So I am almost full time Disc, and I'm Aposematic's assigned raid healer, pretty much, since our other healer is a paladin. In PuG raids I also tend to do raid healing with the occasional Penance on the tank, and I've seen the same with other Disc priests.
Disc has the reputation of being the tank healing spec, and it makes sense in a way, but I feel really comfortable just bubbling everything in sight, throwing Penances and FHeals where needed and using Prayer of Mending on the tank and Renew on whoever needs it in the time I have spare. Okay, I use ProM a bit more than that, but you get the idea. And it works very well, plus I'm personally much more comfortable with this than with Holy.
The only place where it hasn't really worked out for me so far were Precious and Stinky but that's when I can speed up my Prayer of Healing with Berserking or Power Infusion and we still make it somehow.
The reason I make this thread is that I read this (I know, old) in my infinite boredom yesterday and feel that whoever is interested in priestly things should not have some silly prejudice against Disc. Because we're even more awesome than people usually think.
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Disc raid healing.Follow
For Precious and Stinky, get Renew rolling on one group and time your PoH on the other group to land behind the Decimate. (Holy Nova ftw!) I hated those guys for a while as disc in 10-man.
Raid Healing as disc is actually quite nice. You can actually be proactive and it lends itself to more planning and less "Oh Sheepdip" moments.
Raid Healing as disc is actually quite nice. You can actually be proactive and it lends itself to more planning and less "Oh Sheepdip" moments.
I agree.
I love the disc healing style, and never view myself as just a tank healer. I view myself as helping to keep the raid alive. We are able to decrease the severity of multi-person damage. Also, we make a great team with other healers who can better do raid healing because of our damage mitigation.
We do have a group heal (very useful in 5 and 10 man) in PoH. It can be enhanced in a macro with other abilities like inner focus and power infusion, plus it procs Divine Aegis bubbles for multi-person shielding. In a pinch, we also have Divine Hymn.
We can instant cast bubbles and renews on multiple people and PoM, all while on the move or flying through the air.
Standing still and tank healing only is so old school.
Edited, May 10th 2010 2:57pm by dadanox
I love the disc healing style, and never view myself as just a tank healer. I view myself as helping to keep the raid alive. We are able to decrease the severity of multi-person damage. Also, we make a great team with other healers who can better do raid healing because of our damage mitigation.
We do have a group heal (very useful in 5 and 10 man) in PoH. It can be enhanced in a macro with other abilities like inner focus and power infusion, plus it procs Divine Aegis bubbles for multi-person shielding. In a pinch, we also have Divine Hymn.
We can instant cast bubbles and renews on multiple people and PoM, all while on the move or flying through the air.
Standing still and tank healing only is so old school.
Edited, May 10th 2010 2:57pm by dadanox
Shush woman, disc is horrible, roll holy.
Just lurking around... /wave
Our healing team is a disco priest and a tree, with a Holy pally moved in for 3-heal fights. We've slowly migrated from the conventional tank-heal/raid-heal setup to some thing more like pre-hot-plus-bubble-everything-at-low-health kind of thing, with the pally jumping in to mainly spot-heal people when he's there.
I just gotta say I love those bubbles on the raid; they really give the HoTs the extra time they need to work. Meaning I can stay in my high HPET rotation more, spending less time doing less-efficient emergency spot-healing, and even throwing and extra HoT or two on the tank. Yes, please bubble the raid members, the other healers will thank you, and help you in return.
In other words, everything you guys said already...
You disco guys/gals make awesome raid healers.
dadanox wrote:
Also, we make a great team with other healers who can better do raid healing because of our damage mitigation.
Our healing team is a disco priest and a tree, with a Holy pally moved in for 3-heal fights. We've slowly migrated from the conventional tank-heal/raid-heal setup to some thing more like pre-hot-plus-bubble-everything-at-low-health kind of thing, with the pally jumping in to mainly spot-heal people when he's there.
I just gotta say I love those bubbles on the raid; they really give the HoTs the extra time they need to work. Meaning I can stay in my high HPET rotation more, spending less time doing less-efficient emergency spot-healing, and even throwing and extra HoT or two on the tank. Yes, please bubble the raid members, the other healers will thank you, and help you in return.
