My atonement dps seems low

[Iannis]

Hey guys,
I've recently decided to switch my disc playstyle to atonement heavy.
I'm around 25% crit and forged down to 10.2k spirit (From 12k)

Using solace,smite, penance. I can only hold about 40-45k dps.
My guild is currently 4 bosses in normal SoO. Atonement has been about 30-40% of my healing
every fight. But my dps still feels low. I've heard others talking about doing 50-90k dps?
My character..
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte.../Emerus/simple

I'm trying to keep my mastery at least around 33% just personal preference.
But any suggestions how to increase my dps? I know there is a huge debate about which cloak to use
I'm not sure if I'm ready to drop below 10k spirit yet

[Fluttershy]

I do about 65-70k in 544 gear(no leg cloak yet), 27% base crit 36k sp with inner fire, that's assuming purely smiting though(nazgrim).

If you're doing other stuff don't expect to do as much. to even hit 80-90k you would need a 567+ weapon and be lvl 560 average without gimmicks, hell, they probably use a glyph of smite as well.

edit: I just noticed my LFR dark shaman dps was 70k, (46%smite/39%penance/13%solace/2%stormlash). With glyph of smite I would hit 77k dps, with a legendary cloak (300k per minute +35% crit +8% magic vulnerability debuff) it would be 84k, going from a 530->567 weap would up it to around 90k and of course, going from 27% crit at 544 to 40% base crit at 560 + 2set bonus would give even more.

[Drugshock]

I'd get more crit. Way more crit. Since u'r looking for more damage, I'd switch to Mindbender. With heavy attonement and good use of the LMG, something close to 8k spirit will be really ok (could run 7.2k for the first 7 bosses normal mode yesterday). Abuse ToF. Try to get that t16 2pt asap.

Edit: Get the Legendary DPS Cloak!!

[Deleted]

-Try to get gear with more crit
-Use crit gems (320 crit; 80 int +160 crit; 160 crit +160 spirit)
-Get 4.8k haste
-Drop another 5k spirit
-Use mindbender
-Buy the dps cloak
-Get 2 dps trinkets
-Get glyph of the sha
-Stop using archangel
-Only use pw: shield and halo during meta gem procs.

Do 120k sustained single target dps.

[espoire]

Hey guys,
I've recently decided to switch my disc playstyle to atonement heavy.
I'm around 25% crit and forged down to 10.2k spirit (From 12k)

Using solace,smite, penance. I can only hold about 40-45k dps.
My guild is currently 4 bosses in normal SoO. Atonement has been about 30-40% of my healing
every fight. But my dps still feels low. I've heard others talking about doing 50-90k dps?
My character..
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte.../Emerus/simple

I'm trying to keep my mastery at least around 33% just personal preference.
But any suggestions how to increase my dps? I know there is a huge debate about which cloak to use
I'm not sure if I'm ready to drop below 10k spirit yet

Gearing:
Int > SP > Crit > Spirit (until enough) > Haste > Mastery.

Notice the crit being even higher than spirit. Picking up more crit adds more DPS than spirit, even if you're completely mana-starved. (If you are mana starved, drop Smite from your rotation and stand idle.) 4-piece t14 (the stuff from Heart of Fear and Terrace of Endless Springs) is crazy OP, it adds about 10k DPS, making it approximately equal to flex-mode SoO non-set gear. 2-piece t16 is also really great, so grab that and abuse it if you can.

But yeah, it's all your mastery that's killing your DPS. Now, mastery is a valid choice. I am using mastery over Haste myself. But it doesn't produce any DPS. mastery produces healing. If you want to rock 90-120k DPS every fight like I do, you NEED crit in every slot, a pair of throughput trinkets, and the DPS legendary cape. I could squeeze out even more DPS if I put all the stats I'm "wasting" in mastery into haste/spirit, but ultimately, my raid needs the healing more than the comparatively small amount of damage that a haste/spirit mix adds.

I do not recommend dropping below 10k spirit. That's what I have, and frankly, it's not enough. Why? Level 90 talents. They're amazing, mana-hungry, and preform best on AoE fights, like, you know, every boss in SoO. Abuse the hell out of Divine Star and/or Halo for all the damage and healing you can. (I only recommend Cascade for Siegemaster Blackfuse, as the positioning and lack of multiple DPS targets make the other two useless.)

Edit: my armory, in case you're interested.

- - - Updated - - -

-Use crit gems (320 crit; 80 int +160 crit; 160 crit +160 spirit)
-Only use pw: shield and halo during meta gem procs.

