given CRIT rate of 30% and CRIT=200%normal cast
(3) Approx 4 (rounded from 3.9) casts will crit on average
(4) 17GH worth of healing for the cost of 13 over 30sec

Hastepriest:
(1) 14 total completed casts
(2) Given crit rate of 22.7% and CRIT=200% normal cast
(3) Approx 3 crits (rounded from 3.178) casts will crit on average
(4) 17GH worth of healing for the cost of 14 over 30sec.

By my original tabulation, the variance remains unchanged. Critpriest heals for the same amount over 30sec on average as Hastepriest for 1GH less cost in mana.

Given:
Critpriest - 40% Crit, 15% Haste, Enough MST for 220%CRIT
Hastepriest - 22.7% Crit, 42.3% Haste, 32.5%, Enough MST for 220%CRIT

I calculate the following given a 30sec period:

Critpriest:
(1) 14 (rounded) completed casts
(2) Approx 6 (rounded from 5.6) crits
(3) 6*1.2 = 7.2 in additional GH worth of healing
(4) 21.2 GH worth of healing for 14 GH worth of mana

Hastepriest
(1) 17 completed casts
(2) Approx 4 (rounded up from 3.587) crits
(3) 4*1.2= 4.8 in additional GH worth of healing
(4) 22.8 GH worth of healing for 17 GH worth of mana

As can be seen, by my original tabulation method, Hastepriest indeed does outperform Critpriest, but at an increasing cost of sustainability.

===============================================

However, the above craft is flawed. To do a proper evaluation, we must take roundings and incomplete casts out of the equation and equate the relative item budget that can be eschewed from SPI from Critpriest to add to throughput due to his increased sustainability.

The look at this the numbers would be as follows:

Given:
Critpriest - 30% Crit, 10% Haste, 32.5% Mastery
Hastepriest - 22.7% Crit, 22.1% Haste, 32.5% Mastery

Critpriest:
(1) 17.18GH worth of healing for 13.22GH casts
(2) Given 9k SP, GH hits for ([9039+(9000*.9672)][1.24*1.06*1.15])=[17743.8][1.51]= 26793
(4) Given GH mana cost at 5559, ([5559*13.22]/30)=2450
(3) 15345HPS for 2450MPS
(4) 14.22 HPM
Hastepriest:
(1) 17.95GH worth of healing for 14.63GH casts
(2) 16031HPS for 2710MPS
(3) 13.42 HPM

Conclusion:
(1) Critpriest saves 1300MP5 for a 4.3% decrease in HPS
(2) Over a 1min period, the 1300MP5 differential translates into 15,600mana saved.
(3) A Disc priest with 2500 SPI & 5000 INT regens 17,700mana from SPI in 4.0.6 in 1min.
(4) Critpriest could nearly drop all SPI from gear into CRIT & MST while maintaining the same sustainability as Hastepriest with 2500SPI & 5000INT while spamming GH for 1min. In fact, the only SPI Critpriest needs to maintain the same level of sustainability as Hastepriest while spamming GH is the 400SPI from DC:T.

The following demonstrates how Critpriest exchanges his greater sustainability for greater throughput while maintaining a nearly identical level of sustainability as Hastepriest.

Critpriest
(1) Critpriest gains 2100 itemization points and evenly splits between CRIT & MST. 5000 INT & 400SPI.
Critpriest: 35.87% Crit, 10% Haste, 47.14% Mastery,
(2) 20.19 GH worth of healing for 13.22 GH cost over 30sec @ same sustainability as Hastepriest spamming GH over a 1min period
(3) 147000 mana spent over 1min, regened 2800k from SPI = 144200 mana deficit w/o other regen sources unrelated to SPI.

vs.

Hastepriest
(1) Hastepriest maintains current itemization. 5000INT & 2500SPI.
Hastepriest - 22.7% Crit, 22.1% Haste, 32.5% Mastery
(1) 17.95GH worth of healing for 14.63GH cost over 30sec @ same sustainability as Critpriest spamming GH over a 1min period
(2) 162600 mana spent over 1min, regened 17700 from SPI = 144900 mana deficit w/o other regen sources unrelated to SPI.

CONCLUSION:
(1) Critpriest can maintain a nearly identical level of sustainability while spamming GH over 1min with 2100less SPI.
(2) Critpriest, while splitting the 2100SPI itemization equally between MST & CRIT, sees a 12.5% increase in throughput.

=======================================

Real World Recap:
-------------------------
The point of this exercise is to demonstrate the following:

Increase of CRIT & MST = Greater Sustainability
Greater Sustainability = Less Regen needed from item budget [SPI]
Less Regen needed from item budget [SPI] = More item budget for CRIT & MST
More item budget for CRIT & MST = Greater Throughput @ same sustainability as someone stacking Haste.

What this does NOT mean: Drop all SPI except for your DC:T.

