Ouch, disc pvp?

[Pickynerd]

Make sure to keep PtW up on everyone you see, if i get bored ill even hit pets. make sure youre using rapture and using penance on CD as long as you have a few atonement out. You may be trying to atone to many people? depending on the BG i like to keep 3-8 people with the buff. make sure youre not using penance as a heal with the talent. use the 4th orb or schism.

Penance has been my crutch for survival, with The Penitent, when I'm locked out of shadow and I have more than 4 people trying to kill me.

[Deleted]

Hey all,

So I know everything is upside down right now with prepatch balance. But after several bgs as Disc. I'm rather frustrated. Finding several dps classes out healing me Warlocks, Warriors even..
Still learning the new Disc play style but dang, seems rough. Anyone else having issues with Disc and pvp?

From a math standpoint disc doesn't really check out untill way into raids, it's definitely playable before having HC+ raid gears, and a skilled player can prolly do well with less. For PvP on the other hand, I can't find anything that would roll in their favor right now. Some tuning might fix it but on the current beta build and on the pre patch especially their power in PvP is none existent compared to other healers.

I like the idea of how they are supposed to work, and it's evident it was designed with raiding in mind, but I can understand the appeal of having a healer capable of dishing out reasonable dps in arenas for an example.

[Simulacrum]

Penance has been my crutch for survival, with The Penitent, when I'm locked out of shadow and I have more than 4 people trying to kill me.

That's a very convenient hypothetical you've constructed there, where your avalanche of tunneling opponents are not-shit enough to interrupt your shadow mends, but too shit to interrupt your penance.

In reality, the penitent is a crap talent, at least outside of maybe tanking healing in 5 mans, but if you're healing 5 mans where you're not dpsing then you should probably be holy instead. Disc's strength as a healer is derived from aoe healing with atonement, of which penance is a critically important component.

The only time I'd even cast shadow mend in BGs is when only one guy (or someone extremely important, like a flag carrier) had taken damage and he'd die unless you healed him. Or if holy school was locked. In practically every other situation, you should be healing with atonement through damage. That healing is godlike too, in BGs. You should win most opening fights for your team almost by yourself by simply popping PI and applying atonement to every friendly in range then slapping down mindflayer while dpsing with penance on cooldown and dotting everything in range with purge the wicked when penance is on cooldown. And maybe throw out PW:S on cooldown if you're feeling in the mood.

As for surviving tunneling: Psychic scream, shining force, feather, pain suppression, and/or rapture is usually enough to survive anything. Of course, these have relatively long cooldowns, but you usually don't end up in situations like that so frequently that those cooldowns aren't available for them. At least I go through most BGs with 0 deaths right now.

[Pickynerd]

That's a very convenient hypothetical you've constructed there, where your avalanche of tunneling opponents are not-shit enough to interrupt your shadow mends, but too shit to interrupt your penance.

In reality, the penitent is a crap talent, at least outside of maybe tanking healing in 5 mans, but if you're healing 5 mans where you're not dpsing then you should probably be holy instead. Disc's strength as a healer is derived from aoe healing with atonement, of which penance is a critically important component.

The only time I'd even cast shadow mend in BGs is when only one guy (or someone extremely important, like a flag carrier) had taken damage and he'd die unless you healed him. Or if holy school was locked. In practically every other situation, you should be healing with atonement through damage. That healing is godlike too, in BGs. You should win most opening fights for your team almost by yourself by simply popping PI and applying atonement to every friendly in range then slapping down mindflayer while dpsing with penance on cooldown and dotting everything in range with purge the wicked when penance is on cooldown. And maybe throw out PW:S on cooldown if you're feeling in the mood.

As for surviving tunneling: Psychic scream, shining force, feather, pain suppression, and/or rapture is usually enough to survive anything. Of course, these have relatively long cooldowns, but you usually don't end up in situations like that so frequently that those cooldowns aren't available for them. At least I go through most BGs with 0 deaths right now.

Most people don't interrupt, I don't start getting silenced or interrupts until I become the main target ya' know when people start spamming "KILL THE FUCKING HEALERS YOU MORONS!!!" A little survival goes a long way when your team is trying to take an objective, or cap.

