WotLK Disc Priest Guide

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Originally Posted by Spiritus

When I mean stacking haste, I mean on gear choices, not gemming. Once you reach a comfortable regen level, then you should be gemming SP as Disc. I would also recommend MH/OH. The haste level I have is all from gear.

As a note, there is absolutely nothing wrong with FH. The GH build has only become marginally viable with T9 level gear and is still relatively untested. It is an option however and would theoretically provide an HPS increase. I think some fights would favor FH and others would favor a properly spec'd/geared GH.

EDIT: Of course, with the T10 2pc, this may become a moot argument.

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Yeah, i wasn't about to go running around with a full set of haste gems on gem ;-) I'm just the only Cloth wearer in guild at the moment (We have 14 guild members, we all attend a lot of raids per week.) so i have picked up quite a few items with haste, obviously i'm wearing the crit ones at the moment.

I know Flash Heal is most probably the best option, it's quick, benefits from the talents in the disc tree and is probably the way the developers want Disc to be played. It was more of something i wanted to attemt. I gave it a shot in VOA last night, not really much of a test since that place is a breeze anyway. I did however find that Greater Heal just generaly feels very horrible to cast. Flash Heals can be cast really easily on the move, where as with Greater Heal, i feel i have to set up camp to cast it lol.

So i'll probably end up sticking with Flash Heal and possibly throwing a couple of Penance > Greater Heal combos with the haste from the shield.

It is nice to discuss these things though =)

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Originally Posted by Tahriel

Flash Heals can be cast really easily on the move, where as with Greater Heal, i feel i have to set up camp to cast it lol.

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i go make a drink when i'm casting it...

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Originally Posted by Tahriel

It is nice to discuss these things though =)

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:D it is isn't it :D

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Originally Posted by Tahriel

-Goomba - I find my healing on Faction Champs is terribly low, i throw a couple of shields and some PoMs around, but other than that, i try to mass dispel a decent amount, i find dispelling is actualy much more powerful in that encounter than actual healing. I expect you're doing a lot of dispells also?

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yep....raid lead that night had the paly doing dispels and me doing more heals.....we wiped 4-5x and I just couldn't adjust.....I am tempted to debate the strategy (my mass dispel is spec'd to be almost instant cast and costs very little mana, and is one of only 2 mechanics that can dispel the shield the paly put on the shamy we were targeting)....but regardless, I've found that moments like this indicate a weakness in what i'm doing, and I want to address it....I'm starting to think that throughput is something I need to look at more closely....I think I've become too dependent on shields....

the last 25man champs I went to I ended up doing 80+ mass dispels.
(I only remember because it was an amazingly high amount)

and in that situation thoughput does not matter, as disc mass dispels are pretty amazing, I cannot see the reasoning of putting a pala in the dispel position over a disc priest!



anyway,

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I think I've become too dependent on shields....

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well i dont know what to suggest, sure penance is a brilliant spell but obv cant be used for the thoughput because of the c/d, shields are what we do, after that its just being ready for damage with renews on people, and then you might as well turn holy.

its about using them wisely, shield and then whatever spells you can get out while you still have the 25% haste buff.

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Originally Posted by Goomba

yep....raid lead that night had the paly doing dispels and me doing more heals.....we wiped 4-5x and I just couldn't adjust.....I am tempted to debate the strategy (my mass dispel is spec'd to be almost instant cast and costs very little mana, and is one of only 2 mechanics that can dispel the shield the paly put on the shamy we were targeting)....but regardless, I've found that moments like this indicate a weakness in what i'm doing, and I want to address it....I'm starting to think that throughput is something I need to look at more closely....I think I've become too dependent on shields....

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What you forgot is mass dispell and dispell also offensively cleanse...

Shields are still the biggest throughput we have but I think your example was just a bad play on the strengths of your raid priests can remove everything but curses and poisons which aren't that important in FC but you notice heavily when defensive and offensive dispelling are lacking. Paladins can't offensively dispell so unless your shaman is on the ball you screw your raid by focusing on healing.

Disc healing on that fight is very good despite mechanics shields will still give the time for heals to land and at an 8k mitigater per GCD who is complaining. If a target is really low I will follow up with a penance unless a dispells are urgent.

Realise too that if dispells go wrong it can cause a chain of events that lead to players deaths. As priests we simply rock at removing multiple effects.

Yes you can heal FC np but you are better off dispelling then shielding->healing which is what disc shines at.

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Originally Posted by Spiritus

When I mean stacking haste, I mean on gear choices, not gemming. Once you reach a comfortable regen level, then you should be gemming SP as Disc. I would also recommend MH/OH. The haste level I have is all from gear.

