Disc Priest Seeking Advice

[Bucknazty]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...cknazty/simple

(the second Disc spec is one I JUST picked up. Was looking at attonment to see if it was going to be worthwile, which it is, so I need to change out Glyphs. The other disc spec is the one I usually heal with. Proper glyphs and etc.)

First off, I am in a Firelands guild, somewhat casual (3/7 atm, almost have Bale down). I have access to 12/12, as well as H Halfus.

I am here to see if there is anything wrong with my gear/spec/how I am healing. I am not worried about meters, but i do go oom decently quickly on high damage fights (I tank heal the tank on the web on Beth, and get completly wrecked for mana, starting p2 with all mana CDs available, but about 15% mana.

I have mana tide in the raid, so this does help out a bit for mana.

The way I heal is this: PW:S on tanks, keeping Rapture on CD. PW:S on low party members, followed by a quick flash heal if below 40%, or a regular Heal if above that, and no forseable damage in incoming. I spam Heal on the tank to keep DA up, using Greater Heal if they are below 60, and flash if they are below 40. I keep PoM on CD, and always cast it on the lowest member in the party to get the 60% glyph increase.

I also start out fights by using Holy Fire, followed by 4 smites to get the healing buff, then pop Archangel, and make sure I have 5 stacks of Attonment to shift into Archangel when the CD is up.

For AoE healing, I combine Inner Focus with PoH, and if the entire grp is taking heavy damage, spam PoH and PoM. As I stated, also shielding low health party members that are in need of it.

The questions that I have are this:
Is Inner Will even helpfull?
Is my gemming/reforging correct?
Should I pick up anything else in talents to help?
Am I doing something wrong in the way I am healing?

Thank you for the responces, our team is doing well in Firelands, healing not being a problem really, but I am always trying to be a better healer. I have read on EJ and the Thread here but, even following those, I still seem to be low. To be fair, I only looked at those when I started, and havent since. I could be doing it backasswards.

[Apostolic]

1) You're about 500-1000 Spirit to low. That's your mana problem. Spirit should be on the majority of your gear. Your at 8/16. You do not have the 4 set for the extra 500 spirit either.

2) In both your specs, pick up SoL. Although it is not reliable to count on, it does save a ton of mana over the length of the fight. In your spec 2 (AA spec), move 1 point from SoS and the DP to SoL. You will find sometimes that you can get up to 6 procs in a row.

3) You should not keep PoM on CD all the time. Only during phases with heavy raid damage that pulses.

4) Bind IF to all the abilities that use it, having 100% up time is important.

5) Your gemming is kind of bad. Int>Spirit>Haste>Crit>Mastery is what you need to follow.
In a Red Socket = 40 Int
In a Yellow Socket = 20 Int / 20 haste (or mastery)
In a Blue Socket = 20 Int / 20 Spirit

That is, if you get a net gain from the socket bonus of 20 Int. If not, go straight Int. (Although I do not follow that 100% of the time if it gives me a spirit boost.) Never us a straight secondary stat.

[Madam]

Matching gems for socket bonus is fine, but make sure to use +Int (and other stat) in all sockets, Int will increase all heals plus Crit chance.

In your new AA/A spec not sure if passing up on MA is a great idea if you are having mana problems.

With the damage patterns in Firelands try dropping some Mastery for Haste.
I ran with heavy Mastery for T11, but find that Haste is really the way to go (for me) in the new content.

[Deleted]

Your spec choice and healing style really depends on what your role in the raid is. Are you mostly tankhealing and supporting raid or are you raidhealing supporting tanks?

For tankhealing a spec with SoS is highly recommended. You can use the first one you have alltough if you are running into mana issues swap two points from Inner Fire to Veiled Shadows, giving you a shorter cd on your shadowfiend.
Shield/PoM the tank, follow up by Greater Heal (heal is very very rarely a better choice than Greater Heal for Firelands). The Divine Aegis from the Greater Heal is a nice buffer. Obviously don't mindlessly overheal but I doubt that is your problem.
Make sure to macro you Inner focus to Greater Heal/PoH so you use it on cd. Else you are basicly wasting mana.

For raidhealing atonement works out great. You do need to move 3 points into Mental Agility. Take two points from SoS and 1 point from Empowered Healing.
Your healing style for AoE healing seems to be alright. PoH as your bread and butter spell, PoM for aura ticking damage, shield lowest players IF you are not able to heal them up with PoH/Greater Heal before next incomming damage.
Stack up evangelism during low periods of damage to have Archangel ready for burst healing. Don't just it on cd, use it wisely. It's not meant to be a mana regen it's meant for the burst healing.

