Basic Disc questions

[Nem2k]

so I just dinged 80 and excited to play disc in pve but have a few questions about healing as a disc priest in 5s 10s and 25s

1) which 3 major glyphs are best for disc?

2) does renew get used often? should I always be keeping it up on my tank?

3) what about pom?

4) in a nutshell disc healing is keeping bubble/weakened soul up, penance as main heal, flash heal when penance is on CD. holy nova and prayer of healing are out aoe heals. is that basically it?

5) and could you take a look at my spec to see if its ok?

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVcbuhxtMLoifRtbxpc

a few things about it that im unsure about....inner focus yes/no? imp renew? imp spirit?

thanks for your help!

[Ananan]

1) Glyph of Flash Heal is pretty much given. I'd probably take Holy Nova and PW:S too. PoH possibly.

2) Generally no, but if you have nothing better to do at the moment casting renew is still a lot better than doing nothing.

3) Use PoM as much as possible.

4) Yeah, plus PoM, and don't be afraid to use Renew, Greater Heal (especially after PWS or with Inner Focus) and Binding Heal when appropriate.

5) Looks solid. I've been pondering what to drop to be able to get Healing Focus too. I like reliability. It's those 2 points lacking in Divine Fury and Enlightenment in your spec that you have to play around with. Mental Agility is another candidate for those, but I was leaning towards Divine Fury too.

Inner Focus - Yeah take it.
Imp Renew - Not really worth it I'd say. You like spells that can crit more.
Imp Divine Spirit - Useful in 5-mans and 10-mans if there isn't a shaman, otherwise made useless by a single totem.

[Equi]

Healing tank by using Flash Heal is a bad idea even with glyph. I have 1600 mp5 buffed while not casting 24k of mana and on Patchwerk by spamming Penance and Flash heals I am oom before the end of fight. Penance + Greater Heal is better idea ( non limited heal time, never get oom).
IMO this is the best build for PvE Discipline Priest http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVI0zhxtrxoifRzMxtcc

Improving our bubble isnt worth, Borrowed time too. You ll lose 8 talent points and gain the bubble stronger by additional 1200-1400 dmg absorbed, worth? Dont think so, maybe with better gear with about 2300+ spell power.
Check this build out.

[Deleted]

..wut?

Equi, could you link your armory page, since.. you're definately doing something wrong - no offense.

1. Personally I use dispel glyph [likely change it to something else after nerf], FH glyph is a must and PWS glyph is highly desired for a discipline priest. Dispel glyph, especially after nerf, can be argued to be changed to pretty much anything.

2. Some do use, personally I consider it as a waste of mana, only using it if I know I'll be unable to heal for a period of time [..Maexxna's web wrap, for example]. It kinda works as a buffer and fits to discipline. Unfortunately Rapture doesen't return mana from it, nor can it crit to provide DA. Usually it's just overheal every 3 secs, so..

3. Every 10 secs, unless it's about to bounce more with it's existing charges.

4. Keep PWS up, preshielding can be done, altough some argue against it for druid/warrior tanks. Definately preshield tankadins & DK's though. Definately, after some rage has been gathered PWS. In heroics I usually pom, wait for it to bounce, PWS. Once shield has worn off, pom is already off from cd.
Penance is your main actual heal, and flash heal when you can't do either Penance nor PWS. Personally I ignore HN, but I heard it's very neat. PoH is good groupheal, and I'd like to add Divine Hymn as amazing group heal. Downside of the later is 6 min cd. If you are using Divine Hymn in heroics, avoid giving pain suppression to trash. Bosses are most likely immune, so far haven't found any that would get incapacitated, and therefore gain -40% dmg taken.

5. It's okay, few chances I'd do: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVcbuhxtMxoifRt0xtc
Healing focus is unneeded for PvE. You get rarely interrupted, Penance always gets one tick off from it whetever it is 0/2 or 2/2, PWS/pom are both instants, therefore unaffected. But like said, you rarely get interrupted at all. Max out Enlightement. While 1% spirit/stam/haste isn't much, it's nice add. And there is nothing more useful for you either.



