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  1. #41
    Hey Spiritus - I just had to comment and say this guide rocks! I'm actually on your server in the guild Gravity (small world). I remember you being the one sitting on the mammoth ALL THE TIME in Ironforge lol. I was switched over from Holy to Disc after the patch hit after Disc got buffed, with my incentive, and our Holy Pally leaving. It was quite the "transition" but I'm really happy it worked out that way. My guild did make me do the AA spec for tank healing just out of randomness and had the other priest go with no AA for disc raid healing. For whatever reason, beside the fact that I'm quite a newb still with all the min/maxing stuff, the end result of using AA was just awful! Its such a blast in 5 mans but overly too clunky and random in 25 mans. If it was able to be used like a beacon it'd be great but until that happens I've stuck with a different spec.

    What I found funny was that my spec almost mirrors yours except for a few differences and I simply put mine together out of sheer guesswork... Glad someone else is kinda thinking similarily. My guild was worried it wouldn't work without AA but it ended up being great! Now... obviously my Crit is just awful due to being holy and running away from crit but it looks like that has become viable again. I'm definitely going to reforge and get that fixed up for Tuesday to see how it works. I also will be getting the new Alchemy trinket after now confirming that would be a great trinket for me.

    Anyways, I just wanted to say THANK YOU for finally putting up a guide for us healers wanting to get out of Holy with a good Disc spec. This will really help get me more fine tuned as I'm sure my character is a complete mess and now I know I can keep having a blast with Disc. Our set up has 3 healing priests (one holy raid, one disc raid, me disc "tank healing"/holy raid, druid, shaman, and holy pally). We've got quite the versatility and A LOT of priests and I'm glad this patch came around because we were ALL holy raid at one point which gets so redundant after awhile. But yeah, you rock and I'm always reading your posts to see what's up with the Disc tree! Thanks for taking the time to figure this out for us.

    Sorry if my post is so jumbled... I'm inbetween classes burning up time.
    Last edited by Pasque; 2011-02-14 at 09:04 PM.

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    Chateau - 85 Holy Priest - Doomhammer - Goodwill Gamers

  2. #42
    Quote Originally Posted by Pasque View Post
    Anyways, I just wanted to say THANK YOU for finally putting up a guide for us healers wanting to get out of Holy with a good Disc spec.
    Thank you for reading! I find Disc tank healing to be a lot of fun, efficient, and effective. The 4.0.6 changes really granted dedicated disc tank healers a lot of great synergy with all the talents and spells. If you are flexing a lot between disc tank healing and holy raid healing, you may wish to stick with higher levels of haste as crit is crippling for holy raid healing. However, if you are tank healing for the vast majority of fights, I'd give a more crit heavy build a whorl and see what you think.

  3. #43
    Heya im curiuos regarding tankhealer specc, i can see you dont specc into archangel nor atonement. how come? i have not healed much in raids but i find them really useful for mana reg + healing. heal costs 1.8k mana and heals for around 15k, smite; u heal between 10-14k depending on critt, u actually do dps ( can be helpful) and every 30sec u gain mana return and + healing for each stack u got for 18sec ( 12sec downtime)

    is it just me or dosnt that sound more like a gain then reduced dmg taken from inner sanctum?

  4. #44
    Quote Originally Posted by kittycovox View Post
    Heya im curiuos regarding tankhealer specc, i can see you dont specc into archangel nor atonement. how come? i have not healed much in raids but i find them really useful for mana reg + healing. heal costs 1.8k mana and heals for around 15k, smite; u heal between 10-14k depending on critt, u actually do dps ( can be helpful) and every 30sec u gain mana return and + healing for each stack u got for 18sec ( 12sec downtime)

    is it just me or dosnt that sound more like a gain then reduced dmg taken from inner sanctum?
    I explained it somewhere in the guide, however, I'll recap. When tank healing in a raid environment you want to have 100% control of when and where your heals land. The problem with Atonement is it will always hit the raider within 15yards with the lowest percentage of total health.

    So, for example, your tank is at 50% health and all the melee are at 80%. You start casting your smite fairly confident that your atonement will hit the tank. However, with .4sec left of the cast, Arcane Annihilator gets through and hits the fury warrior, dropping him to 20% health. your Atonement will now land on said fury warrior instead of the tank, and now your tank is at 25% because he just took a hit.

    In essence, tank avoidance is enough RNG for a tank healer to deal with, without Atonement's RNG being thrown into the mix as well.

