I'm currently 53/18, the spec I used in 3.1 for Algalon (10) and YS+0 (10). Since 3.2 I raided twice with this spec. First raid was our first down of Steelbreaker (25) where I was healing Steelbreaker with a small assist of our 2 druids (when not rushed by raid healing). The heal on Steelbreaker tank is about 2 things : topping the tank before Fusion Punch and preventing some of the incoming damages // very fast heal of the tank just after the Fusion Punch lands on the tank. For this second task, GH is perfect (and will be whatever the template I think) because of the casting time of Fusion Punch. But in P3 I like to spam GH during the last 60s of the fight here comes divine fury.

The second raid was a bunch of tries on Mimiron HM, shielding and glyphed holy nova made all the job, but for this fight Divine Fury is almost useless, it is far better to focus on FH because the whole fight is based on emergency healing.

I was against GH for a very long time, but since one month I enjoy my points in Divine Fury in most of the fights.

Or course this happens, but I do think precasting gheal is better than reactively using penance in some situations. But in many more situations, gheal with DF is better than flash imho (when penance on CD). There are very few fights in Ulduar where this is needed (I haven't attempted Algalon myself yet), but I do miss my gheal.

I have Quartz myself, but cannot reach theoretical HPS (just spamming yourself in town) on any spell because of lag. This loss of HPS is bigger for fheal of course. Did anyone ever reach the theoretical HPS?

Edit: Sorry misread the quote, fixed my post.

I don't really understand the point that haste is useless past the soft 1sec gcd shield cap, don't you want haste when monotarget healing ? and I mean monotarget, when 2 men healing the tanks on Algalon 25, you don't throw any shield around, same thing for crit, more crits, more DA procs and the more secure is the MT.

On mono target healing we're closing even more on the pal's hps (with our hps + mitigation) now that their illumination has been nerfed, and they can't nobrain spam holy light anymore, and for this reason our shields/DA/Val'anyr procs/whatever are even more important.

The GH talk is interesting, I use it in 3 situations when monotarget healing : my inner focus is up => hasted GH, Val'anyr has procced => hasted GH, forseeable damage like fusion punch => hasted GH, but between pennance CD's, i usually spam flash heal, which I find quite effective actually :p

Anyway, power to the shields, I had been playing holy since Karazhan and right now I can't let go of discipline, nothing in the game compares to a good raid shielding (you know, the one when you've got 25 shields up, and you're praying god for freya to do her tremor while rapture is up or you'll be oom ^^)

How does this help you? In that case, wouldn't rapture proc from just one of the shields? Is there a bug that makes rapture proc more than once per 12s? It for sure doesn't on - for example - Vezax hard.

Yes it does, but the shields have to be popped by the SAME damage while your rapture CD is up, freya's tremor, Kologarn HeAUEAEUAEU earthquake are perfect examples

If you want to test it safely and easily, do it on kologarn, shield everyone but the tanks so rapture doesn't proc accidentaly just before the earthquake, you'll see that you'll never drop below 90% mana

Edit : Rapture behavior is quite erratic on Vezax, since you're not supposed to gain mana, raptures procs for some % of it's own normal value, and it doesn't proc every time

Interesting, I've only seen series of two procs so far.

As for the Vezax percentage, my rapture return on Mimiron last ID was 637 mana, on Vezax it was 198, though I run a bit more Int at Vezax. Should be around a third of the usual value.

Edit: yep, I can see this in my latest Kologarn log, so it's even active after patch 3.2. Must have been blind to miss this.

About T9 , someone knows for sure if the increase of Divine Aegis via 4p T9 is 10% of the 30% shield (33% then) or 40% ?


And even for tank healing, I think I'll keep my t8 for a while, there is always a downtime where I can shield a member of the raid to put a bigger shield/ProM/Penance on the tank.

Am trying to sort out my spec once and for all. Been looking through the discusion and the builds in thread 1. I currently have 2 points in reflective shield. I notice that on ethe builds that it is not required. Who reflective shield not be of a benifit when bubbling the tank?

Also it a point spent in desperate prayer worth it as a fail safe or is it better spent somewhere else?

Reflective shield only reflects damage absorbed by shields on you, the caster. Personally I tend to take desperate prayer in my disc spec, but it comes down to a matter of preference I guess.

I noticed there is a meta gem that I use as a disc priest, beaming earthsiege(+21crit &+2%mana) that isn't listed on your list above; and I have been told by more than one priest(granted they were all holy) that that gem isn't any good for me. Can someone please compare the values of the beaming gem to the other meta gems so I can see what values we have to deal with?

Because crit is a less valuable stat than spellpower or mana regen which are what is normally meta gemmed for. At just starting Colleseum 10 gear levels You should easily have over 30% crit raid buffed already so the value of about another 1/2% crit is negligible compared to more spellpower or 21 int and the 600 mana proc.

If you want some more information about how to gem and why, you can take a look here: Priest gems for 3.2 � BobTurkey’s WoW Blog
The stat weights he uses are his own preference, but the overall idea seems ok to me.

As pointed out by Ellyh crit is low value compared to some of the other options.. 2% mana is strictly worse from a regen standpoint than the IED's proc.

If you don't have mana concerns and can jump down to the second best regen meta's you would have two comparable "regen" options, [Ember Skyflare Diamond] or [Beaming Earthsiege Diamond]. Both result in the same end mana/regen. The ESD is a better choice because if you are dropping regen for additional throughput the 25 SP > 21 Crit.