Equi: Um.. Why you have so much oo5sr regen? And how can you run oom? Oo5sr regen is not needed, since you shouldn't be sitting out doing nothing as disc. Personally atm I have 639 and I'm still reducing the amount of spirit I have [being ex-spiritwhore..] for better stats. Are you losing crit or spellpower in favor of that +spirit?
Greater heal & flash heal, glyphed in normal disc spec are practically equal in hpm, but flash heal has more chances of proccing DA and giving you more mana. Therefore you should ignore greater heal. -15% off from Penance is a joke by itself for the reason of penance being highly mana effective already. Improved healing does not improve flash heal or PWS, so you should drop those 3.
Why are you not specced for imp. Fortitude? And even more so, why have you specced Silent Resolve? Can see you skipping imp. Fort if you are guaranteed to have multiple priests in raid that have it, but there is no reason to pick up Silent Resolve.
Same goes to Improved DS. Any shaman. I repeat: ANY shaman in your raid will replace your buff. Not worth of two talent points, assuming your guild has any shamans.

And how on earth improving bubble is not worth it? I have a reason to suspect that my bubbles would be way less than 6k's if I would not have improved them. And by way less, I doubdt 1,2k-1,4k less would be enough. Borrowed Time is amazing talent, so is Imp. PWS [altough I have heard rumors of it's bugged status, anyone filling up that..?].
I really can't recall situation where I would've run oom.. most of the time I bring forth shadowfiend just for few extra hits on boss, not because I'd need mana.. And that's while Rapture/PWS combo is bugged, I'm really looking forward a way to burn my mana post-3.0.8, assuming they've fixed it.

[syanid]

Healing tank by using Flash Heal is a bad idea even with glyph. I have 1600 mp5 buffed while not casting 24k of mana and on Patchwerk by spamming Penance and Flash heals I am oom before the end of fight. Penance + Greater Heal is better idea ( non limited heal time, never get oom).
IMO this is the best build for PvE Discipline Priest http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVI0zhxtrxoifRzMxtcc

Improving our bubble isnt worth, Borrowed time too. You ll lose 8 talent points and gain the bubble stronger by additional 1200-1400 dmg absorbed, worth? Dont think so, maybe with better gear with about 2300+ spell power.
Check this build out.

How can you run oom with 24k mana, please tell me? I have 21K raid buffed, I literally SPAMMED the other night wondering if I can go OOM and it was at 40% when the fight was done. 1600 mp5? How the.. how much crit do you have? Also, that spec.. why silent resolve? It's not like you can't fade if shit hits the fan and drop the aggro. And healing focus? What for?

[Ahmazing]

I agree with most of these answers for this topic however I will disagree on one part of the spec.

Greater Heal for a raiding Disc priest. Its basically a mana dump and Penance heals quicker and for as much (if not more) than a Greater Heal if you add all 3 hits of Penance that hit on the target. Plus you have more a chance to crit (2 more times) than Greater Heal for Divine Aegis.

So roughly:

1 Penance = 3k heal + 3k heal + 3k heal channeled
1 Greater heal = 9k heal

So basically Penance is a better big heal than Greater Heal. The reason why I bring this up is the fact that all the specs I have seen in this thread include Divine Fury

Divine Fury: Reduces the casting time of your Smite, Holy Fire, Heal and Greater Heal spells by 0.1 sec.
Creates


No where does it say it is applied to Flash Heal, which is the main heal used when Penance is on CD, and if your smart, your not even going to use Greater Heal or Heal (Worthless and a completely different spell from Greater Heal and Flash heal that is useless).

Therefore, Divine Fury is useless unless you like wasting mana with Greater Heal. You also loose a chance to crit since Penance gives you 3 chances to crit. Critting is important for Disc priest raid healing for Divine Aegis.

If you still want 10 points in the holy tree to reach Inspiration and Desperate Prayer,I recommend Holy Specialization(No Brainer), Healing Focus (Reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting any healing spell) which also applies to Penance since it heals) and Improved Renew. I don't use renew as much anymore either as mentioned but it beats a quicker heal that I won't use.

