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  1. #1

    [Suggestion] Direction of Disc Healing in MoP

    Hello MMO community,

    starting off I want to clarify that I do not have beta access and that the below are just thoughts based on the feedback found on this/other sites.

    One of the most troubling things regarding Disc in MoP is the new spell Spirit Shell and its behavior.

    I understand that most people want disc to be all about shield and stuff but is SS (in its current form the way to go?). I think not! One thing that generally irks me is that they are limiting the healing arsenal for both specs (talking about core heals both holy and disc used to have) which I find downright wrong. Healing on a priest is all about having a huge arsenal. Sure some spells are better for one of the 2 specs but still its all about having options.

    Anywho on to my thoughts. We already have PW:S and DA, do we REALLY need a 3d type of single target absorb?? I think there just isn't enough of design space/utility for such and ability, it overlaps with DA, it doesn't stack very high (20% of OUR health), it has a long cast time and the heal at the end will most probably be an overheal in raid scenarios.

    Moreover in the absence of Renew, the 6 sec CD on PW:S and the 8(?) sec cd on Penance we are pretty much screwed when it comes to heavy movement.

    I propose the following:

    PW:S keeps its 6 (4 sounds better) sec Cooldown but is now Disc's go-to absorb spell. Duration bumped up to 20 (perhaps 25 sec) to compensate for the cooldown.

    Spirit shell redesigned to one of the following:
    (a) Instant cast, 10 sec cooldown, Circle of Bubbles (last 12 sec), OR.
    (b) Castable party based AoE shield (ala PoH minus the heal) lasts 10 seconds.

    For both cases Shield's decay at 10% / sec, converting that into a heal. Overwritting the shields (aka recasting on the same group) heals for 60% (balancing?) of the shield and refreshes the shield and its duration.

    Divine Aegis redesigned.
    Lasts 15 seconds. Now only procs from Heal, GHeal, FHeal, Penance. Not on crits, but ALWAYS. Stacks as currently on live.

    NEW Spell
    Over the years I've always thought that the shielding playstyle is incomplete without a Shield TO Heal converting ability, much like swiftmend does HoT to Heal.

    Call it Burst or Implode or whatever you like:
    10 seconds cooldown.
    Consumes an absorb effect (from either PW:S, DA, or SS) and healing for X amount up front and another Y amount/ 3secs for 9 sec.
    Make a glyph that allows PoM, if on the target, to trigger a bounce as well.

    For me the above define a unique, yet functional, abosrb based playstyle.

    Thoughts?

  2. #2
    Deleted
    I like the idea of a shield that decays over time as a hot & is instant cast. That would be cool, make it similar in cost/effective healing as renew. Obviously with it being instant cast stacking shouldn't be possible.

    Divine Aegis needs to proc from PoH, that's a core disc mechanic that shouldn't be changed.

    I don't think burst is that useful, you shield if you know damage is incoming. If you wanted to heal someone who just needs topping off you would use a direct heal.

    Increasing the duration of PW:S will allow you to use it more on predictable incoming damage, but I don't think this change would have a major effect in general.

  3. #3
    Thanks for the reply and thoughts!

    Regarding the idea of the decaying shield I saw someone mention in the [MoP] priest sticky and licked it myself as well.

    I proposed removing DA from PoH considering (in my scenario) that SS is an AoE shield so both would again be redundant.

    As for Burst, it's not so much to Shield and then heal, rather than salvage some of the many many wasted DA's or even PW:S that don't get fully absorbed.

  4. #4
    Deleted
    It's not going to save much on a 10second cooldown, it would need to have no cooldown really I think ;p

  5. #5
    I still think that if they want to "fix" Discipline while retaining it's emphasis on absorbs, they need to just give them the Holy Paladin mastery. Why they didn't do this from the start baffles me. Obviously, come up with something that fits Paladins better to replace it.

    Coming from a Holy Pally, by the way.
    /bubblehearth

  6. #6
    idea:

    give disc gh, fh, poh, coh
    give disc a mastery that allows x% of overheals to shield the target
    give disc a "stance" (like a combat rogues cleave) that duplicates all heals as shields as well but at the cost of much higher mana costs.
    -a disc could afford to stay in this dance for short amounts of time (burst phases) but trying to heal the whole fight in it would make us go oom
    give disc some form of active mana return (rupture style or atonement style (like shaman's lightning bolt))

    thoughts?

  7. #7
    Pandaren Monk shanthi's Avatar
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    I strongly disagree with a cooldown placed on PW:S (technically, it already has one, but Soul Warding removes it, which should be baked in in MoP, in my view).

