The Egotistical Priest
An irreverent and opinionated discussion of the many classes
in the World of Warcraft gaming universe.
Discipline Thoughts
by Vonya
So, here we are, half a week into my twiddling around with the Disc spec.
I like it.
A lot.
A LOT.
To the tune of my temporary respec being permanent and our guild farming me Disc gear to replace my holy gear.
To anyone looking for more information on Disc, the comments on my previous post about Respeccing Discipline are incredibly insightful – I recommend going through and taking a look at them.
So what’s the difference?
Disc is about mitigation, Holy is about repair.
Disc is about burst HPS (Heals Per Second), Holy is about Sustained HPS.
Disc has two extra buffs, Holy has extra heals.
Disc is king of single-target healing, Holy is king of AOE healing (from a priest perspective).
Those are generalities. You’ll hear them a lot, because they’re true.
Gear
For disc, I am replacing almost every single piece of gear that I had. And I had one heck of a shiny, delicious, epic-laden holy set, let me tell ya.
But for my holy set, I concentrated on my sustained HPS . I LOVED spirit-heavy gear, and would plan out how I would dance with the FSR (Five Second Rule) to make my mana bar last even longer.
For Disc, I’m concentrating on BURST HPS – how fast and how hard can I hit the tank with a heal. That means that I am gobbling up Spellpower, Haste, and Crit like they were candy, and spirit and MP5 are taking a backseat.
This is counter to everything I’ve taught myself in BC about stats and gear, but it’s not even close to being the biggest mindset change that comes along with the spec.
I’ll post my gear list…later. When I have it in front of me. It’s not the prettiest gear list, since I hate adding links and doing javascript formatting popups and whatnot in my blog posts, but it might help a few people get an idea of where to start looking if you make the swap. My priorities were on gear that I could get immediately – badge upgrades, tailored items, and rep rewards.
Gems and Purchased Enchants
The few items that I did manage to keep from my old set are getting regemmed – my old favorite gem was a green spirit/int gem. My new favorite gem is the red pure spellpower gem.
My old meta gem is history – my new meta gem won’t be accessible to me for three more days of JC dailies – it will be the Revitalizing Skyflare Diamond, with the 3% healing crit and the MP5.
My old helm enchant is also history – my new helm enchant comes from Violet Hold and has spellcrit on it.
My old shoulder enchant is also gone, replaced with Greater Inscription of the Storm – spellpower and crit.
I used a tool called RAWR to help me work out gear values and plan out my upgrades. (I also used my long-suffering and very RAWR-knowledgeable husband, but he’s been sufficiently bribed for his efforts, I assure you)
Stats
This was partially covered in the Gear section, but I’ll reiterate for clarity.
In holy, I went for spirit first, int second, and spellpower third.
In disc, I go for spellpower first, crit (and int, since it translates into crit and scales the return from Replenishment), haste…then farther down MP5, and only THEN do I care about spirit.
It’s not that spirit’s useless, it’s just that it’s so much LESS useful for disc than it was for holy.
Which makes the fact that a holy priest can only access the Improved Divine Spirit buff by giving up keystone Holy talents for it even MORE irritating but that’s a rant for a whole nother post.
Assignments
A holy priest is MUCH more versatile in healing than a Disc priest is. This is attributed a great deal to Circle of Healing, which has an incoming 6 sec cooldown nerf, but it’s not the only reason. Because Disc priests focus on burst healing and prevention rather than sustainability, we are ideal to heal the tank – a person that you know is taking a LOT of EXPECTED damage.
Note those capitalized words? Reverse them and you’ll find what a disc priest is not so good at. When you are trying to heal someone who is taking UNEXPECTED or NOT A LOT of damage. That, my friends, is what we call raid healing – splash and aoe damage, often on random targets.
If we don’t know where the damage is going to happen, we can’t preemptively bubble, which immediately cuts our effectiveness in half. If we have to heal multiple targets, our only options are :
1) Bubble everyone. Instant cast (except the GCD)…but doesn’t HEAL them, it simply prevents a set amount of incoming damage. If they’re not still taking damage, the bubble is a waste (well, arguably, given the buffs we get and they get from the bubble, perhaps calling it a waste is a bit harsh – but it is not a HEAL capable of fixing the damage that’s been done to them).
