Healed heroic Halls of Reflection, done it all

Well folks, I finally did it. I healed Halls of Reflection with my discipline priest. I've always been afraid of this, the pinnacle of Wrath 5-man dungeons. As a dps I've died many times in there but we all know by now that in order to be successful in this dungeon you need to have some very serious dps, among other things.

Thanks to the elemental invasion, I managed to get my hands on some nice ilvl 251 items. I also got some practice healing these new mini-bosses which are actually tougher than many heroic bosses. And then, after acquiring some more Justice Points by running several heroics as shadow dps, I bought a few ilvl 264/245 items from the Emblem of Frost and Triumph vendors.

Afterward I chain-healed almost a dozen heroics and found out that I can really do it.

My problem, of course, was the lack of gear. A healer in <= ilvl 200 gear isn't gonna do a great deal in a heroic unless he's very talented (and I can't claim that I am). Now that my gear is up to speed (average level is 233), I feel very confident in healing any heroic thrown at me.

In all fairness though, Halls of Reflection didn't seem as tough as I'd imagined it to be. Trial of the Crusader and Azjol'Nerub (both of which I healed subsequently) felt more difficult. It's true that in HoR we had really good dps and a good tank so everything went smoothly. I even gained the achievement to finish the gauntlet quickly. On the other hand, for the two other dungeons mentioned (ToC and A'N) some of the people were standing in poison and other crap (so I had to heal like crazy) and they also pulled too many mobs a few times (so I had to heal like crazy).

My main tool as a discipline priest remains Power Word: Shield which currently absorbs a little over 5000 damage self-buffed. What's nice is that at this point mana has ceased to become an issue, meaning that after 90% of fights (including boss fights) I'm left with 90% mana. Occasionally when someone screws up or they're not geared enough, I'll go down to 50% or so but even then I manage to pull through.

My biggest issue as a healer - and this probably comes as a consequence of not being very experienced - is that I often forget about more powerful spells that I have at my disposal. For example I always forget to use Power Word: Barrier which is an awesome spell especially for those moments when there's heavy damage incoming.

I've also been trying to use Smite in combination with Evangelism/Archangel, not that I need the mana but in preparation for Cataclysm. My feelings about this are mixed. On the one hand, it's a nice thing to be able to do some damage (no matter how puny) during downtime, and also heal a group member for 100% of the damage done thanks to Atonement. Now on the other hand, when the fight is frantic and I'm struggling to keep the group alive, there's no time to Smite and the whole concept becomes worthless. And then there's the third issue which is more of a personal one, and that is laziness. As a discipline priest I'm cool with popping PW:S and then taking a break.

At any rate, we'll see how all this comes together in Cataclysm, in a couple of short weeks. Until then I will likely continue to heal some heroics, especially since one piece of my gear is still a lousy ilvl 187 (my bracers).

Priest is 80

My priest turned 80 the other day. I didn't blog about it because I was busy enjoying the benefits of being 80, namely running heroics. This makes my 5th level 80 character, after my hunter, paladin, death knight and warlock.

Though discipline healing remains my greatest and newest love, I didn't jump straight into healing heroics because I wasn't sure I could handle it with the gear I had. As you all know, when you hit 80 you're equipped with gear up to ilvl 187. It's true that I was 100% equipped with blue dungeon gear but I am of firm opinion that one shouldn't step in heroics without at least ilvl 200 items on average. I don't consider myself sufficiently skilled as a healer to simply jump into these much harder dungeons.

For this reason my plans for the near future are to heal one normal dungeon daily and run at least one heroic every day. It's amazing how quickly you can get good gear by running just a few heroics. I've had a couple of runs where I needed (and won) 2 items in each.

Amongst the nice upgrades I am especially happy with this trinket called Spark of Life which is awesome for healing and not bad for dps either. It has a ton of haste and also helps with mana regen. I will also mention Wand of Ahn'kahet which is another big upgrade for me. Oh and just after 1 day at level 80 I bought Helm of Clouded Sight with emblems and I promptly gemmed and enchanted it.

But wait, there's more! I also won two rings and an amulet which are all ilvl 200 and have some very nice stats on them.

Now you might see a pattern here. I'm concentrating on items with healing stats, dps-ing be damned. Stuff with int, spirit, haste and spell power. Not so much crit rating and I won't even think about hit rating. I'm not doing terribly as shadow, pulling about 2K dps.

Yep, things are looking peachy.