In other words, everything you guys said already...
You disco guys/gals make awesome raid healers.
That monster in the mirror, he just might be you. -Grover
Bubble+Penance is great burst healing.
Disc priests aren't that hot vs damage on the entire raid but spikey damage on random targets is where disc shines the most.
Disc priests aren't that hot vs damage on the entire raid but spikey damage on random targets is where disc shines the most.
His Excellency Aethien wrote:
Bubble+Penance is great burst healing.
Disc priests aren't that hot vs damage on the entire raid but spikey damage on random targets is where disc shines the most.
Disc priests aren't that hot vs damage on the entire raid but spikey damage on random targets is where disc shines the most.
Shielding a whole 10 man raid is great for raid wide damage when you know it is coming. Something like the Twins aura, not so much.
Hellbanned
idiggory wrote:
Drinking at home. But I could probably stand to get laid.
Even a 10 man it takes 10+ seconds to shield everyone and by then the first shield almost drops off again.
But for a large raidwide blow that you know is coming (like decimate) that works.
But for a large raidwide blow that you know is coming (like decimate) that works.
His Excellency Aethien wrote:
Even a 10 man it takes 10+ seconds to shield everyone and by then the first shield almost drops off again.
But for a large raidwide blow that you know is coming (like decimate) that works.
But for a large raidwide blow that you know is coming (like decimate) that works.
Shields don't work at all for Decimate since everyone's HP drops to 15% even if they are shielded, and the raid is just left with Weakened Soul. That's why it's the one thing where I tend to struggle a lot, but I've gotten better at queueing PoH early enough, and it's the one situation where I'm really glad I've got that glyphed.
Edit: Also, typically PW:S tends to be over 50% of my Heals&Absorbs in 10mans, and it even was when I solo healed Maly. It really depends on the healing style, but it's a really powerful tool and for most fights, and it's great for dealing with targetted damage such as Boiling Blood or Mutated Infection.
For most encounters it's fairly easy to predict incoming damage and shield whoever will need it soon, and on encounters where that doesn't work I only seem to come out even higher on the meters compared to other healers. :P
Edited, May 11th 2010 11:44am by Kalivha
It's simply that with shield on them people might still be low on hp but you have more time to heal them up. (thinking speicifically stinky with the AoE here)
I fully endorse this post.
One thing I'm excited about for Cataclysm is this philosophical shift toward differentiating healers by style rather than role. I don't want healers to be homogenized and interchangeable; I like that we have mitigators and hotters and nukers. But I also think each should have at least some shot at succeeding at any healing job, while just approaching it differently.
Disc and holy are so different that they often feel like two different classes to me. I think the choice between them should be at least as much about how you like to play as about what you're doing. To say that you have to spec holy to do raid healing is like saying you have to ditch your priest and pull out your druid to do it.
One thing I'm excited about for Cataclysm is this philosophical shift toward differentiating healers by style rather than role. I don't want healers to be homogenized and interchangeable; I like that we have mitigators and hotters and nukers. But I also think each should have at least some shot at succeeding at any healing job, while just approaching it differently.
Disc and holy are so different that they often feel like two different classes to me. I think the choice between them should be at least as much about how you like to play as about what you're doing. To say that you have to spec holy to do raid healing is like saying you have to ditch your priest and pull out your druid to do it.
His Excellency Aethien wrote:
It's simply that with shield on them people might still be low on hp but you have more time to heal them up. (thinking speicifically stinky with the AoE here)
Oh, like shielding them after the Decimate?
That takes 10 GCDs.
I don't think it works very well.
I mean, I shield people after the Decimate, I just want to make sure everyone's at some 30% or so before I do so, so it's more of a secondary tool to help in that fight.
Quote:
Oh, like shielding them after the Decimate?
That takes 10 GCDs.
I don't think it works very well.
I mean, I shield people after the Decimate, I just want to make sure everyone's at some 30% or so before I do so, so it's more of a secondary tool to help in that fight.
That takes 10 GCDs.
I don't think it works very well.