    I feel that a core part of the discipline playstyle is the ability to intelligently throw out 2-10 quick shields. I agree that the end of Wrath situation, where discipline priests could cast shields on everyone all fight long, was unfun and not worth keeping in place. That's not the situation today, however...even with the strong mana situation that discipline priests are in, casting shields on everyone all raid long will OOM you long before the fight is over (and most of those shields will accomplish nothing). However, having the option to throw out 10 shields (at a major mana cost) before a huge pulse of raid damage speaks to understanding the fight and being on the ball. Being able to quickly throw out 3 shields on myself and two DPS when we go to kill tentacles at the back of the room on heroic Yor'sahj seems like perfectly reasonable play. Shields should significantly affect mana, but we should have the option to choose to burn mana when we think it's the best use.

    I'd make Spirit Shell roughly equivalent to Greater Heal as an absorb, same mana cost as Greater Heal, limit it to being one target at a time (per disc priest) and perhaps remove the heal if it drops off unused. Allow it to stack to the same percentage of priest health as DA can (but independently of DA).

    I do like the idea of an AoE absorb, but I think Prayer of Healing fills that niche reasonably well.

    The core principle, to me, should be that we can put out a lot of absorption power, but at a cost and if it's not done skillfully, it'll be a big waste of mana.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by RumpleFugly View Post
    give disc a mastery that allows x% of overheals to shield the target
    This would be a handicap since unless players are constantly topped off (or nearly topped off), we're practically running with no mastery ability.

    Anyways, expanding on the decaying as heals Spirit Shell idea, how about this?

    Spirit Shell - Creates a shield for x amount of damage. For every second, the current amount is reduced by 15% of the total amount, healing the target for that amount. The shield expires after 6 seconds.
    And that, if let's say 10% of the shield was left, then by the next heal tick, it will only heal for that remaining 10% and the shield expires then.
    Last edited by Prod; 2012-04-12 at 10:58 PM.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Prod View Post
    This would be a handicap since unless players are constantly topped off (or nearly topped off), we're practically running with no mastery ability.
    poh preshielding a group on morchok stomp. poh preshielding before zonozz black phase. poh preshielding a group before yorsahj purple phase. disc priests (especially mastery builds) make their living off healing topped off groups. it's kind of what we do.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by shanthi View Post
    I do like the idea of an AoE absorb, but I think Prayer of Healing fills that niche reasonably well.
    Yeah but wouldn't it be better if just had to cast ONE spell before an expected burst period (the AoE shield) instead of casting 2-3 PoH's on each group? Plus this way you have your AoE shield AND PoH (minus the double dipping obviously for balance reasons).

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Obikwan View Post
    Yeah but wouldn't it be better if just had to cast ONE spell before an expected burst period (the AoE shield) instead of casting 2-3 PoH's on each group? Plus this way you have your AoE shield AND PoH (minus the double dipping obviously for balance reasons).
    sounds like barrier...

    i think aoe shield without a big cd, worth da from several pohs, would be overpowered. healing already is same faceroll as it was in wrath, hoping for some challenges in mop (like doing first cata hcs before any nrefs on them, with crap gear and unadjusted talents was)

  12. #12
    You currently need 3 (maybe 4) PoH casts to cap out DA meaning roughly 6-9 seconds.

    A 10 (heck make it 12) sec instant cast doesn't seem OP to me.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Obikwan View Post
    You currently need 3 (maybe 4) PoH casts to cap out DA meaning roughly 6-9 seconds.
    That's not even close to true.

  14. #14
    [Removed non-sense in my post cause it was just wrong and I made a fool of myself]
    Last edited by Lionor; 2012-04-13 at 08:19 PM.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Obikwan View Post
    Yeah but wouldn't it be better if just had to cast ONE spell before an expected burst period (the AoE shield) instead of casting 2-3 PoH's on each group? Plus this way you have your AoE shield AND PoH (minus the double dipping obviously for balance reasons).
    Disc priests have been asking for an AoE shield forever. We were told we were getting one in cata, but it was it was changed to barrier.

    By adding a 6 second CD on PW:S and removing borrowed time, they've completely gutted our AoE healing unless they give us an AoE heal. As it stands, disc looks like it's not even a remotely viable spec right now.

    I don't understand the changes they made to disc at all, the 15s duration for PW:S seemed to finally fix the balance problem, so I'm not sure why it needed a 6s CD. The biggest problem disc has on live, is PoH spam, and that hasnt been addressed. I take that back, I suppose it has been addressed by removing discs ability to be a viable AoE healer.

    I just got my beta invite yesterday, and I haven't had a chance to see any of the changes first hand yet, but I have a nagging feeling that disc is going to be very broken.

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Obikwan View Post
    I am talking about PRE-shielding so assume no incoming damage.

