Disc - HPS

[Mahon]

I would tell your RL to go talk to any other RL on the server and ask them about their disc priest. Where they are etc. Also I would try and explain that you could improve your HPS but people would start taking a lot more damage and it would be like an arcane Mage spamming frostfire bolt.

That or on a hard fight wisper your RL before that you are going to use more heals instead of shields. Make sure he pays attention to the difference. Then watch as people die, or at least the content becomes harder. Would suck for the raid but sometimes you have to prove that what you are doing is important even if it is hard to notice.

[Newspaper]

Absorbs do not equal healing or even anything helpful.

How come? Last time i checked absorbs meant damage that would otherwise send your sorry ass corpse running was prevented, now move the fk out of the fire. But yeah silly me, how is that useful? I mean it'd be better for half the raid to get to 50~% so the others healers can flex their e-peen over the healing they did and how awesome they are compared to the disc, right?

There is not an equivalent in absorbing as there is overhealing to healing. You can't over-absorb, well technically you can if a 30sec shield falls off, which if not rare is a miracle (in most fights) and imo a good thing. If someone is posting healing done and stuff just for e-peen flexing then i don't think class matters. Just people need to understand you can't measure if a disc is skilled/working/busting his ass unless you check absorbs too(if not only absorbs).

And next time a holadin tries to rub in his "awesome" healing get someone to link overhealing too , he'll prolly by topping that by miles (yes because spamming HL is hard).

[Sokaris84]

I am getting some shit from my guildies about my HPS in Disc as i spend alot of my time in a 25 man raid using shields and the occasional Penance/PoM/Renew. I am wondering if they are right and i should use PoH/Flash heal alot more to imrove HPS > Absorbs or am i fine with shielding almost every GCD. I am the only disc priest in the raid and if u need a boss to use as an example use HM PP 25.

Can we get a link to your armory and some WoLs?? If you're copping shit, then you may be doing some things wrong. I'm worried when you say that you cast the 'occasional' PoM, you should pop this on the tank every single time it comes off cooldown.

[Fenixdown]

Yes, because if I disagree with you I'm a troll.

Oh wait, actually I have a 5830gs priest that is both holy and disc. Usually the people playing disc and using the absorb meters are the terribles who can't play holy. See, I can troll if you want (though actually that has some truth to it).

I'm discipline. Played two years as holy in BC. Was good at it then, could do it now, I just like disc more.

Oh, and it's clear you're a troll and a bad. You judge your ability by GearScore. What's your progression with that toon? Oh, yeah....that's the more important thing to know. And I'm guessing yours is crap.

HPS is not disc's forte. If you were so pro as you claim, you'd know the difference of spec mechanics. Disc is unique. It doesn't work like any other healing design. It does something nobody does and does it better...it takes the damage and negates it completely. If all you're looking at is healing, then you're even worse than a discipline priest judging their overall performance through shields and heals.

Also, a factor into that is what your disc priest does as their assignment. On a fight like LK10, nobody can come close to me on effective HPS (which, by the way, check a WoL...absorbs get factored into that, l2research) because phase 1 and 2 all I do is spam bubble the raid for Infest and help on the tank during Soul Reaper.

So, in short, it's not an agree/disagree scenario as to why you're labeled a troll. It's a we are all right and you're an idiot scenario. There's a vast difference.

[xfloggingkylex]

How come? Last time i checked absorbs meant damage that would otherwise send your sorry ass corpse running was prevented, now move the fk out of the fire. But yeah silly me, how is that useful? I mean it'd be better for half the raid to get to 50~% so the others healers can flex their e-peen over the healing they did and how awesome they are compared to the disc, right?

There is not an equivalent in absorbing as there is overhealing to healing. You can't over-absorb, well technically you can if a 30sec shield falls off, which if not rare is a miracle (in most fights) and imo a good thing. If someone is posting healing done and stuff just for e-peen flexing then i don't think class matters. Just people need to understand you can't measure if a disc is skilled/working/busting his ass unless you check absorbs too(if not only absorbs).

And next time a holadin tries to rub in his "awesome" healing get someone to link overhealing too , he'll prolly by topping that by miles (yes because spamming HL is hard).

The problem is that absorbs don't show the whole picture, because usually the damage absorbed would have been instantly healed by a healing class right after. Resto druids and holy priests have sick AOE healing to the point where you shielding the entire raid really leaves them with less to do. That is a bonus in an extremely stressful fight, but for something like saurfang or festergut where everyone is raid healing through the first phase, shields are IMO over valued.

I've said it plenty of times, disc is a good spec... I run it myself. But, you have to know when to play disc and when to play holy if you are going to be serious about keeping your raid alive because disc simply isn't helpful on all fights. In fact, save for LK replacing a disc priest with another resto druid would give you the same raid survivability.

