Disc - What am I doing wrong

[Sunlonghorn]

Hi, so I need some advice from others Disc priests. (Also minor venting to fellow healers)

First a bit of history - I used to play in TBC - Wotlk, stopped for years, started again in late Legion and continuing through into BFA. I play pretty much daily for hours doing m+ etc but I'm not insanely hardcore and just go with the flow. My character profile is this https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-gb/ch...or/Sunlonghorn

So I enjoy healing, always have, & disc feels more fun then holy (no offense to Holy mains <3 ) I just enjoy it more, but, I keep getting told my healing is low. Everybody seems to only care about numbers. Personally I don't use any addons to track the healing numbers because I rather just play, enjoy the event at hand & enjoy the company of my mates. However, and I'm becoming a bit of a joke in my guild & being told to switch to Holy since it's easier & "better suited for me"... maybe so they can call me a Holy Cow....anyway... I say this without wanting to be perceived as overly sensitive; I get that it's a joke, but it's getting old hearing it daily and I'm getting slightly irritated by it now.

Anyway, disc is apparently one of the best healers at the moment (which is probably why the incoming nerf to Dmg spells) and yet, I'm often told I'm not doing great. (Or so it feels that way).

So what am I doing wrong?

I make sure to keep SW:P up, I make sure tanks always have atonement & try to maintain 6- 8 atonement up at all times. Does PW: B & Pain Suppression count towards the numbers everybody seems to care about? I use Shadowmend for larger healing & Penance when not on CD. I use Smite as a "filler". I'm aware my stats aren't great..... yay iLv

TL,DR; Could anybody offer some advice, hints on rotations, and when to pop CD's etc? Both for raids and Mythic+ I do around 6-8

Thanks in advance

P.s to those who will probably say I "suck", (there's always a few out there) I'm aware, hence why I'm trying to get advice to get better.

[Deleted]

There are better ways to ask for help, and since I don't know who to play priest I'll explain to you what you can do to get better. This is not only good for today because u will not only learn how to play today, but if next expansion comes and you face the same problems you can always solve it by yourself

So fist thing is Class Discord, every class has a channel, you just need to google "priest discord channel" to find it. There the best priests in the world will answer any question you have.

Second: class sites. You can probably google priest class site and find it, but I know its name, its "how2priest". There you will find decent guides for your class. If you want the short version you go to icy veins, if you want the big version you go to wowhead, but if you want the best you go to how2priest.

Thid and last: logs! If you suck, you can compare your logs to the best priest logs, see what you are doing wrong, specially if your friends are so good they can help you interpret the logs. Maybe you are using smite too much, maybe you are not preparing for incoming damage soon enough, or maybe your stats are just wrong, whatever it is you will be able to find there.

There you go, you got everything you need to answer that question for yourself, now go and get it.

[Sunlonghorn]

I am guilty of not using the priest discord nor the how2priest site, but I do use IcyVeins. So I will check those out thank you Regarding your third point; friends/guild mates, none of them play disc nor have tried it but interpreting logs is a good idea thanks. I don't use Smite too much because the healing is quite low compared to Penance or Shadowmend. I only tend to use it in raiding when I know it's not a "stressful" encounter.

Thanks for the reply

[Deleted]

Well, as i said, I know close to nothing about discipline, I know the basics of shadow, but that's it, so I was just throwing things around. What I do know about discipline from overhearing others is that you always have to be prepared for damage, Im not sure but I think for example if u know that aoe dmg is coming, 12 seconds or so before it comes you need to start preparing attonement, and for single target maybe its 5? Well, don't take my words, I might be completely off the mark.

About the logs, if you post them on the priest discord they will help you there, but usually if you understand the mechanics behind the class you can read them quite easily

Glad I was able to help and apologies for my bad english, its not my main language

[fadedmind]

Look for focused will discord page. It has a ton of great info and you can post logs looking for insight to what you may be doing wrong. Also barrier and pain suppress do not show up on meters but luminous barrier does.

