Cataclysm Discipline Priest Compendium - Page 51

Dirael · 08/10/11, 6:47 PM

How important is it to actually manage the Rapture cooldown? Is PW:S really so inefficient that it shouldn't be used except when it will trigger Rapture (assuming it won't be wasted, obviously)? The OP (which I realize is probably outdated) says that watching Rapture cooldown is important to managing mana, so how efficient are non-wasted shields as tools for healing?

UnholY_Prince · 08/10/11, 7:14 PM

Shield is far from inefficient, even in Inner Fire its HPM is only beaten by Penance, PoH, and PoM.

Vraie · 08/11/11, 2:57 PM

Originally Posted by kdtipa

So is that what most people find? That GHeal casts fast enough for the direct heal when properly spec'd and glyphed?

Gheal casts are fine for any decently geared tank, PW:S, ProM, Penance, Gheal x 2, repeat is usually what you'll go through; I'd drop imp renew and never use it as disc tbh

Focused will is debatable, but I shy away from it; ToT will do wonders for your mana if you're tank healing and FH is not only inefficient but gets a worse coeff and should only be used if the target will die before a GH can land

Originally Posted by Dirael

How important is it to actually manage the Rapture cooldown? Is PW:S really so inefficient that it shouldn't be used except when it will trigger Rapture (assuming it won't be wasted, obviously)? The OP (which I realize is probably outdated) says that watching Rapture cooldown is important to managing mana, so how efficient are non-wasted shields as tools for healing?

Very important, it's our #1 source of regen by a HUGE margin, getting it every 12 seconds is pretty difficult to do, as well as it depends on your tank class, I'd consider it impossible to come out with an entire fight with perfect raptures, but aim for every 15 sec at least

Best way to do this is to make sure you hit your tank with a heal to drop WS buff, hit him with a shield right as rapture icd is coming off (10.5+ seconds), next swing should hit your rapture pretty close to the 12 second mark

One thing to watch out for is if you accidentally proc rapture off a raid member and the tank WS debuff is at odds with your rapture ICD, in that case, try to match them up by reducing WS, say twice to catch up to your icd

This all changes whether or not you're even SoS, or if you can reach 2 tanks, or 1 tank, or are raid healing.

And the above poster already covered shield efficiency

Kashir · 08/11/11, 9:51 PM

A Rapture cooldown mod is very important; not so much because PWS is a horrible spell to use outside of Rapture, but because increasing your Rapture proc rate will dramatically increase your mana regen.

Casting PWS on the tank every 15s will not result in optimal Rapture procs. With overlap, tank downtime and the like, I'd guess you'd be lucky to hit an average of 20s between Rapture procs over the course of a fight.

If you use a mod and plan PWS usage such that you could hit an average of 14s between Rapture procs, you're looking at around a 50% increase in regen from Rapture. Given that Rapture is usually larger than all other non-spirit regen put together... that's a huge chunk of mana you're missing if you don't pay attention to your Rapture cooldown.

benelli3000 · 08/13/11, 6:19 AM

Originally Posted by kdtipa

So is that what most people find? That GHeal casts fast enough for the direct heal when properly spec'd and glyphed?

Absolutely, GH is a wonderful way in an SoS/ToT spec to work synergistically with PW:S. It is reasonably efficient with regards to HPM, and heals like a monster with IF up, and still drops the WS debuff for more elegant timing of Rapture. Borrowed Time makes it amazing, unless you are in a scenario (which is happening often this tier, it seems) where you are using the BT for a PoH and it's subsequent "Firelands" spam. Flash heal, in my mediocre experience, seems to be best used only in emergency situations, or on Baleroc shard tanks when Penance is down.

nightlily · 08/13/11, 1:00 PM

I was looking at the value of Renew with Borrowed Time, simply to double check the assumption that it's a bad idea, always.

I have seen poor values in the past, based on factors that did not favor Renew, so in testing I'm working with factors that do favor it. Namely: talent points in improved renew, glyph of renew, and more importantly.. with haste values that allow for 6 ticks. I was expecting it to be somewhat better than advertised but nothing to write home about, but the results do seem impressive. The cost however is nothing small. 1905 haste rating, a prime glyph, and 2 talent points that for many would preclude the option of taking Darkness to lower that haste rating requirement. Others will no doubt miss their damage reduction.

This experiment is done via Sim, mind you, and may be in error, although I do try and examine the report for any peculiarities.

In doing this test, I compared 2 gearsets (378 gear), one gearing for haste and the other gearing for mastery.

