Disc Healing

[Apothyosis]

Hello all. I am a disc healer and i just ran my first heroic after i dinged 85. And it seems like my heals are not that powerful. I was wondering if someone can give me some tips on how to get my heals better. Also i seem to burn alot of mana on trash fights boss fights i seem to do just fine. Any tips for me? my horde 85 priest on another realm is a shadow priest. And i love healing and want to be better at it  Thank you

[Lord Entropy]

I'm disc and nothing but disc, so I'm pretty familiar with the spec.

For mana, disc is less dependent on spirit than most other healers, especially holy priests.  You still want a good amount of spirit though.  Be sure you're maxing out the rapture talent - that's one of our main mana-return mechanics.  It helps to get an addon to track the cooldown for this since blizz doesn't provide one.  Trash fights can be a bit taxing with groups that like to pour through it as quickly as possible.  If you're having issues, see if the tank will slow the pace down a bit.

On the healing side, about 20-40% of your healing (depending on a lot of factors) is going to come from power-word:shield.  You'll want to take all the talents that improve this spell and you want to glyph it. Next will probably be greater heal followed by penance then divine aegis.  Penance should be used on cooldown since it is very efficient (and you should glyph it as well).  Additionally, use Prayer of Mending on cooldown, usually on the tank. The power infusion talent is really handy for the haste buff and mana reduction - plus if you don't need it you can cast it on a dps.  A good basic rotation is to cast mending, PW:S then use the borrowed time buff on a greater heal, then penance then another greater heal.  If you do any tank healing (and that should be the majority in heroics), the strength of soul talent comes in handy since it will give you more PW:S on the target.

For secondary stats you want a balance between haste, mastery and crit - they are all roughly equal for disc priests in most situations.

You can also spec into atonement and dps heal.  That's very popular for heroics but it takes some getting used to to know when to weave smites into your regular healing. You won't need hit for this, just be sure to take the smite glyph.

Hope that helps.