I don't use any healing absorb addon, and in fact I barely play anymore. Last I checked though, "Recount Guessed Absorb" runs the numbers as if the entire shield was absorbed. Unfortunately if you are shielding anyone but the tank, that wont always be the case.

I haven't used skada (downloading it now to test) but I'm guessing that since the tab is called "absorbs estimated" that it isn't any more accurate than recount, which has a warning saying under typical conditions it won't be completely accurate.

[Fenixdown]

Skada, in my experience, is more accurate than RGA is. I also ran with RGA until discovering Skada, and have noticed a huge difference between the two. I think it has something to do with how the two parse, I'm not entirely certain.

WoL is by far the best way to judge, however. I always look at WoL totals after raids to see the difference. I have noticed through WoL totals that a well-played discipline priest can effectively shave all the total HPS of a raid down by about 500, and on some fights even as high as 1000. Less stress on healing means more time to worry about other things. There have been encounters where I raid bubble where our third healer sits there and casts DPS spells until something happens where he may need to heal again.

I wouldn't sya take it as biblical, naturally. But it does give you a very good idea of a. how the class works and b. what they're doing for the rest of the raid's HPS. When you look at Skada's healing and absorb totals, odds are thigns like restotrees and resto shammies will still outperform a disc priest ismply because it's their healing against your healing and mitigation. However, if all you look at is a disc priest's flat healing totals, then everyone is going to just assume they are a bad healer (since healing as disc cannot, ever, under any condition put out the raw HPS of any other healing spec...it does not have the talents or tools to do so, that is Blizzard's fault for making us "too unique". This should be corrected in Cataclysm, thankfully).

[Bigslick]

It does something nobody does and does it better

hehe sorry, kinda lol'd when I read this statement - not that I disagree at all about the value of disc's unique contribution to raid survival, but because this is like saying "I grill a better steak than anyone who doesn't grill steaks!"

As to WoL vs RGA vs Skada, they all use the same combat log to make their calculations. Contrary to what one poster above suggested, none of them assume that every shield cast is fully absorbed. Regarding absorbs, RGA's estimates tend to be within about 1-2% of those by WoL, so I haven't felt any need to switch.

[Newspaper]

The problem is that absorbs don't show the whole picture, because usually the damage absorbed would have been instantly healed by a healing class right after. Resto druids and holy priests have sick AOE healing to the point where you shielding the entire raid really leaves them with less to do. That is a bonus in an extremely stressful fight, but for something like saurfang or festergut where everyone is raid healing through the first phase, shields are IMO over valued.

I've said it plenty of times, disc is a good spec... I run it myself. But, you have to know when to play disc and when to play holy if you are going to be serious about keeping your raid alive because disc simply isn't helpful on all fights. In fact, save for LK replacing a disc priest with another resto druid would give you the same raid survivability.

I don't use any healing absorb addon, and in fact I barely play anymore. Last I checked though, "Recount Guessed Absorb" runs the numbers as if the entire shield was absorbed. Unfortunately if you are shielding anyone but the tank, that wont always be the case.

I haven't used skada (downloading it now to test) but I'm guessing that since the tab is called "absorbs estimated" that it isn't any more accurate than recount, which has a warning saying under typical conditions it won't be completely accurate.

And i completely agree with you , haven't tried lk on heroic yet still working on 25man normal. I raid as holy since ToC release for no particular reason but seeing the difference it makes when we have a disc with us. Helps get the stress off raid healing even if 1k dmg is absorbed it's less stressful (and dangerous for the person getting dmged to die) for the raid healers. But again disc is of some use to some fights and can be replaced by a pure aoe healer.

As for the addon don't know which one is the best as i've only measured absorbs (and that was a while ago) from WoL, didn't even know recount could measure absorbs :O.


Anyways i find disc to be the "fun" spec when it comes to priest healing, but i prefer holy hands down in terms of pure healing. I love how much you can heal so fast if you know when there's incoming damage to time your PoH/PoM/CoHs. <3

[Lackluster]

OK. Now changing the point of this thread. How the fuck do I convince my guildies to accept my spec and the way i play it.

Let them try LK25 HC without a disc priest and laugh as they fail to manage infest.

[Auraye]

1 disc can easely manage 4 groups , last group holy priest can poh
so why do you use a second one ?

Regarding 1 disc easily managing 4 groups, you're not taking latency and that you actually have to move during the fight into consideration. After the first infest in phase 1, 15 to 18 is a more realistic average, especially when dodging shadow traps.

