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My guild and I are just starting to see 25man Heroic content. We finally got Neferian down last week, and went on to oneshot Heroic Halfus, or first 25man heroic kill. We have some fantastic new blood in the guild and we're seeing 30+ sign ups for raids now. The guild is a lovely place to raid and although we aren't at all hardcore we do still take it seriously while having loads of fun.
So what is the current state of play in Discipline? This is all my opinion, your mileage may vary.
1) Take Flash Heal off your quick hit mouse-binds. It can be good for getting you out of a hole as a one off but if you need to use a lot it you've effed up royally somewhere in your standard 'rotation' and you will go out of mana very, very, VERY quickly. Thus spake Esiderata.
2) Shields are still a HUGE part of our heals, and I think they should still be glyphed even if Elitist Jerks disagree with me. You want to be hitting a shield on a target who is likely to take enough damage to break it every 12 seconds at least. There are some fights where you will simply have to shrug, dump mana and slap as many shields as you can on the group 14 seconds before a damage burst hits. This should be a last resort, you will go through mana like a Rolls Royce goes through petrol doing 80mph.
3) Barrier is still awesome. Use it, abuse it, make kinky sound effects over vent when you pop it. Use it before you think about mana dumping with shields on multiple players. Glyph it if you can. I'm looking at You Chimaeron and your Feud, and Halfus and your stuns. Not to mention Nefarian's Crackles/electrocutes. My pala heals team leader actually said 'That was beautiful' on Mumble when I popped a barrier that saved a raid wipe on a crackle seconds into P3 on Nefarian. Be beautiful.
4) Prayer of healing is one of our most effective mana efficient spells when you factor in Divine Aegis, inspiration, and Grace. Just don't spam it, please, especially if you have it glyphed. Let the Hot tick before you reapply it. Use it on the target that's taking damage and let it splash to those 30 yards from him/her; don't do as one fledgling priest I know did and only ever use it on yourself.
5) There is no 'standard rotation' for Disc. Having said that, it does make sense to use certain abilities in certain orders in order to maximise mana return and all our class mechanics. This healing priority order works in the Pure Heals spec whether you are tank or raid healing.
7) Macro Inner Focus to Prayer of Healing, Greater Heal and optionally Flash Heal. I don't have Flash Heal macroed because I like to try and avoid using it and don't want an excuse to fall back on it. This is not Wrath healing.
8) Use an addon to track cooldowns. I use Power Auras Classic to track Rapture, Prayer of mending, Penance and Power infusion (with Evangelism stacks and archangel cooldowns in AA/Smite spec). Using these abilities efficiently turns a good Disc Priest into a great Disc Priest.
9) Please don't forget to mana regen. Even in the longest fights in Cata there are lulls where you can use Hymn of Hope or pop a Potion of concentration. Use your dumb Shadowsplodge early in a fight and it may be off cooldown again later when you really need it.
10) RAID AWARENESS. Excuse the caps. You need to know when to move, when to stay still. When the tank will be taking metric tonnes of damage and when the raid will need to split up. You need to know the fights inside out before you set foot in them.
11) Above all else take Douglas Adams' advice and Don't Panic! Stay calm and breathe, focus on both your raid bars and on what's going on around you. Be vocal on Vent/Mumble about the use of big cooldowns and
12)Have fun.
So what is the current state of play in Discipline? This is all my opinion, your mileage may vary.
1) Take Flash Heal off your quick hit mouse-binds. It can be good for getting you out of a hole as a one off but if you need to use a lot it you've effed up royally somewhere in your standard 'rotation' and you will go out of mana very, very, VERY quickly. Thus spake Esiderata.
2) Shields are still a HUGE part of our heals, and I think they should still be glyphed even if Elitist Jerks disagree with me. You want to be hitting a shield on a target who is likely to take enough damage to break it every 12 seconds at least. There are some fights where you will simply have to shrug, dump mana and slap as many shields as you can on the group 14 seconds before a damage burst hits. This should be a last resort, you will go through mana like a Rolls Royce goes through petrol doing 80mph.