What this does mean:
(1) Increasing CRIT & MST over HST as a priority makes you more efficient.
(2) The more efficient you are, the less regen you need from SPI.
(3) The less SPI you need from gear, the more you can add to throughput increasing secondary stats.

This is the general principle behind my recommendation to gain early levels of CRIT&MST for tank healing.

[harky]

You're now trying to do napkin math on something that needs a true model. You're making several very large assumptions which can not be made. Not the least of which is assuming this should be based on full-time GH casts. It does not adequately represent how mana flows in the course of a fight. It also assumes that the Crit-stacking Priest would be able to shed Spirit, while the Haste-stacking Priest wouldn't be able to sustain healing. You either need an accurate model, or you need to make fewer assumptions. The key one being that you could somehow drop 2100 Spirit out of a setup which only has 2500 Spirit. You're dropping well over 100k mana over a 5 minute fight. A bit more than 25% of your total mana budget. To clarify:

In the above model, for a 5 minute fight the Crit-stacking Priest would be able to cast ~74 GH. The Haste-stacking Priest would be able to cast ~93. You are therefor trading a 26% reduction in heals cast for a 12.5% gain in healing done. This means in your napkin model the Haste-stacking Priest is actually 12% behind in a 5 minute fight. This difference would grow as the fight length extends. For shorter fights it's less important for obvious reasons with base mana.

Point being: You can not draw any conclusions from the above modelling style. It tells you absolutely nothing about real-world situations.

[[-Spiritus-]]

Point being: You can not draw any conclusions from the above modelling style. It tells you absolutely nothing about real-world situations.

I agree that a more accurate model would be fantastic. However, I don't have a proper model, nor do I have the expertise to develop one [or the time to learn and do so].

Until such time, I believe I have provided sufficient evidence for my hypothesis to be worthy of consideration.

From a qualitative standpoint [which I realize is moot for this discussion], I feel like a stronger, more sustainable tank healer when I'm crit heavy and others who have switched from a haste heavy to crit heavy build have reported the same.

HST-Heavy Raid Disc Healer Section Now Up!

[mishiko]

I hope your XPS bit focuses on Atonement - because so far you're being quite blind.

[zito]

Divine aegis is stacking on the PTR. Got it to 49.6k with PoH (seems to cap at that).

Quick question, since the role of a disc priest can switch from tank to raid healer and vice versa quickly in 10 man groups. Would it be beneficial to try and keep haste/crit as close as possible to each other or just focus on haste since haste tank healing is just slightly worse?

[Siri]

Divine aegis is stacking on the PTR. Got it to 49.6k with PoH (seems to cap at that).

Weird, that would indicate that the cap mechanics have changed, unless you have ~250k health.

[harky]

It looks like you incorrectly linked the Disc raid healing spec. It's the same as the tank healing spec you posted and does not match the description as "32/6/3". However, a "32/6/3" spec would not be proper anyway and should be "31/7/3" as Inspiration should still be expected and can taken without a loss in raid healing capacity.

[[-Spiritus-]]

It looks like you incorrectly linked the Disc raid healing spec. It's the same as the tank healing spec you posted and does not match the description as "32/6/3". However, a "32/6/3" spec would not be proper anyway and should be "31/7/3" as Inspiration should still be expected and can taken without a loss in raid healing capacity.

I fixed the link.

I don't buy the value of Inspiration when raid healing as the relative uptime on the tank provided by a disc priest raid healer will be small.

For example, the Inspiration uptime for the top 3 logged raid healing disc priest heroic 10man Maloriak [chosen because they were the only priest in the raid] kills for both tanks are:

(1) 15.6%/16.9%
(2) 0%/0%
(3) 15.4%/12.7&

As such, I prefer to use those two points in other talents.

I hope your XPS bit focuses on Atonement - because so far you're being quite blind.

The XPS portion will focus more on Atonement. I didn't feel it necessary to harp on what Atonement brings in the raid healing section because I felt the use was fairly self evident [smite target, lowest health deficit in 15yards of center of target gets healed for smite*healing multiplier]. I will add an explanation in the disc raid healing section for thoroughness.

Quick question, since the role of a disc priest can switch from tank to raid healer and vice versa quickly in 10 man groups. Would it be beneficial to try and keep haste/crit as close as possible to each other or just focus on haste since haste tank healing is just slightly worse?

A tough question that is difficult to give a flat answer. If you are flexing often from tank to raid, my gut would be to value haste over crit.

[Tuvor]

This is amazing, should be a requirement for any priest hoping to go disc to read this.

Any chance of you doing a holy one eventually

[Katcall]

This was extremely, extremely helpful, not to mention completely the opposite of what I was doing and what was told to do by guildies. I have been stacking haste -- so much haste that I've been reforging crit TO haste. Also, I've been completely avoiding mastery. I'm curious as to why you put the points into Evangelism and Archangel? Obviously the latter is a very effective buff, but I can't imagine having the few available seconds to cast Smite in a raid situation just waiting for Archangel to proc.

