[7.0] Legion Discipline Priest Guide and Discussion

[Jimjam38]

Ffs please stop derailing this discussion with this fucking bullshit about disc vs holy

Aizen224, let me put it very simply. I don't care if you think Disc isn't a real healer and holy is better in every single way. THIS IS NOT THE PLACE FOR THAT DEBATE. Make a new thread if you want to start that crap again. I, and many, many, others, are sick to death of it.

[Wopples]

Macro advice please!

I'm trying to put PWR and PI+PWR on one button with shift as the modifer so that when you press shift, it activates PI+PWR cast, and without shift it should just cast PWR normally. I would post the actual macro I came up with but I'm being stopped from posting because of the link filter for new accounts.

[Jimjam38]

Macro advice please!

I'm trying to put PWR and PI+PWR on one button with shift as the modifer so that when you press shift, it activates PI+PWR cast, and without shift it should just cast PWR normally. I would post the actual macro I came up with but I'm being stopped from posting because of the link filter for new accounts.

It sounds like what you're trying to do is make a cast sequence with a modifier, which i'm not sure is possible.

What you could do, however, is set up two keybinds, say "T" and "Shift+T", and then set PWR to the "T" keybind, and then a macro for PI + PWR on "Shift+T". I believe this would achieve the same result as the macro you're attempting to create.

[Disciplined]

Macro advice please!

I'm trying to put PWR and PI+PWR on one button with shift as the modifer so that when you press shift, it activates PI+PWR cast, and without shift it should just cast PWR normally. I would post the actual macro I came up with but I'm being stopped from posting because of the link filter for new accounts.

/cast [mod:shift] Power Infusion
/cast Power Word: Radiance

Should work since PI is off the GCD

[Noradin]

Make that:

#showtooltip
/use [mod:shift]Power Infusion
/use Power Word: Radiance

And you even get the icon, tooltip, and cooldown displayed.

[Wopples]

It sounds like what you're trying to do is make a cast sequence with a modifier, which i'm not sure is possible.

What you could do, however, is set up two keybinds, say "T" and "Shift+T", and then set PWR to the "T" keybind, and then a macro for PI + PWR on "Shift+T". I believe this would achieve the same result as the macro you're attempting to create.

Thanks! Didn't occur to me that I could do that.

[Keulenkommando]

Since you play disc , i want you to name just one thing you can do better than a holy. Some of these things include:

Damage. Shortening the encounter. Helping to bring down adds.

[Vampiregenesis]

Essentially this. You want the atonements applied before the damage. Essentially your penance will be mid air when the damage strikes.

Therefore its reactive to perceived damage but damage can be random and more often than not it can happen at a random timing , therefore you need immediate answers to all possible threats. I also play proactively as a disc and use attonement on those who i expect to get damaged but there are more problems arising that i write below.


My main problem with disc is not that its hard to use or th an even the healing is terrible , my main problem is decision making , as a holy you know you will use your heals to top someone when he drops and if you think your mastery or renew can handle the situation you can then dps but its not hard when it comes to decision making because you have limited options , something drops heal , nothing h appens dps.



As a disc , you dont have strong hots and you have to decide who is the optimal way to heal your current targets who take damage , the strong and safe way is shadowmend but then you lose dps , lets say aboss begins and my target has attonement and is at 90% and then i decide to throw some smites and suddenly he drops to 40% , i cant decide that its time to shadowmend when my target is so low and the thing is that all these things can happen extremely fast.



If i stay passive and use only dot+penance or light wrath , then i can obviously never fail , a single smite can cost you everything and im not sure if its worth it. Disc requires complete knowledge about the current encounter but even then you may have hard time to decide what to do , some prime examples are (i would like it if you answered them)


1. what are you doing when a boss use a very strong skill but you are not sure when it does this and your tank is constantly around 75-85% and its impossible to top with attonement? , tbh unless the tank is godly with tons of self healing on a weak encounter , you can hardly expect to top anyone with smites. What im saying here is not rare at all.



2. What are you doing when a boss use a strong aoe which you can counter ofc with radiance+lightwrath but you are not sure when it does this , it can happen randomly , do you spam radiance all the time? and WHAT if besides this random aoe it also steamroll your tank therefore you dont get the time to use radiance at all.


These scenarios are not rare and holy can respond to them , what can disc do?


disc has very hard decision making and requires complete knowledge and even is not enough , playing passive and safe is probably enough to qualify you as a healer but everything highly depends on situation and expectation. In a random encounter i would pretty never go offensive with smites because well better safe than sorry.

