PVE Discipline Usage, Tips, & Tricks

Messaggio di Samanosuke

Disc priest is not about big heals, it is about reducing the amount of damage that is received to create a better "pace" for the main healers and to support the group.

Holy is about raw healing output and will almost always surpass a Disc Priest on heal charts. Do not be swayed. A Disc priest is able to more effectively prevent death, not by raw healing, but by precise saves through PW:S and Penance.
-Shielding party members that are about to die buys enough time for either you or the main healers to bring them back up.
-Penance can completely recover a member to full HP.

However, to say that Disc does not posess strong heals would be incorrect. Penance and Flash Heal when combined with Divine Aegis procs produces Heals that could be considered on par with Holy if not better.
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BUILD:

For level 80, I would personally go with:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bVcbuhhVRIsffRtcgzc
Healing Focus or Spell Warding are good fillers,
Divine Fury only upgrades Greater Heal and decreases cast time of smite/holy fire to make questing less painful.
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GEAR:
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*****Please look at post later in thread for pre-raid Gear "wishlist".****
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Gear should focus on....

Spellpower > Crit >=Haste>= Int > MP5 > Spirit > Stam

Patch 3.1:
Due to a series of changes for Disc, specifically, Soul Warding, Enlightenment and Glyph of Penance. Disc is not nearly as COOLDOWN based as it used to be. Now, the primary limiter on Disc output isnt the long recharge time of its spells (the old: 4sec on PW:S, 8 sec on Penance) but rather the speed at which these spells can be cast.
Haste has gained favor as one of Disc's stats as it will
1) Decrease the time of your GCD (can recover from casting PW:S faster)
2) Increase your cast speed for faster casts of Penance.

Int and Crit will both help you generate more crits for penance resulting in bigger heals/divine aegis proc, and to generate glyph of PW:S crits.
Having a larger mana pool also gives more mana back because return is based on % of max. (i.e. shadowfiend and Replenishment). At 20k mana, you are looking at around 250MP5 from replenishment alone.

Spirit should be avoided because a Disc priest receives no benefit towards their spells from it and because very little time is spent outside the FSR.

For minimum entry stats for 25man Naxx, try and shoot for.
1600 Spellpower
25% crit
220 MP5 while casting
20k mana
1000 int

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GLYPHS:

Major
1) Glyph of Power Word Shield It is also extremely useful so you can see how much your PW:S is contributing. PW:S does not show up on heal charts, but the glyph of PW:S heal does. If you multiply your Glyph heal amount by 5 you can judge more or less how much it is doing.

2) Glyph of Penance 20% reduction in CD on the cheapest and most powerful heal in Disc's arsenal if not the entire game? Yes please.

3) Glyph of Flash heal **This is required**

Minor
1) Glyph of Fading Cheap is always good.

2) Glyph of Fortitude Cheaper is always better.

3) Glyph of Levitate Free is always best.

Minor glyphs are kind of up to the player, but from personal experience, my shadowfiend hardly if ever dies and +5yds for shackle is hardly noticeable.

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FINDINGS:

1) Power Word :Shield and Divine Aegis currently DO NOT show up on heal meters/charts.
2) Penance can be used to refresh Grace before it actually wears off and also gives the target a full stack of 3 Grace in 1 cast.
3) The heal effect from Glyph of PW: Shield CAN crit.
4)The dmg reduction from Grace and Blessing of Sancuary STACK.
5) Hymn of Hope is unaffected by the haste gains from Borrowed Timeand Power Infusion . It is stuck at a 8sec cast time.
6) Reflective shield also works for Divine Aegis shield.

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EXCERCISE:

ALWAYS ask the raid leader to put you in the tank group. Holy Nova only affect PARTY members. This allows you to run in with the tanks on AoE pulls and spam HN to both heal and do dmg.

ALWAYS start spamming PW:S on the raid BEFORE AoE dmg. This will result in
1) a TON of mana return from rapture
2) Severely reduced or altogether nullified raid damage

Make sure PW:S/weaken soul is up on the tanks at all times. Use penance on tanks unless there is a party/raid member about to keel over or the tank is already at Full HP and it would best go to someone else. Shield ANYONE about to die.

You are free to cast whatever other spell you deem necessary between Penance CD's:

GHeal is much too weak and slow to use as a Disc ability. For the love of god remove it from your hotkeys.
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ISSUES:
Power Word:Shield and Divine Aeigis are not counted in typical heal meters.

para11ax has modified the existing recount to include PW:S and Divine Aegis.
Please check it out at http://www.wowhead.com/?forums&topic=68238&p=723074#p723074
Download link: http://my.curse.com/members/para11ax/files/RecountDisc.zip.aspx

With good practice in using PW:S and a decent amoutn of crit, you can expect shields to contribute ~40% to your healing done. In essence 40% of your "healing" does not show up on heal meters.

Be prepared to defend yourself. Often, about half of your "healing" is through shields which are not seen by heal meters. Your contribution may be attributed to the "omg awesome tank". But it is YOU keeping the tank from taking so much damage through your skills/talents. It just doesn't show up.