I mean, I shield people after the Decimate, I just want to make sure everyone's at some 30% or so before I do so, so it's more of a secondary tool to help in that fight.
Kali, stop being silly. What Aeth means is this;
*You shield 10 people*
*Decimate hits*
*Everyone's at 5%*
*Everyone has a shield so they'll die less quickly*
*You have more time to cast PoHs*
*Happiness and love all around*
The only problem with that is that on the doggy with the constant AOE, you'll only be able to effectively get 2 or 3 people shielded as any other shields you place will wear off by the time Decimate hits.
That said, if you want to do it right, you need a druid to heal those minibosses. That, or a holy priest.
I thought Decimate destroyed my shields when I tried that.
Maybe it didn't. I don't know. Can anyone actually confirm this?
Maybe it didn't. I don't know. Can anyone actually confirm this?
I can't remember if shields go away on decimate.
I was thinking about shielding for whiteout in VoA, though. Works great.
I was thinking about shielding for whiteout in VoA, though. Works great.
Hellbanned
idiggory wrote:
Drinking at home. But I could probably stand to get laid.
Speaking of VoA, a shaman there told me today to REPLACE EVERY SHIELD WITH A HEAL because I was below him on the healing meters.
He also suggested that I should use more Circle of Healing.
Thank you, random shaman, for understanding my spec.
He also suggested that I should use more Circle of Healing.
Thank you, random shaman, for understanding my spec.
Well, Circle of Healing *is* awesome...
Anyway; I can say with 99% certainty that shields do not get removed on Decimates. It's not always as obvious on the AOE doggy, but I don't ever recall them disappearing on the zombie-doggy.
Anyway; I can say with 99% certainty that shields do not get removed on Decimates. It's not always as obvious on the AOE doggy, but I don't ever recall them disappearing on the zombie-doggy.
This is a subject close to my heart as I love raiding as Disc and wouldnt raid as anything else.
Having said that over the past weeks my healing style has come into question by some, mostly people who dont know the class or its true dynamics, but yet seem to know everything about the game.
My healing style to me is pretty much what I consider to be a normal Disc healing dynamic, I wont say rotation as our spec is open to change depending on circumstance.
In 10 man ICC I'll shield everyone, cast PoM on the tank and use it everytime its up on either tank only, if its a boss fight the weaker tank will get Pain Suppression, top everyone up with Renew, only use Flash Heals on targets around 75-80%, Greater Heal on someone dropping a bit low, spam Penance when its up on tanks and anyone who needs a quick fix, PoH and Divine Hymn if things are going a bit downhill and if its all getting dire.
My shields, Renew and Penance are my friends.
On boss fights its similar but again depending on circumstance its open to change but I try to stay in my guidelines.
Comments from my now ex GM during an ICC10 run a few weeks ago mid fight on Saurfang.." gee your heals numbers are terrible tonight, whats wrong?".
I looked at Skada and I was a few hundred thousand clear of the next person in heals/absorbs and I was on top of the list.
So I message him back ???? and posted the Skada numbers up on raid chat.
He said thats heals and absorbs, not heals.
I replied I mitigate/prevent damage first and heal by topping up and where its needed second.
These are both forms of healing.
This reduces the amount to be healed by the other healers as well as myself by shielding everybody.
Say you get cleaved for 10000 damage with only 10000 health left, bang your dead.
I shield you first, absorb/mitigate 2000 damage, you stay alive, I use Penance on you and Renew and your back in the game.
He said Recount doesnt show this, no sh*t, I said you have to either get the guess-ta-mation absorbs addon for it or change to Skada which has more features.
So I then offered to group heal as Disc without shielding anyone for the rest of the raid and see how we go.
The rest of the raid crapped itself and said no keep doing what your doing lol.
This is a 6 year old guild and the GM had never seen this style of healing before.
So I /gquit, I didnt need to be told I was doing something wrong when I know I was right due to someone's lack of knowledge who thinks thier right.
If I ever lead the heals number table then theres a problem, the other healers arent doing thier job.
Its not like dps where everyone is out to get a better number than the rest, I try and work in with the healers doing what I do so its a team effort.