In haste gear, renew had a HPET of ~35.6k (with pw:shield at 31.6k). In mastery gear, PW:S had a HPET of ~36.5k. crits, DA procs, and glyphs are factored in.

burst healing output with Renew=29k
burst healing output without Renew=27.8k

The profiles went OOM at about the same time, thus sustained healing numbers were also close (with renew slightly ahead).. which would imply that Renewx6 at least made up for the increase in mana consumption caused by the added haste. I cannot factor in everything.. overhealing, which a HoT will likely produce. and I can't easily account for actual healing needed as opposed to healing potential.

Still the question lingers. Is it a viable?

The benefit of taking the SoS/Mastery route would be the increase to PW:S spam, 2 spare talent points, and not needing the glyph.

The benefit of taking SoS with Renew would be more consistent tank healing (faster greater heals, the consistency of a having a HoT up), possibly mana efficiency.. renew is about half the cost of PW:S, and more effective healing output during movement.

Tentatively, the conclusion I draw from this is that at certain gear levels, Renew can be a useful tank heal and that the sacrifices, while not always worth the cost, would greatly benefit movement heavy fights.

profiles I am using are here: (running ~2k spirit each)

W/Renew: chardev 8 - WoW Cataclysm
Without: chardev 8 - WoW Cataclysm

I avoided Jaws of Defeat and shard of woe for these, they deserve their own analysis and can definitely change a person's playstyles.. but people can get unlucky on drops anyhow.. and there is certainly not much I can really argue if someone has such things and is using that cost reduction to shield the entire raid.

Also, my apologies that I could not link to the actual report. I do not have a host to upload to. I can however send it if requested.

Seerra · 08/15/11, 6:22 PM

The question I have is "How does Holy Fire compare to Renew in an AA/A build rather then an pure SoS build?" Using Holy Fire in place of renew gives you a Direct Heal, a lasting HoT (if tank is lower) and a stack of AA. Use Holy Fire on CD and you have AA back up in five HF casts, the ability of more Throughput from AA, and no need to waste points in improved renew.

nightlily · 08/16/11, 7:12 AM

Originally Posted by Seerra

The question I have is "How does Holy Fire compare to Renew in an AA/A build rather then an pure SoS build?" Using Holy Fire in place of renew gives you a Direct Heal, a lasting HoT (if tank is lower) and a stack of AA. Use Holy Fire on CD and you have AA back up in five HF casts, the ability of more Throughput from AA, and no need to waste points in improved renew.

If you have enough haste for 6 ticks, Renew is worth casting without talenting and glyphing for it. Assuming it won't be all lost to overheal. It compares similarly to holy fire in healing done per cast time (~31k hpet), but holy fire is much more efficient than renew (or anything). Renewx5 without talents and glyphs is still worse than Gheal.

The comparison you are asking cannot be done without sacrificing more than just imp. renew. Losing ToT or SoS is a net loss. Interestingly, the throughput loss is similar (given the profile has low mastery), and in both sims the hps ran at around ~27k. That would mean that the 25% crit chance had a significant effect. If you can avoid overhealing on gheal then ToT is going to be a lot better simply for mana savings.

Note that regardless of renew, A/A falls behind in throughput on a single target when you sacrifice ToT or SoS. The primary benefit to A/A is that it is cheap, and provides a CD.

Deyðir · 08/16/11, 4:24 PM

Delete please

smolder_shadows · 08/19/11, 5:05 AM

Hey guys, I have two question about the priorities for discipline priest.

1.- How much haste we need to say "I have enough" for 10 man heroic? or if we have a soft-cap for haste.

Because I have 12% unbuffed, but I don't know how much I need or if I have enough or if I'm over-capped of haste to reforge Haste->Mastery or crit.

2.- In your opinion, if you heal tanks all the time (10 Man Heroic), what stat do you prefer to combine with haste? Crit or Mastery?.

Because I'm trying to balance that stats but I'm feel lost with some explanations about priorities for second stats like: Haste->Mastery->Crit. or Haste-> Balance crit with mastery. ( I have 14.33% crit = 531 and 16.13% mastery= 40% more potency in my absorb spells).

I will appreciate your comments about this.

Mordd · 08/19/11, 1:07 PM

Originally Posted by smolder_shadows

1.- How much haste we need to say "I have enough" for 10 man heroic? or if we have a soft-cap for haste.

Stop stacking haste when you feel comfortable enough to use GH and PoH in fights- if (special-case fights like Chimaeron aside) you find that you're constantly resorting to FH or shield-spam to keep people up, consider adding more haste until you're comfortable that you can cast PoH without risking someone dying (or other healers routinely beating you to the punch), and you're getting an opportunity to use GH on the tank/topping people up. FH + PW:S spam have their time and place, but for most fights, you should be able to throw GH on tanks and Heal/GH on raid members fairly often.

