Why were my eyes closed for so long?
I missed this from wow.com from January this year which, although flippant in places, did have a gem of wisdom:
I missed this from wow.com from January this year which, although flippant in places, did have a gem of wisdom:
Discipline priests are single target healers, not tank healers!
OK OK already - I get it.
I guess thinking about it I was actually aware of all this - just in denial. When I was tank healing I would be sending out bubbles at any time I wasn't focused on the tank. With their instant cast I've always used them as a buffer whenever I saw anyone other than the tanks get agro or if I saw them stand in fire- I always think if they cant drop agro with a 12k buffer they probably deserve to die.
Perhaps that's being flippant - but being serious for a moment I've done the Sindragosa fight a lot recently. When someone is learning that fight the biggest killer is the Icy Grip/Blistering Cold combination - and a shield will basically save someone from dying whilst they get used to it.
The thing was though - I was doing all this as a tank healer. I was already doing back up raid heals when I could - I just have to change my way of thinking. I'm now a raid healer who can rescue the tanks if it's required - yes indeed disc priests are still awesome!
I want to thank ecclesiastical discipline for his comments yesterday - its great when you get a comment from someone who appreciates where you are coming from and is a few steps down the road already. I've taken on-board your comments and plan to implement them.
A couple of things I am thinking about:
- Prayer of Healing - is a party specific spell. I wont be raid leading for a while whilst I adjust my healing style (thanks Immy and Sielann) so I won't have exact control of raid groups - anyone have any suggestions of what the best group I should be in with when it comes to PoH? Generally I find myself in a 'all healer' group - which isnt necessarily a bad thing - but as the only cloth wearing healing class paladins, shamans and even druids have better armour mitigation than say mages or warlocks. Comments are welcomed
- Rapture - I've always known about this trick but I really hope to be able to put it to better use now I am raid healing. I've mentioned previously that I've not had mana issues for quite a while - which was why I was considering switching out a Glyph of Flash Heal for another. However one thing I did notice with raid healing the ICC the other night was that there were times I was needing to use the shadowfiend or pop a flask. So it seems mastering the Rapture trick is going to essential.
4 comments:
I'm glad I was helpful. I'm glad you're enjoying disc priesting in a different way.
Priests are a bit slow on the raid heals via PoH, so I generally go with groups I think are the last targeted or grouped up. PoH has the advantage of healing people who are spread out over other AOEs. Groups 3+4, ranged are good places to start, or I'll go with healers since we seem to watch our own health bars least.
Rapture can be great, but it's a hard game to play. There's an addon out there that monitors the proc if you want to try to manage it better.
Also, I is a "her".
Ooops my bad - apologies for the gender switch. Mind you I should have known - organised, knowledgeable and happy to help - definately female
*smiles* Well, aren't you charming?
I typically play a holy priest, but I do use discipline for some specific fights like Saurfang where the damage is predictable. This allows the mitigation from my shields to easily top the healing charts. NOTE: I always utilize www.WorldofLogs.com for raid stats rather than putting any weight on recount. This accounts for the discipline priest mitigation.
I wanted to ask about your question on Prayer of Healing. Are you asking which party you should be in, or which party you should focus your heals on? I was confused by your question and wanted to make sure you were clear that you can use POH on any party in the raid. I usually don't worry about my position in the raid group much and use my POH on which ever group has multiple members taking damage. Do make sure you try to use a hasted POH, since it has such a long cast time.
Also, I didn't see you mention Divine Hymn at all. In your previous post on raiding as Discipline, you mentioned some situations where a Disc priest is at a disadvantage because of the type of raid damage. I save my Divine Hymn for these times.
You also might want to consider establishing a Holy spec for those specific fights, just like how I am mostly Holy but switch to discipline for one or two fights. I also like to play around with a Shadow spec, so I often find myself switching my second spec back and forth between shadow and Discipline each week. From your other posts on your blog, I don't think the cost of switching should be an issue for you.
Happy Raiding!
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