Disc sucks !

[Ranualf]

yup it`s official now, disc healing still blows !

been with it for a few weeks now since the last patch to "imporve" us, and now they plan more stuff- so i think i`ll park the shite priest for a while

/golfclap

[Ranualf]

and yea i`ve done plenty of research for those out there who just think i`m whining on again- you know who you are, with thy higher than thou attitude

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

on of the better ones i`ve come across

[Tirkad]

Probably i'll be out of place, since i don't know much about discipline priest healing, but i can tell you for sure what i feel while having a disc priest healing along with me, and it's an awesome feeling. The reason is that even if the healing is much harder to manage (including mana management) and less rewarding, the very fact that there's plenty of pre-emptive heals makes the dmg influence over the tanks hp bar so much smoother that is a life saver. A smoother variation over the hp (usually provided by mitigation stats of tanks that - from an healer POV, or at least MY POV- should be preferred over avoidance) means a less stressful job from healers, and allow these nice fellows to save an awesome amount of mana by avoiding the fast hp refilling situation, that are so expensive in cata. To use practical examples, fights like Maloriak, where the adds tank is taking massive spiky damage once 9 adds are out, are made a lot easier just by having a disc priest in the raid, or even at Chimaeron, where the main tank is taking massive damage from the double strikes (and i really think we could have avoided a lot of wipes last time with a disc priest, but that's just my opinion).
Now it's up to you to decide if it's the playstyle of these new disc priest you don't like (can't help you there, neither will be me forcing you to play a spec you don't like, far from it), or you don't like just becouse it's less rewarding compared to holy (and in my humble opinion is just a situational issue and it's like this for every single class/spec; there are fights where some classes/spec are better and others where they're worse, simply as that).

[TeaLeaf]

Slightly OT, but Tirk makes some good points re tanking spec.  Apart from an extremely small number of situational abilities, avoidance creates much bigger healing issues than tanks using EHP strategies as healers have to assume that the hit will be arriving and pre-heal anyway - but they have to do a bigger pre-heal with an avoidance tank than with an EHP tank due to the smaller safety margins of the avoidance tank.   Stacking avoidance also reduces threat a bunch, which in Cata is a nightmare for dps when tank threat is already dangerously low.  At the moment, when we come across that occasional need for avoidance, it is best dealt with via the appropriate trinket as there's no way you can stack sufficient avoidance gear to high enough levels to make it work from a healing pov - and that ignores the threat problems which get worse as avoidance goes up!

Same theory applies for disc priest healing as Tirk said (nice post btw Tirk, lot of sensible things in it).  There's two ways to heal disc atm, Strenth & Soul (without Archangel/Atonement) or Archangel/Atonement with Smite spam as the filler.  They are however far more complicated to heal than holy, but if you can get a handle on the style then I believe they work very well.   There's some discussion about PW:S related timers, but that's an aside and does not make the class broken imo (the linked EJ thread does not say the class is broken, it's a discussion about bubble spam).

Of the two, I prefer the AA/Smite route and personally since 4.0.6 have switched my holy off-spec back to AA/Smite discipline - and tbh I'm having a bunch of fun with it as I get to dps at the same time as heal!  Even with my shadow-orientated gear it still seems to be performing.

and yea i`ve done plenty of research for those out there who just think i`m whining on again- you know who you are, with thy higher than thou attitude

That must me be then I guess!

[TeaLeaf]

Just to add some data to this thread, here's the numbers from the heroic I just ran with Whitey where I was the healer in an AA/Smite discipline spec:

Damage for Rajh, 09:45:45 - 09:46:59:
1. Rogzilla   1.58M (23564.7, 31.7%)
2. Zeneder   1.55M (21868.3, 31.2%)
3. Sithysithvid   712.8K (10639.1, 14.3%)
4. Whytee   642.2K (8796.8, 12.9%)
5. Teaell   488.9K (6984.1, 9.8%)

Healing and Absorbs for Rajh, 09:45:45 - 09:46:59:
1. Teaell   877.8K (12539.8,  (87.2%))
2. Whytee   64.3K (881.1,  (6.4%))
3. Zeneder   61.2K (861.9,  (6.1%))
4. Sithysithvid   3.0K (45.1,  (0.3%))

