Asked to switch from Disc to Holy :|

[Thirteen]

I'm actually on the fence for it too. I can see it being really good on heavy damage stack fights like Mythic Gruul, but I don't think many fights will have similar conditions to make CoP worth taking over WoM.

Gruul, Oregorger, Flamebender (Torrent and Firestorm), Kromog, Blackhand p3, H/F, Iron Maidens (depending your strategy) are all done with stacking. I'd go with CoP there.

[ceddya]

Gruul, Oregorger, Flamebender (Torrent and Firestorm), Kromog, Blackhand p3, H/F, Iron Maidens (depending your strategy) are all done with stacking. I'd go with CoP there.

Apart from Oregorger, I'm not sure the other fights will have enough frequency of damage to warrant taking CoP over WoM. We'll have to see though!

[Sard]

I don't know about that. There is a fair bit of tank damage from Fiery Links for Heal + DI to be effective, and Molten Torrents seem to lend themselves towards pre-cast PoH -> DI if procced -> CoH.

There is a fair bit of tank damage on just about every fight, but that doesn't mean it will direct my play style. DI needs to bounce between a bunch of targets who all need healing, all at the same time, and that just doesn't feel present on Heroic Flamebender. Although I do suppose there is nothing keeping you from doing Renew spam and DI/PoH spam at different times in the same fight, especially if Multistrike->Haste->Crit ends up being a good gear set for both.

Again though, a lot will depend on your raid makeup.

[Thirteen]

Apart from Oregorger, I'm not sure the other fights will have enough frequency of damage to warrant taking CoP over WoM. We'll have to see though!

But that's the thing. There's no point in taking WoM if the damage isn't frequent. Damage is going out constantly on Blast Furnace, meaning PoM will bounce all the time and never go to waste. Throw a PoM on Flamebender and it'll almost certainly go to waste.

[ceddya]

But that's the thing. There's no point in taking WoM if the damage isn't frequent. Damage is going out constantly on Blast Furnace, meaning PoM will bounce all the time and never go to waste. Throw a PoM on Flamebender and it'll almost certainly go to waste.

But WoM has charges. Between the 30 second duration on PoM and the ramp up on WoM, it is very unlikely to be wasted if you get the WoM cast on the tank or melee.

As for Furnace, there isn't heavy damage till 75 Heat. With the raid cycling through CDs, I'm not sure if the raid will remain low enough for CoP to pull ahead of PoH.

[Deleted]

The log ceddya posted is so interesting.
HPS was slightly higher than renew. CoP was not specced and there was no 4P bonus.

To me, it means that the use of Heal alone (without those many serendipity proccs granted by 4P bonus) to fuel 2P_DI is enough to boost your HPS. Meaning, it doesn't really cater to a specific encounter design where you need to use CoP for that gameplay to be useful. That's nice. Seems very promising with the 4P.

What's striking me is that it seems harder to use than renew for triage because of the long cast time of Heal (more likely to get sniped).

@ceddya :
How did the gameplay feel with those many Heals ? Did you emphasize more on tank healing because of that ?

[ceddya]

@ceddya :
How did the gameplay feel with those many Heals ? Did you emphasize more on tank healing because of that ?

I find it more fun than Renew/CoH. As you've stated, you do get more tank healing with that playstyle. Heal + Chakra: Serenity to keep Renews rolling on the tanks when there's little raid damage and Chakra: Sanctuary with some PoHs when raid damage ramps up. It feels a lot more flexible than the Renew/CoH playstyle.

I honestly can't wait for my 4 piece bonus because that's really when DI shines IMO. :P Without it, ToF probably still pulls ahead on fights with really heavy damage.

[Noradin]

Talk to your leader. Disc priests are excellent raid healers.

Disc bring good numbers when raid healing, but they aren't really good raid healers. Yes, they can stabilize, but they are very limited in their targeting.
If you want good performance number wise you have to use a lot of PW:S - which means waiting 10s before you can go back to a target you have just healed, if they take another hit you can use penance, but if it happens regularly you can either waste mana or hope for others to heal it.
Yes there are encounters where you can really shine by reacting to debuffs, but for the most part relying on PW:S which comes with a target lockout for 10s is a pain, and I really, really long for new mechanics.
Healer specs aren't really contributing to the fun of the game anymore, they get old after 20min.

- - - Updated - - -

What's striking me is that it seems harder to use than renew for triage because of the long cast time of Heal (more likely to get sniped).

If you get to know your healer time you get an instinct which damage patterns they'd snipe you on.

