Role of Atonement healing in Disc priests

[BettyBae 0]

Hello all, 

 

I recently started raiding in a 25man group which is now starting on heroics(3/13H).

I play a disc priest(569) / resto shaman(575) depending on whoever drops out that week, and this lockout a 595 disc priest "유너리안" 13/14H decided to join our raid. (I know, the item level seems absurdly high but please understand this is Asian servers.)

 

His armory: http://kr.battle.net/wow/ko/character/%ED%95%98%EC%9D%B4%EC%9E%98/%EC%9C%A0%EB%84%88%EB%A6%AC%EC%95%88/simple

 

and since this is beyond unreadable for you guys, a guildox profile: http://www.guildox.com/wow/toon/kr/Hyjal/%EC%9C%A0%EB%84%88%EB%A6%AC%EC%95%88

 

Logs for him: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/5da17egzvg1mcpbn/details/7/

 

 

From the logs you can see we had some difficulty on Fallen Protectors, eventually a moonkin had to go resto and we 7man-healed this.

 

My question is: I feel like the disc priest is just Atonement healing his way through the fight. Smite, HF, and Penance on cooldown - except for times when he's casting SS. I play a disc too and I understand that Atonement is a formidable tool in our arsenal... but how much Atonement should you be using? (especially when the whole raid is struggling in terms of HPS)

 

I personally think Atonement should primarily be used to keep up stacks of Evangelism and pop Archangel for the 2PC bonus - not used as your primary healing tool. If we had SoO heroic on farm, I really wouldn't care; but in tight progression situations like this, I would heavily favor PoH to build up Divine Aegis and help the raid survive. 

 

I only recognized this reliance on Atonement because when I looked at in-game Skada results(our Norushen kill), my resto shaman was only behind this guy by 2% of healing - and my logic would dictate that a 595 disc would just own me (575 resto shammy) by miles.

 

What do you think about Atonement healing? What can I tell this priest to help him realize the full potential of his amazing ilvl?? Help is very much appreciated.

[Brutalpriest 60]

I played in 10 man for this latest patch, so any advice may not _necessarily_ be optimal.  That being said, I tend to use Atonement healing frequently.  At least until the next expansion, it generally provides snap heals to the person who most needs it, and it's dirt cheap mana wise.  Of course if the raid starts taking lots of damage, I'll switch to Binding Heal, PoH, Flash Heal if it's really bad...  but generally Atonement is what I prefer to be doing especially if moving. 

 

Still, disc priests should be keeping PoM active, should be using Shield intelligently (mana proc, etc), should be using t90 intelligently... Timing Spirit Shell casts for important boss moves...  There's more to disc priests than Atonement, but it's a very powerful filler moveset and I never hesitate to use it if nothing important is going on.

[Espiee 161]

Echoing off Brutal, Atonement is integral to discipline healing, but you should really categorise atonement healing further into filler and priority spells.

 

Atonement interacts with three of your abilities, smite, power word: solace and penance. Given the mana the latter two cost and the healing that they do, they have incredible mana per healing ratios and should consequently be used on cooldowns. These are prioritized abilities.

 

Smite on the other hand doesn't heal for much and it's hpm isn't comparatively good. Consequently smite is the ability you use when there is nothing else to do either due to lack of incoming damage or your abilities being on cooldown.

 

How much you end up using smite depends greatly on the encounter however. A lot of encounters have long phases with selective damage and using your bigger heals there is a waste of mana, casting smite on the other hand becomes very efficient given its smart-heal nature.

 

For a fight like protectors you end up smiting quite a lot. Most of the damage going out is single-targeted and smite is an excellent way to heal in these situations. Other than Sun's desperate measure there is hardly any raid-wide damage where you need to use your harder hitting healing spells. On a fight like malkorok instead you're likely not to use smite extensively given the constant raid-wide damage.

 

Ultimately there is no cap to atonement healing. Solace and penance should be used on cooldown, period. Smite however should be used only in downtime or when the damage pattern calls for it(ie it depends on the specific boss encounter). Whether you're using smite too much then is a question of context than can't be arbitrarily answered.

[TIme987 3]

part of his major issies is he has gone in to the hipe of how Atonement healing is god. with him being so over geared( yes is is gemed and chanted correctly) i think he know the rotation but he only going throw the montions for your raid.