Looking for some Dpriest help

[Praecantor 0]

Hello,

 

I've been lurking around these forums for a while now, and would love some input to determine why my average HPS seems to be so low.

 

Basically, I know I can perform better, as per this Heroic Butcher kill, but as soon as I must do more then just stand and heal (like in this Heroic Kargath kill), the HPS goes down the gutter fast.

 

My armory link.

 

Basically, I used Twist of Fate for my T5 talent and Words of Mending for all these fights, with a more recent step to Power Infusion and Clarity of Will to see if that gives any improvement.

 

I do notice that if I shield a little in advance, it helps with the initial HPS in as much as it gives me an early 'lead' so to speak, but as the encounter progresses that lead evaporates just as quick as it comes up.

 

I know there's not really a 'set' rotation for healers, but could it be that I'm still not prioritising spell usage right? Like I feel I'm in too much of a group/solo mindset when viewing things like my damage casts and maybe that's causing me to neglect healing as it were.

 

When I am healing, I tend to pre-cast shield on the tanks and a PoM. As the fight progresses, I switch to shielding whoever takes damage, and using Penance/heal as needed. Is that a bad thing, like should I focus more on catering to my tank healing strength instead of trying to prevent damage from damaging the raid further?

 

Would appreciate the help, thanks :)

[Zara 1]

I was told you use the glyph for the shield, and then use it when players are injured to boost heals

[Kulia 39]

Archangel, Archangel, Archangel, using that is gonna give you a boost in healing + your empowered archangel perk, in the Butcher fight you used it 3 times out of a possible 9 times, on Kargath you used it twice out of a possible 11 times. Using it as close to on CD as possible is pretty good, you can use it at any number of Evangelism stacks and then use a Prayer of Healing or a Flash Heal to proc the 100% crit chance from the perk. This would be a HUGE increase in healing, because not only does it give you a 100% chance to give 5 people or one tank a nice Divine Aegis shield you also get a healing increase for the remainder of Archangel. On Kargath you were casting heal - I wouldn't recommend that. Disc priests aren't meant to be through-put healers, I.E we're not meant to be casting things like heal. You should be Power Word Shielding instead. You should also be using penance as close to on CD as possible, generally as a tank heal NEVER offensively unless there literally is nothing else to do but sit there and spam atonement. Usage of Cascade should also be higher. Whilst it's not a huge priority it's a really nice fire and forget spell and does a lot of healing over the course of a fight.
Basically all I can say apart from all of that above is:
Use AA as close to on CD as possible, using holy fire/solace to build stacks of evangelism, you CAN use AA on less than 5 stacks of Evangelism, you can press it before the button goes all glowy and shiny.
Use 90 talent more
PW:S instead of using direct heals
Penance as close to on CD as possible.

[Praecantor 0]

Alright, thanks for the tips so far, will try it out on the next raids I go on and post an update :)

[TheRaidBoss 11]

Additionally, if you know who is going to be taking damage and when, pre-shielding them before the damage hits works. You don't get car insurance after the accident, you do it before. If you can, pre-pull stack up CoW and PW:S on your tanks just to get extra oomph before the fight to give more bubbles. You generally cant keep PoW going except for a few parts of fights. But it's not going to be able to be 3x stacked plus shield + aegis

 

Also, Cascade gets a boost for the distance traveled, but its also not a shield. For example, on Kargath, just before or as he is casting chain hurl, you should cast Cascade on yourself or someone, so it bounces as people are taking the damage to heal (and hopefully shield them)

 

But AA and popping it at opportune times / on CD is going to really, really help.

Edited January 5, 2015 by TheRaidBoss

[Gwenymph 414]

Just to clarify some points that have been made:

 

ToF uptime was only 9 and 30%, you mentioned trying Power Infusion, it is the better choice.  Stick w/ PI and work out where you feel you need the CD most.  The more comfortable you and your team get w/ a fight the earlier and more often you'll find yourself using it (Ex: PI > PWS Coverage for the reduced mana cost and less often for oh shit I need to catch up).