[Equi]

How can you run oom with 24k mana, please tell me? I have 21K raid buffed, I literally SPAMMED the other night wondering if I can go OOM and it was at 40% when the fight was done. 1600 mp5? How the.. how much crit do you have? Also, that spec.. why silent resolve? It's not like you can't fade if shit hits the fan and drop the aggro. And healing focus? What for?

Nick: Equillibrium
Realm: Burning Legion EU
Check my gear on www.be.imba.hu (use catched version because on armory I'm in pvp set and build). And yes having 24k of mana buffed (20,3k unbuffed) I can go oom by spamming Penance+ Flash heal, it is not gonna happend with spamming Penance+Greater Heal. It was on Patchwerk. I have over 1100 mp5 unbuffed, with all buffs +flask I have 1600 mp5, holy crit 21% unbuffed, but only 2100 spell power buffed with shammy.

I ll check the build without boosting Greater Heal once more, will put the talents in improving bubble and borrowed time and go on Patchwerk. :P

[zizfizziks]

Healing tank by using Flash Heal is a bad idea even with glyph. I have 1600 mp5 buffed while not casting 24k of mana and on Patchwerk by spamming Penance and Flash heals I am oom before the end of fight. Penance + Greater Heal is better idea ( non limited heal time, never get oom).
IMO this is the best build for PvE Discipline Priest http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVI0zhxtrxoifRzMxtcc

Improving our bubble isnt worth, Borrowed time too. You ll lose 8 talent points and gain the bubble stronger by additional 1200-1400 dmg absorbed, worth? Dont think so, maybe with better gear with about 2300+ spell power.
Check this build out.

I have absolutely no clue what in god's name you are doing to go oom as a disc priest. First off your numbers are completely fake and your be.imba profile failed to load. Unbuffed I've got 19k mana , 26% holy crit, 1800 SP, and 320 mp5 casting and I heal with a disc build. Literally spamming FH, PoM, and Pen on Patchwerk to keep the OT as high as possible I have never hit oom. I can't imagine how hilariously long I'll be able to heal once I start to get some 25 man gear. Right now I'm topped off in heroic and badge gear alone.

If you've got 1600 mp5 and 24k mana that means every second you are gaining enough mana to completely cover the cost of Penance when combined with Divine Aegis, Meditation, Raid Buffs, Grace, and Rapture. Perhaps you would even be gaining mana assuming that any raid anymore has a replenish buff ticking.

Add to this the gains from Rapture (about .75% mana per full heal uncrit FH), Shadowfiend, and a single pot. There's absolutely no way you would ever hit OOM within the 7 minutes you're given to take down Patchwerk even if you had 0% crit.

Your post smacks of I don't actually play this class or have this gear/talent build. Please stay out of the priest forums when posting such utter fallacies.

The only time you should EVER use greater heal as a priest is when Pen is on cooldown, you've just shielded the MT, AND you're certain he won't die within the three seconds after your shield has landed. In any other case Flash Heal once followed by Penance (since it should nearly be off CD now) is better for both HPM and HPS. Leave the GH spam to Holy Priests.

Stack more crit and ignore spirit and haste. You don't need either of the latter. When your slowest spell takes 1.5 seconds to land, haste isn't really an issue. Disc gains FAR more mana through crits and a high mana pool than it ever could through stacking spirit for meditation to do its work. Spirit and haste will come on your gear anyway since it's impossible to avoid anymore, and that is exactly how much of it you need.

Int-crit > spellpower > mp5 > spirit-haste

Disc priests in good gear can cast Penance and Flash heal for practically free. The only ironic part is that you need a ton of mana to start casting these spells for free. Around the 25k mark (assuming your PS and Crit follow suit) every Penance WILL be free and each FH will only cost in the 100 mana range once you've included regen.

