Disco priest - Warrior tank asking questions

[Worshaka]

So bottom line if we had more then one priest in raid, would we want of them to be Discipline?

Yes/no and why please.

IMO it's nice to have one of your standard tank healers to be a disc priest... it's not necessary but I think diversity is a strength for your raid rather than just choosing to use 2-3 holy paladins. Of course Holy Priests can do the job but the disc tree is built to handle single target HPS and will do a more effecient job.

Some benefits for disc

1. They can prevent damage, so in fights like Loatheb their form of healing isn't totally negated.
2. Penance is probably the best healing spell in the game, it deals with damage spikes incredibly well to provide safer healing.
3. Can bring DS to your raid and while that will be available to all priests in 3.1 they will have acces to Imp DS
4. Pain Suppresion is another 'oh shit' button your raid can utilise in whatever way they wish, and it's mechanic is different and more desirable in certain situations than GS
5. Due to their heavy crit setup and many fast casting heal style they will almost certianly have inspiration up on the tank giving them 25% more armor. Something holy can do but not nearly as well.

So if you are asking can a raid function without a disc priest, yes they can with 0 problems but if you're thinking about trying to make your raid more diverse and better handle a wide range of encounters/situations I think having 1 of your priests as disc is a good idea.

[Kelesti]

Some benefits for disc

1. They can prevent damage, so in fights like Loatheb their form of healing isn't totally negated.
2. Penance is probably the best healing spell in the game, it deals with damage spikes incredibly well to provide safer healing.
3. Can bring DS to your raid and while that will be available to all priests in 3.1 they will have acces to Imp DS
4. Pain Suppresion is another 'oh shit' button your raid can utilise in whatever way they wish, and it's mechanic is different and more desirable in certain situations than GS
5. Due to their heavy crit setup and many fast casting heal style they will almost certianly have inspiration up on the tank giving them 25% more armor. Something holy can do but not nearly as well.

Just nitpicking, as usual, but lemme clarify here.
1. Loatheb ignores absorption mechanics.
2. Nothing to say here.
3. Improved Divine Spirit is still a waste of talents.
4. I have to agree with you.
5. Not just a Holy Priest but a resto shaman as well.

[Koleckai]

7K? Not bad.

Even if it's calculated after block (doubt it is) it's still a pretty much free avoided attack from most bosses every 15 seconds.

Does the +4% healing from "the priest" or whatever it is only count from the Disc priest who gave me the buff, or any priest in raid who would be healing me?

Aside from absorbing about 7K damage, the shield applies Weakened Soul which allows a Discipline Priest with the Renewed Hope talent and extra 4% crit against their targets. Raid-buffed with Renewed Hope, my Discipline Priest sits at about 35% crit. Given that each bolt of Penance can crit independently every 8 seconds and with haste Flash Heal is about a 1.2 second cast (less with Power Infusion active), my priest can pretty much keep PW:S and Divine Aegis on her target at all times. Add in Grace and Inspiration and you can see where a Discipline Priest's strength is. Occasionally, I miss the 18K crit greater heals that a holy priest gets but my tank rarely needs 18K worth of healing.

[gaymer77]

The thing that strikes me the most is your misconception of rage generation while shielded. All tanks generate rage even while shielded now. If you want to see for yourself then group up with a priest, head to a starter area & have them shield you before you go in and don't attack at all. You'll see that you generate rage while the shield is up (assuming you're not dodging everything which is why I would also suggest to remove your gear so you don't dodge everything). I've proven many a tank wrong in their thinking by doing this exact thing.

[gaymer77]

OH totally forgot to post something else.

Disc priests will be a very viable asset to a 25 man raid come patch. Not only will it make those guilds that are currently struggling with 3d attempts be able to do it but I'm also guessing that there will be use for it in Ulduar just because they are putting that talent in which will coinside with the release of the dungeon. I'm pretty sure you could talk one of your holy priests into go disc to pick it up because it will save at least 1 priest gold for respec into disc for pvp...although they still might respec for the pvp disc talents too instead of just picking up the healing shit.

[Kelesti]

OH totally forgot to post something else.

Disc priests will be a very viable asset to a 25 man raid come patch.

Things like this, piss me off. This is completely false. It already IS a very viable asset. But those guilds that look at meters and don't see absorption values, a Barrier won't change anything, and rage is plentiful enough as it is.

Not only will it make those guilds that are currently struggling with 3d attempts be able to do it but I'm also guessing that there will be use for it in Ulduar just because they are putting that talent in which will coinside with the release of the dungeon.

What they're doing to coincide with Ulduar is a rebalance, and finally making Divine Spirit Baseline.

I'm pretty sure you could talk one of your holy priests into go disc to pick it up because it will save at least 1 priest gold for respec into disc for pvp...although they still might respec for the pvp disc talents too instead of just picking up the healing shit.