 

A PWS glyph was mentioned for ToF procs.  Weakened Soul is the go to Glyph, not PWS (20% heal conversion).

[Espiee 161]

What's the point in using ToF over PI? Your absorbs are unaffected by the talent and can't proc it either. When absorbs constitute 60-80% of your healing(discounting DA), the talent only benefits a minority of your healing. PI on the other hand is a very nice on-demand boost to your healing and will be tremendously useful when you reach p2 on Butcher.

 

You're gearing for crit. Don't do that. Convert all of your gems and enchants to mastery.

Edited January 5, 2015 by Espiee

[Brady84 4]

Kargath is a fight with next to no damage so without doing major overheal or just spamming for the sake of it your not going to get high HPS [Technically as a shield healer though you should still be top as nobody can snipe your heals]

 

Butcher on the other hand 35k is crazy low when theres infinite and predictable damage [You could easily push out another 10k+] from pre-shielding damage more (casting another 40+ PWS and using them on people who are about to take damage so it doesnt overheal as much)

[Praecantor 0]

What's the point in using ToF over PI? Your absorbs are unaffected by the talent and can't proc it either. When absorbs constitute 60-80% of your healing(discounting DA), the talent only benefits a minority of your healing. PI on the other hand is a very nice on-demand boost to your healing and will be tremendously useful when you reach p2 on Butcher.

 

You're gearing for crit. Don't do that. Convert all of your gems and enchants to mastery.

Well, basically from this thread, one of the posts stated going for ~18% crit unbuffed, then adding in more mastery to gain the most benefit.

As for ToF, I used that as people were dropping below the threshold a lot on the earlier guild runs, didn't change until recently when my gear started getting better.

[Defib 2]

You have to play to the strengths of the class, which right now is shields. While your specific habits will often be influenced by your raid healing comp, I run with sham and Druid. I'm consistently out front on meters, and 50-70% of my heals are PWS, with CoW at 30-40%. CoW takes the lead if I'm focusing on tank healing, which disc is awesome at btw. Stack mastery, remove heal from your toolbar:) Have fun as a bubble machine! 80% of your healing can be done on the move! (With penance glyph). Disc is sorta OP currently.....enjoy!

[Espiee 161]

Well, basically from this thread, one of the posts stated going for ~18% crit unbuffed, then adding in more mastery to gain the most benefit.

As for ToF, I used that as people were dropping below the threshold a lot on the earlier guild runs, didn't change until recently when my gear started getting better.

 

That same thread has now concluded that you want mastery above anything else, and then roughly balance crit and multistrike. Mastery is still far ahead of either crit or multistrike.

 

Using ToF because people drop low will only help if you use flash heal or heal on them. PWS and CoW are unaffected by ToF.

[Praecantor 0]

Well, I did some re-arranging of my spellcasts, having PI to pre-cast shields before Expel Magic: Fire happens, heals are starting to get where they should be - near the top

 

As shown here, HPS is now hovering at 30k for the hc Ko'ragh kill, with the first wipe averaging out at 33k (with extensive use of Halo that rather drained mana).

 

I'm sure there are still places where I can improve however, but not sure what to look for yet :)

[Kulia 39]

I would use cascade always, as there's really no place for halo in Highmaul IMO. Plus you only used it twice, cascade you'd find yourself using a LOT more, you don't need to position yourself correctly and it does a LOT of healing paired with Archangel. 

Your Archangel usage could still go up, but it's better.

(again, doesn't need to be at 5 stacks of evangelism! You can use the button without it glowing at you!)
I see you used shadow word: pain. I wouldn't do that unless there's literally nothing else to do and there's nothing else you could spend your mana on.

2 Prayer of mending casts? IMO that's a waste of mana, it does little to no healing and the only time I'd expect to see PoM on the meters of a disc priest is if they used Words of Mending talent...

But you have improved a lot on fights where there's a fair amount of movement, so good job on that. I'd say at this point it's just optimizing what you're doing.