[Legion] Discipline Priest Discussion

[Totaltotemic]

I recalled him clamoring the viability of disc in 5 mans when others doubted it, as well as the overall healing output of disc (which is what I was referring to, when it was later clarified in the Q&A session that disc was intentionally tuned lower). Perhaps I got confused with someone else though.
If you want asinine, go with saying someone is wasting time doing something a video game.
But it's ok, for someone that comes from a LoL pug this place isn't toxic at all.

No, you're just trying so hard to validate your irrational childlike grudge against me that you're willfully ignoring that those statements were from the single build in-between when Dominate Mind was nerfed to the ground and when Shadow Mend was buffed by 14%. What I said before was true. What I said then was true, and what I have said just now is true. I remember because I was participating in the discussion. I can understand how you might get mixed up when you merely observe discussions happening instead of participating in them yourself because you never had to actually be aware of what was going on at the time. I don't understand why you'd still be mad about it a month later though.

You are ridiculously incorrect in your belief that what was said in the Q&A section was about 5 mans. In fact, Ion specifically said that Disc needs to work as a solo healer in 5 man dungeons and that being tuned lower is for raids where there are multiple healers to rely upon. Pay a little more attention to what is being said and you might get less upset. Also please stop spreading misinformation, there's enough of that going around already.

You're wasting your time arguing about this as it only makes you appear more and more foolish and as if you are out for some kind of vengeance like I kicked your dog or something instead of meaningfully contributing to any kind of discussion. Nothing you have said changes the fact that we don't need to validate whether or not spamming Clarity of Will in a raid is bad, and neither do we need to validate if healing only through spamming Shadow Mend in a raid is bad because we already know that both are the case. If someone wants to do that, they can go ahead (just because something is a waste of time doesn't mean you can never do it), but it won't produce anything new of value that adds to the discussion.

- - - Updated - - -

Their dps is a lot more than "insighnificant". Obviously you can't have a disc competing with a real dps, but currently they're competing with the worst tuned dps classes (ret), and usually far above tanks.
Alongside with their good damage they also bring competitive healing. I agree most of the time they'll be lowest on the healing meter, but a good disc won't be very far behind, and if the fight fits disc he could even jump up a few spots.

The problem with disc right now is that the skillcap has been increased to 1 of the highest within the game, if not the highest.
I can only imagine every single cutting edge mythic group wanting a disc priest. Not only do the bring unique spells in terms of a few absorbs and barrier, but they also bring a lot more damage than any other healer would be able to bring.

To put a number to this, it seems to be floating around 3% of the raid's DPS. The average DPS is usually around 5% per member (remember not the top end, but the average DPS i.e. what you could have had instead of a Disc).

Where it gets weird is in that lowest DPS. This is a kind of logistical question for raids: who do you sit the Disc for (assuming your comp normally includes a Disc)? If it's another healer, DPS has to be pretty unimportant to need that much healing (as Tekc says here, we're not super far behind, only a bit). If it's another DPS... well you kind of have to think about a normal raid roster to see what's going on here.

When you bring in another DPS in place of a healer, do you get:

A) DPS equal to the top 5 DPSers

B) DPS equal to the mid 3-4 DPS

or

C) DPS equal to the bottom 5 DPSers

If the answer isn't C... why isn't that person in already? I see this all of the time where people compare Disc's damage to the top DPSers, but you can't replace your Disc with a top DPS unless your DPS setup was bad to begin with. That's not to say that you'll always be in place of the bottom DPS (because your bottom DPS usually exist due to some kind of utility that can't easily be replaced), but typically one of the lower end of DPS.

I think this is just a problem with evaluation a lot of people have been having when looking at the DPS because of the way everything is portrayed. Your DPS bar on Disc is so small, but that's usually because the top couple of DPS are like 50% more than the average on most fights. If you strip all of that away and just think about what you would have instead of a Disc, it becomes more clear how significant the damage really is.

[Imaskar]

Previus Challenge modes favored a healer who can dps. It would be very natural to take disc for a top runs for mythic. Since you only get like 4 pleas and pws or 3 pleas and 2 pws. And then just nuke for hybrid output.

But I see you complain on disc in 5s a lot. It really confuses me. Do you think atonement wouldn't keep the tank up? Or what?

[Gorsameth]

Previus Challenge modes favored a healer who can dps. It would be very natural to take disc for a top runs for mythic. Since you only get like 4 pleas and pws or 3 pleas and 2 pws. And then just nuke for hybrid output.

But I see you complain on disc in 5s a lot. It really confuses me. Do you think atonement wouldn't keep the tank up? Or what?

Yes Atonement won't keep a tank up since it is balanced for multiple people being healed and does not scale up when only 1 person is healed.
It will not equal single target healing on 5+ people each.