I don't have any issue in pve, its the pvp part, which I switched out the penitent for this morning, and did pretty well, but died faster / easier. The penitent is a great self heal when locked out of shadow, which is inevitable once you get swamped by enemies. Surviving long enough they will switch targets allowing you do dps-heal again, problem is in randoms no one peels, yet have the balls to complain about not getting heals all while 3-5 people are popping cds trying to kill you. Fear is great, shining force is strong in a few situations, weak in most. I'm a bit torn on rapture since it really can't be spammed, yet is crushed almost instantly almost useless actually.

I too mostly survive most bgs with 0 deaths, top healing isn't hard, but pulling 10k+ dps isn't easy while being top heals unless in 40v40.

[Simulacrum]

Well, again, I find it very easy to be top healing while doing (almost) nothing but dpsing. Not sure what the actual dps numbers on my damage in BGs is, but I'm usually above everyone but the warlocks and some druids. Occasionally I will be top damage done... but the games where I am usually aren't wins. Easily do much more damage than all these worthless mages/paladins/rogues/shamans/hunters/DKs/warriors derping around being free kills though. Man, PvP balance sure is broken right now; such a great first-impression of the template system!

[Deleted]

Well, again, I find it very easy to be top healing while doing (almost) nothing but dpsing. Not sure what the actual dps numbers on my damage in BGs is, but I'm usually above everyone but the warlocks and some druids. Occasionally I will be top damage done... but the games where I am usually aren't wins. Easily do much more damage than all these worthless mages/paladins/rogues/shamans/hunters/DKs/warriors derping around being free kills though. Man, PvP balance sure is broken right now; such a great first-impression of the template system!

Kind of silly basing your assumption of PvP balance, on Pre-Patch when every half decent player is on the beta. It pretty much tells you the state of the players in the BG if you say, occassionally you top damage and healing playing as Disc.

[Simulacrum]

Kind of silly basing your assumption of PvP balance, on Pre-Patch when every half decent player is on the beta. It pretty much tells you the state of the players in the BG if you say, occassionally you top damage and healing playing as Disc.

Yeah, possibly. Unlikely, though. I've tried about half the specs in pvp right now, and only warlocks compare in power to disc priests in the context of 100 BGs. Which, incidentally, is all that's currently being discussed, since you inexplicably seem extremely confused about the very obvious message I'm trying to communicate only about the exact thing that I'm talking about.

[Deleted]

Yeah, possibly. Unlikely, though. I've tried about half the specs in pvp right now, and only warlocks compare in power to disc priests in the context of 100 BGs. Which, incidentally, is all that's currently being discussed, since you inexplicably seem extremely confused about the very obvious message I'm trying to communicate only about the exact thing that I'm talking about.

Which I disagree with strongly because even a half decent, Ass rogue, Outlaw Rogue (with high rolls), Arms Warr, Shadow priest, Unholy DK and Enha Shamans, WW Monk will all not only out damage a Disc Priest but even beat them at 1v1 at 100. The gap becomes even more obvious at 110.

[Simulacrum]

Which I disagree with strongly because even a half decent, Ass rogue, Outlaw Rogue (with high rolls), Arms Warr, Shadow priest, Unholy DK and Enha Shamans, WW Monk will all not only out damage a Disc Priest but even beat them at 1v1 at 100. The gap becomes even more obvious at 110.

Men, it's really exhausting to have to keep reading stuff like this and figuring out how to respond, if it's even worth it at all. Even post-admonishment, you still manage to completely miss all context. I sure am glad I'm not an elementary school teacher or something, who'd have to deal with this shit every day at work. At least now I can just... leave the computer.

[grizzlysaurusrex]

@Simulacrum are you really not being tunneled hard every battle you go into? I find I'm usually kiting 1-2 melee and dealing with at least one caster every time I show up to a fight, even when LoSing (when possible) and staying as far away as possible. The few times I've tried skipping out on Grace, I've gotten wrecked. I guess maybe my random teams aren't peeling enough to reasonably keep everyone up through atonement?

[hellpriest]

In the pre-patch ,disc feels okay, you dont even rely on attonement. if you want to do consistent hps you can even spec Clarity of will and spam it (stacks 3 times, up to 200k) and based on what school you get locked on, you can spam either Shadow Mend or Clarity of will. I qeued over 100 skirmishes and i didnt find any team that could out damage my Clarity of will/Shadow Mend spam unless my team was really bad.
In legion though, I check streams on twitch constantly and I havent seen any successful disc setup. They probably need a high burst / high cc&peel setup .
Unless you plan to pray for disc buffs or seek some crazy people who would agree playing some twisted setup instead of fotm, I'd say start embracing holy as it obviously has enough tools to be a standalone healer. Though you will feel like playing a holy paladin. 80% of your heals come from flash heal spam and ocasional holy word serenity(hello shocks). Not to mention you are useless during holy spell lock which makes you feel limited and skill capped.. might aswell bind some emotes to spam