- - - Updated - - -

Personally I use 3,3,3,3,1,3,3 as my talents

Also try to aim for 2xarchive and 1xEL(radiancetrait) or 3xarchive.
There is a nice spreadsheet on focused will regarding how to rank each trait by giving them an intellect value

[krl]

Maintaining 6-8 atonements is not the right way to perform as Disc. You need to ramp-up atonements to 14+ before incoming damage: a few shields and 2xPW:Radiance, evangelism then full damage. You will get very high numbers. Outside of this, maintain low atonements (tanks...) or mini ramp-ups with a few shields and only 1 charge of Radiance.

[mccord]

If you need help with timing your burst in Uldir there's a Weakaura for that: https://wago.io/uldir_burst_timers

[griselda]

In my opinion, in order to really know how far behind your own healing is or is not---you need an addon. Please get Details (works exactly like recount) and that way you can see how below you are. It also helpful because you can track your burst-y moments better and hold on to the top healing spot once you know you are there and can keep it up.

I do agree that the style you are depicting (i.e. having X amount of atonement up) is more the legion-style way of healing and not so great right now. Your best bet is to keep 3-4 up (2 always being on the tank and the others for whoever is taking damage). You should build-up to the burst as others mentioned, getting you 10-14+ atonements out before going balls to the wall on your dps rotation.
Edit: Disc requires you to be more of aware of the fights overall and ANTICIPATE incoming damage. The timing should work out as follows: get your 10-14 atonements out prior to raid-wide damage and then go ham on your dps rotation and watch those health-bars fill up.

But ultimately, start by becoming aware of your numbers to be able to work backwards. It might be helpful to drop into a few LFR's where chances are, you will find another fellow Disco and your useful addon will help you compare the numbers. You can hover to see what the majority of the other Disco's healing is coming from and possibly adjust your talents/rotation based on that.

[quite an expert in wow]

- Get details and analyze which of your spells are healing for what percentage. I do that to for example measure how strong my trinkets are on fights.
- Log your raids, and use https://wowanalyzer.com/ to see what you can do better. They give a very clear answer per fight.

[Manos0]

wow analyzer is a big bullshit. It only analyses if u used ur spells on cooldown. For dps it may be ok, for healers i dont think so.

[krl]

wow analyzer is a big bullshit. It only analyses if u used ur spells on cooldown. For dps it may be ok, for healers i dont think so.

For Disc I look at those things on wowanalyzer: number of atonements per Evangelism, downtime, swp uptime, mana usage.

[Deleted]

Focused Will discord link is in the icy veins guide. That is the best place to go to learn. However krl did give a decent summary.

[Stallion]

Maintaining 6-8 atonements is not the right way to perform as Disc. You need to ramp-up atonements to 14+ before incoming damage: a few shields and 2xPW:Radiance, evangelism then full damage. You will get very high numbers. Outside of this, maintain low atonements (tanks...) or mini ramp-ups with a few shields and only 1 charge of Radiance.

So you need to push your healing numbers every 75 seconds with Evangelism and if you get sniped during those 10 seconds, you'll have dogshit logs, right? Not saying what you describe is the wrong way to play it (I have barely disc raid experience myself) but that's a sound conclusion then, isn't it? Because with Atonement on tanks and a Radiance here and there when it makes sense is not enough for anything but shit logs from my experience. And it sounds exactly what OP is experiencing too.

So could it be that OP is not as terrible as everyone concludes and he's just playing in a healer team with no coordination (too agressive healing from other healers during his high atonement phases which works because it's easy content and they have too many healers) and can't play the strengths of the class? Maybe he's just comparing with people who are used to having Innervates, Blessing of Wisdoms and huge raid size (30?) and naturally will do much better.

[quite an expert in wow]

wow analyzer is a big bullshit. It only analyses if u used ur spells on cooldown. For dps it may be ok, for healers i dont think so.

Give me your logs and let's see if you can't improve anything with the analyzer.

[Zka]

So you need to push your healing numbers every 75 seconds with Evangelism and if you get sniped during those 10 seconds, you'll have dogshit logs, right?

