Discipline Priest in Raids

[Doctah]

I'm talkin 42/19/0

We tried it out in BT for Bloodboil specifically, just because we had a wipe fest on him the week before for no reason besides a slack-off-healing job. Anyways for most raids we are pretty priest heavy, and often looks like this:

• 2-3 healing priests,
• 2 shaman
• 1-2 druid,
• 1 H-pally, and a prot pally that heals for fights she's not needed to tank.

So, my real question is simply how many people use deep Discipline priests in raids.

Also, any ideas where Pain Suppression would really shine, I'm trying to figure out exactly how often it has a genuine use besides "oh sh!t".

[stba]

Originally Posted by Doctah

I'm talkin 42/19/0
So, my real question is simply how many people use deep Discipline priests in raids.

none who is raiding seriously

Originally Posted by Doctah

Also, any ideas where Pain Suppression would really shine, I'm trying to figure out exactly how often it has a genuine use besides "oh sh!t".

no, it doesnt shine at all

disc is only viable for pvp, disc priest is as usefull as shadowstep rogue or ms warrior without bloodfrenzy in raid, and we are talking about "real" raids where you need to heal, not some ssc / tk afk runs.. have one priest go spirit, rest CoH. Only boss i could even think of having disc priest is fellmyst where you need fast massdisspelling but you need to have strong aoe heal too so dunno... probly not worth it

[afrobotics]

You lose way too much healing in the middle-bottom part of holy. In my guild we don't even have a full-fledged DS priest and have a rogue's alt buff our raid before boss attempts, this optimizes our raid and allows us to have 3 amazing CoH healers without sacrificing stats.

[Stenhord]

its not worth using a disc priest at gurtogg bloodboil imo, sure it could seem like a good idea with pain supression, but it only last for a portion of the fel rage anyway and your priest will have lower healing power. if you cant heal a clothie with fel rage pain supression wont save you.

we tried disc priest on bloodboil when we were progressing on him and did actually worse 2 healers whould be able to keep tanks and raid up during fel rage, rest spam heal the fel raged person. and you should ofc not have pally on tank healing during fel rage as he has the highest hps on a single target. put druids on keeping tanks up during fel rage and rest heal fel rage.

[Quaalude]

Well, not only are discipline priests more geared towards PvP, but they take up a spot of a Holy or Shadow priest, which provide a lot more benefit. You can never have too many shadow priests in a raid.

[resa1983]

We routinely bring a IDS/PS priest to raid BT.. For the most part, we use PS on BB on our squishy mages - who don't like spamming their armor button.

Also helps that our Raid/Guild Leader's a mage..... >.> Less pushing of armor button = more dps during fel rage.

We've also used PS when doing Kael. For example using it on our MT - MT had ~11k health (from 20k) from stacks of the orb debuff. PS made it a lil easier on the healers, as we brought less than normal healers, as well as guild recruits (dps), who didn't know what was going on, and kept standing in fire, getting too close to phoenix, etc..

[Landrider]

I am a full Disc Priest who raids regularly. As my guild has only reached BT within the last couple of months, the tally for how long I will stay disc is still being formulated. Just downed Gorefiend and moving on. Up to this point, I am always within the top 4 in healing. I routinely use PS on mages, sometimes just to drop their aggro. On boss fights where aggro is not so important, PS has saved others if they make a mistake. From someone stuck in Supremus' volcanoes to a low Hp character during HW Naj. I keep PI (power infusion) constantly on cooldown (unless I am chain healing) and normally reserve it for a mage or lock. I have padded numbers when I keep it on only one person (though tough when managing their aggro). Time will tell as we keep progressing but for now I will stay a disc priest.

[MasterLoco]

Originally Posted by Landrider

Up to this point, I am always within the top 4 in healing. I routinely use PS on mages, sometimes just to drop their aggro.

First of all healing meters say nothing. You can see if anyone's slacking on trash etc yes but beyond that? no.
And PS to drop aggro? Damm yes I bet that full 5% for 8 seconds is gonna make a world of difference.

I'm sorry, no. Priests shouldn't spec beyond spirit in disc tree if you are talking about raiding the proper way.

