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  1. #1

    Blizzard Discipline Nerfs And No Compensation

    It has come to my attention that Discipline is no longer a viable PvE role for raids. Due to the mana cost increase to shields, we've lost our niche of being able to pre-shield the raid before raid damage, it's no longer doable and mana sustainable. What Blizzard forgot to do following this hotfix? Compensate us from not being able to pre-shield.

    So fellow discipline priests? What are we left with?

    I'll give you a rundown.

    Soul Warding:The talent that gives us the ability to use shields freely without the restriction of a cooldown. In my opinion getting rid of Soul Warding wouldn't solve anything. In fact, removing it would just develop a very clunky playstyle for discipline if that was the so-called "fix". We need to be able to use our shields freely, but they need to change something so they aren't too powerful.

    Prayer of Healing:
    The throughput of prayer of healing in itself is rather weak. But Memoryz! What about divine aegis that always procs from it?! Well, divine aegis in itself is wasted anyways. When you use prayer of healing, you generally use it after damage occurs, not preemptively. Divine Aegis duration is also rather short so by the time next damage comes out, it's already expired.

    Rapture: This is one of our bread and butter mechanics of regaining mana back. However, what blizzard didn't consider before they increased the mana cost of our shields is how it'd affect our ways of gaining mana back. By rapture being tied to Power Word: Shield and Power Word: Shield's mana cost increased, we in fact gain less mana back now from rapture, completely ruining the mana regen discipline had to sustain through raids.

    Train of Thought
    : Lets be honest here, this talent is useless.

    Renewed Hope: Another talent tied to Power Word: Shield. However, having to use Power Word: Shield currently feels like a hinder, even when only using it on tanks. You'll feel your mana depleting and you'll feel confused at what to do because you're simply trying to make use of Renewed Hope as intended.

    Strength of Soul: Once again, another talent dealing with Power Word: Shield. This talent ensures you can shield more often, but why would you want to do that now? To run yourself out of mana quicker? Seems like an odd decision of blizzard to do if they even want us to make use of these talents. Not to mention Rapture can only occur every 12 seconds.

    Borrowed Time: ANOTHER talent baked in with Power Word: Shield. Gives you a haste buff at the cost of losing mana.

    Grace:
    Ah grace, another talent that really needs looked at. It's cool that Blizzard made grace affect more than one target, however, the mechanic of grace in itself is clunky and frustrating. I get it, they don't want passive +healing talents, but it's talents like these that are hindering buffs to give us more throughput. Honestly Grace in my opinion is terrible. Its good for the purpose it served to begin with: A tank healing mechanic, but it does not serve the purpose of increasing our raid healing throughput. It's overall in my opinion, hindering any buffs coming our way to increase our raid healing potential.

    All in all, with the inability to make use of Power Word: Shield due to its mana cost, it really makes you question the intention of making all these talents tied around Power Word: Shield. If Power Word: Shield hinders your mana, why is there Renewed Hope, Strength of Soul, Borrowed Time, and Rapture?

    I urge Blizzard to take a look at the discipline tree and their actions to see for themselves why what they did to solve the "Power Word: Shield" spam was awful. You've basically broken the whole purpose of the discipline tree and people as we speak are already going back to Holy.

    Personal Suggestions:

    Nerf Absorption + Mastery Rebalance:
    Why didn't you just nerf the absorption a tad. Say in my gear, the shield absorbs 24-25k in mastery heavy gear. Absorbs 20k in PvP gear. To balance this, I'm sure it'd take a slight reduction in Power Word: Shield and Mastery balance all together.

    Buff Prayer of Healing somehow to compensate this nerf: Since Power Word: Shield is no longer usable to pre-shield raid damage, were pretty much left with only one other spell to heal raid damage, Prayer of Healing. However, Prayer of Healing in itself currently isn't enough.

    Grace Affecting Shield Absorption: Have grace stacks affect the shield to absorb more. This would make it so they could tone down Power Word: Shield, but also not harm PvP, where you should keep up grace stacks on your partner you're going to use Power Word: Shield on. This also ensures tanks have a more decently size shield as opposed to the raids.

    More Problems With Shield Cost increase:

    Mastery: Due to shields no longer being used as much, this lowers our need to use mastery on our gear. Mastery really only benefits two things. Divine Aegis( Which is usually wasted anyways) and Power Word: Shield. Because Power Word: Shield is just mana inefficient, we all just result in using prayer of healing more and favoring haste over mastery in this case. If you want us to use mastery, give us an incentive to use it.

    Knee-jerk changes done by Blizzard:Rapture now returns 2/5/7% of maximum mana when Power Word: Shield is consumed, up from 2/4/6%.

    This in actuality does nothing, it helps our mana abit, but it's hardly a noticeable difference.
    Last edited by Revitalize; 2011-02-19 at 03:22 PM.

  2. #2
    Deleted
    Dont have much problems with the mana regen from rapture. the mana increase doesnt suddenly break the class.

    Also rapture is getting buffed 6%>7% so stop your crying...