[AetherMcLoud]

Healing tank by using Flash Heal is a bad idea even with glyph. I have 1600 mp5 buffed while not casting 24k of mana and on Patchwerk by spamming Penance and Flash heals I am oom before the end of fight. Penance + Greater Heal is better idea ( non limited heal time, never get oom).
IMO this is the best build for PvE Discipline Priest http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVI0zhxtrxoifRzMxtcc

Improving our bubble isnt worth, Borrowed time too. You ll lose 8 talent points and gain the bubble stronger by additional 1200-1400 dmg absorbed, worth? Dont think so, maybe with better gear with about 2300+ spell power.
Check this build out.

Divine Fury and Improved Healing are pretty much wasted points as others have already pointed out. If you ever would have to use a greater heal, just cast a shield and get a greater heal out in ~2 seconds anyway. And yeah, borrowed time is awesome. You can shield + penance + flash heal, and both penance and flash heal will profit from borrowed time because penance is classified as an instant.

Also, IDS are 2 wasted talent points because you will ALWAYS have a shaman in the raid. Also, silent resolve over imp. fortititude, WTF?!

[Torture]

zizfizziks took a properbial hammer and struck the hyperthetical nail square on the head.

If you're a Disc priest using GH and not talenting PW:S then you're actually just a Holy Priest with a crap spec.

[Abandon]

And PW:S is an extra small heal when glyphed, which is always handy. I generally only use Renew after shielding a DPSer in heroics.

[Ahmazing]

Divine Fury and Improved Healing are pretty much wasted points as others have already pointed out. If you ever would have to use a greater heal, just cast a shield and get a greater heal out in ~2 seconds anyway. And yeah, borrowed time is awesome. You can shield + penance + flash heal, and both penance and flash heal will profit from borrowed time because penance is classified as an instant.

YESS!!!! and nvm!!!

[AetherMcLoud]

YESS!!!! and can't wait!!!

Can't wait for what?

[Amgyn]

And PW:S is an extra small heal when glyphed, which is always handy. I generally only use Renew after shielding a DPSer in heroics.

its more than that, especially when you count the absorb as a heal (which i do )

[ForumTroll]

If you are going oom as a disc priest you are overhealing too much plain and simple. Discs strength lies in effective healing returning mana from rapture.

I solo heal the MT on patch 25, shielding whenever poss, penance whenever poss, pom whenver poss, gh (try to get gh in after a shield) and fh whenever everything else is on cd. I have about 26k mana buffed, and pretty much finish on about 10k at the end of the fight. Thats constant heal spam, no gcd wasted.

Armory: http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sh...ar&n=Willamena

Int/crit is defo the way to go, then build your spellpower when you are comfortable.
Im currently sitting with 1179 int and 22.9% crit unbuffed and never have any mana issues.

[Deleted]

1) which 3 major glyphs are best for disc?

The two mandatory glyphs are glyph of flash heal and glyph of powerword:shield.

The third glyph comes down to personal preferance, you can choose from glyph of holynova (heal 40% and deal 40% less damage), glyph of prayer of healing (20% of the healed amount is healed over six seconds on the affected targets), glyph of renew (25% more healing at a cost of 3sec reduced duration) and glyph of dispel (6% (3% next patch) of health healed on affective dispel).

I am currently using glyph of renew, I personally like renew, thus I have specced for it in holy aswell, I know no important discipline talents affect it, but it can be nice buffer on the tank when you are unable to act for a certain period of time. (maexxna comes to mind)

2) does renew get used often? should I always be keeping it up on my tank?

As I said renew can come in handy in certain situations, but on its own it is a good buffer to keep the tank topped off, giving you some breathing room.

I am not a spamhealer, I only heal when its necessairy, it's useless to keep overhealing, you wont get any mana from rapture anyway if you overheal.

Usually when maexxna is about to stun, I throw in renew, shield, PoM, its not enough on its own but the other healers should do their part aswell.

3) what about pom?

Prayer of mending should be used every cooldown, rapture does not affect it sadly, but it can crit, proccing divine aegis and inspiration, giving mana back from divine aegis through rapture.

