Returning Resto Druid: Best buds with a Disco, but super sad about their absorbs :*(

[FeralJim]

Hey Priests pals,

I'm a 670 Resto Druid and I've just started running Mythics with my Guild. We are hoping to get Twins and Tectus down for the first time this week.

I haven't done much raid healing since Vanilla/BC, I'm trying to get back into the swing of things now with Warlords.

One of our best players is a Priest who swaps between Shadow/Disco depending on what we need, and I get on really well with him.

Now that I've started to get some gear I'm paying more attention to logs and meters, and I've noticed that when we have a Disco my healing done ... ugh.

I ranked #131 on Heroic Twins, and I had more overheals than actual healing, when thats normally 30% or so of my healing dealt.

Some of the guys in the group say "what does that matter, your doing a great job, no one is dieing, its just numbers". That's totally true most of the time.

But I mean, if we are doing progression that is right down to the wire, say wipes on 2-3% boss hp with healers all tapped out on mana, doesnt the fact that our heals per mana is less with a Disco around actually matter, like a lot?

TLDR: The Priest I heal with is cool, friendly, and a good player. I am looking for a reason to be happier about having him heal as Disco, and less sad. I don't know a lot about Priests, or healing in general, is there some positive stuff I can focus on that a Disco brings to the raid, the healing team?

As a Priest why would you spec Disco over Holy if Holy doesn't mess around with the other Healers, particularly Resto Druids.

[PosPosPos]

Hey Priests pals,

I'm a 670 Resto Druid and I've just started running Mythics with my Guild. We are hoping to get Twins and Tectus down for the first time this week.

I haven't done much raid healing since Vanilla/BC, I'm trying to get back into the swing of things now with Warlords.

One of our best players is a Priest who swaps between Shadow/Disco depending on what we need, and I get on really well with him.

Now that I've started to get some gear I'm paying more attention to logs and meters, and I've noticed that when we have a Disco my healing done ... ugh.

I ranked #131 on Heroic Twins, and I had more overheals than actual healing, when thats normally 30% or so of my healing dealt.

Some of the guys in the group say "what does that matter, your doing a great job, no one is dieing, its just numbers". That's totally true most of the time.

But I mean, if we are doing progression that is right down to the wire, say wipes on 2-3% boss hp with healers all tapped out on mana, doesnt the fact that our heals per mana is less with a Disco around actually matter, like a lot?

TLDR: The Priest I heal with is cool, friendly, and a good player. I am looking for a reason to be happier about having him heal as Disco, and less sad. I don't know a lot about Priests, or healing in general, is there some positive stuff I can focus on that a Disco brings to the raid, the healing team?

As a Priest why would you spec Disco over Holy if Holy doesn't mess around with the other Healers, particularly Resto Druids.

I don't understand, why is a healer class that heals more than another a bad thing for the raid?

What I do understand is such a healer class can affect the satisfaction of others, but it's not like disc priests don't have major diminishing returns compared to stacking other healer classes so you are inclined to never run more than 1 or 2 to begin with.

[Well]

Player X is at 100% health.

Instance of damage A will take 35% of his max hp in 3 seconds.
With Discipline:
PW:S absorbs a value close to 15% of the max hp of the target (assuming no crit/multistrike).
Rejuv overheals for 50%, since there are 2 more healers in the raid.

Without Discipline:
Player X loses 35% of his max hp. Healing gets sniped by all the 3 other healers.
Rejuv overheals for 50%.

My suggestion would be that you could not rejuv full hp shielded targets, since that's how discipline works at the moment. Also, expecting a 17 seconds duration hot to not overheal when you have 3 other healers, and the instance of damage is one is kind of unrealistic.



Instance of damage B, will hit a multitude of players for 6% of their max health every 2.5 seconds for 15 seconds.

With Disc and without co-ordination:
PW:S absorbs 2-3 hits. The priest can't do much until the Weakened Soul debuff is off, or if he/she starts using PoH. You rejuved people with shields, you overheal.

