Disc priest switching to Holy

[Perge 1]

Hello everyone, been lurking for awhile. My main spec is disc, and I have a pretty good handle on that, but my guild currently has 2 disc priests and 2 druids as our healers (small guild), so I am going to switch to holy when our other Disc priest is here. I just started playing holy on Friday, so I was wondering if I could get some critiques on the couple fights I did over the weekend. I only have 3 logs to post. (Don't bother looking through the rest of my logs for other fights, they are a mess). I havent actually raided with the guild yet, just pugs.

 

Imperator N - https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/7xRqYpT2wLr4Ad6V

Kargath H - https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/hqZ9wYXtPr7xRbMB#fight=9

Butcher H - https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/hqZ9wYXtPr7xRbMB#type=summary

 

I am mostly interested in healing spell breakdowns over total output (although I was pretty happy with the butcher total output).

 

Armory - http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/suramar/perge/advanced

 

I was also curious about talent choices specifically for holy for heroic-level encounters. It looks like holy sticks with words of mending and cascade on all fights, but what about tier 3 and tier 5? I tend to stick with PI and mindbender right now. I am also interested in how/if people switch chakras mid-fight. I have been sticking with serenity as sanctuary seems lackluster.

 

Thanks.

Edited January 27, 2015 by Perge

[Bobbyjensen6000 17]

Well first of all your gear is really subpar for Holy, 357 Multistrike as holy is atrociously low. So if you want to switch to Holy, you might need to get some Multistrike on your gear. But yeah, nothing you can do about that other than wait.

 

If you hop on over to MMO-Champion they will tell you that Mindbender is an atrocious talent(Will change in 6.1) and should never be used over Solace, because Solace provides a far better mana sustain. While it is correct that Solace provides more mana if used perfectly and fits the Discipline playstyle, since your gonna use HF on cd anyways to build up Evangelism, it is not true for Holy.

 

As holy you want the extra gcds for more renews and therefore it is simply better/easier to throw out Mindbender and get on with your rotation. And this is why you want to be in Chakra: Sanctuary stance the most. The more renews you pump out the more Circle of Healings you will be able to cast which will increase your output during sustained raid damage. So you should be in Sanctuary most of the time.  You should obviously not notoriously stay in Sanc and switch out when you need to save somebody with heal the instant cast in conjunction with 2x flash into Heal

 

In regards to Power Infusion vs Twist of Fate it really depends on the fight and your uptime on Twist of Fate. If you can't keep the buff up more than at least 40-50% I would not use it.

 

If you want to use Serenity you should at least glyph into Binding Heal and use it to refresh renews into PoHs. Mythic Butcher is the only fight where I stay in Serenity over the course of the whole fight, but it is only because I utilize Binding Heals to refresh my renews. Refreshing your renews with 2x Binding Heals into PoH is particular strong on this fight because the people taking damage is pretty static and you have two groups perfectly assigned for PoHs. This works well on Butcher because there really isn't any moving. I ranked in top 50 on M Butcher with this playstyle and that was with a lot of mistakes.

 

But really as Holy you stay in sanc the majority of the time and swap out if the situation calls for it. Didnt look too much into logs, but you can squeeze out more cohs on butcher thats sure.

[Perge 1]

Thanks for the response. Most of my gearing choices are made around disc (mastery/crit), and Holy does not value either of those stats as much as others, so yea, my secondary stats are not ideal. I am not switching to holy full time, so I am just going to have to live with the secondary stat deficiencies. Luckily a lot of the cloth in HM has multistrike, so with some luck I will be able to pick up some more.

 

I had forgotten about the coh-cooldown-reduction part of sanctuary, so thanks for that. I leaned on serenity (and it's instant cast) after being used to PW:S and Pennance being instants (roughly) to use in emergencies. I did use mindbender just because PW:Solace didnt seem to fit into holy nearly as well as it does into disc, and it eats GCDs as you said. Should Renew and CoH be the top 2 heals on most fights?

[Brewmonksta 157]

 

Should Renew and CoH be the top 2 heals on most fights?

This will be true for most fights.

 

PI IMO is better that ToF because the chances of ToF proccing can be few and far between and the mana cost reduction of PI is far more valued.

 

As for solace and mindbender - Solace will net you more mana than mindbender if you use it on cd. But as mentioned it is at the cost of GCD's. I also prefer mindbender as it is 1 GCD every 1min and it does return enough mana and provide some extra dps.

[Perge 1]

I did a run last night, so here is a more complete set of logs. I ran most of the fights in serenity, so I should have more CoH casts. We one-shotted everything, and I was with 2 other healers who outgeared me, so healing was never an issue. I am most interested in spell breakdowns. Should I be using PoH more? Should I ever cast PoM? Any other comments? (I don't think I used PI at all even though I was speccing into it just out of sheer negligence)

 

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/W4bhfCcjX9Aak8pJ#source=4&fight=2&type=healing

[Alxe 0]

I raid with a small group of eleven to twelve players and I run exclusively with Chakra: Serenity on a blanketing + big heals basis for the whole raid, along with a Holy Paladin who mostly heals tanks and a discipline priest that blankets the raid with shields.

