Spirit Shell is back! wait..

[Deleted]

Spirit Shell (New) Spirit Shell For the next 10 sec, your Heal, Flash Heal, and Prayer of Healing no longer heal but instead create absorption shields that last 15 sec. Priest - LvL 75 Talent. Instant. 60 sec cooldown.

So yeah Spirit Shell got removed only to be added back as a talent. I feel like it´s the same as with borrowed time, removing something so it feels like we get something when they readd it...Your thoughts on this?

[Jimjam38]

I'm actually just starting to think the devs truly have no clue about disc, and they removed all this stuff and then realized they shouldn't have. Making it a talent does, however, address some of the balancing issues since we can't have both ToF and SS now.

I'm not even mad about losing DI since it was near useless currently, but I suspected it might have made us decent tank healers in WoD if they hadn't also removed Train of Thought. I'm kinda expecting Train of Thought and Inner Focus to make a return too sometime soon

[Dracodraco]

Good choise to be honest. Spirit shell was already a "niche" spell in terms of usefullness - sure, you'd use it on every fight to bring down overhealing during AOE, but on fights like say, Thok, Norushen, and Malkorok, where there are no sudden bursts of damage to shell against, it's merely that - a tool to combat overhealing.
With the new healing model we are being promised, that will make spirit shell as a talent fit in quite well -
Do you want more throughput/mana longevity over a relatively long amount of time (think covering an entire mageara rampage)? Pick power infusion.
Are you fighting a boss that has a deadly ability on a timer that you can shell to prevent, thus saving raid cooldowns (which have been made both weaker and more sparse, mind you)? Pick Shell.
Does the fight have neither a mana-burn phase, nor sudden bursts of damage (Norushen would be the best example of that in current tier), but on the other hand, maybe has a lot of adds etc? Pick Twist of Fate.

Spirit shell as a talent should work out really well because we'll have less raid cooldowns, and it is a meaningfull choise (you give up Twisted fate to get it).

[FiveOneTwo]

Spirit Shell (New) Spirit Shell For the next 10 sec, your Heal, Flash Heal, and Prayer of Healing no longer heal but instead create absorption shields that last 15 sec. Priest - LvL 75 Talent. Instant. 60 sec cooldown.

So yeah Spirit Shell got removed only to be added back as a talent. I feel like it´s the same as with borrowed time, removing something so it feels like we get something when they readd it...Your thoughts on this?

technically you havent lost or re-gained anything at this point as none of this is live and still largely being sorted out.

my thoughts are that they are trying to reach the point where the ability pruning feels right and converting certain things to talents seemed worth trying out. not everything is mind games and shady tricks.

[Raugnaut]

I have to agree that it seems that blizz is removing/readding stuff just so it seems that the class is getting something. 2 easy examples I can think of is Tidal Wave perk for shamans (Tidal wave, reduces cast time for Healing Wave/increases crit chance for Healing Surge, currently is 30% for both, next expansion becomes 20%, with the perk upping it back up to 30%), and Drain Soul for Affliction (Currently, Drain Soul deals extra damage to targets below 20%. Next expansion, that is being moved into a perk as well).

I honestly can't tell what blizz is thinking with the numerous ability removals/readditions lately seen across all the classes.

[Basmothh]

This is a great compromise. Fights that are ideal for SS are those with dead time and that's not exactly conducive for ToF procs, so it's not a real loss to swap ToF for SS. I'm liking the new flexibility of the T75 talents for Disc.

As for the new 4 piece bonuses though, I'm a much bigger fan of Holy's because it feels so much more engaging. Disc's just feels like a passive bonus.

[Deleted]

I'm actually just starting to think the devs truly have no clue about disc, and they removed all this stuff and then realized they shouldn't have. Making it a talent does, however, address some of the balancing issues since we can't have both ToF and SS now.

I'm not even mad about losing DI since it was near useless currently, but I suspected it might have made us decent tank healers in WoD if they hadn't also removed Train of Thought. I'm kinda expecting Train of Thought and Inner Focus to make a return too sometime soon

They don't. Read every patchnote you can find, there are barely any changes for priests that are simply not gimping them. Blizzard is balancing around crybabies that want to have highest HPS like before.

