5.0.4 was now 2 weeks ago and so far I have been incredibly quiet about it. The reason for this has been many but now I’m pleased to say I’m breaking my silence.
Spirit Shell
Which brings me nicely to Spirit Shell. Initially I was very disappointed with Spirit Shell for 2 reasons, the first is that it wasn’t the castable spell I was expecting that replaced Greater Heal and provided a shield that if not absorbed would then heal the target for the remaining amount of absorb left in the shield. The second was that the new incarnation felt very unintuitive at first and to be honest I’m still not 100% sure how it works.
It can also be great to buff up a tank pre-pull and also as a single target cooldown using the following combo which can result in a 100% shield from Divine Aegis and the Spirit Shell shield
It can also cause other healers to panic heal the target(s) up as their HP doesn’t rise as a result of your healing which can result in them wasting a lot of mana when they could actually be using their big slow efficient heals to regain the missing HP.
I am now getting to grips with it and I’m sure that mastering the timing of when to use Spirit Shell will occur between now and the first raids in Pandacraft.
I’m also hoping that the big mana concern I have right now will be washed away when 90 is reached because compared to other healers disc seems very mana inefficient, especially when emergency healing is needed. Even Holy seems way more efficient in my disc focused gear which is a complete turnaround from pre-5.0.4. Overall though I still think disc is extremely viable even if initially I had huge doubts. So I’m glad that I bit my tongue and didn’t whine here before giving the new stuff time to settle in.