PoH Glyph (Disc)

[harky]

It really does amuse me how much people will insist that poor play is optimal play due to misunderstandings, the knock on solid play-styles due to it not meshing with their personal concept of a class. You see so much knocking on Holy-Renew, or Druid-HT, but they don't seem to care about actual bad play. I've had to reject many apps from healers because they're too one-dimensional. Shaman who over-use Chain Heal and Disc Priests that over-use PW:S are by far the biggest offenders though.

There's a small percentage of healers that have some kind of religious zeal for their misconceptions about their own class. It's scary. My absolute favorite though was having to look over the parse of a Priest who was raid shielding on Jaraxxus, which he actually pointed out to me to flex his ability as a healer. He managed something spectacular like 8k HPS on Jaraxxus by raid shielding because logs don't give accurate readouts. After telling him that he was most likely closer to 2k HPS due to the fight mechanics he brought up that he used to get really nice numbers on Twins, but that logs were broken now so he couldn't show me. I couldn't stop laughing. :P

[syanid]

Have fun with disc priests using PoH glyphed for raid healing (and abandoning PW:S) and spamming Binding Heal, your guild must love to have you as a healing officer or whatever.
I have LHW spamming shaman friend who hates CH, what's your guild's URL? I'll make sure he applies, seems you like those.

[Puri]

Except Resto Druids, Holy Priests using Renew as it's intended, and to a lesser extent Shaman (Riptide, and shields interfering with damage, thus the effectiveness of Chain Heal), and a Holy Paladin's glyph of Holy Light.

It doesn't interfere, it fucking helps. If you put a shield on someone below 50% health with hots on him, the hots will make him heal fully, and you can continue to shield or heal the next one. It is not the task of disc priests to top someone off - you have paladins to heal the tank, trees, schamans and holypriests to heal the raid. You should support their healing - of course you should FH or penance someone who is low, if he has WS debuff. But your first priority should always be to shield him - its the utility no other class or spec can offer.
If you argue: You shield him at 100%, and then gets no damage so other healers can't heal - well, then you have too many healers. Good example would be Saurfang 10m, this is the perfect fight where one disc priest problably is the best healer to single heal it.
The role of a disc priest - at least how its understood in our raid and also in top guilds like Deus Vox - is as a supporter, a emergency healer with a distinct ability.

If you really want to to the heal-meters, why don't you simply spec holy?

[Zeuq]

I'm kind of confused with what happened in this thread because it looks like the two perspectives are talking past eachother. I don't think anyone is saying that PWS is a bad raid heal, but instead that if you're raid healing as Discipline consists almost entirely of PWS spam, you could probably do more to help your raid. If you're raid healing as Discipline, your healing should consist of a combination of PWS, PoM, PoH, BH, and maybe the occasional FH. Take Blood-Queen as an example. PWS is definitely useful for the fight, like on the Pact targets, saving people that get splashed, etc. However, if you're mindlessly spamming PWS, then you're actually hurting raid HPS. Sure, your PWS will virtually always get the full effect, but if the target is at or near full health, then a Holy Priest or Druid HoT on the target will tick for overheal while your PWS absorbs the incoming damage. That may not seem like a lot, but mindlessly doing it can ultimately waste a significant number of HoTS over the duration of the fight and those GCDs could potentially have been used on other spells or at least on other targets. At the same time, as harky pointed out, you can actually get superior HPS with a PoH, even if you have a considerable amount of overheal, so you can help top off a group and then continue to let the various HoTs work to keep them topped off.

Either way, this holy PoH vs. PWS thing is basically a red herring anyway. The real point is, if you don't need the mana, which most Discipline Priests don't on most encounters, and you cast PoH at all, the PoH glyph is useful. Hell, chances are there are at least a few opportunities where even the most PWS-spam friendly Discipline Priest ought to consider casting PoH instead of PWS. And in either case, in a fight where you're raid healing, whether it be PWS spamming or mixing in PoH and BH, FH will make up very little of you're healing because it's flatly inferior to either option as a raid healing tool, so why bother having the glyph for it in those situations?