[Deleted]

Asking from the perspective of someone who hasn't done any raid healing since I spammed flash light as a paladin in TBC :

Is Purge the Wicked the way to go for level 100 talents? I feel that the advantages over SW:P are minimal (slightly higher damage, less mana cost, cleave on penance) compared to getting 30% stronger shields and direct heals if required.

[Jimjam38]

Asking from the perspective of someone who hasn't done any raid healing since I spammed flash light as a paladin in TBC :

Is Purge the Wicked the way to go for level 100 talents? I feel that the advantages over SW:P are minimal (slightly higher damage, less mana cost, cleave on penance) compared to getting 30% stronger shields and direct heals if required.

PtW for raids (the mana reduction, longer duration and cleave are quite significant), Grace for 5mans.

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Therefore its reactive to perceived damage but damage can be random and more often than not it can happen at a random timing , therefore you need immediate answers to all possible threats. I also play proactively as a disc and use attonement on those who i expect to get damaged but there are more problems arising that i write below.


My main problem with disc is not that its hard to use or th an even the healing is terrible , my main problem is decision making , as a holy you know you will use your heals to top someone when he drops and if you think your mastery or renew can handle the situation you can then dps but its not hard when it comes to decision making because you have limited options , something drops heal , nothing h appens dps.



As a disc , you dont have strong hots and you have to decide who is the optimal way to heal your current targets who take damage , the strong and safe way is shadowmend but then you lose dps , lets say aboss begins and my target has attonement and is at 90% and then i decide to throw some smites and suddenly he drops to 40% , i cant decide that its time to shadowmend when my target is so low and the thing is that all these things can happen extremely fast.



If i stay passive and use only dot+penance or light wrath , then i can obviously never fail , a single smite can cost you everything and im not sure if its worth it. Disc requires complete knowledge about the current encounter but even then you may have hard time to decide what to do , some prime examples are (i would like it if you answered them)


1. what are you doing when a boss use a very strong skill but you are not sure when it does this and your tank is constantly around 75-85% and its impossible to top with attonement? , tbh unless the tank is godly with tons of self healing on a weak encounter , you can hardly expect to top anyone with smites. What im saying here is not rare at all.



2. What are you doing when a boss use a strong aoe which you can counter ofc with radiance+lightwrath but you are not sure when it does this , it can happen randomly , do you spam radiance all the time? and WHAT if besides this random aoe it also steamroll your tank therefore you dont get the time to use radiance at all.


These scenarios are not rare and holy can respond to them , what can disc do?


disc has very hard decision making and requires complete knowledge and even is not enough , playing passive and safe is probably enough to qualify you as a healer but everything highly depends on situation and expectation. In a random encounter i would pretty never go offensive with smites because well better safe than sorry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNTFg2DWqgs

This guy managed as disc without any problems except the last boss, which they did manage to beat on the 3rd attempt.
Please just stop this stupid argument.

[Vampiregenesis]

PtW for raids (the mana reduction, longer duration and cleave are quite significant), Grace for 5mans.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNTFg2DWqgs

This guy managed as disc without any problems except the last boss, which they did manage to beat on the 3rd attempt.
Please just stop this stupid argument.

that guy spammed shadowmend and when he didnt and instead tried to schism or smite then the bars went down and he had to switch to shadowmend again , he didnt even try to smite a lot , he threw smite every now and then and the bars dropped to hell when he did, as a healer your job is to keep everyone at top health and this is your maximum priority. Everyone at 100% health>>>>10k dps+2-3 players at 30-70% health(it could be worse luckily he didnt get punished enough) , if thats not your priority then you are not a healer and you are something else.

Well i would say that a passive disc who focus on penance and dot and only use smite on etreme safe situations with proper knowledge on the encounter can be a qualified healer but holy can do the same..... holy can also use damage on extreme safe situations so they arent that different at all , its just a bit safer to nuke as disc thats it but only marginally more safe and lets just say that disc can pull some fancy tricks with attonement who are mostly related to aoe healing , he can multidot or use attonement ont he whole raids , those are interesting tricks who may or may not work depending on the encounter.

Where does this lead? oh that means holy and disc are not different at all , they both focus on healing and they dps when they can afford to , i believe disc will probably pull some more damage due to penance and dot , holy still have chastice which is a good damage skill to spam and holy fire also so not much difference again , disc is not a different playstyle at all , disc can only be a different playstyle if they choose the role of the support healer and not that of the full scale healer , a full scale healer disc will go grace by default , a support healer disc will go purge and spam smite instead of shadowmend , you cant deny that such playstyle is possible and in fact it might be effective. As i said before there is gcd at wow and you cant do anything , you are either a healer or a support healer , in theory shadow can throw some heals and shields too but does he waste his gcds to do that? no , same goes for disc , you cant just do everything , you either smiting or shadowmending(and smiting only when safe).