As a note, there is absolutely nothing wrong with FH. The GH build has only become marginally viable with T9 level gear and is still relatively untested. It is an option however and would theoretically provide an HPS increase. I think some fights would favor FH and others would favor a properly spec'd/geared GH.

EDIT: Of course, with the T10 2pc, this may become a moot argument.

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To your edit: ICC might make this a moot point if the dodge reduction aura is as effective as they hope it will be.

A fast GH will outperform a pumped FH for disc when FH won't cut it and you specifically gear for GH. If they balance the required throughput to more smaller hits then the stopcasting that GH supports won't be as necessary allowing more of the GH-required spike damage to be handled by Penance.

Combine that with the 4pc T10 bonus. 2pc T10 will probably make GH as disc moot. The 4pc T10 bonus will bury it IMO.

I can somewhat confirm that priest shielding does prevent blood power and to an extreme extent. After a 10m raid yesterday, I was assigned to shielding Blood boils, and with each shield I popped a pennance and some flash heals to keep devine Aegis up at all times (I have an aprox. 40% crit with raid buffs so almost every pennance pops at least a 1.5-2k+ shield) This worked to such an extreme extent that we did not recieve even ONE mark of the champion.

any chance of a disc pvp guide from the greats?

Thanks soooo much for such an informative guide!

good guide i agree to most of it... there are some stuff i dont use as much as some do like renew and GH but mostly as you said in your guide and some1 repeated later it's essential to keep aegis stacked to 10k absorb if you have the chance

example... i use pw:s, penance and some flashes be4 fight starts to help other healers position them self (gives them more time)

i saw some posts about having issues with mana as disc? you dont use shield often enough then and have 2 low intelect
mainly all disc mana regen is from pw:s and replenishment...
i used intelect to buff up my crit rating instead of pure crit so i rarely even use shadowfiend IF we have some1 with replenishment

also a good way to get mana is to use "hymn of hope" ... when it ticks once you need to cancle it ofcourse else you waste 8s of healing time.. it gives you 20% mana boost for 12sec (almost full replenishment time) which means your mana gain ticks are higher then normal (but this is risky or even impossible to use on some fights so i'd recomend using it only when you are 100% certain tank wont die if you do that)

haste is also really nice once you got crit and mana high enough but not worth gemming it

and spirit.... what are you? a warlock?! get that spirit gems away!! :P

well that's how i play my priesty atleast hope it helped some1 keep on the good work!

PS: blame rogues for everything you do wrong and look at pallys QQ about OUR bubbles for once :)

Fantastic guide Aliena! I pretty much agree with everything youve posted.

to Faithpriest: If discpriest ooms, person must be using too much PWShields than "not enough" of em. (remember the rupture CD)
Hymn of Hope doesnt give you extra mana from replenishment, you will lose that mana gained the same second that buff wores off. If you want mana from HoH, best to use it with BT and it will be cast within 6secs.

-Sim

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Originally Posted by Simnalier

Fantastic guide Aliena! I pretty much agree with everything youve posted.

to Faithpriest: If discpriest ooms, person must be using too much PWShields than "not enough" of em. (remember the rupture CD)
Hymn of Hope doesnt give you extra mana from replenishment, you will lose that mana gained the same second that buff wores off. If you want mana from HoH, best to use it with BT and it will be cast within 6secs.

-Sim

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Hymn of Hope gives extra mana back from replenishment and shadow fiend by increasing the maximum mana for a time. Since both of the other effects give mana based on the % of mana, during the time it is increased by HoH both other effects will be returning mana based on the new value and thus provide an increased mana return then what they would normally. That mana isn't lost, only the mana increase from HoH is lost. For example, if you had 100 max mana, Hymn increases it to 120. For the duration of the hymn, shadowfiend and replenishment return mana as if you had 120 max mana, instead of the normal 100. When hymn ends, you go back to 100 mana max, but the mana gained from shadowfiend and replenishment stay.

Source: Amamaeth

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That mana isn't lost, only the mana increase from HoH is lost.

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My simple math-head says that you would lose the managain, but if ppl can confirm these mechanics im more than happy :)
Time to hit SF & HoH at the same time!
Any thoughts about HoH glyph?

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Originally Posted by Simnalier

Source: Amamaeth




My simple math-head says that you would lose the managain, but if ppl can confirm these mechanics im more than happy :)
Time to hit SF & HoH at the same time!
Any thoughts about HoH glyph?

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It's simple. HoH increases our max mana by 20% for it's duration. We'll assume, for sake of argument that we don't get any of the 3% mana ticks from HoH and that they went to someone else.

Since we wanna keep numbers nice and clean, we'll also say our starting mana is 100.

So, 100 * 1.20 (that being a 20% increase) = 120 max mana.

