Ragnaros 10M (Normal) - Holy or Disc?

[K1LLLTH3N00B]

Right now our raid comp is

Prot Paladin, Blood DK, Resto Druid, Holy Paladin, Holy/Disc Priest, Arcane Mage, Boomkin, Combat Rogue, Frost DK, Surv/MM Hunter.

We're on our 2nd week (as a guild, we're brand new) on Ragnaros, last week we only had 30 minutes, and I'm wondering should I stay Disc for the raid cooldowns, or go Holy for improved AoE healing, especially for phase 1/2. My only concern with going Holy is that I lose my Archangel buff, so I won't be able to solo a Son of Flame during transitions. What are your thoughts? Thx

[zakaluka]

in my experience, disc is going to perform much better until you start experimenting with 2 heals on this fight.

disc AoE is very strong and more efficient than holy aoe. The only time you can say holy has 'better aoe' is if you actually need higher spikes than ~25k hps. IE, in normal mode and 3 healing, disc aoe is just as good as holy's. You'll have fewer mana issues, and lower overheal thanks to the aegis mechanic.

When you start experimenting with 2 healers, hpala/hpriest is a very strong combo. As is rdruid/hpala.

[manos]

Since you have a holy pala and a resto druid i think is doesnt rly matter^^. But i would pick disc for barrier at seeds phase

[K1LLLTH3N00B]

That's what I've been told, but it seems like in Phase 1 my throughput is kinda low as Disc, and keeping the raid topped off requires 2-3 PoH. Our resto druid is way better than I am, so it's not his fault.

[babylon]

both are fine, however having resto druid in your team, you might want to pick disc over holy.

[K1LLLTH3N00B]

both are fine, however having resto druid in your team, you might want to pick disc over holy.

That seems to be the general consensus. I'm hard-pressed to find a fight that favors Holy over Disc

[Deleted]

in my opinion both spec are almost equal in every fight of firelands expect one: Baleroc hardmode in with you never ever want to be holy over disci
barrier may be strong is some situations but so is the mana-efficiency and the aoe-healing capacity of holy wich you have the whole fight long and not once or twice in the fight

[Xenodrake]

Drop the resto druid and go holy only need 2 heals and you will notice its better that way ^_^

[babylon]

That's what I've been told, but it seems like in Phase 1 my throughput is kinda low as Disc, and keeping the raid topped off requires 2-3 PoH. Our resto druid is way better than I am, so it's not his fault.

phase 1, you can help on tanks a lot and heal raid after traps. you can pre-stack da before trap is being triggered.
only thing to remember is that poh is party-wide spell, so its convenient to make sure your groups are set correctly, ie if you cast poh on, say, paladin, then his whole party will get healed (so you could assume you want tanks in his party as well as some ranged or you and ranged dps, while melle dps stay far far out of range, so they can hit boss from behind). have druid be mobile and cover poor melle dps.

[zakaluka]

It only feels like your PoH is lagging, because over 30% of it is invisible on your raid frame. Aegis makes the next hit smaller - so while your druid is hotting up the group to full you already sniped his heals for the next pulse.

Do you use a PoH ranging addon?

Things to remember for max throughput:
-Always have mending up. Mending can really boost your spikes a LOT in some situations.
-To exploit #1, think about a situation like Lava Seeds. Consider reapplying mending 10 seconds before the seeds. Then, when the seeds pop your mending is fully consumed (almost immediately) and also magically off cooldown - pop mending again which is again almost immediately consumed. Very good for spiking.
-Abuse Borrowed Time! BT should be spent on a PoH wherever possible. PW:S has much lower throughput than PoH but PW:S->PoH has 10% higher throughput than just PoH spam. So, the common AoE rotation is like this: PW:S tank whenever rapture is off CD, then immediately PoH lowest group. Penance the tank on CD to support your tank healer since it's a very minor HPS loss to do so (that 3 stack grace improves your PoH a bit too and relieves strain from your hpally). Keep mending up. -> More PoH spam. When things get worse, stop using penance and start eating your cooldowns. When things get even worse, start alternating PW:S PoH.

All probably stuff you knew but if you favor holy because you're more experienced with it: This feels clunky and imprecise/slow compared to holy renew/coh/poh spam. But once you get used to it, you can make it perform.

-Use your cooldowns! This is the #1 mentality difference between holy and disc that people have trouble adjusting to. Any time it feels like damage is heavy pop PI or FQ, AA, beserking, whatever BEFORE things fall behind. Find some meaningful way to use barrier.