With Disc and with co-ordination:
Groups have been shared and decided upon between healers. Priest casts 10 PW:S' on groups 1 & 2, you rejuv groups 3 & 4. You rejuv people without shields, your throughtput is insane. Everyone is happy.

TL;DR: discipline is not a pug-friendly and casual healer friendly spec for other healers. Because of the current design of the spec, other healers, need to pay attention to not put hots on targets that will not take as much dmg as they would, without one in the raid. And that's especially true for druids, which seem to enjoy spamming rejuv on the raid. Since your discipline is a friendly and good guy & raider, you should decide between you what each one of you will heal and when, for the best of the raid. Ignore the meter, unless some healer is healing less than the tank, and until you simply can't progress through X boss.

[Terridon]

I don't play either, but to me it sounds like you majorly outgear the fight your brought up as an example, meaning his absorbs should do a far larger part of the healing than it will on mythic, where the damage is higher, and thus burning through his bubbles?
I might be wrong, but i would asume your overhealing should be back to normal, in mythic. If not, then it just means his bubbles never burst, and you will have an easy time downing everything on mythic ;D

[maizensh]

I don't understand, why is a healer class that heals more than another a bad thing for the raid?

What I do understand is such a healer class can affect the satisfaction of others, but it's not like disc priests don't have major diminishing returns compared to stacking other healer classes so you are inclined to never run more than 1 or 2 to begin with.

Basically this.

As a Priest why would you spec Disco over Holy if Holy doesn't mess around with the other Healers, particularly Resto Druids.

Disc brings something unique to the raid which Holy can't bring. It's not that disc messes with other healers (except other discs), it just it heals in different (preemptive) way which many healers find hard to cope with. In turn, once damage has been done disc has very limited tools to help with that (penance is awesome of course, but it's single target and on cd) without burning his mana like crazy, something which druid can do without much fuss.

[Kuniku]

I've always felt that resto druids and disc go quite well together, the shield gives a buffer that allows the HoTs to bring the health up. The problem is healers these days don't check for HoTs, they just see a bar thats not full and cast a heal so make the HoT overheal

[Deleted]

Disc, not Disco!

As a Priest why would you spec Disco over Holy if Holy doesn't mess around with the other Healers, particularly Resto Druids.

Holy is a throughput healer, a role shared amongst Monks, Druids, Shaman and Holy Priests. Discipline is a very heavily absorbed based healer. It synergises better with another throughput healer than Holy does.

I don't know a lot about Priests, or healing in general, is there some positive stuff I can focus on that a Disco brings to the raid, the healing team?

Keeping people alive? If you judge your worth based upon meter positions then you are going to be unhappy since Discipline will be soaking up a lot of minor healing from time to time. If you judge your worth based on getting bosses down and keeping the raid alive then healing with a Discipline priest is a good thing. Their shields on someone not at 100% health is a good thing for allowing more of your HoTs to tick instead of going to overhealing.

I ranked #131 on Heroic Twins, and I had more overheals than actual healing, when thats normally 30% or so of my healing dealt.

When are you returning from? Managing a low amount of overhealing is nowhere near as important as it was in TBC for example. It also sounds like you are overgearing the encounters quite a bit and in such a case, Discipline will shine more.

Ignore the meter, unless some healer is healing less than the tank, and until you simply can't progress through X boss.

When it comes to healing, meters are good for apples to apples comparisons. Do you have two restoration druids in your raid? Then compare them. If one is hitting out 30k+ on heroic imperator and the other is wallowing around 18k then you can make assessments about things that might need to change. Comparing the raw numbers of a Holy Priest to a Holy Paladin or Discipline Priest though is much more futile.

[Mallphas]

You could use an addon to help you with that.

Discs are designed to shield ppl, even at full hp to prevent damage, thus HoTing a shielded player would cause a massive overheling.

