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  1. #1
    Deleted

    Why are my heals so low?

    Right before I dinged 85, Greater Heal would give about 40-50% of the health of a DPS.

    Right when I dinged, it gave only 10-20%. What? At first I thought, OK, extremely undergeared, So I went and bought a ton of 355+ items that had huge intellect - compared to the levelling gear.

    But guess what, still only 25% - or about - of the health of a DPS. I mean, it starts feeling deficient to even be a healer. What's the point of being a healer when you need 1, 2, 3, 4 ,5, 6, about 10 Greater Heals to heal a 5man!?

    OK, I'm pretty confident this is related to very high end content but it makes 5man initial instancing very frustrating. I'm supposed to be a healer, this is pure micromanagement.

    e.g. I can not use a smite-holy fire rotation on Disc easily on an old 5man heroic with a good gear for it (about 345), I'm afraid I'll go oom and its heals aren't that huge anyway.

    So I resort to a Penance -> Shield, Prayer of Healing, Prayer of Mending 'rotation' which is very, very, tight. I usually end up spamming Prayer of Healing towards the end of the fight and I'm oom.

    If the DPSes are useless, not a chance to do one of the hardest fights. If the fight with 3 DPSes that don't do more than 12-14K dps goes way beyond the regular time, it might kill us.

  2. #2
    Go holy. Holy (for me at least) makes me feel like i'm more in control. Disc isn't the shit if you're badly geared imo

  3. #3
    Welcome to cata healing.

    You have to use slow, cheap but weak, efficient heals constantly. Every heal requires a conscious choice, unlike in 1-84. You need to decide which heal is best for the job. If it's not urgent, use a cheap heal. If it's really urgent, a fast heal. If it's kind of urgent and you anticipate a lot of damage, stick with greater heal.

    It IS micromanagement. I love it that way. Healing was so boring in LK.

  4. #4
    armory link maybe?

    I found going disc right at 85 was a little difficult without a competent group.

    Disc at 85 is much different than leveling disc (from my experience). I think I went holy at 85 to gear up a little before going back disc.

    more info on gear/spec might be helpful

  5. #5
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Entropia View Post
    Go holy. Holy (for me at least) makes me feel like i'm more in control. Disc isn't the shit if you're badly geared imo
    I'm really into that venue as well. I start feeling Disc is a "gimmick" spec, much like doing subtlety rogue in or frost mage in PvE. It's a novel spec that can be fun when it is overgeared but it's really not what a healer traditionaly does.

    I suspect I will have to resort to the big heals of Renew and Heal of the Holy Spec soon.

    However, I'm a bit worried that since a lot of the instances have heavy AOE right now it might be hard to switch the mode that easily and reliably if needed.

    Disc is an "easy" spec that doesn't need such switches.

    Though of course if the switch is done for the whole fight or for very big portions, not a problem.

  6. #6
    Well healing from level 10 - 82ish is pretty easy and almost any heal you apply will do big numbers compare to the health pool of the player. Such as when I was leveling a resto shaman going afk safely knowing the tank will be full hp with earth shield and riptide.

    But for the most part, most people do not take fast enough damage to need to be spamming your biggest heal, or else they are standing in the wrong place or doing something wrong.

    Are you just having a slower reaction time when damage is dealt? Or are you overreacting when damage is dealt?

  7. #7
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Seegtease View Post
    Welcome to cata healing.

    You have to use slow, cheap but weak, efficient heals constantly. Every heal requires a conscious choice, unlike in 1-84. You need to decide which heal is best for the job. If it's not urgent, use a cheap heal. If it's really urgent, a fast heal. If it's kind of urgent and you anticipate a lot of damage, stick with greater heal.

    It IS micromanagement. I love it that way. Healing was so boring in LK.
    I don't think you understood. This is not a whine thread of "OMG I can not use Flash Heal all the time". Notice I specifically say Greater Heal which is the most efficient spell when you need to get a lot of HP on someone that will need it relatively shortly but not immediately. And when that "Greater" (yeah right) heal is only 20% of the health of the tank it makes me feel very deficient. This is in a 5man heroic of the right ilevel. I'm not talking about undergeared content.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by FemaleGoblinMage View Post
    I don't think you understood. This is not a whine thread of "OMG I can not use Flash Heal all the time". Notice I specifically say Greater Heal which is the most efficient spell when you need to get a lot of HP on someone that will need it relatively shortly but not immediately. And when that "Greater" (yeah right) heal is only 20% of the health of the tank it makes me feel very deficient. This is in a 5man heroic of the right ilevel. I'm not talking about undergeared content.
    Sorry, I didn't mean to come off as rude.

    It was a shock to me too, large heals (all heals even) are significantly weaker. You use them to get more health back (25% instead of 10% from your efficient heal). That's the new "big" in cata. And as was said before, look at how much you healed, not what percent. Sometimes people have a lot of health - doesn't mean they need that much for the content.

  9. #9
    Now the EH vs avoid debate that really only had the spotlight at the beginning of Cata.