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Revitalize View Post
    Knee-jerk changes done by Blizzard:Rapture now returns 2/5/7% of maximum mana when Power Word: Shield is consumed, up from 2/4/6%.

    This in actuality does nothing, it helps our mana abit, but it's hardly a noticeable difference.
    Well, if you get 50 rapture procs in one boss fight it's half a mana pool. Not exactly 'hardly noticeable' i'd say.
    Who is Chris Metzen? He is supposed to be Turkish. Some say his father was German. Nobody believed he was real. Nobody ever saw him or knew anybody that ever worked directly for him, but to hear Zarhym tell it, anybody could have worked for Metzen. You never knew. That was his power. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist. And like that... poof! He's gone.

  4. #4
    Train of Thought... useless?

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Brook View Post
    Dont have much problems with the mana regen from rapture. the mana increase doesnt suddenly break the class.

    Also rapture is getting buffed 6%>7% so stop your crying...
    No, it doesn't but it ruins a portion of a toolbox to handle raid damage. The best bet in our toolbox now is a single target tank healer. And Blizzard specifically stated that they wanted classes to have good capability of tank healing and raid healing. Why should I go discipline if all it has to handle raid damage is a less throughput prayer of healing? What incentive is there to go discipline other than Power Word: Barrier?

    Also 1% increase is miniscule.

    ---------- Post added 2011-02-19 at 03:32 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by BeerWolf View Post
    Train of Thought... useless?
    No well progressed discipline priest picks up this talent. It's useless. You barely cast it in raids. So the effect of it reducing the CD of inner focus isn't noticeable at all.

    ---------- Post added 2011-02-19 at 03:35 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by SpacedOut View Post
    Well, if you get 50 rapture procs in one boss fight it's half a mana pool. Not exactly 'hardly noticeable' i'd say.
    Mind you I'm talking of a 25 man perspective where I'm pushing into 8/12 hardmodes. The mana expended to pre-shield is just too costly. I would've preferrred pre-4.0.6 where my shields still absorbed 15k. At least I created breathing room for my other healers in raids with my shields while still maintaining a good use of my other spells.

  6. #6
    Deleted
    No intention to offend you in any way, but:

    If I take this:
    Quote Originally Posted by Revitalize View Post
    No well progressed discipline priest picks up this talent. It's useless. You barely cast it in raids. So the effect of it reducing the CD of inner focus isn't noticeable at all.
    and this:
    Mind you I'm talking of a 25 man perspective where I'm pushing into 8/12 hardmodes. The mana expended to pre-shield is just too costly. I would've preferrred pre-4.0.6 where my shields still absorbed 15k. At least I created breathing room for my other healers in raids with my shields while still maintaining a good use of my other spells.
    ...you probably won't mind if I correct your very first statement:

    Quote Originally Posted by Revitalize View Post
    It has come to my attention that Discipline is no longer a viable PvE role for raids for me.
    Last edited by mmoc86d70915d9; 2011-02-19 at 03:44 PM.

  7. #7
    That is about the most ignorant statement you could've possibly come up with. How about you post something constructive? What tools does a discipline priest bring now that they can't pre-shield raid damage? Prayer of Healing? Well, holy priests can do that and with much better throughput. Are we really only brought for Barrier? Is that our fate? Because honestly, being only brought for one cooldown and not for the niche you fill in raids is disheartening.
    Last edited by Revitalize; 2011-02-19 at 03:56 PM.

  8. #8
    People seem to be under the idea that a nerf always results in a compensation, not always true.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Xaer View Post
    People seem to be under the idea that a nerf always results in a compensation, not always true.
    I didn't say that nor do I think that. I'm simply saying we lost the ability to make use of one of our prime bread and butter abilities, so now we just resort to prayer of healing or single target healing.

  10. #10
    I thought discipline was primarily a tank-healing spec, not a raid-healing spec. I don't play a priest, so I wouldn't know, but I was almost positive that discipline was pretty equivalent to the holy paladin (primarily tank heals), and holy specced priests were the raid healers. Idk...

    The changes brought to PW:S seemed like they were made to prevent spamming on the raid, and instead meant to focus the tank (still not spam the tank) when the situation absolutely called for it. These changes were made to encourage holy priests to focus on using other spells in their book rather than constant spam shield with the occasional HoT (and ignoring half the spells on their bar).

    It was even said shield was better for disc now, and I'm guessing it's because (I believe) disc are to focus heal the tank. I think it's safe to say the raid shields are done, they have become more of a "focus target" ability for when the situation calls for it. Otherwise it's a mana parasite.

    It should be clear by now that Blizzard has made Cataclysm rather unforgiving in raids and heroics. If a dps or other player isn't supposed to take damage from an ability, they should practice to get it right. Healers cannot afford to use the extra mana to shield the raid or heal random people because they consistently fail to avoid (avoidable) damaging abilities. In short, you should be able to just heal up the raid without having to shield them all, as all other healing classes can. If they can't avoid the extra damage, that's their problem, not yours. It is not your job to compensate for their mistakes. There is give for some errors but not a lot.
    Last edited by Felaful; 2011-02-19 at 04:15 PM.

