Atonement Priest Question

[0mnipotent]

I'm currently leveling a Priest with my girlfriend and have been having a lot of fun with Atonement healing. By far the most interesting way to play the game for me right now. My question is how does Atonement healing fare at max level in 5 player heroics, 10m raiding and 25m Raiding. Also any guides or tips on the playstyle would be appreciated!

[Deleted]

Atonement healing works really well in 5mans at max level provided you are decently geared, the tank is decently geared and not pulling multiple trash groups. With raid gear, you should be able to heal anything in 5mans with atonement only (barring stupid stuff like the tank pulling multiple trash groups, a boss AND standing in bad stuff all at the same time). For 10man normal raiding atonement is mostly sufficient, but you're not really getting the most out of disc if that's all you do, but it works well if your raid group needs another half dps and not so much the healing you could get from spirit shell. In LFR I usually top healing with atonement only, but I'm pretty well geared and it's LFR, so doesn't really say anything.

[Frmercury]

PW:S on Rapture CD, a PoM and perhaps a Renew. Otherwise atonement in 5's.

[Thehealbus]

In 10 man I use quite a lot of atonement healing to deal a good amount of damage, and the heals are only split up between 10 people who may be taking damage, in 25 man though I only atonement to get 5 stacks of archangel, or when literally no one is taking damage. Other than that in 25 man you really have to be direct healing if you want your heals to mean something.

[Deleted]

Atonement healing works great in 5mans, including challenge modes. I think it made up about 80% of my healing during the 4 golds I was doing last night. Throwing a shield on the tank and then spamming smites with HF/penance on CD is enough for most things.

During raids it becomes more of an ability I use to stack up evang for archangel. Generally penance and HF on CD (penance used offensively) then using archangel when the healing is needed. Smites is downtime.

[Maleric]

There's no such thing as an "atonement priest." Atonement healing is useful in many ways and at all difficulty levels, but it's an item in disc's toolbox rather than a distinct playstyle.

[0mnipotent]

I completely forgot about challenge modes! I would have a blast speed clearing challenge modes Smite healing. I won't argue whether Atonement healing is a distinct playstyle or just a part of Disc's utility but healing entirely through PW:S and the damaging spells in my arsenal is the way I'm choosing to use my priest. I have a few new questions regarding Atonement. 1.) Since I never have yet used a direct heal on anyone in my party besides PW:S would a trinket such as proc from the Atonement healing? 2.) Does anyone know a stat priority or even solid rotation? 3.) Is there any sites similar to WoL that tracks a Disc Priest's HPS+DPS?

[Dorfie]

Atonement was 30% of my healing on Heroic Garalon 10 man, 2 healed it. I was doing 80k HPS by just smite/holy fire/penance DPSing, wings + Cascade and ProM on cooldown, with a bubble on the kiter to proc rapture on CD. Atonement is really good now that it's 40 yd range

[Deleted]

.) Since I never have yet used a direct heal on anyone in my party besides PW:S would a trinket such as proc from the Atonement healing? 2.) Does anyone know a stat priority or even solid rotation? 3.) Is there any sites similar to WoL that tracks a Disc Priest's HPS+DPS?

When atonement healing. Both healing and dps trinkets should proc. but be aware if you have 2 trinkets with the same stat proc. like increased intellect or haste by. They most likely share cooldowns.

A good rotation, if you got the smite glyph. Would be holy fire > smite till the debuff of holy fire wears of > penance. And repeat. If you want some extra dps. You can put shadow word pain after penance.
Other then that, as mentioned above. Prayer of mending, make sure rapture procs as many times as possible. And penance on cooldown. Better to use a 'hostile' penance. Because it does more dps. More dps equals in more healing through atonement
Holy fire glyph is highly recommendable aswell, so is penance glyph if you're okay on mana.

I don't know why you need anything else then WoL? It gives everything you want to know. I guess there's simcraft. But I ain't a hero working with that. And last time I checked. I didn't see anything for disc priest

[snaxattax]

trinket/weapon/tailoring procs never share cooldowns afaik. clicky-cooldown trinkets often do, and will share cooldowns with the engineering glove clicky, but i've never had a situation where a trinket was off of its personal cooldown but didn't proc due to some other active buff. part of what makes proc trinkets so great (from a dps standpoint) is that you can wait until you have multiple active procs and then use cooldown spells (like combustion, shadowfiend or devouring plague) for extra damage.

also, even with holy fire up, penance does more dps (and since it comes in 3 bursts, it overheals less) than smite. the only reason you should ever 'hold' a penance if you're atonement healing is either a tank spike is coming (so you can swap to the tank and do a healing penance on him) or you know you're going to have to move shortly (penance glyph + PoMending/lvl90 while moving).

[Deleted]

even with holy fire up, penance does more dps (and since it comes in 3 bursts, it overheals less) than smite. the only reason you should ever 'hold' a penance if you're atonement healing is either a tank spike is coming (so you can swap to the tank and do a healing penance on him) or you know you're going to have to move shortly (penance glyph + PoMending/lvl90 while moving).

Penance lines up perfectly for me.

Holy fire > Smite x3 > Penance > by this time holy fire comes off cooldown and repeat the line

[Saphyron]

In our raid group due to lack of gear for our healers (damn you rng), I am playing atonement.

Most of the time 2 healing is not enough cause of lack of gear and healing is not enough due to lack of dps.
So we have me going atonement healing in dps gear to put as much healing/dps out.

To take an example.
When we got garalon down the first time we had not enough healing with 2 people and not enough dps with 3 healers so i went atonement. I added 60k dps. and aproximately the same amount in healing done with very little overheals.

Made us down it.

Those saying atonement is not good enough. are apparently not playing it properly.

Also other fights where like amber shaper in the 1st phase atonement healing is pretty nice since there is not much raid-damage coming out. and the extra dps adds more time to finish the fight before berserk.

[0mnipotent]

So many awesome responses so far getting me excited for m Priest to be max level! I'm still curious about what my glyph choices should be.

[snaxattax]

holy fire, smite, penance. holy fire is a dps increase as well as a mobility glyph. penance is for mobility. smite is a straight dps/hps increase.

[0mnipotent]

So is holy nova or whatever the aoe one is not worthwhile?

[snaxattax]

mindsear is pretty much always better for aoe damage, and prayer of healing is pretty much always better for aoe healing. being able to use penance while moving is really really nice.

[0mnipotent]

Alright and is Reflective Shield a bad glyph also?

[Frmercury]

You'll usually be rolling with Inner Sanctum / Holy Fire / Penance. I've rarely seen Discs with any other set up.

[Deleted]

Reflective shield will deal minor amounts of damage and doesn't increase your healing at all, it's a bad glyph in most cases and terrible for raiding. Smite is obviously superior to IS if you plan to focus on atonement healing (or in some cases even if you play normally).

I have to ask though, how do you find it 'fun' to play a priest using just four out of our vast arsenal of healing spells? That's almost as bad/mindless as vanilla rotations. Regarding it's effectiveness I can only see it being solid for raiding if the entire setup is built around the fact that you have a smiting disc (and on a few fights it'll just be inferior to other options), this probably means 2 'real' healers+you on most fights.

[babylon]

So is holy nova or whatever the aoe one is not worthwhile?

smite and hf glyphs you want.

while penance on move sounds fun, you have to be aware of the mana cost increase also provided by this glyph. if you will start max level with a decent amount of spirit and wont worry about mana, then sure, why not otherwise you may want to consider pom glyph.

as for holy nova - you have prayer of healing on cascade (or halo, or ds) on jumping pom, why would you ever want another aoe