Right, but if other healers consistently snip most of your raidwide burst heals, then you probably have too many healers in the raid.

[Arainie]

You genuinely can't perform very well unless you learn the damage patterns as discipline. We excel at healing raid-wide burst damage and at predictable spot healing (debuffed targets for example), but are fairly bad at dealing with random damage and are far from the most effective tank healers. The below guides are good starting points.

https://warcraftpriests.com/discipli...healing-guide/
https://warcraftpriests.com/discipli...ide-bfa-8-0-1/

The following assumes you spec in to Schism, Power Word: Solace, Sins of the Many, Halo & Evangelism. There are a couple of fights you might not want to run Halo in Uldir, but otherwise this spec is the go-to for raids atm.

In essence playing discipline in raids boils down to knowing who, what and when to heal rather than reacting to damage. You don't have the mana pool to consistently keep 6-8 atonements up, a better guideline is to keep atonement on tanks and on a couple more you suspect will take damage. Smite is as close to free as it gets, so there's no huge downside to casting it even when there's not a lot of healing to do as long as you keep atonement on the tanks. What you really excel at is healing raid wide burst damage.

Consider for example Contagion on Vectis - it's a raid wide AoE that hits everyone for a significant amount, and it happens on a very predictable timer usually coupled with an immunosuppression healing absorb (especially if you use a boss mod, which you should for the sake of your guild). 9-12 seconds before Contagion is cast, start by applying 3-6 atonements with PW:S (you can use rapture here in some cases, but I prefer to save for transition it in the case of Vectis). Follow up by two Power Word: Radience casts, and make sure you don't cast PW:R on someone who already has atonement. Finally, cast Evangelism to extend the duration of all your atonements. You are now set up with 13-16 Atonements rolling on your raid (if you even have that many raid members!), and the next step is to do damage. If you have Shadowfiend ready, use it. Otherwise, begin your damage rotation right as incoming damage hits: Schism -> Halo -> PW:Solace -> Penance -> Smite until atonements drop or damage is healed.

To sum it up - Burst Healing: PW:S x3-6 -> PW:R x2 -> Evangelism -> Schism -> Halo -> PW:Solace -> Penance -> Smite. Add Shadowfiend to the highest expected burst phase of the fight.
Between burst healing: Keep atonement on a few priority targets (good examples: Roiling Deceit on Zek'voz and Omega Vectos on Vectis), fill with smite and offensive penance if your mana allows for it. Don't be afraid to use PW:R charges as long as you save two for any predictable burst phases.

Finally, I highly recommend this Weakaura for any discipline priest aiming to improve in Uldir (requires DBM or BW). It gives you a very good timeline to practice your ramp up and burst healing:
https://wago.io/uldir_burst_timers

[sirethas]

The biggest issue I encountered with inexperienced discipline priests is the mind set they got with this spec.
You have to realize that Disc priest is one of the worst reactive healers and one of the best pro-active healers while holy is quite opposite. This fact makes Holy spec better suited for inexperienced players, because they aren't familiar with fights and the strenght of the class so their reactive healing will have better outcome than Disc priest. To make Disc priest most effective, you have to know when you expect incoming damage in fight. This not for CD usage, it's simple matter of "Prepare your atonement at as many players as you can before damage comes in". If you start to use Radiance and PW:S after the damage has been done and then you will try to catch up with smiting, penance you will fall behind a lot because reactive healers such as holy priests and MW monks have utilities to counter these situations and you will end up overhealing.

So to put it this way, in downtime you should have your atonement on prio targets (tanks and random targets for mechanics) and then time your radiance and pw:s (rapture) usage so your atonement is on as many targets as possible the moment the raid-wide damage hits and then heal every one with your smiting and penance.

