[Priest] Disc Discussion

[bldavis]

surge of light is decent as holy if you get a proc right when your tank starts taking heavy damage

other than that, i dont even use FoL

[Levantine]

I don't like RNG in my healing. It's also the reason I believe crit to be absolutely worthless as a stat on healer gear.

[bldavis]

I don't like RNG in my healing. It's also the reason I believe crit to be absolutely worthless as a stat on healer gear.

did i say i liked it?
its just nice when it happens to proc

[Nikachelle]

I think I read that you're supposed to reforge crit into either spirit or haste. Anyone know if that's accurate?

[Levantine]

As holy, shit yes. Less clear as disc.

[Nikachelle]

Yeah was thinking disc. I haven't touched holy this expansion.

I thought I'd read on EJ that that was the way to do it, but that haste and mastery became interchangeable at certain levels...

I've kind of been going for haste over spirit for two reasons... generally spirit is already on the gear already and secondly because I really don't like slower heals (which probably isn't really justifiable).

However, one of the best healers I've ever known told me they actually preferred crit on their disc gear because of divine aegis (which they indicated was usually in their top three heals on Recount - IF I REMEMBER CORRECTLY).

So then I was very confuzzled.

[bldavis]

thus the fuzziness...

i really cant say anything as i am a holy priest..so ya...
levie? or any other disc?

[Levantine]

Last time I checked Disc was fairly apathetic when it came to secondary stats. There was no clear winner for them like there was for holy, and they all kinda made the others more effective. My rule of thumb would have been to keep them about equal through reforging unless I felt lacking in a certain area eg haste.

[Skye1013]

There has been a lot of discussion about secondary stats, and really for Disc it comes down to whichever you feel most comfortable with.

Spirit is less needed due to Rapture (which is getting a slight buff according to the last bits I read on MMO-champion) and Shadowfiend/Hymn of Hope (both become better through Int and potentially Haste)

Haste is nice to increase your throughput, but does little for mana conservation (though I believe allows HoH to tick faster, which allows you to get back to healing quicker, and should increase your SF attack speed.)

Crit procs Divine Aegis, which becomes more powerful with Mastery, but potentially causes overheal from some spells.

Mastery is good for PoH (guaranteed DA) and PW:S builds.

I believe the general consensus is to try and keep them fairly balanced for Disc. PW:S spammers (which isn't really the best way to do things anymore) would want Mastery > Crit > Haste. PoH favors Haste > Mastery > Crit. GHeal would be similar to PoH (since Crit potentially makes for a lot of overheal, though the DA bubble can be quite nice.) Smite builds would likely want Haste > Crit > Mastery (more damage done = more healing/shorter fights).

I guess (if my assumptions are correct) Haste is the most favored stat (minus PW:S spammers) and Mastery/Crit would be determined more by your specific healing style, though there really aren't any clear winners.

[fuzzygeek]

For A/A, recommended amount of haste?

[Halcya]

I apologize for my daft "chain Flash Heal" comment. After rereading it in its context, I don't know I why wrote it. But the point is that I find Surge of Light to be inferior to the tools at the disposal of a disc priest, and it's not just the fact that's it is effectively a RNG heal (which I don't like, either).

I tend to favor a general distribution of secondary stats. I never touch spirit--I tend to end fights in the 10% to 20% mana range, so I don't need more, but I don't feel comfortable reforging out of it at this moment (currently I have 1678 spirit and 2926 mp5). At this point in time you can beneficially reforge your crit into haste or mastery. This should be the go-to strat for the foreseeable future, or at least until you can get crit into the 20%-25% range without overly reducing other supporting stats. I choose my own stat priorities based on my role in the raid for the evening. Focused/tank healing will see me reforge crit into haste, and raid healing will lead me to reforge crit into mastery. The best thing to do, though, is to parse your healing logs and see what spells your are using most and what percentage of healing they are doing, paying particular attention to the source of your absorbs. Heavy usage of PW:S, DA procs, and PoH (due to DA procs) will benefit most from mastery.

That being said, there is a strong case being made to boost mastery at the expense of all other secondary stats. The folks doing this are better geared than I am, but I haven't monkeyed with it yet. I might play with it later this weekend, but I don't think I have the mana regen at this moment to support it.

I can't recommend a particular level of haste for A/A builds other than "more is better."

[Skye1013]

AFAIK, there isn't a set limit to A/A haste, since I don't think you can reach a 1s cast time, and it's not a HoT, so there aren't any soft caps to hit. I would probably stack it until I have difficulty sustaining mana to the end of a fight, then scale back a little, if needed. When I'm able to get back on (couple weeks from now) I'll be chain running heroics as Disc to get a better feel for it (preparing for raids and whatnot) and I'll try to post what stats work best for my particular setup. Though I imagine a lot will vary based on your tanks/dps and guild runs vs PuGs.

Side Note: I've been using Surge of Light in my spec, just because they were disrectionary points, and I wanted to see how well it works. Mental note was made: when macroing IF to GH/PoH, FH WILL light up during the casting of GH/PoH... this should NOT be confused with a SoL proc .

[fuzzygeek]

I went and reforged and gemmed for a bunch of haste on my 347 priest; Smite is 1.74 or so, which seems interesting -- I also went 2/3 Darkness for 2% haste instead of Inspiration. This is for my heroic funtime spec; I have a 31/8/2 GH spec for raid healing.

Haven't had a chance to play with it much, but I'm curious.

Also, wow, the armory has aggregate numbers for boss kills.

[thatguy]

I have a running argument with a fellow priest about Inner Will v Inner Fire. I'm firmly in the camp of only using Inner Will in the event that I need to get out of something quite fast and I can afford the GCD to switch from Inner Fire. Now, I could be doing something very wrong so hence me asking this (stupid?) question.

Do you guys ever run Inner Will while disc on a permanent basis? I find it hard (especially for me at this stage in the expansion) to give up 540 spellpower for reduced mana costs on my instants. Outside of PW:S and PoM, I can't think of any other instants that I use on a regular basis. How do you guys do it?

[Nikachelle]

I use Inner Will for heroics and Inner Focus for raids.