    Also, it takes a total of 5 talent points to get AA/Aton, so, even if you do not value 6% spell dr or 6% extra run speed on a toggle, you have to drop 2 more points somewhere else in an already very limited budget. The only place this can reasonably come from is 2/3 darkness. For me personally, for tank healing, I'd take the toggle and the 2% haste over an unreliable single target healing mechanic.

    =============

    Now don't get me wrong, for bustin' through heroics, or for mixing into disc raid healing, AA/Aton is beast. For a serious MT healing disc priest, however, the uses are slim.

  5. #45
    In your tankhealing spec, you didn't take Soul Warding. I understand that you don't spam PW: Shield on the tank, but there are a few viable scenario's where you'll be putting a PW: Shield on someone else.

    - Pre-Shielding the offtank on tank transitions.
    - Shielding players while moving.
    - Shielding players that got hit by a nasty debuff.

    Sure, it's very easy to tackle these conditions. So I guess it's just a matter of taste, loosing 4% spell damage reduction against the 1 sec CD on PW: Shield.

    But then we can prove that Soul Warding is bad for raidhealing too, since you'll be casting PW: Shield and then PoH. Well, maybe we can validate 1 point in it.

  6. #46
    Quote Originally Posted by Nesco View Post
    Sure, it's very easy to tackle these conditions. So I guess it's just a matter of taste, loosing 4% spell damage reduction against the 1 sec CD on PW: Shield.
    I personally find 3/3 Inner Sanctum invaluable and difficult to quantify. Do I think it is a "must have" for a tank healer? No. If you would prefer 2/2 SW, then by all means.

  7. #47
    one question with the new changes are the stats the same intelect-mastery-crit-haste its so annoying with so many hotfixs i did lost +1k gold for reforging and specs and i still dont know whats the main thing to reforge crit, haste or mastery what do u think thanks

    atm i just reforge mastery to crit/haste
    Last edited by kaelix1; 2011-02-20 at 12:19 AM.

  8. #48
    Quote Originally Posted by kaelix1 View Post
    one question with the new changes are the stats the same intelect-mastery-crit-haste its so annoying with so many hotfixs i did lost +1k gold for reforging and specs and i still dont know whats the main thing to reforge crit, haste or mastery what do u think thanks

    atm i just reforge mastery to crit/haste
    Depends on the role you are filling, and how often you switch that role fight to fight. Without that it is tough for me to give you any guidance.

  9. #49
    Quote Originally Posted by [-Spiritus-] View Post
    Depends on the role you are filling, and how often you switch that role fight to fight. Without that it is tough for me to give you any guidance.
    well im in a casual 10m guild we have 3 helears me a disc a paladin and a shammy our setup is simple the pally take one tank me one tank and shammy the grup and me and the pally help the shaman with grup heal when there is a big aoe dmg

  10. #50
    Deleted
    Eagerly awaiting your mastery heavy raid healer guide. I'm a holy priest heavy on mastery gear looking to make a disc offspec for certain fights

  11. #51
    Quote Originally Posted by kaelix1 View Post
    well im in a casual 10m guild we have 3 helears me a disc a paladin and a shammy our setup is simple the pally take one tank me one tank and shammy the grup and me and the pally help the shaman with grup heal when there is a big aoe dmg
    Do you tank heal or raid heal on one tank fights?

    Quote Originally Posted by Gun View Post
    Eagerly awaiting your mastery heavy raid healer guide. I'm a holy priest heavy on mastery gear looking to make a disc offspec for certain fights
    When I created the subheading for the MST heavy Disc raid healer, it was prior to the 4.0.6 and the subsequent rapid fire hotfixes. TBH, I don't think I'd recommend a MST heavy build now, so I may not even include a section for it. However, I'll give you a basic idea of how it plays differently than a HST heavy build.

    (1a) Ok, so your MST heavy Disc priest has about ~18-20MST total. For this purpose lets just say you have 20MST, or 50% Shield Discipline. Now, this makes your PW:S hit like a truck. For example, with a modest 9k SP and 50% Shield Discipline, a single PW:S will absorb 28,739=[(9000*.87)+8136]*1.5*1.2. Now, a HST heavy build's PW:S will absorb anywhere between 24,000-25,000 [given the same SP].
    (1b) What this means is a MST heavy Disc priest will have approx. a 13-17% better PW:S than a HST heavy priest.
    (1c) This is significant, except the increase in mana cost to PW:S turned it from "always cast" to "sometimes cast," which thus deflates the relative power of MST in general. PW:S, which I'll write about more extensively soon, for a raid healing disc priest, is now a far more surgical tool. For example, your DPS is pushing Nef hard in P3, Electrocute will be coming in 5sec and four people's health are low enough that they would all die when electrocute hits. With a HST heavy build, you can boost their EH by 24-25ish HP preshielding all four before the hit, or in a MST heavy build you can hit all four with a 28-30k shield before the hit. As you can see, this is why MST was so powerful for PW:S heavy usage.