4) in a nutshell disc healing is keeping bubble/weakened soul up, penance as main heal, flash heal when penance is on CD. holy nova and prayer of healing are out aoe heals. is that basically it?

Yep, your pretty much nailed it there. though dont pre-use shield before a pull, let the tanks get comfortable with threat first. PoM and renew will do the trick when your tank has just pulled, with the ocasional flash heal/penance.

5) and could you take a look at my spec to see if its ok?

I would put one point from divine fury to fill out enlightenment. Other then that your spec is pretty good, personally i put the remaining points from divine fury in Improved renew.

This is my spec: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVcbuhxtRxoifRtfx0c

As you can see I took one point in Improved divine spirit instead of Desperate prayer. Also pretty much personal preferance, this is more for heroics, so I dont gimp myself to much when not running with shamans. 40 spellpower is still good.

And about renew, it hasnt crippled my mana much as of yet, but I wont spam it either.

========================================================================================== ===
Now I have a question for all you other discipline priests. I just got thinking... is glyph of powerword:shield really worth it? isnt it only a measurement to see how much we absorb? maybe that glyph slot could be used better.

[Gahijnu]

Equi's manaregen seems a little off but I guess (can't check his gear) that he has focused more on spirit and less on crit than a disc priest should. Still, oo5sr regen is irrelevant so if it is 1600 mp5 then I could care less.

Nevertheless I think there has been a bit too much bashing on him for saying he is going oom using Penance and Flash Heal on Patchwerk.

I myself has gone quite low on that encounter spamming PW:S, Penance and Flash Heal without wasting a single global cooldown. Wasted so much that I had to cast a Shadow Fiend to not risk getting too low on mana.

Int/crit is defo the way to go, then build your spellpower when you are comfortable.
Im currently sitting with 1179 int and 22.9% crit unbuffed and never have any mana issues.

Which is a bit strange since I have quite near the same mana pool as you do (~21220) and regen, ~2% more crit and around 100 more spellpower unbuffed.

What people haven't mentioned so far in this discussion is that PW:S and DA are bugged and won't return any mana from a tank without a mana pool (ie everything except paladin tanks) and those are the spells people have told Equi to use for not going oom on Patchwerk. In other words, PW:S and crit means nothing for the mana pool until 3.0.8 is released and those bugs are fixed.

Ofc a disc priest should use the shield as much as possible so he is wrong in his spec but having it as an argument on Patchwerk concerning mana is a bit bad.

ForumTroll: Now I might waste more mana than you do because our tanks take more damage or our dps isn't good enough so our encounter lasts longer... which might be a probable cause, I don't know. Still, I can understand that Equi is going low on mana just because of those reasons.

[Lerus]

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...7Ganis&n=Lerus <-- My Character

I have a gear wish list, and I don't even have half the things I want yet. This stuff will do till then.

My current gearing priority has been, Intellect -> Spell Power -> Mp5 -> Crit -> Spirit -> Haste

With the mana return glitch, I have been taking as much Mp5 as I can before crit%. This will change after the patch. After 3.0.8 I plan on having a nice balance between my intellect/spellpower, and my crit/Mp5. I value spell power as high as intellect, I want my heals to be as large as possible since its in quick bursts. And with a high amount of crit, you will see big green numbers and people covered in bubbles.

I had a guildie post in our forum post questioning the discipline priest PvE build. I'll just copy/paste instead of explaining

I've been looking and looking...scratching my head...and don't get it.
Now, my priest is lvl 71 right now, and i've raided BT with him in TBC as shadow. Usually i was holy during the weekends, just for fun (a kara, gruul heal type of thing).

Honestly, never touched the disc tree except for the required points (inner focus, meditation, maybe improved fort).
I'm looking at that tree, and don't quite understand what is it good for.
healing?aint that the holy one?
damage? huh? shadow all the way....
pvp....but you said pve build.

May I kindly ask to point me to your sources of inspiration that made you pick that spec?

I haven't studied the post 3.0 priest so i am behind with this,that's why i ask.

