Disc Priest/RL in need of help

[Thorall]

First and foremost I'd like to preface this with currently my "extremely" casual raiding guild is 2/8 normal...

I've been reviewing logs that I started taking today and I'm hoping that someone can tell me why my guild is /facetokeyboard every time we hit Zon'ozz. We play kick ball just fine 7-5-blood (dead raid) first CD is Barrier (me) with Hymn (holy priest) 2nd CD is my Hymn w/BT for extra haste with Holy pally doing holy raidence. We usually 1 tank Zon'ooz with the same heals week to week and we've been wiping like this for over a month.
We seem to have the same issue (no log) on Yor'sahj when the slimes are Red,Green,Yellow. I just don't see what I'm missing as I've just started with this logging process.

Secondly as a disc priest in this raid I'm debating gem/reforge to Haste/mastery attonement/PoH spam at times vs. full mastery with SoS spec anyone have a hearty suggestion on this idea. EJ forums are a nice read but i mostly see 2/8-7/8HM preists talking there and I'm not really standing in that ring taking swing if you know what I mean.

As I said in my preface we are "extremely" casual raiding on sunday afternoon. Any constructive criticism will be accepted but please don't flame my guild up and down because there was a 5% nerf. I'm really just trying to find out whats the issue in the raid. We usually 1 tank Zon'ooz with the same heals week to week and we've been wiping like this for over a month.

I hope the log link works theres 4 wipe attempts on Zon'ooz was really more like 8
but try #3 was the best and one thing that I did notice was that try number 3 was they only one where a beacon was used.
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/6d2we9pg4l197q4q/

[Cerebrete]

From a cursory glance at your logs it looks like the phase of the fight which is giving you the most difficulty is the beach ball ping pong ultra pro tennis match :P Since your tank keep dying during that phase as the healers start lagging behind in healing.

Since the enrage timer in normal isn't much of a consideration and you are highly unlikely to hit it; I would suggest reducing the length of the ping pong phase in favor of more aoe burn phases. I would suggest letting the ball bounce off your melee only once (ranged twice, i.e. ranged->melee->ranged->boss). This will reduce the amount of healing that the tank requires and make your job as healer incredibly simple. The only real consideration you will have is dealing with the aoe burn phases.

On that note: you said that you've been chaining multiple raid CDs to keep your group up; this shouldn't be necessary. You should use one CD per aoe burn and only use a second if it is entirely necessary. If you keep spamming PoH through that phase you should be fine.

Finally on the note of your spec. I can personally recommend using the smite spec and forging into Haste over your other two green stats. Use smite in the ping pong phase and the "smart heal" mechanic should target your melee and tank very effectively, and when it comes to the burn phase you should be able to use arch angle to great effect while spamming PoH (ofc don't forget about penance and PoM). It's important to keep in mind that spirit is also only useful up to a point (you should have roughly 2.7k MP5 during combat) and should then be forged to haste (mastery is nice but it doesn't scale as well as haste does with PoH, remember that Divine Aegis stacks!). Also remember that Intellect is by far the most powerful stat you have and you should gem everything into intellect except in cases where you would gain 20 int or more from a socket bonus or you are fulfilling the meta gem requirements (meta gem should be int and increased mana pool).

[Theotherone]

I took a quick look at your 3:30 and your 2 min try and your Pally healer is way down on the meter. Based on the spells it looks like he/she is spamming Holy Radiance and Divine Light, I'm betting he/she is oom by the time you wipe - I see no Holy Shock in there, no Word of Glory and no Light of Dawn. When you're stacked up Light of Dawn can be a nice mana free AoE heal that had a chance to consume no Holy Power.

I heal DS on a Pally (we're only 1/8 Heroic so we're pretty casual too) and just a few things I do. During the first part of the fight there is little reason to use Holy Radiance. Holy Shock to proc an Infusion of Light and gain Holy Power, then Word of Glory as a mana free bomb on the tank or whoever needs it. I mean some HR is fine but there's not a lot of AoE healing at that point, it's really just single target for the most part. Then when you stack, Holy Radiance and Light of Dawn, make sure the Pally is near the back of the pile to get the full effect of the LoD cone heal; also, make sure you take advantage of you Pally's Aura Mastery as a cool down - I keep Resistance Aura up for this purpose, even though we do run with a Shadow/Disc priest.

I've found the biggest issue is keeping the tank up right after the first stack phase; the Psychic Drain hits pretty hard, your tank is going to need his/her cooldowns at that point to help out the healers.

Your dps is good, if you pick up the healing a bit you should be fine.

[Blue]

Sorry--at work, and can't look at the logs. However, I could offer suggestion, as Disc priest...

When the ball is about to hit the boss, hit your tank with your single target damage reduction cooldown...it's a very vulnerable time, damage-wise, as the pally healer, if working inside, with the melee, will be moving out of the way, and may not be throwing a heal, at that time. You may even consider having the pally healer (or yourself, if inside) position away from boss a little earlier than the melee...depending on your raid makeup, and number of melee, etc., of course.

Also, try to ensure that the tank uses his cooldowns, at that time, too. Sometimes that !@%#*! ball will head for the tank, or make the tank share damage with the boss...don't know if it's a bug, or just random.

It sounds like your stack phase is ok, as far as healing--I use barrier, for the first one, then Hymn, for the second, with our druid healer using AOE cooldown, on third...we have a Shammy healer, on the inside, for melee/tank healing. I use atonement spec, but, having gone through a lot of what you seem to be describing, I did try alternatives, which didn't seem to make much difference. I do recall forging more Mastery, at about that time, though. Smiting/Holy Fire worked, during ping pong phase, along with penance and PoH...penance actually saved the tank, on more than one attempt, during that last bounce before stacking, too.

Good luck, and keep whittlin'!!!

[Thorall]

Thanks for the input everyone I took a more in depth look into things and really the tank getting spiked down shouldn't happen like it did. I was in melee with the pally and would try to shield penance and mend then move but to no avail. Without beacon on the tank thats just lost healing and truthfully just time wasting for people. at this point I'm debating just swapping to holy for raid healing don't know we'll see. I did test out AA spec all week so we'll see sunday.