Discipline Healing Al'akir Heroic 10

[artiq]

Hello,

I am seeing issues in our raids with healing in phase 1 on Al'akir. I was just wondering if you could check our logs of our tries to see if there are anything noticeable that we could change to help us progress.

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-jfntse48c81j22ad/

From what I've seen on our logs, Binding Heal seems to be overused a lot and I feel that PW:S, PoH and GH would make better use in P1. I have never healed this fight on heroic as disc though so I wouldn't know.

I also have a question about how you feel about aggressive use of CDs. Unless you know that you need to save your CD for a specific moment in the fight, isn't it better to use them to try to mitigate damage early and save yourself some mana?

An example would be first phase of Al'akir where I feel you can use stuff like PS, Tree Form pretty early in the fight and still have it ready for phase 2. I mean if I would get a lightning and another person would get it right off the bat I would maybe use PS to mitigate damage on one of us so I can combat any RNG if it happens and so I don't have to panic heal that much. PS will still be ready for phase 3. Same with tree form etc.

Basically not being afraid of using cooldowns but of course also have them ready for when they are really needed. I feel that many healers don't do this and are afraid of using their CDs. What are your opinions on this?

Thanks,

artiq

[Stenx]

If you're having problems with healer mobility in phase 1 I think you ought to rethink your positioning a bit. Healers should be relatively stationary to their assigned spot and use mobile dps such as locks, mages, warriors etc to be the ones that primarily move.

As for the use of Binding Heal it's an excellent spell in phase 1. It's fast, efficient and heals two targets. Basically, phase 1 is all about surviving and taking advantage of all the cooldowns you have available plus using your highest HPS/HPCT spells (FH, BH, PW:s). Burning mana shouldn't be an issue as there is plenty of time to regen it in the beginning of phase 2 where the damage is very low.

[Jhazrun]

Al'Akir is strictly a Holy encounter. Priests tend to make poor hybrids due to their reliance on both of their healing specs.
While Binding Heal is exceptionally useful in the fight, it's only ever viable as Holy.
Also (though not relevant for Al'Akir), I recommend that she fix her Disci spec (see mine). Atonement and Inspiration aren't negotiable.

It makes sense to plan one's cooldowns around the part they find the most trouble with, but most aren't worth holding back "just in case"...

[artiq]

Our basic idea is to have all healers soak lightning and DPS moves out of it. That is how the strategy we have works but healers also tend to move a bit if they get lightning. Maybe they shouldn't.

Why do you feel Holy is better for this fight, Jhazrun? Won't PoH be very lackluster with only two groups to heal? Most videos I've seen, people tend to use Disc priests.

I understand that Binding Heal is an excellent spell if you and another take damage but is it really the spell you should be using if you have time to cast? I feel using GH is better since it also reduces Inner Focus CD. Seeing as you also try to use Penance on cooldown I don't feel Binding Heal will be beneficial every time and in our logs Binding Heal overheals for 13%. That feels like a lot for this particular spell.

If people are not holding back their cooldowns, why do I rarely see any healer use ToL, Tranquility right off the bat as soon as people start taking some considerable damage? It always feels like instead of trying to mitigate as much damage as possible with CDs they pop it when they are "Oh shit, I need to heal everyone up".

[Jhazrun]

Our basic idea is to have all healers soak lightning and DPS moves out of it.

Sure.

Why do you feel Holy is better for this fight, Jhazrun? Won't PoH be very lackluster with only two groups to heal?

I... don't... What...? Disci brings nothing at all, and if neither of two groups in a ten-man wants healing, isn't the healer... doing his job?

I feel using GH is better since it also reduces Inner Focus CD. Seeing as you also try to use Penance on cooldown I don't feel Binding Heal will be beneficial every time

Holy doesn't have Inner Focus or Penance, and Disci using Binding Heal is doing it wrong anyway. There's no overlap.

If people are not holding back their cooldowns

What gave you that impression? Of course they are; Hesitating to commit is human.

[artiq]

What I meant is that Holy will benefit less from the HoT of PoH if you only heal two groups since you probably can't benefit as much from it as in 25 man. They benefit less from their mastery if I have understood how mastery for Holy priest works. I feel that Disc brings shields combined with Barrier combined with better single target healing combined with Power Infusion for our arcane mage at the start.

All I am saying is that from what I've seen many guilds tend to bring a disc priest and you make it sound like they are really weak on Al'akir yet logs show that they are pretty decent at least.

What gave you that impression? Of course they are; Hesitating to commit is human.

