WoM or CoW?

[Feeline10]

Can you guys tell me which is used primarily for Mythic?

2 Holy Pallies
Me (Disc)
R Shaman
MW Monk

That's our raid setup. Can I get some advice?

[anon5123]

CoW is infinitely more useful than a free PoM every 20-25 seconds.

Being able to stack a huge shield on a single target is really damn useful at times, such as Brackenspore and his healing debuff which doesn't affect shields, or shielding the mushrooms while other healer(s) heal it, or stacking shields on the mages' focus targets on Imperator, or shielding the tank during Shadow debuff on Ko'ragh, or...you get the point. It's just all-around really useful; arguably the best single-target heal in the game.

[Feeline10]

See I agree completely.. I love CoW but I hear people saying WoM even as Disc is a no brainer..

[blancoo]

CoW is in theory the more useful spell BUT the cast time is ridiculous/unusable on most fights so WoM is pretty much always the choice unless you are specifically on tank duty or on a fight like Bracken.

[ceddya]

You have access to 2 H-Pallies. The only fights you should want/need CoW for are Brackenspore and Ko'ragh.

[laalipop]

It depends entirely on what your role in your comp is and the fight at hand. CoW even after the nerf is good on Brackenspore (I think that applies to Mythic, dunno seeing the fight tonight for the first time) but if you are not needed for tank healing, or major healing on only a handful of targets, WoM is the better choice.

Now don't expect WoM to shoot PoM to your #1 heal, but it is a decent bump up of basically free healing in that you are going to get it off of your PW:S casts mostly, and if you are focused more on the raid, then you will cast PW:S a significant amount of the time.

Given your comp, two Holy Paladin's should be more than enough raw healing on tanks for most encounters so I see very few scenarios where CoW is helpful (Brackenspore and Ko'ragh are about it) in your case.

[Feeline10]

You have access to 2 H-Pallies. The only fights you should want/need CoW for are Brackenspore and Ko'ragh.

Yeah.. my HPS goes down considerably when I don't use CoW though. Especially after the -15% PW:S nerf.

[laalipop]

Yeah.. my HPS goes down considerably when I don't use CoW though. Especially after the -15% PW:S nerf.

If that is the case then using CoW probably isn't helping much anyway. Only so much healing needs to go into tanks/prime targets (shielders on Ko'ragh, Mushrooms) and if you have Pallies AND CoW on them, you're probably just causing them to overheal.

Learn your raid, learn which fights cause what damage to who based on strat and fight, get better with PW:Sing specific people and when you take WoM, the best trick is to not just spew PoMs out, but to get them on those key people who are going to use them. That comp is very tank heal heavy and would do you good to help the raid.

[Evry]

After the PW:S nerf, CoW and PW:S are about the same HPM, but PW:S is still a notable hps increase over it.
Like Ceddya said, I think the 2 fights where CoW is the clear best choice are Brackenspore (for breath) and Ko'ragh (for caustic energy). With 2 pallies you should be able to take WoM with no issues.

[Gatao]

depends on the fight.

Personaly using cow on all the fights but butcher and twins

[PosPosPos]

Access to double holy paladins mean you should never have to heal tanks aside from the occasional PWS. Just run WoM.

[Lellybaby]

I like CoW for branded targets but the cast does take a long time unfortunately.

I also heal with two holy paladins and never have to worry about the tanks.

I almost want to try Holy but a) I suck at it and b) its just so useful to have (especially because a lot my raid can't avoid stuff on the ground).

[Mercadi]

depends on the fight.

Personaly using cow on all the fights but butcher and twins

Ditto, on those two fights I don't have time to cast it.

[Bigslick]

CoW is a great spell, but requires a fair amount of cast time. PoM isn't a powerful spell, but being passively cast, it's free healing whose HPS doesn't require cast time for CoW that could otherwise be used for other spells. One PoM won't likely do the same HPS as one CoW, but then the question becomes will it, along with the other spells you would be casting in the time you'd otherwise have to commit towards CoW, overtake that difference.

The decision comes down to damage patterns and movement requirements.

As you enter into the higher difficulties, you'll often benefit by moving towards WoM more often as PoM gains closer to 100% utilization, and you are required to move more frequently so have less time to be effective with CoW. In mythic so far, for me, it's:

Kargath: If you're mostly on tanks, CoW. Otherwise, it's pretty much a tossup.
Butcher: WoM (very short fight, you're almost purely casting PW:S)
Tectus: WoM (like butcher, very short, tons of PW:S, and when things are getting critical towards the end you won't have time for CoW, where WoM will passively help)
Brackenspore: Odds are you'll be primarily on tanks (or possibly shrooms), outside of spamming shields during Infesting Spores, so CoW is a no-brainer.
Twin Orgron: WoM. Far too much movement to put up with the cast time of CoW to be effective.
Ko'ragh: COW is huge for soakers in N and H, and in M you have 2 taking substantially more, so I can't see taking WoM there.
Imperator: Constant movement required and persistent raid damage. WoM all day.