They'd probably do what they're doing now, by speccing halfway into disc to pick up Barrier (like they do for DS, improved or not) and gimping themselves over with a hybrid build, thinking "wtf do u guyz no holyz teh healspec"

[palamina]

nm

[Kelesti]

Loatheb doesn't ignore absorbtion, spam those shields coupled with double PoH during 3 seconds (btw i can't wait for raid group change for this) and watch your mana roll in from absorbtion

Maybe it was a bug, but I saw both a Power Word: Shield and a Divine Aegis come around, and stick on the MT while damage pierced through it.

[palamina]

yeah i just checked dmg goes through even though its absorbed and you get mana back

[Kelesti]

yeah i just checked dmg goes through even though its absorbed and you get mana back

Problem being, Rapture (our mana-rebate mechanic) doesn't return 100% of what we dish out (exception being Penance with crits or without after 25k mana if I recall correctly). So if we're wasting mana to absorb, we get some mana back (which is a fair amount to be honest) but it'll be less than what we spent.

It's kinda useless there, with the exception of a borrowed time Proc for Penance/Prayer.

[palamina]

well i guess all i'm seeing is rapture from Aegis after PoH crits, but that still works after aura kicks in again i'm sure.

i will have to check next week, i should pay more attention

[gaymer77]

Things like this, piss me off. This is completely false. It already IS a very viable asset. But those guilds that look at meters and don't see absorption values, a Barrier won't change anything, and rage is plentiful enough as it is.

Yes it is a viable asset for raiding now...if you're doing 3d fights. Other than that its not as good as a true holy build is. Yes absorption values aren't looked at by guilds & there's a good reason behind it. Not only can you only shield someone every 15 seconds because of the debuff but the amount of dmg it absorbed =/= the amount of healing that most tanks recieve in the 15 seconds the debuff is on him. Typically the shield lasts until the tank is hit again so a shield is looked at as a time filler until you can get a flash heal off on someone.

What they're doing to coincide with Ulduar is a rebalance, and finally making Divine Spirit Baseline.They'd probably do what they're doing now, by speccing halfway into disc to pick up Barrier (like they do for DS, improved or not) and gimping themselves over with a hybrid build, thinking "wtf do u guyz no holyz teh healspec"

Priests aren't speccing HALFWAY into disc to pick up DS as it only requires spending 21-23 points in disc to get it or imp DS leaving 48-50 for holy. The current healing priest build is either you pick up guardian or you pick up DS (improved or not). We currently run with 1 disc priest in our raid who goes deep disc for the stuff that disc offers while the rest of our healing priests go deep holy & still they have the option of guardian or DS since our disc priest can't make all raids. A "disc priest" who doesn't pick up pain suppression, power infusion, renewed hope, divine aegis, or grace should spec holy because they're not bringing to the table what the disc tree offers to be viable for raiding & are THE arguement to have a disc priest in your raid over a "true healer" in the raid to begin with.

[Kelesti]

Yes it is a viable asset for raiding now...if you're doing 3d fights. Other than that its not as good as a true holy build is. Yes absorption values aren't looked at by guilds & there's a good reason behind it. Not only can you only shield someone every 15 seconds because of the debuff but the amount of dmg it absorbed =/= the amount of healing that most tanks recieve in the 15 seconds the debuff is on him. Typically the shield lasts until the tank is hit again so a shield is looked at as a time filler until you can get a flash heal off on someone.

Yet, drop the Holy Paladin and replace him with a Disc Priest on anything other than 3d and yet the tank still won't die surprisingly, huh. Go figure. And that's why we have Penance and Flash Heal and there's not a "Discipline" form that removes Flash, Renew, Mending, Greater, Nova, and anything else "holy" from our bar. And we can put absorption on them more than once every 15 seconds. It's called Divine Aegis, which again softens incoming damage so that we only need a Flash on them.

Priests aren't speccing HALFWAY into disc to pick up DS as it only requires spending 21-23 points in disc to get it or imp DS leaving 48-50 for holy. The current healing priest build is either you pick up guardian or you pick up DS (improved or not).

There's still one holy build, it's called 14/57, although this may change to pick up healing prayers come patch. Dropping Divine Providence to get the worst spellpower buff in the game is terrible, and even if the tank doesn't die, 40% bonus healing on GS can save the tank's life on its own.

We currently run with 1 disc priest in our raid who goes deep disc for the stuff that disc offers while the rest of our healing priests go deep holy & still they have the option of guardian or DS since our disc priest can't make all raids. A "disc priest" who doesn't pick up pain suppression, power infusion, renewed hope, divine aegis, or grace should spec holy because they're not bringing to the table what the disc tree offers to be viable for raiding & are THE arguement to have a disc priest in your raid over a "true healer" in the raid to begin with.

That's right, I agree. So you made my point that a Disc priest does bring alot to the table. Hey guess what, surprisingly, all of those things still exist when you're not doing Sarth3D. The disc priest does heal, ontop of absorb, and they do a damn fine job of it.

