Disc Priest New To 25 Man Healing -- Seeking Assistance

[langning]

Hello everyone,

I am currently working on Dragon Soul heroic modes in a 25 man raid where I primarily play as disc. While in my 10 man before I was top heals, I am finding that I tend to have much lower numbers in 25 and am wondering if anyone available might have the time to look at our log from last night and provide any feedback into what I might be doing wrong.

It seems that there is an issue with posting links in threads since my account is new, which is the format does not include a hyperlink. My apologies.
worldoflogs.com/reports/k15h0yxfvvmmru9k/fights/

Below I have also included my armory link. The current spec and reforging are what I am using most frequently in raid, and is also what I used last night:
us.battle.net/wow/en/character/black-dragonflight/Gr%C3%ABy/advanced

I realize that my vague framing of this question requires taking a few minutes to look closely at the logs. I do greatly appreciate your time however and welcome any and all feedback in response to this thread.

[Docta]

Just taking a quick glance, you need to be using more PoH & pom. On ultraxion for example you had zero casts of mending, and your PoH healing is actually less than GHeal. Keep in mind that generally penance -> GH will provide more output (due to grace) than GH->GH. If you want to stick with an AA spec I think you could probably squeeze out a bit more archangel uptime as well. If you are being pushed into more of a tank healing role forcing more Gheal you should pick up Strength of Soul as it will help your output, if more of a tank assist/raid heal you should try to be doing more PoH/PoM and using less GH.

[qed]

Your best weapon when healing a 25 man is encounter knowledge. What i try to do is snipe as much and limit as much damage that goes out Via PoH Divine Aegis blanketing the raid. Know when the raid damage goes out, blanket the raid prior to that damage occurring and ur numbers will go up alot. Also PoM should be used on CD on the tank. Another thing you might want to consider is dropping the atonement spec altogether. if ur not using it which it appears ur not, then thats 5 talent points that can go somewhere else. i prefer strength of soul and Train of thought for mana regen purposes.

[zakaluka]

You are running an AA/A spec, HST>MST with low spirit. This is just fine, but it goes against your playstyle.

GHeal usage is way too high for anything but a tank healer. But your GHeals aren't going to tanks, you're using them as spot-heals on raid. As disc, you quite simply don't have cheap/strong spot heals. ANY spot-heal you cast is going to be either low throughput or inefficient.
- PW:S is a strong spot-heal from a throughput perspective.
- Penance is your best spot-heal from an efficiency perspective.
- Since you're AA/A, you should very rarely have to GHeal.
- Holy Fire is insanely good (higher throughput than flash, better effic than penance)
- Smite might be lower HPS than GHeal, but it won't ever overheal because someone sniped your cast. Think about this, it's usually better to smite than gheal unless you're pre-casting a GHeal to anticipate something.
- Even with all that smite should only rank in at about 2-5%. GHeal at 20 is a big mistake.

Inspiration is 2 wasted talent points if you're not proving inspiration uptime on the tank (which it seems you aren't). 3/3 darkness, DP with those 2 points.

As someone else mentioned, your PoM usage is way low. PoM gets an insane 30 HPM at your ilvl, and MUCH higher HPCT than PoH (about double). Make a power aura to track your PoM if you have to, that's what I do. You should aaaalllways either have PoM on CD or charges of PoM remaining. Casting it on CD (overwriting your old PoM) might be worthwhile, as well, but I generally try to let mine get fully consumed.

DA+PW:S > 40%, that validates your mastery stacking.

Looking at ultraxion, AA uptime 40%, evangelism uptime 60%, Rapture interval ~29 seconds.
This says to me that you're smiting during AoE healing which is a pretty bad call (double checking: 21 smites, 6 holy fires). You really want to only be using holy fire to build evangelism stacks under moderate AoE, no atonement at all during heavy AoE. However, those uptimes also say that you're NOT using atonement during AA which is generally a good call. However, I'd suggest that if there's a moment where you can't get a 5 target PoH out, it's OK to HF even with wings popped. I simmed that a while back, the increase in AA uptime from using HF during wings offsets the HPS loss. It's a pretty solid gain, in fact.
tl;dr focus less on AA uptime, more on timing rapture and having an AA ready for when you REALLY need it (healer lust for 1st timeloop)

Again, in this kind of an AoE situation if someone needs spot-heals the only thing you can contribute is a PW:S or a PoM (flash to prevent deaths, but you shouldn't need to often). Cast one of the above at the low target and let it do its work - other classes are much, MUCH better at single target triage than you, trust them to do their jobs. This should be your shamans and druids.

[langning]

Thank you for your reply. I believe that after making a few adjustments to my rotation (keeping PoM on CD, more atonement healing in place of Ghealing on raid) that my overall healing done appears to have improved already.

Zakaluka -- you obviously spent a lot of time looking through my logs and I appreciate your response. One thing that you said which is very interesting is to remove my 2 points of inspiration if I am not tank healing. I am wondering about your reasoning for this because PoH will also cause inspiration to proc when a heal crits, which I would imagine to be useful when building up DA right after aoe damage. Can you please provide more information on this?