  11. #11
    Dreadlord
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revitalize View Post
    Also 1% increase is miniscule.
    A 2% base mana reduction on Arcane Blast suddenly made Arcane spec for Mages competitive and doing top DPS on Tank and Spank encounters (Chimaeron, Argaloth).

    1% can actually be quite significant, I wouldn't be so quick to discount it.
    "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age"

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Felaful View Post
    I thought discipline was primarily a tank-healing spec, not a raid-healing spec. I don't play a priest, so I wouldn't know, but I was almost positive that discipline was pretty equivalent to the holy paladin (primarily tank heals), and holy specced priests were the raid healers. Idk...
    Blizzard's goal was to make every healing spec both tank healing and raid healing capable as equals. If they are wanting to make discipline priests primarily tank healers, they're going against their goals.

  13. #13
    even still disc shines the most now when it is tank healing...

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by skylla05 View Post
    A 2% base mana reduction on Arcane Blast suddenly made Arcane spec for Mages competitive and doing top DPS on Tank and Spank encounters (Chimaeron, Argaloth).

    1% can actually be quite significant, I wouldn't be so quick to discount it.
    You have to factor this only happens every 12s. It's not as significant as you think.

    ---------- Post added 2011-02-19 at 04:04 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by PlatedPriest View Post
    even still disc shines the most now when it is tank healing...
    And I agree with you there, but now were not very raid healing capable in terms of equivalence.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by skylla05 View Post
    A 2% base mana reduction on Arcane Blast suddenly made Arcane spec for Mages competitive and doing top DPS on Tank and Spank encounters (Chimaeron, Argaloth).

    1% can actually be quite significant, I wouldn't be so quick to discount it.
    2% mana reduction is huge for an arcane mage though.
    Their mastery makes even a .001% reduction worthwhile.

    For most other classes 1% is hardly anything compared to the benefit an Arcane Mage gets for something similar.

  16. #16

    priest

    way to go blizzard hotfix nerf priest .woulda been niice to at least wait for a real patch ffs.
    seriously why the hell did we need to get nerfd in the first place. for all those who qq'd b/c the priests were finally topping the charts ..STFU
    were are priests.we should by all rights be TOP of all heal charts.
    druids=tank/heal/dps
    pally=tank/heal/dps
    shammy=heal/mdps/rdps
    priests=heal/heal/rdps
    as the ONLY class with 2 heal spec if we arent on the top of charts then blizzard is a douche and has no idea what a priest is.
    as for all the other so called heal classes get bent

  17. #17
    I don't think we should be topping charts by a significant marigin, but I would say Combat Logs are always going to have discipline priests up there with shields. They don't overheal, and it grossly exaggerates how well a discipline priest is actually doing, specially now when you can only shield 2-3 people. Power Word: Shield will still show as number 1.

    In a fight with constant raid damage, shields cannot overheal. Moreover, they take potential hps (effective healing) that could have been any skilled healer's and attribute them automatically to the player that has the absorption effect. I don't want shields as powerful as they are now to be honest. I'd be happy with an 18-20k shield in my full mastery gear.

  18. #18
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Revitalize View Post
    That is about the most ignorant statement you could've possibly come up with. How about you post something constructive? What tools does a discipline priest bring now that they can't pre-shield raid damage? Prayer of Healing? Well, holy priests can do that and with much better throughput. Are we really only brought for Barrier? Is that our fate? Because honestly, being only brought for one cooldown and not for the niche you fill in raids is disheartening.
    The problem is, that you argue with only your very own, narrow situation. And you're doing so by just declaring things to be useless out of that narrow, individual point of view. Basing a discussion on this is not really helpful and you won't convince people of your ideas just by saying that things are dull to you personally. And this doesn't really end at the point where you ask leading questions, too. I have no problem with you expressing your opinion and, as stated, it was not my intention to offend you (could this little guy do any harm to anybody?); but please consider going a step farther away from your stand and try to see more than just your style of playing totally messed up by the changes. Sky isn't falling, at least not for everybody.

  19. #19
    [/COLOR]
    Quote Originally Posted by Revitalize View Post
    Blizzard's goal was to make every healing spec both tank healing and raid healing capable as equals. If they are wanting to make discipline priests primarily tank healers, they're going against their goals.
    I would agree with you to some extent here, and by no means am I saying you're wrong, but I can understand this in a paladin's situation because as healers, pallys were pretty much only useful for tank healing (pre-cata), so they made this change to benefit them so that they weren't forced as a tank healer if they chose to heal. As far as priests, they have two different healing specs, one for raid-wide heals, and one for tank heals. They have always had the option to choose, where holy paladins did not.

    I believe Blizzard's goal was to make every healing CLASS raid-heal and tank-heal capable, not every spec.
    Last edited by Felaful; 2011-02-19 at 04:35 PM.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Revitalize View Post
    I didn't say that nor do I think that. I'm simply saying we lost the ability to make use of one of our prime bread and butter abilities, so now we just resort to prayer of healing or single target healing.
    You're making it sound like you should never use bubble as a disc priest now when that's far from the case. You simply can't spam it any more unless you want to go oom, it should still be used.

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