I have played all of the healers, and pretty much since vanilla. And in the last year joined an average guild where I was labelled as being bad at mechanics, etc etc. I did die a fair bit, but thought that it had to do with a few things. Well, duh. I played a holy paladin for years and rarely EVER died. But h paladins have an immunity that no other healer has. And well, resto shammies also kind of have an advantage over Disc priests in that they can auto-brez themselves. Also, despite others telling you that disc is highly mobile, I utterly and completely disagree. The majority of a disc priest ramp and the damage that they do that follows requires them to plant. And in my guild when I mentioned this I was told I was wrong, that Disc is a highly mobile healer. Anyhow, I left the guild because I was tired of catching blame for things having to do with the spec, and also because people were plainly wrong about why I had died–all that came to a focus when I got boxed in by two others with beams on Hungering Destroyer and hence had nowhere to go and died. And then was called out for having run the “wrong” way, when neither direction gave me any option for survival.
Anyhow, to make a long story short, I feel vindicated by this video, but also wonder why Disc priests die so much. Is it the lack of an immunity? Is it the mobility problem while ramping? Is it both of these? Is there something else to this?
Thoughts would be appreciated. With 9.1 just around the corner some of us who main disc priest may be wise to simply play holy paladin or something else. Or maybe there is something we can do to address the issue.
Thanks in advance.
Oh maan… there are soooooo many variables going around this.
Like it could be that disc priests were huge for castle nathria progress ppl stacked 2 disc priests for mostly all fights so you pretty much die a lot in in progress.
It could be that Disc priest don’t have that much reactive healing so when they are low they can’t really top themselves fast as a Hpriest could do with a holy word serenity or pop wings.
It could be that because Disc priest was nuts for Nathria many people just re rolled a disc priest not knowing wtf the spec is supposed to work and just miserably fail.
It could even just be that there are more bad disc players than resto shamans.
I mean MW monks have a lot of mobility and high reactive healing but look at that chart, they are 2nd most deaths of healers.
It could be soooo many things.
Just play the spec you like, don’t give a fk about that chart and try to get better at not dying.
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This is definitely a valid point. As any experienced healer worth his salt will tell you healing other healers ought to be a priority–because when you are down one it often has a cascade effect, but I know that at least some other healers do not heal healers in general. I have seen healers be removed from groups with the argument that if you can’t heal yourself you should not be a healer.
so to answer your first question priest itself is kind of squishy, I think they reason why your guild was mad at you is you died to a very avoidable mechanic.
Oh, highly avoidable provided you and the guy to your left keep moving to give the guy to your right room to move. But when all three of you move left at the same time and move together but then the guy on the left stops just before the beam slams down and the guy on your right keeps moving where do you–the guy in the middle, go? If you stop like the guy on the left, the guy on the right is going to be on top of you when the beams slam down. If he also stops, like you and the guy to your left, the guy on the right is going to kill himself and the others he has not yet cleared. So what do you do?
Hearth out? If your raid lead had no clue what happened and then blames you, as usual, and then even looks at the log replay and still has no idea, then what do you do?
than all 3 of you should have died due to how that mechanic works. it sounds like ur raid leader is bad but you could also use your voice to say “stop moving” and walk past them.
Well, no. Not necessarily. If you keep moving left you will be overtop the guy on your left
and you will both perish when the beams will hit. But the guy on your right will be okay. If you stop like the guy on your left the guy on your right will have no room and will have to stop on you. So both you and him will die when your two beams smash down. So what do you do? Either way you are toast!!
this just sounds like a positioning issue than and the beams should be relatively close together. like they should be able to move just as fast as you. those beams are like 3 yards wide slightly bigger than ur character model i can stand in a friendly miasma and not hit a fellow raider.
Three yards is like ten feet. That is a lot wider than your character. Regardless, I did not make the original post to discuss the finer points of specific fights and their mechanics. The post was simply to draw attention to the fact that disc priests die a lot more than other healers. The question is why.
And why even ask what the causes are? The reason is simply to help people who like playing disc to come up with solutions.
we wear cloth armor so our physical defense and health pool are smaller than other classes. why i ask is if youre dying from avoidable damage than its not a class issue its a what’s between the chair and pc issue.
I’m sorry I brought up the final straw with my guild. I play a disc priest, which according to the numbers die more than other healers. As for specifics of when I quit my guild, the guy on the left of me in that fight needed to keep moving. If he had kept moving nobody would have died. Please stop harping on it.
Since we are talking about mechanics, it angers me when people don’t know what is going on and don’t understand basic mechanics–but not the first time they try to down a boss, or even the tenth try. People make mistakes, fine. But consider this: I was very patient and spent more than half an hour with a group wiping over and over on the last boss fight yesterday at HOA. I even left the group saying the run was interesting without being toxic and thanking everyone. But I have run that dungeon more than 100 times and timed it plenty of times and people still insist on not soaking the beams when you repeat to them over and over to soak the beams. You can’t heal through a lack of brain power, the inability to listen and/or read much as you try. But that is also a whole other issue. When people have to work things out in their minds fine, but to completely ignore a simple instruction repeated over and over, and on a dungeon that has been out for more than half a year? As for raid bosses, and on Mythic, to me it is a whole other story when you are on your first or early attempts at a boss.
