Ego problem, or invalid thoughts?

[Pheerme]

I have been feeling somewhat frustrated with my priest as of late.
I raid as Disc, and my gear is not bad (Normal modes only). I absolutely love my priest, and I will not consider playing any other class as my main, and I also absolutely love Disc, so I am not really wanting to go Holy.

Now my problem comes in on the "healing meters" - I know I might get some flames for this, but hey... Its how I tend to judge my performance.

On some fights I am absolutely destroying the other 2 healers (resto druid, H-pally), But on most other fights I am only doing OK (and im not meaning badly, just not chart topping). I also have the lowest overhealing of our healers (by a large amount - but this is part and parcel of the spec, as most of it is concentrating on mitigating the damage, and not overcompensating for it) Is this just an ego problem, or should I try something new?

I could go into detail the things I have changed, but it might not help as I dont have any recent logs to show (If any at all...)

Should I chin up and try harder, or just relish the fact that my fellow healers hate it when I miss a raid because they can feel my abscence as soon as I am not there? (Well... the abscence of a disc priest anyway :P)

Thanks guys

[Ashleycakez]

Healing meters don't reveal anything.

Best uses for Recount in game:

"OH GOD WHY AM I OOM?!" - Are the other healers healing as much as I am or am I healing 50+% and they are healing 20% each?

"WHY IS THIS FIGHT TAKING SO LONG?!!!" - Which dps is pulling WoTLK numbers

"Uhh why'd the tank die" - look through the death log and see what needs to be fixed (i.e. no heals on tank for 8 seconds)


World of Logs is better used to analyze things like uptime of Beacon of Light, Lifebloom and R Druid Mastery as well as "Did my Paladin healer even use Avenging Wrath?" "Did I use PI as often as I could have?" "Did I hit all (reasonable) Rapture procs?" etc.

These are things you need to consider. Disc Priests (and Holy) do bring valuable CDs to the raid but there is no reason why you can't 2 heal Normal DS content. The only difficult fights would probably be Spine (if the debuff gets out of hand) and possibly Madness depending on your platform order.

I'd get comfy with Holy as Holy does shine on certain Heroic encounters. If your guild isn't planning on doing Heroic DS, then it doesn't matter what spec you play. Both specs get the job done.

Maybe the question is, why can't your other 2 healers feel comfortable enough to 2 heal the content? Or are you the essential 10th person for your raid and your absence renders your group unable to raid?

[Pheerme]

Some very good points :P

I will actually push our WoL person to run logs tonight so that I can check stuff out.

At the end of the day, we do 2 heal some of the fights, I am the one who goes shadow for this(which im also not 100% happy with where my dps is - but with more practise I will get better).

I think the main reason we dont 2 heal fights, is because we are just that little bit too lazy. Also with our whole group living in South Africa, our latency genrally is quite high, and lag spikes are very prevalent. We are progressing through the content very easily, as our DPS is excellent, and our tanks are also top notch.

I think my group (very exclusive group) will be planning on doing heroic modes at some stage, we are just currently progressing on the madness fight at the moment (tonight is our 2nd proper night on this fight). We also just raid socially, but we take our raiding very seriously, only 2 nights a week.

Getting comfortable with holy will take me a long time. I havent played holy since Naxx days (CoH spam!), and I went Disc in Ulduar and never looked back :P Also with me needing to be shadow , I dont have enough gear to support all 3 specs raid ready-to-go every week :P

[Ashleycakez]

Spirit/Mastery is a viable stat comp for Disc and it just so happens to work well as Holy. I'm a big fan of pw:shield usage so Mastery goes far for me as Disc. For H Ultraxion I will bring my Haste up to 1300 (double my usual amount) for a 2.1 sec PoH cast, as that fight is PoH centered.

Just a thought it you want to use 1 set for both healing specs. For Disc I swap to higher intellect trinkets and for Holy I use dmc:t and h fall ... trinkets just don't drop for us :(

[Pheerme]

Well, turns out that we are going to be trying heroic modes this week, so I guess I will see how things go :D
(first deathwing kill was on tuesday \o/)

I am thinking of trying flatout mastery accross the board, I have been recently juggling my own stats, seeing what I am comfortable with, but I suppose we will see! If our WoL parser gets his act together tonight, I will post some logs :P
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/xt3cpy8urfm7tqkv/
(Logs from Tuesday night, but he managed to miss out the entire Deathwing attempts - and first kill :( )

Feel free to rip me apart if you want :P

[derevka]

I am thinking of trying flatout mastery accross the board,

oh god please dont.... PWS Spam died with Arthas. Let's leave it there. Stacking Mastery as your main secondary stat is only good for one thing: PWS Spam.

yes of course certain fights, you can use periods of PWS Spam, but its so niche. (HC JY pre-mana void w/ purple debuff out... Heroic Gunship... Pre Stomp Morchock...)

*shuffles off to write a post regarding secondary stats*

[Ashleycakez]

Actually, there is nothing wrong with stacking Mastery as a Disc Priest. There are a few Disc Priests who feel strongly for using Mastery as their secondary stat above all others.

All stats jive for Disc Priests and the selection of what stat is best for the Priest is based on the Priest's spell usage, the Priest's raid composition, and the Priest's gear.


For a fight like H Ultraxion you'd be foolish not to dip into Haste. For H Zon'ozz Mastery worked amazing for my Disc spec but I've heard Priests advocate for Haste on this encounter as they heal with PoH more than PW: Shield.

[Pheerme]

Well at the moment what I am trying, is a little bit more haste (it also helps optimize my shadow gear)

I also feel that as a healer following things like Mr Robot blindly is actually counter productive. Sure it will help you with the general things like gems and enchants, but if you have half a brain you can work all of that stuff out for yourself :P (although it sure as hell helps with plateaus and the different "caps" - and by that I mean extra renew tick for holy, etc etc)

When I follow Mr Robot, my healing style feels incredibly slow because of the complete lack of haste. I also know that I shouldnt be spamming greater heal all day, but I tend to use it a bit more than I should :P

[Pheerme]

if you are interested in taking a look, here are some WoL logs from last nights raid:

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/u880wsjzrityxe0f/
(note that I dps on Ultraxion and Madness)

[derevka]

Ashley, I gotta disagree with you completely on this one. The math doesnt jive...

That said, I agree... there is nothing 'wrong' with mastery stacking; it just isn't optimal and can result in selling yourself short. Ultimately, this is a GAME and everyone can play it however they'd like, but it doesn't mean there isn't a min/max answer to situations like this.