You do one thing wrong though. Shield followed up by Flash Heal is in most cases a waste. You're shielding to save the person, thereby providing a buffer for your Greater Heal/PoH or the help from the other healer(s). The use for Flash Heal is for emergency which usually only occur if you don't plan ahead. Obviously use it if needed but 1-3 Flash Heals per encouter should be the max needed. (When not specced into SoL).

Your stat choice: Int > spirit (until enough) > haste > crit > mastery. For most healers a 2.1 second casttime raidbuffed on PoH is a good place to be. After this mark you can start putting your stats into mastery/crit. Reforge/gem your gear accordingly to this.
If you can get your hands on Fall of Mortality use that instead of Jar of Ancient Remedies. FoM is by far better for a disc priest.

Your spirit is perfectly fine to me. It's quite simple.. You can easily heal Firelands and old content normal/heroic with that amount of spirit IF you use the right spells for each encouter. Running oom means either people are standing in stupid stuff you have to make up for or you are using Shield/Flash Heal too much. It's a bit hard to say which one it is for sure without logs

Inner Will vs Inner Fire: Once you get the hang of the damage patterns in fights you can "dance" between Inner Will and Inner Fire. Inner will can be used together with PI if you need to pump out a lot of shields for some reason. However I won't recommend power shielding if you have mana issues as you say you have.

[kholzar]

I expect your mana problems boil down to:
* missing Mental Agility talent. Train of Thought is very lackluster, i would drop it for this. Strength of Soul and Desperate Prayer are also optional.
* A bit low on spirit (most of your gear should have spirit)
* Spell choice. You should not use Flash Heal except for severe emergencies. If a target is low, throw a Shield followed by a Greater Heal using the Borrowed Time buff. Also, don't forget to use Penance, it heals for a lot and is cheap. PoM is best cast on targets that will be imminently taking damage (usually tanks, or targeted players), not necessarily the person that is lowest. Only if a target is dangerously low, and Penance and Shield already on cooldown should you consider using Flash Heal. I barely use Heal at all, I use Penance and Greater for most of my direct healing, and a Holy Fire/Smite for topping off. On most kills I cast Flash Heal 0 times.

I know you said you were using Rapture on cooldown, but Rapture is critical enough to Disc mana regen that its worth emphasizing again. Make sure you are watching Rapture properly (usually a mod makes this much easier), so that you know when to time a Shield on the tank(s) to trigger it properly. Remember that it only triggers after the shield has been consumed, so you need to put it on a target that will be hit in very short order for more than your Shield absorbs. Delays in triggering Rapture will result in not regaining nearly as much mana.

Inner Will is useful in high mobility fights where you will be moving a lot and/or you need help moving out/away from things quickly.

Also, your mastery is high in relation to your haste. You want to roughly balance out Mastery, Haste and Crit. Having a bit more Haste would probably also make you more comfortable using Greater Heal as your primary heal. Might want to consider dropping Train of Thought, Strength of Soul and Desperate Prayer to go Mental Agility 3/3 and Darkness 2/2.

[Madam]

With 200% Crit chance and Renewed Hope, Flash Heal is a fantastic lifesaving tool. When Flash Heal crits the heal is well over a non crit Greater Heal, making it very sexy. I wouldn't recommend spamming FH, but is useful in just about every fight.

Any Disc Priest w/ SoL care to share a WoL report? Bet a few would be interested in viewing...

[Apostolic]

With 200% Crit chance and Renewed Hope, Flash Heal is a fantastic lifesaving tool. When Flash Heal crits the heal is well over a non crit Greater Heal, making it very sexy. I wouldn't recommend spamming FH, but is useful in just about every fight.

Any Disc Priest w/ SoL care to share a WoL report? Bet a few would be interested in viewing...

Although I do not have a WoL at the moment (I will post one when I get it) my SoL seem to be about 10-15% of my healing per fight.

[Ellumina]

Is Inner Will even helpful?
Sometimes, when I need a slightly increased run speed on a high movement fight. Otherwise 99% of the time, I am using Inner Fire. The only fight where I found myself using Inner Will most of the fight is Ragnaros. So much movement -.-

Is my gemming/reforging correct?
Helm: Put in an Artful Ember Topaz (or Reckless Ember Topaz, depending on whether you want haste or mastery). You always want to have int in your gems. Red: Brilliant Inferno Ruby, Yellow: Artful Emper Topaz / Reckless Ember Topaz, Blue: Purified Demonseye
Chest: Same thing. Replace that Mastery gem you have with an orange gem that I mentioned.
Belt: ^

Should I pick up anything else in talents to help?
I highly suggest you put 3 points into Mental Agility, preferably taking points out of Evangelism and Archangel. In Firelands, although I am specced into Atonement, I rarely find myself Smite healing since there is heavy AOE damage this tier. You might want to consider trying to get Veiled Shadows too, to have a shorter cd on your Shadowfiend (for the mana). Try to pop ur SF the first time when you're sitting at around 75-80% mana. I don't find Desperate Prayer to be particularly necessary and it's something you may want to consider dropping.