Damage for Total, 09:21:52 - 09:52:51:
1. Zeneder   12.12M (14273.9, 31.5%)
2. Rogzilla   11.23M (13433.7, 29.2%)
3. Whytee   7.15M (8144.2, 18.6%)
4. Sithysithvid   4.97M (6000.5, 12.9%)
5. Teaell   3.02M (3460.5, 7.9%)

Healing and Absorbs for Total, 09:21:52 - 09:52:24:
1. Teaell   7.44M (8512.9,  (88.1%))
2. Whytee   492.1K (560.5,  (5.8%))
3. Zeneder   464.5K (547.1,  (5.5%))
4. Rogzilla   31.0K (37.1,  (0.4%))
5. Sithysithvid   17.5K (21.2,  (0.2%))

So the summary on this is:

• healed with an AA/Smite discipline spec using shadow priest gear, neither gemmed nor enchanted for disc spec
• averaged 8.5k hps for the run, peaking much higher for boss fights (12.5k hps for example)
• averaged 3.46k dps for the run, peaking at 7k dps for boss fights
• Nobody died during the run
• I never went oom

That's why I think disc is a fun spec and worth considering.

[Twyst]

Apart from an extremely small number of situational abilities, avoidance creates much bigger healing issues than tanks using EHP strategies as healers have to assume that the hit will be arriving and pre-heal anyway - but they have to do a bigger pre-heal with an avoidance tank than with an EHP tank due to the smaller safety margins of the avoidance tank.   Stacking avoidance also reduces threat a bunch, which in Cata is a nightmare for dps when tank threat is already dangerously low.  At the moment, when we come across that occasional need for avoidance, it is best dealt with via the appropriate trinket as there's no way you can stack sufficient avoidance gear to high enough levels to make it work from a healing pov - and that ignores the threat problems which get worse as avoidance goes up!

Interesting. The DK tank forums have the consensus saying either stack mastery or avoidance and avoid stam stacking. I presently stack mastery where I can, and reforging my excess dodge/parry so they're level into +hit for more threat (I'm +exp soft capped @26, although after a chat with tirkard I'll investigate moving that to more +exp). As tank, I have only have 1 threat issue and that's at the initial pull because I have zero big threat moves until I got diseases up AND some runic power. Luckily we are pro enough to give the tank a few seconds before unleashing hell

And now a question - I've always seen avoidance as EHP, so what do you mean by EHP if not including avoidance?

[TeaLeaf]

Mastery for blood tanks *is* part of EHP.  It boosts mitigation.

The EHP theory is rooted back in the vanilla days or Naxxramus when predominantly druid and warrior tanks were absolutely the 'tanks of choice'.  Back then a 'crushing blow' could also hit you, so EHP was an argument > all and EHP was the only sensible way to tank things.  With no crushing blows and other tank stat changes since then, the balance has changed a little.

Strict EHP is mitigation/stamina/block/armor in 'old skool' money.  So with 50% mitigation and 55k HP a tank has an EHP of 110k, i.e. they can take a hit of <110k and not die.  Avoidance is like rolling the dice, you may or may not die to the hit, and healers hate RNG as they have to heal for the worst case scenario not the best case (or the tank dies when the worst case happens!).

Certainly as far as my understanding of EHP (which is defintely rooted in 'old skool' mechanics) is that anything that means the hit is avoided in some way is not EHP.  Block is EHP as you are getting hit, but with added mitigation.  Dodge is not EHP as you rely on the roll of the dice to say if you got hit for damage or not.

Mastery for a blood DK tank is increasing mitigation, thus improving EHP.

The counter argument is that healers save mana with avoidance tanks as they take less damage.  But the problem with this is that the damage is not predictable, so there is not pre-healing and multiple 'oh ****' moments, during which the tank or someone else often dies due to healers being distracted by the tank's low HP and surging heals and cooldowns onto the tank to save him.

EHP tanks generally take more damage, but can absorb more damage are generally easier to heal as the damage is more predictable and less spiky, so helps healers find the right level of healing and then maintaining it.

The problem though is that Cata does not allow you to maintain a high level of healing (you go oom), but this is where 'balance' comes in again.  

