Doubts about Disc Healing in DS

[Agatha]

Hello
Well, I play priest as my alt right now, and I just love healing with her.
The thing is that I haven't had any problems in DS while healing, and in most of the fights I'm always first in healing/absorbs and last in overhealing.
I don't have any issues with managing my mana (most of the time :x).

My main problem is that I feel like I'm spamming too much PoH now.
When I look my recount, my main heals are always Divine Aegis first and then Prayer of Healing and others, and other priest told me that I was doing it wrong if my first heal was Divine Aegis D:

I thought that I was doing fine in DS, we even managed to kill ultraxion with 2 healers (Holy priest/ Disc priest), but since this other guy told me that I was doing it wrong I feel insecure about my healing style.

My armory is: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...amaliel/simple

I'm trying to stack mastery, and I'm not aiming for any haste soft cap for the moment.

Can someone tell me if I'm really wrong?
I don't have any logs to show right now, but maybe in my next raid I'll record the fights and upload them to WoL :<

-edit-

Just to be clear:
- Raid is NOT dying
- I don't have problems with my mana

My only real doubt is if I should use less PoH and more my other healing spells... :<

[zakaluka]

That doesn't make any sense. PoH and PoM are your highest throughput and highest efficiency spells. Why wouldn't you use them most?

If PoH is your top heal, and your overheal is low, you're playing smart. Don't listen to the peanut gallery. If you have any significant amount of mastery, this behavior will make aegis top your breakdown. Don't sweat it.

What percentage of your breakdown is Aegis + PW:S?

[Agatha]

Not really sure, I reseted my recount a few hours ago, and the only recorded fights are from LFR... last fight was Madness, and Aegis + PW:S together are around 55%
Then again, it was LFR, where there were actually 3 healers healing and 3 guys filling the spots... It's not the best place to test my healing

[Ellumina]

If the fight has a lot of raid healing to be done, clearly your AoE healing spells will be on top. If you were a Holy Paladin, you would see Holy Radiance taking up a large % of healing done, especially considering majority of the DS fights include stacking up and spamming heals. I think for myself, PoH, Divine Aegis, and PW:Shield generally tend to be my top 3 healing spells. There's nothing wrong with that, and spamming PoH is how we AoE heal (straight up AoE healing, building Aegis bubbles, tossing a PW:Shield here and there for Rapture and Borrowed Time).

I personally prefer Haste > Mastery for Disc but it's a personal preference (nothing wrong with Mastery > Haste). My only real complaint regarding your gearing would be the high amount of spirit you have. If you play Holy a lot too and share gear between both specs then I understand, but if you're never Holy then that just seems like a lot of unnecessary spirit to me that can go to another secondary stat and increase throughput. Not to mention with the 2 points into Veiled Shadows, it just seems like a bit of overkill. If you keep your spirit that high, I could imagine you can place your 2 points elsewhere (Darkness, SoL, Inspiration). There is a +65 mastery enchant for gloves that would be an improvement from your current enchant, and I would also recommend Power Torrent > Heartsong for your weapon enchant.

[zakaluka]

If Ags' total absorbs are >50%, that means she's heavy on the PW:S compared to most of us. In which case Mst > Hst and high spirit make great sense. Best disc I've ever healed against does this exact same thing. Do try to cap your spirit somewhere, though. Dosia stopped at 2800.

Don't fret, don't try to fix what ain't broken. Healing strategy that will work is largely dependent on your raid group and how they behave.

100 times in agreement with ellumina on HS vs PT, though. HS will only be viable on one fight (and only the hardmode of that fight), for one healing spec in the game. For absolutely everyone else PT is miles ahead.

[Agatha]

Thanks a lot for your comments
And yep, I'll fix the enchants ASAP, some time ago I got the gloves and forgot about changing the enchant :x

/hug

[scandore8472]

Nothing wrong with how you're playing. Whoever told you that doesn't have a clue what they are talking about. PoH is our only AoE heal so, I'm not sure what else they would be expecting you to use to heal the raid? If you're raid healing, PoH and DA will always be your top two spells, it's been that way this entire xpac. Are you making the holy priest tank heal? Maybe that's what they are talking about, because holy should never be tank healing when there's a disc priest in the raid. Still though, two healing a 10 man raid, even if you're responsible for the tank, PoH will still be high on the meters because you still are going to be assisting the raid.

I'd tweak your spec a bit though, unless you always raid with a hpriest/shaman, you should have inspiration.

[Mikayo]

poh is almost always my #1 heal as disc - I think your holy priest is just jealous you're beating him and making it look easy.
sounds like you're doing it right.

[Skygoneblue]

They don't call it Looking For Retards for nothin!

[Deleted]

If you're forcing your holy priest to tank heal then yeah you're doing it wrong. If not then nothing to see really, poh does really well in DS and with high crit percentage your DA is gonna be right upthere aswell because of it.