Not to change gears, but the original post was just to point out that I have first hand experience with the issue the video is talking about. Should you have any suggestions on how disc priests can deal with the apparent and relative proneness to dying in general it will be contributing to the conversation. If you want to discuss specific mechanics of specific fights, please make a thread to discuss it.
Pretty sure we get hit harder than anything else since we only wear cloth armor and they took out inner fire.
I’ve been one shot by things in a +8 wearing 210ilvl gear.
Also… are you eating something? Your voice sounds kind of like you are eating something really sticky.
Also, if its a choice between you dying and letting a dps die, we always have to let the dps die. Save yourself = save the team.
I don’t get one shot in M+, except for on the very rare occasion like when the tank kites mobs to me with a zillion stacks of bolstering and with my fear and pushback spells on CD. In fact, if the tank dies, I’m almost always the last to die, and lots of times I simply don’t die. Like after the second boss at HOA? I have actually run all the way to the entrance on occasion without dying. I would quality that though, by saying I don’t find disc to be very good on bosses like the third at SD without group coordination–which is rare in pugs–which I heal mostly–so I avoid that dungeon. In M+, as with everything in life and wow, it’s really only a matter of experience, which you can get a ton of by running a ton of keys.
As for raiding, unless you have levelled alts and actively raid with them as well as your main, you can’t get a lot of experience. In my case, early on in SL I levelled my profession toons and then later levelled toons I could raid with, so missed out on the chance for experience from alts that I now have a ton of.
That has to be part of it. Holy, though, also a cloth wearer, is really the healer with the least number of deaths–because R shammy can self-brez. And why is this? Probably because they have a lot of spells to heal reactively, plus the hot from Echo of Light on them, not to mention that their groups spells also self-heal them a ton too. Disc is a whole other story.
He’s totally giving you the whole story.
/S
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I use manabound mirror on a macro with guardian spirit. This gives me the ability to not only save a death, but heal somebody to full HP right after that. And they are both on a 1 min cooldown. GS alone guarantees a save from a death, unless they get hit again right after that for an extreme amount of damage, but using manabound mirrior combined with that usually keeps that from happening.
I also try to save guardian spirit specifically for myself. Usually I wont need to cast it on anyone else except the tank. If things are going really well I’ll start casting it liberally just to try and get a big heal number.
I’m kyrian too, so I get the steward flask. I’ve also combined these into one button. Desperate Prayer, Spiritual Healing Potion, Vial of the Steward are all into one button. This means I have literally a one button save built in that will keep me from dying usually.
I have spectral intellect/desperate prayer/soulletting ruby/divine hymn built into one button. This gives me 190 extra intellect, 55% critical chance, 25% bonus HP and a rediculous channeled healed that usually will keep anyone in the group from dying, including me.
If somebody does die, I don’t worry much about it, because I can engineer them back to life (usually, it hasn’t killed me yet 
These spells are great, but when you combine them all into one action then you are really on to something.
I’m not sure what kind of access disc has to any of these, but thats something you can look into.
Rule 1: Don’t die.
Rule 2: Everything possible in your book to follow rule 2.
Disc is nothing like any other healer to be honest. The numbers show that Holy dies least of all healers and Disc the most.
Oh, right. I forgot to mention that I wanted to raid as holy–but that my guild and I quote “already had a holy priest” and had healed holy for years, literally since vanilla, and that I did play disc, but not 5% as much over the years. I also did mention that I mained as a holy paladin for years, and maybe got a little too comfy with the immune they have. I also did not mention that healing other healers was a priority for me. How many other healers made me a priority in your guild?
Okay, there is 70% of the whole story. Oh, did I mention the mobility factor, which was constantly a source of disagreement in the guild? I was told by guildmates that Disc is literally “very mobile.” What a joke.
Here is a clever take I completely agree with, and which has a lot of upvotes:
My take on disc vs holy survivability: 1) Disc is a stationary spec (especially during ramps) with no instant heals. Dont tell me about penance: first of all it’s not instant, secondly it’s almost always on CD so you cant use it on demand. Holy on the other hand has a lot of instant heals with a lot of CDs. 2) Holy has a lot of smart heals which will prioritize the Priest if in range and the Priest is missing hp. Disc has to specifically heal themselves or count on heals from other players to stay alive, while having no instant heals. 3) When looking at logs I usually notice that very often Holy priest heal themselves the most. Not sure what the reason is but I’m pretty sure smart heals are also contributing here.
Author:
Dmitry Solodovnikov
You really need to get over it already.
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When disc was introduced, it wasn’t really ment for PVE, or wasn’t as good in PVE as it was in PVP.
If you are maxed out in versatility I think survivability in disc probably increases, but I’m not sure if thats a stat people try to max out since they are doing PVE.
I know that back in the day a PVP geared disc priest could come into a progression raid blind and heal just as good as the next healer while taking less damage.
So maybe those disc priests are gearing up incorrectly.
Ignoring the whole thing that’s going on above because you’re definitely not giving the whole story and should just be able to spread out on hungering beams and not die to avoidable damage.
The strat on mythic SLG for the first 100-150~ kills called for the disc priest to MD and either be totem or battle rezzed 4 times across the duration of the fight. That bumped up their death average massively.
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You need to get a grip. And even though a poster here said the raid lead is bad, I largely disagree. But as for you, go jump in the lake.
You just don’t get it do you? What are you supposed to do when you get boxed in at the last second?
