What my Shaman can teach my Disc Priest

Wrath of the Lich King has taught me one thing.  Spam.

Yes, that's right.  Spam everything.

Resto Druids: Spam Rejuv.
Resto Shams: Spam Lesser Healing Wave
Disc Priests: Spam PWShields
Holy Priests: Spam Flash heal
Holy Palas: Spam Flash of Light (or Holy Light, depending on build)


Of course, after spamming these heals, there's always the obligatory bigger heals.  Think of the spam heals as buffers.

Resto Druids: Nourish.
Resto Shams: Healing Wave
Disc Priests: Penance
Holy Priests: Greater Heal
Holy Palas: kinda stumped on this one.


And of course, these heals arent all set in stone, meaning you dont have to spam rejuv for a resto druid.  i did an instance only putting rejuv on the tank with everyone else getting wild growth.  back in the day... when healing was boring. 


But what i want to talk about is the AoE healing that only a shaman can offer to a disc priest.  Why not druids? they have aoe heals.  yes, but that's instant.  holy?  that's dropped on people like a blizzard or a rain of fire.  but shamans are different.  see, their aoe is chain heal.  and it's casted at a single person (and heals 2 or 3 additional players depending on glyph). 

1. it is casted.
2. it is directed at a certain person.

this is exactly like prayer of healing.  =D 
as a disc priest, i've almost never.... no, actually, i've NEVER used prayer of healing unless it was to top everyone off at the beginning of an instance after i blessed everyone with fort.  there are simply better spells for me to use than prayer of healing when it comes to healing two or more people.  heck, i skip the binding heal as well.  but that was before cataclysm.  that was back when mana didnt matter much.  today, however, with flash heal being so expensive and pw:shield being so weak, we're stuck with heal and greater heal to do our work.  now is a great time to pull out prayer of healing as a viable heal when 3 or more people needs healing at once. 

honestly, i would never think of this before, but after playing a shaman, i have been "programmed" to toss chain heal often (for the haste proc).  with this mindset, i can easily go on my priest and prioritize prayer of healing more.  it does take some getting used to, but overall i think this is what blizzard wanted us to do anyway.  we're all holed up into a certain healing "style".  style doesnt mean more than having our own set of healing spells and ignoring everything else.   but now, our style will incorporate more of the healing spells we used to ignore.  this is a chance to use prayer of healing more, which i am glad to have. now if only prayer of healing gave me some other buff. that would be awesome. 

Shadow Priests

Why are priests, the dps kind, so low on the dps charts as I level through content?  currently, I am at my mid 40s with my shaman and I've not seen a shadow priest beat my totem in dps. 

This actually kinda start when I started SM:GY and for 15 levels, I've been noticing the same thing.  my magma totem gets dropped, it pulses. and, if I have enough mana and don’t need to heal much, will blow it up. once, I was top dps. but that was just once.  other times, I've usually been very conservative in using my nova. I would place my magma totem down and let it pulse.  at the end when everyone's about to die I would hit nova just to finish everyone off before they start running too far.  this happens a lot in SM.  everyone runs away in fear.  its so annoying.  but this helps. 

What I don’t understand is why the shadow priests (and its every single shadow priest I tell you) do so much less damage than everyone elses (not just me, although I do enjoy being second to last, I don’t mind being last on the charts)?  in fact, once I posted the meters and asked everyone to please do more dps than the healer, and the s.priest decides to tell me to stop dps-ing.  in which I replied, I wasn’t, it was my totem.  yes, the only dps totem I have. one totem… can beat your sorry ass in dps.  and when the instance was all over, everyone beat me on dps and total damage.  except for the s.priest. 

Now I want to know a few things about these shadow priests that maybe I never considered.  I played one a long time ago and got bored of it quickly.  although there are "dots" to apply and some dark beam with a ripple effect thingey you guys do, I figured that's really all that's needed for dps in level 40 content anyway, correct?  I don’t even see mindflay (which was their signature move years ago) but now I see Deviouring Plague, SW:P, then Mind Sear.  Shouldn’t that rock the dps charts?  perhaps these guys arent into the whole AoE frenzy.  but that's not the point.  the point is to do the most damage given the situation, correct?  so if you see four mobs together, you bust out your Mind Sear.  If you see one, you'd be stupid to pull out mind sear.  correct?

Just like me on my paladin, one boss, Seal of Corruption.  four adds? Seal of Command.  easy to understand. one mob or boss, cast lightning bolt.  four mobs, cast chain lightning, drop magma totem and nova. chain lightning on cd.  for mages, one boss/mob, cast fire/frost bolt or arcane missles.  more than two, arcane assplode, blizzard, fire ground thingey.

see?  its very easy to differentiate between single target, and multiple targets.  you just have to… erm…. COUNT.  and then adjust your rotations accordingly. 

Am I totally missing something?  is it because the s priest was going to use up all his time alternating SW:P that by the time he was ready to mindsear, everyone's dead?  maybe.  mobs do die pretty fast. but so adjust!  I do this often with my warlock.  there are many times I know that my dots will not last its full duration.  and what do I end up doing? I improvise.  I only use one dot, then switch to some AoE if I can (seed of corruption/rain of fire) and woot! dere it is.   

So I do not know.  someone please enlighten me to shadow priest dps.  is there no other AoE alternative than to use DP, then SWP on everything, then Mind Sear?  I know this does take a while to actually accomplish, but am I correct to say that Mind Sear would still do a decent amount of damage even if everyone isnt "swp'ed" up? Am I treating shadow priests unfairly?

screenshots or it didnt happen?