[Mythricia]

My personal take as a fulltime Disc priest currently doing DS Heroic (Meaning, I get the job done so can't be entirely misleading); stick to your guns and as long as it works, don't worry, be happy.

Prayer of Healing is a very strong part of our healing on a lot of DS fights. The better your raid, the "worse" (i.e. the bigger) PoH will be on your logs, since we can cast it even more when there's less spike damage happening that we have to pause to take care of. Divine Aegis is extremely powerful when you get to spam PoH (And as such, Mastery is also very powerful imo because of that, so I agree with your gearing strategy, I do the same). So, sometimes Aegis will be your #1 source, though usually more like 2nd or possibly 3rd depending on the fight / how you healed it. And there's nothing wrong with that, really. For me personally, there's rarely a fight in DS where Prayer of Healing is not #1 or 2, with Aegis as it's companion.

Disc is one of those specs where you can find 5 people doing 5 different things with the spec, and all 5 of them being wildly successful at their role. Hence, stick to doing what you feel works for you. Playing something in a way you're used to and have become good at, is much better than trying to play in a way that theoretically will make you 5% better - it won't, because you're not as comfortable with it.


+1 on Power Torrent, Heartsong was more of an option back when mana was much more precious (very early cataclysm). In current gear I'm not even sure HS is more mana regen anyways, but don't quote me on that, hard theory is not my thing.

Haste VS Mastery, as I already said, Disc is one spec where you can do whatever you want, and you can probably make it work. I'm a Mastery gal, and will get as much as I can of it at the expense of any and all Haste or Crit. I usually bathe in Spirit (I love it, I have tons of it, and I never want less), while it obviously works for a lot of people to reforge away all their spirit (or much of it), I personally never will, as I always find a way to run out of mana, and if I don't, the throughput was not needed anyways. I guess I feel that more spirit means I have more mana to spend, which feels more helpful in the long run. I never really had the issue of needing more pure hard HPS, we can provide that, at a cost, and that cost is in mana. So more mana seems a good deal to me. But like I said, it obviously works for a lot of people to back down on Spirit, so experiment and find what works for your healing style.

[Deleted]

Best disc I've ever healed against does this exact same thing.

I love this sentence, lol. "... healed against".

[Mythricia]

I love this sentence, lol. "... healed against".

Who says healing can't be competitive!

Me and my healing buddy in 10man HC's always constantly try to outplay eachother, it's a nice friendly competition and tbh it's a very positive competition, makes us both play better and better which helps the raid in the end.

I don't think competing necessarily means padding meters or doing things detrimental to the raid to win.

[PromiscuousPenguin]

Who says healing can't be competitive!

Me and my healing buddy in 10man HC's always constantly try to outplay eachother, it's a nice friendly competition and tbh it's a very positive competition, makes us both play better and better which helps the raid in the end.

I don't think competing necessarily means padding meters or doing things detrimental to the raid to win.

Yh I agree, I not only enjoy healthy competition but also find it beneficial for thriving to be better. What I dislike is the situation where someone is too busy whoring as opposed to healing smart which will have a negative impact on our raiding.

[mookspal]

Few comments.

1) Being first in healing/absorbs really means nothing. Whenever I look at healing I always look at overall healing done.
2) If no one is dying then it really does not matter. I could see a complaint that one healer feels he is doing way more healing then the other. For example, I two healed on my alt druid and ran with a disc priest that almost ONLY used PW:S. She was doing like 24+K hps but was only like 25% of the total heals (2 healing). Does this make sense ? I was working my ass off to keep people alive. On that fight I finished below her on HPS but crushed her on overall healing.
3) In my experience, unless you are using PW:S a great amount of time. ( I do not when I two heal with my druid healer) I would recommend doing a Haste/crit build or a haste/ mastery build if you feel like you shield a good amount. Over all, mastery stacks very poorly with DA and I personally think it is BLAH for my healing style.

Currently, I am running with a haste (until i feel like I will not OMM), High spirit ( 3,5650-with trinket), and everything else to crit. I am very aggressive and over heal a good amount (hence the high spirit). I try to use PW:shield for rapture/ save a life only ( about 11% of total heals). My top heal since I switched to a crit build has been DA. Here is log from a madness kill that I got with a pug group. We three healed it cuz thats how they do it.

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/z...one/?enc=kills

Really you have to just mess around and see what works best for you. I see top disc priest run with 3000 spirit and 900 spirit as well as the same with other stats. What works for me, might not work for you. I would recommend ( if you have the gold) to try different builds and maybe mess around in the LFR (even tho its a 25) and see what you like.

(Note-FYI- my current armory is off because I was messing around with some stuff in LFR)

[Agatha]

Never thought I was going to get more replies :O

@Mythricia: Yep, It's kind of the same I'm doing today I was playing with my reforges but I just don't feel comfortable with a low spirit build... I like to spam lots of heals while trying to save the tank and the guy who stood in the fire (who probably doesn't deserve to be saved, but it's my job to do it :x). I'll probably go back to high spirit/mastery if it doesn't work fine for me in my next raid.

