[Disc] Atonment Spec - Clarification

[Deleted]

Dear Priests,

I suspect this will come down to 'personal preference', but... I am currently trying to decide on which of three options to take when going the atonement route (which I love):

1) http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bfGorRsbcRMochM - (Yes) Renewed Hope, (Yes) Train of Thought, (No) Darkness x2.
2) http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bfGorRsbcoMochMZb - (Yes) Renewed Hope, (No) Train of Thought, (Yes) Darkness x2.
3) http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bfGobRsbcRMochMZb - (No) Renewed Hope, (Yes) Train of Thought, (Yes) Darkness x2.

My role is 50/50 tank healing vs. raid healing, depending on the boss basically. I aim for high mastery, and as high haste as possible, with little crit... out of preference, I like a quick playing style. My armory is here: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte.../sens/advanced.

I enjoy playing around with specs, but for the life of me can't decide. I like to have a haste heavy build, so losing 2 points in Darkness makes me sad, however, I recognize the usefulness of 10% heal/gheal/penance from Renewed Hope, particularly when tank healing... I also recognize the usefulness (for mana and crit chance) of Train of Thought...

What do you think?
xo
Sens

[Deleted]

If you're tank healer i say try build #1
Train of Thought is imba , u smite smite smite , penance , smite smite smite, ofc depends on fights , but i would use the 1st one.

[babylon]

coming from your armory (realm, guild), i went to wol and found your logs. i see you play with resto druid and resto shaman, and that your shaman, mr b., has ancestral healing.
and if he already has ancestral healing, why do you insist so much of having inspiration then?

would drop inspiration and take all of the 3 mentioned by you, renewed hope, tot and darkness (2).
renewed hope, especially with high mastery + mentioned some tank healing + the fact that gheal and penance are really high on your 'healing by spell list', is really strange not to take.

[Deleted]

I would not skip Renewed Hope, whichever spec you choose/role you play.

I would go build 1 in your situation.

[Deleted]

Thanks for the replies!

hipchen - ToT is definitely nice... would hate to drop it for anything! :<

babylon - You detective! :O Thanks for taking the time to look... I hadn't thought about Ancestral Healing, and as you saw, in the guild I am 95% of the time paired with the Restro Druid and Resto Shaman (we're the healing team!). I would imagine that, even with Ancestral Healing, Inspiration would still provide an additional 10% physical damage reduction... for a nice 20% on our tank. I guess then it just comes down to sacrificing that 10% physical damage reduction for some all around better healing, including tank healing, which I think may indeed be worthwhile. :>

Sinn - Indeed, I was feeling the same way - hence this mission of trying to incorporate it again.

In summary... hipchen recommends ToT, Sinn recommends Renewed Hope, and babylon recommends all of them and dropping Inspiration! haha... urf...

EDIT - I think the choice will come down to 2/2 Inspiration or 2/2 Darkness... tank healing vs. raid healing, which I do 50/50... I think I'm just boned and will have to choose. lol...

xoxo

[[-Spiritus-]]

Why not carry two Disc healing specs and swap them depending on your role for a particular encounter?

If at any point you are seriously tank healing, and especially if you are MST heavy, SoS is an absolute must.

[Deleted]

I would imagine that, even with Ancestral Healing, Inspiration would still provide an additional 10% physical damage reduction... for a nice 20% on our tank. I guess then it just comes down to sacrificing that 10% physical damage reduction for some all around better healing, including tank healing, which I think may indeed be worthwhile. :>

Pretty sure they don't stack - you get 10% if either or both are on the tank or 0% otherwise.

[Verth Aeyta]

I use the #1 build and I am in love with it, I don't really need the haste and inspiration procs quite frequently, I am Mastery heavy with a bit of haste, which hurts my disc spec a bit but makes my holy spec ungodly

[Deleted]

EDIT - I think the choice will come down to 2/2 Inspiration or 2/2 Darkness... tank healing vs. raid healing, which I do 50/50...

IMO, Inspiration can be quite good on most fights, even if you do raid healing.

[praseodymium]

IMO, Inspiration can be quite good on most fights, even if you do raid healing.

I fail to see how inspiration is a worthwhile investment if he is a designated raid healer.
1. Raid shouldn't be taking melee damage
2. Requires a crit to proc, and his gearing minimizes crit
3. He has a shaman with him

On the other hand, it is absolutely a must-have if you tank-heal. So imo two specs would be ideal if you plan to swap between tank and raid.

[Verth Aeyta]

I fail to see how inspiration is a worthwhile investment if he is a designated raid healer.
1. Raid shouldn't be taking melee damage
2. Requires a crit to proc, and his gearing minimizes crit
3. He has a shaman with him

On the other hand, it is absolutely a must-have if you tank-heal. So imo two specs would be ideal if you plan to swap between tank and raid.

Your AoE heals do have a chance to hit the tank if you're raid healing and thus have that chance to proc on the tank and off-tank, that's why you pick up inspiration if you're raid healing, it's not for the raid's benefit, I have inspiration and it procs on the tank all the time and I never tank heal as my disc priest, also I have inspiration as a Holy priest too, wanna argue that one? All I do as Holy is raid heal too.

As for Crit it's a crap stat and almost all priest minimize crit to the extreme so that point is just a non-issue.