I personally use Vuhdo to track absorbs on the raid. It puts a tracker on a corner of your choosing that tracks all absorbs on every player. It could help you choosing wich players are more likelly to get less overheal from your HoTs. But, I think its not necessary, as no one is dying on your group.

[wrathblade]

Not sure what addons you use but try and get something to show who has a absord shield on him and for howmuch it lasts + absorbs.

This way you can see who has a bigg shield and who's is going to break quickly.
You can now also see who you shouldn't waste mana on seeing he has a shield.

Try to get the priest to do the same. a addon that will show him who has hots and who doesn't.
Just imagine you both knowing who has hots and shields.
he shields ppl with dmg taken giving 1 reju enough time to heal them back up without requiring other heals.
Tank has full hots? no need to spend mana on him apart from PW:shield to absorb incoming dmg.
Ranged dps without hots or shield on 40% and declining? both of you know you need to act.
ranged dps gets 2x reju priest can switch to cheaper heal instead of spamming flash

Beeing a healer isn't about numbers at all.
it's about beeing efficient with your mana and teamwork between you the other healers and the tanks.
( save the few dps with raid CD's )

If raided with a disc priest while playing holy myself back in mop.
I did the most healing because of my awsome aoe spamms.
While he could watchout for the few that could use a shield and spend most time on tanks and nubs standing in fire.

Still meter's are nice:P but luckly most don't bother with anything but the dmg meter! till you wipe...

[Well]

Disc, not Disco!

When it comes to healing, meters are good for apples to apples comparisons. Do you have two restoration druids in your raid? Then compare them. If one is hitting out 30k+ on heroic imperator and the other is wallowing around 18k then you can make assessments about things that might need to change. Comparing the raw numbers of a Holy Priest to a Holy Paladin or Discipline Priest though is much more futile.

Also, very true.

[Armaiti]

As true as all this is with healers not having to worry about anything as long as people are alive in the raid it doesn't exactly work once you get past general progression. Absorb Healers in general have proven that in the past that as they get stronger everyone else gets weaker, this should NEVER happen but even now in WOD we continue to see as Disc gets stronger you can see the dips in healing across all percentiles on the logs in direct correlation to the ever increasing absorbs that Disc does.

I can't help but see that once again even after MoP It will become more and more difficult to justify your position as a healer when eventually a Disc Priest will squeeze you out of your spot as your team replaces you with a dps. I've seen this myself having lost my spot even though I brought tools to the raid I was selected for replacement and no I wasn't at the bottom. I'm finding it very funny that it seems only the Priest community can defend Disc or how healing works in general even though they have nothing to complain about at the expense of everyone else. Its just not fair for anyone there should never be a spec that is affecting so many areas of the game from PVE or PVP.

Raidleaders will take your healing into account they might be your friend but at the end of the night if they can clear all bosses nice and early they will sacrifice healer positions to account for more DPS at the expense of the "other healers". The priest community as really lost sight of how broken Disc has and will become, it saddens me that I even used to call myself fulltime healer now I can't even look back on healing as it makes me feel I'll never be wanted as much as a Disc priest no matter my performance.

[Deleted]

As true as all this is with healers not having to worry about anything as long as people are alive in the raid it doesn't exactly work once you get past general progression. Absorb Healers in general have proven that in the past that as they get stronger everyone else gets weaker, this should NEVER happen but even now in WOD we continue to see as Disc gets stronger you can see the dips in the across all percentiles on the logs in direct correlation to the ever increasing absorbs that Disc does.

Uhmm. This is how healing works? Always has. Back in TBC and WotLK it was Druids that people complained about because as HoTs got stronger, every other healer (that could at least be tracked) got weaker. Absorbs have just taken over from HoTs in that niche.