So really, the simple answer is, if you're having mana problems AND Flash Heal makes up a decent amount of your healing on that fight, the Flash Heal glyph is worth while. If you're not having mana problems, even if you're casting Flash Heal a lot and barely using PoH, there's no reason to take a glyph to improve your mana situation if it's already fine. Similarly, if you are having mana problems but barely casting Flash Heal, what good will that glyph do you?

[Revitalize]

I'm kind of confused with what happened in this thread because it looks like the two perspectives are talking past eachother. I don't think anyone is saying that PWS is a bad raid heal, but instead that if you're raid healing as Discipline consists almost entirely of PWS spam, you could probably do more to help your raid. If you're raid healing as Discipline, your healing should consist of a combination of PWS, PoM, PoH, BH, and maybe the occasional FH. Take Blood-Queen as an example. PWS is definitely useful for the fight, like on the Pact targets, saving people that get splashed, etc. However, if you're mindlessly spamming PWS, then you're actually hurting raid HPS. Sure, your PWS will virtually always get the full effect, but if the target is at or near full health, then a Holy Priest or Druid HoT on the target will tick for overheal while your PWS absorbs the incoming damage. That may not seem like a lot, but mindlessly doing it can ultimately waste a significant number of HoTS over the duration of the fight and those GCDs could potentially have been used on other spells or at least on other targets. At the same time, as harky pointed out, you can actually get superior HPS with a PoH, even if you have a considerable amount of overheal, so you can help top off a group and then continue to let the various HoTs work to keep them topped off.

Either way, this holy PoH vs. PWS thing is basically a red herring anyway. The real point is, if you don't need the mana, which most Discipline Priests don't on most encounters, and you cast PoH at all, the PoH glyph is useful. Hell, chances are there are at least a few opportunities where even the most PWS-spam friendly Discipline Priest ought to consider casting PoH instead of PWS. And in either case, in a fight where you're raid healing, whether it be PWS spamming or mixing in PoH and BH, FH will make up very little of you're healing because it's flatly inferior to either option as a raid healing tool, so why bother having the glyph for it in those situations?


So really, the simple answer is, if you're having mana problems AND Flash Heal makes up a decent amount of your healing on that fight, the Flash Heal glyph is worth while. If you're not having mana problems, even if you're casting Flash Heal a lot and barely using PoH, there's no reason to take a glyph to improve your mana situation if it's already fine. Similarly, if you are having mana problems but barely casting Flash Heal, what good will that glyph do you?

You do realize, there's a ticking aura in that fight right?
You throw out 8-9k shields with an intial 3k crit heal from the glyph.
Not only does this help other healers balance out the raid healer, you can save other with a quick shield on people that get pact as well, so RNG damage doesnt occur and kill someone.
Topping people off is not a discipline priests role nor has it ever been.
Prevent damage from occuring is our role.
Wasting GCDS and cast times on PoH is just silly and a waste.


Also, to the "You will hurt your raid HPS comment"
I heard HPS matters, and effectively keeping your raid alive doesnt.

I sure as hell use flash heal more than I use Prayer of Healing during any fight in heroic ICC 25.
Which I dont even use.

[harky]

Also, to the "You will hurt your raid HPS comment"
I heard HPS matters, and effectively keeping your raid alive doesnt.

HPS absolutely does matter. If your raid cannot produce enough HPS to offset incoming DPS then people will die. It's hard to take anyone seriously who does not understand why output is important and why increasing it is a good thing. Fact is all the fights in ICC, even Lich King, can be done without a Disc Priest. Because of that Disc must then be evaluated on output. You are arguing against increasing your output with the argument that you aren't there to heal, but to support the other healers. That entirely misses the point. Your support can be quantified and if it is beneath what others can put out, then you're wasting space.

