Discipline Priest Talent Tree / Spec for Healing in WoTLK April 18, 2009

 

>>> DISCIPLINE PRIEST TALENT SPEC  – Here is my current talent tree spec – (56/15/0) <<<

 

DISCIPLINE PRIEST TALENT NOTES

Soul Warding - wow! This one is nice and only costs 1 talent point.  Bargain!  You have to realise that your PW: Shield spell has a 4 second cooldown already, so by getting this talent, you effectively remove the cooldown.  You still can’t cast it on the same person straight away due to the Weakened Soul effect, but you can cast it on as many people in the raid as you want in quick succession now.

Improved Flash Heal is like the old holy talent for Test of Faith.  Disc priests get to increase the critical chance, while holy priests get to increase their healing in general by 4% for targets at or below 50% health

Focused Will which used to just be a PVP talent, has now been made useful for raiding thanks to the 3% spell critical chance increase.

Renewed Hope is great for damage mitigation.  100% chance to reduce ALL damage taken by 3% and for 20 seconds, when someone has recently had a shield on them.

Divine Aegis  – BUBBLES!!! This one is your best friend. 30% of your critical heal amount will become damage that is absorbed after you heal your target.

Borrowed Time now just gives you 25% spell haste straight up after casting PW: Sheild and it also improves the amount absorbed by your shield by a huge 40% of your spell power.

Holy Specialisation and Inspiration are still must haves for discipline priests since there are so many abilities that proc based on your spell criticals

 
Holy Priest Talent Spec – Just incase you’d like to try out healing as Holy with Circle of Healing (14/57/0)

Holy Priest Talent Tree / Spec for WoTLK April 18, 2009

Time to revisit the Holy priest talent spec after patch 3.1!

 

>>> HOLY PRIEST TALENT SPEC  – Here are the talents I’d choose now from the new 3.1 patch Holy tree talents (14/57/0) <<<

 If you want the Lightwell, remove a point from Divine Fury to spend it on the Lightwell.

 

HOLY PRIEST TALENT NOTES

Healing Focus is just not worth the 2 points.  I haven’t specced into this for a few months now as it’s just not needed.  If there is a specific fight where you specifically need this talent, just get a paladin to put up concentration aura instead.

Inspiration is a must have for all healing priests.

Desperate Prayer isn’t used as much, but it’s an awesome way of keeping yourself alive it’s definitely worth the 1 talent point.  Remember, if you die, the whole raid could tumble over shortly after. This talent saves you from that.

Holy Concentration  now increases your spirit regen by 50% for 8 seconds after a spell crit, if you spend 3 points on it.  With the nerf to mana regen, definitely have to learn this talent.

Empowered Renew is a brilliant talent.  15% of your healing effects are applied to your renew now and in addition, it will instantly heal the target for 15% of the total periodic effect! Nice!

Serendipity now just reduces the cast time of your next greater heal or prayer of healing spell. Not really worth it imo.

Body and Soul is very much a PVP talent and I would not take it for raid healing.  How often do you need to run fast or cleanse a disease or poison effect at the same time?

 

Discipline Priest Talent Spec - Just incase you’d like to try out my new favourite spec and the one I’m currently playing with (56/15/0)

Healing in XT-002 Deconstructor (10 man) April 18, 2009

10-man Ulduar - XT-002 Deconstructor

 XT-002 Deconstructor is the last boss for the seige section in Ulduar. After you kill him, the antechamber section opens up.

Since we were still learning the fights, we took three main healers, one who could DPS with an offspec if needed. 

 

Our Healing Assignments

2 x Priests on raid healing, 1 x Paladin on MT & OT healing with a beacon between them.

 

Abilities to Watch Out For

The tympanic tantrum that XT does is the make or break point for the raid and healers.  It deals 120% damage of everyone’s maximum health which means you need to heal everyone in the raid for at least 20% of their maximum health just so they can survive it.  More if you want them to have more than 1 hit point left when the tantrum ends.

The thing is, more often than not there’s one person in the raid who’s also getting light bombed at the same time.  Light bomb deals 2750 damage per second for 9 seconds to the target and those within 10 yards around them.

So…

 

Healing Tips

• Work out before the fight, which party your raid healers will be healing during the tympanic tantrum
• Have the MT/OT healer continue to heal the tanks through the tantrum and spot heal the person with the light bomb
• Priests should use Prayer of Mending just before the tantrum happens
• Cast your biggest raid/party heal (priests: Prayer of Healing) on your assigned party as soon as the tantrum starts
• Use quicker heals such as flash heal on others who may not have been in range of the party heals

 

Notes

I just wanted to point out that it’s completely possible for two discipline priests to ‘raid’ heal through this fight. Both our priests were discipline for this fight when we downed him.  Penance is simply just an awesome emergency heal, plus two prayer of mendings bouncing around helped and we were also able to sheild so many more targets at a time which reduces the overall damage intake.

Loatheb Healing April 9, 2009

Loatheb – Naxxramas Boss | Plague Quarter

Necrotic Aura 

A wave of necrotic energy fills the room, completely preventing all healing effects for 17 sec.

Inevitable Doom

Inflicts 4000 shadow damage to nearby enemies after 10 sec.

 

Tips for healing around the Necrotic Aura

• Shield people, especially mages and other characters who have lower hitpoints before the Inevitable Doom hits everyone which prevents them from taking too much damage
• Put hots on people who need healing before the Necrotic Aura is lifted. When the aura is lifted those hots will tick away giving them some health back
• Start casting your heals that take the longest to cast a few seconds before the aura is lifted, so your heal will land as soon as you can heal again
• If it’s mostly your party that needs healing, start casting your big party heal spell ie. Prayer of Healing (soon to be raid wide) 2 seconds before the aura is lifted and then just as it goes off, use some instant heals on the rest of the raid or on yourself

Patch 3.1 – Hello Discipline Priests! April 9, 2009

Just thought I would share with you the (4) set bonus on the new healing priests Valorous Sanctification Regalia – tier 8

Casting Power Word: Sheild also grants you 250 spell power for 5 seconds.

Source: http://ptr.wowhead.com/?new-items#items-4:1:5

 

This is great news for discipline priest who would tend to use more shields per raid than a holy priest, but it’s awesome for both parties really.  I can just see holy priests casting a shield to get the set bonus to proc, and then using circle of healing straight afterwards for maximum impact.

 

On a side note…

I’ve really enjoyed being a discipline priest in raids. Penance is just so much fun, especially when you see your target who is near death, suddently have plenty of health after three ticks of your penance. Plus your shields really do save people near death since they just absorb so much more damage than holy priest shields.

I’m holy at the moment, but only for the purpose of  seeing what it’s like when you have a full set of Teir 7.5 gear on and bucketloads of spell power.  I’ll probably stay holy for the first week after the patch as well but will go discipline from then on.  Weird because I was always such a holy priest lover.

Here’s my current WowArmory entry:

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Frostmourne&n=Kikikins