Am I doing something wrong in the way I am healing?
If you haven't already, you may want to consider having Inner Focus macroed to the spells that use it (Flash Heal, Binding Heal, Greater Heal, and PoH). This way, I'm able to always use it on cd and it's a big help to my mana. You mention you FH under 40%. Personally, I'd pop a bubble on a person I see dropping that low and GH instead of FH him until he's at a safe health, unless he's taking clearly drastic damage (like standing in fire, eating a Face Rage in the Shannox fight, both cases which I would FH versus getting hit once by a fire line in Rhyolith and won't be taking any immediate damage after that). Under 25%, I'll admittedly FH spam a bit. Penance, GH, PW:S, PoM, and PoH should really be your core spells. I don't touch Heal or Renew often, unless there's not much damage and I'm just topping someone off. Binding Heal is more situation for me, and I use it really only if me and perhaps one or two people spiked a little in health. Also, your second spec is now Disc (which I assume was Holy before). Make sure you remember to fix the glyphs to Disc glyphs. Based on looking at your primary spec glyphs, I would suggest taking our PW:Barrier and putting in PoH (unless you're the tank healing, then I guess you can skip out on it), and I don't think Fear Ward will do you any good. I would recommend Desperation (or Mass Dispel).

Your shoulders frighten me quite a bit. Are those the best shoulders you have? Because you should really replace those ASAP, even with a 346 would be manageable. Your spirit is also rather frightening. I'm sitting at 2739 spirit (3679 when I have my Tsunami card and 4set up), and there's heavy AOE damage fights that will still strain my mana. I highly recommend trying to pick up the Tsunami card. I don't see myself replacing it for a while with any T12 trinkets, since T12 trinkets are not as regen friendly (I have the Eye of Blazing Power, but I still choose to use my card + alch stone). Try to get more spirit pieces if you can (even from T11 bosses: neck off of Halfus, bracers off of Atramedes or VP bracers, Council boots or JP boots).

Also, since FL is so AOE damage heavy, I would recommend less Mastery stacking and start getting more Haste. I ran T11 heroics raid healing with 3.4% haste and 19+ mastery, which was perfectly manageable for me, but with this tier, I advise Haste, whether or not you're raid or tank healing.

[themightysven]

Mental Agility will definitely help.
For emergency healing you can use a Glyphed PW:S and a Renew
Think about Surge of Light instead of Inspiration if you're still having mana issues after that

[Deleted]

Inner will would help your mana problems.

As atonement spec you should use smite (or holy fire) as filler, not Heal - they're more efficient. I never cast Heal, it's not even on my bars.

I run with a tank heal prio of:
Shield if no WS
Penance if off CD
Smite/Holy fire if tank above 50-60%
Greater heal if tank below 50-60% and above 10-20%
Flash heal if tank critical.

Penance is awesome, especially if you have a full stack of evangelism.

[Bucknazty]

Just got back from dinner, and thank you for your replies.

Shoulders: Just had my tier taken from me by a lock who just reactivated his account, and said "I havent gotten a piece of loot in months so I took those, they are a bit better than what I am using" Havent gotten ne drps ;_; Hopeing for the tier next week, or the shoulders off Baleroc on Monday. I know I need the tier, but it seems to elude me.

Gemming: I will fix that tonight. Idk why I just stuck straight mastery in there lol.

Reforging: Move away from mastery and balance it out so haste and mastery are about equal. I think this will def help. Greater heal, at the moment, just seems to damn long to cast.

Moves: Really? No heal? Ok Ill def keep that in mind. I was also going off what a healer friend was telling me, which is seeming more and more false everyday in regards to what moves to use and such. I have been using Pennance to stack up Grace real quick and also throw it when someone needs a heal for a decent ammount.

Spirit: I have had REALLY shitty luck with drops, in regardes to the spirit department. With my 4 set, im hoping I have enough to solve my mana problems. Ill look how much Tsunami is now. I have it on my drood ;_; was hell to make.

Thank you all for the responces, Im going to try respeccing and etc to see if I get a noticable difference.

[Evilest]

"Just had my tier taken from me by a lock"

Hell ya! You better of said 'you're welcome' too!

*grumble... grumble... shadow priests stealing our dots and dps... healy priests wanting our shoulders... grrr... hehe =D