Cataclysm

[Selby]

Healing meters are even more useless than damage meters. With no context or understanding of the situation, you might as well rank the players in terms of who farts the most.

My last raid guild benched me because I wasn't putting out the same numbers as the pally healer and the shammy healer (in full 359 gear, I still had a few blues).  I personally told them to go fuck themselves as no one died and we did fine and priest healing isn't always about the highest HPS or YOU FAIL attitude.

[Rokal]

If anything, movement is much more common in the leveling content.

There's a big gap between running around attacking shit, and HOLY FUCK STOP STANDING IN THE FIRE.

Yes, but ranged/healers have to deal with the same 'get out of the fire' effects. As a matter of fact, they probably had to deal with more of these than melee did in Cata. Melee-range-only aoe/cleave effects are a relic of the past. Melee still has to deal with chasing the boss/adds at this point, but that's the sort of movement you do while leveling too.

[Paelos]

My last raid guild benched me because I wasn't putting out the same numbers as the pally healer and the shammy healer (in full 359 gear, I still had a few blues).  I personally told them to go fuck themselves as no one died and we did fine and priest healing isn't always about the highest HPS or YOU FAIL attitude.

Exactly. HPS is almost entirely useless because there shouldn't be infinite scenarios where you are constantly spamming heals. You have to take into account overhealing, mana regen, utility, shields, job, fight, etc.

[Ingmar]

Not standing in the fire just isn't that damn hard.

[Paelos]

Not standing in the fire just isn't that damn hard.

And yet, they seem to go to that well more than the Old Gods.

[Ingmar]

Er...

[Nevermore]

Not standing in the fire just isn't that damn hard.

It was the one time Blizzard put out a patch that borked all the ground spell effects so I couldn't see the fire to not stand in. 

[Merusk]

But apparently killing the damn add on the Akkroa in Grim Batol while also TURNING THE GODDAMN DRAGON AWAY is something PUGs still find impossible.

The more things change...

[SurfD]

But apparently killing the damn add on the Akkroa in Grim Batol while also TURNING THE GODDAMN DRAGON AWAY is something PUGs still find impossible.

The more things change...

Pretty sure Dagda is an Orc, and it really isnt the Tank's job to point the dragon anywhere, since the dragon will turn and breathe in a random direction.  If anything, it is on everyone else to make sure they are not infront of the dragon when it does breath fire.  The only thing the tank really has to do is move the dragon every so often to make sure they arent standing in a puddle of shadow vomit.

[apocrypha]

So the summary is, don't put too much stock in the meters for healing performance.

Oh I don't, it's irrelevant. All that matters is people don't die unless it's their own fault. Mana & cooldown management are what I pay attention to. The meters are just worth a glance to make sure nothing's going horribly wrong and to reassure myself I'm vaguely doing it right.

6 months ago when I was raiding Firelands etc then I was using meters to watch my overhealing, since back then I cared about mana. At this stage in the cycle mana is pretty much infinite for my druid.

[FieryBalrog]

I always skip Dagda now. It was never worth it even in the past, I did it once to get my quest done and that's it.

Grim Batol makes you suffer enough already.

[Wolf]

Also you always get 1-3 healers out of the 6 who are barely putting in any effort, so you usually can't slack off and have to carry their asses.

I noticed this. I went in with the bare minimum gear req to queue, having never done the raids before, and came top of the healing meter. There were a couple of healers who did less than 1/3rd of the healing I did.

Clearly I was just trying too hard! 

I was in the unfortunate position of being #6 in healing in a LFR raid last night.  I even got a tell asking why my healing was so bad.  I investigated and it turned out to be two reasons :
- I was at leasty have a tier of gear behind the other healers
- i'm disc and i've never seen a priest with higher healing that pallies, druids, or shammies.
So the summary is, don't put too much stock in the meters for healing performance.

Disc is very powerful atm, just plays different then other healers - requires much better knowledge of fights and where high damage is coming so you could pre-heal. Or enough constant damage for full pohs and aegis to go through, which isnt the case in lfr. On the flip side - endless mana :)

Also winning Healing meters is like winning DPS meters. If you can't win it when it doesn't matter, you won't be able to put up the numbers when it does.