Messaggio di Samanosuke

Rotations

Flash heal has these characteristics; refreshes Grace, crits (procs Divine Aegis), and it's extremely cheap with the glyph. It provides cheap fast heals to single targets.

PW:S>Penance>>Flashheal>>Flashheal>>Penance>>flasheal>>flashheal>>PW:S>Penance on your primary target
::Repeat::
(Throw in renew, PoM, PoH as needed).

This rotation provides great flexibility.
The flash heals on the tank can be replaced by heals/shields on other party members.
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Macros:

Power Infusion when used correctly can boost damage output of the raid significantly. The main reason I forget, is because it usually requires you to target a party/raid member and cast it. I developed this incredibly simple macro to solve this. After a few battles or a boss fight check the damage/dps meters and find the caster who would make use of it the most. Put their name in the <insert DPSer's name> and then ask them to create a macro asking you for PI. If they have a trinq. that increases damage ask them to tie it in with that for maximum effect.

Disc Priest Macro:
/target <insert top dpser's name>
/cast Power Infusion
/t <insert top dpser's name> YOU HAVE THE PPOOOOWWWWEERRRRR!
/t <insert top dpser's name> YOU HAVE THE PPOOOOWWWWEERRRRR!

Caster DPSer's macro:
/use <trinq. name>
/t <Disc Priest name> "Power Infusion Please"
/t <Disc Priest name> "Power Infusion Please"

These are Macros that make use of Inner Focus and the extra crit it gives.

This is nice for a party heal/bubble either to heal aoe damage or to prepare for it. Prayer of healing is also expensive at 1257 mana. Getting it for free is always nice.
/Cast Inner Focus
/Cast Prayer of Healing
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Alternative Observations: Flash Heal versus Greater Heal

I've grouped up with other Disc priests and have seen another school of Disc Healing thought floating around. This is based on the principle of scoring crits through Greater Heal to activate Divine Aegis.
Most everyone I see who use this form go for penance because they have already put many points in Disc. I don't see them use Penance nearly as much (sometimes not at all!), and instead see their top heals as Gheal and flash heal. I can quite easily tell these are Holy Priest Converts who came to disc after the patch for something new.

This is not what Disc was made for. If you want to chain cast Greater Heal, respec Holy. The 30% gain on crits only from Divine Aegis is marginal compared to the the power of a Holy priest's GHeal and the talents available to them. Also, Holy Priest's don't have to crit to receive the benefits.

The benefits of Greater Heal as Disc

Larger Heal, Larger Shield

The cons of Greater Heal as Disc

More Overheal
Slower Cast time, "entangles" Disc priest
Less spellcasts equals less crit or Divine Aegis occurances
Less chance to proc Inspiration
Slower refreshes of Grace, makes keeping it up less forgiving

The benefits of Flash Heal

Short cast gives flexibility to rotations. Also less risky of a heal
Low overheal
More chance to crit, making a Divine Aegis
More chance to proc Inspiration
Faster Grace refresh

The con of Flash Heal

Weaker heal, must be cast in succession in event of heavy damage.

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LEVELING AS DISC:

A disc priest does not gain their special talents until much later in their talent tree. If you choose to concentrate on a holy /disc priest build rather than Shadow for leveling, I suggest going into Holy first. Be forewarned, leveling as a holy priest is much harder than shadow. A shadow priest is able to heal lower level dungeons just as good so it is advised to level up as shadow.

When you reach level 60 you can respec. just in time for outlands dungeons and questing and really start to shine.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVhbuhxtr0RqbMt

Messaggio di Samanosuke

Raid DPS Potential

I've stated in an earlier thread about the damage potential of Disc. After a bit of playing with the idea I'd like to put forward my findings.

1) Holy Nova does an INSANE amount of aoe dmg when you have all spellpower and crit gear.
2) It's cost is low enough to spam repeatedly, especially if you put a Power Infusion on yourself.
3) It also makes a VERY effective heal and also procs DA.
4) No Threat AoE heals and damage.

As a Disc priest you should always be grouped with the tanks. This allows you to run in with the tanks on AoE pulls and cause MASSIVE damage and provide TONS of heals. The glorious part is that you are still doing your main job of healing.

You would think that Glyph of Holy Nova would be a requirement, but I believe the damage trade off for the healing isn't worth it. Just toss a shield/renew on the tanks taking a lot of damage and Holy Nova will be able to catch up.

Disc/Holy priest lack +hit to be anywhere NEAR effective on boss fights. However, trash mobs are either at level or 1 below reducing the need for hit rating.

In conclusion, unless there is an express reason why you SHOULDN'T (I.E. mobs do cleave type moves that will kill you):
Assuming you are grouped with the tanks, always run in and spam holy nova during aoe pulls. If it looks like your mana is draining much faster than the enemy is dying, keep a bit of mana in reserve, stop aoeing, and revert back to pure healing.

NOTICE: A disc priest is NOT a dps spec, but they are capable of it. DPS should be done ONLY when it does not put the health of the raid/party in jeopardy. This is left up to the ability of the other healers and the discretion of the Disc priest.

DON'T BREAK CC WITH HOLY NOVA