I can't help but see that once again even after MoP It will become more and more difficult to justify your position as a healer when eventually a Disc Priest will squeeze you out of your spot into a DPS. I've seen this myself having lost my spot even though I brought tools to the raid I was selected for replacement and no I wasn't at the bottom. I'm finding it very funny that it seems only the Priest community can defend Disc or how healing works in general even though they have nothing to complain about at the expense of everyone else. Its just not fair for anyone there should never be a spec that is affecting so many areas of the game from PVE or PVP.

Maybe you need to check some of the posts here in the Priest forums? Discipline priests are not happy that we are so reliant on absorbs. We don't like having a healing composition that is mainly absorbs, in particular PW:S and a good number of us have been pointing out issues that will arise since the changes to Holy Nova and PW:S went live on the release day of WoD. And it isn't a spec that is affecting game balance, it is Blizzard's decision to move all of Discipline's healing out of abilities that primarily heal (Atonement, L90s, PoM, Holy Nova) and put it into one spell.

Raidleaders will take your healing into account they might be your friend but at the end of the night if they can clear all bosses nice and early for alts they will sacrifice healer positions to account for more DPS at the expense of the "other healers". The priest community as really lost sight of how broken Disc has and will become, it saddens me that I even used to call myself fulltime healer now I can't even look back on healing as it makes me feel I'll never be wanted as much as a Disc priest no matter my performance.

If a raid leader starts bitching about a throughput healer looking bad relative to a Discipline priest I will pretty much always pipe up and explain the situation. If that throughput healer bitches to me about how I am stealing their HPS? Yeah, that isn't going to go down well since it suggests that the other healer isn't actually interested in healing but looking good on meters.

[Armaiti]

Uhmm. This is how healing works? Always has. Back in TBC and WotLK it was Druids that people complained about because as HoTs got stronger, every other healer (that could at least be tracked) got weaker. Absorbs have just taken over from HoTs in that niche.

The difference is absorbs effectively raises the health of each individual for their own private area of healing. Although the heals was sniped back then quite like how AA was in MoPs low damage raids. You can always make spells stronger/weaker but at the end of the day absorbs will win out.

Maybe you need to check some of the posts here in the Priest forums? Discipline priests are not happy that we are so reliant on absorbs. We don't like having a healing composition that is mainly absorbs, in particular PW:S and a good number of us have been pointing out issues that will arise since the changes to Holy Nova and PW:S went live on the release day of WoD. And it isn't a spec that is affecting game balance, it is Blizzard's decision to move all of Discipline's healing out of abilities that primarily heal (Atonement, L90s, PoM, Holy Nova) and put it into one spell.

Everyone knew that Holy Nova would have been a gameplay dead end even when it was suggested for use in MoPs beta and here we are now even as it was once again moaned about in WoDs Beta. It doesn't change anything its here even with the feedback. The reason why most of the healing composition is placed in absorbs is because priests carry two specs. With two types of healing on one class you'd have to remove one of them but that would require a massive overhaul unlikely to be seen until post WoD.

Edit: Maybe this is the fix drastic I'm sure but druids can have 4 specs why can't a priest have 2? The "Light" & "Shadow" with the new healing spec being built around the strengths of both Disc and Holy. No longer would the class have to be balanced against itself while correcting a number of gameplay issues.

If a raid leader starts bitching about a throughput healer looking bad relative to a Discipline priest I will pretty much always pipe up and explain the situation. If that throughput healer bitches to me about how I am stealing their HPS? Yeah, that isn't going to go down well since it suggests that the other healer isn't actually interested in healing but looking good on meters.

Its not about looking good its about being wanted, back then I didn't want to DPS ever but I myself am amongst the many that have been pushed out of their spot or the raid/team entirely just to bring in a DPS.

[PosPosPos]

Its not about looking good its about being wanted, back then I didn't want to DPS ever but I myself am amongst the many that have been pushed out of their spot or the raid/team entirely just to bring in a DPS.

That's the problem with quite a few fights not needing a lot of throughput healing, which is a encounter design flaw as opposed to a class design flaw per se.

