Flash Heal vs Shadow Mend in M+

Classes Priest
#1

I made a new toon the other day and healed dungeons all the way up from level 10 right through to 60 as disc. It was relatively fun and without any problems.

Today and yesterday I’ve been healing keys on the new toon, and just did a couple 14s. It’s not like my toon is well geared at all, and this week is grievous, but while I am not going oom, I am finding flash heal to not do much on my latest keys.

In one instance everyone was running around at half health because Radiance was on CD. Another time when the tank was pull happy we wiped–that actually happened twice in two 14s.

I guess I will have to get used to this, but my impression is that in typical (or more frankly, average pretty low skilled) pugs, disc is going to struggle to do high teens.

Are others finding this? It may be early for me to judge but vs Holy, disc is pretty bad in comparison. It seems both the damage and healing are a fair bit weaker in harder content.

#2

Disc has been struggling for a while in low-mid keys in pugs with grevious if played as if any other week…

The spec didnt gain anything to help with that. Disc is a spec that has to adapt for grevious. You’ve got to play a lot more defensively.

Dpenance is really good. Contrition can help. Pre-shield a lot with rapture… And while shadow cov is considered a meme, following a radiance it’s still a prety decent heal and removes a stack of grevious wound on everyone.

I agree that flash heal feels bad. But disc doesn’t feel much different than SL in terms of dealing with grevious imo :man_shrugging:

#3

I think your talents might be the problem.

Divine aegie and empowered pws build is better imo, especially for grevious.

I used flash heal 6 times in a recent 25 streets and pws was 40% of my healing. I think flash heal is meant to be like your mini lay on hands that you use when its empowered from talents x50.

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#4

I agree. The point is more that it struggles with a low-skill pug group though.

Which requires a bit more of 'oopsies, this guy didn’t dodge the avoidables here" help that holy can breeze through usually

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#5

Yeah, it’s not bad. I think part of the problem was my really low ilevel compounded by grievous. Flash Heal just did not seem to be doing much.

It’s better this week, my ilevel higher.

#6

Before the patch i used to struggle as disc on 20+ moroes fights.

With the increased to pws in the build i posted i basically could ignore it.

I have a high ilvl but i highly recommend it for grevious weeks. It was a non afflix for me last week up to 25 keys.

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#7

Atonement transfer is significantly better now.

There really shouldn’t be any fight that Disc has real trouble with in Slands anymore regardless of build.

Also a good thing to know - Mindgames legendary works with the mindgames talent - so you can equip that legendary + unity on another covenant and get full use out of it. And it’s better than TPO, honestly.

#8

Yeah, it’s pretty good to be honest. I healed a bunch of keys as disc the last few days and found it to be fine and quite fun.

That said, people in keys have been saying to me: Oh, you’re disc.

I say to them that disc is fine and they tell me, No. No, it’s not. And then they tell me I ought to heal Holy.

In my opinion, Holy does more healing, more damage and is more mobile. But as I tell people, Disc is fine.

Oh well.

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#9

Im too drunk to look at your talents. :slight_smile: I was drunk when i healed a low key the other day. 12 i think. First dungeon back to see the changes. I didint feel grievous was an issue really. pws to block. Did you use much def pen? I feel with the 40% health bar changes dpen with harsh D will be hell usefull too

#10

Here’s my toon if you want to see talents.

I started on her at level 1 last week, healed all the way up and managed to get my eight 15 and over keys for the week done today and yesterday, well and four 15s & 16s last week. And so am happy having gotten quite a bit done on her.

Yup, it was no problem. I healed a ton of keys last week and they were pretty easy. I had a great tank though for most of them–on my three holy priests. For my new priest, the one here, grievous was a bit rough but my toon was rudely undergeared for the keys.

No, not really, but it did prevent a few deaths. It’s so cool when you get procs with stuff. :smiley: I am not having mana issues, and flash heal is a lot less mana intensive vs shadow mend. Hence, there is no need to use d penance much in the name of conserving mana.