Honestly, here's what happens on a fight like BQ: You shield a target for 9k, maybe get lucky and get a 3k heal too. Aura will tick twice and your shield is now gone. You can not 'support' on that target again for 11 seconds due to WS. You're arguing that 'saving' someone from taking damage for 4 seconds is superior to healing them after they've taken 4 seconds of damage. If they would not have died from those 4 seconds of damage then there's absolutely no difference. I don't expect you to accept, or understand why this is, but it's a fundamental problem with the way people are using Disc Priests. Shield spamming is not the optimum approach to every fight and is not even the optimum approach to every situation in fights that favor shield spamming.

[Revitalize]

HPS absolutely does matter. If your raid cannot produce enough HPS to offset incoming DPS then people will die. It's hard to take anyone seriously who does not understand why output is important and why increasing it is a good thing. Fact is all the fights in ICC, even Lich King, can be done without a Disc Priest. Because of that Disc must then be evaluated on output. You are arguing against increasing your output with the argument that you aren't there to heal, but to support the other healers. That entirely misses the point. Your support can be quantified and if it is beneath what others can put out, then you're wasting space.

Honestly, here's what happens on a fight like BQ: You shield a target for 9k, maybe get lucky and get a 3k heal too. Aura will tick twice and your shield is now gone. You can not 'support' on that target again for 11 seconds due to WS. You're arguing that 'saving' someone from taking damage for 4 seconds is superior to healing them after they've taken 4 seconds of damage. If they would not have died from those 4 seconds of damage then there's absolutely no difference. I don't expect you to accept, or understand why this is, but it's a fundamental problem with the way people are using Disc Priests. Shield spamming is not the optimum approach to every fight and is not even the optimum approach to every situation in fights that favor shield spamming.

Output of course is important, but preventing the damage is even better.
Of course Im there to heal, but my primary job is to prevent damage from occuring through shields.
How do you not get that?
Of course I can support that target after 11s, because mainly the shield may still be on him, as Im precasting the shields.
This is what seperates good disc priests from the bad ones.
Effectively knowing when to shield.
The only fight that deters shield spam is sindragosa, but that's because you're limited in your spell usage.
One fight.

Marrowgar:
Shield Bone Spikes, Spam shield raid during bonestorm.

Deathwhisper:
Shield raid for RNG Mind control damage phase 1.
Phase 2, shield raid for Frostbolt volley damage.

Deathbringer Saurfang:
Shield Boiling Blood.
Penance tanks.
One fight that doesn't entirely favor shielding.

Rotface:
Shield diseased targets, tanks, and raid for possible vile gas.

Festergut:
Pre-shield before pull to alleviate beginning raid damage.
Shield vile gas, and once raid damage thins out, shield tanks, and spam heal them.

Putricide:
Preshield melee and raid before volatile ooze targets someone to alleviate splash damage.
Shield the raid during the aura in phase 3.

Blood princes:
Shield raid, specially in hard mode where people take damage when they move.
Shield for empowered shock vortex.

Blood queen:
Pre-shield before fight to alleviate beginning raid damage.
Shield the raid during air phase.
Shield blood pact targets. If WS is up, penance and flash heal.

Dreamwalker:
Self explanatory.

Sindragosa:
The only fight that doesnt advocate shielding, PoH glyph is useful in this case.

Lich King:
Phase 1: Shield raid for infest
Phase 2: Shield raid for pain and suffering
Phase 3: More shielding for infest.
Phase 4: Shield raid for vile spirit damage, Shield people being sent to frostmourne, if WS is up, Penance/Flash heal.

Only 2 out of 12 fights don't advocate shielding.
I can tell you, yes, these fights can be done without a disc priests, but that's far from the point.
Were not talking about whether its doable or not without one, were talking about what a discipline priest's role should be in a raid.
Leave the raid healing to the raid healers and focus on your primary job which is to prevent damage.

How you argue about shielding not being a primary focus is beyond me in 90% of ICC 25 content.
By the time I get a PoH healing off, itll be over healed by Wild Growth, Circle of Healing, Rejuv, or Chain Heal.
It's a complete waste.
I don't see how you can't see this in a realistic perspective.