[Haywire5714]

I use CoW on tectus because the tanks are taking high amounts of damage in various portions of the fight; words of mending is pretty much useless for tectonic upheavals you won't even notice it's there and it definitely won't be preventing any wipes.

Mind you you're probably better off spamming flash heal in the last phase.

[Bigslick]

I use CoW on tectus because the tanks are taking high amounts of damage in various portions of the fight; words of mending is pretty much useless for tectonic upheavals you won't even notice it's there and it definitely won't be preventing any wipes.

Mind you you're probably better off spamming flash heal in the last phase.

I can certainly respect that. It all comes down to whatever works for your playstyle in tandem with those of your healing team. Our tanks manage their mitigation (both personal and external cd rotation) extremely well, and we have a pally maintaining dual beacon. It's generally proved better for our raid composition to use cast time for more shields in those hectic phases to where the nominal splash of WoM is better to have than not, when I wouldn't be casting a single CoW. That, and we 3-heal M Tectus, so every ounce of aoe healing possible helps. If you don't have other strong tank healers, then it could definitely be worthwhile to stick with CoW.

There's no 100% right answer for any fight. One can look at top parses and get an idea of what those groups are doing, and it's usually a good place to start, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's best for everyone. It's worth getting used to being effective with either so one can put in a few attempts with each (unless one knows his/her role is primarily on the tanks) to see which is more effective with the patterns by which one's own raid sustains and triages damage.

[PosPosPos]

That, and we 3-heal M Tectus, so every ounce of aoe healing possible helps.

We just Tranq there and nobody really needs to do anything else. I don't see why you would need AoE healing on tectus where there is only one raid damage phase that matters.

- - - Updated - - -

I use CoW on tectus because the tanks are taking high amounts of damage in various portions of the fight; words of mending is pretty much useless for tectonic upheavals you won't even notice it's there and it definitely won't be preventing any wipes.

Mind you you're probably better off spamming flash heal in the last phase.

So good to get a BoP so you can just chain cast Flash Heals back to back. ToF is also really good for this fight just for the last phase as well.

[Bigslick]

We just Tranq there and nobody really needs to do anything else. I don't see why you would need AoE healing on tectus where there is only one raid damage phase that matters.

By the same token, there's only really one tank damage phase that matters (while the 2 respawned shards and the 8 motes are all up together) - tanks are easy to keep up outside of that, and with proper cd rotation easy to keep up inside. So either argument can be valid. Point being, free PoM and several higher HPS casts are more valuable than a few low HPS casts, unless your tanks take an inordinate amount of damage - in which case you may want to maximize absorbs on tanks to help the other healers with net healing on them.

[PosPosPos]

By the same token, there's only really one tank damage phase that matters (while the 2 respawned shards and the 8 motes are all up together) - tanks are easy to keep up outside of that, and with proper cd rotation easy to keep up inside. So either argument can be valid. Point being, free PoM and several higher HPS casts are more valuable than a few low HPS casts, unless your tanks take an inordinate amount of damage - in which case you may want to maximize absorbs on tanks to help the other healers with net healing on them.

Thing is, CoW is still relevant on multiple parts of the fight - WoM isn't.

[Bigslick]

Thing is, CoW is still relevant on multiple parts of the fight - WoM isn't.

There is not a single fight where WoM has no relevance, unless it ends before or right after you've cast your 10th healing spell of the encounter. It will bear impact, because it will proc, and it will heal, and assuming one is casting regularly during the course of combat, it will do so, albeit not to any extraordinary amount, throughout the fight. CoW, however, can be irrelevant for the entirety of the fight if you do not cast it, and those situations can occur. For M Tectus, I find that to be the case in my raid group. The trick is to view it from the aspect of a passive versus active spell.

WoM is essentially free healing with absolutely no cost, provided as a bonus for casting heals. It takes no effort, planning, or GCD/cast time, and doesn't require you to forego casting other spells to gain its benefit - it is completely passive. CoW has an absolute cost in both mana and time, and requires actively choosing to invest those resources, prioritizing them over other options. In my raid, on that fight, I would seldom cast CoW because I do not find myself constrained on mana to where I'm unable to manage casting higher HPS spells in its place as required, whether that be FH on tanks or PW:S on the raid. Either of the latter are higher HPS, and the occasional WoM simply boosts their effectiveness further. If I were having difficulty managing my mana, then CoW would be worth considering as a possible solution. But I'm not, so I don't, as I can't justify issuing a less effective cast (in the framework of our group triage) just because it would save mana that I don't need to save. On other fights I do opt for it, but only if the demands vs mana pool/team triage warrant that decision.

The point I tried to express in my earlier post was that there's not an absolute best spec for a given fight for every disc priest. One has to take into consideration the strengths and weaknesses of the healing team as a whole, the degree to which the raid (and tanks) are able to avoid/mitigate damage, and availability/coordination of mitigation and healing cooldowns.