#11

No surge of light my friend? You will be suprised how many you get and being instant and costing no mana you can slot them inbtween your dps

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#12

Lol! I let Moadmoad do the thinking for me and just copied his talents, or most of them.

#13

He keys with a set team at a high level. He will choose talents based upon high level players who know how to dodge damage, mitigate damage, use their off heals etc. We lesser mortals without that caliber of dps players need to operate on a lower level :slight_smile:

#14

Yeah I wouldn’t take Mindgames in pre-patch anymore unless you’re using venthyr leggo.

Power Word: Life is better by far right now. The only use mindgames has outside that leggo is the nathrezim infiltrators and reversing their healing from vampiric claw. It doesn’t do enough damage anymore to really care about it, and PW:L is an incredible spell.

Surge of Light I don’t really care about because Flash Heal is kinda meh. It’s nice for free damage mitigation (from the protective light talent) especially since you can gain it through binding heals, but otherwise I just don’t cast FH anyway.

#15

Those kinds of players are rare, but you do get them the higher the key is. Otherwise you will not time the key.

Besides, you ought to focus on being the best you can be. If the others in your group are bad just be polite and bail. That’s what I do. If I have to sacrifice damage to heal bad play then the key will not be timed. That said, there are lots of low skilled groups–so you have a point. Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet, finish the key and move on if that is what is needed.

As for talents, I dunno Daketh. I choose the ones that allow max damage over max healing. I like to pump as much as possible.

#16

my response was to you choosing moads talents :stuck_out_tongue: not a comment so much on talents for higher keys. Tho i certainly WOULD be taking surge in keys.

You might want to rethink that with the 40% health thingy tho.

You need to remember not to judge season 4. Season 4 you are overpowered. The dps are overpowered/ The tanks are overpowered. You have above normal gear, leggos and new talents. I know sub par people doing 25 keys. Turn your attn to how underpowered you will be season 1 DF

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#17

Yeah, that makes sense.

On an aside, I have little desire to play disc in DF (in M+), at least until it is better–if it ever is. Playing it now in SL does not thrill me, to be honest–at least not with these affixes this week. Like I said above, and sadly, holy does more healing, more damage and is more mobile. Hence, I see no point to playing disc in (high) keys.

I mean, if you love the playstyle, play disc, and I can understand that, but it really is not that good. In my case, I see no point in playing it unless you like taking the hard road or you are not a fan of holy, or both.

#18

With the sins buff which isnt live yet i imagine and the holy dps nerf, im not sure holy does more dps then disc now, once everything goes live.

Holy is easier sure but i find disc more satisfying to play.

#19

Yeah that’s about to change in DF, lol.

Holy’s damage, while they’ll still have some decent ST damage, took a big hit, and they’re likely back to the bottom in M+.

Meanwhile Disc just got a flat 30% buff, and easily competes with the top DPS healers (Druid/Evoker) with PI.

Those changes still haven’t hit pre-patch.

#20

Sounds promising. I am not ready to throw in the towel on disc yet but am currently disappointed with it.

If it is S tier I will have no qualms about playing it. But it really ought to have redeeming qualities given its not bad but not great mobility, its general difficulty at mastering and its somewhat novel way of healing. It also trips up a lot of dps who have no knowledge of how a disc priest heals and how to play with one. Some for example, will consistently park themselves out of range of Radiance–which can be a major annoyance. Others will simply not be in range for your dome and will not even step into it when it is right in front of them, and only inches from where they park. I once even got removed from a group because I was to heal and not do damage.

On an aside, I was surprised earlier hearing Moad talk about disc on his stream. And sadly, he really did not have anything positive to say about it–explaining his reasoning, and said he was not playing it in DF, and appears absolutely sold on Evoker. You can take that with a grain of salt for whatever reason, but his view of the spec was really negative. His basic argument boils down to a balancing issue where proper balancing of the spec for M+ would make it too strong when raiding. In his words, Disc is dog $#^%.