2) HoT everyone. Instant cast (except the GCD) and has a delay before the heal part takes effect.
3) Flash Heal everyone. Takes a lot of time, even hasted.
4) Prayer of Healing. Takes a lot of time, even hasted, and only hits people near us and people in our group.
None of those is even CLOSE to as effective or intelligent as having a shaman chain heal or a holy priest CoH or a druid do…that…thing…with the leaves and the aoe healing whidgewhatsis.
Now, don’t get discouraged. I have very successfully healed five mans and some raid damage. But AOE healing is no longer as strong as it was. You’ve got to be vigilant and know your new ohcrap buttons very well, and what situations in which to use them.
Don’t think that Disc priest can’t heal anyone but a tank – that’s just not true. But any raid leader assigning a disc priest to raid healing better have a very very very VERY good reason for doing so, and if it happens often enough, that priest should almost certainly go respec holy, if only for their own sanity.
Summary
My initial thoughts on this spec are that it is more than ‘viable’ – it’s strong. It’s very strong.
It does take a mental shift of gears to get used to. The panic buttons are in all new places. The spells you use in situations have changed.
To do it right, you have to change as a healer. You have to change your gear, your enchants, your outlook, and your reaction.
It’s more than just changing a spec.
But it is TOTALLY worth it.
January 6th, 2009
I am not raiding yet, but even after some time in Disc I finally figured out the same things: i need SP, Int, Crit and Haste (I am not sure of the order yet, i find high int is helpful since it helps me regen more). I had several healing sets configured in outfitter and was trying them out before finally hitting the right combo. Once I realized to just forget regen it really clicked and was a lot more fun, plus I even had more mana at the end! It’s pretty amazing to lower your regen and end up with more available mana. I feel like a pally.
I am not sure what order they should be in though, that’s generally the order I have above:SP, Int, Crit, haste. I generally gem for Crit or SP+Crit. Though some fights esp. aoe heavy ones I find I have to put more haste on, this lowers my int and mana pool, (lowering replenishment) and then I struggle with mana but at least am fast enough to keep everyone up.
One thing I’m not sure of is glyphs. My aoe healing is poor, in 5mans with lots of aoe damage it’s tough, I end up using PoH. I am wondering if I should take the glyph of PoH – to add a small hot at the end, or the glyph of holy nova to increase my holy nova healing. Or even both (I like to use PoH then noly nova right at the end
). Right now 2 of my glyphs are flash heal (reduce flash heal mana cost by 10%) and power word:shield (when sheilding them they get healed for 6% of their health). I have the glyph to heal them when I dispell too but that’s just sitting in my bank.
I guess what I’m asking is is it worth it to use glyphs to prop up our weak areas? or should we use them to further our strong areas?
January 6th, 2009
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard how good Disc healing is, and I know that it’s been the favored healing spec for pvp for quite some time. My biggest question about Disc is: how does all that damage mitigation affect a tank that uses Rage (warriors and feral druids)? Do they have issues generating enough rage to do what they need to do? Does it hurt their threat per minute and subsequently result in the dps classes backing off so they don’t pull aggro? Or leave their rage pool low when they need to use their own abilities to survive (Shield Block for example)?
January 6th, 2009
I have never had that much of a problem with rage-using tanks, though you should not pre-shield them before a pull unless they allow it. Otherwise, while I think in-theory they will be losing a small amount of Rage from not being hit, the new changes to tanking means they get a lot of their rage from hitting thing as well. My usual tank hasn’t had any noticible loss of rage starvation during fights. (I’m only at 75, not doing heroics yet). The only thing they don’t liek is pre-shielding, and stadcking grace before a pull. That initial aggro-threat is the only time I hold back on shields.