[Deleted]

You can always make spells stronger/weaker but at the end of the day absorbs will win out.

Yes, this is what I said... The point being that if absorbs weren't a thing, people that treat healing as a competition would complain about HoTs. As they did in the past...

Everyone knew that Holy Nova would have been a gameplay dead end even when it was suggested for use in MoPs beta and here we are now even as it was once again moaned about in WoDs Beta. It doesn't change anything its here even with the feedback. The reason why most of the healing composition is placed in absorbs is because priests carry two specs.

I'm not seeing your point here. You can have two priest specs without a healer sitting at 80% absorbs and still have unique healing mechanics. The difference between Holy Nova and Circle of Healing is evidence of this!

With two types of healing on one class you'd have to remove one of them but that would require a massive overhaul unlikely to be seen until post WoD.

Why? What is inherently wrong with having the choice of two different healing styles? This is a pretty extreme solution to a very obvious problem which is that PW:S is too strong relative to Discipline's other heals.

Maybe this is the fix drastic I'm sure but druids can have 4 specs why can't a priest have 2?

Uhmm. Yeah, it is. Punishing an entire class just because one spell has been tuned too high and others too low? I think you are cutting off the nose and all other body parts to spite the face with that idea!

Its not about looking good its about being wanted, back then I didn't want to DPS ever but I myself am amongst the many that have been pushed out of their spot or the raid/team entirely just to bring in a DPS.

Honey, if you heal well as a Druid, I want you in my team, irrespective of which one of us sits on top of useless meters. We synergise great! Damage comes that isn't shielded, you throw out some HoTs, I put a shield just in case, let's grab coffee?

The sad thing is, healers will always get pushed out for a DPS when content becomes trivial. In TBC it was dropping the druids and paladins for shaman and priests, in WotLK it was the other way around, in MoP everything was messed up... I'd hazard that this is part of the reason why dual spec was introduced - so healers can switch to DPS if needed. It is less that ideal, but it shouldn't be happening in challenging content that is correctly designed. Not a healer flaw but rather a raid design flaw.

[Armaiti]

Not a healer flaw but rather a raid design flaw.

I don't really think its just one flaw its both in the fact the damage is too low or only fits niches.

Uhmm. Yeah, it is. Punishing an entire class just because one spell has been tuned too high and others too low? I think you are cutting off the nose and all other body parts to spite the face with that idea!

The only reason I even suggested the idea of removing a spec is that its either Aegis/Holy Nova or PW:S thats the issue. Now hear me out, by combining the two specs it might be beneficial to the class in general. One of the things you could do is bake the adsorbs on demand around the Chakra system with Serenity transforming spells to their disc variants (example: Holy Word: Serenity is replaced with Holy Word: Penance) which would be a more ST healing absorb style and Holy Word: Sanctuary maintaining its current holy healing style. Or keep the transforming spells depending on chakra and think of the warlocks demon form with building holy energy to trigger your chakra a 2nd time to activate a Holy form example (All healing spells get a new passive: Spirit Shell) for the duration of remaining energy. This could be balanced around locking you in that chakra temporarily.

I'm no class designer... but to me this would actually sound fun, easier to balance as changes would only need to affect the chaka stances and fix the issues with both Disc and Holy once and for all.

Honey, if you heal well as a Druid, I want you in my team, irrespective of which one of us sits on top of useless meters. We synergise great! Damage comes that isn't shielded, you throw out some HoTs, I put a shield just in case, let's grab coffee?

Nothing would make me more happier than to return to healing but I just can't convince myself.

[Deleted]

The only reason I even suggested the idea of removing a spec is that its either Aegis/Holy Nova or PW:S thats the issue.

Right, but this is pretty easily fixed? Holy Nova was overtuned and was brought in line, it functioned fine as a heal but the aegis issue flared up due to the extremely high crit rating people were sitting on in MoP. If I recall I was around 60% raid buffed? Not to mention massive amounts of mastery. This was what made the uncapped L90s problematic as well.