    (2a)However, with the increase in cost to PW:S, you must use other tools to heal with to be sustainable. The other major tool Disc has to raid heal with is PoH, which adds an auto DA for every hit. Now, DA does not scale as well as PW:S, since the MST increases the value of the DA independent to the power of the heal. So, for example[with Zero MST], if PoH hits for 7,000, it adds a DA of 2,100. With zero MST rating [8 MST base, 20% shield discipline], a 7k PoH adds a DA of 2,520. With 20MST [50% shield discipline], a 7k PoH adds a DA of 3150. In essence, dropping a majority of itemization into MST will only net an extra 3,150 DA over x5 targets with PoH.
    (2b)What this means is you sacrifice a ~2sec PoH with a HST heavy build for a ~2.3sec PoH with an extra 3,150 DA per cast over five targets. If the fire that is creeping up on you during Nef will reach you in 6.5seconds, HSTpriest gets off 3 PoHs for a total of 28,560 raw healing+absorb per target, while MSTpriest only gets off 2 PoHs for 20,300 per target.
    (2c) In short, MST does not affect the auto DA on PoH enough for it to be significant.

    ========================

    From a playstyle standpoint, a MST heavy build really only shines during fights with ticking AoE damage [P3 H. Chimaeron [triage w/ PW:S], P2 Al'Akir, P3 Cho'gall, P3 Ascendant Council, etc] and if you can be fairly confident that you will not have to move regularly. Situations like this will pull out the best from your MST-heavy PoH. Boosting the throughput of your PW:S is a powerful asset, but it isn't the "one button shop" it was when 4.0.6 released. It still is the single most powerful, non-CD "healing" tool in the game and should be used smartly as much as possible as mana permits. Know that big hit is incoming? Stop 5 seconds before hand and throw a PW:S on the four lowest members in the raid [triage, boom].

    In short, the MST heavy build was anywhere between competitive to godly in the period between 4.0.3 and 4.0.6a, but past 4.0.6a, it has only limited upside and far less flexibility than a HST heavy build.

  12. #52
    [QUOTE='[-Spiritus-];10510744']Do you tank heal or raid heal on one tank fights?

    One tank fight i raid heal with sammy (but i keep renew and shild on tank all the time) so y im most raid heal

  13. #53
    Quote Originally Posted by kaelix1 View Post
    One tank fight i raid heal with sammy (but i keep renew and shild on tank all the time) so y im most raid heal
    If the majority of your fights see you in a raid healing role then I would value HST over MST over CRT. You'll not lose very much of your tank healing ability/sustainability, however, you will be leaps and bounds better in your raid heal role, which you perform more often.

    XPS(tm) section now up!

  14. #54
    Quote Originally Posted by [-Spiritus-] View Post
    So, for example, your tank is at 50% health and all the melee are at 80%. You start casting your smite ...
    This is a strawman; no reasonably intelligent healer would be casting Smite (or Heal, for that matter) with a tank at 50%. "Smart" heals do not obviate the need for smart healers. The Atonement healer will use Smite when the tank is at a comfortable level of health in a fashion similar to a Tank healing Disc using Heal.

  15. #55
    Quote Originally Posted by CaseyTheRetard View Post
    This is a strawman; no reasonably intelligent healer would be casting Smite (or Heal, for that matter) with a tank at 50%. "Smart" heals do not obviate the need for smart healers. The Atonement healer will use Smite when the tank is at a comfortable level of health in a fashion similar to a Tank healing Disc using Heal.
    I used it as an example, but for edification:

    Your tank is at 90% health and melee are at 100%, you start casting smite, and a melee takes a hit which drops him to 50% and tank takes a hit that drops him to 60%. Melee gets the atonement. WS is on the tank and penance is on CD. You queue up a GH, tank takes a another hit during cast, dropping him to 20%, your GH lands bringing him back up to 50%. You could throw a FH, but if you hadn't been casting smite, this would have been unnecessary and you would have been reducing WS duration through heal. The goal of a tank healer is to be (a) efficient and (b) keep a tank as green as possible. Using smite at all while dedicated tank healing increases the chance of the tank moving into the orange or red.