To the Ego-priest, I’d heavily recommend the Glyph for Power Word Shield. http://www.wowhead.com/?item=42408
It makes your already powerful shields into an instant heal-spell, which us very useful for those “unexpected random splash damage” situations. The affected raid/party member gets healed for a decent amount, and they are shielded against any immediate damage, allowing you to switch back to tank heals, or another party/raid member for a few seconds. That glyph, along with the Flash Heal one, seem pretty key to a Disc-based playstyle.
Glad you enjoy it!
January 6th, 2009
@Yunk
As far as glyphs go, I try and glyph the spells I use.
Glyphs are still reasonably priced on the AH – you say you use PoH a lot? Try the glyph, see if you like it. Let’s say Prayer of Healing heals for 2k per person (because I like round numbers, aright?). Twenty percent of that is 400. 400 divided by 6 is..umm..66. Ish. So the glyph gives you 66 more heal per second for 6 seconds. I’m not sure if the glyph takes into account whether or not the spell crits.
So that’s not…SUPER impressive. But it’s not bad, really. And if you use Prayer of Healing a lot, then I’d say it might be worth getting, depending on the other glyphs available. It would certainly be more useful to you than a glyph for a spell you never use.
The holy nova glyph looks pretty shiny – who uses that for damage anyway, except for playing around? It would certainly make Holy Nova a more useful AOE spell.
I don’t have either of those. That doesn’t make them useless, it just means that the glyphs I do have (the same ones you mentioned, incidentally – Flash Heal and Shield) are far more useful to ME and the way I heal.
To directly answer your question, I personally bolster my strengths rather than my weaknesses, when weighing two things that are otherwise equal.
@Strayfe
All tanks have something that might possibly be affected by excessive bubbling. My pallytank, for example, doesn’t get nearly as many heals as he did when I was holy, so he uses his mana returning seal more often than he used to. Common public opinion seems to be that tanks don’t care – they get plenty of rage, and aggro isn’t an issue. I can’t confirm or deny this beyond having healed my pallytank, who assures me that he doesn’t care either way.
January 6th, 2009
For disc, like Kanandi said, glyph PW:S and FH. The third is up to you but glyph of PoH does more healing and is more efficient than Holy Nova and in general, you’ll find it offers more flexibility. However, Nova is extremely helpful for things like after falling from Vortex on Malygos.
A lot of the fights are a test on your sustainability so MP5 really isn’t that much “farther down” than SP, crit, and haste (e.g. Sapphiron, Kel’Thuzad, and… 4-man Heigan >.<).
Welcome to the darker side of healing.
January 6th, 2009
It amuses me just how many priest bloggers have gone Disc and loved it. Glad to hear that you’re enjoying yourself Vonya!
January 6th, 2009
I keep thinking I should respec back to holy since our guild already has a disc priest and several holy palllies, but I too absolutely love Disc and am not willing to give up Penance!
January 6th, 2009
Very good information. And it seals my decision to remain Holy. First, I’m a good healer, and I’m especially good at group healing. So I can do my raid the most good by staying Holy. (I generally have been the MT healer as well.)
But now, I know I can put one of our healadins or DPriests on the MT, with myself and a tree on raid healing, and know that we have the absolute optimum setup for our raids. No Healadin or DPriest? No problem: I go back to MT, another Holy Priest and Tree pick up the raid. Yummy!!
Thanks again for taking the plunge so I didn’t have to, Ego! <3
January 6th, 2009
@Kes
Excellent! And very well done, absolutely. There’s nothing at all saying that a Holy priest is bad at tank healing – not by any stretch of the imagination. I’ve done it for years without any complaints. *grins*
Holy is extremely versatile, and I love that people have a choice of whether or not they want to specialize!
My pleasure, good sir.
January 6th, 2009
Glad your enjoying it.
January 6th, 2009
Well, I’m glad you’re liking Disc…
I never realy have anything to say on these posts, as the only healing experiences I have was a brief dip into holy as a pally around lvl 45.
January 7th, 2009
[...] yeah, and….we converted Vonya! Hahah! Disc [...]