Even with the new T9 4pc and a high DA contribution through a high tank healing requirement or procs from PoM/PoH/HN on the raid, and the right damage pattern (on pre-nerf HM Mimiron when HN'ing I could see DA numbers that were very high). Which would be the scenario where Crit becomes a little more valuable... You would still gain more net benefit having the [Revitalizing Skyflare Diamond] than the 21 Crit. Hence the BED is probably not a viable choice in any scenario.

All greetings!
What do you think about new crafted items that have appeared in 3.2? Compare [Bejeweled Wizard's Bracers] and [Royal Moonshroud Bracers], which would be better? Currently I have 400 haste unbuffed in my Disc spec and thinking which is better for me - 50 haste vs. 50 spi? On the one hand the haste must be better stat for disc, but on the other - soft cap of 1s BT GCD I already have.

I'm loving Disc, but a bit confused on what my priorities should be (and by "my" here, I mean Disc priests in general, hence the question asked in this thread). I also think I've been underusing Flash Heal significantly (putting PoM and PW:S always above it). Assuming the MT needs a heal, does it go something like this:

1. Penance (big heal needed)
2. PW:S (no big heal needed, no Weakened Soul)
3. PoM (small heal needed, no PoM up on anyone)
4A. Penance (small heal needed, big heal won't be needed for 6 seconds)
4B. Flash Heal (small heal needed, big heal will be needed in 6 seconds)

Do I pretty much want to stick with Flash Heal on raid healing, unless I want to pre-shield or a small heal is all that is needed, in which case PW:S.

When is a good time to use Renew?

What do folks use to track the Weakened Soul Debuff? I'm wondering if I ought to use PowerAuras to provide a visual indicator if the person I'm targeting (typically, the tank) doesn't have it on them.

Assuming I'm going to be tossing Grace-proc capable heals on folks other than the MT, Grace is something I really need to be paying attention to on the MT, correct? As in, if Grace drops from the MT, Penance ought to be my first heal on the MT to renew the stack.

Prayer of Healing and Greater Heal are -generally speaking- good candidates for Inner Focus powered heals, correct?

Some of your questions have been answered numerous times before, but the initial question is a good one. My general rule of thumb is completely opposite to yours. While tank healing, my Bread & Butter spell is Flash Heal. PoM has a cooldown, Penance has a cooldown, and Renew can't proc Inspiration or Divine Aegis. I'll essentially Flash, Flash, Flash, refresh PoM, keep WS up at all times, and use Penance as needed.

Your job is to provide a steady stream of mid-level heals while keeping up a 3-stack of Grace and Inspiration up full-time. If you're solo healing, it makes more sense to "save" Penance for a time when you need it; if you're healing in conjunction with other healers, I pretty much use Penance on cooldown just for the HpS and the almost-guaranteed Inspiration refresh.

You're right that raid healing should be mostly PWS and FH, with some PoH as you have Borrowed Time to make it faster. PoH is a huge mana hog, so you have to be careful not to overuse it, but it is still more HpS than anything else you can do.

As far as tracking Weakened Soul, you can use GRID icons, Pitbull auras, etc. -- any reasonable unit frame alternative supports debuff tracking.

When I do heal (which is not full time, Shadow is my main spec) I hold on to my old school tendencies of Molten Core and keep renew on the tank. The main reason I posted though was to point out that if you are really kicking ass with pressing buttons, you will take latency in to account and unfortunately, the very first spell you trigger after PWS won't have BT applied to it I've noticed. I use Quartz with the GCD spark set up and when I'm really in the zone, my first cast after PWS tends to not be hasted appropriately. Waiting that 0.1 seconds would give me the haste buff though. Food for thought if you're only reason for casting an instant right afterwards is for BT haste.

You can tell how beneficial it is by viewing your combat logs from fights where you use this technique. Renew is always the hot topic of debate. When not having a more urgent heal needed on the tank/ect, why not try casting another PW:S which is also an instant cast spell, on another person. This keeps up your BT, and tends to be much more beneficial, to your absorbed hps, damage mitigation, and future healing in the fight, than one renew placed on a tank. Just as renew may be proactive in healing if a tiny tick is needed, proactive shields will always be beneficial unless you are sure that No raid damage will occur whatsoever.

..What? I have yet to be able to replicate not getting the haste from borrowed time, it shouldnt be possible. You get the borrowed time buff when you cast pw:s and you'll have to wait for the gc to finnish before casting the next spell. Your latency would have to be through the roof.

Has anyone managed to confirm this? I've been looking at the comparative set pieces that I could use to replace the T9.25 set pieces (Token + Badges) and the gloves from Anub (Lifeless Touch) and some of the straight badges pieces (ilevel245) seem preferable to the tier pieces.

The 2 set bonus is obviously fantastic with the amount of raid damage Blizz are including in WotLK raid, but if the 4pt bonus is only a 3% increase in DA, then in my opinion it's essentially worthless in healing, giving you a tiny increase in the crit values of heals.

Has there been any confirmation, and/or numerical analysis of the 4pt bonus?

As a side note, I'm still not seeing DA being procced from my PW:S glyph crits, as included in the recent patch notes. Is this still a known bug?

As far as disc goes? I'm of the opinion that the 4pc T8 bonus is just plain too good, until you get 240 SP or whatever the bonus is from just the sheer ilvl difference.

I don't see the 2pc T9 as worth breaking up the 4pc T8. It will be worth it, at some point, though, and then the bonuses are just gravy, imo.

If you are raid shielding yes, 4p T8 is very powerful but it's a lot worse when tank healing. The bonus is basically 4s of 250 Spell Power due to GCD and that's 2-3 casts and you don't always have time to stop healing the tank every 4-5s. Depending on the fight the set bonus has a lot lower uptime while tank healing and the new gear also provides haste and crit that are also valuable for tank healing. For pure shield spamming I would change back to T8 even with full T9.