I am pretty sure Prayer of Mending does cause threat now these days , but when its on another target it takes your spell power into consideration.

Just for Reference, there's currently something going on with Borrowed Time. Or perhaps it never worked fine. It's supposed to haste "the next spell". In the tool-tip it doesn't specify anything else than that.

Cast time spells all seem to correctly receive the advertised haste bonus and upon completion of the cast the buff is consumed.

While under the effect of Borrowed Time the Penance tool-tip shows a 1.6s channeling-time, reduced from 2. However Penance does not consume the effect. I couldn't find any non-cast-time spell that consumes Borrowed Time.

Borrowed Time does not haste Hymn of Hope.

I was able to heal myself 4 times with Holy Nova between gaining BT and BT fading. If BT did not haste my Nova then I would need 5.92 seconds to execute that. BT fades just before my PW:S has 24 seconds remaining. It seems to get applied slightly after the Shield itself. BT itself has a 6 second duration.

With Power Infusion I was able to receive 5 heals from Holy Nova during Borrowed Time. A global cooldown of 1 (BT + PI) would mean I should be able to cast 6. PI changes my global cooldown to 1.23s (* 5 = 6.15s). So with a little bit of lag it could fit in.

With BT I was able to cast 1 hasted Penance (1.6s) and 3 Novas (4.5s) before BT expired.

All of that leads me to believe that BT does not reduce the global cooldown. It does not speed up casting instant spells.

I'm not sure if other Haste effects work the same way, but PI and BT stack multiplicative.

Flash Heal base cast time: 1.5s
Flash Heal with PI only: 1.25s (= 1.5 / 120%)
Flash Heal with BT only: 1.2s (= 1.5 / 125%)
Flash Heal with both: 1s (= 1.5 / [125% * 120%])


Bottom Line at the moment:
Channeled Spells do not consume BT, but benefit from it nonetheless.
If you want to tickle the most output out of Borrowed Time then cast Penance first and then a Greater Heal (or ideally Prayer of Healing, at a nice 2.4s cast time.) Use Instant spells when you're affected by Borrowed Time and want to save it a few seconds for whatever reason.

Even Mind Sear works off BT, hasted by a full second without any other effects, but does not consume the buff. That way one can easily squeeze in two. I hazard to guess that Mind Flay would be similar, but I don't feel like respeccing to find out.

P.S.:
BT (and PI as well) both work on Resurrection. Without gear you can get a 6.67s cast resurrection. For whatever that would be useful I do not know. Perhaps Arena?

Seeing as Rapture isn't working well with Divine Aegis (*at all,*) are there any Discipline Priests in raids? Is it even possible to heal in a raid as the spec?

I haven't tested it recently, but at some point pre-Wrath (but after 3.0.x) it was confirmed to be giving no threat at all - but the assumption is that this behavior is a bug and it should be crediting threat to the caster.

i know the compendium is not complete but overall if you had to take 2 professions for min-maxing it what professions put out the most benefit?

Sure it is... rapture/divine aegis may be bugged, but taking away some of our regen doesn't make the spec unusable.

I've not seen any blue posts on it, but I would welcome anyone and everyone bringing this up in places where blue posters may see and address the issue.

It's clearly a bug, and a pretty embarassingly one at that, but I am worried it will not get addressed in a timely manner.

For reference the original bug report is here. I see that several others have confirmed the bug and uniformly agree it is an important bug to fix.

I rarely like to answer questions like this, as I can only speak from my own experience, which may or may not apply to someone else's situation. However, despite the serious bugs with rapture, I have not had trouble being useful in raids as a discipline priest. Ironically I generally have fewer mana problems than other healers, as most rapture returns (if you're choosing your heals carefully) will come from healing, even if rapture were working correctly with DA.

I use the "stopcasting" macro for tank healing, keeping a GH on cast until its needed, can that be done without "Stopcasting"?

OK, so I'm sure now that if you are already casting the second GH when the proc ocures it wont be hasted and it consumes the HC but I'm not sure if it consumes one IHC charge.

On another note it seams that a instant FoL (SoL proc) consumes the inner fire.
I will do more testing and post the exact observations when I can.

Of course it can be done without a macro. That's how it was presumably done first. You just interrupt your own cast by taking a small step to the side. Then you start a new cast. Macros make this whole procedure more responsive, but strictly necessary they are not.

You can also bind stopcasting to a button in the keybindings-settings. This is very helpful for fights where you don't wanna move around(for example, Prince and shade in kara). Maybe this is something that should be mentioned in the compendium?

I have to admit that I am a retard when it comes to stopcasting binds. I tend to spam my button more than one time, so it delays the heals alot. I just cast and then move before the cast is made. Just a dab in any direction.

I tested it yesterday, it's 0 threat for both you and whoever it heals.