[Stallion]

I wouldn't say it's primarily a matter of wrong mindset or not understanding the class. There's so many reasons preventing you from being effective with disc, no matter how well you know the spec and time your spells. Reasons that the majority of the playerbase deals with on a daily base: If you're doing mostly PUG runs or you're in a guild without good healing CD assignments or you're doing maximum heroic difficulty where the raid doesn't drop deep enough for one healing CD to not be enough, there's always one problem: You never know when other healers will push their ae healing burst CD.
For many people it's out of thier control to have a meaningful Evangelism phase. It's not an issue of learning fight timers etc. You spend 10 seconds preparing for your big moment when the ae will hit the raid? Watch them random monks pop Revival the first chance they get to ruin your day xD

In Legion Disc was not so popular because it wasn't as widely adopted in M+. It was clear to most people that it's a tough spec that flourishes if your guild knows how to let you do your thing. That knowledge has been lost a bit with the wave of rerollers. People hear that Disc is super strong now (because it's now also great for M+) and wonder why they don't perform that well. The reality is that it still has certain requirements other than L2P which is a concept that is not so widerly known from other strong specs. That confuses people and makes them think they're worse than they are. Most specs who are in a strong phase just work well without having the raid cater to their needs.

[Deleted]

I agree with sirethas here.

My Disc is geared quite well, but mostly from PvP (which is quite a different playstyle). So as I started to do m+ this addon I struggled a loooot.
I played Restodruid in Legion which (I find) had insane healing output with very little ramp up.
As a Disc in BfA now I feel like I need to predict a lot of things plus: random, unnecessary damage is my worst enemy.
To me at least it feels like as if you can have shittons of healing output with a proper setup, plus you do ridiculous dmg BUT at the cost of something.
And to me that something is unnecessary, random damage cause your group is inexperienced for example.

What I still really really struggle with is when you have to kite, e.g. Atal'Dazar or King's Rest last week with the debuff stacking and stacking but you
having to run cause the poison from the green blobs spawns beneath you.

I would highly appreciate m+ input from you guys here cause I haven't figuered out a generic way to deal with these movement heavy situations.
Shadowfiend and Rapture maybe?

[Stallion]

I would highly appreciate m+ input from you guys here cause I haven't figuered out a generic way to deal with these movement heavy situations.
Shadowfiend and Rapture maybe?

Yep, that's often required. But sometimes you might just be moving too much though. Eating a bit of dmg from standing in something is sometimes worth the throughput you get from finishing a cast that is almost finished. Especially in Atal the green stuff is not that bad to stand in, King's Rest blobs is another story because of the slow, a poison dispelling team mate is really amazing there to allow you to do that a bit.
Also, don't underestimate Shadow Mend to deal with high group damage. When you don't have Schism ready, spamming Shadow Mend is potentially more throughput than atonement + Smite spam on five people (not 100% sure on this though). It depends on if you have Solace or Penance ready too of course and on if the Shadow Mend debuff will get cleared from further damage.

For dealing with unexpected unnecessary random damage I love Shadow Covenant. It's not ideal if you have to pick it, so you should avoid it as much as possible to not lose DPS but it makes healing so much more enjoyable. It's not that you increase your HPS a lot with it but it's about having a tool outside of atonement + standing and hard casting to counter exactly that type of damage that is so annoying. Use it as a tool to top multiple people off from 85% on the run without having to stand 2s casting Radiance. Think about two people taking some small random damage in grievous weeks and not having to use Radiance or two globals to give atonements to both and then some more to damage something.
By using it for topping people off, you often avoid the healing absorb. Last log I checked, I only absorbed 13% of the healing it did instead of 50% and it usually accounts for 7% of my HPS which is roughly the same or more than Sins of the Many would do.
It's a nice tool on certain affixes too that fall into the annoying damage category you talk about: Sanguine, Grievous and Bursting. It's satisfying to press outside of fights when people step for a fraction of a second into sanguine and there's nothing to hit or you need to drink ASAP, because you can start drinking during the global started by SC instead of having to Shadow mend first. Even better when more than one target lacks HP. You can front load some healing with it and burst the group over 90% with it to clear grievous and you have another burst ae heal to not have the group die to a clipped Bursting emergency. It's obviously so helpful in a lot of situations and I don't understand why so many people hate on it. Maybe they're just experiencing flawless runs, in that case it won't shine that much of course.