January 7th, 2009
Hi,
Been thinking about switching to disc and based on your comments I took the plunge.
I love Disc it’s much more along my playstyle. I’m really looking forward to reading the future adventures of my favorite priest blogger in the world of Disc.
(more about your gearing would especially be helpful)
-Darqwan
January 7th, 2009
Holy Nova’s only weakness is it’s radius. Glyphed, Holy Nova beats hands down any other group spell but un-nerfed CoH.
Check this please before you throw down Holy Nova: http://www.plusheal.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=559.
January 7th, 2009
Stats take such an important role for a healing priest ive just rerolled holy for the time being as i think i dont have enough crit.
January 7th, 2009
Aww, you got me all excited. That meta is 3% crit heal bonus, not 3% crit. IE it makes your crits bigger, not more frequent.
I may have to try this Disc thing. I’m not sure it’s me, but it sounds different enough to be interesting.
The druid shawoohoo is called Wild Growth or WG. It’s like a CoH over 6 seconds, about the same amount. I was most unimpressed at first but it’s kinda nice against small constant damage. It’s amazing at Sapphiron, I can get WG spread over 15+ people ticking gently whereas CoH would just massively overheal 5. I made 50% more healing done than any other healer at Saph last night.
January 7th, 2009
I have heard alot of good things about disc. spec priests, but this is the first time I know for sure its comming from someone who knows holy spec.
I was disc. priest from 1-70, had to go holy at 70 and never looked back. Maybe I’ll be disc. again sometime…
January 7th, 2009
Did I say 1-70? Lets go with “all the way upto 70″ instead, ok!
January 8th, 2009
First of all, hurray Vonya for switching
I, too, glyphed PW:S and Flash Heal. I took the PoH glyph too, cuz I figured if I’m using PoH, there’s party damage going on, and that little HoT at the end will give me that much more of a break while I keep the tank alive. That being said, I’m actually interested in the Nova debate, and I plan on checking that out.
I also replaced a lot of my equips with the the Frostsavage set (crafted, since I haven’t gotten into much endgame yet) which gives up spirit for stam/int/crit/sp. I lost a good bit of regen, but my crit jumped about 4% or so, which is nice considering all the crit-based procs we have.
As for rage, I haven’t had anyone complain about that in a long while. I don’t ever see warrior tanks having rage problems while I’m shielding them.
_Misa
January 8th, 2009
So, looks like disc priests gear using the same principles as shadows. Yay for me, looks like I won’t be needing two full sets of gear when dualspecs come out, just some better itemized stuff without +hit
January 8th, 2009
So Discipline gears exactly like a Holy Paladin?
Interesting.
Sadly, I’ve yet to see Discipline in action since my two favorite priests are Shadow / Holy.
January 22nd, 2009
[...] to use my “PRIESTLY KNOWLEDGE” to prove him wrong. Turns out I was the idiot. As Vonya so nicely pointed out. Discipline is about Mitigation, Single target healing and alot of [...]
January 26th, 2009
Very interesting comments all, thanks…
As a current holy priest @ 70, I think a switch might be in the cards for me, if nothing else just to keep me amused.
One question I have — for any Disc priests that are usually out soloing (I know, I know…) or doing 5-mans, what is your typical damage face-melting rotation?? Is it different from the usual Holy build of HF, smite, smite, smite, SW:D/wand-to-death?
Thanks! Keep up the great work!
–Jas
January 27th, 2009
@ Jfurrer
I just specced to disc a 74 to try it out for s few levels but I was holy from 1-70 with a very small week of disc in there to try it out o pvp but I just wanted to say your dps rotstion wasnt mine. As lolsmite which I was for 70-74 I’d cast – holy fire -innrfocus if up- swd – swp- dev plague (smite if sol triggered) MB – swd probl up again and then smite if mob alive/dot tickwouldnt kill
Now I throw penance in BANG BANG BANG i attsck youwith balls of light — not sure whats th effective thig for disc yet sill fiddling.
But yeah I tend to use swd early and as often as i can. Msybe i’m spoilt by playing my spriest as well…