One more thing before I sign off. I've noticed that having crappy gear gets you quicker in a group as dps (using the dungeon finder). This has been happening consistently ever since I hit 80 and the same thing occurred for my death knight who tried a few heroics with crappy gear. The queue timer says something like 10-15 minutes but very often I'm in after only 5 minutes. The perks of sucking, I guess.

10 tips for the budding discipline priest

I found these 10 tips for new discipline priests on World of Matticus and thought I would share it with other would-be disco healers.

Most of them are true words of reason so make sure to read up on them! I know I did.

UPDATE: And a bonus, 4 more awesome discipline tips from Holyform.

Discipline is the ticket

Well folks, after realizing that holy priest healing is the suck, I've decided to switch to discipline and give healing one more try before hanging up my healing hat and resigning myself to a life of dps-ing.

Yesterday I made the switch and the results were... astounding!

First, here's the spec + glyphs that I have at level 75: 57/9/0.

At level 80 I plan to have something like this: 57/14/0.

I ran two random dungeons yesterday and couldn't believe how the difference between holy and discipline seemed like night and day.

The first run was impeccable. My performance was excellent even though it was my first time healing as discipline. Well, to be fair, the spells are about the same as holy with small variations.

The second run might have turned into a disaster if not for the healer, i.e. me. We almost wiped twice.

First time it happened, the tank disconnected in the middle of fighting a boss. I didn't realize what had happened but for some reason the group was taking huge amounts of damage. Two of the dps died and at that point I noticed that the tank was frozen in the same spot. The ret paladin picked up the boss and started tanking it. I healed the pally. After a while the tank reconnected and between the remaining three of us we downed the boss.

The second time it was a very close call. The tank (a different one, as the first one disconnected for good) decided to tank a group of mobs while the rest of the group was elsewhere. At one point I realized that the tank wasn't in range of my heals and she was taking damage. I located her on the minimap and raced to her location. By that time she was close to dying. I popped a quick PW: Shield on her and then blasted with Penance. That saved her life. The next minute or so was total chaos. The rest of the group followed but they aggroed another bunch of mobs so now we had to fight two groups. I was clicking and pushing buttons like mad but in the end we pulled through and no one died. I felt really proud of myself. I'm damn certain that I wouldn't have been able to heal these two situations (or at least the second one) with a holy spec.

I don't know what is about discipline, whether it is made for me, or I'm made for it, or it is simply awesome, but we seem to have hit it off on a very positive note.

I have to mention that I did practice "dry healing" on myself before jumping into the first dungeon. My biggest problem is that sometimes I forget the click-key combinations for the various spells that I have bound to Healbot. Practice makes perfect though and after these two runs I feel very confident in my abilities.

One of the things that make discipline incredible is, of course, Penance. This is (excuse the language) one fucking wicked spell. Not only is it the best oh-shit button ever (it has helped me save a whole bunch of near-dead groupies already) but I can use it to dps a little when no one requires heals and the mob/boss is almost down.

I also love that discipline is very mobile, what with PW:S, Renew, Prayer of Mending and even Penance. Who needs Circle of Healing when you can just pop bubbles on everyone who might take damage? In fact, I have already adopted the habit of putting bubbles on the melee dps and even the rest of the group in boss encounters. I call it "preventative maintenance". I've also learned to substitute Holy Nova for Circle of Healing. Although it admittedly heals for less and it has a smaller radius, it's an instant AoE heal and that's the reason why I plan to fill my 3rd glyph slot at 80 with Glyph of Holy Nova. This will make Holy Nova almost as powerful as CoH but with a smaller radius.

It seems that I have already settled on a "rotation" of sorts. I will start by putting a Prayer of Mending on the tank before he starts the fight. As soon as he starts taking damage I'll place a Renew and then monitor his health carefully. Depending on how much damage he takes I might either use a Flash Heal or a bubble. If there's a big dip in health, Penance will save the day. As I already mentioned, I also bubble the melee dps while I'm sitting idle and will refresh Prayer of Mending if needed. I've also used Penance plenty of time to save some poor dps who swallowed more damage than they could chew. Oh and I will also put a bubble on myself because I've already been in several fights that have nasty trash which try to grab you or have some sort of AoE damage.

If I seem overexcited that's maybe because I am. I had given up on healing after holy couldn't cut it for me anymore but it seems that discipline has taken the slack with aplomb. Time will tell if my new-found excitement is justified. Now I'm off to disco-heal some randoms!