When coming off of the ledge transition, I usually get only about 8 to 10 people shielded since there's a smaller time window between the end of that phase and the next infest hit, and it's sort of clumsy casting while dodging ice spheres and running to stack with raid. I start shielding just as I start running in. It's sort of foolish to start casting shields until then since everyone is continuing to take AoE damage, because most of those shields will be damaged enough to the point of being gone or just ineffective at blocking infest. You're better off continuing to cast glyphed PoH those last seconds on the ledge so your hot is ticking to heal everyone to full before infest hits. For this, a 2nd disc would be nice, but I just pop my Divine Hymn to help clean up for a few ticks.

Then during the valks and defile phase, it's difficult to continue grabbing 15 with people spreading out for defile, or chasing down valks, but it's a realistic goal. However, if the disc priest gets picked up by valks or gets defile, that throws a wrench into shielding. If picked up by valks, you probably have zero shields for the next infest, so if you're bit by RNG, a 2nd disc would have been useful.

I've been torn about whether my guild should recruit a 2nd disc priest for this fight. Some people think it's a great idea, but I don't think so. I'd rather bring another paladin than base the 2 disc decision on the assumption of bad RNG. The only justification that I can come up with is if the disc priest is picked up by valks. If that happens, you communicate, and have a holy priest Divine Hymn and other raid healers proceed to top off the leftover infest.

This is for H LK. For normal mode, you wouldn't even need 2 disc anyway.

[msdos]

wow your guild is pulling the HPS card on you and you're the only disc priest? you must be in the stupidest, noobie guild on the face of the earth, hahaha.

if you shielded less, what would be the point of being disc or having disc priests at all? if you (your guild) can't see how absorbing damage is reducing the amount of damage you need to heal (raw damage reduction), then you can't see anything beyond the main toon you play.

[Bigslick]

Regarding 1 disc easily managing 4 groups, you're not taking latency and that you actually have to move during the fight into consideration.

...

When coming off of the ledge transition, I usually get only about 8 to 10 people shielded since there's a smaller time window between the end of that phase and the next infest hit, and it's sort of clumsy casting while dodging ice spheres and running to stack with raid.

I'm the sole disc priest in our runs, currently working through P2 on H LK 25. Even with 200-400ms latency standard (thanks, Verizon Wireless >.<) I have no issue covering 4 groups in P1. Basically, shield 2 caster groups fully, the 3 dps in group with the tanks, and PoH a 4th group leaving a 5th group of melee to be covered by the holy priest's PoH and CoH cleanup (opting a melee group to be left unshielded as they typically have much higher health pools so are easier to restore over 90%). The 2 tanks being untreated isn't an issue as they're being spammed anyway. The minimal movement to dodge a shadow trap or drop of plague hasn't been any issue in managing that number.

The post-ledge transition definitely doesn't allow sufficient time to prep for the subsequent infest, so having a pally pop AM or DS provides enough relief to make it manageable. In P2, even with people spreading out, it's not that difficult to get shields on the majority of your assigned targets, and if the other raid healers have set up their unit frames to show live shields (they definitely should) then they can see who will need focused healing upon infest.

The challenge of dealing with infest when the sole disc priest is picked up can be met by additional Paladin AM / DS, holy and/or shadow priest DH, and balance and/or resto druid tranq. But there's no question, a 2nd disc priest enhances the average stability of raid health and allows those CD's to be kept for later if needed.

[NightHaawk]

I'm the sole disc priest in our runs, currently working through P2 on H LK 25. Even with 200-400ms latency standard (thanks, Verizon Wireless >.<) I have no issue covering 4 groups in P1. [snip].

The challenge of dealing with infest when the sole disc priest is picked up can be met by additional Paladin AM / DS, holy and/or shadow priest DH, and balance and/or resto druid tranq. But there's no question, a 2nd disc priest enhances the average stability of raid health and allows those CD's to be kept for later if needed.

I get about the same but occasionaly on the transition i get an unlucky break and only get a few people shielded.

[Calendra12345]

go to festergut HM and just shield every1 in raid. start with group 5 and just roll in circles and keep every1 with weakened soul debuff on. and you will show them some HPS( or absorb PS? ) lol.

i managed to get 130k hps and like 15k effective.

You must have sick amounts of spellpower then. (34530 Spellpower?)

