[Raiding] Discipline Priests and Pre-264 level content burnout

I recently encountered the dreaded burnout, I watched it sneak up on me and hit me with a clue-by-four.

Sometimes things just stop being fun, I love my discipline priest, there really isn't any other type of healing class I'd rather play, but there are some days where I dread logging on for a raid just because I know I'm going to get ragged on by the recount whores because my throughput isn't the same as holy priests.

I love the uniqueness of being discipline, of being an in-guild master of my craft.

I suppose I should return to my original point for this article; Burnout.

I think there are several major factors going into discipline priest burn-out.

1. THOSE DAMN METERS

Damage meters, whether it's Skada, Recount or others, they're not entirely accurate, currently there really is not perfectly accurate way to meter a Discipline Priest's absorbs, leaving large gaps in metering through sources like Skada and Recount.

Currently the most accurate metering is done through a combat log parse using (my favorite at the moment) World of Logs.

Unfortunately because not everyone uses the same tool, this leaves even the best discipline priest open to attack by meter whores.

Now, I understand that not all discipline priests are as sensitive as I am, but after a while that type of abuse and stress gets to a person, and when you strive for the highest level of performance, the same complaints week after week start making you feel as if you've made no improvement at all.

2. Healer Group Makeup is Important too...

I know that blizzard has always said that they wanted us to bring the player, not the toon. The thing is that you don't want three discipline priests in a 10 man dungeon, or to have the raid be too lopsided on healing classes (ie. Paladin, Disc Priest, Resto Sham), it's definitely fodder for the wipe cannon.

3. Displacing your own personal worries into what you're doing

This is pretty self-explanatory, if you're somewhat like I am and your mood directly influences your performance, sometimes it's not a good idea to heal when under pressure. I love being busy in game, but I also need to learn to deal with my own issues and insecurities.