Ugly Guys (4 disc priest) - PvE Progress

tl;dr This team has potential. They're lacking in DPS, but not by a huge amount. Their surviability may be some of the best around. All heroics except Occulus & HoR can already be cleared after 4 days of gear grinding. Will post more in the expansion as instances are cleared.


I'm going to update this thread when the priest team does anything worth a post. Given we're so late in the expansion, it's likely nothing is worthy of a post, but since the 4 disc priest is a relatively new team composition, I thought I'd give a little color to their progress.

If I'm playing, then I'm streaming to www.justin.tv/owltoid

I hit 80 with my priests 4-5 days ago (can't remember). They had lots of greens, my druid tank had mostly tanking greens with some moonkin PvP epics. However, the team still did very well and was able to complete regular FoS without too much trouble and regular PoS with lost of trouble.

4-5 days later, I have now cleared heroic PoS (and everything "below" it is clearable, including heroic FoS). I have been able to complete regular HoR, but the DPS just isn't there for heroic HoR (I can't get the adds down fast enough in the fourth wave).

I realize most/all the heroics have been nerfed. I also realize that the regular FoS gear helped a ton with having this team gear up so quickly. What I would like to stress is this team seems to be a very viable PvE composition.

Their survivability is amazing. When the shit hits the fan, I bring up 4x PW Barrier and can survive through most. Mana isn't an issue (although I expect that to change in the expansion). With 2k spellpower, each priest is doing about 1850 single target DPS. Considering I don't have a healer, that's equivalent to 2466 DPS (1850 ÷ 75%). I'm not sure how that stacks up to "regular" DPS, but my gear level is now about 217 (can anyone comment on how much DPS something like a mage would be doing in that gear level?).

I'm looking forward to reforging to pure crit in the expansion. Having 4x divine aegis on the tank makes for some awesome absorbtion, and I believe that's why my druid was able to complete heroic PoS with only 31k health.

The toughest boss to date has been Ick in heroic PoS. That guy is probably a nightmare for any multiboxer with the amount of different abilities and need to kite, but given the survivability of the priests, and that they could to weak DoTs while running, allowed for me to get him down.

So are you liking Shadow or Disc then?

I would imagine with more gear that Shadow will be better since the passive healing will be higher, and the damage will be increased significantly, making for a quicker dungeon run.

I'm really enjoying Disc. I really hate mind flay for some reason, and I'm not a huge fan of DoTs, so shadow has a couple strikes. However, I do think shadow will be fun in PvP at 85 with mind spike.

I may try to play around with their specs and see how well they DPS as shadow. Although I'm happy with the disc DPS, I really have no idea if it's ridiculously low. For item level 217, how much single target DPS does a DPS class do? I'm going to try and find out with shadow, but I doubt I'll be doing much more than 2500 (I could be very wrong).

In other words, I will stay as disc as long as it's viable for PvE. For PvP, it will depend on how much burst penance is and how much fun mind spike turns out to be.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...&cn=donramirez

That's my feral druid. She has several pieces of i200 gear and the rest is 187 blues/greens and in cat, she can pull 3-4k dps on bosses (bleeds ftw) with a fairly simple rotation castsequence. The problem, of course, is that with kitty bleeds counting for a major portion of damage, the rotation is much easier to maximize than other classes. I haven't run her through a normal run for average DPS, but I imagine it would drop down to the 2500 range on trash just due to not having much bleed uptime.

Interesting idea for these priests, and grats btw for the video on taking down the event bosses.

Before I started boxing I played a priest as my solo main (this was BC days). Always hated shadow spec, in my experience it had mediocre dps, low survivability and was always out of mana, and this was at the absolute peak of the "shadow priests melt faces" rage on the wow forums.

I quickly discovered holy smite spec and used that for the longest time as my solo/farming spec. It felt so much stronger than shadow at the time, so its good to see that you can still get great performance out of non-shadow-spec dps priests.

I definitely wouldn't say great performance, but thanks for the nice words :) In order for the priests to carry their weight, they must do 75% of a dedicated DPS. I think the priests are below that, though we'll have to wait until 85 to see how much below. They do have incredible survivability, I'd guess second to none, so it is a tradeoff.

My current plan, which was mentioned in other threads and may fall on it's face, is to use a fury warrior as my PvE tank. With unlimited rage that could make up for the low priest DPS. I'm venturing that I have so much overhealing, especially when I have 3-4 divine aegis on the tank at any one moment, that a non traditional tank may work.

The fun will be in figuring it out :) What I do know is the priests are the most fun multiboxing team I've had - much more than the Druids.

As far as a Fury tank goes, can you use a Shield off-hand and a 2H main hand? You will have some crit problems since all tank classes have a mechanic which reduces their chance to be crit by that 6%, how do you intend to fix that?

No shield, eat crits as they come. Like I mentioned, it may not work at all, but if you ever watch me stream you may see that pretty often I have 3-4 divine aegis up (when a heal crits with a disc priest it creates a shield that absorbs an additional 30% of the amount healed) leading to around 10k absorption at any one time. I'm smiting very often (disc priests heal for the amount of damage they cause with smite) so heals are coming fast and furious. Supposedly the Cata model is to not have extreme bursty damage on tanks and just more of a steady inflow (though being critted will certainly cause spikes). For those times when I need additional survivability, and it may be all bosses, I can always dual spec to prot and just use fury for quicker trash mob clears/fun.