[Sjofn]

Yeah, healing meters have always been pretty dumb.

[Maledict]

If anything, movement is much more common in the leveling content.

There's a big gap between running around attacking shit, and HOLY FUCK STOP STANDING IN THE FIRE.

Yes, but ranged/healers have to deal with the same 'get out of the fire' effects. As a matter of fact, they probably had to deal with more of these than melee did in Cata. Melee-range-only aoe/cleave effects are a relic of the past. Melee still has to deal with chasing the boss/adds at this point, but that's the sort of movement you do while leveling too.

It's been that way for some time. The meme from TBC about melee having to deal with more effects hasn't been based in truth for a long time but these things take forever to change. Yes, there are some fights where melee has it worse but  the majority place burdens on ranged. It's been that way since ToC.

It's also the case that melee are a lot easier to heal than ranged. Melee all clump up so you get huge efficiency and throughput on your AoE heals, whereas ranged have to spread out so AoE heals just don't work. It was far easier healing 8 melee on the wurms fight in ToC than it was 3 ranged getting hit for that reason.

[FieryBalrog]

Also you always get 1-3 healers out of the 6 who are barely putting in any effort, so you usually can't slack off and have to carry their asses.

I noticed this. I went in with the bare minimum gear req to queue, having never done the raids before, and came top of the healing meter. There were a couple of healers who did less than 1/3rd of the healing I did.

Clearly I was just trying too hard!  

I was in the unfortunate position of being #6 in healing in a LFR raid last night.  I even got a tell asking why my healing was so bad.  I investigated and it turned out to be two reasons :
- I was at leasty have a tier of gear behind the other healers
- i'm disc and i've never seen a priest with higher healing that pallies, druids, or shammies.
So the summary is, don't put too much stock in the meters for healing performance.

Disc is very powerful atm, just plays different then other healers - requires much better knowledge of fights and where high damage is coming so you could pre-heal. Or enough constant damage for full pohs and aegis to go through, which isnt the case in lfr. On the flip side - endless mana :)

Also winning Healing meters is like winning DPS meters. If you can't win it when it doesn't matter, you won't be able to put up the numbers when it does.

Disc gets owned on the meters on Spine, though (no matter how well you know it). Makes me sad =) Disc does best on fights like Ultraxion and Madness, where PoH spam rules the day and you can very reliably and easily get rapture procs.

I think for healing meters, they are 1) somewhat useful at telling you if there's a huge shortfall in healing and 2) not nearly as relevant as DPS meters.

If a healer is doing about as much healing as a Shadowpriest in LFR, yeah, that's a slacker.

[Miasma]

About the only place healing meters could be considered an accurate stand-alone reflection of healing ability is what we seem to be talking about, lfr.  There are very few gimmicks, you don't have dedicated tank/raid healers, you aren't limiting yourself to only healing assigned targets, it is 25 man with everyone taking good amount of damage and five other healers to compare yourself against for breadth.  If you are only doing 6-7k healing you should read your class threads to find out what you are doing wrong.

Healers are the fastest to queue for lfr so I'm guessing, perhaps cynically, that a lot of people switch to that spec just to get in faster and then have to be carried by the other healers.

What drives me nuts as a non druid healer is when a tank dies and the druid has to be told to use their brez.  Even worse was last weekend when we somehow didn't have any druids and the dks had to be implored and cat herded for one of them to stop their mad dps to get the fucking main tank up because the off tank doesn't know he has to taunt at x number of stacks.

[Wolf]

LFR Spine has healing? 

Disc does awesome wherenver there's a stack phase - yorsaj, ultra, zonozz normal, hagara heroic, madness; is very powerful in fights with heavy tank healing - warmaster & madness p2, destroys morchok and is very powerful on spine in certain comps. Basically the only fight our priest plays holy is zonozz heroic, cause everyone is all over the place all the time.