I was taught by a good friend here on the forums on how to heal in Disc. form.
I will never question his ability as he has been playing longer than me, he has experience and he is good at what he does.
To me that is good enough.
Then there was last night....ICC 10 first boss for the weekly.
I hadnt ran it yet as I've been busy and with the reset looming I thought why not.
So again I'am doing my normal job, we wipe because everyone is saved so thier playing alts on 4k gearscores and naturally its the healers fault.
"Some heals would be nice" was a common quote, hmm....I was in raid spec, almost 5700gs with 3k sp where the other healers were pushing 2500sp and its my fault...because I was third on the heal meters.
First on absorb/heals meant nothing....third on heals.
I asked do you know what a Disc healer does.....heal was the reply.
So I was told to stop shielding and just heal....just heal.....so I left the group.
My point here is simple, no one out there really understands what we do and how we do it apart from ourselves.
People ignorance is starting to make me enjoy playing Shadow spec a whole lot more.
I love healing and I wont change my style but god if I get one more comment I'am not doing my job and I'am low on the heals meter........
Edited, May 12th 2010 8:46am by RodStorm
Having said that over the past weeks my healing style has come into question by some, mostly people who dont know the class or its true dynamics, but yet seem to know everything about the game.
My healing style to me is pretty much what I consider to be a normal Disc healing dynamic, I wont say rotation as our spec is open to change depending on circumstance.
In 10 man ICC I'll shield everyone, cast PoM on the tank and use it everytime its up on either tank only, if its a boss fight the weaker tank will get Pain Suppression, top everyone up with Renew, only use Flash Heals on targets around 75-80%, Greater Heal on someone dropping a bit low, spam Penance when its up on tanks and anyone who needs a quick fix, PoH and Divine Hymn if things are going a bit downhill and if its all getting dire.
My shields, Renew and Penance are my friends.
On boss fights its similar but again depending on circumstance its open to change but I try to stay in my guidelines.
Comments from my now ex GM during an ICC10 run a few weeks ago mid fight on Saurfang.." gee your heals numbers are terrible tonight, whats wrong?".
I looked at Skada and I was a few hundred thousand clear of the next person in heals/absorbs and I was on top of the list.
So I message him back ???? and posted the Skada numbers up on raid chat.
He said thats heals and absorbs, not heals.
I replied I mitigate/prevent damage first and heal by topping up and where its needed second.
These are both forms of healing.
This reduces the amount to be healed by the other healers as well as myself by shielding everybody.
Say you get cleaved for 10000 damage with only 10000 health left, bang your dead.
I shield you first, absorb/mitigate 2000 damage, you stay alive, I use Penance on you and Renew and your back in the game.
He said Recount doesnt show this, no sh*t, I said you have to either get the guess-ta-mation absorbs addon for it or change to Skada which has more features.
So I then offered to group heal as Disc without shielding anyone for the rest of the raid and see how we go.
The rest of the raid crapped itself and said no keep doing what your doing lol.
This is a 6 year old guild and the GM had never seen this style of healing before.
So I /gquit, I didnt need to be told I was doing something wrong when I know I was right due to someone's lack of knowledge who thinks thier right.
If I ever lead the heals number table then theres a problem, the other healers arent doing thier job.
Its not like dps where everyone is out to get a better number than the rest, I try and work in with the healers doing what I do so its a team effort.
I was taught by a good friend here on the forums on how to heal in Disc. form.
I will never question his ability as he has been playing longer than me, he has experience and he is good at what he does.
To me that is good enough.
Then there was last night....ICC 10 first boss for the weekly.
I hadnt ran it yet as I've been busy and with the reset looming I thought why not.
So again I'am doing my normal job, we wipe because everyone is saved so thier playing alts on 4k gearscores and naturally its the healers fault.
"Some heals would be nice" was a common quote, hmm....I was in raid spec, almost 5700gs with 3k sp where the other healers were pushing 2500sp and its my fault...because I was third on the heal meters.
First on absorb/heals meant nothing....third on heals.
I asked do you know what a Disc healer does.....heal was the reply.
So I was told to stop shielding and just heal....just heal.....so I left the group.
