Blizzard explained very clearly what they wanted with Disc; They nailed it, as well. Healing 75% of the top healer in the group and doing damage about equal to a tank or 20-25% of a good DPS. That was balanced pretty well. On fights like Mythic Skorp, Trilliax and Chrono, Disc is pretty *** good. A bunch of predictable damage and nothing to hard to heal. A problem is introduced later on. Mythic Krosus. DUN DUN DUNNNN.
M Krosus: A fight lasting longer than 5 min 30 seconds on average with your 3 healers (3 healers needed to make the DPS check. Possible to 4 heal as myself/Z Team have but it's incredibly close) expected to average around 750k HPS each. As a Disc Priest, with no help, this just isn't practical. As Healing Lead of Z, I had to sit through all of my team's progression because of the class I played. If I had been equally geared in my Holy set I could have easily done it. But no. Without Blessing of Wisdom and INNERVATE. GERD DERN INNERVATE... Discipline should not be in for M Krosus. Pain Suppression and PWBarrier do not bring nearly as much to the table as any other healer class can.
I chose my Spec for this expansion knowing very well from Alpha and Beta exactly what Discipline had become.. but I did not expect to have to sit for Mythic Progression because of it. Everyone knows that Disc can offer very competitive numbers in a raid. What they don't typically understand is how much it actually costs the Priest. Preparing for a huge burst of damage as Disc is as follows:
-Reapply Purge The Wicked and cast Shadowfiend
-Between 7-9 casts of Power Word: Radiance depending on if you start early/late and if Atonement actually lands on the right targets
-Light's Wrath > Penance if LW is on CD
-Optional Halo cast if raid is still low (usually not needed as it will overheal)
Here is what this burst looks like in terms of HPS if properly executed:
http://i.imgur.com/0yLaWJD.png
With this information, Disc should be more than capable of healing a fight like Krosus, right? Nope!
Here is how much it costs!:
522,500 (DoT + 7 Radiance + LW)
553,300 (DoT + 7 Radiance + Penance)
594,000 (DoT + 8 Radiance + LW)
624,800 (DoT + 8 Radiance + Penance)
* Halo costs 39,600 mana if you use that as well.
...A LOT.
With Innervate, if it is timed perfectly, you can get 7 casts of Power Word: Radiance FOR FREE. It's more likely you'll get 6 for free though. Which is saving you 429,000 mana. Also, while you are casting PW:Radiance for free, you are regenerating mana since you can't spend it. You'll gain roughly 90k mana over the duration of Innervate. With this, Innervate on a Disc Priest is effectively ~520k mana for free. On top of gaining all of that mana back, you're burst healing for (if prepared correctly) more than Tranquility or Healing Tide and it is instant as opposed to being over 8 seconds.
If your team/Disc has an Innervate available and knows what to do with it, you can use it as a raid CD and SHOULD BE. Disc can handle burst healing far better than other classes if he/she is prepared to do so. I won't go in to the specifics of healing output with Innervate, but it is more than twice as valuable on a Disc Priest than it is any other healer. Assuming both healers know exactly what to cast with it active.
With all of that said, without Innervate, Discipline simply can not compete on most Mythic fights in a serious raid team who is pushing Mythic Content.
HOWEVER. THERE IS A SOLUTION. Below will be a short THREE STEP guide on how you can solve all of your problems as a Disc Priest and even top the healing charts for raid team WITHOUT INNERVATE
Thank you for reading.https://puu.sh/v0xXo/d8fd0653be.jpg
I am more than happy to answer any questions about Discipline healing here or in game. You can find me on my priest "Ozwiin" or my Sham "Oswin".
My Battletag is : Ozwin#11191