And my answer

Its healing and damage mitigation. (Recount does not record shield absorption amount)

I have a high holy crit percentage, and high spellpower. My crits proc Divine Aegis, that shields the target for 30% of the heal, also if that shield absorbs the damage, it returns mana from the talent Rapture. So I'm proc'ing shields all over the place, not to mention my PW:S absorbs a hell of a lot more damage then a holy priests PW:S absorbs (mana return works for that too).

If I am tank healing, I can keep stacks of grace on him, and inspiration. Inspiration increases the targets armor by 25% for 15sec after recieving a crit, I also stack grace up to 3x on whoever I'm healing, which reduces damage to the target by 1% and increases the healing recieved by 2%.

My 51 point talent Penance is a channel, which has 3 separate chances to proc DA, Penance heals from anywhere between 10k and 15k HP. Every spell I use is quick and very responsive, I do not have to worry if my target will die while I'm stuck casting a slow Greater Heal. If I need something even quicker, I cast a PW:S on someone, and the talent Borrowed Time Allows me to have 25% haste for my next spell (queue up a PoH, or Gheal).

And with this spec, I only run out of mana if I choose too (DPS for fun & heal).

Basically this spec is about critically healing targets and using/proc'ing shields, preferably on the tank. Excellent for 10mans, currently out of place in 25mans until CoH and WG nerf.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-t...7Ganis&n=Lerus <-- My spec

I run our guilds under-geared members through 10man Naxx, and we don't always have the luxury of having a shaman, so I drop Power Infusion & Pain Suppression for Improved Divine Spirit. I shouldn't have to power infuse anyone, they should learn to put out decent DPS on their own. And I shouldn't have to Pain Suppression anything, I try not to let players health drop to the point I would have to use it.

Well, that turned out to be a longer post then I meant for my first

[Deleted]

Yes, as others have pointed out indeed is that Divine Fury is more or less useless. I included it in my build for three reasons:
1. Healing focus is even less useful.
2. I don't Renew, rendering it too situational.
3. Spell warding.. well.. interesting choice tbh..?
4. Divine Fury decreases cast time of your damaging spells, causing you to solo faster. As well as possibility of chaining inner focus with gheal. High chance on crit, is it not? :P While normally not as manaefficient as Penance, free gheal crit does give way better DA than Penance ticks x3 would.

[Kelesti]

I run our guilds under-geared members through 10man Naxx, and we don't always have the luxury of having a shaman, so I drop Power Infusion & Pain Suppression for Improved Divine Spirit.

Lemme point out a couple things here: It's not just (any) shaman that will definitely out-do your Spellpower buff, but a Demonology Warlock gives you a (scaling) buff of its own, at 10%.

Unless you're wearing t4 gear, pretty sure a disc priest has more than 800 SP.

I shouldn't have to power infuse anyone, they should learn to put out decent DPS on their own.

Umm, what? Yes. They should be able to do more dps on their own. Now you take your top dps'er, on a 5-6 minute bossfight, and you give him 3 Power Infusions within that boss fight, his damage is gonna start to sky rocket. Whether or not he needs it, that much more damage means that much faster the boss is gonna die. Meaning the less mana you have to spend on healing, holy crap suddenly using a 1.6 minute cooldown makes sense?

And I shouldn't have to Pain Suppression anything, I try not to let players health drop to the point I would have to use it.

Umm... lawl? Pain Suppression != Guardian Spirit. Lemme toss out an example for you, only one, though we should all realise there's more. Maexxna's enrage. You've got a druid or a death knight MT, grats on not having a shield wall. You have a Paladin or a Warrior, a second shield wall/divine protection is still a godsend.

Using it because they're low health will not save them. Using it to reduce incoming damage by a craptonne? Pretty sure that will. Timing an incoming hit on Sarth+3 is huge.

Pain Suppression is a perfect tool to do what it is that you do. Mitigate incoming damage on the tank, reducing spikes. Which means your build still needs to drop 1/2 Imp DS, and we all know 40 SP over PI isn't all that awesome.