[zito]

I see PoH is back for Disc. I was looking forward to their claimed Holy nova revamp for disc aoe healing. Oh well I shouldn't be too surprised this happens every expansion (with 90% of unique changes ending up just being botched)

[Deleted]

They don't. Read every patchnote you can find, there are barely any changes for priests that are simply not gimping them. Blizzard is balancing around crybabies that want to have highest HPS like before.

I don´t really care about HPS tbh,i just want disc to be viable compared to Holy because i really dislike the chakra mechanic. All these removing and re-adding of abilities give the impressuion that they themselves don´t know what to do with disc at the moment so it´s understandable if people are a little concerned. As long as they don´t forget about disc priests i´m optimistic but i don´t want to receive bandaid fixes with every single patch to fluctuate from worthless to overpowered throughout the entire expansion

[Hyve]

Spirit Shell (New) Spirit Shell For the next 10 sec, your Heal, Flash Heal, and Prayer of Healing no longer heal but instead create absorption shields that last 15 sec. Priest - LvL 75 Talent. Instant. 60 sec cooldown.

So yeah Spirit Shell got removed only to be added back as a talent. I feel like it´s the same as with borrowed time, removing something so it feels like we get something when they readd it...Your thoughts on this?

They didn't remove it just to re-add it, they removed it, tested the game without and then decided it was best to return it. Not that hard to understand ... It's called iterative design, and it works amazingly well when you have such a dedicated player base such as WoW to provide plenty of feedback and data.

They know what they're doing. Removing Spirit Shell was probably a test of how potent they were as healers without it, and clearly they felt that it was better design to add it back, then to improve other Healing spells.

[Deleted]

They know what they're doing.

Wasn´t the case with the last expansions and the state of disc at release

[nobodysbaby]

I like this even if it can make disc op on some fights with perfect conditions. This certainly gives flexibility but I hope it doesnt mean Ill have to go Disc on too many fights :P

[Hyve]

Wasn´t the case with the last expansions and the state of disc at release

Disc got "compensated" by their state of growth over the whole expansion. As they became more geared Disc became more viable. Yes, it'd be nice if everything was viable all the time, but it's not like Disc isn't absolutely making up for a bad start.

A single Disc Priest with enough gear is worth ~2 healers in a Raid Team.

[Darkener]

If they replace DI with Spirit Shell they should make it only work with Heal and Flash Heal. Or replace Word of Mending with Spirit Shell and make it only work with PoH.

[Deleted]

somehow reliefed that ss is back even if its a talent. This spell is/was awesome in many situations

[Noradin]

Disc got "compensated" by their state of growth over the whole expansion. As they became more geared Disc became more viable. Yes, it'd be nice if everything was viable all the time, but it's not like Disc isn't absolutely making up for a bad start.

A single Disc Priest with enough gear is worth ~2 healers in a Raid Team.

Yes, exactly, and isn't that exactly what we want to avoid? What we mean when we say they have no idea?
We are having this discussion to avoid needing some hotfix right after release which would most likely make us stupidly op again? (It happend all the time with several different classes.)

[Dracodraco]

Disc got "compensated" by their state of growth over the whole expansion. As they became more geared Disc became more viable. Yes, it'd be nice if everything was viable all the time, but it's not like Disc isn't absolutely making up for a bad start.

A single Disc Priest with enough gear is worth ~2 healers in a Raid Team.

Bullshit, by the way - disc doesn't have any more raw throughput than say, a mistweaver or a resto shaman. They just get to go first due to absorbs. You won't be able to drop 2 healers just because you got a disc because of the class - if that's the case, the disc is simply outplaying the healers he replaced. Cause =/= causation - healers being top on meters by almost double isn't equal to them counting for two healers.

[Larynx]

I'm just sad they removed Divine Insight.

[Mdev]

I don't see Power Infusion being able to compete in the 75 tier in its current incarnation.

[shanthi]

I see PoH is back for Disc. I was looking forward to their claimed Holy nova revamp for disc aoe healing. Oh well I shouldn't be too surprised this happens every expansion (with 90% of unique changes ending up just being botched)

The idea is still that Holy Nova is part of the disc AoE toolkit. It's meant to be the mana efficient AoE heal while PoH is the higher throughput, mana inefficient AoE heal.

Though that model is an awkward fit, IMO, for when you need to do light AoE healing and everyone's not stacked up.