Help me Disc!

[widdarr 2]

Started doing heroics with a group (went in at 548 no cloak) after not playing my priest for quite a few months.

 

Most recent log I have:

 

http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/xTFJQXqkcKgDav8b

 

Armory:

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/lightbringer/Phrayr/advanced

 

That log is pre-cloak etc, and of course my Thok trinket is pretty much an empty slot.  Hoping to get Siege or double amp eventually..

 

So any tips would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

[Espiee 161]

Nearly spotless in terms of gemming and reforging. I might have opted for a smooth gem in the ring as the 60 haste is worth nothing to a disc priest and have gotten the Cerulean Spellthread for the xtra crit, but those points are minor.

 

You're right to look for another trinket to replace TAGT, if you have the coins or is close to, consider getting Yu-lon's Bite. It's a terrific trinket for discipline.

 

You shouldn't be using PI as a talent, it's absolutely not worth it. There are so many add fights this tier that ToF is practically a 15% increase to damage and healing, and yes atonement double-dips, that you can easily reach a 50% or higher uptime, making it so much more powerful than PI. If however you pick it, use it often. I only noticed one use per fight

 

Also get the Glyph of the Sha, it removes the GCD from SF/MB and essentially gives you more globals you can heal with.

 

 

I'm going to focus on your Sha and Protectors kill. They offer steady fights with very little healing quirks unlike Immerseus or Galakras, and to some degree Norushen as well.

 

There are a couple of things to look out for.

 

• You always want a nice uptime on AA, ideally you want 60% but you should be able to hit 50% or higher on most fights.
• You want to cast PW: Solace and Penance as much as possible without sacrificing your shielding otherwise
• You want to cast PWS roughly every 12-15 seconds for 4-5 procs of rapture every minute as it's free healing
• You also want to use SF early to have it available later in the fight. Couple every other SF with HoH for extra mana back when you're lower on mana longer into the fight.
• When using PoH or DS, you want to make sure you're hitting as many people as possible.

 

Protectors of loot: 7m55s

 

Uptime on AA borders 50% which is not bad at all! There's still some room for improvement, but that's decent.

 

You had 37 casts of Solace and 143 combined ticks of penance. Ideally you want 6 per minute of the former and 18 of the latter. With an 8 minute fight, you could've cast 48 Solaces and 144 penances. This is great work on penance, you could however improve a little on the Solace casts.

 

You had a total of 18 PWS casts on that fight, and some were very spread while others overlapped. You only had nine rapture procs, indicating that at least some of those shields went unused. In an 8 min fight you could've seen 32-35 procs, for an additional healing worth 316k mana. You can see who the non-used PWS' were on here and look for yourself whether the cast was unwarranted.

 

You did cast shadowfiend thrice as intended on this fight, good job! I would've used it the first time before the 1m28s marker as your last casts was seconds before the fight ended and your mana at the time was a bit low. Casting SF earlier would mean you could've regenerated that mana earlier, when it mattered more. You didn't cast HoH once in the fight, which is a shame. It increases the mana return by 15% of SF and gives you mana back on its own as well.

 

You hit on average 3.9 people with protectors. Ideally you want it as close as possible to 5, but roughly 4 is decent, especially on a fight like protectors where you're spread nonetheless. Do you have your raid frames set up to track the ideal targets for PoH? You seem to have hit everyone with halo with 14 average targets.

 

But why only use SS once on the entire fight? Not to mention only have it hit 10 targets? I noticed you used IF 7 times out of a possible 10, which is pretty decent, but why not couple it with or use SS instead?

 

Sha of rifts: 6m28s

 

I'm just going to repeat the same points from before, wherever relevant.

 

Penance used close to optimally, good job! PW: Solace was used roughly 75% of how many times it could've been used, still once every 13 seconds!

 

AA uptime 46%, decent for the fight. I personally stagger every other AA to use with SS so I'll naturally have a lower uptime, if you do the same, it's right in the closet, otherwise could be higher.

You cast 21 PWS' and had 8 rapture procs. There isn't a lot of damage on this fight, so the most reliable way, and possibly only way is to cast it on the tanking tank exclusively, keeping in mind if they have to switch soon because of the debuff.

 

Same issue with shadowfiend as on protectors. Used late the first time( at 2m49s) and hence up very late into the fight for the second time right as you kill the boss. Use early and often! Also you used HoH separate from SF, meaning lower mana regen.