    This may not be noticeable in normal modes, but it certainly is in heroic [a general statement, not directed]. Also, to gain AA/Aton, you must drop 5 points from somewhere fairly significant for tank healing. There are multiple ways of doing this in a tank healing build, but all of them include removing 3/3 Inner Sanctum, which is something I, personally, would not recommend.

    When it comes down to it, when tank healing, I try to heal in a way that is reliable. Aton introduces an element of uncertainty, thus I choose, and recommend, not using it while tank healing. Disc tank healing already has quite a bit of uncertainty with the synergy of crit and DA [because it is powerful]. As such, in situations where a tank is at high health, I'd prefer to push heal to build DA during high avoidance periods and reduce the duration of WS to maximize my PW:S uptime, rather than use atonement. The more times I can cast PW:S, the higher % health the tank will be, allowing me to use cheaper heals more liberally.

    Can you use AA/Aton when dedicated tank healing? Sure. I, personally, do not recommend it.

    Raid healing, however, is another matter entirely.

    EDIT: I have also made a slight adjustment to my recommended tank healing spec, moving 2/3 Darkness into 2/2 SW.

  16. #56
    Deleted
    Thnx for this guide Spiritus. Loved reading it.

    My guild is almost through normal content with only Nef and Al'akir up. We are both running 10 and 25 mans where im mostly on raid healing. At the moment i reforged my gear to haste mainly with crit slightly over mastery. But i noticed an increase in my overhealing so im considering valuing mastery over crit. I got the 4 piece set bonus this week so with that i am now thinking about reforging my spirit into haste. I would like to hear your thoughts on that.

  17. #57
    great guide if you delete it for being incorrect and against what every bit of theory craft, top priest says, does, proves effective, in practice.

  18. #58
    Quote Originally Posted by Tino1985 View Post
    Thnx for this guide Spiritus. Loved reading it.

    My guild is almost through normal content with only Nef and Al'akir up. We are both running 10 and 25 mans where im mostly on raid healing. At the moment i reforged my gear to haste mainly with crit slightly over mastery. But i noticed an increase in my overhealing so im considering valuing mastery over crit. I got the 4 piece set bonus this week so with that i am now thinking about reforging my spirit into haste. I would like to hear your thoughts on that.
    Thanks for reading!

    I avoid CRT like the plague when raid healing, prioritizing HST over MST when possible, reforging MST to HST. MST is more valuable on Al'Akir than on Nef, but it outclasses CRT on both [for raid healing]. I really wouldn't work on boosting MST until your PoH drops to ~2sec raid buffed [non-BT], which you will most likely not see until you are fully epic'd.

    Nef and Al'Akir are both fairly mana intensive so I wouldn't reforge any of your spirit until you see what things are like.

  19. #59
    Deleted
    You, Sir, are just great. A fantastic guide, nothing less.

    I hope I can recapture the joy I once had as a Disc Priest and take your advice into good use in tonights Raid.

    One question, that I´d love to hear your oppinion about;

    I currently have 2 specs, a Disc and a Holy for Chimaeron. I would like to get rid of Holy so I can either experiment with Atonement or simply go Shadow, so I can easier play alone at times.

    What do you think, can the group benefit the same from Disc as they can from Holy at Chimaeron? The way we assign us is our Druid healing Tanks, 2 Holy Priests on each group, topping people up, heavy AoE Healing during Feud (etc., etc., etc., you know)

    Does our PoH including DA make up for what Holy can manage? I dont think i´d have trouble topping the 2 people up to above 10k Health, my doubts are during the Feud.

    Thank you for the time invested in this

  20. #60
    Quote Originally Posted by Tanija View Post
    What do you think, can the group benefit the same from Disc as they can from Holy at Chimaeron? The way we assign us is our Druid healing Tanks, 2 Holy Priests on each group, topping people up, heavy AoE Healing during Feud (etc., etc., etc., you know).
    On HM our guild actually runs two Disc priests to rotate barrier for each fued. This alone makes disc viable. However, in a 10m setting, just Have your holy priest precast LW 30sec-1min before you pull, then Drop PW:B for 1st fued, use LW for second fued, PW:B for third, then LW for 4th. If you are still having issues on the non-barrier fueds, you can parse out your Tranq & two hymns for the one you need it the most. Also, if one of your tanks is a paladin, he can use Raidwall for one.

    Remember you have 15seconds to get people up, which is a considerable amount of time. On normal mode, PW:B makes this threshold a joke and LW should more than cover fued 2 & 4. If not, use a big healing CD for each one [(1)hymn, (2)hymn, (3)tranq, (4)tree/PI], or something like that.

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