[Zeuq]

I agree that a shield on someone with 50% health helps a lot, but in a raid with competent raid healers, this will usually be the exception, not the rule. I agree that under many circumstances a shield on a 50% health target is a good decision, but to say that PWS is THE goto raid heal is to assume that there is generally just one at or below 50% health, or a few people spread out in different groups, and that you can expect them to be receiving enouch additional damage in the near future that the PWS will make a meaningful difference.

If there is exactly one person at or below 50% and you shield them, but they don't take any additional damage, you wasted your GCD and would have been better off with a FH or BH. If multiple people in the group are around that level, PoH will get them all in a safe spot faster than casting PWS on each of them, especially if you have Borrowed Time.

Also, by the same token, if you shield someone at 90% that has a HoT on them, the HoT will no longer manage incoming damage, as the shield will absorb it, and it will now likely overheal for a a few ticks. You're not doing anything helpful because all you're doing is sniping the HoT which hurts that boosts your HPS at the expense of the Druid or Holy Priest that put the HoT there.

Let's take another example, like Festergut. PWS is great for the Vile Gas targets, but because the rest of the raid damage is steady and predictable, there's absolutely no reason to let anyone get anywhere near 50%. Shielding doesn't help the raid healers with spores or with the exhale, but a PoH definitely could make a difference. Spamming PWS just doesn't make a lot of sense in that encounter.



On Preview:

Yes, I know there's a damage aura in that fight, but that's exactly why PWS spam is bad, so I'll try to be more specific about the point at I was getting at. PWS works great there for Pact and fire and the low health target, but if your raid healers are competent, most of the incoming damage is handled just fine by the blanket HoTs, CoHs, WGs, etc. So you can spend extra GCDs putting PWS on targets at 80-90% health, possibly wasting some of the HoT ticks and maybe having WS on them when you want to shield them again for Pact, or you can help level out the damage by putting a PoH on a group with multiple people sitting at 60-70% so they never get to the point where you need to shield them to keep them from dying. This lets the raid healers focus on their maximum HPS rotations, fewer people get into a danger zone, you'll be more likely to be able to shield a target when they actually do need it, and you'll even increase your personal HPS too.

And what do I mean by wasting HoTs on a shield at 80%? If that target already has a HoT, the next HoT tick will top them off because the shield will aborb an aura tick, but now they're topped off, and if the shield absorbs another aura tick or two, which it's likely to do, and so the next couple of HoT ticks are 100% overheal. That's lost HPS. Now consider they are at 80%, but got some PoH instead, they still get topped off, along with some other people, and you might waste one HoT tick on a topped off target, but after that the HoT will continue to mitigate the aura ticks.

Even worse, as a support healer, as harky points out, now that you now can't shield them again for the duration of WS. What happens if that shield expires and they get Pact or get some random burst? Now you can't use your best tool to manage that and you have to hope your other healers can respond quickly enough with a fast heal instead.

The primary point here that I'm trying to make is that a damage aura alone NEVER puts anyone in immediate danger unless they're low health, thus your goal isn't to "save" a few people sitting at 80% health; they're in no immediate danger. Instead, your goal should be to use PWS to prevent predictable spike damage or save people who are actually low health and, otherwise, do the best you can to keep the most people out of low health altogether. And the best way you do the latter is through maximum HPS with PoM, PoH, and BH, not PWS. You see, while you're busy casting PWS on a few people sitting at 80%, you could have gotten multiple people from 80% to 100%, which will ultimately help your raid healers more anyway.

Thus, like harky said, there is functionally no difference between an absorb of 4s worth of damage or a heal for 4s worth of damage after it happens, provided that the latter doesn't put them at risk of dying. Other than for Pact or an utter failure on their part (grouping up too much and getting splashed or standing in the fire), being at 80% health isn't in any more risk of dying in that fight than someone sitting at 100%, thus PWS loses as a general raid healing tool because it's lower HPS and now you risk not being able to use it when you really need it.

Again, I'm not saying PWS is bad, it's good, but there's a lot of situations that a lot of Disc Priests manage with shield spam that could probably be handled better if they considered how they could use other tools.