My point here is simple, no one out there really understands what we do and how we do it apart from ourselves.
People ignorance is starting to make me enjoy playing Shadow spec a whole lot more.
I love healing and I wont change my style but god if I get one more comment I'am not doing my job and I'am low on the heals meter........
Edited, May 12th 2010 8:46am by RodStorm
RodStorm wrote:
I love healing and I wont change my style but god if I get one more comment I'am not doing my job and I'am low on the heals meter........
I'll be curious on everyone else's take on this. My thoughts are that you just happened to run into some uninformed raid leaders. I don't think there is much you can do about that except not let it get to you.
Some disc priests may be a little heavier on the flash healing and less on the renew. This is a matter of style. I'm more of a shield/ renew/ PoM spammer as well, since all are instant cast and let me refocus quickly on the tank. Dispels also don't show up as a heal on the meter, but have everything to do about being a good healer. Judging disc priests by HPS meters is just silly.
I'm a casual player, so don't spend much time in ICC. Usually I wont hear complaints in 5 mans, since nobody is dieing. I'll do a random heroic and a random regular a lot of times. The random regular gives more gold as a quest reward than a second daily heroic, and I feel like I'm helping the less geared by joining them as their healer. I'm just as happy to be not pugging raids too often.
By the way, you mentioned 2k damage mitigation in your example. My understanding is that a shield from a well geared disc priest can mitigate more like 7k of incoming damage.
Also, have a look at this thread:
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/t/21726258134/pw-shield-vote-kick
Edited, May 12th 2010 7:07am by dadanox
Mozared wrote:
The only problem with that is that on the doggy with the constant AOE, you'll only be able to effectively get 2 or 3 people shielded as any other shields you place will wear off by the time Decimate hits.
So no, shielding the entire raid is rarely useful, but Shield > PoH > repeat is pretty damn strong AoE healing as a disc priest, albeit mana intensive.
As I found out once again last night in VoA25 where we had 4 healers.
Well, a resto shaman, a healadin who only healed tanks (and not far above me in raw healing done) me and 2 resto druids both at barely over half my healing done.
Thank god for alchemy and the alchemist potions (and mine giving the wild magic buff on this occasion
) and shadowfiend as well. Edit: as far as shielding goes, I've done a bit of calculating:
Assuming a priest with 3k spellpower and 40% holy crit raidbuffed.
PW shield absorbs 2230 damage + 80.68% bonus from spell power + 40% of spellpower from talents, improved PW: Shield adds 15% on top of that and according to wowwiki all +% healing from our talent trees also increases our shields which adds another 9%.
So it adds up to (2230 + 2420.4 + 1200) x 1.24 = 7254.496 absorbed + (7254.496 x 0.2) x 1.4 = 2031.25888 healing from the glyph = 9285.75488 combined healing and absorbing done by a PW:shield.
A well geared priest would probably get 10k or more combined healing and absorbing from an instant cast PW: Shield, not bad right?
Edited, May 12th 2010 2:16pm by Aethien
Quote:
Say you get cleaved for 10000 damage with only 10000 health left, bang your dead.
I shield you first, absorb/mitigate 2000 damage, you stay alive, I use Penance on you and Renew and your back in the game.
I shield you first, absorb/mitigate 2000 damage, you stay alive, I use Penance on you and Renew and your back in the game.
Not real absorb numbers from a shield, I just used a random number for an example to make my point but you get the idea :)
Quote:
A well geared priest would probably get 10k or more combined healing and absorbing from an instant cast PW: Shield, not bad right? Smiley: tongue
My god, I'am going to quote this line everytime some nub tried to question my ability again :)
Edited, May 12th 2010 12:53pm by RodStorm
The Honorable dadanox wrote:
I'll be curious on everyone else's take on this. My thoughts are that you just happened to run into some uninformed raid leaders. I don't think there is much you can do about that except not let it get to you.
I'm pretty shocked that there are still people out there who don't know how Disc works. It's been kind of a long time since Lich King came out. But there are threads about this on the O-boards all the time. Some people still just don't get it.
