Yo, I’m Capslockfury, many people on these forums probably know me at this point. For a long time, I’ve seen a ton of Disc Priests showing up on the forums with issues pugging or keeping people alive in M+.
I spent the first couple weeks of the expansion pugging my way up to +10-12ish keys. Since then, I play mostly with my guild or with people I met while pugging, but I still Pug keys in the 10-15 range. So I figure I can at least give some tips for M+ specifically, especially with disorganized groups. I don’t really want to go into what the icyveins or wowhead guides cover. If you’re looking for a more comprehensive guide, you should look there. They cover the basics of the spec pretty well. What I mostly want to go into here are regular things I’ve started doing in my Pugs, and a couple frequently asked questions.
Tip #1 - Mind Blast/Mindgames
A ton of Disc priests are currently going Venthyr for the raid viability. Mindgames is also very good for dungeons. But it has to be used effectively. First and foremost, do not use Mind Blast and Mindgames on the same target at the same time. These two will prevent a ton of damage, but having both debuffs on the same target will eat into Mindgames’ contribution with its shorter duration.
The basic way to use these spells is Mindgames whatever has the highest burst (or hits the most targets) and mind blast whatever deals consistent damage in pulls. If you don’t know what does this in any given pull, simply make sure that when you hit mindgames, hit tab to swap targets before using blast. Else, make sure the mindgames debuff falls off before you put your mind blast debuff on the same target.
Tip #2 - Pop your cooldowns
This cannot be understated. Your cooldowns are a HUGE portion of your healing and Rapture especially is a very short cooldown with extremely good throughput. The only rule you should generally follow here is try not to pop multiple cooldowns at the same time. The only exception to this is in emergency situations. For example, Rapture + Power Infusion is very synergistic and when your group gets chunked to half off an unexpected interrupt gone bad, popping these together can stabilize you through followup damage and give you time to get a regular burst window off for AoE heals.
When your tank is getting slammed but someone runs into something bad and gets low, Pain supp on your tank will allow you to get the radiance or Smend off that you might need. If your tank isn’t kiting (Pugs tend to do this) Barrier can be used just to protect the melee group. Again, allowing you to triage heal if needed.
Tip #3 - Shadowfiend/Mindbender
Always use Shadowfiend and Mindbender during Power Infusion. In the case you’re using Mindbender, you should pretty much be popping it on cooldown, which will always have it up for PI. With Shadowfiend, PI is on a 2 min. timer, and Shadowfiend is on a 3 min. timer. It’s absolutely worth waiting the extra minute holding onto Shadowfiend in order to get it off in your PI window. This will increase the number of attacks that Shadowfiend gets off, making it a stronger healing CD, AND it will give you more mana back.
Tip #4 - Power Word: Radiance off yourself
In Pugs, you can’t really rely on your group’s positioning to match the range of your Radiance. You will get the Hunter who stands at the max range possible, you will get the mage who for some reason blinks to the complete opposite side of the fight the rest of the ranged are standing, etc. Power Word: Radiance hits 5 targets, and you can always make sure that you’re standing in a fairly centralized position. So 9 times out of 10, you want to be trying to stand pretty much equidistant from the rest of your whole group and using Radiance on yourself to get the Atonement on everyone. If you need to move to accomplish this, use your time casting penance to do so.
Tip #5 - Shackle Undead
Lucky for us, some of the most dangerous stuff in this Xpac’s dungeons are undead mobs. This includes the Skeleton Mages in Necrotic Wake with Frostbolt Volley, the Bone Magus in Theater of Pain with Bone Spear, the Atal’ai deathwalkers in De Other Side and their Bladestorm, etc.
On these mobs, you can use Shackle Undead to interrupt their biggest cast on your own, even if the mob immediately is broken out of the CC. You can also call you’re about to do it before you head into a pack. This is especially useful in Necrotic Wake, where killing the necromancers will automatically kill the mages. Tell your group after you kill the first boss and you’re running that you’re going to CC the mage on pull and to be careful not to break, and MOST of the time pugs won’t break that CC, making the pull much easier. This is also useful for the unskippable platform in Theater of Pain that has a Bone Magus, Portal Guardian and Maniacal Soulbinder. In the highest keys, most groups will CC the Soulbinder, so CC the magus along with it to make the pull 10x easier.
Tip #6 - Shadow Covenant
Shadow Covenant is a viable talent to take (though you should be going Sins most the time), and very useful in dungeons where you might be worried about a ton of group damage. It will make a big dent in your DPS, but it buffs your Shadowmends a LOT. When AoE damage goes out, Radiance->Shadow Covenant-> Mindgames -> Mindblast -> Smend as needed->Mind Sear is ridiculous healing. Just also very expensive on your mana. Even if you don’t have Mindgames, just put Mind Blast in its place and start your Smends earlier.