[Siorfin]

Understand both points about the BQ fight, clearly in 10 man the issue is different as without the random shields people will probably die from lack of output, in 25 man, yes its quite possible you are gonna end up wasting half someones renew or wg with your shield, and struggle with weakened soul if that person gets one of the debuffs. Alternatively you can - as suggested - just shield the people with the debuffs, during air phase, and otherwise use PoM/BH/Flash/PoH(?) But if thats the case, can you *really* justify your spot on that fight as a disc priest (genuine question that goes back to the output being talked about), or are you just a pretty bad holy priest + good debuff healing, but not so much that an extra raid healer couldn't easily take care of it, while also providing extra overall output.

Personally, on Aura Fights on 25 man - normal only so far - I just don't think there's much reason to take a Disc Priest as a shield spammer for the reasons Harky mentioned. However, correctly mixed with PoHs, particularly in a fight like Sindragosa where I think PWS - PoH kinda spam shines, Disc is still a useful spec even when not centred purely around PWS, which is why I glyph PoH .

As a side note, we haven't reached BQ Heroic, we don't spend much time positioning our raids, and therefore even PoH's use is limited on that particular fight, I honestly think in that situation it's hard to justify taking a disc priest to the fight, even if I can get nice numbers with shield spam.

[bigbad]

I did festergut on 10man with 2 healers today, glyph of PoH was 7,2% of my healing done. Guess it all depends how much you use PoH but its a hell better then saving some 60 mana on flash heals.

[Kelesti]

First off:

If you argue: You shield him at 100%, and then gets no damage so other healers can't heal - well, then you have too many healers. Good example would be Saurfang 10m, this is the perfect fight where one disc priest problably is the best healer to single heal it.

Saurfang is a joke to heal as any healer, solo. Even 0/5 Divine Fury, 0/5 Empowered Healing Holy Priests can keep everyone up easily on normal. Quoting a joke fight is just as bad as quoting Gunship for a reason to bring a resto druid, even when it's on heroic (watch out for that shot pushing you 12 yards to the left!)

It doesn't interfere, it fucking helps. If you put a shield on someone below 50% health with hots on him, the hots will make him heal fully, and you can continue to shield or heal the next one.

It is not the task of disc priests to top someone off - you have paladins to heal the tank, trees, shamans and holypriests to heal the raid. You should support their healing - of course you should FH or penance someone who is low, if he has WS debuff. But your first priority should always be to shield him - its the utility no other class or spec can offer.

This, sure, I'll agree with. The point was that if someone's not below 50%.

Aura fight, naturally. Let's say you're healing Blood Queen along side a shaman, and counting your tanks and healers, your ranged and melee are split up as 4/6 respectively. Ranged spread out, for obvious reasons, and ask any self-respecting Shaman how much Chain sucks for "spread the fuck out" mechanics. You toss shields on the melee, because they're "going to take the damage anyways", and you do it one target at a time. As the aura eats away at your ranged, and you're just tab-targetting through melee, you've screwed your Shaman's ability to use their tools effectively. Damage is still coming in, a Pact will go out and it'll hurt hard and fast but your targets will already have weakened soul. You yourself did nothing but:

If you really want to to the heal-meters, why don't you simply spec holy?

Really, just because yours are guaranteed to be 100% effective. Festergut, Putricide Hard, the list goes on on things that look great to Shield Spam. You (as a Discipline Priest) are correct in assuming you are the "Support" healer. But indiscriminate use of Power Word: Shield is really really not "supporting" anything, especially when you have better tools. And yes, Shields do step on the toes of other healer's effectiveness when used in such a manner.

(Slightly off topic, but first priority spell of any good Discipline Priest should be to keep Mending on cooldown anyways. If you're prioritising Shield over Mending, when they both do the same job but better, you're flat out doing something wrong.)

I did festergut on 10man with 2 healers today, glyph of PoH was 7,2% of my healing done. Guess it all depends how much you use PoH but its a hell better then saving some 60 mana on flash heals.

Exactly the point of the thread.

[harky]

(Slightly off topic, but first priority spell of any good Discipline Priest should be to keep Mending on cooldown anyways. If you're prioritising Shield over Mending, when they both do the same job but better, you're flat out doing something wrong.)