Even if i accept that disc can be a healer which i did , none can deny that disc can also be picked as a support healer and be even more effective than a full scale healer and i also i dont understand why people think that disc will be different at raids compared to dungeons? you are a healer and a raid is supposed to be hard therefore there will be a lot of pressure you have to handle because thats your job , gl finding the openings to radiance or damage , you will pretty much spend all your time spaming shields and shadowmend because if you dont and someone else shoulder this pressure then you are not a healer.


Positive things gathered so far for holy vs disc as pure healers

Disc has

1. a slightly more damage

2. attonement aoe tricks who can counter specific phases


Nothing else , when you are going disc over holy you basically prefer to spam shadowmend than flasheals and shields than serenity/renew


Now stand down and think for a second about a disc who is invited in a raid as support dps , his job will be to use atonement on the tank and group (unless countering a specific phase which require raid aoe attonement) , he will never use shadowmend ever unless to save himself and his job will be to nuke , how much dps can he pull? i guess less than a full dps not by far and a lot of this dps will go as healing to the raid , that playstyle which is basically the reason why disc is different than holy is not called *healer* (even if the possible hps are huge due to aoe , it still cant keep a single group or individual alive on its own , those groups/individuals will require *true* healers) , its called *support dps* or *support healer* and it sounds very strong and maybe far more effective and unique.

[Deleted]

disc has very hard decision making and requires complete knowledge and even is not enough

That is what is making actual Disc (at least for me) the funniest spec ever played

[Deleted]

keep everyone at top health and this is your maximum priority

Your job is to make sure people don't die. Why does it matter if they're on 50% if you KNOW that there is nothing that can damage them?

Well i would say that a passive disc who focus on penance and dot and only use smite on etreme safe situations with proper knowledge on the encounter can be a qualified healer but holy can do the same

Yes but disc will be doing roughly 100k dps while doing this. Penance/ptw/mindbender is the majority of our damage and spamming smite isn't an enormous dps increase like you make it out to be. Sure both speccs can dps when there is no damage, but only disc dpses when there is high damage going out, thats the difference.

*support healer*

Sure do this in your own raid if you'd like, if i see one of these im kicking them.

[Vampiregenesis]

Your job is to make sure people don't die. Why does it matter if they're on 50% if you KNOW that there is nothing that can damage them?

Holy can say the same , also its better to keep those bars at 100% and you will always have to because eventually something will happen so you dont lose anything by healing your players unless you are going in a mythic with training dummies.

Yes but disc will be doing roughly 100k dps while doing this. Penance/ptw/mindbender is the majority of our damage and spamming smite isn't an enormous dps increase like you make it out to be.

thats an interesting point , how much dps you gain from smite in a boss encounter? i doubt you can pull 100k dps with penance and purge the wicked alone , thats
impossible , you cant even pull half of this , this is a very biased opinion , prove it.

Sure both speccs can dps when there is no damage, but only disc dpses when there is high damage going out, thats the difference.

High damage going out->not shadowmend->dead unless a true healer saves the day

Sure do this in your own raid if you'd like, if i see one of these im kicking them.

You are kicking a class with high potential


Most biased post i have ever read.



An interesting post that reinforce my arguments:

Disc and Holy "numbers," whatever they may be, are both good. DPS wise, (not including trash), Disc will win out. HPS wise, who knows. I haven't played with any of the god-tier disc priests that keep posting on here, but I'm sure it's comparable.

My issue revolves around ideal and realized healing scenarios. In a raid, especially during progression, it won't be muscle-memory. It won't be mistake-free -- hardcore or not. People will stand in the bad. Melee will run out and spread the dot into ranged. Tanks will miss CD's, etc. When that happens, disc doesn't really have any "life saving" abilities. If a group of four in ranged gets smoked unexpectedly, you have to cast radiance and hope to god light's wrath is off CD and, even then, wait for the cast to complete to realize the healing. Or, you waste a few more GCD's in putting a shield up or, like many situations, you just spam shadowmend. If that same situation happens as holy, you hit the lowest with a serenity if they all won't die immediately, and sanctify the others followed by maybe a POH or 2; if they will all die due to ticking damage, screw it and rescue them with the instant sanctify. The holy toolkit just seems better implemented to me with an answer for every situation.

Last issue that doesn't get talked about a lot is when raid mechanics remove the ability to do sustained DPS on targets. Whether it be dealing with mechanics or moving from the bad, Disc is left with two spells: their shield and shadowmend, essentially. They are the only healer whose output will be suboptimal during those times. Depending on the fight, that could be exactly when you need the heals the most.

Just my thoughts on the spec.