Crit gemming produces less damage than int gems (160 int, 80 int +160 crit; 80 int +160 spirit). Not by much, but if all you care about is pushing max DPS in Disc spec... On the other hand, crit gemming DOES produce noticeably more healing. Much like gearing mastery, it's a valid option for HPS.

Halo (or Divine Star) actually produce a TON of damage on all the add fights. They're worth using outside of Lucidity, at least on multi-target.

-Use mindbender

Does this do enough damage and mana generation to offset the extra spirit you need due to not having Solace? Last time I checked, it did not (patch 5.3). It's gotten... a 20% mana and 10% damage buff? That might have done it.

-Stop using archangel

...until you get 2_t16. Then burn it every cooldown. The extra crit makes it about break-even for damage, but adds a shit-ton of free healing.

[Deleted]

Crit gemming produces less damage than int gems (160 int, 80 int +160 crit; 80 int +160 spirit). Not by much, but if all you care about is pushing max DPS in Disc spec... On the other hand, crit gemming DOES produce noticeably more healing. Much like gearing mastery, it's a valid option for HPS.

Not if you're well geared.

Does this do enough damage and mana generation to offset the extra spirit you need due to not having Solace? Last time I checked, it did not (patch 5.3). It's gotten... a 20% mana and 10% damage buff? That might have done it.

Mindbender does over 1m damage every time it's active. It also returns a lot of mana (especially when coupled with a hymn of hope). So this is defo the talent to use.

...until you get 2_t16. Then burn it every cooldown. The extra crit makes it about break-even for damage, but adds a shit-ton of free healing

The T16 2set offers a 2% increase in dps, but costs you 15.2k mana each min. Also, you will lose a lot of crit (like 1300) and gain a lot of spirit. In the end I don't think it's worth it. The lower your amount of spirit, the better. I have almost 6k and that's just way too much (even with 6k haste). So sometimes I use a halo (or mind sear) when my meta isn't proccing. But if you can reduce the amount of spirit, then that's much better.

[Deleted]

-Try to get gear with more crit
-Use crit gems (320 crit; 80 int +160 crit; 160 crit +160 spirit)
-Get 4.8k haste
-Drop another 5k spirit
-Use mindbender
-Buy the dps cloak
-Get 2 dps trinkets
-Get glyph of the sha
-Stop using archangel
-Only use pw: shield and halo during meta gem procs.

Do 120k sustained single target dps.

1st how he will drop 5k spirit when he is already on 9 and 2nd what he will do with 4k spirit?

[Deleted]

1st how he will drop 5k spirit when he is already on 9 and 2nd what he will do with 4k spirit?

I know it isn't always possible to drop to 5k spirit (I assumed he still had 10.2k). But if you can find lots of pieces without spirit or hit it's defo doable. And no, there's absolutely no need for any spirit beyond 5k. On some fights, like first boss normal, you could even get away with no spirit at all.

[Deleted]

I know it isn't always possible to drop to 5k spirit (I assumed he still had 10.2k). But if you can find lots of pieces without spirit or hit it's defo doable. And no, there's absolutely no need for any spirit beyond 5k. On some fights, like first boss normal, you could even get away with no spirit at all.

If there is no need for anything more than 5k spirit, why do all the top priests have more than 5k? I mean, if anyone needs the extra throughput it would be those guys.

If people 3 heal normal content then yes, you can get away with that lower amount. Im astounded by the logic of creating basically a shadow priest with lower DPS, when people can jsut roll shadow.

@ OP, if you want more DPS, get a better weapon, its pretty much as simple as that. the increase from 530>553+ will make your eyes water

[Adhemar]

If there is no need for anything more than 5k spirit, why do all the top priests have more than 5k? I mean, if anyone needs the extra throughput it would be those guys.

If people 3 heal normal content then yes, you can get away with that lower amount. Im astounded by the logic of creating basically a shadow priest with lower DPS, when people can jsut roll shadow.

@ OP, if you want more DPS, get a better weapon, its pretty much as simple as that. the increase from 530>553+ will make your eyes water

Yeah, I'm going to pick one up from the supermarket on my way home so that I can do more DPS.

And since when do shadow priests do 100k+ HPS while DPSing? Do they also have PW:B? And does their DPS passively spam preemptive shields on the raid? Oh, I see, you were being hyperbolic and not making an actual argument.

I don't advocate running with minimum spirit. But just because someone else has found it preferable doesn't mean I'm right and they're wrong. Personally, I run 13k because I prefer to use the full toolkit available and that's where I find I have the mana to sustain even very long fights with bad LMG procs. I still pull 80-85k single target DPS (while weaving regular PW:S and PoM and occasional heals into my rotation) and top 100k on cleave fights (550 item level, 536 weapon, Yu-Lon's cloak).