3) Barrier is still awesome. Use it, abuse it, make kinky sound effects over vent when you pop it. Use it before you think about mana dumping with shields on multiple players. Glyph it if you can. I'm looking at You Chimaeron and your Feud, and Halfus and your stuns. Not to mention Nefarian's Crackles/electrocutes. My pala heals team leader actually said 'That was beautiful' on Mumble when I popped a barrier that saved a raid wipe on a crackle seconds into P3 on Nefarian. Be beautiful.
4) Prayer of healing is one of our most effective mana efficient spells when you factor in Divine Aegis, inspiration, and Grace. Just don't spam it, please, especially if you have it glyphed. Let the Hot tick before you reapply it. Use it on the target that's taking damage and let it splash to those 30 yards from him/her; don't do as one fledgling priest I know did and only ever use it on yourself.
5) There is no 'standard rotation' for Disc. Having said that, it does make sense to use certain abilities in certain orders in order to maximise mana return and all our class mechanics. This healing priority order works in the Pure Heals spec whether you are tank or raid healing.
- Precast Prayer of Mending on a target who is likely to take damage quickly before the pull. Recast when it stops bouncing.
- Shield your primary target (tank or offtank or DPS who will take ++damage depending on your healing assignments) this gives you borrowed time for your next cast.
- Penance if someone needs it. This won't use your borrowed time charge up but you will have the extra haste for it. Grace and inspiration can proc from this as can Aegis.
- Inner focus+greater heal or Prayer of healing. Still fully hasted by Borrowed time and it's a free cast with inner focus. By this point you may well be seeing a rapture return off your first shield if it's popped, meaning that you won't actually be that much down on mana and you will have done quite a bit of burst healing. Prayer of Healing gives an automatic Aegis proc, so it is a better option than spamming Shields.
- If you're tank healing and you have enough haste to make Renew tick for more than the standard amount, consider rolling renews on your tank.
- Heal or greater heal on whoever needs it. Especially if your shield has been broken on them, you want to reshield and you have strength of soul talented.
- Penance again when off cooldown.
- Power word: Barrier in intense damage phases on multiple players.
- Pain suppression in intense damage phases to a single player, usually reserved for tank 'oh snap' moments when he's run out of survivability cooldowns but can be effective if a dps or healer has pulled aggro and won't survive otherwise.
- Use your power infusion often, especially if you have to mana dump and shield multiple players.
- If you absolutely have to save someone and no one else will land a heal fast enough use an occasional Flash heal (caustic slime on a single target just before a massacre in Chimaeron's fight for example).
- Rinse and repeat, starting with Shield and Penance when you're 12 seconds after your last rapture proc, unless you have to start sooner through damage.
7) Macro Inner Focus to Prayer of Healing, Greater Heal and optionally Flash Heal. I don't have Flash Heal macroed because I like to try and avoid using it and don't want an excuse to fall back on it. This is not Wrath healing.
8) Use an addon to track cooldowns. I use Power Auras Classic to track Rapture, Prayer of mending, Penance and Power infusion (with Evangelism stacks and archangel cooldowns in AA/Smite spec). Using these abilities efficiently turns a good Disc Priest into a great Disc Priest.
9) Please don't forget to mana regen. Even in the longest fights in Cata there are lulls where you can use Hymn of Hope or pop a Potion of concentration. Use your dumb Shadowsplodge early in a fight and it may be off cooldown again later when you really need it.
10) RAID AWARENESS. Excuse the caps. You need to know when to move, when to stay still. When the tank will be taking metric tonnes of damage and when the raid will need to split up. You need to know the fights inside out before you set foot in them.
11) Above all else take Douglas Adams' advice and Don't Panic! Stay calm and breathe, focus on both your raid bars and on what's going on around you. Be vocal on Vent/Mumble about the use of big cooldowns and
12)Have fun.