Given that the stat weights have changed to make Crit less valuable than Mastery by a small margin, wouldn't it be more beneficial to reforge Crit instead of Mastery, though? Especially so because Crit is more integral to mana management than Mastery.

Well, it turns out I'm an idiot. I was thinking this was about Shadow, not the healing specs. Disregard my previous posts.

In the case of healing, yes, it would seem Spi would be the go-to stat for reforging.

Although, I do have an additional question on another topic (hooray for making my post not-worthless). In an A/A spec, would there be any merit to throwing a good portion of your Haste into Crit to help with Atonement heals? To my reccolection, Disc doesn't utilize a great deal of haste thanks to talents like BT.

Disc does love haste, especially with AA. AA's heavy dependence on Smite Spamming makes haste extremely valuable. (Besides, the faster you can get to 5 stacks of Evangelism, the better).

As for whether BT creates that 'soft cap' of haste that we saw in Wrath is now going to be dependent on how much more we use PWS post patch. Prior to the recent patch, PWS was such a low output spell (11K shields) compared to the mana investment, and PoH so powerful, that many Disc priests were primarily focusing on just using PWS for rapture gains. Casting PWS just for BT was not a good use of mana nor does it actually cause faster PoH, as the lost GCD is not made up for from the Buff.

Now that PWS's output post-patch has reached a significantly higher margin, (about 24-25K absorb amounts), then BT may be a more reliable buff to have. But my suspicion is that as long as GH and PoH remain high quality spells, Disc will still love haste. The 15% nerf to PoH for disc is slightly offset by the increased DA from crits now. One Disc priest in the threads reported that he could build DA up to 50K absorbs, which probably makes PoH still the bread and butter spell it was pre-patch. (And consequently, makes haste still probably the highest stat for output). There are some nice calculations made in the thread for "burst" healing, and the values of haste is still much higher than crit and mastery. Crit's value relative to Haste is that Crit doesn't just improve HPS, but rather also HPM. But if you are considering just HPS, there is little doubt that Haste is better than Crit and Mastery.

I've found a nice compromise of PoH/PW:S with BT in tonight's raid. While AoE healing, simply rotate the 2. They have comparable HPS normally but PoH under BT is quite the improvement in an AoE healing situation. Single target shielding during AoE isn't a great problem in raids anymore with so many smart heals flying around, it averages out anyway. If you shield a few people up higher than the rest of the raid, smart heals will simply de-prioritize them and end up averaging out the raid health, leaving you with 14% hasted PoHs and a few players getting 10% extra crit on those PoHs through Weakened Soul.

I'll give it some more practice in this week's raids but it seems to be working out well.

Has anyone done any testing regarding potion use? Is there benefit from popping a [Potion of Wild Magic] before the pull anymore, or should we just stick to using a [Volcanic Potion] twice per fight?

I went ahead and looked at my WoL parses post patch, and I can echo TrlstanC's findings. I didn't find PWS being my top spell for all fights, since a fair amount of my raids were spend on H Halfus, and H Chim. (Though even on H Chim, PWS came in a solid third to PoH and DA.) For more "normal" fights such as Omni, et al, PWS was a superstar. (For instance on normal Atramedes, it came in as 40% of my healing.)

I still think on non-movement oriented fights, haste is probably still ahead of mastery when it comes to just pure output given the benefits to PoH, Smite for Atonement, Penance, and GH. But when it comes to movement fights, I wouldn't be surprised at all if Mastery is superior. However, if mana continues to not be a concern, I can't help but wonder if PWS spamming may make a huge comeback.

A guildie of mine who is much better with the expression editor figured it out.

Essentially, we are getting full credit for the total amount that our shields absorb, and it is accurate when a shield falls off with left over amount, which gets counted as "overhealing"

What gets confusing is that, anytime a shield absorbs an amount that doesn't break it, the combat log and WoL, treats the leftover amount as a new cast of PWS. For instance, if I cast PWS on someone and only 10K of the shield was used, the expression in the combat log records it as an aura refresh, and it gets counted as a new cast by WoL. This is why our average hit on the shields are much lower than the 27-28K even though our shields are totally consumed.

Yes, all damage reduction applies before shields. That includes Area ones (Barrier), personal buffs (PS, talents) and Armour.

How do you guys cast the shield on the tank often, do you spam greater heals to lower weakened soul?

I'm noticing a discrepancy between the "estimated" shield absorbs in Recount during the fight and what ends up coming through on the World of Logs "estimation" after the raid. My question is, which is likely more accurate?

How are you valuing the TB healer trinket, [Mandala of Stirring Patterns]?

In general I prefer passive int on my trinkets, since it's the most valuable stat and can't be reforged. The disadvantage of this over [Fall of Mortality] is that, although they both have the same average stats, you don't have the initial extra mana from the passive int. Burst int can also lead to overhealing if used incorrectly, but may also provide a burst when it's helpful. Burst spirit on the other hand is fine since it won't be wasted unless you have full mana already. However, I'm still intrigued by the unique stat model on the mandala, and the massive int proc can potentially be used to increase the return on shadowfiend, archangel, and hymn of hope.

Quick and dirty math:

321 int = 4815 mana for holy, 5537 for disc
1926 int = 28890 mana for holy, 33223 for disc

Archangel 5% of 321 int = 276
Archangel 5% of 1926 int = 1661
Difference = 1385, so you'd need to use archangel about 4 times during the mandala proc just to make up for the starting mana difference. This also doesn't account for whether or not using archangel during the proc will give you the best use of the 15% healing.

Hymn of hope 10% of 321 int = 554
hymn of hope 10% of 1926 int = 3322
Difference = 2768, so you'd need to hymn of hope twice during the proc to make up for the starting manna difference. Considering hymn of hope is an 8 second channel of doing nothing, this would be hard to time.

Shadowfiend 30% of 321 int = 1661
Shadowfiend 20% of 1926 int = 6645 (remember shadowfiend is 15 sec, mandala proc is 10)
Difference = 4984. This is where the mandala starts to pull ahead. Timing one shadowfiend with the proc will almost make up for the starting mana difference, and any extra usage you get from the proc is then extra mana.

Keep in mind that using any % mana restore abilities without the proc up is a loss from what you would have gained if you just had a passive int trinket up. From a pure regen perspective, the mandala may be better if you use shadowfiend and archangel with it every time. However, I'm not sure if that is worth dealing with lower base healing and RNG proc.