Healing as Discipline in 3.1, in Ulduar, is nothing like healing in T7 content. With spammable shields, and fewer “omg tanks-gonna-die!” boss fights, my normal rotation looks very different than it used to:
Shield tank
Penance tank
PoM tank
Shield dps
Shield dps
(Beat)
Penance tank
Shield dps
(Two beats)
Shield dps
…repeat
That’s the basics, or something like that anyway. That doesn’t include the tanks-gonna-die phases, or AoE phases, and there is of course plenty of variation on that basic theme. But what’s missing from the rotation above? Why, Flash Heal, of course.
One more note on the rotation: I’ve always been able to do raid-heal support, even in T7. Even as a tank healer, I have plenty of GCDs available to help on raid heals. In the past, that usually meant tossing Flash Heals out on the raid when I could, to ensure that I had my PW:Shield cooldown up when I needed it. With the changes to Grace in 3.1, tossing out Flash Heals on the raid is a Very Bad Thing™, as it reassigns Grace to the FH target. So any raid-heal support comes in the form of bubbles. (And Prayer of Healing, but that’s another story.)
Flash Heal now makes up about 6% of my overall healing. So it is with excitement and trepidation that I have abandoned a traditional 57/14 spec for a 55/16 spec. (Am I late to the party?)
Here is my shiny new spec.
By the way, the points in Holy remain a somewhat unresolved issue, open to playstyle preference. Since Greater Heal makes up 0.0% of my heals, Divine Fury is a capital waste, and I’ve been spec’d into Spell Warding for a while now. The extra 2 points that I removed from Improved Flash Heal have gone into Healing Focus, which is more than welcome in the AoE world of Ulduar. Healing Focus has become a viable throughput talent in Ulduar.
I’ve kept one point in Improved Flash Heal until I can find a better use for it. The crit bonus is ok, but my raid-buffed crit is about 40% nowadays, so it’s no longer that exciting. And mana cost reduction? Also a non-issue. I finally removed my Flash Heal glyph, which had been glued to my glyph pane since day one. (That slot now hosts Prayer of Healing, as that spell now makes up an embarrassingly high proportion of my healing output.)
Is anyone else moving away from this “cookie-cutter” talent?