In very high level Mythic Dungeons the damage becomes so bad that you need to focus healing on the tank so much that you don't have time for atonement dps-healing. At that point your better off just playing Holy.

[Saiyoran]

From personal experience, healing Mythics comes down to a few things:
1) atone the tank(s). Unless your tank is horrible or overpulling drastically they need PW:S on cd and not much else in the realm of direct heals. Note I haven't run with a prot pally or guardian druid in a solo tank setup yet.

2) SMend dps that get hit with big damage mechanics.

3) Have fun doing as much damage as your dps on bosses since the fights last about a minute and disc burst with Horn/PI/Light's Wrath is nuts.

Now, when you hit level 10, the incoming damage becomes wayyy higher. I've tried Holy to counteract it and to be completely honest the advantage isn't as big as people like to say. Most of the problems in +10 come from unavoidable one shots, which holy has exactly one button to deal with (GS). Disc isn't much better off, but pw:s and clarity of will might be enough to save the dps. The strats we've run against Fortified involve hex/para against mobs that hit hard, which makes the pulls 3 or 4 mobs on average. That's not bad to deal with as disc. You're behind a bit in tank healing but if you've got a decent DK or monk tank you can basically ignore them. Tyrannical is harder but again, holy's advantages in pure throughput don't really seem to matter when the main cause of wipes are one-shot mechanics.

[tachycardias]

My experience with both disc and holy is based on endless proving grounds on the ptr.

I find that disc is very comparable to holy. Obviously they are different and disc certainly requires more planning. But in regard to tank healing I find that disc is actually better than holy. Shadow mend is much better for this than flash heal or heal. The holy word certainly helps holy but is only available once every 6-8 casts of heal. I think that perhaps disc's weakness is switching from heavy tank heals to aoe heals. It requires planning, but if you are spamming the tank and then suddenly there's aoe dmg, it takes a PWR then penance/smite which takes a while. Note the PWR is far more time efficient for atone application, and mana cost wise is comparable to plea when the whole group has atones.

[Templefox]

What if Plea had a 1.5s cd and was off the GCD and castable while casting (Like mage's Shimmer/Ice Floes).

Hear me out, because this one change makes nuanced things start to happen:

If you used this version of Plea to keep multiple/all party members' Atonement up at all times, then it would still be limited/punished by the mana ramp up (you could even increase this punishment if it is TOO simple to blanket everyone in Atonement at all times). However, if you used it sparingly/reactively/situationally, there are some cool things that start to happen:

In situations where the group is taking no damage and you only need to tank heal, you could simply simultaneously be spamming this Plea on the tank while DPSing, mostly negating the need for SMend spam while encouraging Atonement healing that's not just used for group healing. (With just 1 atonement, your Plea is almost free.)

Once your other group members start to take damage, you can react with Pleas on them whilst not interrupting your DPS nor burning precious GCDs--and every 1.5s another group member can be added to the group healing you are doing.

Shadow mend would still have its niche because once your group has 3+ Atonements out and you need to go back to tank healing, you aren't going to be able to afford to Plea spam him anymore. But as those group atonements start to fall off, you can stop SMending and start working your Plea back into your DPS tank healing rotation.

I think the mana stuff with Plea would need some fine tuning one way or the other but I think this is actually really doable. And it addresses some concerns I've seen on here:

~"If they buff Atonement healing for tanks, it's too strong for aoe healing." (Solved)
~"I like the spec fantasy of healing through dps, please don't make me SMend spam" (Solved)
~"Disc is punished though GCD overload for unanticipated/unprepared for aoe damage, with no proportionate reward for dealing with it properly." (Solved)

Having to decide whether its worth spending the extra mana on those supplemental Pleas while you're DPSing can be such a great way to separate good from great players, especially when you have 2 or 3 atonements and it's not "free" you really have to make good decisions.

edit: clarity

[PosPosPos]

What if Plea had a 1.5s cd and was off the GCD and castable while casting (Like mage's Shimmer/Ice Floes).

Hear me out, because this makes a nuanced change:

If you used this version of Plea to keep multiple/all party members' Atonement up at all times, then it would still be limited/punished by the mana ramp up (you could even increase this punishment if it is TOO simple to blanket everyone in Atonement at all times). However, if you used it sparingly/reactively/situationally, there are some cool things that start to happen:

In situations where the group is taking no damage and you only need to tank heal, you could simply simultaneously be spamming this Plea on the tank while DPSing, mostly negating the need for SMend spam while encouraging Atonement healing that's not just used for group healing. (With just 1 atonement, your Plea is almost free.)

Once your other group members start to take damage, you can react with Pleas on them whilst not interrupting your DPS nor burning precious GCDs--and every 1.5s another group member can be added to the group healing you are doing.

