Leveling Disc preist?

[owalaz]

I'm currently leveling a disc preist to be my healer, just wondering whats better, using an add-on like vuhdo or useing mouse over macros for the healing in instances or raids. I kinda know how to make a mouseover macro, but not really. Any help would be great Edit: are there any tallents and glyphs that arent worth it till 90? im currently 45(lvl).

[Hawkyy]

Use whatever you feel most comfortable with.

[Chirri]

Well, I know nothing about mouseover macros, but I do use VuhDo and appreciate what it lets me do, and what it lets me see. If VuhDo's too big for your tastes, the much slimmer Clique is alright as far as letting you cast.

If you're relatively unfamiliar with both, I'd say go ahead and try them each out. Whichever one feels more intuitive for you, personally, is the one to go with.

Are there any problems you feel you're having as you level, or just looking into how to prepare to heal a greater number of players before landing at 90?

[owalaz]

Ive never really healed before. Im not really having problems while im leveling. Im looking into how to prepare to heal more players before i hit 90.

[Siri]

Any form of healing that doesn't involve you directly targeting the player you have to heal is acceptable. What you want to avoid is de-targeting your atonement target just to cast a targeted heal like PoM.

Personally I consider mouseovers preferable to something like clique because I feel that at some point you need to start binding spells you want to cast to something terribly inconvenient like ctrl+alt+shift+mouse3 (exaggeration for emphasis, don't whine )

[Hilltopperpete]

I kinda know how to make a mouseover macro, but not really. are there any tallents and glyphs that arent worth it till 90? im currently 45(lvl).

Glyph Penance so you can cast it on the move, you'll never go back. Weakened Soul is just about the only very strong output glyph you'll regularly want for 10m raiding, Prayer of Mending is alright, and Binding Heal can have some really cool niche uses. Swap between Inner Sanctum and Inner Fire depending on the amount of physical and magical damage on the fight, and never, ever glyph Power Word: Shield. The damage and range on Smite can be helpful, but it depends on your needs and goals.

Here's my mouseover macro, just put in the skill you want at the end. It's all personal preference, I've tried out some healing addons and I prefer the clean Blizzard UI with macros, but I mostly tank so optimizing my healing UI isn't really a big deal. In particular, this macro defaults to healing your mouseover target first, then your focus if you have one and it's alive and you're not moused over anyone else, then it heals you if you have no friendly target. So if you're smiting and the tank gets hit really hard, you can just hit a PW:S/Penance/Greater Heal Combo and you're set. The penance one allows you to penance heal first priority if you have a mouseover, allows you to use it as DPS if you have a hostile target, but if you don't have a hostile target it defaults to your focus and then to you if you have no focus.

#showtooltip
/cast [target=mouseover, help, nodead] [help, nodead] [target=focus, help, nodead] [target=player]Power Word: Shield

#showtooltip Penance
/cast [target=mouseover, help, nodead] [help, nodead] [harm] [target=focus, help, nodead] [target=player] Penance

[Tier 1] The CC talents are all about preference, Dominate Mind is really fun in PVP the little fearling has some very annoying utility- the only one you'd ever need in a raid is Void Tendrils, they come in handy on anything with adds (Immerseus, Galakras, etc...) and anything with a rootable fixate (like Assassins on General Nazgrim or Loa Spirits on Council).

[Tier 3] Take Solace and Insanity and never look back. Instead of costing 4.5kish mana (depending on Evangelism stacks) it returns 3k mana every cast for up to 45k mana per minute. Combined with good shadowfiend/power infusion/hymn of hope use, you will never have mana problems after hitting about 10k spirit. The best combination of mana return and output at 90 is Solace (replaces Holy Fire) you should be using it absolutely on cooldown, so if you're planning on being a raid healer, get used to the flow of weaving it in. Even if you don't take it, you have to be using Holy Fire absolutely on cooldown, so picking Solace just gives you one less thing to do. Archangel is a really big deal- 25% extra healing for 18 seconds every 30 seconds is a really big deal, so get used to heavy atonement when there aren't more pressing matters. Good mouseover macros for your heals (or corresponding add-on) that allow you to keep a DPS target makes smiting a lot more interesting- you could also make macros for your DPS skills and still click on frames or w/e if that makes you happy, but target swapping can be a pain, so plan on managing it. I've been seeing SOOOOO many disc priests with FDCL on lvl 45 tier, and it's just a wretched talent. It's meant to be your "mana return" tree for healer, not your output tree, one instant/free flash heal does significantly less than one Power Word: Shield in the same cast time, the only reason it's on your bar is for PVP and occasionally topping off while questing.

