Was hoping someone could give me some tips in raid healing. I have severe issues with mana, I am ilvl 452 and in a normal raid I got outhealed by an ilvl 425 holy priest (only just) and he still had half mana by the end of the fight
I feel like im burning heaps of mana applying atonement, I keep shield on the tank taking damage and then use radiance to cover 5 players when the whole raid is effected and start dpsing. I use a trinket to restore mana but not even thats enough. I am working on getting Lucid Dreams but unsure how much mana this realistically helps with
Any other disc priests struggling in raids? I do really good in mythic+ still feel like mana is a slight issue but out of all the healers I’ve played disc seems really harsh on the mana usage the way I am playing it
It’s important to keep In mind a couple things in raid.
You are a proactive healing class. Our healing is most effective when we have shields up, and dps rolling BEFORE the damage hits. When it hits the shields soften it and we’re already wailing away at the boss pumping out numbers.
Use your mana regen ability. Whether you took mind bender or solace, use it constantly. Also the Memory of Lucid dreams Essenes helps. If you are shadow mending a lot that will pump through your mana quick.
You’re not the only healer. You don’t have to be pumping heals out on everyone to be doing well. Heal smart, don’t worry about the meters. Life gripping someone out of a deadly mechanic is the best healing anyone can do and it doesn’t show up on the meters; don’t be a slave to it. Especially in PUG raids, healing assignments won’t be a thing so everyone is expected to heal everyone but that’s not how disc works. You’ll spend too much time on passing atonement instead of actually healing. Shield the tanks and like 5 other characters and stick with those. Watch for people standing in stuff. Dont try to heal everyone in the whole raid, you’ll fly through your mana that way.
This is the best advice I got for ya. Good luck to you my friend.
In a normal raid if you have more then 20 people then yes the holy priest will prob school you with their 2 raid cds. So i wouldnt worry about that.
End of the xpac i wouldnt worry so much about mana a week or 2 before patch. Having said that mana will be a decent issue come SL so you are going to have to learn to handle it.
In raids it about doing what you need to do and dont over stretch. Mana trinkets and seated man pots
Disc tends to chug through mana at a higher rate than holy mainly due to having to spam PWS on some fights. Most of your mana regen will be coming from Solace being used basically on cooldown. Also, what amulet essences, and trinkets you use to help you with mana return helps. If you have a paladin in the raid as well you can ask them to give you Greater Wisdom. Carry mana potions and pop them when you need. Potions of Replenishment restore like 25% of your total mana, but need to be timed appropriately to avoid boss mechanics.
Mana is going to be a problem come Shadowlands mainly due to the slate being set back to zero. We’re back in blues starting off and need to slot out in epics.
Like, quit spot healing, that’s not what we do, we get everyone ready for the big incoming damage, keep a shield up on the tank, then get ready to blanket the raid, then dps like crazy for the atonement healing. You should not have any mana issues…
Yes, but, like, it sounds to me that they are trying to be the only healer in the raid, like, Disc priest is for the big burst heals, don’t waste your mana on the little spot heals cus a dps cant do mechanics…
If you’re running a 2-man tandem heal then you are basically the only healer in the raid and both have to equally contribute. If you’re doing mythic then everyone has to contribute equally because some of these fights are soul crushingly difficult. You can get away with it on heroic with having 1 or 2 healers carrying the fights, but not on Mythic.
Oh, Like, idk where you got that I was talking about Mythic Raiding, lol, it sounds to me that they were talking about like LFR maybe normal raiding. So yeah, awkward…
Yeah a good tl;dr answer for you is that you’re playing disc wrong, most likely.
Like others have said, disc performs very well when they have shields and atonements out before the damage hits. If you try and apply atonement after? You’re already losing to the reactive healers aka that holy priest that beat you.
Disc is a reactive healer and a healer that should know damage patterns pretty well in order to do pretty well with the spec.
Can’t really give any precise advise without some logs to actually see what you are doing…
Mana issues usually relate to you maybe trying to do too much, a big part of playing Disc in Raids is learning when not to heal others, if someone took incidental damage but is not in immediate risk of dying you just kind of ignore it as Disc and let other healers handle it, it’s very inefficient for you to deal with that type of damage.
Generally only keep atonement up permanently on the tank(s) and sometimes 1 or maybe up to 2 more targets only if they have some some strong DOT or mechanic that will cause them to continue to take damage. Where Disc will makes profit is at countering big AOE damage events, you need to know when they will come and start applying shields in advance then you use both of your PW:Radiance charges back to back into Evangelism, this will give you a small window with a lot of Atonements up, then you DPS as hard as you can.
You can also do some smaller burst windows in between by playing around PW:Radiance charges and Schism (just make sure you still have both up to use with Evangelism for the big damage event).
Most people have hit on the different ideas already. I will say I never have issues with mana though. It will drain quicker than other healers, but I run memory of lucid dreams. Plus I pop the obsidian claw. And either solace or fiend on cd. I can last quite some time.
And don’t worry about outhealing a holy priest. Use your cds. You aren’t just healing, you are dpsing. Holy priests will pump out more pure hps.
I think it’s really important to heal almost entirely through atonement, this saves the most amount of mana.
Don’t spam shield (sheild is really good for tank, also pop cds on tanks) , if you see that a target who has atonement and their health isn’t low let your damage spells heal them.
Shadow mend takes less mana (than shield) for one target, so if the target you want to heal isn’t the tank it’s a good option.
Make sure you use the mana regen essance from naz, and the talent for mindbender.
Use radiance when the raid group is taking damage.
Everything being said, there WILL be fights where you have mana issues. A lot depends on what your trying to cover and what your other healings are doing.
I run mana essence plus the mythic mana trinket, claw and occasionally i still have mana issues.
There are times to direct heal. If someone is at 10% start the cast for shadowmend, and abort it if they suddenly become full but if not then let the cast off. its not good to just say im a raid burst healer and you should never hard cast a heal.
Say a a player has a debuff. 2-3 players, then i will shadowmend them with the depth of shadows trait for longer atonement on them as well as the direct heal because they are taking damage. That longer atonement means i can dps more.
The Sire Denathrius of healer specs… so to speak.
[violin concerto plays]
"Our rituals are effective. Our judgement is … keen, but fair.
Though as you know we all , rich and poor alike , must make sacrifices… for the greater good.
Therefore I have decided to implement a strategy of mana conservation and rationing. Which should keep the healing flowing … to those who are … most in need."