[Elywienn]

Originally Posted by MasterLoco

First of all healing meters say nothing. You can see if anyone's slacking on trash etc yes but beyond that? no.
And PS to drop aggro? Damm yes I bet that full 5% for 8 seconds is gonna make a world of difference.

I'm sorry, no. Priests shouldn't spec beyond spirit in disc tree if you are talking about raiding the proper way.

I have to agree with Masterloco on this one.
Healing meters meant something pre-BC, but now with introduction of 25-man raids every healer has a specific assignment on bosses, so your rank on the meters depends on how much damage does the person(s) you were assigned to heal take over the course of the fight.

But imo being deep disc is just an excuse for priests that care about pvp more than pve to not respec properly because they're too stingy about money.

[Landrider]

I am not disagreeing as I am still learning the fine art of healing. I understand that meters do not mean much in the thick of things and only meant that I am no slacker. I have not been asked to respec but have offered. I do agree to some degree Elywienn, I do like to pvp but would with several K in the bank I am not cheap (maybe lazy lol). As to being a proper way of raiding... well seems to mechanical and as we all know it depends on the make up of the raid, the quality of gear and characters playing their toons. Healing has not been an issue yet but as I said in my first post time will tell when I need to respec.

[Elywienn]

Originally Posted by Landrider

I am not disagreeing as I am still learning the fine art of healing. I understand that meters do not mean much in the thick of things and only meant that I am no slacker. I have not been asked to respec but have offered. I do agree to some degree Elywienn, I do like to pvp but would with several K in the bank I am not cheap (maybe lazy lol). As to being a proper way of raiding... well seems to mechanical and as we all know it depends on the make up of the raid, the quality of gear and characters playing their toons. Healing has not been an issue yet but as I said in my first post time will tell when I need to respec.

Thing is, regardless of your raid comp certain classes do certain jobs better than others. All you can do with your current spec is heal one target at a time, something a paladin would've done a better job at because this is what their class is meant to do. In BC priests' trump card has always been powerful instant cast spells, such as shield, circle of healing, renew, prayer of mending; and also slow yet large heal - greater heal. Going holy enhances your strengths, there's no reason you shouldnt spec for pve while pve'ing.

I don't mean to say that you do a bad job at healing as disc, it's just that you could do a lot better if specced differently. If you're #4 today you will be constantly #1 tomorrow. Think about it, the spec really makes a huge difference here. There's currently nothing more overpowered than circle of healing, any raider could tell you that.
And since the patch we get to keep all the trained ranks when respeccing so it's really just 1 mouse click (nothing to be lazy about) and accept your summon.

But then again noone here is to tell you how to play your character, take it as a friendly advice

Sincerely,

[MasterLoco]

Originally Posted by Elywienn

There's currently nothing more overpowered than circle of healing, any raider could tell you that.

There's still this thing called Chain Heal and on a fight like M'uru CH ownz CoH by far imo.

Then again in Black Temple where encounters are a bit more static & allow your raid to pack up more then is the case in sunwell, circle of healing is just really really good. While we were farming Black Temple our holy priests were just kicking our asses on healing meters in Black Temple as long as they didn't slack too much. And I'm not talking about smalltime differences but about several %'s.

Take it from me, spec holy & behold the power Circle of Healing. No one and I mean no one is gonna miss that pain suppresion.

[Elywienn]

Originally Posted by MasterLoco

There's still this thing called Chain Heal and on a fight like M'uru CH ownz CoH by far imo.

Thing about CH is the shaman has to have a fair amount of spellhaste to be unchallengeable, which is not the case with CoH. Soon as you get it you can chain spam it and chill on top of the meters and low overhealing. CoH is instant right away, no matter what gear you have and what content you're doing, and thats why it's so good.

[Landrider]

Thanks so much for the advice. NOW it is starting to make sense.

[Baldassar]

Originally Posted by MasterLoco

Damm yes I bet that full 5% for 8 seconds is gonna make a world of difference.

Actually, PS reduces your already accumulated threat by 5% rather than the threat you cause while it's up.I believe that is there to prevent using it on a tank, rather than to be used as a deaggro ability.

However, there is indeed no useful talent below IDS in the discipline tree, so unless you bring a really undergeared priest to the raid i would not suggest PS in any case.