[Tier 2] Body and Soul gets rid of button bloat and gives you a really nice speed boost, and for leveling/questing/escaping stuff you don't want to handle, [Tier 4] Spectral Guise is incredible for being out in the world. It acts a bit like vanish- makes a copy of you and gives you 6 seconds to get away- it drops combat too, so you can SG and then immediately mount and get away. I usually just use Body and Soul to sprint away after a SG if I accidentally pull too much. You use Angelic Bulwark for raiding- Desperate Prayer is another PVP talent (unless you know encounters and incoming damage spikes incredibly well and are able to plan and really utilize it effectively)- it does the same healing as a single PW:S, only it's another button you have to push and a passive shield that can keep you from dying is better.

For the last two talent tiers, unless you're running with another disc priest, [Tier 5] Divine Insight doesn't really help all that much (if you can trust your other healers to help out after you've prevented bursts of damage). Twist of Fate is the best choice for raids provided you can be very good at paying attention to uptime by hitting adds during the fight and Power Infusion is great for dungeons, single-target boss fights, and questing. [Tier 6 ] Use Divine Star as default in dungeons, for stacked healing, and if you quest as shadow or as a healer (go shadow, insanity is ridiculous for bursting things down once you figure out how to use it), it does a plenty of damage AND healing, it's up all the time, and it doesn't pull entire zones by hitting everything in a 60 yard diameter. With Disc's DPS proficiency, you can speed up your dungeon runs considerably if you're the type that doesn't like to sit around and watch 4 people doing 10k dps run take an hour and a half to complete Heroic Shado-Pan Monastery. Use Cascade when "we're kinda spread out, but not really" or for fights like the Celestial Bosses, and Halo on fights where there's no overhealing (like Malkorok's absorb shield or Heroic Tortos) or where you can be at the sweet spot 25 yards for optimum DPS or healing. Halo is also incredible on Immerseus- the very high healing/damage/crazy range combination can't be beat for the blobs.

[Deleted]

keep casting heal, penance and power word: shield on the tank, with the PW:S glyph. Later, prayer of healing for group heal and repeat, with Renew now and again. Levitate with glyph helps you to keep up with a fast running tank but only cast levitate on yourself. Disc priests can also group heal through attacking instance mobs but thats an optional extra, just stick to direct heals if you are more comfortable with that. Try and have spirit on all or most of your gear.

[Siri]

*super long post*

Good post but a few comments on this.
The Weakened Soul glyph is nice but definitely not mandatory.
Don't take Flash Heal off your bars, it's an important spell in pve too, it's not just used in pvp.
Twist of Fate is the default level 75 talent for disc, not power infusion. PI is the situational ability, not the other way around.
Also, the tooltip for Halo quite clearly says that the greatest effect is at 25 yards, not 27.

These are the only things that are just wrong.
Other stuff is personal and/or out of the scope of this thread, imo.

[owalaz]

Attonement healing is the best way to play disc? I always thought just doing normal healing was the best.

[Sillychan]

Atonement is just a piece of your toolkit.

I'd highly consider reading these guides if you haven't before:

http://howtopriest.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=4484

Atonement is needed to gain stack of Evangelism for Archangel (a tool for throughput). It also is a way to provide smart heals to your party or raid for a fairly low mana cost per heal.

I use VERY simple mouseovers, because I don't need all the fancy conditionals.

/#showtooltip Flash Heal
/cast [@mouseover] Flash Heal

You can replace Flash Heal with any spell you need to be a mouseover. To access your macro menu (just in case you didn't know), /macro and then crease them there, then drag and drop in place of the spell you had.

Here is my UI, I use Elvui with mouseovers.

http://i.imgur.com/s8KoMJV.jpg

Cheers!

[Daagar]

Personally I consider mouseovers preferable to something like clique because I feel that at some point you need to start binding spells you want to cast to something terribly inconvenient like ctrl+alt+shift+mouse3 (exaggeration for emphasis, don't whine )

FYI - Clique has supported non-mouse keybinds for a while now (thus working just like standard mouseover macros). Best of both worlds, in a handy easy to use interface!

