Demonstration of how to play Disc well in raid environment?

[Krstl]

That still doesn't cover all that you said. 10 different things 20 sec in advance then spam a bunch of different abilities. 20 sec in advance and your atonement is already gone, thus your argument is already invalid. Then after the "10 different things" that you are already doing, what are the "bunch of different abilities" that you speak of? You're making it sound like way more than it actually is and I'm not sure if you're ignorant or just building a mountain out of a mole hill.

Yes, druids spend 1 button to tranq, yes, we do have to prep a bit more. The difference is, we actually have to learn fights and think for ourselves!!! GASP! What a concept!!!! We don't just go "oh well it looks like some people are taking a lot of damage, let me push a button." We actually learn when big damage is going to happen and prep for it, we research boss fights and watch videos and you know, actually do and pay attention to mechanics.

I'm glad that disc got harder to play, it makes people who think for themselves actually shine at what they play and the people who zone out during a boss fight will give up and go play another 1-2 button class.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Ya it's only an option in raids really. Dungeons things are way too clunky for them to be be able to heal on the level of any other spec. I'd just get used to holy and wait for the 7.1 changes lol.

[Biomega]

Yes, druids spend 1 button to tranq, yes, we do have to prep a bit more. The difference is, we actually have to learn fights and think for ourselves!!! GASP! What a concept!!!! We don't just go "oh well it looks like some people are taking a lot of damage, let me push a button." We actually learn when big damage is going to happen and prep for it, we research boss fights and watch videos and you know, actually do and pay attention to mechanics.

I'm glad that disc got harder to play, it makes people who think for themselves actually shine at what they play and the people who zone out during a boss fight will give up and go play another 1-2 button class.

It's cool that you have no problem with having to do significantly more to get the same performance other people get (or less). I absolutely understand that some people do enjoy that, despite the added strain and the increased potential for screwing up with almost nothing to counterbalance that. Complexity can be appealing for its own sake.

Me, I'm crazy and expect to get more of a reward for putting in more work. I always feel cheated when I work hard, and watch myself fall short of someone who did a lot less. Doesn't feel right to me. Personal preference, of course.

[Yunzi]

It's cool that you have no problem with having to do significantly more to get the same performance other people get (or less). I absolutely understand that some people do enjoy that, despite the added strain and the increased potential for screwing up with almost nothing to counterbalance that. Complexity can be appealing for its own sake.

Me, I'm crazy and expect to get more of a reward for putting in more work. I always feel cheated when I work hard, and watch myself fall short of someone who did a lot less. Doesn't feel right to me. Personal preference, of course.

The reward *is* the work - Disc in WoD is very boring - it's *rewarding* in the way in which you mean it, which is to say high HPS, but according to that logic winning the lottery is the best way to make money - the least work for the greatest gain.

Legion Discipline is incredibly engaging, as Totaltotemic eloquently put it in his guide. So healers who want to be *engaged* during a fight, tracking the number of mobs up, their locations and duration until death, everything related to raid frames, atonement timers, and everything else, LOVE Discipline - it's the only spec of the entire 36 that allow that kind of focus and gameplay.

While you view this as "work", the lovers of Disc view it as the reason we play the spec. It's the ART.

[Purpleisbetter]

I'm genuinely cannot understand how is Discipline weak in 5men.

I stopped riding, so as to keen my skills with it, i run extensively mythic dungeons with undergeared groups (less then 670 ilevel).

With a mere 713, absolutely no enchant, no set bonus and just 2 good trinket (i assume hc Piston and older CSP can be considered good) i hardly have any issue besides those provoked by me (sloppy play with Halo).

It feels like resto sham or h.pally surge/FoL spam but with better tank CD (Barrier and PS as opposed of AuraMastery+Sac or SLT); yet with tremendous aoe burst (Rupture/schism/peanance/halo) or relatively long, cd driven high healing sustain (Mindbender/PI).

[Biomega]

I'm genuinely cannot understand how is Discipline weak in 5men.