[[-Spiritus-]]

This was extremely, extremely helpful, not to mention completely the opposite of what I was doing and what was told to do by guildies. I have been stacking haste -- so much haste that I've been reforging crit TO haste. Also, I've been completely avoiding mastery. I'm curious as to why you put the points into Evangelism and Archangel? Obviously the latter is a very effective buff, but I can't imagine having the few available seconds to cast Smite in a raid situation just waiting for Archangel to proc.

I'm glad you found the guild so far helpful, but I'm a bit confused about your question. I am advocating picking up a healthy amount of crit for disc tank healing, but that spec does not have AA.

The spec that does have AA is the raid healing spec, but I note that crit should be avoided for that role.

To answer your question I'll need to know what role you are filling.

[harky]

I fixed the link.

I don't buy the value of Inspiration when raid healing as the relative uptime on the tank provided by a disc priest raid healer will be small.

It's an issue of taking something that has some healing value over things which do not.

The spec you listed is totally at odds with itself. Here's your recommended spec: http://wowtal.com/#k=vOjj665h.aei.priest.qHCrQc

You're taking Train of Thought and 3/3 Emp Healing, so you'll be firing off Greater Heals, I assume. You'll apparently be doing this without Grace, or Renewed Hope. This looks like a basic 'smite spam' spec. That's really all it's truly good for. If that's the case why is Penance not glyphed? You're taking a talent which you will really only use to reduce Penance cooldowns, but are not glyphing it? You won't be using PW:S enough in this playstyle for it to be worthwhile.

Compare: http://wowtal.com/#k=1vWlKbWz.aei.priest.qHCrQc

What have you lost?

Train of Thought - On fights where you would need to cast Penance more often you can easily switch in the Penance Glyph, which is the equivalent of casting 4x Smite per Penance cooldown. Greater Heal will not be cast often enough to matter.

Inner Sanctum - 6% more damage taken does suck, but if this is a concern you can design a spec for Nef and Sin specifically.

1/3 Emp Healing - This is a 5% loss on the healing of spells you don't cast a lot.

What do you gain?

Renewed Hope - Helps fuel Inspiration. Prime 'optional' points, which can be moved back to Sanctum for specific fights.

Grace - When assisting tanks this helps much more than Emp Healing/etc.

Inspiration - Even if you only have a 15-20% uptime it's a significant reduction in tank damage.

In regard to those Maloriak kills? They're 2 healing. Not exactly a situation most forum goers will be in. You also should have noticed in the third log you quoted Ancestral Healing was up 90.2% of the time. Of course uptime was low. The other two were purely due to 2 healing and is a situation where tank damage is very low in relation to raid healing. If you were to look up top 25 man fights you'd see dramatically higher Inspiration uptime.

Either way, the only thing you're giving up to take Inspiration is technically Train of Thought and 1/3 Emp Healing. Neither of which is of much important. Taking Grace + RH instead of Inner Sanctum is optional. It is what I do in my off-spec though. This is my main spec: http://wowtal.com/#k=1vKh8S_P.aei.priest.qHCrQc

[[-Spiritus-]]

Inner Sanctum - 6% more damage taken does suck, but if this is a concern you can design a spec for Nef and Sin specifically.

This is the point of stasis that I do not think we will ever agree upon. 3/3 Inner Sanctum is too valuable for me to drop, whether its the 6% MDR or the 6% extra run speed.

You're taking Train of Thought and 3/3 Emp Healing, so you'll be firing off Greater Heals, I assume. You'll apparently be doing this without Grace, or Renewed Hope. This looks like a basic 'smite spam' spec. That's really all it's truly good for. If that's the case why is Penance not glyphed? You're taking a talent which you will really only use to reduce Penance cooldowns, but are not glyphing it? You won't be using PW:S enough in this playstyle for it to be worthwhile.

I don't take RH and Grace in my raid heal build because I have yet to come across a situation where PW:S->Penance->GH/FH didn't work.

When PoH is not the answer, and Penance is on CD, GH is usually the answer to spot heal members. However, I will rarely find the need to cast Penance->GH on someone at, say, 50% health as other heals are incoming. Therefore, Grace is mostly a waste as when I am casting "grace activating" spells, it is rarely on the same person twice. I pick up 3/3 EH because it is never wasted.

I pick up 2/2 ToT for the IF CD reduction. I cast GH frequently enough when PoH is not the answer to warrant this. It is also synergistic because when I'm NOT spamming PoH, I'm spot healing w/ GH, which lowers the CD on IF for the next spike damage for a free, critjuiced PoH. I stated that Glyph of Penance is an option, but PW:S is your go to raid healing spell on the move, thus making the PW:S Glyph very worthwhile with the mechanics seen on most fights in Cata so far.