*coughpenancespikedamagecough*

[lilbandit]

surely bottom line is this:

having mana problems? = use glyph of flash heal
not having mana problems? = don't use it, and use either PW:S or POH depending on playstyle.

[Kelesti]

surely bottom line is this:

having mana problems? = use glyph of flash heal
not having mana problems? = don't use it, and use either PW:S or POH depending on playstyle.

Did you not read the thread?
Power Word: Shield is guaranteed on any Discipline Priest.
Flash Heal doesn't help you on the fights you actually need mana.
So you're left with Prayer or Renew. Yeah....

[Fishfeast]

Either PoH or Renew as the third glyph IMO.

[harky]

Either PoH or Renew as the third glyph IMO.

This is actually decent advice. PoH if mainly raid healing, Renew if mainly tank healing.

[G l o w y r m]

Honestly, here's what happens on a fight like BQ: You shield a target for 9k, maybe get lucky and get a 3k heal too. Aura will tick twice and your shield is now gone. You can not 'support' on that target again for 11 seconds due to WS. You're arguing that 'saving' someone from taking damage for 4 seconds is superior to healing them after they've taken 4 seconds of damage. If they would not have died from those 4 seconds of damage then there's absolutely no difference. I don't expect you to accept, or understand why this is, but it's a fundamental problem with the way people are using Disc Priests. Shield spamming is not the optimum approach to every fight and is not even the optimum approach to every situation in fights that favor shield spamming.

The truth! Disc Priests should read this and then evaluate the way they use PW:S if they don't understand this. But...

You're arguing that 'saving' someone from taking damage for 4 seconds is superior to healing them after they've taken 4 seconds of damage. If they would not have died from those 4 seconds of damage then there's absolutely no difference.

I would have to say not taking damage is better than taking damage, no matter if the person would die or not. The problem with this is that WS might be there when something really dangerous happens to the person and you won't be able to save them. I understand all of that. Spamming shields on Blood-Queen and then not being able to PW:S the people that get Pact is a good example. So of course strategically placing shields is > spamming shields. Good Disc Priests should know this.

I don't adhere to this 100% though. If it comes down to a point where no one really needs a shield for a little while (WS on tanks, no Pact for a bit, no one about to die), I will still shield a few people that are taking decent constant damage and are around 75% health. They aren't in immediate danger of death, but they are not topped off and are taking constant damage. It eases the job for the other healers and keeps my Borrowed Time up so I can Penance > FH/PoH quickly.

More on topic though, I simply have no use for PoH glyph with my raid makeup. We raid with 2 Holy Priests and 1 Resto Druid so I might cast PoH 10 times over the course of an entire night of raiding. I definitely get to spam FH a bit more with the glyph compared to the 5000 extra healing I might get in a whole night of raiding with PoH glyph.

Flash Heal doesn't help you on the fights you actually need mana.

I definitely need the mana on Heroic 25 Deathwhisper, and I definitely Flash Heal tons in that fight. If I cast about 100 Flash Heals, I saved ~7k mana, which is almost 1/4 of my mana during the fight. I don't think you can dismiss glyph of Flash Heal as easily as you are, at the very least, it's as situational as the PoH glyph.

[harky]

I definitely need the mana on Heroic 25 Deathwhisper, and I definitely Flash Heal tons in that fight. If I cast about 100 Flash Heals, I saved ~7k mana, which is almost 1/4 of my mana during the fight. I don't think you can dismiss glyph of Flash Heal as easily as you are, at the very least, it's as situational as the PoH glyph.

Not sure about this one. I've only done her once as Disc on 25H, but I finished at nearly full mana and wasn't casting FH much at all. P1 was the normal target-of-target macros for PW:S off of her with Penance and PoM on tanks. I cast FH a couple times when she targeted the same people in a row. I'd have to double check, but I think I cast around 25 Flash Heals. P2 was mostly shielding tanks and people near ghosts, then PoH. A few Greater Heals on tanks, but certainly no time for FH in P2, which is more than half of the fight.