I stopped riding, so as to keen my skills with it, i run extensively mythic dungeons with undergeared groups (less then 670 ilevel).

With a mere 713, absolutely no enchant, no set bonus and just 2 good trinket (i assume hc Piston and older CSP can be considered good) i hardly have any issue besides those provoked by me (sloppy play with Halo).

It feels like resto sham or h.pally surge/FoL spam but with better tank CD (Barrier and PS as opposed of AuraMastery+Sac or SLT); yet with tremendous aoe burst (Rupture/schism/peanance/halo) or relatively long, cd driven high healing sustain (Mindbender/PI).

No offense, but current Mythic dungeons are extremely easy. I've done several runs with the healer AFK for most of it, healing only on certain bosses and not at all on trash. It's hardly a metric to go by.

Also, at the risk of repeating myself, no one is saying Disc is IMPOSSIBLE to use in Mythic+ dungeons. People will do it, and do it successfully. The issue is whether Disc is disproportionately more work just to achieve the same or worse results as any other healing spec in the game. This is only about 5-man dungeons, mind you. Raids are a whole different slice of cake.

[Purpleisbetter]

I'm sure you did them with a 650 ilevel. 670 DDs and the healer AFK; with sub 10mins run and a few record kill here and there.
Because those are the kind of group i'm running and they benchmark your perfs quite properly.

C'mon now.

"Disc is TERRIBLE in dungeons because its throughput it so low, particularly when it comes to burst"

"Disc is TERRIBLE"

Perhaps you should have putted differently?

There's a big F*ing difference between being terrible and being only slightly worse/not being the best.

T

[Biomega]

Perhaps you should have putted differently?

There's a big F*ing difference between being terrible and being only slightly worse/not being the best.

T

Well, again: any healing spec in the game does things more easily and/or better than Disc (if you disagree, tell me which spec you think is more annoying and/or performs worse). If you can't call the last place terrible, then what? But the last place still finishes the race. Terrible doesn't equal impossible, or unusable.

[Seneca]

(tl;dr bottom) Excluding performance point of views, my humble opinion is that discipline suffers from having a very clunky gameplay (not performance!), in most cases. What I say might be wrong, I hope it is so to be honest . I'll summarize what I think to avoid to make a wall of text. I'll speak in general, excluding a talent analysis mostly:

1) Against high single target damage my "rotation" consists of spamming Shadow Mend. So boring, so meh. 0 depth really. PW:S heals for less. Penance (The penitent) heals a bit more, but am I supposed to waste 1 talent point so every 9 secs I heal 9% more (excluding things like Penance travel time, time to cast it all, etc.)? I wish my other single target heals were way better.

2) Against high AoE damage my "rotation", again, consists of spamming Shadow Mend on everyone. Even if, for whatever reason I PW:S everyone with Rupture to gain atonements before the damage comes, I can't heal them all by doing damage because the damage taken is just too high. In a sense, I can use Mindbender and Light's Wrath to burst heal a bit, but they have long CDs (and I don't think, tell me if I am wrong, that a single Mindbender alone can sustain huge amount of damages). I mean, what a discipline can do every 1 min at best, a druid can do it (better?) basically always (5 rejuvenations, Efflorescence + Wild Growth with a few enhancing talents).

3) Against unpredictable single/AoE burst damage my "rotation", again, consists of spamming Shadow Mend.

So basically I have 10 ways to heal but against high/unpredictable burst single target/AoE damage, I just spam 1 ability, mostly.

Even if it is efficient, it just is a gameplay which lacks depth, imho.

4) Light's Wrath. Yeah, it burstheals a lot in raids where 15 players can have atonement up, but its power is severely reduced in all the other aspects of the game, like dungeons (1/3) or arenas (1/5) for example. Said that, I was told the mana it needs to burst properly is enormous too, so it's not like it is the solution to all our issues.

5) Healing with atonement. It is only possible to do it against low damage, on average (so excluding long CDs like Light's Wrath). Basically it is only possible to do it in raids where there are many other healers to fill your gaps.