TBH all the healers are in a good place right now. the holies and resto shaman are harder to play because of the spirit regen mechanics, but all are good for all the fights :)

[craan]

For Disc priests and their amazing shields I always remind people complaining to click over the the Absorbs page in Recount.  That's where you see the Disc priests shining.  Or at least should be shining.

[FieryBalrog]

For Disc priests and their amazing shields I always remind people complaining to click over the the Absorbs page in Recount.  That's where you see the Disc priests shining.  Or at least should be shining.

By default, absorbs are included in the healing meters on Recount. At least that's what the tooltip tells me.

They might be buggy though, I don't know how they count the absorbs. Does the full shield have to break before it's counted?

[caladein]

Absorbs are fully supported by the combat log now so mods don't have to do any sort of guessing.  And yes, Recount does fold absorbs into the "healing done/taken" numbers.

[Ginaz]

I just back into the game yesterday.  Which is the current flavour of the month for a dps warrior?  I'm arms right now but only because I lack a decent second 2h weapon.  Would I be better to spec fury if I get another weapon or is arms good?  Also, I'm not sure where I should placing my stat priorities.  Mastery?  Expertise?  Str?  Hit?  For tanking, is sta still king or is it something else now?

[Rokal]

Short answer:

Arms is popular right now. Hit(to cap)>Expertise(to cap)>Crit>Mastery>haste

Prot just stacks as much mastery as they can.

Long answer:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3082251798
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/981898783

[luckton]

RE: People complaining about the Dragon Soul raid-buff/'nerf'.

Spoilered for size.

[Azazel]

What about priests? I've got a baby (L30) priest that I barely play. Main spec so far is shadow since I duo with my wife (affliction lock). Should I go holy or disc for healing as I level?

[luckton]

What about priests? I've got a baby (L30) priest that I barely play. Main spec so far is shadow since I duo with my wife (affliction lock). Should I go holy or disc for healing as I level?

If you're leveling via LFD, yeah, Disc or Holy for faster queue times.  If you're just leveling in the world through questing, stick with what you got.  After lvl 20, if you're dying solo as DPS, you're doing something wrong son.  With two of you, you should just be grinding away.

[SurfD]

I dual specced my priest shadow / Disc once i hit 30.  Disc is great at early levels.  Nothing like being second or third (or sometimes first if your group sucks) on DPS with pennance enhanced smite / holy fire spam letting you simultaneously heal everything with ease.

[Azazel]

Sorry, I probably wasn't that clear - I mean which healing spec should I choose from the two, given my level? I'd like to do some learning to heal through some dubeons and even BGs as I level up through quests etc.

[Ironwood]

Disc is more fun and less stress.

[Sheepherder]

At level 30 a respec is less than a few gold.  So I'm going to go with "all of the above."

[Dren]

Disc is more fun and less stress.

In all aspects, I've found this to be true.  Very fun for BG's, but be prepared to be hated hard.

[luckton]

I hate Disc Priests that exclusively heal with Penance.  Always freaks me out when I'm about to die and then they start pumping me up. 

I'm like "You do have other heal spells, right?"

Response: "sorry pen was on cooldown"

"So use a shield or heal spell?"

"lol I dont wanna waste mana"

 

[FieryBalrog]

You're not going to last very long as a disc priest if you pull that shit.

Disc priests are very fun though. Way more fun than Holy as far as I'm concerned. I've hated holy ever since Chakra was added in, like Priests really needed even more complicated healing mechanics 

[apocrypha]

I really liked Chakra, but it took some getting used to. The ability to switch between single-target or aoe-healing modes was nice.

Lightwell is still a waste of fucking time outside of a guild though, and even in a guild getting people to actually use the damn thing was like nailing jelly to the ceiling.

[Miasma]

In mists chakra is sort of like a stance you just switch between, no more press this - cast that - to enter such and such.  The granted abilities can be cast regardless iirc but feel weaker and are on longer cooldowns  now...

[Ironwood]

Penance is for when things go wrong and, frankly, shouldn't see much use.

That disc priest sounds retarded.