[lockyo]

Hello, from the perspective of a high rated arena player (2600+) and a current beta tester I can assure everyone that disc is in a decent spot. The specs throughput is low in comparison to other healers but it has good cool downs and two schools of healing magic to make up for it. Healing against warlock teams is a (often manageable) struggle but other than that as long as you have good partners the spec itself isn't at a terrible disadvantage. With that said, I do think disc could use just a little love. I'd like to see the healing from penance buffed very slightly and made baseline again (the talented heal from penance is compulsory for PvP, and as such makes the whole tier rather boring, as too is the final tier in which grace is mandatory). Also, PW: S could use a very small buff -- it currently absorbs about 150-200k with player health pools over a million and a cool down of 5-7 seconds depending on haste.

Moving on, I just wanted to help clarify some things as it seems some of you are drawing horribly erroneous conclusions from casual PvP during your pre-patch experience. Unfortunately, pre-patch =/= Legion. With that said -- no, against even modestly competent players your damage won't ever be anywhere near enough to sustain you or your team. Casting heals will be necessary. I'll expound on this by mentioning that, when playing against skilled opponents, your only source of damage is likely to be from SW: P and your mindbender. You will be too busy spamming heals/shields, dodging CC, juking interrupts, looking for good fears, re-positioning, and dispelling buffs on the other team. You may find yourself sometimes able to fit a handful of smites in there if your team is skilled enough to cross-cc during kill windows.

Now with that said, atonement is still functionally useful. Keeping 3+ targets dotted with SW: P is potent healing (I.E.: stronger than a renew) and your mindbender can be used as ancillary burst healing in times of high damage output. And I do recommend using mindbender. A fire-and-forget ability that provides the player with healing, damage, and mana on a one-minute cool down is obviously fairly strong when used correctly.

As a final note: in regard to a disc priest being able to 1v1 or perhaps 1v2 less able players, I'll say that I can't recall a time during which a skilled disc priest couldn't do this and my memory, insofar as this is concerned, extends as far back as WoTLK. This isn't accomplished through damage alone, of course, for at 110 pure damage dealers will easily dispatch you far before you them.

Anyway, that is how disc currently plays in Legion PvP. If you'd like to know something more specific please feel free to ask. Good luck guys/gals, and have fun!

[Eliessa]

Which I disagree with strongly because even a half decent, Ass rogue, Outlaw Rogue (with high rolls), Arms Warr, Shadow priest, Unholy DK and Enha Shamans, WW Monk will all not only out damage a Disc Priest but even beat them at 1v1 at 100. The gap becomes even more obvious at 110.

I have yet to meet any class who could 1vs1 me except fire mages and hunter popping their legendary and every cd known to man. maybe we just play different games...

[Deleted]

I have yet to meet any class who could 1vs1 me except fire mages and hunter popping their legendary and every cd known to man. maybe we just play different games...

Confirmed...
Exactly the same opinion...
In Bg actually i haven't met anyone that went for 1v1 and got out to tell it...
And my heals are comparable with the druid (i play resto druid as well) when the game doesn't involve too much AoE with my druid...

However if you are more to passive gamestyle (stand back and toss heals everywhere, not really getting involved to nuking something...avoid single fights, not go for it, not liking being a target...) play holy... I did try it too... it was very good until heavily focused.

It's like they daw a line... want healer-healer go holy. Want a multi purpose? Go disci.Want a "pusher" ? Go shadow.
All are viable for Bgs atm.
Now for WPvP, it depends... the safe play is disci to roam around the world .

[Sikplays]

Well, again, I find it very easy to be top healing while doing (almost) nothing but dpsing. Not sure what the actual dps numbers on my damage in BGs is, but I'm usually above everyone but the warlocks and some druids. Occasionally I will be top damage done... but the games where I am usually aren't wins. Easily do much more damage than all these worthless mages/paladins/rogues/shamans/hunters/DKs/warriors derping around being free kills though. Man, PvP balance sure is broken right now; such a great first-impression of the template system!

id like to do a BG with you. as someone who has a lot of fun with Disc and i think im pretty good at it. I PROMISE that you would never do more damage than my rogue mage or warrior. so try to stay constructive.

