Disc priest utterly lost
 

I've been happily healing as disc for a year or more. Never had issues. But now in cata, I can't seem to keep a party alive, I'm constantly oom!

Old ways :
Renew + pom + bubble on tank.
Keep pws and renew up. Pom when its off CD.
Use Penance when needed, flash heal as filler.

Now that leaves me dead on mana. So I switched to Heal as filler. Result is that I can barely keep my tank alive, let alone the party.
I've tried atonement smite healing, even more fail.

Every other priest in my guild even dropped healing, so now I have to heal or we can't raid at all anymore. I feel like I am a worthless healer now because I am having such an insanely hard time keeping ppl alive, the shadowpriest usually has to coheal in a normal dungeon.

Does anyone have any pointers because I am going mental over this!

Disc never involved Renew unless you had the gear for it. Keep PoM on CD, Penance on CD, Flash Heal, Heal.

Though, I kind of agree with you in terms of 85 healing, Disc kind of is more geared towards PvP Again like in BC, and Holy is the PVE healing again.

The thing is, I never liked Holy as spec, I don't know why - I just never got into it. I tried Disc and fell in love. Now I'm feeling like Disc is cheating on me with a newer younger and better looking woman, ya know?

I am starving for mana, if I don't have Divine Hymn during boss fights, it's a wipe. I haven't a clue what the hell Blizzard was thinking when they decided Heal should be THE spell, I mean 5k heals when you have 60k?? (Then the mana cost would exceed that of 1 Flash Heal, which generally got my tank to full.)

I was so intensely happy with Disc as tree for PvE healing, so long talk shorter -- I am now completely forced to play a spec I've always disliked... Holy. Because we do need a 2nd healer :(

I just did one of the new 5 mans, and felt like a complete newb... "mana break", few trash, "mana break", few trash, "mana break omg sorry!". I felt way out of my element, and like such a newb. Luckily no one in the group were jerks about the deaths.

I'm perusing the latest fresh (Dec 3rd) Disc Priest thread on EJ, and there's some good info (the comments mostly). Perhaps you can find something there to help you, too.

http://elitistjerks.com/f77/t110244-...st_compendium/

On another note... there's some ok gear dropping for us, but are you worried about giving up the set bonuses? Half way through that instance, I put all of my tier/icc gear back on. I swear it felt like my heals weren't doing **** to the tanks health (tank is my boyfriend, so I'm extremely familiar with his health and how much my heals hit him for).

Any input?

I didn't have too much trouble with Blackrock caverns last night though my mana use was notably higher. Ill have to keep an eye on what I do tonight and see if I can add some info from personal experience. I tend to just go on autopilot most of the time hehe.

Disc had this same exact problem while leveling in wrath. I remember having a lot of difficulty keeping up with the group in UK and beyond. It became a ton better after gearing up.

It'll pass :D

You may want to skip the auto pilot... I guess I needed to vent and hear I wasn't all alone . Thanks.

I will keep on trying, though for now I will not pug.

So after running Throne a short while ago i can say mana was a huge issue. AoE (as to be expected for disc) can be a bit ugly though the Barrier shield definitely helps.

The few instances I have run so far I've had all melee groups which is adding to the difficulty. Appears to be quite a bit more AoE in the cata instances.

Katae is right on the money I think. Gearing up is going to make a big difference. Since I'm bored ill probably try out holy tomorrow and see how it goes.

As for the set bonuses I haven't noticed a huge difference either way. The main thing about the new gear is it definitely needs reforging on some pieces to round out stats. That's the impression I'm getting so far.

One of the things that was mentioned on the Blizzard forums quite a while ago is that the mobs in cata will be hitting considerably harder. By comparison to WotLK. I have definitely noticed this. Since our gear is essentially "running behind the curve" in this respect its definitely going to be challenging. Convincing a group to use a little CC to ease the burden might not be a bad idea.

All in all its been a hoot so far. Looking forward to more mayhem. =)

Thou I haven't tried discipline yet, I would like to throw in my observations and experience, leveling in dungeons to level 84, so far, as Holy.

At first I had huge mana issues, oom after maybe 2 or 3 fights if it went well. Didn't it go so well I could go oom in a single fight.

What really solved my mana problems was when the other group players started playing more cautiously.
In Wrath of the Lich King you could pretty much plow through dungeons without ever needing an actual tank for 96% of all encounters.

This will not work in Cataclysm, as mentioned above, mobs hit alot harder now.
On the very first runs, a rogue would easily pass the tank in threat and get killed within seconds.

Once our dps only attacked the tank target and started to pay attention to their threat, I had zero issues with mana on trash and maybe lost half my pool on boss fights.
Also the AoE threat generation from tanks seems very very weak, strong single target threat thou. This is observation only, don't have a tank.

Another huge change for me, this is Holy specific but I'll throw it in anyway, is my own play style.