[fishsandwich]

If naxx were harder, I'd say disc priests are awesome for most fights in naxx. From anub to kel, their absorption helps nearly every fight. But naxx is not hard so whatever.

However sarth 3 drakes is a disc's playground. And right now that's what most people want to achieve, so, viable for the moment .

[gaymer77]

[quote=Kelesti ]
Yet, drop the Holy Paladin and replace him with a Disc Priest on anything other than 3d and yet the tank still won't die surprisingly, huh. Go figure. And that's why we have Penance and Flash Heal and there's not a "Discipline" form that removes Flash, Renew, Mending, Greater, Nova, and anything else "holy" from our bar. And we can put absorption on them more than once every 15 seconds. It's called Divine Aegis, which again softens incoming damage so that we only need a Flash on them.[/color]

Yes I completely understand that you can shield someone more than once every 15 seconds but that's not a guarentee. Divine Aegis requires a crit from our heals to proc which is why disc priests itemization is based on crit more than regen (and another reason why they have more mana problems than a holy priest does). Disc priests also bring a 3% dmg reduction to their healing target (Grace). But to sit there & say that you could easily replace a holy pally MT healing with a disc priest is just beyond disbelief. No matter how much disc priests want to argue how they are just as viable healers as a "true healer" (I mean disc is the survivabilty spec not the healing spec) its just not true. They run OOM faster and don't have as high of healing as a "true healer" brings in equal gear. But I never once said that disc priests can't heal with the healing spells that EVERY FUCKIN PRIEST gets. I'm shadow & when we do 3d, I'm the one that heals the tank when we go down in the portal not a "true healer"

There's still one holy build, it's called 14/57, although this may change to pick up healing prayers come patch. Dropping Divine Providence to get the worst spellpower buff in the game is terrible, and even if the tank doesn't die, 40% bonus healing on GS can save the tank's life on its own.

There is no longer ONE build for holy priests. Sure the typical healing priest does go those 14 points into disc but the talents in the holy tree vary depending on what they are doing. Look up the guild vodka on Alterac Mountains (you know the #3 ranked US guild) or Deus Vox on Laughing Skull (#1 ranked guild in the US who runs 1 holy priest that is 20/51 and 2 disc). They all have similar builds but not all have your 14/57 build.

That's right, I agree. So you made my point that a Disc priest does bring alot to the table. Hey guess what, surprisingly, all of those things still exist when you're not doing Sarth3D. The disc priest does heal, ontop of absorb, and they do a damn fine job of it.

What I was getting at is that a disc priest who doesn't go deep disc shouldn't be in the raid to begin with. The other thing I was getting at was that the things a holy priest brings to the table that a disc priest doesn't outweighs having stacking your healers as disc priests. Yeah ONE is needed for a raid & if you armory all of the top 10 guilds you will see they have ONE disc priest with the exception of Deus Vox who runs with 2. The rest of their healing priests are holy.

[taek]

Focusing only on large health pools and "Beefshield" theory of tanking is more TBC then anything, the whole Effective Health > All stuff.

Currently Sarth 3D is the only fight that still holds true. Even then, wouldn't preventing a chunk of damage vs. just healing it up quick be better?

Speaking from a tank POV, anything remotely dangerous in the game is not avoidable.

Sapp: mainly frost damage
Kelthuzad: 76% frost damage on my last clear
Malygos: 20k/30k Arcane breath, everything else is ignorable

Many tanks (like many DPS) talk as if all of wotlk is just an endless series of Patchwerk, 100% physical, tank & spank bosses. Most of the current endgame is non physical burst damage. The autoattack/cleave from the bosses is a non-issue unless the tank is simply bad.

That's why the focus is on health for endgame, not even EH, just raw health. Druids have a serious advantage here, as do DKs with their total mitigation/antimagic abilities (IBF, AMS, BS, etc..).

It's more than Sarth 3D that is best suited for EH, it's everything past basic Naxx 4 quarters.

[slipshade]

I don't care about chart-topping, I care about results.

Every single disc priest we've had with us in 10s/25s (all 3 of them, to be fair), have consistantly healed less on an assigned character (usually tank, b/c I'm watching such things) than an off/raid healer does.

It's possible the Disc-o's we've brought just sucked, too. Hmmmm.

You say you don't care but alot of dim witted guild leaders do

For example one would be overpower from dethecus guild leader of haste i was ousted from 25man naxx runs because i was 10% lower healing on the meters then the top resto druids with double my gear.

(not to mention i had to MC on 2 boss fights so it did not help my healing meter in the least)

i tried to go through calcs with him and proved that with absorbs counted as heals i was #1 on meter but some people just get hard ons for the actual numbers like so?

[palamina]

luckily there are shield meters floating around atm to back up your numbers