    Basically, when tanks are gearing they can choose to stack stamina or avoidance stats like dodge/parry/mastery/(crit too for druid only).

    Avoidance lowers incoming damage but involves a little bit of RNG (even at very high avoidance values, yes, still a bit of RNG). But against an avoidance stacked tank your newly level 85 priest will feel much more comfortable because taking less damage means your gheal being fairly small, doesn't make it feel inadequate.

    At some point though when healers are geared AND the tank has high enough avoidance, some tanks start to prefer more health, trading dodge/block/parry to make their healthpool big. Sadly that means if you're undergeared you can't keep up with the damage they'll take, but when paired with a geared healer it has its perks. Basically damage patterns are much more predictable on a tank with really high health.

    If you're queing for RDF as a newly dinged 85, you're probably running into your share of (1) tanks that are bad in general and (2) well geared tanks out for some VP that have stacked stamina somewhat.

    I regularly see tanks over 200k health in RDF lately. This is probably the challenge you're facing. What can you do? Just ask your tank nicely to slow down the pace, because you're not going to convince him to go regem mastery.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Maklor View Post
    Well if people have over 200k they are overgeared (360+ gear) or just going for stamina which is a horrible approach for a dungeon.
    As you say, but people gear around raiding, not dungeons. And beyond certain avoidance levels sta stacking can be beneficial. Situationally, of course.

  11. #11
    Deleted
    By the way, I noticed people mentioning using the right kind of heal. But this to me appears to be related to Holy mostly. Disc screams at you that it is a novel spec that does not rely on the traditional toolset of the small/medium/fast/big "Heals". The mastery bonus surely does not rely on you critting to give a benefit since this is extremely unreliable.

    On a Disc priest, there is no much micromanagement in terms of Heal type. You have to shield, you have to Prayer of Mending, and Prayer of Healing (which also shields Reliably). And that 'rotation' is very tight.

    OK, I know, one could say the DPSes shouldn't be useless. Because truth be told, I mainly notice a problem when the DPSes do significantly lower damage than they should. Hence the fight becomes about 50% longer and then OOM comes (if the ilevel is equivalent).

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by zakaluka View Post
    Now the EH vs avoid debate that really only had the spotlight at the beginning of Cata.
    I think you mean Stam stacking vs Effective Health, as avoidance is part of the latter


    Basically, when tanks are gearing they can choose to stack stamina or avoidance stats like dodge/parry/mastery/(crit too for druid only).

    Avoidance lowers incoming damage but involves a little bit of RNG (even at very high avoidance values, yes, still a bit of RNG). But against an avoidance stacked tank your newly level 85 priest will feel much more comfortable because taking less damage means your gheal being fairly small, doesn't make it feel inadequate.

    At some point though when healers are geared AND the tank has high enough avoidance, some tanks start to prefer more health, trading dodge/block/parry to make their healthpool big. Sadly that means if you're undergeared you can't keep up with the damage they'll take, but when paired with a geared healer it has its perks. Basically damage patterns are much more predictable on a tank with really high health.
    There is a very specific breakpoint where stamina becomes better. It's when the total avoidance + blocking gets to the point where regular hits fall off the RNG table completely and everything is either Parried, Dodged, or Blocked and only a fraction of the damage gets through.

    At that point is Stamina stacking the way to go, and even then only if you can maintain that breakpoint. A tank that hits this needs FL level gear, and when they reach it is *very* noticeable. Especially when you go and run a heroic with them and stuff hits them with a wet noodle.


    If you're queing for RDF as a newly dinged 85, you're probably running into your share of (1) tanks that are bad in general and (2) well geared tanks out for some VP that have stacked stamina somewhat.
    Any tank stacking stamina without reaching their breakpoint doesn't know what they're doing. Which sadly, is most of them.


    I regularly see tanks over 200k health in RDF lately. This is probably the challenge you're facing. What can you do? Just ask your tank nicely to slow down the pace, because you're not going to convince him to go regem mastery.
    Pretty much. The one major thing I noticed in the Zandaral heroics especially is that a lot of the nastier damage is either interruptable or you can run out of it. Case in point, to this day almost noone in my RDF runs knows you can interrupt the the Blood Drinker's Blood Leech. *shakes head*

  13. #13
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    Well, DPS below level 85 will have like 60-70k HP while a geared 85 can have up to 130k (even 140-150k with 15% from luck of the draw) and no, you can't cast a 70k heal with a newly dinged 85 unless the stars align.

  14. #14
    Deleted
    Are you sure you are gemming and enchanting for max intellect and not something like haste?
    By the time your intellect, and thus your spellpower goes up, your heals will heal for a lot more

    For the rest, enjoy cata healing, and dont worry about asking for manabreaks ^^

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by FemaleGoblinMage View Post
    By the way, I noticed people mentioning using the right kind of heal. But this to me appears to be related to Holy mostly. Disc screams at you that it is a novel spec that does not rely on the traditional toolset of the small/medium/fast/big "Heals". The mastery bonus surely does not rely on you critting to give a benefit since this is extremely unreliable.