6) Have to go don't know if I am forgetting something crucial.

tl;dr: if there are not many other healers to fill our gaps (so if we are not in a raid basically), our whole gameplay, 9 out of 10 times, revolves around spamming Shadow Mend, forgetting PW:S, Penance, Atonement healing, and whatever I am forgetting. I think it is extremely depthless. Even something like "your PW:S shields up to x% more based on your target missing hp" to make it better than SM under a certain threshold would help a great deal our single target healing for example. I like a lot to do PvP and no-raid contents too and I can't really see myself spamming Shadow Mend for a few years, it have already got old tbh.

[Krstl]

4) Light's Wrath. Yeah, it burstheals a lot in raids where 15 players can have atonement up, but its power is severely reduced in all the other aspects of the game, like dungeons (1/3) or arenas (1/5) for example. Said that, I was told the mana it needs to burst properly is enormous too, so it's not like it is the solution to all our issues.

If properly done, your mana shouldn't be too much of an issue. You just need to learn to rotate your cds and pay attention to what you're doing. Just because you are "told" something, does not mean it's entirely true or that those people have played the class long enough to know how to properly rotate their spells. If you end a boss fight with full mana, you're doing it wrong. Don't forget about rejuv potions, using your power infusion and using your mindbender. Learn the fights and when it's best to use those cds. Watch a video, check the timing of abilities. Research things for yourself, don't depend on someone else to do it for you. Learn how YOU play the fight, not how someone else plays it.

[Purpleisbetter]

Well, again: any healing spec in the game does things more easily and/or better than Disc (if you disagree, tell me which spec you think is more annoying and/or performs worse). If you can't call the last place terrible, then what? But the last place still finishes the race. Terrible doesn't equal impossible, or unusable.

You've your very personal and subjective definition of the term "terrible". Next time, just try to start your sentences with a "imho" or "i think" because that's your opinion.

the rant about the workload you need to pull as Disc is a problem WITH YOU. Not with me. I'm very fine with Disc requiring higher "mental bandwith" when it comes to instances; which, i personally, don't think it's true anyway since it's more about shadowmend spam and schism burst windows.

[Biomega]

You've your very personal and subjective definition of the term "terrible". Next time, just try to start your sentences with a "imho" or "i think" because that's your opinion.

You assume that people post on forums with objective truths? You thought that "terrible" is a term associated in any way with objective truths?

Okay then. I guess we're done.

[Kraide]

2) Against high AoE damage my "rotation", again, consists of spamming Shadow Mend on everyone. Even if, for whatever reason I PW:S everyone with Rupture to gain atonements before the damage comes, I can't heal them all by doing damage because the damage taken is just too high. In a sense, I can use Mindbender and Light's Wrath to burst heal a bit, but they have long CDs (and I don't think, tell me if I am wrong, that a single Mindbender alone can sustain huge amount of damages). I mean, what a discipline can do every 1 min at best, a druid can do it (better?) basically always (5 rejuvenations, Efflorescence + Wild Growth with a few enhancing talents).

Or plea to apply atonements before the damage comes, how you do it isn't important in this case (although the PW:S will help mitigate some).

But in response to the statement: ewww no! Shadowmend isn't your go-to for AoE damage by any stretch! If you are having trouble keeping up, why go through rotating slow Shadowmends?

There are two decent AoE rotations: my personal favorite, but better for light aoe damage, is the "radiance/dot" combo. Use Radiance to balance 6/9 atonements and dot up every enemy with PtW (SW:P if you took Grace, but if you are raiding I assume you probably took PtW because of course you would). More targets = a veritable stream of group heals.

If there are fewer enemy targets to choose from or heavier AoE burst damage, the damage will be in more predictable bursts. In this scenario, you'll want to pre-atone targets (either by rapture/shield or by just plea) and right when the damage hits you'll want to hit penance (castigation). That and a simple smite or two is going to take less time than casting shadowmend on 5+ targets and it's going to heal those 5+ targets for just as much in that shorter amount of time.

