Disc Priest Raid Healing

***This thread is intented for people who currently are not part of a harcore raiding guild. This is intented for casual preist raiders that never know if they are raid healing or tank healing in a raid and share my agrivation of having to keep 2 healing specs to get the jobs done. ***


Hi Everyone,

I have been searching on the net and through the forums for tips on raid healing as a disc priest without much luck. So I decided to start this thread for those of you that despise that a versitile priest needs 2 healing specs (if your in a guild like mine you never know what role you need to fill).

Firstly the reason I have chosen raid healing in Disc spec rather then tank healing in Holy spec is simply because I personally have trouble managing my mana pool healing tanks when holy.


Let me outline some things I use as my main tools.

1. PW:S - During periods were no damage is being taken I try to keep this up on all raid members I am healing. This usually works until things get going and DBM is freaking out.
2. Borrowed Time - This is your best friend when people are taking random damage (anything that is not constant AOE on the raid). You PW:S 1 person and use Flash Heal on another.
3. PoH - This is my favorite healing spell. First off you need to make sure to cast a PW:S to get the Borrowed Time buff (On my priest this makes it a bit under a 2 sec cast). I don't recall the exact numbers but the heals it provides are pretty sufficient. The amazing thing is the multiple Divine Aegis that will proc. The biggest problem with this spell is that it can be a bit of a mana hog if your DPS are lacking and fights with AOE are a bit long.
4. Penance - I usually use this only if I get into trouble and need to bring someone back from near death. This works great on clothies because most have ~20k-25k health and I get about ~15k out of the spell.
5. PoM - This is extremely useful again for its ability to Proc Divine Aegis. Unfortunately I usually forget to cast it, which is a huge waste because its 5 free heals.

So your probably wondering about Pain Supression and Grace. I find that these are pretty wasted on raid members and I usually try to keep Pain Supression up on tank as much as possible.

I must be honest that according to Wow-heroes I am raiding in my target level (yellow bar) and I have yet to have anything I cannot raid heal in Disc.

I am really hoping that this thread will get some conversation started because I think I have some value to offer and I hope I can learn some things from some other Disc raid healers out there.

First off, I must say my guild is not as "hardcore" in raiding as I would like it to be due to others just not caring enough, although I would love for it to be more raiding intensive.

Second, I dont know whether this is supposed to be an advice thread or not? but anyway I would say that only using penance as an "emergency" spell is not very good advice OR practice. Along with PWS this is one of our best spells.

Playing disc is like playing a lvl 60 priest IMO. Don't need like amazing analysis to play it.

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Originally Posted by backpacky

Penance - I usually use this only if I get into trouble and need to bring someone back from near death. This works great on clothies because most have ~20k-25k health and I get about ~15k out of the spell.

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Penance is good to periodically shoot at the tank for the purpose of proccing inspiration, assuming you don't have another priest or a shaman doing the job. Penance is amazing, sure, but don't hesitate to use it simply because of the cooldown.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by backpacky

PoM - This is extremely useful again for its ability to Proc Divine Aegis. Unfortunately I usually forget to cast it, which is a huge waste because its 5 free heals.

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Have you looked into getting a cooldown monitor? I use OmniCC and I found it really helped with reminding me to cast PoM.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by backpacky

I usually try to keep Pain Suppression up on tank as much as possible.

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I think this is a bad idea. You never know when something horrible is going to happen and you're going to need it. It's not like Power Infusion where it simply ups someone's DPS, you're talking about a shield wall--not something to be used casually on cooldown.

On that note, I think Power Infusion is worth mentioning. It's handy to identify a high DPS caster (who tends not to die a lot) and create a macro to PI him/her. Having the individual spell out to PI someone else in case of a death is also handy, but it's not something I personally have keybound.

I was really hoping that this thread would foster discussion around disc healing mechanics outside of their usual pigeon hole.

Liliyah TY for pointing me at OmniCC I will give that a try.

A for penance I agree that it should be cast on the tank periodically. However, for raid healing as a Disc priest I find it more usefull as an Oh-Expletive heal. The reason for this is that I can heal around 5K per tick of penance which is ~1/5 of a DPS's health (assuming they run between 20K and 25K health).

Disc raid healing is all about PW:S. Sure, you keep ProM on CD, flash heal filler, penance for burst, and BT/PI PoH for group healing, but really you shine in preempting damage and providing a buffer for cast time DHs and HoTs from other healers.

Take NRB.

For example, Gormok. You know he is going to stop the melee. Put shields on all of em before the timer is up. Someone gets targeted with a fire bomb? Shield em. Someone have a snowbold on their back? Shield em. Tank about to take an impale? Shield em.

Worms? Shield the melee at all times. If they get hit with the fire debuff, you will more than likely save lives more than any other healer can. If you don't have a B&S Holy Priest, shield people with the poison debuff.

Icehowl? Save ProM for his cone. Soon as he turns and targets someone, blast a ProM on em, and shield everyone caught in the cone. Stomp coming up and there are a few people dangerously low (for some reason)? Shield em so they don't die from the knockback.

Of course, with all the shielding your doing (having BT up almost constantly), and a healthy amount of haste, PoH is a great group heal tool that is relatively fast and efficient. Flash when shield isn't needed. Its cheap.

As a disc raid healer you want SP, SP, more SP, and enough haste to drop your GCD to 1sec with BT. If you need regen, INT is your game. Crit is relatively worthless to chase because it has 0 synergy with PW:S (with a very minor application on the glyph). You'll have plenty of crit from INT, buffs, and tier if you pursue a 4pc.

Being a good Disc raid healer will broaden your horizons on how to play Disc. Its often not the best option. Disc tank healing is very, very nice and should be your primary duty. Understanding how to raid heal as Disc, however, is important. A Disc priest who knows all the tricks to raid healing can almost trivialize fights like DBS.

I seem to feel like raid healing as Disc helps train me to be on my toes. If you're teamed with strong HOTs or big AoE throughput in 25man raids, you can be very valuable to deal with individuals that are in a bad spot. A well timed PW:S can give any other raid healers lots of time to deal with someone who stands in fire a little too long or gets a spike up their butt. If you're not using penance on a tank then it's a pretty strong big heal/HOT for those same folks. The biggest benefit it the quick reaction you can provide with an instant PW:S and a Borrowed Time Penance coming right after. That's a solid spike of Absorb+Heals on one person in a very short amount of time. Very few other healers can deal with surprises so quickly and easily.

I won't argue that I'm not more beneficial to the team overall going Holy to raid heal in most fights, but if you're Disc out of preference or necessity, you can certainly be of service in that capacity, especially when there are more than two healers.

Disc priests are fine as raid heals: so sayeth the casual raider (me).

Always keep pom up renews up and sheilds cast rotations should be nothing but penance and a few flashes... everyone has a different play style tho. but i do think u should reconsider the value of penance ;)