    Let's say your health is 160K (roughly around 397 gear level?), 30% of which is 48K.
    First of all, the cap is 40%. So for reference my priests (half tier gear, half heroic) cap is ~62k.

    Quote Originally Posted by Obikwan View Post
    How many casts do you recon are needed? Can't see it being more than 5, which is far from "not even close".
    Depending on how you reforge, 12-16.

    I have to ask; do you even play a priest?

  17. #17
    [edit] Sorry RumpleFugly, didn't see your post post before I submitted mine.

    Let's say your health is 160K (roughly around 397 gear level?), 30% of which is 48K.
    The DA cap is 40% of the caster's health. My disc priest has an average item level of 400 and fully raid buffed his PoH hits for 10 – 11k on each target. At 25% mastery each non-crit DA absorbs between 3750 and 4000 damage. Buffed, my health pool is about 165k which makes my DA cap 66k. Without any crits it will take me aprox 17 PoH casts to reach the DA cap If you factor in my 20% crit it will only take this down to about 13 – 14, which is still far from your estimated 5 casts. If you don’t believe me log in and cast PoH on yourself until it caps.

    Here are my thoughts on disc as it is currently implemented in beta.

    Atonement: While it may not be ideal for everyone, I have played a majority of patch 3.3 as an atonement disc priest. That extra 15 - 20k DPS really helps while trying to push heroic encounters and it is looking even more impressive in the MOP beta with some of the glyph changes. If I can continue to atone during periods of low - moderate damage and mix in conventional heals during periods of heavy damage I will be a happy disc priest.

    Rapture: It was fun to see it scale more and more with larger mana pools throughout previous expansions, but with fixed mana pools it will make little sense to keep it in its current form. To keep it on-par with other healers they should simply make Rapture like Judgments of the Pure, so having a PW:S fully absorbed will increase regeneration through spirit by X% for Y seconds. This "should" make rapture feel the same/similar in value and won't change bubble timing too dramatically.

    Spirit Shell: having played all 5 healing classes/specs in Cata I found Disc using heal to be a bit under-powered, aside from it working with Strength of Soul. While Heal was capable of criting and producing a DA, it has never been consistent enough to compete with the other 4 specs who all had efficiency heals that were mastery buffed 100% of the time. SS fixes that problem by allowing mastery to benefit both the initial shield and the potential after-heal.

    Prayer of Healing: It feels good the way it is now. It does tend to feel a little under-powered when attempting to recover from heavy damage, especially when DA will not be absorbed. This may continue to be a weakness throughout MoP, but being able to pre-shield with SS should alleviate some of these problems.

    All in all, with some refinement I believe Discipline will be very strong and fun to play this expansion. I appreciate the fact that Blizzard has heard most of our concerns and has decided not to go through with the over-simplification of Discipline as it was originally planned.
    Last edited by tyanthunder77; 2012-04-13 at 07:07 PM.

  18. #18
    Apologies, I stand corrected.

    I had a brain fart and for some reason in my mind converted all healing into absorbs. Then I also made the 30% from the DA tooltip the cap.

    I am a fool, I admit it!

    I clearly see your point now.

    The sad part is that my main up until Firelands was a priest

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by RumpleFugly View Post
    That's not even close to true.
    Account for crit. Try it sometime: PoH x4, now select each person in party and see how many have a capped DA. 80% of the time 4 PoH is enough. Remember: a DA from a crit is 4 times the size of a DA from a hit.

  20. #20
    I thought I would like Spirit Shell, but after trying I do not - it just feels weird spending so much time casting a heal (even if it were 2.5 seconds base) not to see the health bar budge up. In my opinion, the Spirit Shell effect should be given to Renew which adds a shield (rather than a heal) to the target every tick and stacks with DA. The instant nature of Renew would work well with the shield in my opinion plus as it is a little HOT/Shield-HOT that stacks means that it will generally always be used, as the duration of the shield will be at least the length of the Renew + DA. The main problem in my mind with SS replacing Heal or GH is that the Shield absorp is useful but the secondary 8 sec heal will be useless - if you GH a target in a raid and their health doesn't budge up, what other healer is gonna leave them half dead for 8 seconds. The Shield----->8 sec heal just doesn't work with the 3 core heals.

    Shields need to be able to Crit or at least increased by our Crit % at least to ensure these spells do not reduce the value of Crit even more.

    Overall in Beta, I do feel that the absorption heart of the spec does feel gutted. Which I can understand, it is a hard area to balance - but without shielding to distinguish it from Holy, that now shares talents and atonement with Holy, it does feel very much like Disc is Holy-Priest lite. Disc definitely needs more work to distinguish it - Inner Focus does not a spec make. P.S. I generally like the 6 sec PW:S but again, without that, Disc feels very plain-Jane.

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