Atonement & Archangel

[Daniie]

I've had quick search and this may be a ridiculously stupid question, but does Archangel buff the healing portion of Atonement?

Please delete thread when answered.

[Vilbu]

In its current state it does. Some might say it is not worth to use it for atonement but personally I try to maximize the AA uptime and just keep an eye on the CD so I will have it ready for SS stacking.

[Daniie]

Ah cool, I'm not really sure why I'd never bothered to test that out before. I'll get a lot more use out of it now instead of just waiting for known heavy damage phases.

[lizon]

In its current state it does. Some might say it is not worth to use it for atonement but personally I try to maximize the AA uptime and just keep an eye on the CD so I will have it ready for SS stacking.

No reason to not using it when just casting atonement during low damage phases. It's a 18 second buff on a 30 second cooldown. You should be using it every time it pops up. I normally get about 45-50% uptime on it, it really does help a lot. Remember Spirit Shell is on a 1m cooldown, while Archangel is on a 30 second cooldown. You should be able to pop Arch Angel for every single SS and have an extra Archangel to cast half way through SS's cooldown to boost raw throughput by 25%. It will be up again when SS comes off cooldown.

[Deleted]

Thing is that you lose the 20% dmg buff from evangelism, so it takes a couple of casts before you feel the difference. Still worth it though if, like you say, you can still have it up for when you need it.
I myself rarely use it just for atonement because i generally try to push my dps as much as possible and whatever the 20% or so healing i slack might be, I'll let the other healer deal with if needed :P

I guess it would be different and probably more worthwhile in 25man though.

[Deleted]

You dont only loose the 20% dmg from evangelism (which almost balances out the healing you gain from archangel), but you also loose the mana reduction on the dps spells.
I dont normally use archangel just to continue dpsing, mostly because if its a fight where I smite for the majority of time, the dps is prolly more needed than the minor healing increase.

[Vilbu]

I hardly ever find myself losing any considerable amount of mana while atonement-healing. If your mana doesnt let you to use AA during atonement, dont use it. If there is very low to none healing needed at the time you probably shouldnt pop AA since the dps loss for the 5 next casts. It all depends so much in what situation you are in and how well you know what dmg is coming and how. Best way is just to try different styles and see what suits the situation and your playstyle the best.

[Mazi]

You dont only loose the 20% dmg from evangelism (which almost balances out the healing you gain from archangel), but you also loose the mana reduction on the dps spells.
I dont normally use archangel just to continue dpsing, mostly because if its a fight where I smite for the majority of time, the dps is prolly more needed than the minor healing increase.

Even if you're just dpsing - you can restack Evangelism really quickly and then you have both Archangel and Eva up for double increase (and decrease on mana cost)

[Deleted]

True, but that means I wont be needing to burst heal in the next 30 seconds. Assuming I needed a penance+holy fire+3xsmite to charge archangel > @8 seconds to get it up, I wont have it till 38 seconds into the fight again, meaning I'll be spamming atonement for 70% of the time? Aside from elegon&leishi hc, there isnt any other fight I spam atonement so much, and on leishi I prefer to use archangel for get away. On some fights I'll charge archangel and use it with spirit shell (bladelord, vizier, garalon, empress) and by the time its up again, I'll need to restart spamming atonement again to squeeze one between spirit shell cds. However, needing to move or to actually heal for few seconds can delay cds and they wont align properly - so I'd rather have it up guaranteed for the burst healing.

What you are saying works not despite "even if you are dpsing" but pretty much for the fights you are on a vast majority actually only dpsing - which is not normal occurrence for me, hence why I said "I dont normally use archangel for only smiting". If I'm dpsing for 70% of the time, I might use it, but normally I prefer to time it with actual healing. I'm also blessed with being a tank healer for all the fights that require some sort of tank healer (25 man here, and yes, I know they aren't many, but hey, narrows my selection by some more). And yes, my tanks hate atonement, it makes them feel insecure. I have tried to educate them, but they will still complain if they dont see at least a couple of gheals on them .

I'm not an atonement diehard fan. I like smiting, its why I prefer disc to holy, but I like it as a side-dish and a way to enhance my healing via archangel. I'm cool with playing an elegon hc or a lei shi hc every now and then but I would hate that style to be the main thing I do. So maybe its me a bit bias when I prefer sometimes to do myself the triage as I see it fit rather that count blindly on atonement.

[Mazi]

Well I can see why tanks would feel iffy about current Atonement since it now can reach pretty much the entire raid whereas previously it was only hitting those in melee range.

I was just commenting on something that some people tend to overlook (the stacking of AA with Eva)

[Deleted]

It is generally not worth using archangel with atonement and restacking it fast with smites. Casting two extra smites shaves some of the penance CD, but they also heal for very little and due to the CD on penance you will end up not benefiting fully from AA, meaning the increase is small. More importantly if you use archangel you lose DPS, which is sorta the point of atonement spamming.

Basically if you are smiting full time, keep evangelism alive, unless one or more of the following conditions apply:

1) The damage is not trivial and you have a big damage buff you want to take advantage of.
2) The damage is not trivial and you are not going to use spirit shell in the next 30s
3) The damage is not trivial and you are not going to be switching to healing a high HPS phase in the next 30s.

If one or more of these conditions apply then you can a small (50% of maximum) boost to healing by popping archangel at the cost of some dps.

Maximising archangel is pretty difficult, because you have to minimise the amount of smites you cast during a heavy healing phase. That means you end up with a fairly complicated rotation that uses archangel at 5 stacks 2 times in 1.5minutes and 1 time you pop archangel with less than 5 stacks.

Most people don't bother and just chain it with spirit shell, but that loses you an extra 3% healing or so.