Yes this is a very bad habit, I also had this habit at some point but got over it, I also don't like to move if its not necessary that is why I'm using:

/stopcasting
/cast Grater Heal(Rank 9)

with quartz or some similar addon it's very effective you just press it when your heal is at 90% from its casting time (depends on latency) and the next GH9 begins without casting the previous one. This is of course if you don want your first GH9 to land. You don't loose any time at all like when you are jumping or moving.

EDIT: The downside of this macro is that you cant spam the button..

To get that deep into disc you sacrifice (most likely): GS, DP, ToF, IHC and 3 points in Emp Healing. You gain 1 point in imp:pws (yuck), MS, MA, and Enlightenment (or alternatively Focused Power and 3/5 Enl).

I admit I know little of how GS performs in raids and even though it was reported as being really good I assume I could live without it. DP is worse in terms of efficiency than MA, as Constantius mentioned long ago. I have seen regular holy build without ToF. Now, loosing IHC and Emp Healing is painful. Back in TBC IDS builds, which did not have Emp Healing maxed (and still used GH as their main spell) were raid viable. IHC is probably a subject to discussion but it is 'only' 15% to gain Clearcasting and haste on two next spells (out of which one is often wasted as mentioned few posts above).

Now all of those are obviously very good holy talents, but note that MS, Enli and FP are also great scalability talents. If loosing IHC is too much we can still move 3 points from Enli to get it, while keeping the bonus from MS.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but the FP bonus is applied to the total amount of healing done, right? (that is healing done for, say, GH is (BH+3.0/3.5*spellpower)*1.04)? If that is true than at 2k spellpower and base healing of GH slightly above 4k 2 points in FP are on par with 2 points in Emp Healing (like 70 points difference in total healing done), but since it works on all spells and reduces MD cast time as an added bonus, than 2 points in FP are vastly superior than 2 points in Emp Healing. If I am wrong about the formula, disregard this paragraph, but the remaining part of the post holds.

So far I read in this thread that hybrid build sucks because:
a) 'It feels like a waste to not take all the upper tier holy goodies, once you invested so many points there'
b) 'If you try to split between two roles, you suck at both'
Neither of this sounds like a solid argument. From what I see going hybrid meas loosing some throughput (Emp healing, DP, ToF) and a tool (GS) to gain efficiency, crit and regen (and 0.5 MD). I am also given an option to choose between 15% more clearcasting proc chance and 2 hasted heals versus constant 3% spirit and 3% haste (with a small chunk of HP as an added bonus). Now unless GS is really a gamebreaker I am not utterly convinced that holy gains outweight hybrid gains. I also fail to see how going hybrid reduces my tank healing capabilities compared to holy (as a matter of fact I believe they are better) or undoubtedly makes me a worse raid healer (I gain sustainability by loosing raw throughput).

PS. It is not that I claim that hybrid build is better than full holy. I just wonder, why people claim you should never ever consider speccing hybrid, without giving a solid proof. I also know that hybrid builds are stained by 'lets invite something new, so everyone notices me' attitude, but than again 'clean' builds are stained by 'zomg, I must use all the new stuff I got' approach on the other hand.

It is indeed a very bad habit, and one which is very easy to cure. Change your jump bind from spacebar to say alt+spacebar and give it a few days.

Regarding moving/using stopcasting macro. Moving takes time, even if you dab just a bit. To make it really simple, if you move to stop your spells you just lost anywhere from 30 to 100 haste. The biggest concern for people who don't want to use stopcasting macro is you can't spam it, or need to be very carefull doing it. This too is easily solved - make 2 binds, say 4 for your spammable GH needs and alt+4 for /stopcasting /cast GH.

Regarding hybrid builds, I don't think it's wrong at all and something along the lines of 27/44 where mental agility, mental strength and imp. spirit are traded for imp. holy concentration, divine providence, test of faith and guardian spirit could work wonders in tight mana situations.

Sorry, I don't quite catch your point. Are proposing to give up Imp Holy Conc and the likes for some Disc efficiency talents?

If so, then I don't think it's a good decision. Yes, your spells will cost less mana and you will have more mana to begin with. But your spells will also heal for less and you lose some mana regeneration and haste. In terms of mana management there are only two options in my opinion. You either need Holy Conc + Imp Holy Conc + Serendipity (unless you never single target heal, which isn't very likely) or Rapture + Aegis + Mental Strength. Because of their position in the tree you can't have both, but they fit together best in these combinations anyway. For Holy this means to get some Spirit along with Crit to benefit from full regen while casting free spells. For Disc that means boosting Crit, Spell Power and Int.

I specifically think that giving up Imp Holy Conc for Mental Strength means neither getting the full benefit from Holy Conc nor from Mental Strength.