For reference, in full firelands gear, I have about 12% myself (and a reliable extra 5% haste from 25man raiding). At lower gear levels, I'd probably aim for more haste than this (even another 5% would make a difference- trimming that extra 0.1sec off your PoH or GH is really noticeable).

Originally Posted by smolder_shadows

2.- In your opinion, if you heal tanks all the time (10 Man Heroic), what stat do you prefer to combine with haste? Crit or Mastery?.

Someone else better answer this, as I'm rarely an exclusive tank healer.. but my gut feeling would be to aim for mastery. Your crit rate should be pretty high on a tank (25%+ ish when you factor in weakened soul + raid buffs?) such that I don't think stacking crit is going to make a world of difference. Bigger DA and being able to contribute to raid healing more effectively with a stronger PW:S *is* going to be noticeable.

Originally Posted by smolder_shadows

Because I'm trying to balance that stats but I'm feel lost with some explanations about priorities for second stats like: Haste->Mastery->Crit. or Haste-> Balance crit with mastery. ( I have 14.33% crit = 531 and 16.13% mastery= 40% more potency in my absorb spells).

Don't be a slave to the balance or 'priority'- get haste until you feel your heals go off fast enough to make a difference/keep you comfortable, THEN bother about raising your mastery/crit for efficiency. A low heal in time is better than a super powerful heal too late. One of strongest aspects of discipline is being able to react fast to things- your PW:S on a low raid target costs 1 GCD if you can afford to look away from the tank- it isn't going to do the job of healing them up, but it's a safety buffer to let ANOTHER healer get them back in the green.

I guess the TL;DR version is: don't go reforging all your gear to strictly obey the priority/balance system if it makes you uncomfortable with your cast speeds.

nightlily · 08/19/11, 8:08 PM

The coefficients on the front page showing are old and may not be accurate. Does anyone have current coefficients? I cannot use the spreadsheet since I don't have a full version of MS Office, and I was interested in running some numbers.

Wuga · 08/20/11, 12:29 PM

Originally Posted by Mordd

Someone else better answer this, as I'm rarely an exclusive tank healer.. but my gut feeling would be to aim for mastery. Your crit rate should be pretty high on a tank (25%+ ish when you factor in weakened soul + raid buffs?) such that I don't think stacking crit is going to make a world of difference. Bigger DA and being able to contribute to raid healing more effectively with a stronger PW:S *is* going to be noticeable.

Crit is much better than mastery for tank healing; PW:S and DA simply don't account for enough healing to make mastery worth it. Also, if you help out on raid healing with PoH instead of PW:S, crit scales far better than mastery in that case too. I'm running around 15% haste/20% crit before talents/buffs and tank healing is almost trivially easy on pretty much every fight.

In general, mastery is pretty weak unless you are doing a lot of shield spamming, and shield spam is not particularly good right now.

benelli3000 · 08/21/11, 1:01 AM

Originally Posted by smolder_shadows

Hey guys, I have two question about the priorities for discipline priest.

1.- How much haste we need to say "I have enough" for 10 man heroic? or if we have a soft-cap for haste

Because I have 12% unbuffed, but I don't know how much I need or if I have enough or if I'm over-capped of haste to reforge Haste->Mastery or crit.

12% Unbuffed is probably going to be enough in any situation for 10 mans. Whether or not you really need to go for a haste build depends on your role in the group - i.e. if you are raid healing mostly, and involved in a mean-ass PoH spam, haste is going to be pretty amazing.

Originally Posted by smolder_shadows

2.- In your opinion, if you heal tanks all the time (10 Man Heroic), what stat do you prefer to combine with haste? Crit or Mastery?

If you find yourself healing tanks most of the time, Mastery is probably the way to go. Of course, if you read people's posts here, many of them have very different ways of doing things. Most of those who are doing 25's and therefore more raid healing favor the pure HPS output of a haste build for PoH spam. People in 10's running with resto druids (like myself) favor haste only to a certain point, but generally prefer mastery for bigger shields, especially since I find that much of the damage this tier is in predictable bursts and mana pools are so high that bubble spam is nearly back. I'm over 150k mana raid buffed for 10's and therefore am able to execute two free PW:S casts per Rapture proc. When healing tanks, make sure you make use of SoS and keep a bubble up on the tank and keep Rapture on cooldown - it'll be nearly mana neutral.

Again, what stats to favor are entirely dependent on your healing comp - if you have a resto druid doing his or her job well, then your haste just results in PoH heal sniping, and sending your druid's Wild Growth into the overheal stratosphere. If the onus is on you to handle most of the AoE healing, then you should consider stacking as much haste as possible. Fast PoH's are just amazing and the big numbers on the screen feel pretty good.

Feith · 08/21/11, 3:06 PM

I was wondering what is the feel of people about the Mr. Robot - World of Warcraft website concerning the spec and BIS gear.