My main healing spell is now Heal. Throw on a renew and start the Heal chakra state.
The chakra state refreshes the duration on Renew and with State of Mind talents it adds 4 seconds to the Chakra duration when I cast Heal.
I can pretty much handle all trash fights like this.

On the AoE fights its basicly a matter of everyone being able to stand inside the Sanctuary while I use PoH and CoH.
If the fight doesn't allow everyone to be inside the Sanctuary, it gets kinda hairy for me...

Flash Heal is very expensive now and I only use it sparingly, since it can eat my mana pool in under a minute.
When I use it, its in combination with the Holy talent Serendipity.
2x Flash Heal and a Greater Heal, I mainly use this if something goes wrong and I need to top someone fast.

We (those who followed healing news or various threads here and there) were told not to get spoiled on all the mana we had pre Cata, so we knew already come Cata instances the mana struggles would begin (for most if not all healing classes). I thought I was prepared for it.. but damn lol.

There's lots of things that can contribute to going oom quickly, but bad groups aside, coupled with the fact that we mostly got to relax a bit regarding our mana pre Cata, now we have to learn to conserve it all over again, and those who can CC will have to get use to actually CCing.

ckramme; out of total curiosity, why do you use some Old English (thou)? I had a hard time following some of what you said.

(Pennywise... scary clown!!!)

Smite is your friend. With the talent you'll be healing for 100% of the damage. Plus with Archangel you'll regain a bit of mana and increase your healing (which seems to affect the healing done with smite). And with the +18% hit to smite glyph you'll always be hitting with it. It's healing effectiveness should be on par with Healing (the spell). So instead of casting Heal; cast smite.

forgetting the gh of though :(

You won't (or shouldn't) be using smite unless it's during low damage fights and you can afford to not be focusing too much on the tank. What we're mostly having issues with is going oom during high damage fights. I do, however, honestly believe we just need to re-adjust how we are healing and use smarter heals for more effective mana conservation (edit: while also taking advantage of PI, IF, Shadowfiend, and HoH when avail). ;)

The key is getting used to use your spells right. You need to use mana efficient spells, now.

1. Keep PoM on CD and Penance on CD, like Ferous said
2. Greater Heal heals for substantially more than heal, sure it costs more mana, but it buys you time to mess with...
3. Evangelism + Archangel, which in turn reduce the mana cost, give you mana and increase your healing output
4. Borrowed Time into slow (Greater) Heals ...
5. 3 points in Divine Fury help a lot (-0.5sec cast time for H, GH and smite! - evangelism stacks ^^)

I really don't recommend using Flash Heal at all, except for emergency situations.

I'm pretty sure this will calm down with better gear, like it always does. It's just some struggling early on. I personally preferred Disc over Holy, too. But maybe Holy is "easier" to handle with bad/leveling gear.

While I don't have a Cata-level priest at the moment (he's still 76 because I was too bored of wrath to finish leveling) I would just like to say I completely know where you're coming from as an 85 resto druid. After nearly every pull, even with great CC and a well geared tank I need to drink because I don't have enough mana for the next pull (or I'm completely out, which is sadly more often the case). I've tried all the strategies I've heard/read about and none seem to be notably better on mana efficiency.

I appreciate a challenge, but this is ridiculous. Hopefully Blizzard will come to realize that they're probably alienating many of their healers. with such extreme changes and will scale them back.

As to the responses citing that gear levels will affect healing abilities/mana efficiencies, I believe this is wrong. Several other resto druids that have higher average item levels than me have told me that their heals cost more mana than mine and say that the costs continue to scale with increased item levels. There may be a point at which stats on the gear start scaling more than the increased mana cost, but who knows.

I am having the same problem on mana issue,
but this is how I deal with it, have to pull out all the tricks

I speced into this
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bfhzrosbfRMochMZb:qmc

- even though evangelism helps cut mana usage, but in the process you use more mana to get that stack up to 5, so until I get more mana regen
I'll just cut down evangelism

- eat spirit food, and drink spirit elixir, helps a ton

- Power Infusion yourself

- Inner focus and use Greater Heal, will most likely crit and buy you more time to heal

- Barrier(glyped) + Pain Sup in tight situation (if you can, PI yourself, Inner focus and GH galore)

- Hymm of Hope before using your shadowfiend to get more mana back

- I know mana potion is sky rocket high price right now but 10K mana is not something to look over, use it if you can.

- run normal to gear yourself up if you can, running heroics in green is kinda painful

finally you will in the end feel better when you have more gears.

hope it helps :)

After playing with it a bit i settled in to a good cycle. The key component in this is using CC when possible as it helps quite a bit.

General tank healing I throw shield, PoM (always try to keep on CD as stated above) and I'm specced in to Strength of soul. Soon as my shield lands I cast heal on the tank. Takes some time off weakened soul. Twice if able to and it kills weakened soul all together. Then as PoM and Shield are starting to become opposites i will toss in Heal where i can to kill the debuff. Penance as needed. Inspiration from holy will help as well if your crit is high enough.