    On a Disc priest, there is no much micromanagement in terms of Heal type. You have to shield, you have to Prayer of Mending, and Prayer of Healing (which also shields Reliably). And that 'rotation' is very tight.
    Disc priests have the same toolset.

    small = smite/attonement
    fast = fheal
    Slow and big = greater heal

    You should be using all three as Disc, on top of PoM/PWS/Penance, considering those are all abilities with cooldowns... :/

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by FemaleGoblinMage View Post
    By the way, I noticed people mentioning using the right kind of heal. But this to me appears to be related to Holy mostly. Disc screams at you that it is a novel spec that does not rely on the traditional toolset of the small/medium/fast/big "Heals". The mastery bonus surely does not rely on you critting to give a benefit since this is extremely unreliable.

    On a Disc priest, there is no much micromanagement in terms of Heal type. You have to shield, you have to Prayer of Mending, and Prayer of Healing (which also shields Reliably). And that 'rotation' is very tight.
    that might be an answer to your struggling.
    you dont 'have to' as a discipline priest. you dont have a rotation. you see what happens (and should know what will happen on a fight) and you react to it.

    small heal - smite/hfire in atonement spec, heal in sos spec
    medium heal - i like to think about pom or penance here
    fast heal - flash heal
    big heal - greater heal

    if you dont use smites, as you say, hopefully you respecced to sos.

    poh, only use it when its efficient. dont use it when 1-2 people take some damage.
    also, you dont need dps to be on 100% for the whole fight.

    armory would be very helpful.

  17. #17
    I have only been playing priest a little in wotlk and some more in between my hunter/warr "Periods" in cata but like others have said: disc seems to be a lot more fun when you get better gear.

    I was switching between disc and holy while lvling but when i hit 85 i went holy and stayed there untill just a few weeks ago (Like i said, i barely play my priest :P) when i respeced my shadow into disc.

    If your group got a mix of somewhat "nooby" ppls who stands in aoe or take a lot of damage for some reson i find it easier to keep everyone up as holy, but in return i do oom faster. Disc on the other hand, no problems with mana..... unless the group is taking a lot of aoe damage.

    http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...rkangel/simple <-- link to my priests armory if thats of any intrest. Altho ive been told that i could need some more haste(?) And as you might notice i'm a holy fire/smother hehe.(Any spec/gem/enchant/gearing tips are welcome!) I don't really know how your gear is so can't say for sure, but i bet you will find it easier and more fun as soon as you get some better gear!

    PS: English is not my original language so sorry if there is a lot of grammar fails up there ^

  18. #18
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by babylon View Post
    armory would be very helpful.
    No it wouldn't. There's no issue with gear here. I specced to holy and my healing is huge and sufficient unless the DPS is completely useless and drag the fight for 10mins (5mans of the same ilevel with gear).

    Disc is just very unreliable for unreliable people. Apparently, since you mainly work with "prevention", spec is very weak against failures of DPSes. Also, prevention need a LOT of preknowledge. This is sometimes RNG based.

    I see Disc right now as a novel spec that is very hard to work properly unless the setup of the group is perfectly understood and the fight is perfectly understood. This is in itself a deficiency due to the management required to support that knowledge.

  19. #19
    Im not a pro when it comes to Holy but i am fairly familiar with it since I have used both Disc/Holy in current raids.
    But i would not recommend going Holy for better mana management.

    And for some reason every time a thread pops up about a new healer having mana problems the usual answer is to switch to the opposite spec of what theyre using...
    In my experience Disc seemed much more efficient then Holy while gearing up, one thing you have to remember is that Disc's strength lies in mitigation and use of cooldowns. Use your Pain Suppression and Barrier during high damage periods, and dont be shy about using your Power Infusion either.. Consider shifting from Inner Fire to Inner Will during those times you might spam shields and vice versa.
    As far as regaining mana make sure you use your fiend BEFORE you run out of mana, usually its best to use the Fiend/Hymn combo to get the most mana possible. If timed with an intell proc or two you can regain about 80% of your mana. Asides from the combo i usually use my Fiend at around 60% mana.

    And just in case your not doing this already keep your shield up on the tank 100% of the time. Rapture is #1 mana replenishment tool as Disc.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by FemaleGoblinMage View Post
    Apparently, since you mainly work with "prevention", spec is very weak against failures of DPSes.
    the idea of 5 mans in cata was that you cant carry failure dps, ie wont manage to keep up people standing in fire, so id say it works as intended!

    having said that, you have 2 controllable tools to prevent damage (shield and da from poh) and 7-10? (w/o-w atonement) tools to heal up damage that already happened + you can gear against mastery, which makes your prevention even less valuable while boost your regular healing. there really are more than one way of playing discipline priest, but if you are so against them and dont enjoy them, maybe picking holy, which has very different playstyle, would be best option.

    imagine the pain some of us had when gearing in 5mans at the begining of cata (cmon guys, guild has to be ready for the first raid for next reset!), before crits amd shields were buffed, before we could buy all the fancy stuff on ah and justice points were only buying us, what was it, 346 blues, rawr

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