Discipline Priests

[kandrathe]

So I'm getting a little concerned that Priest options are really Holy for AOE Raid Healing and Shadow for DPS. I'm not sure that many players now understand much about the role of discipline priests. I think Holy priests, resto Shamans, Holy Paladins, resto Druids, and Mistweaver monks will probably all out heal a discipline priest, and Disc priest DPS is insufferably abysmal.

For reference, I've studied, crunched, and consumed this entire thread; from Elitist Jerks. From what I can tell, the discipline priests silver bullet is high spirit, and mastery, with spirit shell and prayer of healing coupled with atonement and divine aegis.

The Icy-Veins guide is an ok brief, but I think it under emphasizes our effectiveness at shields in "Tank or Single Target Healing".

Looking at the guild rosters of us and our friends (Lurkers, Emeritus, Basin, etc), there are about 20 priests at level 90 with 14 choosing shadow and the other options split about 3 each.

Then, looking in WOL at top healers by class/spec; There is this guy Maggnys who mainly heals by Atonement (side effect), Divine Aegis (auto shield buff), then Prayer of Healing -- which auto crits if you preclude is with Spirit Shell.

My conclusion is that people expect a priest to show up as #1 on the healing list, whereas my peak damage prevention does not get that much notice (where I feel discipline shines). In a raid situation, I would expect to pick up the role of damage mitigation for situations with raid wide spammed damage, not for pure healing assignments if there are healers better suited for those healing roles. I feel a holy paladin, resto druid, or mistweaver monk will be better at pure healing for tanks, and resto shaman, and holy priests are better for Raid AOE healing.

Should I abandon discipline and move to DPS shadow? And then, bring my Mistweaver up to 90 for healing? It just makes me feel kind of sad when the best advice you get is to go hit the PUGs.

[Tuftears]

I'm not sure if you can really fairly assess raid healers by what the top raiding guilds are doing. They're doing much more highly specialized raid compositions than we are, and they can rely on very exact raid execution and performance.

Disc priest DPS being abysmal is, well, kind of innate to game balance. I don't mind that Pro can do double the DPS on his priest while she's doing holy-spec'd damage, Tabbya isn't healing for the same amount that she's putting out in DPS, which would be game-breaking.

So far I'm pretty happy with Goldenpurr's (disc) performance in raids. She's usually high up there on the healing meters, often #1 which leaves me to grump about carrying the other healers, who fall off pretty fast.

If you're being outhealed by other classes, that may reflect a problem in anticipating and throwing your shields/heals. Spirit Shell/Prayer of Healing is unmatched for preventing incoming massive raid damage, of which there is a plenitude in the raid fights, so much so that it's being slightly nerfed in 5.2, but it's useless if the raid damage has already happened. For Tsulong, you can start your Greater Heal while Tsulong is casting her Breath that will greatly multiply your healing, then cast another Greater Heal and a Penance for good measure before the buff runs out. It's all about understanding the fights and setting your heals up properly, in conjunction with the other people in your healing team.

You'll have to be specific about what you feel the problems are. Perhaps post a log or two for analysis.

[Bolty]

You'll have to be specific about what you feel the problems are. Perhaps post a log or two for analysis.

I'll second what Tuft wrote here. In WoW 5.1, Disc Priests are generally considered the top overall healing class/spec due to a number of factors including fight mechanics, damage output while healing, the power of absorption, and utility. While of course healing meters don't tell the whole story, a quick look over at World of Logs' HPS rankings for Heart of Fear tell a strong tale.

I feel you're unfairly comparing Holy Priest DPS to Disc Priest DPS. Holy DPS is an actual viable DPS spec when geared for properly (not an easy task), but it does no healing while DPS'ing. Disc DPS is a viable healing role where you are actually contributing to keeping people alive while providing your raid with a DPS boost, useful for when you're running into enrage timers. No other healer can touch the DPS power of a Disc Priest while healing.

In 25man raids, when played properly and at equal gear levels, a Disc Priest will consistently top the meter on pretty much every fight. In 10man raids, there's less total domination because of the mechanics of Spirit Shell reaching its absorb limit when there's only 2 groups to heal. But Disc is strong at both AoE healing and tank healing - not the best at tank healing, but still strong.

A Disc Priest allows you to effectively ignore certain raid mechanics that would otherwise be considered dangerous, because Spirit Shell is currently radically overpowered. Any raid-wide damage effect that occurs at set intervals (so it can be predicted) can be essentially nullified by you, and you need to play to that. I'll give a few examples:

1) Blade Lord Ta'yak's Unseen Strike: every minute, the raid has to group up and take a big hit from the boss to share the damage. Spirit Shell's cooldown is one minute as well - funny that! Shield up the raid with Spirit Shell and your raid will barely feel a breeze.

2) Wind Lord Mel'jarak's Rain of Blades: every minute (funny that), he sprays the raid with large damage. Shield up the raid with Spirit Shell and your raid will barely feel a pinch.

3) Imperial Vizier Zor'lok: Force and Verve, while not necessarily coming at timed intervals, can be predicted once you know the encounter. Shield up the raid with Spirit Shell and your other healer(s) will get annoyed when there's nothing for them to do.

The challenge of course is getting the Spirit Shell up before each of these things occur, which requires intimate knowledge of the encounters and a willingness to watch those timer bars like a hawk. If done right, your logs will look something like this - notice the large spikes in Healing Done that occur at roughly one-minute intervals. That is all healing you are effectively "sniping" from other healers and leads to you topping the meter, causing all the current hate from the other healing classes/specs. What is likely happening is that you're missing those possible spikes due to newness to the encounters or unfamiliarity with the spec's strengths. But you're asking the right questions.

Are you building an Evangelism stack via Atonement healing before using Spirit Shell?
Are you then using Archangel to boost the strength of your Spirit Shell?
Are you stacking Mastery (at least until 5.2)? It's your dominant stat, and the advantage there is it's also great for Holy if you want to swap specs.

The Icy Veins guide has a number of inaccuracies. You should never use Heal as a Discipline Priest. Ever. Really. If you need light to moderate healing, get it through Atonement - Smite dem bad guys! You do damage to the enemy AND heal your raid (often the tank) AND gain Evangelism stacks all at the same time. With a five-stack of Evangelism, those are cheap casts that pack a lot of punch. Make sure you have a mod that can monitor your stack well. Its recommendation to use Renew while moving is also poor. Renew should only ever be used if you have literally nothing else to possibly cast - remember that with the Glyph of Penance and Glyph of Holy Fire (highly recommended), you can use both of those on the move to heal as well, along with your level 90 talent of choice.