the official 'Help a disc priest get better at pvp' thread

[Deleted]

Hey guys first time poster long time lurker here. First I'd like to say that I love my priest, I love healing and I love pvp, but ever since this patch came out I just feel outclassed, in full relentless gear and with 1k resilience I just can't take a hit, add to the fact that I gotta heal people through this insane damage means that I'm falling a little outta love with my priest atm. So basically as fellow disc priest pvp-ers what tips, tricks, and advice can you give a fellow follower of the light. In a normal BG I'll stay at the back throwing shields over everyone while also healing with flash heal, penance and binding heal while occasioanlyl smacking people down wtith smite and DP/SWP

Oh heres my armory page, just wondering as well if i should reforge my gear to get rid of the mastery bonuses, thanks.

eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Ragnaros&cn=Norbela

ty all.

[Ultima]

I don't know if what I do is perfect, but I can still tank a few players.

I use the 29 SP + 20 Resi Helm Enchant, 30 Stam + 15 Resi Shoulder Enchant, 35 Spell Pen on Cloak, 20 Resi on Chest, 40 Stam on Bracers, 20 Hit on gloves...I should remove that..(btw your gloves are not enchanted), Tuskkar's Vitality on Feet. Also, I use a belt buckle (get one).

I'm the type of player that likes to heal while living for ages, rather than healing for more and dying sooner. I play offensively often, especially now that I get rewarded for Smiting with Archangel.

You seem to have no glyphs! I use:

Prime - Penance, Barrier, Shield (Not happy with these tbh)
Major - Mass Dispel, Inner Fire and something that's for PvE so ignore
Miner - Fortitude, Shadowfiend and Levitate

[Popesickle]

You did not mention renew or prayer of mending, those two are your friend as well. With the glyph and talents in holy tree, renew ticks, and crits, for a decent amount. Keep renew and shield on yourself at all times.

[Deleted]

Ok fallen even more out of love with my priest.

My power word shield absorbes 7104 damage, but add that a mage can hit you more an average of 7.5k a fireball and can silence you means that Shields are paper thin and practically a waste of mana.

Also the stats I put into mastery arent worth anything, people are hitting so hard that they just attack right through my shields and heals, add to the fact I can get silenced, stunned, knocked down, and any other form of 'lol lets attack the nerfed priest' means that every bg is just a constant reminder of what was before, where disc actually had survival techniques.

You know that pvp is imba when a holy paladin can 2 hit you through a shield with exorcism.

[Epox]

I wouldn't even bother with healing until Cata hits the shelves, really enjoyed healing pre 4.01 (both arena/BG wise) but the dmg output is just insane since the patch hit (I ran with close to 1400 res), and since we don't really have any "outs"(Frostweave nets ftw!) you usually get stomped. So I just went shadow instead and reforged excess spirit on my mooncloth gear to haste.

If you wanna stay alive as Disc: spam PoMs, renews and holy novas + bubble on CD and PS/PW:B early if you are getting zerged.

Gear/gem/enchant wise, I would advise you stack up on loads of resilence, oh and PS glyph is invaluable at times.

[Mosaes]

Ever since 4.0.1 resilience it the single most important stat for PvP.

Pre patch I was running a 1000 resi setup with max SP and haste setup and was doing fine.

In 4.0.1 however, with crit-reduction removed I would not recommend hitting a bg with under 1.4k resi. It has been buffed/nerfed around a bit recently to balance it but it now still is the only stat that can reduce the incoming damage to a point where you can heal up again.

With wrathful being purchasable without rating it is pretty easy to swiftly acquire decent that will put you over 1600 resi if gemmed for it (I even use the pvp-trinket as human for the 150 resi ).

[Surea]

Glyph of pain suppression has saved me many times while tanking many players. It really is very nice in pvp and I can only recommend it

[WaitingforSWTOR]

You are skipping the most important thing: never leave your team´s zerg, and if possible step into bgs with a premade group (higher chances to play with decent people you know)
At the end, teamplay is the only thing wich saves you

[Deleted]

its definetely true. Hanging around with other buddies, staying as close as possible together is the best thing to protect against heavy fire. When running in a group, its probably the best way to wait for opponents to switch to other targets. in the end this often results in more relaxed situations for me as a discipline priest.
But sometimes ppl run around like wild hornets, spread wide. It really depends on the playing style of your buddies in BG!
Since 4.0.1 a One on One has always been a catastrophe in most cases so far. I dont know why, but i mean, that resilence->dmg balancing has been remodeled in an unexplainable way (to me).

[Bigslick]

With the damage boosts, even despite the nerf to MS, you're going to be easily killed as a healer if you don't take advantage of the boosted value (even post-nerf) of resilience. 1000 was reasonable pre-patch, but at this point less then 1400 is asking for trouble, and you're only doing yourself a favor by stacking more. A dead priest casts no heals (well, disc anyway).

Mana regen isn't really a concern atm, so you can throw out 'big' FH's when needed, also relatively trivializing the need to stack Int (SP). I'd suggest using resilience enchants on helm, chest, and shoulders, and gemming primarily or all resilience aside from what is required to trigger your preferred meta. Also, mix both the 2-pc shadow and 2-pc holy sets. This gives you an extra 100 resilience, at the loss of 50 Int and 2 seconds off the PoM CD you'd pick up going for the 4-pc bonus, a good trade in my book.

Regarding reforging... The value of mastery scales with your resilience, in that the more you reduce the size of incoming damage, the more powerful increased absorbs become. Before this latest nerf to resilience, warriors weren't even able to burn through my bubble before I could reapply it when WS dropped (except very geared warriors popping bladestorm, and then only barely breaking it). It's a good way to go -- but so is haste. Aside from offering faster renew ticks, it lets you get your global spells out faster and makes your primary defensive cast-time spells (penance and FH) more difficult to interrupt. It also speeds up mana burn, which is one of your most powerful tools in the field of battle.

For glyphs...
Prime: Penance, PWS, and Renew are generally your best bets. PWB is on too long a cd, too weak an effect (in a bg, if you can get off a couple of FH's you'll be topped off even w/ MS on you anyway), and potentially gone in an instant anyway if it's over more than 1 or 2 players.
Major: Pain Suppression and Inner Fire are must haves. The third glyph should either be Mass Dispel for utility and removing pesky pally bubbles and mage ice blocks, or dispel magic for survivability (self-spamming dispels when PoM, PWS, and Renew are already out while running the flag in WSG is incredibly effective use of GCD's under assault, provided you watch out for UA, and for VT if you have several allies around you). Divine Accuracy is a poor choice given that the low hit rating for player targets is easily achieved by gear to free up this glyph spot.