After considering hybrids for a while the best I could come up with was Holy Tank healing build (with good AoE capabilities) that trades Guardian Spirit and some points in Divine Providence for Divine Spirit. On the Disc side I see no reason to go more than 18 in Holy unless one is after Spiritual Healing. But that clashes with Aegis and Grace. It's not a good trade. On the same note I would never trade Penance for Healing Prayers or Spirit of Redemption.

Talking about Guardian Spirit (so full holy), I see it follows a similar mechanic as old fashioned Spirit of Redemption (the one who did not grant spirit).

I must stand up and confess I have always LOVED Spirit of Redemption, even the old one. Since I love maths and theorycrafting, I had to read tons of comments such as "Spirit of Redemption sucks" or "SoR is useless". The point is pretty obvious: You must not die. Since you DO NOT DIE, SoR gives nothing to you. So it is useless.

I must admit, however, that even with lots of years of wow-raiding, being healer officer for a long time, being raid leader,...... SOMETIMES I DID DIE!!!!!! OMG!!!
Nobody is perfect and things do not go perfect. There are several talents such as Spirit of Redemption or Guardian Spirit that "should never be used", but man, when they are used they can turn a wipe into a down. And when will that happen? In the boss firsts downs, when the raid is not 100% used to all the mechanics of the encounter. Which means that the talent can turn the worst escenario into the best scenario when it will give you the most satisfaction.

Fortunately, now SoR gives +5% spirit and Guardian Spirit gives +40% healing. Those buffs make sure everybody will like those spells. But sincerely, even if they did not have those wonderfull buffs, I would still love them.

So that is why I can defend full Holy instead of an hybrid. You said it yourself, "It feels like a waste to not take all the upper tier holy goodies". But I wanted to give you an explanaition so you could understand me. ^^
Guardian Spirit, from my point of view, is better than any other talent you could get instead. I would rather have Guardian Spirit than +2% healing, or -1% damage on tank, or whichever ridiculously small percentage you might find in our talents. Just remember, tanks do not die because the heals were 9876 instead of 9964, or because the boss hit him for 6789 instead of 6658. They die because they did not receive a heal when they were supposed to.

Just my 2 cents

Snowy pointed it out in the old thread, but apparently it should be mentioned again: you can use Guardian Spirit + Renew and then relax a little from tank healing allowing you to get FSR mana regen or channel Hymn of Hope.

Cast Renew, Cast Guardian Spirit, Pop Trinkets, Channel Hymn of Hope, Cast Inner Focus, start healing again. Obviously if your tank "would have died" he gets healed 40% and you follow up with your Inner Focus Greater Heal.

Not to mention if your raid has druids, Guardian Spirit affecting their HoT's pretty much mean the tank won't die.

Besides that, the spell is damn useful on any fight that has some sort of berserk (is that the proper term now?). I had a 28k Greater Heal crit on a Bear tank on Patchwerks, effective healing. 6 healers, 3 tanks, 2 healers per a tank. Patchwerks hitting like a Boeing Freightliner after his 5% berserk.

Of course, there's Maexnna too. Use Guardian Spirit on the sub-30% Web Spray. Oh, and its insanely nice to use on Instructor Razuvius in case of a mind control break (we only have 1 SP). Eitherway, those "situational" cases happen fairly frequently. The talent is just absolutely amazing.

I would have killed for something like this on Brutallus.

Spirit of Redemption can also be used in emergency cases in some encounters where you are out of mana and everything is on cooldown. Get a soulstone, let yourself die on purpose (announcing this on Vent), use the spirit phase to heal as much as possible, then get up and continue with at least some mana. An extreme measure, for sure, and not easily doable in most encounters (soulstone and quick way to die necessary), but where it works, it works well. And if we take the talent just for the 5% willpower, why not use it?

A Dwarf Priest has an entry that breaks down and weighs WoTLK Priest healing stats. His work covers both Holy and Disc talent paths and goes as far as providing some final weighting ratios that in my opinion are pretty solid. It's a little old though--dated Nov. 7--so I wanted to get some peer input from the raiding Holy/Disc priests on this forum, to see if they agree/disagree with it (and why, if it applies).

Link: Weighing Priest Healing Stats A Dwarf Priest

Mistakes with your spec:
1) You took 2/2 IDS. Absolutely no point in doing so.
2) You took 4/5 MS instead of 3/5.

If you pull a point out of MS, and the 2 out of IDS, you get my spec, and pick up IHC. And lose ... 3% int. IDS does nothing. It does not stack with Flametongue, and if you're running in a group without Flametongue, you're doing 5-mans, where ... it doesn't matter. Respec.

Woops, I'm paying for being away from WoW for way too long, that change to flametongue..
Of course IDS is useless then and getting 3/3 IHC makes sense.

It's actually not my spec (I fell in love with GS), I'm just trying to advocate a hybrid spec
Perhapse you can add it as the third spec to the first section?