[barrsftw]

If you're not frequently using Mind Control in PvP you should really try it. People are sleeping on it for sure.

[Deleted]

The reality is at 110, with the amount of burst in the game (if you don't have Beta, you really wouldn't know). Disc is just really poor and falls way behind to Holy, which is again only very slightly better. Resto Druid, Resto Sham and MW Monks are far better healers.

You have no Dispell protection so don't even expect your PW:S to last long. And even if you play against terrible people at 1800, You can literally go through the shield in a single Global.

Defensive Penance is a really Shit Talent, but anyone with a brain will kick SM and lock you out of Shadow. You really don't do much afterwards, sure you can try to be aggressive but you will fall way far behind, even with the Dot on every target your attonement heals won't be keeping anyone up. So you are forced to play defensive again and trying to keep people up with SMs. Whether you like it or not, feel the gameplay is wrong etc the reality is you will be forced to spam SM, because attonement can't keep people up, even if a team let you PvE in the corner.

Feather just feels awful and only barely gets you away from melee and even then once it's gone they will be back on top of you. Wish Masochism affected everybody but mehh. Actually force team mates liking BaS.

CC wise you again are the worst than any of the other healers, Speccing into 30 sec fear. GG because it'll break to a single DoT Crit. Plus half the comps Disc priest is viable with atm are with Melee, so you can expect it to be dispelled insta. Shining Force is just bad, you won't get away from Melee, atm it's far to easy to stick to both Holy and Disc. Mind control DR'ing with Fear is just icing on the cake.

75 Talents is interesting because you have the choice of going for PI which most likely will get dispelled, or trying to get big comebacks through ToF. I've enjoyed most of my success with ToF, but with smart play with PI, it's very possible to force Cd's or kills, if the other team can't dispell.

90 Talents, all shit. Would personally like to see Spirit Shell replace CoW.

100, Purge the wicked is horrible because it will end up breaking a lot of CC's. I personally favor Grace, Haven't tried Shadow Covenant.

2 min Dome seems nice with 50% DR, but unfortunately PvP has this small thing called movement. Kind of wish, Strength of Soul was replaced by the Shadow version that heals for 50%. And yea Premonition just feels bad. You just get the OMG feelings like you did back in WotLK when you Death'd CC's. Once the other team forces Dome and PS, well good luck is chances are your team will just Rot to death.

90% of all my skirmishes on Beta have been RMP and it feels near impossible to beat Shadow/Aff/Shaman, the pressure from all the DoTs is nuts. The few games we did manage to win, was when the Mage 1 shot somebody.

People talking about live atm and talking about success in BGs you have to remember a couple of things.
1. Some class's really depend on the artifact, and are built around the Artifact. Unholy DK's and Shadow Priests are a great example. So sure you may think you are a lot better than the other dude who can't kill you. Reality is, if the numbers stay the same when Legion goes live odds are you will posting in this same thread moaning about how DIsc/Holy Priest is the least repp'd Healer.
2. Pre patch atm is really dead, Majority of the guys playing right now are either selling PvE boosts, farming gold etc. Almost every half decent player is on the beta. Those guys you are see'ing in BGs are most likely terribad or newly boosted guys who haven't even set up binds yet. but gearing is easy af, because of the BoA tokens and 710 gear. I've only ran BGs twice with Diablous and Akro, on live and even then it was because Beta was down.

[MrSaggins]

Disc is very underpowered in both PvE and PvP at the moment. It seems to have gotten bitch-slapped by the "balanced around 110 gear+artifacts" stick harder than any other spec.

I'd recommend avoiding it until Legion releases, tbh.

Huh? O.o I won fifteen games in a row the other night; rarely dying. Yes OP, your numbers are small on the shift-tab screen, but how relative is that really? How much healing is one saving themself from doing by mass dispelling siphon life etc. instead of atonement healing through it? Other healers have better throughput and great CC, but if they get blown up and die when it matters then who cares? I feel like a God in PvP, and my teams love me.

[Zafire]

Disc is invincible 1v1. I don't think any DPS can solo a disc. Bubbles absorb about 5 GCD's and can be reapplied seconds after, while the damage the priest does heals the person they just bubbled. They suck at healing more than one person (Due to PW:S cooldown), that's honestly their only downfall.

[Conformist]

Strongly disagree with the thread premise. Disc seems insanely strong in pvp right now, at least in casual pvp.

There's your problem. It's like saying disc is fine i just dueled a prot pally 10 times in a row and won them all!