Also, this is a 4.0.6 guide. The PW:S Glyph will scale with the extra throughput PW:S will receive, while also helping to offset the increased cost by either boosting HPM in Inner Fire or allowing similar healing done with InnerWill as one would do in Inner Fire, sans glyph.

Therefore, in my experience, RH & Grace really only come into play when assisting with tank healing. TBH, my tank healers don't need much assistance besides the odd PW:S->Penance->GH combo now and again, which really isn't often enough to warrant picking up Inspiration.

So, why dump 6 talents [RH, Grace, Inspiration] for the odd and end goof by the tank healer, when I can have a 15% bonus to healing that should be available damn near every time spike damage occurs? I take Atonement to make building x5Evan less of an HPS loss, not to spam smite.

So, 5 talents for an 18sec, 15% multiplicative bonus to all healing spells on a 30sec CD at the cost of x5smite that also heals.

OR

6 talents that require you to focus on one target for at least a few casts to see any substantial benefit as a raid healer?

Renewed Hope - Helps fuel Inspiration. Prime 'optional' points, which can be moved back to Sanctum for specific fights.

RH does not help to fuel Inspiration significantly if 50%+ or more of your HPS is from spells that do not benefit from RH on a target that has a dedicated healer already [that isn't you].

Grace - When assisting tanks this helps much more than Emp Healing/etc.

Your tanks and tank healers need a lot of "assisting," don't they?

In regard to those Maloriak kills? They're 2 healing. Not exactly a situation most forum goers will be in. You also should have noticed in the third log you quoted Ancestral Healing was up 90.2% of the time. Of course uptime was low. The other two were purely due to 2 healing and is a situation where tank damage is very low in relation to raid healing. If you were to look up top 25 man fights you'd see dramatically higher Inspiration uptime.

In every log I looked at they 3 healed. IDK what logs you were looking at. Are you sure you were looking at 10man Heroic? In either case, you quote that the Shaman had a 90.2% uptime on AH. Well, sure! Shaman can keep near 50% AH just by making sure ES is up at all times. Add in the mechanic of CH, which allows them to be efficient with group healing while bouncing it off the tank and HR on spike damage, which by itself should keep 100% uptime, and you've just made my case as to why, absent a Disc Tank Healer, shaman [shamans? shamanses? shami?] should be providing 10% PDR on tanks as they can do so effectively without suffering much from throughput or efficiency while filling the "assist the tanks" role.

---------- Post added 2011-01-27 at 01:49 PM ----------

EDIT: I will, however, grant you that 2/2 Grace may be a more beneficial talent in 4.0.6 than 2/2 ToT for a disc raid healer. It would have to be one of those "try it out" things with the multi target grace to see if it feels natural, or whether you feel like you are forcing yourself to put grace on as many targets as possible [in a raid heal role that is].

[harky]

This is turning out to be as relevant to helping Priests as propaganda is to fact finding research.

Either way, RH and Grace usefulness depends on Penance usefulness. If you use Penance much then both are very useful. For instance, if you simply have Grace and cast Penance, what is the effect assuming you have not pre-stacked Grace? +8%. This is without Grace being on the target at the beginning of the cast at all. This is in addition to the +6.6% Crit provided by RH. So taking 2/2 RH and 2/2 Grace is of benefit on Penance without any changes in gameplay.

Let's go back to your original claims though in regard to those 10H Maloriak kills. Here's the #1 Disc log: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/l...=19444#Aragnis

You are right in that they're three healing. So perhaps I checked 10N earlier for some reason. Still, this is at odds with your claims.

Inspiration uptime (total): 67.5%
Inspiration uptime (tanks): 37.3% / 21.1%

Top heals? PoH, PW:S and DA.

How much damage would that prevent? 37.3% uptime on the MT and 21.1% on the OT equates to ~201k damage prevented. This is an ~3% gain when compared to healing.

Sounds useless... or not.

#2 log = 64.7% uptime.
#3 log = 68.2% uptime.
#4 log = 48.5% uptime.
#5 log = ---
#6 log = ---
#7 log = 75.2% uptime.
#8 log = 77% uptime.
#9 log = 58.7% uptime.
#10 log = 60.4% uptime.

All these logs are raid healing. Except 5/6 they're all taking inspiration. All the Priests with Inspiration in their builds have relatively high uptime while raid healing. Some of this is wasted on non-tanks, yes, but that's isn't really the point.

No one is saying a build without Grace/RH/Inspiration won't work. Just that it's not exactly optimal either. Would those top logs even be in the top 10 had they taken Inspiration, or would the damage taken have been lower and then pushed them down on the list? That's the real question.

As far as Grace? Every one of those same top 10 logs has Grace. Not taking it is a serious flaw in any Disc spec.