I was reading the wowhead site about how to play disc priest for spirit shell.
and i noticed it was saying to do some shadow mending to apply atonement,
why not use PWS?
more hps.
higher mana cost tho
hmmm so could it be casters choice?
uh yeah. People always open it with Shadowmend and follow by shields.
But you could Shadowmend 8-10 times if you have high haste.
It’s a little more nuanced than that ofc. Smend atonements get more value since the atonement buff isnt applied until the END of the cast, whereas with PW:S it’s applied immediately. Just test this yourself in game you’ll see what i mean
From what i’ve seen in logs the highest parsing disc priests typically have a 3:1 ratio on their PWS to Smend casts sometimes slightly higher/lower but you get the idea…PW:S is cast more often full stop whether you play SS or Evang.
things to consider:
raid health
incoming damage patterns before AND after you’ve pressed Evang/SS
external mana
tldr;
Its situational and i don’t think anybody has an effective answer mapped out . 2x smend → 6-8 PW:S is the often suggested ST atonement application sequence
THIS I did not know thats intresting
Depends. Shadowmend is better if your targets immediately take enough damage within 10s before it can inflict too much shadow damage, which is often the case if you need to ramp up for SS. However, if your targets don’t take any damage before SS, it would have been better (though not by much) mana wise to apply PWS. And PWS is better still if your targets take damage only after the ~10s it takes for Shadowmend to completely tick off it’s shadow damage (this is about a 5s window).
And of course there is the flexibility, you can cast PWS on the run.
Other Disc. priests better than me should chime in, but it’s probably most important to get as many atonements out as you can. I suppose a good rule is: During your ramp when you’re sending out atonements, if there’s enough people who need healing, hit them with Shadowmends. If there is only a few, hit people with full health with PWS first and those who need healing with Shadowmend last, if you can, at least for optimal play.
If you’re just stacking atonements, mend if they’re damaged, shield if they’re not.
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i see - ive been throwin my shield on ppl at 60-70% and praying my atonemnt dps heals them up
It’s slightly higher mana cost for considerably more healing as long as people are damaged. As a result, it’s just generally more mana efficient to Smend people than it is to PW:S them unless you’ve got Shield Discipline (for some reason) or you’re in rapture.
On top of that, it’s a very minor optimization to Smend while ramping and finish your ramp with a PW:S - because you’ll get one extra global for your atonements that way.
Open with SM? Why not radiance?
Goal is to get 20 atonements if you have high haste.
SM has 15 secs duration, when you cast 10 of them you still have time to cast rads before atonements fade out.
Like soro’s said its cuz you wont get atonement till the end of the Smend cast so you do one smend than 5-8 shields followed by 2 radiances. than you damage phase.
Is the atonement duration for SM vs PW:S different? I’ve never paid any attention to whether there’s a difference or not. It is an important point for all kinds of reasons.
Nope. SM and PW:S Have 15 seconds, Radiance is 9 seconds, Trinity in pvp is 30 seconds but only applied by PW:S.
Guess I was thinking of this from a mythic + perspective.
I wouldn’t wrack my brain over the numbers on the fly. Pick a rule to stick by and the numbers will sort themselves out. If they’re below 80% or something, as in 1/5 of their health bar is gone, Shadowmend them. Above that PWS them. Tis’ better to Shadowmend someone who needs the healing and doesn’t take damage than PWS them. Elsewise, PWS becomes all overheal, whereas Shadowmend merely become half as potent, but at least you applied healing and didn’t waste the spell’s mana. And tis’ better to PWS someone at full health than Shadowmend someone at full health whether they take damage form outside sources or not. It’s actually a dumb idea to Shadowmend someone at full health b/c it can only potentially inflict shadow damage.
Interesting thing is Disc. can pad healing for the Raid by spamming Shadowmends when the group ends up taking lots of shadow damage from that spell. It effectively means your throughput is lower than what it appears.