Shadowmend is a great spell, and a worthy staple to Discs toolkit and a fast and powerful single target spell with a drawback that really isn't as bad as it seems. But it's not so all powerful that it handles AoE better than discs other tools, because burst group healing is where Disc *shines* (it's no weakness by any stretch).

[Seneca]

There are two decent AoE rotations: my personal favorite, but better for light aoe damage, is the "radiance/dot" combo.

I was talking about high AoE damage (point 2).

If there are fewer enemy targets to choose from or heavier AoE burst damage, the damage will be in more predictable bursts.

And about unpredictable AoE damage (point 3).


I know that against low AoE damage and/or predictable AoE damage we do not spam Shadow Mend.

Said, that, against high AoE damage and/or unpredictable AoE damage we spam Shadow Mend. This is the issue I have, and in non-raid environments high or unpredictable AoE (single too ofc) damages are the norm basically (and it's not like they are absent in raids).

We can make the point that sometimes that kind of damage might be due to players' fault, but it seems that, as a dpriest, I have no way to "offset" that mistakes, while with a restro druid (for example) I can fix a few mistakes here and there.

Sometimes high/unpredictable AoE damage is not even due to human errors, for example in PvP, in large scale fights (10v10 bgs for example) damage is so high (against good players) that it doesn't even cross my mind to plea everyone and spam smite (or just spam smite if everyone is already atoned).



I want to point out that I'm not necessarily talking about performances (numbers) but about gameplay. Having to spam Shadow Mend basically always unless the damage is low and/or predictable* (so 9 out of 10 times if you are not in a raid) seems so boring.

*(and even if it is predictable, if it is high too we can only deal with it every 1-2 mins with CDs)


To summarize the "rotations", (anyone feel free to let me know if I got it wrong):

Constant, low damage (doesn't matter if predictable or no):
single target rotation = whatever I want.
AoE rotation = whatever I want.

Constant, medium+ damage:
single target rotation against unpredictable damage: Shadow Mend spam.
single target rotation against predictable damage: Shadow Mend spam.
AoE rotation against unpredictable damage: Shadow Mend spam.
AoE rotation against predictable damage: CDs if they are available otherwise Shadow Mend spam.

[Noradin]

I was talking about high AoE damage (point 2).
And about unpredictable AoE damage (point 3).

Yes, yes, you did a whole much of thinking to figure out the optimal prerequisites to make the disc tooltip look bad. Great work!
How about we talk about the probale situations first and tackle the improbable ones later when they arise?
You make it sound like every boss encounter features high, unpredictable AoE damage as a main aspect of the fight with disc being the only healing spec available.

[Franarok]

I remember on the start of the beta (or maybe ends of alfa? cant remember) a blue saying that they dont want hard to play healer classes....but that Disc will be a exception "because priests have holy".

And could be a lie or not, but the evidence is that now there are healers that heals way better, more and WAAAY easier than disc. And Disc must learn the boss like the palm of their hands while the others no, just need to heals.

No mention the unpredictable damage, is a hell for disc if the guy dont have the buff or if you dont have penance. and option is shadow mend, but the mana will scream a bit xD. And to give large groups the buff, radiance is very expensive for only heal 3

[Aydinx2]

It's actually the complete opposite of what you seem to be expecting. Disc is TERRIBLE in dungeons because its throughput it so low, particularly when it comes to burst. However, in raids it can provide a steady stream of healing to a lot of people

I've heard the exact opposite from many raiders. That disc puts out very good AoE burst healing (because of artifact talent) but bad sustained AoE because you can't keep up atonement on enough people the whole fight without running out of mana.

- - - Updated - - -

Said, that, against high AoE damage and/or unpredictable AoE damage we spam Shadow Mend. This is the issue I have, and in non-raid environments high or unpredictable AoE (single too ofc) damages are the norm basically (and it's not like they are absent in raids).

