At the risk of looking really dumb I am going to ask so go easy.
I run a Disc Priest solely for PVP and I feel like I am pretty good at it, I am keeping my team and myself up, running objectives, CC’s, keeping atonements up and my win/loss is quite positive I run with a good team. All this being said I do not know If I am playing my priest properly.
I rarely am able to “dmg to heal” I set up my atonements, shield, renew and mostly use radiance and penance to heal. I understand doing damage to heal is the way disc is set up but anytime I even try to cast a damage spell I get kicked or CC’d in someway causing heals to drop significantly and teammates to die and when I can get damage spells off they are in no way healing enough to get through the damage being caused my enemies. Because of this I tend to focus on straight healing rather then using dmg to heal through atonements just cause i cant get any damage spells off with long cast times. I dont know If this is pretty normal for Disc in PvP or if I am alone in this.
Any other PvP Disc Priests have thoughts on this? I am a good healer but I want to get better and make any changes I can to be a better healer.
Thank you.
2 Likes
I havent played disc this expac but the “heal through damage” playstyle was optional in dragonflight, i used my penance cast to heal directly, i would cast mindblast when a melee was on me so they would waste their kick on shadow.
Radiance/shields/renew would do the majority of your healing attonment was a more minor part of your healing breakdown.
Applying atonement was good because your mastery boosts the healing done to those targets.
1 Like
You’re playing correctly.
Always heal first, then when your team has enough offensive pressure, and they’re not at risk of dying, then worry about atonement healing through damage. This keeps the offensive pressure on the other team and you’re able to contribute to your team’s damage.
Don’t forget to always spread out SW: Pain to keep those DoTs going, and passively heal your atonement targets with small but effective HoTs.
Always heal first, then damage when able.
5 Likes
Depends on the context and what your role is in the group. FC? Flag holding? Offense healing?
While atonement healing is important in group fights for maintaining mana (Like healing lava on mines) and for spread healing, a ton of your healing should be coming from Premonition. You should be absolutely maxing it out on every use and keeping it on CD. Outside of that, it’s basically rotating between keeping atonement up on as many targets with Radiance, shields, or hots and typically using Penance for damage for spread healing. If there are globals to be spared, maintaining dots on enemy targets.
In some games you’re going to be focused on spot healing and other games spread. So it also matters what other healer(s) you’re playing with.
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if you’re running face first into groups to fear bomb them the spec is being played correctly
I play a voidweaver build so if they kick my shadow, I still have radiant healing. If they kill my flash heal, I still have shadow healing. Either way, I opted to take a lot of survival talents and it greatly improved my ability to withstand even direct damage and still keep my party up.
Seldom am I relying on atonement’s actual healing, but rather using it for it’s +healing/shield bonuses.
Be sure to supercharge your penance before using it.
If you run Oracle typically you’re more focussed on shields and ST spot healing as that’s where it shines, if you play Voidweaver you’re more focussed on atonement healing through damage.
I usually flex my style depending on what the other healers are. If they are more specced for single target I go VW, if they are specced for more AoE healing I go Oracle.
The same can be said for enemy team comp, if they are full of AoE rot classes like spriest, aff locks, balance druids, etc. atonement healing is a great counter. If they are full of single target burst classes like MM, Destro, Ret, Fury warrior, etc. it won’t be as effective.
Some tips I recommend if you want to heal through damage.
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Focus a little more on haste if you’re VW, it lowers the cooldown on Mind Blast which allows you to cast entropic rift a lot more often (and also increases cast speed reducing the likelihood on being kicked)
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Take catharsis as a PvP talent so you can do big damage and burst healing with instant cast SW:P since you’ll likely be being focussed and can get it pretty easy (can’t be interrupted)
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Use renew simply to keep atonement up, it’s cheaper mana cost than all other atonement applying spells. Also take Divine Procession to extend atonement by 3 seconds each time you smite or voidblast. This will allow you to keep atonement’s up easily and save you a ton of mana.
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Take Shadow Covenant and Mindbender as talents, if you get kicked out of holy from spamming Smite or casting Flash Heal, pop your Mindbender to make Penance a shadow spell.
depends on your build. some disc priests are super defensive and their damage output isnt that great. mines probably somewhere in the middle. Also depends on your play style. if your in an fc map are you pushing offense with pi on dps or are you more defensive oreintated. Because if your an offensive healer you need to be built the right way. you can look at my spec, i basically spam purge the wicked, radiance, shields, renews etc. im penance specced so i can hit emeny players or my own and still get heals off. i just hit rival tonight so my season is over on my priest, i just wanted the elite set.
but sounds like your doing it right. probably more about if you are defensive healer or offensive healer. both are good and needed. also positioning in bgs is big for priests since we are slow AF
This, but I wish it happened more often. I do wish we were buffed again like back in MOP.