Atonement Confusion

[Dysco 0]

I have been reading many of the suggestions made by some of the more respected posters in this forum and I am confused as to atonement healing.  Most of the posters are suggesting building stacks for archangel; however, the guide on this site says it is a waste or inconsequential.  Which is it?

 

Sorry if this has been covered before, but couldn't find any posts on the matter post -6.1

 

 

 

[Fizzunk 0]

You want to build stacks via solace/holy fire and 2pc T17 penance (if you're disc). 

 

Building stacks via smite isn't ideal, but if you're in a rush to heal incoming group damage it does have its moments where it may be beneficial. 

[Lazare 3]

Atonement healing is the process of doing DPS in order to heal people.  At times in the past it's been viable, or even very strong.  Right now, it's very weak.  Disc DPS is very low, atonement is a small percentage of your DPS, and a small percentage of a low number is a tiny number.

 

If you find yourself casting smite at a boss in the hopes that the resulting heal will do something useful, you're doing it very wrong.

 

However, Empowered Archangel is a moderately powerful healing buff (potentially 25% buff to all healing for 18 out of every 30 seconds, plus a guaranteed PoH/FH crit), and it should be exploited ruthlessly.  Triggering it with one stack is great just for the guaranteed PoH/FH crit, but if you can build more stacks by weaving extra smites in, it's (obviously) much better.

 

Everyone agrees that you should (occasionally) smite.  It's a question of why.  Don't do it because somebody needs a heal, do it because nobody needs a heal, so you have the time to build stacks for when they do.  :)