-----
A number of people have chimed in about pre-stacking DA. Many people disagree with me on this point, but it seems to me that pre-stacking DA is a tremendous manasink and doesnt get you much of anything! If you compare druid pre-hot or holy priest pre-hot to pre-stacking DA, pre-hotting is FAR more efficient. Only do it when you have infinite mana. IE: Alys.

If anyone has so much mana that they can afford to spam PoH on a full raid, they'd get a lot more from reforging some spirit to haste and going back to some lower overheal behavior.

[Ynna]

I don't think it really matters. I play Holy on Ragnaros because it's one of the only fights I can. It's a bit weird that you can't keep the raid topped off with you and a resto druid, since I'm doing that by myself. Are you letting the Druids HoTs tick, instead of just healing people up with PoH?

[Deleted]

I had been playing holy since the start of Cata and recently switched to disc to check it out again. I've yet to find one fight were holy is better than disc unfortunately. The mana is better, the aoe healing is better (even if this sounds weird to some) and the cds you can use are very strong.

For Ragnaros in P1 I've found it more efficient to use signle target heals (I run with hpala and rshaman) in order to minimise overhealing. P2 should be easy with 3 healers anyway, but even if you're struggling with the healing there holy won't help you more.

As for the adds, I found it easy to solo one both as holy and as disc. If the hammer drops very close to my add I have the hpala help me with a stun.

[Deleted]

I personally would go for disc for the raid CD in seed phase and the incoming dmg is mostly tank dmg. the druid should be able to raid heal on his own with a little help from u

[Tavin]

P1 requires very low healing and the healing it needs can be done slowly as well.

Dont care too much about p1 and meters, it will be enough for that. Just keep using pennance and shields on the tank whos currently tanking.

Your moment to shine is in p2 and even a part in p3. You'll catch up if your raid leader says your healing done/hps is low.

[zakaluka]

it's not just the raid CD, but AoE effic.

If you won't be needing 40k aoe spiking from your healers, disc performs better and lets all your healers conserve mana.

As ynna said, it probably doesn't matter much which you pick, holy works for this fight. In fact, holy might be better for p3 where you'll have to make renew/coh/mending do a lot of hard work. Being reduced to a bubblebot randomly by those meatballs of death is actually quite frustrating.

[K1LLLTH3N00B]

I guess one of my problems is that I'm not taking the Druid's HoTs into account and I try to top people off with PoH. I feel like I spend a lot of mana in Phase 1, but I can probably correct that. I usually burn to about 40-50%, pop Shadowfiend+Hymn of Hope+Fiery Quintessence so I get increased max mana to get more return on Shadowfiend and then I'm fine for mana. I've reforged all of my Spirit into Haste because I've never really had mana problems (except Domo, sub 10%). I know that on their strategy video <vodka> uses Hpally Hpriest and Rdruid, and that's my main reason for wondering what spec to play.

[Rhianne]

I prefer Disc for Rag. My guild is also running 3 healers, rdruid, rshaman, and myself. Honestly, if I had a shadow spec we'd be trying it with 2 healers, but I don't, and unfortunately, I'm the only one on our runs capable of triggering the traps.

I prefer disc for a couple of reasons:
1. Since I am the one triggering the traps that means I need more instant cast throughput, and the disc bubbles are bigger. Plus I can toss them on someone that isn't topped off immediately before I trigger them.
2. I can help kill adds during the transition phase.
3. During the seeds phase, after the adds die and we spread out I can get my 5 stacks of archangel up, and have the extra healing buff when we collapse again, the seeds are timed so you can have that extra healing every time you collapse. Plus bubbling low health people while we run.

[Verth Aeyta]

I've been playing around with this for some time and I have to say I like holy for it in some matters because light well in P2 is just nice for the tanks but then again Barrier is OP when/if you can stack before stuff explodes. *SHRUG* Go with what you want As for P1 I heal very little because I'm popping traps so we can have as much DPS on Rag during P1.

[K1LLLTH3N00B]

I'm just not sure ! We only got 30 minutes of attempts last week (had problems downing Majordomo), and tonight is our first full night of attempts for Ragnaros. We raid for 3 hours (I'm hopeful that he won't take more than 2 hours) and I just want to make the best of it with the most optimal spec. Decisions decision!

[Deleted]

trololol, DISC 4ever. Neverever use holy!

Lahe was infracted for this constructive post ~ Ultima