I find i use Inner focus and Power infusion much more regularly. It helps. Heavy Aoe battles are still the hardest. Well placed Barrier and IF with PoH (guaranteed divine aegis) usually does the trick though if the tank likes to move a lot it can mess that up.

Average fight using this i use up to maybe 20% mana. Though with leap of faith i can lower that since its usually silly ranged DPS not being willing to move and hoping I'll just "heal through it" that jacks that number up.

I plan to try the Smite/archangel/atonement combo later this week when im feeling frisky and will report back my take on it.

Did an instance at 85 the other night with a Disc priest as healer. No issues, no one died. She had mana problems a couple of times, but that's due to not having the gear maxed out yet..

Healers had it too easy the past few years. Any healer that doesn't admit that, well, I dunno what to tell ya.

Cata is a challenge for everyone - aggro is harder to keep up, healing is harder to keep up. The game is more enjoyable knowing that you have a chance to die if you don't play BETTER than you have before.

If you don't like the challenge, then perhaps you need to quit playing WoW now and find another game. WOTLK became a joke, Blizzard saw this, decided to make it hard again to force people to pay attention, play better, etc, and so it is what it is.

Not a priest, but... I feel like I have to conjure water again. Before Cata, I stopped bothering since I never needed it... Yeah, we'll have to stop to drink, but it gives groups breathing time, catch up time, looting time...

As Marth said, WotLK was too easy. Before, you used to have to stop to drink every few pulls. :)

- Skip any Smite talents/activities. They are a waste of time/hps/mana.
- Act proactive with low mana costs - not reactive with high mana costs. Start casting Heal even if the tank is in a good shape and abort the spell if necessary.
- They want you to use Heal - so USE IT. Use PW:S and then Renew + permanant Heal/GH.
- Throw in a Penance if needed (don't use it on cooldown ... it's a waste of mana).
- Use FH as a panic spell only.
- If the group is taking damage (!) use PoM on cooldown + Renew. Don't use PoM if only your tank is taking damag ... it's a waste of mana.
- Use PoH as a panic spell only.

I know what you mean. After now gearing up running 5 mans with ONLY guildies, getting the 346 gear has really helped out. Now I have epics it is even better on mana! You just have to bear with it and then it's smooth sailing from there ;)

-However, for spell rotations, Inner Focus is your VERY best friend, use it everytime it's off CD, it counts toward a free PoH (make sure to glyph it) and a free Greater heal.

-Like others said, use heal when he's at or above 75%, then greater heal/Flash heal for anything lower. Stack lots of spirit and int, once gear is getting better, you can stack more int rather than spirit.
As long as there is a lot of CC going out, your mana should be ok.

Disc heals are some of the best healers right now for raiding, pulling more than 10k hps/absorbs, we're very useful and important for raids, keep your priest!!

Oh my I remember that Seerah .. oh I killed a few mobs .. oh, no mana .. drink up time rofl.

CCd mobs = less damage = less mana use . Tie that into juggling which spells to use when and utilise as many of your procced freebies as possible. Believe me it helps.

Agreed. But, while tanking became a little harder, healing became a LOT harder. And, to my recollection, there were a lot of very bad tanks in LK. I don't see that stopping much. I see there being fewer tanks. [edit] Sorry - that wasn't very clear. I see a lot fewer tanks because only two types will continue: those that are so dense that they really don't get it that they aren't good at tanking and those who are very stubborn.

As to healing - I have 5 of them. And I've pretty much stopped. I healed all through Vanilla, BC, LK but I am simply not enjoying the regression progression (pardon me there). I don't mind watching my mana. I object to the tools I'm forced to use. GC, in his almost infinite wisdom (and stellar ability to make George Orwell look like a piker) has given us "hard choices" by essentially removing all choice. That bugs the daylights out of me.

So, unless I can figure out how to have fun healing again, I'm done with it. The community is just fine without me, I won't be missed. Although my guild still isn't raiding because, you guessed it, we don't have the healers. My tank, close friend and officer in the guild keeps calling me asking me to level my healers. Not motivated to. I am not captivated by the new areas, I think the linearity of the quests will make leveling alts even less desirable and, in general, I don't care much for the quality and bugginess of the quests.

I'll just level a ton of alts to 60, I guess. The lowbie quests, at least, are relatively interesting.

I just started again on a new account and my priest is level 65. I was leveling only through dungeons.

On level 15-25, I was oom after every 4-5 pull. I didn't have to drink anymore at lvl 30+. Now, when i join hellfire ramparts, I don't have to do more than shield the tank and smite away. And I don't run room through the whole instance.
It couldn't be easier right now.
Does it really get that hard at 85?

As I said, in this topic before. Proper stats on gear and item level will make things easier. A freshly 85 might struggle though. Less so, if you level'ed up through dungeons (and therefore are in full blue gear when hitting 85), though.