This does not mean avoidance is bad, but you need to find a balance where your EHP is sufficient to remove the RNG element of 'hateful strike' moments and at the same time keep healers sane. This is the essence of current EHP imo.

Healers in Cata cannot pump heal flat out for an entire encounter, their healing is now more spiky and they surge healing when needed and conserve mana when not.  

Parry/dodge both decrease in value as your total avoidance increases, so it becomes progressively less valuable - something to keep in mind if you are stacking it.  If there really is a situation that needs avoidance, then often a couple of trinkets do a better job as you'd struggle to match the avoidance output they give through normal gear choices.  

Cata EHP has changed:
So imo Cata has tipped the balance from a situation where back in vanilla, EHP was the sole master of the tanking world, to one where in Cata it is easier to calculate a level of EHP beyond which the value of further effective health points is greatly diminished.  

There's a balance to strike and an effective value each point of a stat has compared to others.  Some stats scale well, others do not, the trick is knowing relative values at each point along the curve as your gear scales.

DYOR as they say!

[Ranualf]

having read these posts
a lot of it is good, and valid, however.
As TL has pointed out, yes the smite heals are valid- but only if you have better than hc kit, aka 359 + items, these are not available in hcs(yet) i`ve not seen anyone link anything about stats with smite heals from raids, i`ve tried it in pugs- the average is about 11-15k, yes u get more from crits, but u cant rely upon these alone.
and yea TL, your shadow kit will perfom great for smite heals, as all your really doing is making dps into heals(aka more dps= more heals), so good kit makes that spec work.

so its a catch 22 situation,for me, that your gear has progressed as far as it can from hc drops/ buys
you require raids to further progress your items, but your items are not good enough to run the raids, you also lack the tactical knowlege of the fights
hmm, so where do we take it ? for several weeks now, i have noticed the same people are going to the same raids, leaving the ones who havent been selected any chance of gearing up further.
Its good that the raid group is making progress, however i`ve seen this in previous guilds where there`s a step in gear, main raid group vs other raiders, and then the fingers start pointing, your not doing the same dps/ healing/ tanking as him- yep u know why, because my gear aint the same, and i havent been to this fight a lot, i have seen this before, and i dont personally want to see it happening here, as the guild is a good one, and generally nice to be in.

There`s been the mention of forming a 2nd RG, but the conversation just drops dead at the mention of it, we all have alts, some of them very well geared, and the only increase gear wise for our mains & alts is from the deep dark depths of the raid instances.
i have been using my alts more of late, the main reasion is the above, not getting into raids, i listed my name week, after week, and didnt get taken, since the start of the year, i`ve been to exactly 2 raids, and one of them was our 1st attempt in the raids, my status has been dropped to social now, so i dont even get listed for raids, great ! yes i`ve been busy for the last few weeks with a major project for uni, and i`ve just come out of hospital, but i need an extra week off to recover.

so i ask, do i stay here or jump to another guild, and start over ?
i have asked in guild, what does the raid need ? i`ve not got a reply yet, yes i am willing to make another character my main, but i`ve had  zero feed back on this, some feedback on this situation would be helpful, as there`s  more than me in this situation.

[Tirkad]

so i ask, do i stay here or jump to another guild, and start over ?
i have asked in guild, what does the raid need ? i`ve not got a reply yet, yes i am willing to make another character my main, but i`ve had  zero feed back on this, some feedback on this situation would be helpful, as there`s  more than me in this situation.

I think (and officers will surely correct me if i'm mistaken here) that first of all you have to chose a character/spec you want to raid with. We don't have any discipline priest atm, so a good one will be a valuable addition to our raid ranks. I'm pretty sure that even an holy priest would be nice, but you'll be competing with Semiangel and Lunares for your spot. If you would like to stay among the healers but would like to change class, i guess holy paladin and resto druid are the one less represented in the raid group, with just me and Jas covering these roles.
Anyway, i don't think it's good to play a class just becouse there's a particular need or we're missing it atm. As you pointed out, we're progressing using what we have each night (last night at 20:00 only 13 of us showed up) and there usually is a fairly balanced setup. Just pick the class you like most and stick with it, that's my suggestion.