[ghtybv]

all the "ima disc and my absorbs make me best" and the "omg absorbs suck look at meter" talk aside disc tops the absorb/heal meters because they deal with the damage before any other healer can. that is not a bad thing, it is a VERY good thing. but when you link the absorb the absorb meter and say omg im better than you, your no better than those d-bag healers that link healing meters saying you suck. and who has highest heals doesnt matter, if that healer wants to keep spamming and spamming through the normal fights to top the meters let him, but when healing is tough you need to have all the healers working to not go let anyone die, dont matter if the damage is absorbed or healed as long as the people dont die it dont fucking matter

[invader]

yup,, i also notice the show offs who spam healer metres have like over healed by 80% - 90% lol,, total waste and doesnt make you look clever at all,, disc hps varies on how active you are thru a particular fight and what kind of raid dmg is being lashed about and what roll your given. sometimes all you could be doing is shielding,, sometimes its shielding odd few and throwing penance, prayer of healing or spamming flash heal etc,,. as long as the shields keep flyin you can tell all who query you to pissss off

[NightHaawk]

yup,, i also notice the show offs who spam healer metres have like over healed by 80% - 90% lol,, total waste and doesnt make you look clever at all,, disc hps varies on how active you are thru a particular fight and what kind of raid dmg is being lashed about and what roll your given. sometimes all you could be doing is shielding,, sometimes its shielding odd few and throwing penance, prayer of healing or spamming flash heal etc,,. as long as the shields keep flyin you can tell all who query you to pissss off

And PoM.... never forget PoM....

http://www.worldoflogs.com/guilds/7894/ for those that asked

[PromiscuousPenguin]

I'm discipline. Played two years as holy in BC. Was good at it then, could do it now, I just like disc more.

Oh, and it's clear you're a troll and a bad. You judge your ability by GearScore. What's your progression with that toon? Oh, yeah....that's the more important thing to know. And I'm guessing yours is crap.

HPS is not disc's forte. If you were so pro as you claim, you'd know the difference of spec mechanics. Disc is unique. It doesn't work like any other healing design. It does something nobody does and does it better...it takes the damage and negates it completely. If all you're looking at is healing, then you're even worse than a discipline priest judging their overall performance through shields and heals.

Also, a factor into that is what your disc priest does as their assignment. On a fight like LK10, nobody can come close to me on effective HPS (which, by the way, check a WoL...absorbs get factored into that, l2research) because phase 1 and 2 all I do is spam bubble the raid for Infest and help on the tank during Soul Reaper.

So, in short, it's not an agree/disagree scenario as to why you're labeled a troll. It's a we are all right and you're an idiot scenario. There's a vast difference.

Hey Fenix,

Pleased to see you are still around! You had given me some advice for my disc priest : Atheist a few months ago. He's doing nicely still and can't wait for Cata to switch over. Life grip ahoy!

Now as for the troll..xfloggingkylex...Your understanding of the game fails, your expression fails, your avatar name fails, you rely on gs to lecture people and only have 5.8k to boot...God you fail!

Surely failing this much is worthy of a community minded ban? ;-)

[NightHaawk]

Hey Fenix,

Pleased to see you are still around! You had given me some advice for my disc priest : Atheist a few months ago. He's doing nicely still and can't wait for Cata to switch over. Life grip ahoy!

Now as for the troll..xfloggingkylex...Your understanding of the game fails, your expression fails, your avatar name fails, your rely on gs to lecture people and only have 5.8k to boot...God you fail!

Surely failing this much is worthy of a community minded ban? ;-)

Meh if only that were true. The arrogance or stupidity of some people for not understanding or not be willing to understand a class and spec is insane but xfloggingkylex is hopefully being ignored by anyone reading this lol.

[Kelesti]

Hopefully not, actually. He was right, in direction of those that pick up mass shielding and using lolmeters to justify the position; it is like linking overheal meters and saying "suck that".

The point made on the first page by Lysdexic was also ignored here, and a few others made good ones as well: Shielding someone may stop damage for six seconds, but it's still 17 seconds they take full damage on before you get back to them. On a fight like Deathwhisper, mass shielding only works for the Frostbolt Volley, which isn't enough to kill anyone an still needs to be healed, regardless.

Another good point brought up here was that Shaman, Druids, and Holy Priests have badass raid healing. They may have already had a damage recovery effect (Pre-casting or HoTs) already in effect. Just because your shield took the work doesn't mean a) It was "easier" for them, or b) that you were even needed to do such.

Discipline's Shield (when used smartly) can be the strongest counter to Spike damage, in game. When. It's used en masse, it can't be used for what it's good for; and yes a Discipline has "heals" too, that's their job.

90% of Holy Priests may be bad, but I'd have to say at least that same number applies to Discipline, simply for taking meters at face value, continuing to justify a sub-par playstyle (that is beneficial on one fight, hard mode only), and not looking at the bigger picture. Discipline is not "god", you are not saving lives, you are replacable, and Shields are only better than heals when the target would've died without them.

It's time people asked for more from the spec on the left, as a Class.