[Deleted]

Hehe, thanks for all the replies... I guess it's a particularity/design that for Disc Atonement spec we end up in a situation where there just aren't enough points to get the 'must have' talents for both raid and tank healing. :> It's the trade-off for being able to do some dps and have a fun alternative way to heal. I think I will probably end up going with two specs, although I am also sad to give up shadow spec as a secondary... >_<

I tested out the first build, with no Darkness and a mastery-heavy build... it felt very sluggish, although I'm sure that the DA procs and shielding and what not were great, and it would make a strong tank healing build... ah, but, I do like quick heals... Well... nothing to do but keep playing around with it!

xo

[babylon]

Thanks for the replies!
babylon - You detective! :O Thanks for taking the time to look... I hadn't thought about Ancestral Healing, and as you saw, in the guild I am 95% of the time paired with the Restro Druid and Resto Shaman (we're the healing team!). I would imagine that, even with Ancestral Healing, Inspiration would still provide an additional 10% physical damage reduction... for a nice 20% on our tank. I guess then it just comes down to sacrificing that 10% physical damage reduction for some all around better healing, including tank healing, which I think may indeed be worthwhile. :>

im quite sure (even checked on wowwiki) that inspiration and ancestral healing dont stack, so you can feel free to drop inspiration

[Deleted]

I cant see Strenght of Soul in your specs , imo this is a must for a tank healer.

[Deleted]

Thanks for the replies, this thread has got me thinking about every little detail... Let's consider the following situation:

1. Heroic raid difficulty
2. Setup: Disc Priest / Resto Shaman / Resto Druid

Designated Tank Healer

Question: For those who have tried - is atonement worth the points if I'm the designated tank healer on the harder/end heroic bosses (cho'gall / nef / etc.)?

1) http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bfGorRsbfoMochM - Atonement, tank-focused build... have to choose Train of Thought or Inspiration.
2) http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bfhzrosbfRMochMZb - no Atonement, tank-focused w/ ToT & 2 in Darkness.

Raid healing would follow the discussion held above... which seems to debate the usefulness of Inspiration while raid healing. :> Which because of my resto shaman is not useful.

xoxo

[babylon]

1) http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bfGorRsbfoMochM - Atonement, tank-focused build... have to choose Train of Thought or Inspiration.

again, with shaman in raid skip inspiration, even if youre a tank healer. he gets the proc from every heal critting, meaning also from chain which he gonna use on melle when hes assigned to raid heal, so the buff will the there.

i dont see the point of having SoS in atonement spec, where you use smites as filler, ToT is so much better. in non-atonement spec you use heal as filler and then its definitely worth it.

i use smite spec with ToT and darkness when im raid healing on certain fights (like magmaw hc, valiona hc) and non-smite spec when im tank healing (with veiled shadows, but thats personal choice cause i enjoy burning through my mana).

[[-Spiritus-]]

I disagree with babylon's point on Inspiration. If you are tank healing, Inspiration is a must. A non-tank healing shaman cannot expect to keep up AH at near 100% uptime, but a tank healing disc priest can damn near guarantee it. 10% reduced physical damage is pretty huge for a tank, but expecting incidental healing to crit every 15sec at a T11 item budget isn't practical. In the case of Insp/AH, 50-70% uptime is not good enough when the tank dies by less than 10% physical damage during a non-buffed period. The capacity to have a high uptime is one of the many reasons why Disc tank healing can be powerful.

Designated Tank Healer

Question: For those who have tried - is atonement worth the points if I'm the designated tank healer on the harder/end heroic bosses (cho'gall / nef / etc.)?

Short answer? No. If you are the dedicated tank healer, you need to guarantee that your heals hit the tank every GCD you use for healing the tank. Atonement cannot guarantee that.

1) http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bfGorRsbfoMochM - Atonement, tank-focused build... have to choose Train of Thought or Inspiration.
2) http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bfhzrosbfRMochMZb - no Atonement, tank-focused w/ ToT & 2 in Darkness.

The second spec is what I currently run for tank healing. Alternatively, you can move 2/3 darkness into 3/3 IS to be a little more resilient as spell damage in both encounters are high. Some may even suggest 2/2 Focused Will, but both are a judgement call based on your own performance.

[Deleted]

I fail to see how inspiration is a worthwhile investment if he is a designated raid healer.

Don't you throw a heal on the tank once in a while, even if you're on the raid? I guess it depends on how the other healers in your team work. Wihtout doing it free for all, we tend to go outside our role when we have time/mana and help the others. If you can maintain a decent uptime of inspiration via penance/FH + PoH on the tank group, it's worth the 2 points IMO.

[praseodymium]

Ah, it seems I projected my situation onto Sens'. I raid H 25s, and in 25-man, there is a much lower chance that your raid healing will hit and crit on the tank. Also factor in that our raids often have 2 restoshams, and you can probably understand my reluctance to talent Inspiration.

But for his/her situation in a 10-man, I can agree that it's probably a decent use of the points.

[Deleted]

Ancestral healing and Inspiration are almost exactly the same spell and do not stack. However, from a single healer they generally do not have 100% uptime. If the tank already has this from either, getting a new one will just refresh it. If there are only 2 healers with this, it isn't too much of a problem, it just means more uptime on the tank. In addition, there may be phases of heavy raid damage where some tank healers switch to raid healing. It only really becomes a waste when there are several people (probably 3 or more) putting it on the same tank at the same time.