In theory everything is perfect and disc might be god but in practice everything is different and not so pretty , shit happens all the time , there are just too many scenarios where disc will be bad but you can hardly find one for holy. I still think disc will and can be a healer but dont left out his true potential of support healer. There are just so much better healers than him outthere and holy is one of them.

The best you can win out of this argument is the name of the *aoe healer* , yes with radiance plus damage he might be the best aoe healer in the game and will also have insane hps but this will happen on specific encounters who require aoe healing AND this aoe healing as i said cant keep a single group or individual alive , its more of a supportive healing rather than hardcore healing and basically its the same as i said above , attonement+damage , never shadowmend = not a true healer.

[Deleted]

i doubt you can pull 100k dps with penance and purge the wicked alone

You can't. Which is why i said Penance,ptw AND mindbender, mindbender. Atleast that's what i got for smacking a dummy for around 6 mins using only those spells. (at 851 though)

High damage going out->not shadowmend->dead unless a true healer saves the day

In dungeons sometimes yes, but most of the time a penance isn't gonna kill your tank because it heals for half of it, and mindbender heals for a lot. You are just using shadow mend instead of smite as a filler in dungeons.

You are kicking a class with high potential

Yes but if you tell me straight from the start that you're not gonna be playing optimally, why would i bother? A "support dps" isn't gonna be doing a lot more damage than a "healer disc", and its going to do SIGNIFICANTLY less healing, so what is the point?

[Vampiregenesis]

You can't. Which is why i said Penance,ptw AND mindbender, mindbender. Atleast that's what i got for smacking a dummy for around 6 mins using only those spells. (at 851 though)

Gonna try this one , its probably the best counter argument so far.

In dungeons sometimes yes, but most of the time a penance isn't gonna kill your tank because it heals for half of it, and mindbender heals for a lot. You are just using shadow mend instead of smite as a filler in dungeons.

why is raid any different than a dungeon? just because you are not the only healer? by smiting instead of shadowmending you add more pressure to the rest of the healers and if you are going a 11-12 man raid with 2 or even 3 healers where you are rensponsible for your group , i doubt you will smiting enough. You still didnt answer me how much dps smite adds.

Yes but if you tell me straight from the start that you're not gonna be playing optimally, why would i bother? A "support dps" isn't gonna be doing a lot more damage than a "healer disc", and its going to do SIGNIFICANTLY less healing, so what is the point?

As said above , i need numbers on smite dps plus hps , math can solve anything and prove me wrong or correct.

[Totaltotemic]

1. what are you doing when a boss use a very strong skill but you are not sure when it does this and your tank is constantly around 75-85% and its impossible to top with attonement? , tbh unless the tank is godly with tons of self healing on a weak encounter , you can hardly expect to top anyone with smites. What im saying here is not rare at all.



2. What are you doing when a boss use a strong aoe which you can counter ofc with radiance+lightwrath but you are not sure when it does this , it can happen randomly , do you spam radiance all the time? and WHAT if besides this random aoe it also steamroll your tank therefore you dont get the time to use radiance at all.


These scenarios are not rare and holy can respond to them , what can disc do?

These scenarios are extremely rare, and in fact, almost never happen.

Please download one of the following addons, and you too can know when abilities happen instead of thinking they are totally random.

https://mods.curse.com/addons/wow/deadly-boss-mods
https://mods.curse.com/addons/wow/big-wigs

Join the ranks of actually good raiders instead of raiders that think there is such a thing as "random" damage or damage you don't know is coming. Basing your opinion on class balance off of absolutely terrible play such as not knowing when mechanics happen is an awful idea.

[Vampiregenesis]

These scenarios are extremely rare, and in fact, almost never happen.

Please download one of the following addons, and you too can know when abilities happen instead of thinking they are totally random.

https://mods.curse.com/addons/wow/deadly-boss-mods
https://mods.curse.com/addons/wow/big-wigs

Join the ranks of actually good raiders instead of raiders that think there is such a thing as "random" damage or damage you don't know is coming. Basing your opinion on class balance off of absolutely terrible play such as not knowing when mechanics happen is an awful idea.

I already have these addons , not all skills are announced before hand from dbm and some of them can be quite strong. There is always an element of unpredictability in a raid thats why you have to be cautious and flexible with all tools available , if unpredictability didnt exist then it would be too easy to kill all bosses.

[Deleted]

I already have these addons , not all skills are announced before hand from dbm and some of them can be quite strong.

Give one example of a recent raidboss ability that drops your group really low and doesn't kill them.

[Vampiregenesis]

Give one example of a recent raidboss ability that drops your group really low and doesn't kill them.

I havent raid since wotlk and i was playing a dps back then not a healer so i was paying attention to the major mechanics and not basic skills , also i dont remember much.