 

Spirit Shell only cast once although you had 4 swelling prides? That should have been used once for every one of those.

 

Your average hits on PoH was 3.6, which is fitting for the fight since your tanks are on the other site of the map, consider moving both tanks into one group so you at least have one group where you can hit 5 if you're not already doing that. Halo seems to have reached everyone all four times.

 

As a fight-specific note, good job on helping out with the rifts! I've met countless healers that deny doing that. Dispels also seem proper if you're only dispelling with the debuff(which you should at this fight length).

[Peelyon 416]

Cheers for that Steve - I've been out of the game for a fair while, and my situation sounds fairly similar to widdar.  My main "problem" at the moment is knowing when to use SS on certain fights - for situations like Swelling Pride I always have it ready and use it plenty, but on other fights where there doesnt seem to be many intense healing situations how and when should I use it?

 

Im only really doing LFR and flex at the moment so hardly any useful situations to give as an example - but would using SS on cd on fights with no spike damage be optimal if I popped a few PoH on the group?

[Espiee 161]

There was a thread on the use of Spirit Shell over on Howtopriest.com that went over that exact issue, there is really nothing to add to what they say, so I'll just link it: http://howtopriest.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=5813

[widdarr 2]

This was so much more than I could have asked for. I visited a thread trying to find a use for the meta, and many people said to use pw:s only on procs for mana regen. At my ilvl, mana was clearly an issue so I tried - and failed - to do just that. I have an addon for rapture icd and meta procs but I need to practice casting pw:s more. I always have a /range 30 up for halo (which overwrites my BW range.. Maybe there's another way to have two?) so I'm usually optimal on that. As for why I didn't SS more on sha? I have no idea. I think I was too busy dealing with other stuff and forgetting the timers, while also trying too hard to line up AA with halo.

Definitely going to take these tips and force myself to press the buttons more, I'm sure I have a bad habit of cruise-controlling atonement at times. And as for PI, I took it to use with herbalism for more casts while SS is up (aside from norushen) which I was not good at doing anyways. Going to grab ToF for more encounters and learn to maximize my uptime, thanks!

[Espiee 161]

You don't need to cast PWS. In fact some times it may be detrimental since it won't be used at all. You should use whatever heals it may sense to heal. Keep a mind set of "for the next 4 seconds I can cast whatever heals I want without thinking of the mana cost". If you need to heal a few people BH might be the right ability to cast, if in the middle of casting SS, casting PoH is still the better choice. Basically be aware of the raid's situation and act accordingly.

 

As for halo, there are addons to help you maximise its usage. HaloPro is a popular choice, but on the encounters where I use it, I haven't felt a need to use it. On sha, you basically enter the middle and use it, same on protectors and Malkorok. You can't ensure optimal hits, but it requires less though and enables you to focus on what you should be casting next.

 

I didn't check number of casts During SS, but unless you want to get a fifth off, which isn't at all necessary in 10m, there is no point going for that extra haste. Taking advantage of Borrowed Time allows you to easily snuggle 4 PoH's into 10 seconds.

[LostDignity 12]

You had a total of 18 PWS casts on that fight, and some were very spread while others overlapped. You only had nine rapture procs, indicating that at least some of those shields went unused. In an 8 min fight you could've seen 32-35 procs, for an additional healing worth 316k mana. You can see who the non-used PWS' were on here and look for yourself whether the cast was unwarranted.

 

Here's a better method to see which PW:S wern't good.

 

Zooming in on the first one you can see that it didn't really absorb any of the burst damage.

 

Events tab reassuring that your PW:S was indeed not used as it should have been.

 

It's good that you reacted to the burst. However, you should have casted PW:S earlier and that should have saved some heart attacks. He should not have gotten that low and he was VERY lucky that he lived.

 

Now to the Second one.

 

Not much to say but 100% wasted; no excuse for the waste either.

[Espiee 161]

 

Here's a better method to see which PW:S wern't good.

That's a splendid way to see exactly which PWS' that weren't fully used! I'd suggest linking to the actual logs instead of pictures though, since WCL offers permalinks for situations like this.

 

My point, that I perhaps didn't clearly spell out, was that you should be careful with casts of PWS on non-tank targets. as those targets accounted for all the shields that weren't fully used.