[TeaLeaf]

Tirk speaks the truth, but:

I know you're still struggling to get to grips with disc healing, but it works.  All the  'big' raid guilds run disc priests, of both types, in their raids.  Postal's GM uses an AA/Atonement smite spec for disc for example, so yes it works in a raid environment.

It might also help to look at the talent builds listed in the EJ article you linked.  Veiled shadows might help you with any mana problems as non-AA/Atonement builds need Veiled Shadows for mana replishment as they do not get it from AA.  Likewise take a look at your stat priority as Disc is way harder with low intellect.  The EJ article you linked explains that intellect is the primary stat, so using 2 mastery trinkets loses you a shed load of intellect & therefore healing power and mana.  Perhaps swapping to intellect trinkets (like the blue ones I use) would help?

Re Gear:
I think the thing to remember is that my gear has been obtained almost exclusively from Valor points, crafting and AH.  So it is not a case that not being in a raid disadvantages you.  Prior to last night I had only ever had one raid drop, my bracers, everything else was obtainable outside of raids.

You can get 3 of the 5 pieces of tier gear along with trinkets, rings and cloaks outside of raids from valor points (or a weekly BH pug).  
You can craft/buy/rep items for legs, belt, boots, gloves, neck, trinket, head etc.

Re the 2nd raid group
We need more people to form a second raid group - and conversation does not "drop dead" at the mention of it.  It is regularly discussed in officer debriefs after each raid, in raid channel during raids and at other times by raid members & officers alike.  If people show up then we run the 'risk' of actually being able to do some bosses on 25 man, but we are not there yet at the moment.  We cannot wave a magic wand and make 35 raiders appear to allow us to run 25 man content all the time, so we need people to turn up every night, spend some time in the queue, take their turn getting into the raid whilst numbers build and be content.  If they do not show up then we cannot push forward, it's as simple as that.  

You've been getting angry with not raiding, but you are not getting into the raid as you have not turned up.  
http://dkp.deadmen.co.uk/attendance.asp
http://dkp.greenberry.co.uk/webdkp/Player/Amberleigh

You got dropped to Social rank precisely because you never showed up.  Surely you can understand that if people want to raid then they need to turn up?  We presumed, as you were not showing up that you did not want to raid.  How were we to know any different?

So please don't be upset at not getting into the raid when you do not show up regularly.   However it would help if when you do show up that you have already got the non-raid epic gear that is available to you - like the epic neck, trinket, tier chest,  cloak, tier legs/gloves (for set bonus maybe) etc.  That's a lot of epic gear waiting for you if you want it.

Participation:
One of the other things that our raiders are learning and you will probably have noticed, is that most now stay in our TS raid channel during the raid, even though they might be in the queue or doing something else.  You can learn a lot from listening to an encounter and it goes a long way to prepare you for entry into the raid as you become attuned to the rhythm of the fight and the calls made.  So yes experience is gained from direct exposure to an encounter, but you can also prepare by reading, watching the videos and listening to the raid.  If you want to raid then this is a good way to get up to speed with our tactics if you are interested in raiding.

I know you've posted about health issues, and I honestly hope those go well for you and that the recovery path is swift & complete, but you need to do more yourself at the moment to put yourself in the best position to raid.

for several weeks now, i have noticed the same people are going to the same raids, leaving the ones who havent been selected any chance of gearing up further.

I'm sorry Amber, I'm not sure how you formed this opinion, but it is simply not correct.  Everyone gets a calendar invite (above social rank only from mid-February when the attendance review was completed), everyone can whisper 'dmrinvite' and we rotate people almost every raid.  Tanks, healers, ranged dps and melee ALL get rotated, me included, so I'm afraid you are completely wrong in this respect.  Go and speak to any raider and ask if we rotate, they would all say that yes we do, so it is definitely not the 'same people are going to the same raids, leaving the ones who haven't been selected any chance of gearing up further'.

Since DMR started our 10 man raid group in Cataclysm, I'm proud to say we have awarded loot to 24 different DMR raiders.

[Sithvid]

Myth Amber please sign up for the Wednesday raid, some one clever could link it.. http://www.deadmen.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?32484-RGW-Interest-%28Raid-Group-on-Wednesday%29