[Gersemi]

I'd try out different healing addons to see what you like the most.

[Nestar]

Good post but a few comments on this.
The Weakened Soul glyph is nice but definitely not mandatory.
Don't take Flash Heal off your bars, it's an important spell in pve too, it's not just used in pvp.
Twist of Fate is the default level 75 talent for disc, not power infusion. PI is the situational ability, not the other way around.
Also, the tooltip for Halo quite clearly says that the greatest effect is at 25 yards, not 27.

These are the only things that are just wrong.
Other stuff is personal and/or out of the scope of this thread, imo.

There's a post around here somewhere that goes over it, the Halo range is actually 27 for the absolute max hit. The tooltip you see is slightly misleading, its due to the way distance is calculated.

( 0.5 * (1.01)^(-1 * (((Distance-25)/2)^4)) + 0.1 + 0.015*Distance)


Range 24 || Damage 95.97%
Range 25 || Damage 97.50%
Range 26 || Damage 98.97%
Range 27 || Damage 100.00%
Range 28 || Damage 99.54%
Range 29 || Damage 96.14%
Range 30 || Damage 88.90%

In regards to the t45 comments in the post you were responding to. Mind Bender is reasonably competitive now since the more recent buffs. Particularly in the area's of damage done as a healer. The mana saved/gained is close enough that you can choose to go either way. I prefer it on fights where you may not always have a target within range to cast Solace on. So you can time your Mind Bender before and after such phases. Blade Lord Ta'yak and Iron Juggernaut Heroic come to mind.

[Siri]

Interesting. Don't suppose you have any source for that formula?
The only one I can find supposedly links to the MoP beta forum which is no longer accessable and that would be a really old post regardless.
I realize it's a very small sample size but testing in-game I got consistently higher hits at 25y rather than 27y (30 tests at either range).

[Nestar]

I do believe the original formula was on one of those beta posts.

There's some refrence discussion here http://howtopriest.com/viewtopic.php?f=73&t=2533
and more http://www.wowhead.com/spell=120517/#comments < is where I actually got it from now.

[Siri]

I do believe the original formula was on one of those beta posts.

There's some refrence discussion here http://howtopriest.com/viewtopic.php?f=73&t=2533
and more http://www.wowhead.com/spell=120517/#comments < is where I actually got it from now.

The H2P topic has some discussion about 25y vs 27y starting on page 6.
Based on that and my own tests I'm actually going to assume 25 yards is the better option, despite the posted formula. (which can be found here if anyone else wanted the quote).

It may just be that range calculations get wonky because of various hitbox sizes but when my addon says 25 yards, I get the most damage/healing.

[jason1975]

I'm currently leveling a disc preist to be my healer, just wondering whats better, using an add-on like vuhdo or useing mouse over macros for the healing in instances or raids. I kinda know how to make a mouseover macro, but not really. Any help would be great Edit: are there any tallents and glyphs that arent worth it till 90? im currently 45(lvl).

Not sure what people are responding to here . . . OP said pretty clearly they're level 45.

My wife is also leveling a disc priest (I'm tanking on a Brewmaster Monk). At your level it's just keep up PW:Shield on the tank, keep your Prayer or Mending active, and spam the crap out of pennance (used offensively) > holy fire > smite spam. If you need emergency healing, use PW:S or flash heal if they have weakened soul. Dump renew, heal, and greater heal off of your keybinds (they're bad spells for disc).

Do that until 90 then read the guide.

For talents, void tendrils are invaluable and IMO under utilized (even at max level, and even for raids). I'd take mindbender over solace as you're not going to notice the mana difference until 90, but the burst DPS difference is huge.

Healing addons: Vuhdo, vuhdo, and vuhdo. I couldn't live without it. Prayer of mending tracker is nice too.

[Deleted]

I used to use Vuhdo on my main (palatank) but it required a bit of effort to set up. For my disc priest alt, I used healbot - it's much easier to get going with but less customisable.

I can't recall if I used healbot for leveling - it's not really required, but I think it would be easier than not using any addon or creating a bunch of mouse over macros. It's probably quicker and also easier to see debuffs like weakened soul.

For all my characters, I used weak auras - I can't live without it (showing me what spells etc are off cool down). There are some nice strings out there to show the progress you make towards archangel, rapture etc.