@mookspal: yesterday I saw a priest healing with high mastery/haste and low spirit (around 1500) and I was wondering how does he manage to not go OMM with that amount... I want to give a try to those crit reforges but it kind of scares me... I mean, is it really noticeable in your healing the amount of crit you have? (I probably sound noobish but I have never tried a crit healing spec)

[mookspal]

@mookspal: yesterday I saw a priest healing with high mastery/haste and low spirit (around 1500) and I was wondering how does he manage to not go OMM with that amount... I want to give a try to those crit reforges but it kind of scares me... I mean, is it really noticeable in your healing the amount of crit you have? (I probably sound noobish but I have never tried a crit healing spec)

Don't be afraid to run high spirit if it fits your healing style. No one can tell you what you need. If someone tells you 1500 spirit and you are running out of mana, then 1500 is not for you. Personally, since I switched to a "haste/crit" build, I have noticed that DA is usually my top heal now. Which I think is directly related to CRITS providing a double DA. Looking at my logs, I have also noticed some fights where I crit a ton and other fights where I do not as much. Crit is not consistent like mastery, which is one reason some people dont like it. Personally, I just favor a higher chance of crit for a double DA then stacking mastery to increase DA a small amount. It seems to be working well for me now.

[Agatha]

awesome I'll give it a shot during the week

[Mythricia]

Crit as a stat is in a strange place for Disc, really. Consider this: When you cast any direct healing spell other than Prayer of Healing as Disc, unless you crit, your Mastery is doing absolutely nothing. That 2000 Mastery rating does bugger all when you're not critting or shielding/PoHing. So in a way, Crit would seem to be a great stat, because hey, you'll crit more, that means more Divine Aegis, etc.

And that would probably be true, if it wasn't for the fact we've become so reliant on Prayer of Healing, which procs DA regardless of crit (Although, if PoH crits, the following DA is extra nice). This devalues crit somewhat in my opinion, because yes, it makes for even nicer DA's, but increasing mastery will make all the PoH casts more powerful, whether they crit or not.

I never liked crit, because of the fact it is random, it is out of your control. Yeah sure critting for 80k Greater Heal is nice, but will you crit when you really need it? My pessimistic view on healing generally says: no, it won't crit when you need it. How many times have I not seen a tank needing a heal right now, cast Inner Focus -> Greater Heal YEEAAAH-..... oh, it didn't crit.

In a healing vacuum (I.e. damage is constant, but nobody is dying), Crit is probably pretty good. The randomness of it avarages out and is probably quite nice. But I can't rely on "avarage", when I need something healed Right Now™. That is why I stick to Mastery and Haste, above Crit. Mastery helps a lot on Power Word: Shield, which is a powerful health "buffer" to put on targets that are low and need help - it buys you time to cast heals, and makes their death less imminent. And Mastery is guaranteed to improve PW:Shield, so, seems a good deal. Haste helps getting the spells out faster, obviously, but that's all it does, and it does so at the cost of mana.

Random ravings, sorry, but I thought maybe elaborating on reasons why I personally gear the way I do, might be helpful or interesting to read and helpful in making your own choices ultimately. Which is what you should do, rather than duplicate someone else - it'll work better in the end. (Though surely, trying what other people are doing might just find you a new favourite way to do it).

[TheTrueM4gg0t]

My pessimistic view on healing generally says: no, it won't crit when you need it. How many times have I not seen a tank needing a heal right now, cast Inner Focus -> Greater Heal YEEAAAH-..... oh, it didn't crit.

sorry but thats not what crit is supposed to to, unless you have 100% crit. you dont ever rely on it to happen.
and to say: "crit never helps" is about as stupid as saying "crit will always save me", because there ore more then enough situations (where you maybe didn't notice) where a crit saved you. allthough you didn't expect it to, it did. (I'm not trying to say: go all crit or something like that)

it's not very helpfull to look at these modelled situations, where you say: "if you crit, tank lives, of not, he dies" because in such a sitation, a few points more in haste or mastery wouldn't have made the differance ither.

crit is quite regular throughput gain. as we have only about 30%, the crit occurences can spread quite widely, but even then, it is one of our best throughput stats. But not only when tankhealing, but also when raidhealing crits will often not be wasted (unless the group has lost just enough hp to be topped of by a noncrit PoH, haha) because of the DA bubble, and the fact, that there are quite a few intelligent heals going on, that even out healspikes.

You can also argue similarly whith a haste setup. if there's no situation, where you save the day with a 2.1sec GH, where a 2.2sec GH wouldn't have done the job, then haste build was wasted and thus is unreliable, because you never know in advance, if exactly that situation will occur, where you'r haste will save the day.
sounds weird, but maybe you get the idea.