The important thing to note about Shadow Covenant though is that its biggest contribution to HPS is actually its increase to your Smend healing - not your damage. So if you absolutely need to be pouring out HPS, don’t even use Mindgames/Blast. Just immediately start Smending.
Some Frequently asked questions:
What Legendary is the Best?
Twins of the Sun Priestess. I know this will be disappointing for some, because they see it as a boring legendary, but it really is our best, even in pug groups. It provides a ridiculous amount of DPS, and generally you’ll use it early on in a pull/fight, allowing you to multi-dot much faster.
In Pugs, using Twins isn’t too complicated. Basically hit your highest DPS with it - optimally do it when they use their biggest cooldown. To track that, you can use a number of addons - I personally use omniCD. For a beginner with OmniCD, you can just go to the settings and set it to track any offensive CD that has a minute or longer cooldown.
What Conduits Should I use?
Shining Radiance is a must in dungeons. Your other potency should be Swift Penitence. For any Endurance slots, Charitable Soul is the easiest to use. But honestly Translucent Image is a better overall conduit - you just need to get good at using Fade as a personal. For Finesse slots, Clear Mind is your best one. Mass Dispel is too useful for Power Unto Others to be a winner here. You’re basically looking at 5% Cooldown on PI versus the ability to actually cast Mass without OOMing.
Do I use Penance on enemies mostly, or allies?
You use it on enemies mostly - and you should be trying to use it to spread Purge The Wicked as efficiently as possible. What this means, is that you should GENERALLY use Penance on the target that has the highest duration left on Purge The Wicked. Even if all targets already have Purge on them, penance will still spread and refresh the DoT on the lowest duration purge target. I do know that re-targeting can be difficult to get the hang of. So it’s OK to just make sure you’re using penance on a target WITH PTW on them. If you use penance and notice your target has very little time left on purge, just cast it right after the penance to refresh that duration. In HPS gains, Penance is far less healing used on enemies UNLESS it spreads purge and lets you cast less purge the wicked. But the DPS Penance does isn’t negligible either which is why you want to be using it offensively when possible
You should use Penance on allies when you need the healing and have to move. OR if you have a power of the dark side proc and someone needs single target healing. Its healing is about on par with a Shadowmend when used on a single ally so if you don’t have to move, you can just Smend. But when Power of the Dark Side procs, it’s one of the highest single target heals in the game, so you can hold onto a POTDS proc for a big single target heal.
My group is standing in something/didn’t interrupt. What do I do?
First, get leap of faith bound to a key. You can pull people out of AoEs pretty effectively with it, and even when your group is playing well, Leap of Faith can allow you to pull classes you might be more mobile than with your feathers.
Second, if something really dangerous looks like it’s going off, or does go off, you have two options: Radiance -> Mindgames -> Mindblast -> Penance or Rapture->Power Infusion and Radiance burst after you’ve got shields out. If you took Shadow Covenant, provided the pack has no extremely important dispels, you can Radiance->Shadow Covenant->Mindgames->Mindblast->Shadowmend as needed->Mind Sear.
I’m casting a ton of Shadowmend - This seems wrong
Shadowmend will become a higher portion of your healing the harder content you are doing. It is our highest HPS spell, as it’s the largest ‘flash heal’ in the game. It has always been this way, even in early BfA when our smites were hitting extremely hard - Shadowmend has always been a staple of playing Disc.
If you’re stuck just SPAMMING shadowmend in a pull, likely you should have used a cooldown earlier. Or you might even need to do it now (IE: Pain Supp the tank so you can Smend him less).
To get an idea of how much Smend I use, in my latest +14 Plaguefall, it made up 28% of my healing, with Atonement (and atonement critical) making up 36%. The rest being PW:S, Defensive Penance and Radiance.
I don’t have Mindgames, how do I use my covenant ability?
Unholy Nova - this one can be used in the same situations as mindgames. It’s less initial healing but your soulbind SHOULD be emeni, meaning you’ll get an int buff, so you still want to cast it first.
Boon of the Ascended - this is basically another healing cooldown. Your group will basically be invincible if they have atonement and you’re using Blast/nova. Use it in scary situations, or early in pulls to get damage out.
Fae Guardians - In high level keys, you’re using this to get faster DPS cooldowns. Pop it on your mage, put a Power Word: Shield on the tank and while it’s up sustain the tank with DPS + Defensive penance to get the most out of benevolent Faerie. You can also replace Swift Penitence with Fae Fermata conduit to allow Shadowmend use in this window.
Hope this helps out some players - if I see more common questions I’ll try and add them to this post as I go.