[Pips]

You should use it for known inc damage, tank oshit times with IF, nd always trying to make it so it's always up for SS.

[Pool of the Dead]

I was popping it on every CD for AGES when I started lvling my Disc for MoP.

Until I realised it no longer gave you mana% back per stack D: I DIDNT EVEN REALISE!

[Deleted]

AA should be used on CD if you are bubble spamming, just not when you are using atonement.

[Kelesti]

I was popping it on every CD for AGES when I started lvling my Disc for MoP.

Until I realised it no longer gave you mana% back per stack D: I DIDNT EVEN REALISE!

Been like that since beta. They wanted to stop giving the illusion it was a mana return (because it wasn't) so people would realize "Hey, I push this button for bigger heals when I need them" instead of trying to gimmick it to thinking they're working a net-positive blue bar.

AA should be used on CD if you are bubble spamming, just not when you are using atonement.

Do you mean the Prayer of Aegis that no longer auto bubbles as of next patch? Probably best to not be using it on cooldown with that.
It also doesn't scale with the other bubble, Power Word: Shield, which Discipline will be using a fair bit more often now, as well. "Use on cooldown" is kind of bad advice, and your "exception" makes it even more unclear.

[HPLathus]

You should never use AA on cooldown

You should be saving it for large moments of burst either: After you have spirit shell up and the AOE damage is happening OR Using it during SS to get to cap faster.

Personally, I try to save it for after SS is up unless it's dire for me to get the cap on spirit shell on multiple groups.

[Deleted]

Do you mean the Prayer of Aegis that no longer auto bubbles as of next patch? Probably best to not be using it on cooldown with that.
It also doesn't scale with the other bubble, Power Word: Shield, which Discipline will be using a fair bit more often now, as well. "Use on cooldown" is kind of bad advice, and your "exception" makes it even more unclear.

PWS is affected by Archangel afaik, unless I'm really confused now by the lack of coffee. It's been changed like this sometimes at the beginning of 5.1, when they made it work with spirit shell too.

[Wuga]

PWS is affected by Archangel afaik, unless I'm really confused now by the lack of coffee. It's been changed like this sometimes at the beginning of 5.1, when they made it work with spirit shell too.

Yep, AA does buff PWS. Most other healing modifiers don't (grace, tof, etc.)

[Deleted]

Been like that since beta. They wanted to stop giving the illusion it was a mana return (because it wasn't) so people would realize "Hey, I push this button for bigger heals when I need them" instead of trying to gimmick it to thinking they're working a net-positive blue bar.

Do you mean the Prayer of Aegis that no longer auto bubbles as of next patch? Probably best to not be using it on cooldown with that.
It also doesn't scale with the other bubble, Power Word: Shield, which Discipline will be using a fair bit more often now, as well. "Use on cooldown" is kind of bad advice, and your "exception" makes it even more unclear.

Wrong. AA affects everything, including PWS. The exceptions cannot be any clearer. If you are smiting, never use AA on trivial damage. If the damage is not trivial then use it unless you are pretty sure you will need it in the next 30s either for spirit shell or to heal big burst. If you are bubble spamming usage is different. All decisions made with AA are made based on the next 30s, which adds yet another future decision tree. This is yet another reason why maximising bubble spam is difficult.

You should never use AA on cooldown

You should be saving it for large moments of burst either: After you have spirit shell up and the AOE damage is happening OR Using it during SS to get to cap faster.

Also you won't be using PWS as much as you think the mana drain is high.

Personally, I try to save it for after SS is up unless it's dire for me to get the cap on spirit shell on multiple groups.

Then you are using it wrong. You should use AA at 5 stacks every spirit shell and at as many stacks as you can get between spirit shells. What you are doing this way is simplifying the spec by sacrificing a non-trivial amount of HPS HPS. In 10 man there are several cases where you don't want to synch with SS also if you are atonement healing the exceptions above apply. If you are bubble spamming then all you are doing by saving archangel is -25% healing for 18s for every CD you miss.

18s of 25% bigger aegis before a 10s hard burst is MUCH better than 25% increased healing during the a 10s. You might want to delay using the CD slightly to better synch aegis stacks and spirit shell with incoming damage, but AA should be used very close to on CD.

[HPLathus]

Then you are using it wrong. You should use AA at 5 stacks every spirit shell and at as many stacks as you can get between spirit shells.

I will seriously argue this, you should time your cooldowns so they are most beneficial. Why use AA before the aoe, for it to wear off just as it comes... when you could save it for the AOE and do 25% more burst RAW healing?

Using it on cooldown is a waste, you should use it when you know you will get the most benefit from it.

As for spirit shell, it depends on how you are using it. If you are trying to get it on all 25 raid members, yes, if you are trying to get it on 10 of them by just focusing on two groups then I would save it until after.

18s of 25% bigger aegis before a 10s hard burst is MUCH better than 25% increased healing during the a 10s. You might want to delay using the CD slightly to better synch aegis stacks and spirit shell with incoming damage, but AA should be used very close to on CD.

Which will not be the case in 5.2, so why would you suggest someone start doing it now?

Id rather get DA stacks on the raid before the aoe without AA, while it might take slightly longer, that just means you start it 1-2 casts earlier.

Then during the big portion of the AOE you have 25% more healing to actually do RAW healing on top of boosting whatever aegis might come out.

---------- Post added 2013-03-03 at 11:52 PM ----------

And why in gods name would you suggest to use it on cooldown just to use it.

What if you use it on cooldown, during a phase transition where NOTHING is happening. Then immediatly into the phase its a heavy AOE phase and oh look, you don't have AA up.... then your AA went 100% to waste.