Shadow mend would still have its niche because once your group has 3+ Atonements out and you need to go back to tank healing, you aren't going to be able to afford to Plea spam him anymore. But as those group atonements start to fall off, you can stop SMending and start working your Plea back into your DPS tank healing rotation.

I think the mana stuff with Plea would need some fine tuning one way or the other but I think this is actually really doable. And it addresses some concerns I've seen on here:

~"If they buff Atonement healing for tanks, it's too strong for aoe healing." (Solved)
~"I like the spec fantasy of healing through dps, please don't make me SMend spam" (Solved)
~"Disc is punished though GCD overload for unanticipated/unprepared for aoe damage, with no proportionate reward for dealing with it properly." (Solved)

Having to decide whether its worth spending the extra mana on those supplemental Pleas while you're DPSing can be such a great way to separate good from great players, especially when you have 2 or 3 atonements and it's not "free" you really have to make good decisions.

1) Having clear and defined weaknesses and strengths is a good thing for spec balance and design.

2) So instead of this "GCD overload"(whatever this is supposed to mean, because if it's just dramatizing the inability to keep up with taking unnecessary damage all healers have this problem to marginally different extents), we are now emotionally blackmailed into casting 2 spells per GCD.

2.5) It's not even going to remotely solve Shadowmend spam in dungeons, with this proposed change disc priests are expected to SM + Plea spam instead. "Oh, you say spamming Shadowmend feels bad? Now you get to spam Shadowmend *and* Plea! You get more spam on your spam!"

Well-meaning, but obviously not much critical thought behind this asinine suggestion.

[Templefox]

1) we are now emotionally blackmailed into casting 2 spells per GCD.

The only time you should be able to spam 2 spells per GCD is when there is only 1 atonement up. If that's not the case, then tune the mana multiplier on Plea so that it IS the case. The rest of the time (read: most of the time) it should be a tough decision whether or not you'd want to do so, and ultimately done sparingly.

Well-meaning, but obviously not much critical thought behind this asinine suggestion.

Obviously. You post on this thread a lot and I'm trying really hard to comprehend what would be lost if you had just didn't. Shucks, I got nothing. Must be that lack of critical thought.

[PosPosPos]

The only time you should be able to spam 2 spells per GCD is when there is only 1 atonement up. If that's not the case, then tune the mana multiplier on Plea so that it IS the case. The rest of the time (read: most of the time) it should be a tough decision whether or not you'd want to do so, and ultimately done sparingly.

Okay, so under normal circumstances, we can't use Plea normally to blanket the raid because it's has to be expensive enough that users don't want to just macro Plea to everything. So you are suggesting disc should be nerfed when trying to heal during periods of moderate damage.

Obviously. You post on this thread a lot and I'm trying really hard to comprehend what would be lost if you had just didn't. Shucks, I got nothing. Must be that lack of critical thought.

Uh, did you look yourself in the mirror for this one, and ask yourself what exactly would be lost if you didn't post something that didn't make sense to any sort of proper healer design? But I can identify a huge plus - thank goodness you aren't part of the design and balance team, because disc would either be unplayable or outright broken, and outright unfun to play having to mash 2 spells in one GCD.

Some people just get off on having all sorts of inane unworkable ideas, and trying to pretend it's anything but that.

[Immortalem]

What if Plea had a 1.5s cd and was off the GCD and castable while casting (Like mage's Shimmer/Ice Floes).

[...]

I think the mana stuff with Plea would need some fine tuning one way or the other but I think this is actually really doable. And it addresses some concerns I've seen on here:

~"If they buff Atonement healing for tanks, it's too strong for aoe healing." (Solved)
~"I like the spec fantasy of healing through dps, please don't make me SMend spam" (Solved)
~"Disc is punished though GCD overload for unanticipated/unprepared for aoe damage, with no proportionate reward for dealing with it properly." (Solved)

I think that you were mislead here. Having an off gcd application for atonement on the tank wouldn't help in any way the lack of throughput disc has on single target with atonement. That's what SM is for.
And actually it wouldn't even result in a heal increase. Normally we just cast PW:S on the tank in case of moderate dmg. PW:S actually heals for more than a single Smite (counting both, atonement and the absorb).

And I have to agree on PosPos that this so called gcd overload isn't solved by your suggestion. It gets even worse since, as said, we have to use 2 spells within a single gcd. Even though we wouldn't do it quite frequently it's not that easy and would in the class being way more complex.

Disc was always a preemptive healer and this is what makes the class that different. We are now more like a druid (this was stated quite frequently) but can control our hot strength. Even so this might sound wired it's a form which offers most control on how much to heal.