[ajanu]

I can answer the inspiration question. If you have a shaman, they have the better talent. Even if you don't inspiration is not a great addition to AoE healing as it reduces physical damage, most AoE is magic. It's not a bad talent, I keep it on my holy spec since I heal a lot of 5 mans, but it's not the best use of points in a 25 man environment.

[zakaluka]

more atonement healing in place of Ghealing on raid

I'm glad this helped you improve, but be careful. Atonement needs to be VERY LOW on your healing done. When you're able to anticipate damages, precasting a GHeal is better. It's all rather situational.

One thing that you said which is very interesting is to remove my 2 points of inspiration if I am not tank healing. I am wondering about your reasoning for this because PoH will also cause inspiration to proc when a heal crits, which I would imagine to be useful when building up DA right after aoe damage. Can you please provide more information on this?

There is only one fight this tier with physical AoE, and that's morchok. You can make an argument for carrying inspiration on morchok, but that's about all. Every other fight it's a wasted talent where uptime on tank will be low. Frankly I never even realized PoH will proc inspiration, so good point but I still don't see it making a difference anywhere else.

[Docta]

Isn't warmaster roar physical as well?

[zakaluka]

Isn't warmaster roar physical as well?

Maybe. Is it a good idea to continue spamming PoH for a stacked DA? You get more from bubblespam.
PoH for DA: 15k HPS, 4 HPM
Bubblespam: 25k HPS, 7 HPM

Up to you. Maybe I'm wrong on this inspiration thing. I don't feel like getting into throughput vs effic here, but I don't like overhealing PoH for stacking DA except pre-pull. Personally when I get to warmaster I'll be picking 2 groups in my 25 to PoH to full, then bubblespam with minimum PoH interspersed to maintain DA. I am HST=MST with 3.1k spi, mainspec Holy. I can't tell you what works BEST for warmaster, since I have no face time on Heroic.

[Docta]

I was merely pointing out that inspiration has value beyond morchok stomp, towards the end of warmaster clothies are nearly being one shot and Inspiration could potentially save someone. Not trying to argue about DA vs pws.

[Rfx]

Hey Grëy,

To start off, Your guilds healing roster is pretty ick. You raid with no shamans which is pretty bad considering how much they bring to a raid now. I suggest one of your priests to hold inspiration because it is good no matter what fight. And if people want to dispute that they are silly. If you get a shaman make them do it =].

Armory/Spec
Stat Priority/Reforging should be as follows: Intellect > Mastery > Haste > Spirit > Crit (Disc)
So reforge your spirit to mastery and spirit to haste (when you can't go to mastery). (Keep Spirit over Crit, i.e your neck. Reforge the Crit not spirit)
I suggest dropping your A/AA spec. I don't see why people insist of having this. Put points into shadowfiend and train of thought.

World of Logs (I am raiding heroics so I may emphasize a point that really is minimal on normal mode because i'm stupid)
Warlord Zon'Ozz
There really isn't much to do 'wrong' on this fight especially on normal mode.
-- Precast shields on as many people as you can before the black phase starts. If you don't dispell the debuff (which you don't on heroic) you can put shields on them also to reduce the damage they take, which will also increase your throughout substantially.
-- You diddn't use a Potion of Concentration or a Mythical Mana Potion which means you diddn't have mana issues or you forgot. If you aren't having mana issues you should invest some gold in Volcanic Potions to increase throughput. obviously this is something you can do to min/max for more 'intense' situations (i.e heroic modes)
-- Make use of Power Word: Barrier (especially in black phases) and Pain Suppression.

Hagara
-- You have a very odd healing breakdown for this fight and what stands of straight away is the use of Renew. Wasting a GCD on renew is not worth the time. Or mana for what it is worth.
-- Stay on top of your Power Infusion useage, you could have used this again.
-- Going through the logs, It appears some of your raid is stacking inside the barrier for frost phases. This is good but you should get all the ranged/healers inside it. You'll end that phase much quicker.
-- You got two pain suppressions off and a divine hymn which is fantastic however, take use of your hymn of hope at the end of a phase where she is recovering. This is a perfect time to Hymn of Hope or drink a conc pot. Maybe you diddn't need mana however other healers did use mythical mana potions so take advantage of hymn for the raid not only yourself. PS: Tell your healers to use conc potions especially on that fight.
-- When you know a lightning phase is comming, start pre-casting shields about 5 seconds before the timer and keep spamming PW:S (Helpful with PI) until you kill the add, then just chain PoH for the more 'intense' damage. You can also do this for ice phase if you get your casters/healers to stand inside the shield, start precasting shields when the 4 ice crystals. (MAKE SURE YOU DONT GET HIT BY THE INITIAL ICE SHIELD!!)
-- Take advantage of PoH when members of your raid are trapped within an ice prision. If you PoH someone from their group you will also heal them within the tomb.

I'm not sure how helpful this is for you so if you'd like me to analyze the other fights I can.
Sorry for walls of text :P