how has this affix gone unchanged for so long when it affects disc so disproportionately to the other healers? I was looking forward to finishing up gearing this week in m+ but now it looks like that won’t be happening. Am I crazy or is putting a player in a situation where playing their preferred spec gets them excluded from groups and weighs down the groups they do get accepted into not a great design?
Hrm. There are lots of issues for sure, but this feels like one of the lower ones for me.
The best way to mitigate this is just to have the group stagger kills more in groups of 3-4. Combining that with chain pulling makes this pretty manageable compared to any other healer. If the dps/tank are decently smart, it shouldn’t affect you too much. Even with necrotic.
As in, if your tank is pulling big groups and everyone is quickly AOE’ing them down, giving you nothing to hit, it’s def a pain. If they stagger kills and chain pull, there will always be something to hit for atonement and this will keep bursting stacks low. Staggering pulls with bursting works really well to allow you time to get new dots out as well.
Does take a tiny bit more coordination, but with a decent group it’s really not a bad affix for disc. I realize that’s true of a lot things for disc, but i’ll take this over grievous any day.
Bad groups though def make it hard.
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ty Addr, that’s good advice and I’m sure it would be very helpful if I were playing with a clique of players I could coordinate with. I also see you’re using lifebinder’s major essence which is a good idea I’ll give that a try.
However I’m playing with PuGs and our coordination potential is limited. My problem isn’t that the affix is impossible to overcome successfully, it’s that (in my opinion) the disadvantage disc is at under the same conditions as other healers is too large in this case.
e.g this is what i’m met with in my first m+ of the week when the bursting from a pack of slimes in kings rest is a little more than lifebinder’s + shadowmend could keep up with
imgur(DOT)com/KPeS4t9
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no worries, I understand. I only pug. 
The thing is, disc has some advantages over other healers as well though. Barrier + rapture shields can be massive. I can ‘heal’ 8-9 stacks if we kill everything quickly. Even did a 12 stack with darkness once. First 2 packs in SOTS and huge AOE. Was fun.
That said, refreshing bursting on a 4-5 stack is the worst. It sucks because disc goes from amazing to trash really quick. All because dps couldn’t slow damage to let stacks fall off.
I lol’ed at the screenshot. Again, totally understand. I get that from time to time still. It’s frustrating, but most of these bad pulls would be tough for other healers as well. Druids do react well to refreshing the dot, but still tough.
Disc def has needs, which… sucks at times. Of all the healers, I think we have to be the most proactive about who we run with for each dungeon depending on the affix. The wrong comp can be tough. That said, we can run with lots of non-meta specs and make it work.
For me, I run all my own keys. You can look through some of my completions and I’ll usually have a pretty diverse setup. Some tanks work better in some dugeons while some dps are better in others. I’m sure you know as much, but it makes forming you own groups that much more important. I’m honestly hesitant even healing lower keys if the groups make up isn’t good.
Beyond that, using voice is always ideal. Letting people know exactly what you need. I think a lot of people just don’t understand how disc works.
For instance, one of the harder keys I have had to heal was the +19 ML on bursting/skittish. We talked a bit before starting the key and explained to the tank what kind of pulls work well for me. So we ended up doing a lot of chain pulling with staggered kills. So for 5-6 pulls in a row, all the while focusing 2-3 mobs down. If the whole pack get to 30%, we’d focus 1-2 mobs then move to the next pack. This kept stacks low and also gave me time to dot targts on the new pulls while managing low bursting damage.
This is a really light and day difference to killing everything in a pack then pulling the next. It leaves you spamming mends after every pull and you might have to deal with 4-5 stacks if they don’t stagger. The other really important thing is getting Purge the Wicked up on everything. It makes such a big difference. Bad groups make big pulls and leave me spamming heals while getting ready to pull the next pack. This leaves me with no time to get purge up and really kills my healing output.
As far as lifebinders… I like it. Most disc priests don’t run it full time. For AOE healing, it’s a really nice setup. If you know big damage is going out, life binders + rapture and I can peak 70-80k hps. I have had it do 600k healing with a single use against Tantrum from the 2nd boss in UR.
The issue with it is it’s not very reactive and it’s overall output is kinda meh if you don’t keep it on CD. Since disc suffer in raw output though, I still think it’s a great option.
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