Now taking this from Wowwiki.com:

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The Shadowfiend grants up to 11 hits per use, although this number is usually 10. Its attack speed is 1.5 and it has a 15 second duration. It is rare but possible for it to get one final attack as it expires if it spawned adjacent to your target.

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We'll say the shadowfiend hits 10 times, each hit giving 5% of the priests max mana back. Easy math there says it will give 50% of the max mana back assuming all hits land (lets assume they do).

So if we had 0 mana, without HoH we would have 50 mana out of a max of 100 using shadowfiend.

Now hymn of hope only lasts for 8 seconds. Since the fiend lasts 15 seconds but hymn only lasts 8 we have to calculate how many hits the shadowfiend would get before HoH expires. Fortunately it's pretty easy to see that it would be just above half, and since it's impossible to get less then a full hit, the shadowfiends last hit while under hymn should be it's 5th. So that means 50% of it's mana gain will be under hymn, which is 25% of our max mana.

Now the math part. Since our max mana for 5 of the hits would be 120, we find 25% of 120 (this being the amount of mana the shadowfiend restores) which would be 120 * .25 = 30 mana restored. Now for the other 5 hits at normal mana, 100 * .25 = 25 mana restored. Add these together and you get 55 mana restored in total.

Now, here's the part I think you are confused about. After HoH expires, your max mana is reduced back to normal, but this is only taken from the max, so you'd go from 55/120 to 55/100. Without using HoH you would be 50/100.

EDIT: If you are looking for proof that the max mana is the only thing that is reduced, all you have to do is read the ability where it states it increases your maximum mana by 20%. Obvious that when it ends, you would lose the maximum mana, not actual mana :P You can also read various comments on sites like Wowhead.com where people have tested it. It works as I described above.

What is the best way to keep track of Prayer of Mending? bc i cant seen to figure it out on grid to keep track of it.

During Plague Wing in ICC today I decided to check and see how much my Shield absorbs. I currently have the PW: Shield Glyph so I started with that heal. Unbuffed, due to a Stinky wipe Decimate + "Stinky Fart Ability" = Raid wipe, it healed for 1550. With the math it turned out my shield absorbed 7350. To me that seems really really low. Granite my Spell Power is 3032 with Innerfire. Raid Buffed and I decided to put Sliver Of Pure Ice on the glyph healed for 1775(8875). Is my math right? I thought i finally got my shield to take a 10k hit. Does Borrowed Time take the Absorbed into factor? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Ty in advance.

@Espers:
Here is the link for wowwiki: http://www.wowwiki.com/Power_Word:_Shield
Under the Formula section is how you calculate the absorb amount from PW:S
I currently have a macro with that formula that I check once in a while to see what my current absorb is.
(My SP is 3215 self buffed and absorb amount is 8092.2 atm)
Here is the macro:
/script DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage('Absorbing for: ' .. ((2564 + GetSpellBonusDamage(2) * 1.2068) * 1.05 * 1.15 * 1.04),1,0.5,0)
You can use this macro exactly if you have max talent points in those referred to in wowwiki under the Formula section.

@killuaz:
I have my PoM as the Bottom Right indicator in my grid.
/grid config
Frame -> Bottom Right Corner -> check Buff: Prayer of Mending.

Now if you dont see PoM as a buff in the list, you need to add it manually. To do this, follow below:
/grid config
Status -> Auras
Type in "Prayer of Mending" in the Add new Buff box and hit enter.
This will add PoM to your buff list below.
Remember to check that it is enabled and config it the way you want it (Colors, Prio, etc)

Good day to all the disc priest out there!

Was curious to see if anyone has gotten the 4 piece T10 yet and switched out Glyph of Penance for anything else? Orginally the 4 piece bonus did not look very appealing at all, since it was really only cutting out 2-3 secs on Penance. But with some further research, once you have attained the 4 piece bonus, others are saying to switch out the Glyph of penance for one of our other handy glyphs(such as PoH, etc) I have been spending my badges on the other pieces because I was not looking far enough ahead into this fact.

Any input/suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated =D This will help determine what to aim for next, and might also provide more insight into this being a good thing to do.

Thanks for your input-----Parrish

I have the 4pc. It's a little better for COH than Penance. I'd go with the Prayer of Healing glyph also. It's really good and gives that extra bit of AOE healing that disc spec could benefit and close in small gaps here and there when there's less raid healing from other classes.

Got my 4-set also, havent played holy for awhile, but arent both of those set bonuses really really crappy for holy?? i mean, do holy priests use FHeal at all in IC25? Isnt renew spamming the way to go?

For disc, i wouldnt swap that penance glyph for anything. For some reason 4-set bonus seems to proc very rarely, doesnt feel like 1/5 even... thought it was better. 2-set bonus stacking is quite nice when spamming MT, i got like 5-6k ticks from that HoT while healing MT in battleship encounter.