[Deleted]

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...s=9808&e=10059

Nukez is our SP, that fight is a recorded 109k HPS. I dont wish to appear pedantic

Exactly, i dont advocate an levels of spirit, it can vary so much, but jsut because something has worked for 1% of a priest population (nominal value) doesnt mean it will work with everyone

[Siri]

Gearing:
Int > SP > Crit > Spirit (until enough) > Haste > Mastery.

If the only concern is damage Haste should provide more than crit unless your stat balance is skewed something terrible.
It would be more like like this (assuming every instance you can trade int for secondaries is a 1:2 trade)

Haste (until 50%) > Crit > Int > SP > Spirit/Mastery.

That said, with ilvl 550 I do ~100k dps if I can spend most (but not all) of the time doing dps and that's with a crit > mastery > haste priority. It would be 75k or so without the legendary back.

[Deleted]

If the only concern is damage Haste should provide more than crit unless your stat balance is skewed something terrible.

No way haste is better than crit for dps. First of all you will go oom a lot faster, and being oom, you'll do 0 dps. So you would need more spirit and spirit provides 0 output. Secondly, with high enough haste (5k is enough) your smite casts will be under 1 sec during bl or dps meta if you would use that. Finally, haste doesn't increase the dps provided by the cloak proc as much as crit, and the same goes for mindbender. Minbender's crit scaling is quite insane.

[Siri]

Edit: decided to just scrap my last reply and rewrite it.

Haste is better. If you ACTUALLY run out of mana, this stops being the case. However, you won't run out of mana unless you use a separate gearset with VERY low spirit on it. Also, even with Mindbender and the caster LMG haste is equal to crit even after you get to the point where you have 1s smites during procs, so it is certainly miles ahead before you get to that point.

Pre-softcap weights: (in my gearset)
int 3.48
crit 1.72
haste 3.68
(haste shows abnormally high because it is set up so that the haste added to calculate the value of haste puts you exactly at the point where LMG/BL + haste equals 50%, it's still way higher than crit even if you don't do this)

Post-softcap weights:
int 3.78
crit 1.76
haste 1.70

It is also worth noting that if you include SW:P in your rotation getting 8085 haste for the breakpoint is still more dps than putting that haste into crit.

edit: talent/glyph setup and priority if anyone was curious:
glyph of smite used.
mindbender + ToF.
Penance > SW:P (If you choose to use it) > Holy Fire > Smite

[Adhemar]

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...s=9808&e=10059

Nukez is our SP, that fight is a recorded 109k HPS. I dont wish to appear pedantic

Exactly, i dont advocate an levels of spirit, it can vary so much, but jsut because something has worked for 1% of a priest population (nominal value) doesnt mean it will work with everyone

You're comparing an ideal situation for his halo to blow up meters on 25 man to a tactic used mostly by 10 man raids to balance HPS and DPS without the massive swing involved in swapping a full time DPS with a full time healer. I'd be very shocked if Nukez only managed to put out 100k atonement damage and healing in his gear. You win on the number "gotcha" but the argument isn't really applicable.

Obviously atonement is far less meaningful to a 25 man raid than it is to 10. You start with a lot more flexibility and have access to many more sources of utility and, well, halo is just stupidly OP there. I don't recommend going full DPS, but I know several who do it and it's perfectly viable in the right situation. That's the key here. How much healing you can sacrifice for DPS and how much spirit you need depend entirely on the variables of your situation. Your gear, your fellow healers, how much damage your tanks take, how fast your DPS responds to dangerous situations and how fast they kill the boss all have significant impacts on this and there isn't a single right answer.

I've been told by many priests that my 13k spirit is "too much" (I'm using the LMG and double throughput trinkets) and in plenty of cases I do have more than enough mana. But making regular use of mass dispel in a flex raid on fallen protectors last night still left me completely drained on mana. So "too much" is subjective, and so is the reverse.

[Sillychan]

Eh I run with 7-9k with one regen trinket and didn't have problems dispelling on heroic protectors.

And I wouldn't say atonement is "far less meaningful to a 25 man raid". A lot of guilds are wanting as much dps as possible from their healers so they can bring an extra healer, in addition to rough dps checks during progression -- a 100k dps from a healer can make up for a death mid fight or a low performer. Less meaningful, sure. Far less? I think that's a bit of an exaggeration.

I can do 80-90 now and I'm not gearing for DPS, it's just the cloak mostly. The dps cloak really does buff your damage.