Yes, that is why I feel that most healers are NOT using their cooldowns as aggressively as they could because they are hesitating to use it in case they need it for some "oh shit"-moment*

EDIT: *Sorry, I miss understood your first post about cooldowns. I thought you wrote that most healers aren't holding back their cooldowns but you wrote most cooldowns aren't worth holding back. My fail.

Holy doesn't have Inner Focus or Penance, and Disci using Binding Heal is doing it wrong anyway. There's no overlap.

I was mostly directing that part of my post to Stenx who said that Binding Heal is an excellent spell to use as Disc. I was just making my argument for why Disci had better spells to use in phase 1 most of the time.

[Jhazrun]

What I meant is that Holy will benefit less from the HoT of PoH if you only heal two groups since you probably can't benefit as much from it as in 25 man.

The six-second Glyph HoT is shared by both specs.

They benefit less from their mastery if I have understood how mastery for Holy priest works.

They don't.

I feel that Disc brings shields combined with Barrier combined with better single target healing

PW:S is embarrassingly inefficient in zero-overheal, and Barrier does nothing for continuous damage. Also, what single-target healing...?

All I am saying is that from what I've seen many guilds tend to bring a disc priest and you make it sound like they are really weak on Al'akir yet logs show that they are pretty decent at least.

I'm pretty sure sniping half of Normal mode's combined 10,000 HPS with absorbs doesn't count. At Al'Akir, Discipline has nothing on Holy.

[Stenx]

The reason myself and many others prefer Disc over Holy on Al'Akir 10man is simply because it provides better survivability in the hard part of the fight, namely Phase1. While Holy may outshine Disc in Phase 2 and 3 it doesn't really matter since the fight, executed correctly, from there on just is a walk in the park towards the coffin of purple pixels.

3-healing the fight means you can be responsible for up to 4-5, including yourself, people to keep alive in Phase 1. Some of those people being "2 spots away" will require you to spend some time in meleerange of Al'Akir making insta spells valued higher (PW:S) due to his sporadic interupts. Being able to shield people before Wind Blasts help out quite a bit as well.

I'm not sure why Jhazrun claims Binding Heal to only be viable for Holy priests, but it sure is one of our absolutely strongest and most efficient spells in Phase 1. The damage can be very spiky and you simply don't have the time to cast anything else than your highest HPCT spells to keep people alive.

Also, the singletarget healing in Phase 2 is not a joke especially with a non-paladin tank who can't reset his stacks. Judging from Jhazruns comments the fight seems to be a whole different chapter on 25man vs 10man.

[Jhazrun]

Oh, look, I'm being trolled.

The reason myself and many others prefer Disc over Holy on Al'Akir 10man is simply because it provides better survivability in the hard part of the fight, namely Phase1.

Of the five healers, Holy is the best at keeping itself healed, without even accounting for the utility of B&S. Discipline is the worst.

3-healing the fight means you can be responsible for up to 4-5, including yourself, people to keep alive in Phase 1.

...at which, once again, Discipline claims fifth place.

I'm not sure why Jhazrun claims Binding Heal to only be viable for Holy priests, but it sure is one of our absolutely strongest and most efficient spells in Phase 1.

Discipline BH barely breaks 10,000. Next.

Also, the singletarget healing in Phase 2 is not a joke especially with a non-paladin tank who can't reset his stacks.

You're not there to look after the tank. Also, individual Acid Rain stacks are negligible.

Judging from Jhazruns comments the fight seems to be a whole different chapter on 25man vs 10man.

It's not. Significantly more challenging, no doubt, but still perfectly analogous.

[Stenx]

Of the five healers, Holy is the best at keeping itself healed, without even accounting for the utility of B&S. Discipline is the worst..

I was talking about survivability where disc clearly outshines holy in every possible aspect. Not only does Barrier and Pain Suppression outclass Guardin Spirit but also the fact that you're able to use much more powerful Shields.

...at which, once again, Discipline claims fifth place.

Wrong. You do realize those 4-5 people arent anywhere near being stacked up so the use of PoH and CoH is completely negated. I would like you to elaborate as to how any healer possibly could beat a Disc in a sitation like that where you're pretty much constricted to using instaspells.

Discipline BH barely breaks 10,000. Next.

Your point being? BH is disc strongest HPCT spell and on Al'Akir you often find yourself in a spot where there is no better choice. Earlier in the thread you stated that using BH as disc is doing it wrong. I would like to know why.

You're not there to look after the tank. Also, individual Acid Rain stacks are negligible.

Wrong and wrong. Obviously a big difference between 25 and 10man here. You can't afford to sit only on raid in 10man as the tank does in fact take a ton of damage. Please give it a try and correct me if im wrong.