 

I seldom use Chakra: Sanctuary because of my raid size, but if you intend to raid with 20 or more players, you could invest into a heavier mastery and stick mostly to blanket with Renew and heal raid-wide damage with Circle of Healing and Prayer of Mending if there is not a better fit for raid healing in your raid.

 

As I said, I mostly run single target heals with Renew ~100% of the time and refreshing it with (glyphed) Binding Heal or Flash Heal, usually leaving Holy Word: Serenity for quick heals and/or when needed a big burst of heals, given it's +Crit buff.

 

I may use Circle of Healing when there's raid-wide damage and may be moving, but it's more of a reflex.

 

Here's a Heroic Kargath log of last week, because this week our Pally fully re-enchanted and re-gemmed and is pulling very high numbers on low number of targets fights. https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/gchFYqNTpHMVJ49y#fight=1&type=healing&source=9

 

My highest priority secondary stats are Multistrike > Spirit > Haste > Mastery > Crit and I try to respect it as long as I have a choice..

[TheRaidBoss 11]

Well first of all your gear is really subpar for Holy, 357 Multistrike as holy is atrociously low. So if you want to switch to Holy, you might need to get some Multistrike on your gear. But yeah, nothing you can do about that other than wait.

 

If you hop on over to MMO-Champion they will tell you that Mindbender is an atrocious talent(Will change in 6.1) and should never be used over Solace, because Solace provides a far better mana sustain. While it is correct that Solace provides more mana if used perfectly and fits the Discipline playstyle, since your gonna use HF on cd anyways to build up Evangelism, it is not true for Holy.

 

As holy you want the extra gcds for more renews and therefore it is simply better/easier to throw out Mindbender and get on with your rotation. And this is why you want to be in Chakra: Sanctuary stance the most. The more renews you pump out the more Circle of Healings you will be able to cast which will increase your output during sustained raid damage. So you should be in Sanctuary most of the time.  You should obviously not notoriously stay in Sanc and switch out when you need to save somebody with heal the instant cast in conjunction with 2x flash into Heal

 

In regards to Power Infusion vs Twist of Fate it really depends on the fight and your uptime on Twist of Fate. If you can't keep the buff up more than at least 40-50% I would not use it.

 

If you want to use Serenity you should at least glyph into Binding Heal and use it to refresh renews into PoHs. Mythic Butcher is the only fight where I stay in Serenity over the course of the whole fight, but it is only because I utilize Binding Heals to refresh my renews. Refreshing your renews with 2x Binding Heals into PoH is particular strong on this fight because the people taking damage is pretty static and you have two groups perfectly assigned for PoHs. This works well on Butcher because there really isn't any moving. I ranked in top 50 on M Butcher with this playstyle and that was with a lot of mistakes.

 

But really as Holy you stay in sanc the majority of the time and swap out if the situation calls for it. Didnt look too much into logs, but you can squeeze out more cohs on butcher thats sure.

I never realised that Glyphed Binding Heal would refresh my renews.

This is amazing.

 

 

I try to utilize HW:Sanc wherever my tanks and my melee dps are as it's a bit more healing on them that the disc priest usually can't Holy nova a quick fix on. 

 

I usually shy away from glyphing Circle of Healing as 35% more mana for 1 more heal in a small raid group really isn't ideal as you should be able to manage the damage they take. The only time I would think otherwise is butcher, as usually 5+tanks take damage so it wouldn't overheal much. In the beginning of fights I often pre-renew,pom,lightwell and drop a sanc and then go into chastise and hit a few damaging spells while the boss is getting into position, it's not a lot but its still more damage output when usually not a lot of damage is coming in that a pom+renew can't fix ahead of time. And if it's something scary change to serenity and instant heal and flash heal and then boom, full health. For this reason, I still use solace as putting more damage out more often and getting more mana back is ideal for me.

A glyph I almost always have in place is Fade, to reduce damage taken by 10%. It isn't much, but it still is -10% damage taken.

 

Additionally, I've posted this before but conquest gear for holy is outright amazing. 660 gear that often gives you a choice of haste and multistrike? or multistrike mastery, or haste mastery? Yes please. Also, the 2 set bonus is fairly nice, +130(*5) versatility for you and whomever it heals is great. That's about 5% more healing and 2.5% less damage taken, and with WoM and hardcasts of PoM you can keep it up almost 60% of the fight.

 

Also, experiment with Spectral Guise, there are several mechanics you can avoid by using it to take the damage for you. Ko'ragh for example, you can dodge the falling balls damage (up to 3) where others take damage, you won't. Also, using phantasm on the same fight lets you escape the frost orb with ease.