I personally think that disc is in a good spot, except for mana currently being a bit too punishing in my opinion, even though this is a problem most healers except of paladin have atm.

[Nycros]

Hey, I'm a Shadow Priest by trade but am considering going Disc in Legion. PvP only.

I haven't seen much about Disc PvP in here, since the last few xpacks have had Disc filling the role of ez-mode PvE healer, thus the forums are full of PvE chat.

SO! What are the current thoughts on Disc in PvP, seeing as we can only play 3's now and we're even more of an aggressive spec.
- Do we do decent enough damage to put pressure on the enemy team?
- Are our heals still good enough?
- Can we survive if trained?
- What are the current best talent choices?

I see myself enjoying the mobility, aggression and damage output of Disc this xpack, just want to know how viable it will be against the inevitable cleave train in season 1.

[Deleted]

I personally think that disc is in a good spot, except for mana currently being a bit too punishing in my opinion, even though this is a problem most healers except of paladin have atm.

I would presume that just like in previous expansions, mana starts out as a challenge and as gear is padding bigger pools, it becomes less of an issue.

[Gorsameth]

Hey, I'm a Shadow Priest by trade but am considering going Disc in Legion. PvP only.

I haven't seen much about Disc PvP in here, since the last few xpacks have had Disc filling the role of ez-mode PvE healer, thus the forums are full of PvE chat.

SO! What are the current thoughts on Disc in PvP, seeing as we can only play 3's now and we're even more of an aggressive spec.
- Do we do decent enough damage to put pressure on the enemy team?
- Are our heals still good enough?
- Can we survive if trained?
- What are the current best talent choices?

I see myself enjoying the mobility, aggression and damage output of Disc this xpack, just want to know how viable it will be against the inevitable cleave train in season 1.

I don't pvp but my instinct says utterly non viable.

Shadowmend is to expensive for repeated use
Atonement requires constant casting and is AoE healing, not enough for single target arena play.

[Kohz]

It's really unfortunate that inner focus is only available for Holy now but, disc seems viable for cleave / quick burst comps due to the Dark Archangel talent.

The Disc PVP talents seem to have abilities (Strength of Soul) that can survive through the cleave comps but I don't think it's enough. The problem with Disc arena in WoD was that once you are behind, it was difficult for you to make a comeback. I don't see any abilities that might prevent you from avoiding that situation..

[Deleted]

Shadowmend isnt really expensive heal look at other healers fast cast heals... thoes are half the power and cost roughly the same.

[Izzirez]

Shadowmend isnt really expensive heal look at other healers fast cast heals... thoes are half the power and cost roughly the same.

Other healers don't have just 1 direct heal in their arsenal. Shadowmend is our only option for high throughput so it has to be stronger.

[grizzlysaurusrex]

Disc has more than one direct heal if you talent correctly. Between The Penitent, Masochism, Twist of Fate, and Grace I found I could hold my own quite well swapping between Penance and Shadowmend to deal with potential interrupts/lockouts. Then you also have Power World: Shield and Shadow Word: Pain ticking on multiple targets as a HoT.

With Defender of the Weak combined with Twist of Fate and Archangel I actually found myself doing a lot better than I expected based on what I'd been reading.

[Immortalem]

I would presume that just like in previous expansions, mana starts out as a challenge and as gear is padding bigger pools, it becomes less of an issue.

I highly doubt that since the mana pool is fixed and there no longer is a stat that increases your mana regen.

Neglecting trinkets which do not have that much of an impact on healer mana one can conclude that mana will be roughly the same throughout the expansion. I think that considering healing this will be quite interesting.

[Izzirez]

I highly doubt that since the mana pool is fixed and there no longer is a stat that increases your mana regen.

Neglecting trinkets which do not have that much of an impact on healer mana one can conclude that mana will be roughly the same throughout the expansion. I think that considering healing this will be quite interesting.

I would have to agree with this. Outside of talent changes/set bonuses/trinkets, this is the first time we don't have any stat that affects mana in any way. This changes the game and hopefully keeps mana meaningful for the entire expansion.

[Franarok]

The new mana is is some way better and worst. I mean, is difficult since you will be ***** the entire expansion and in some way is cool.
But also lost that component or decide what is better for you: lost int/greaters heals for a lot of mana, no mana and take care of mana, or some mid mid?. On that point I think is a lost.
Also in some way is like lsot the feeling of being becoming stronger with time and gear. As well the pleassure of finally get that trinket that allow you play with less pression.


Also of course is legit that now some people could to argue that want something similar to dps like long ago when they also msut take care of mana. If a healer must take care of mana, maybe a dps should to? I dont think so, but i can understand someone does



But the main is that blizz should balance very well the heal classes. Now a mana problem is a true problem. On past the mana problem on an specific class was solved with gear, but is not an option anymore