To fix this you can either change Divine Aegis or just stop gear scaling so ridiculously. None of these warforged items, no massive item level jumps with a new tier, no upgrading - nerf the instance instead.

PW:S is only a problem because it shields for so much. A knee jerk reaction due to complaints about Holy Nova @90. As soon as you correct this issue and buff Discipline's healing spells to compensate, the issue becomes far less severe.

Now hear me out, by combining the two specs it might be beneficial to the class in general. You could bake the adsorbs on demand around the Chakra system with Serenity transforming spells to their disc variants (example: Holy Word: Serenity is replaced with Holy Word: Penance) which would be a more ST healing absorb style and Holy Word: Sanctuary maintaining its current holy healing style. Or alternatively think of a warlocks demon form with building holy energy to trigger your chakra a 2nd time to activate a Holy form example (Prayer of Healing gets a new passive + Spirit Shell) for the duration of remaining energy. This could be balanced around locking you in that chakra temporarily.

I can't see combining the strengths of Discipline and the strengths of Holy and limiting it only by a 10 second CD stance switch as being something that will pan out well. Once PW:S is no longer the best spell to cast when three or more targets are damaged then Discipline basically moves closer to that ST healing absorb style you have outlined...

Nothing would make me more happier than to return to healing but I just can't convince myself.

Why? I don't mean any offence, but doesn't that say more about what you value when healing rather than the issue with a different healer?

[Armaiti]

PW:S is only a problem because it shields for so much. A knee jerk reaction due to complaints about Holy Nova at90. As soon as you correct this issue and buff Discipline's healing spells to compensate, the issue becomes far less severe.

I think I'm starting to see what you mean actually with why this is happening but it doesn't escape that no one can deny that something needs to be done.

I can't see combining the strengths of Discipline and the strengths of Holy and limiting it only by a 10 second CD stance switch as being something that will pan out well. Once PW:S is no longer the best spell to cast when three or more targets are damaged then Discipline basically moves closer to that ST healing absorb style you have outlined...

Obviously I'm not the individual to fix the problem but I can see it. I just wish to see something happen its like a pendulum, Disc is either OP or poop.. I just feel that a large class overhaul really is required on the level of Balance druids and Warlocks.

Why? I don't mean any offence, but doesn't that say more about what you value when healing rather than the issue with a different healer?

To be honest I just feel that with everything thats happened I can't help but feel a bit bitter, I left my old guild and friends behind as I felt I really wasn't of any use anymore. Before the end of MoP first tier I had stopped healing entirely the saddest part was that I wasn't a druid but actually a fulltime Holy Priest that didn't want to switch specs.

[Deleted]

I think I'm starting to see what you mean actually with why this is happening but it doesn't escape that no one can deny that something needs to be done.

Totally agreed. Something needs to be done. The solution though, is not simply to blame and nerf Discipline. Doing so would only drive Discipline healers to Holy and thereby overemphasise the importance of Paladin absorbs. Numerically, Discipline is fine. The problem is how those numbers of total healing and HPS are reached. Doing so vastly at the expense of letting other healing in is bad.

I just wish to see something happen its like a pendulum, Disc is either OP or poop.. I just feel that a large class overhaul really is required on the level of Balance druids and Warlocks.

Yeah, it is. A healer should not ever be so dependent on one spell. It isn't good design for other healers or for Discipline players. I don't think removing the spec is the correct answer though. Discipline can still play and feel like Discipline without doing 60%+ absorb healing or, at least, without doing it through an instant cast spell with an awkward debuff.

[Seltzers]

I heal with a resto druid and we both love it. The synergy works out quite well. Bubbles tend to ease the damage coming in a bit and enough that he can focus on topping off the rest of the raid while I can focus on our tanks and reapplying some bubbles. Seems like a really nice combo to me.