***extra priest info included for those not familiar with the new disc spec

Your tank should be crit immune from talents.. not sure if Fury can go that deep or not.
You'll certainly be immune to crushing blows.

I'd tend to think.. with all the heals and mitigation that Disc brings to the table...
Pain Suppression on round-robin for every boss, for example.
Divine Aegis and PW: Barrier, normal PW: Shield...
You'll probably be okay with a DPS tank.

Unfortunately crit immune is a third tier talent (plus it requires defensive stance). However, with perfectly timed PW Barrier and pain suppression I could have 30-40% damage reduction for 72 seconds (not really suggesting this is possible in practice).

I wouldn't be surprised if a fury warrior tank without a dedicated healer falls flat without significant overgearing, so I hope nobody thinks I'm suggesting this is the next power team. Instead, I'm just saying it could be fun... I love non traditional teams and this is about as off the wall as you get :)

Hey Owl,

I dig what you're doing here. I had a pally + 4 priests back in the day but this was before all the penance / evangalism awesomeness... and i never got off the ground with them.

I'm thinking of giving 1 elly and 3 disc + either a dk or pally tank a try.. not exactly what you have going on but I think adding the 1 elemental shaman will give the disc priests a bit more bite with all their caster buffs.

Well see.

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Originally Posted by Redbeard

Hey Owl,

I dig what you're doing here. I had a pally + 4 priests back in the day but this was before all the penance / evangalism awesomeness... and i never got off the ground with them.

I'm thinking of giving 1 elly and 3 disc + either a dk or pally tank a try.. not exactly what you have going on but I think adding the 1 elemental shaman will give the disc priests a bit more bite with all their caster buffs.

Well see.

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Thanks :)

I'm guessing one elly would help, or one mage, or making one a shadow priest, or one boomkin, etc. This team is definitely not an optimized team. I like to try and play outside of the box as much as possible (I want to be a unique snow flake) so I kind of like not having the best composition out there. That's one of the biggest reasons I'm trying to make my "tank" a fury warrior. I want to see if I can clear Cata content without a "dedicated" healer or traditional tank. If the team just isn't viable in the end then I'll adjust (probably make the warrior prot and mix in some boomkins since I have 5 level 80 chickens)

Thats cool man, I can respect that. I'm a little slower to level and make things happen so am not prepared to be as daring as that.

Im hoping that since theyre talking about giving tanks some more breathing room that the lack of crit immunity and the lower defensive stats will be counterbalanced by all your smitey / shieldy goodness.

Does divine aegis stack, and does disc mastery improve divine aegis shielding?

Also, if you dont mind me asking, what are you using to attack? Are you just rocking holy fire / smite or are you throwing in some shadow dots and such too?

Hope to hear more about how its going in CATA when its time =)

Divine aegis does stack. During low damage fights my tank often has 4 of them up. Even more cool, with the change to Prayer of Healing where it procs DA on every target (even when it doesn't crit) I can at will put 4 big DA shields on all my toons. Having four equates to more than a PW Shield in absorption amount.

My DPS is fairly basic. One button tries to cast holy fire, penance (damage) and smite at the target. It may not get the cooldowns perfectly, but after testing on a dummy I found it was higher DPS than a castsequence. Penance is the highest DPS spell, followed by holy fire. Smite damage kind of sucks, but since it's providing the healing it's needed. For bosses I try to put devouring plague and SW Pain on also.

I share your hope in Blizzard making tanks take less burst damage and more sustained will go well with this team. Only time will tell :)

Have you tried to switch them all to shadow at all? I would be curious if there is enough healing from the 4 dps to keep the tank up for most encounters. If it is that could be one of the easiest groups to box ever, which obviously isn't what you go for :). You would just have priest DPS macro, priest AOE, and your tank macro. Add in some emergency heals, but the shadow dps rotation should be the same for all 4.

Unless I am missing something.

They're offspec shadow, and it's pretty viable, but not fun for me. I'm just not a fan of the shadow spec. Maybe if I hit 85 and had mind spike I'd feel different, but I truly love atonement and the disc build.

But... I'm not updating to Cata any time soon. I accepted a new job (moving to Newport Beach if anyone is in the area) and am guessing most of my free time will be spent getting used to my new surroundings in the short term.

Timing a perfect PW Barrier is a dream for me and with pain suppression and damage reduction it is a double delight.
any tips for me?

Owltoid, howre you doing in CATA? Try any bosses yet?

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Originally Posted by Owltoid

But... I'm not updating to Cata any time soon. I accepted a new job (moving to Newport Beach if anyone is in the area) and am guessing most of my free time will be spent getting used to my new surroundings in the short term.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Redbeard

Owltoid, howre you doing in CATA? Try any bosses yet?

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Yeah owl...I mean, it's been three days. Surely you've upgraded by now...

;):):):)

/hangs head in shame

"I never learned to read!"