[Deleted]

My point was more about adapting to a gameplay in which you replace an instant filler with another one, much slower.

[KaPe]

While fun, two piece bonus can also be quite annoying when you just can't seem to get that DI proc when it's really needed. It will proc at the beginning of the fight and go to complete waste during those 10 seconds. Sometime it procs when there's not enough raid damage to really use it. At least with Serendipity from 4pc, it will be easier to recast spells with DI proc chance, thus (trying to) chaining DIs more smoothly.

Outside of DI, extra charges almost feel like a waste sometimes. There's plenty of fights where PoM takes quite a while to jump, so eventually you end up with two 6+ stacks of PoM stuck somewhere.

[Thirteen]

As for Furnace, there isn't heavy damage till 75 Heat. With the raid cycling through CDs, I'm not sure if the raid will remain low enough for CoP to pull ahead of PoH.

No, but everyone takes damage every second (every 3 seconds?) which is why it's very much worth using PoM on cooldown, and further - using WoM. For almost everything else, CoP will likely pull ahead (at least with the 4-piece) just because even with raid cooldowns, player HP will probably drop in the 40-60% range, and speccing CoP will let you drop a spirit trinket, or run 2xspirit trinkets with non-spirit jewelry, indirectly increasing your throughput.

My point was more about adapting to a gameplay in which you replace an instant filler with another one, much slower.

That's another point. If you run without/with less Renew, WoM loses it's value because Heal won't be GCD capped and you'll be throwing out WoMs at a slower pace.

[Zasriel]

What's the general thoughts on the Glyph of Prayer of Mending (The first charge of your Prayer of Mending heals for an additional 60% but your Prayer of Mending has 1 fewer charge.)?

Is the 60% extra healing worth the 1 less stack?

[Thirteen]

What's the general thoughts on the Glyph of Prayer of Mending (The first charge of your Prayer of Mending heals for an additional 60% but your Prayer of Mending has 1 fewer charge.)?

Is the 60% extra healing worth the 1 less stack?

With the 2piece probably yes. Otherwise no.

[meadatron]

As many have posted, Holy is all about CD management. In a typical fight you'll have either renew, CoH, or DH as your top heal, post 4pc, PoM will be a strong contender.

Right now the 2 best secondaries are multistrike & mastery with crit a close second, haste is probably your least valuable stat but trinkets like shard of nothing give you a clutch OMG spam period, though PI will work just as well if you want it, however early on into BRF as your raid takes heavy damage ToF is better for recovery, especially on abilities like inferno slice and stone breath. With a competent disc priest you'll find there's not so much to heal in rapid succession. That being said MoP put a lot of bads into the priest class who atonement spammed ftw. Hopefully the priest that is remaining disc knows the fights inside and out, as disc is all about preplanning against high damage output. But I agree with most other posters, unless you're running a 25+ heroic team, more than one disc is a waste.

As for the spells I macro pretty much everything, the one thing I would recommend is adding a WA for 2 stack of serendipity as this is easy to lose track of yet is not crucial. I myself do switch between sanc/sere, and while I know that unless there is heavy raid stack that sanctuary is near worthless I still cast quite a bit when it makes sense.

[Deleted]

As many have posted, Holy is all about CD management. In a typical fight you'll have either renew, CoH, or DH as your top heal, post 4pc, PoM will be a strong contender.

Right now the 2 best secondaries are multistrike & mastery with crit a close second, haste is probably your least valuable stat but trinkets like shard of nothing give you a clutch OMG spam period

That's quite contrary to what the majority of theorycrafters and top holy priests are suggesting. Haste is generally considered 2nd best stat for holy. Largely due to sanctuary chakra, the increase to healing per cast from HoTs and generally having a lower GCD. Mastery was relatively weak, especially earlier this expansion when so much healing came from renew, with the 4pc it's looking like mastery will be getting stronger although I haven't seen any maths or logs to support it becoming stronger than haste, or even crit.

[GKLeatherCraft]

I would take it as a compliment, I expect they think that because of how good you are, you're more likely to be able to take to the new spec, and be good at it

[Thirteen]

That's quite contrary to what the majority of theorycrafters and top holy priests are suggesting. Haste is generally considered 2nd best stat for holy. Largely due to sanctuary chakra, the increase to healing per cast from HoTs and generally having a lower GCD. Mastery was relatively weak, especially earlier this expansion when so much healing came from renew, with the 4pc it's looking like mastery will be getting stronger although I haven't seen any maths or logs to support it becoming stronger than haste, or even crit.

I think/hope he was talking with the 4-piece bonus in mind.