Until the rest of the population and all the meter add-ons catch up, I think we just need to be ambassadors for our class. View every time someone questions you not as a personal attack, but as a chance to spread the word. Make a macro if you need to that yells "I am a Disc Priest. My job is to absorb most of the damage and heal the rest." Some people will act like asses and that is a good thing, because it's always handy to have the asses identify themselves so readily so you can begin ignoring them. But some people will get educated and pass that knowledge on.
Edited, May 12th 2010 9:57am by teacake
Quote:
So no, shielding the entire raid is rarely useful, but Shield > PoH > repeat is pretty damn strong AoE healing as a disc priest, albeit mana intensive.
The thing is, though, that this probably has more to do with the retarded OPness that is PoH than with the shields. I've tried it numerous times as holy on raid-heal intensive fights. You'd think Flash Heal X3 for Serendipity followed by a PoH would make sense for a 'rotation'. The stupid thing is, though, that I always top the meters in those fights if I just mindlessly spam PoH instead. The only problem with that is that it might run you OOM if you don't have the right trinkets (viva la soul preserver). Festergut would be my prime example here.
That said, as disc, I usually end up low on the meters regardles. If you have a good holy paladin or shaman with you then quite literally half your heals will be sniped by the haste-stacking bastards and even PW:S can't make up for that. I'd daresay I spend ~60% of the fights I do being one of the lowest healers on the meters (heals+absorbs) and the 40% of actual hard stuff I am first or second by miles. It just feels like a lot of fights are tuned in such a way that you simply won't top them as a disc priest if you've even got semi-decent co-healers. Which can be frustrating every now and then, because I spend literally more than half of IcC not pulling my weight because there is no weight to pull and have to wait for actual hard encounters to prove that I can still do it.
In my 25-man ICC run (mostly the same people, but a few pugs), I run about half the time as holy, the other half as disc. I still get an occasional comment about my healing numbers as disc, but no one that matters ever questions them. The same people that criticize my disc numbers will applaud my holy numbers.
If you ever need an uplifting moment as disc, check out Skada's healing and absorbs from Saurfang. I normally have around 35-40% of the total healing/absorbs for that fight in 25-man.
With Decimate and shields... I could have swore that the shield was busted when Decimate hits when we first started ICC, but I was running 25-man over the weekend as Holy with a Disc healing as well. It caught my eye that shields were up after the Decimate hit. I think they were pre-cast, but not sure.
If you ever need an uplifting moment as disc, check out Skada's healing and absorbs from Saurfang. I normally have around 35-40% of the total healing/absorbs for that fight in 25-man.
With Decimate and shields... I could have swore that the shield was busted when Decimate hits when we first started ICC, but I was running 25-man over the weekend as Holy with a Disc healing as well. It caught my eye that shields were up after the Decimate hit. I think they were pre-cast, but not sure.
Trylofer wrote:
In my 25-man ICC run (mostly the same people, but a few pugs), I run about half the time as holy, the other half as disc. I still get an occasional comment about my healing numbers as disc, but no one that matters ever questions them. The same people that criticize my disc numbers will applaud my holy numbers.
If you ever need an uplifting moment as disc, check out Skada's healing and absorbs from Saurfang. I normally have around 35-40% of the total healing/absorbs for that fight in 25-man.
With Decimate and shields... I could have swore that the shield was busted when Decimate hits when we first started ICC, but I was running 25-man over the weekend as Holy with a Disc healing as well. It caught my eye that shields were up after the Decimate hit. I think they were pre-cast, but not sure.
If you ever need an uplifting moment as disc, check out Skada's healing and absorbs from Saurfang. I normally have around 35-40% of the total healing/absorbs for that fight in 25-man.
With Decimate and shields... I could have swore that the shield was busted when Decimate hits when we first started ICC, but I was running 25-man over the weekend as Holy with a Disc healing as well. It caught my eye that shields were up after the Decimate hit. I think they were pre-cast, but not sure.
I'm personally always pleased with the numbers on LDW, both on 10man and 25man. Not that good on Saurfang, really.
I know what my role is and I'm not really bothered by people who don't understand Disc but that doesn't mean I don't want to get the word out. Or that I don't want support from my fellow priests. :)
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