What raids have you been playing?
Zakuun: Predictable burst
Xhul'Horac: Predictable burst
Gorefiend: Predictable burst
Tyrant: Predictable burst
Mannoroth: Predictable burst
Fel Reaver: Predictable burst
Hellfire council: Predictable burst
Kilrogg: Predictable burst
Archimonde: Predictable burst

All these boss' have phases or abilities that are extremely easy to predict, and make it easy to predict who is taking the damage.
If your solution is to spam shadow mend, you're a bad player, period.
You should apply atonement, then way for the dmg and follow up with your artifact ability or penance. Problem solved.

[Seneca]

Yes, yes, you did a whole much of thinking to figure out the optimal prerequisites to make the disc tooltip look bad. Great work!

Why are you irritated? And what about avoiding the ad hominem attacks and contributing to the discussion? (if you want to contribute to begin with).

How about we talk about the probale situations first and tackle the improbable ones later when they arise?

By all means talk about what you want, create new topics, do whatever pleases you.

You make it sound like every boss encounter features high, unpredictable AoE damage as a main aspect of the fight

Maybe the need to write me a few accusations and rethoric questions as soon as possible made you miss a few words of my post(s)?

I am not talking only about boss encounters and even if that was the case (which was not):

1) I am not talking about numbers, I am talking about gameplay mostly (if it was not clear yet).
2) The fact that an hypothetical spec can't deal with lots of situations (or deal with them in a clunky way), even if at the present time those situations are non existent does not mean that they don't imply an issue to begin with.
e.g. it is an issue that arcane mages need to go in melee to do AoE damage (for several reasons which I won't list), no matter if that situations are rare or not present yet (and it is even quite far from reality anyway).

with disc being the only healing spec available.

What you mean?
That a disci can switch Holy at worst? (artifacts make it quite hard)
Or that there are other healers to offset its weaknesses/clunkiness? (and what about dungeons or arenas, for example?).

What raids have you been playing?
Zakuun: Predictable burst
Xhul'Horac: Predictable burst
Gorefiend: Predictable burst
Tyrant: Predictable burst
Mannoroth: Predictable burst
Fel Reaver: Predictable burst
Hellfire council: Predictable burst
Kilrogg: Predictable burst
Archimonde: Predictable burst

All these boss' have phases or abilities that are extremely easy to predict, and make it easy to predict who is taking the damage.
If your solution is to spam shadow mend, you're a bad player, period.
You should apply atonement, then way for the dmg and follow up with your artifact ability or penance. Problem solved.

You are aware that what you wrote here is your answer to this (look down) right? (re-quoting the part you quoted to answer me):

Said, that, against high AoE damage and/or unpredictable AoE damage we spam Shadow Mend. This is the issue I have, and in non-raid environments high or unpredictable AoE (single too ofc) damages are the norm basically (and it's not like they are absent in raids).

So to answer the part where I talk about the fact that high AoE damage and/or unpredictable AoE damage is the norm in non-raid environments, you list a few raid encounters?

(in before "but you wrote: and it's not like they are absent in raids", the fact that, hypothetically (let's pretend) all the fights in the last decade (to be generous and to decontextualize the argument) had predictable burst doesn't mean that it won't be a thing in Legion or in the future anyway... and, we are not even considering human errors... and, that was not even the main point but just a secondary hypothetical consideration as the parenthesis had to imply).

By all means guys if you think Discipline is both good, performance wise, and fun, gameplay wise (the latter is the issue I have as of now), I can't be any happier, but please stop this passive-aggressive attitude (which, btw, what should even achieve, supposedly? bah).

It's not like I am here to change people's mind or to change a spec. Have fun with discipline in Legion

[Deleted]

I purposely leveled a disc on beta for testing mythic dungeons performance. With the same gear (relics and artifact were slighty better on disc) and exact same group i was able to do like 2 levels higher as holy than as disc. it saddens me since dungeon content is very important to me, and im not willing to do lower level mythic + dungeons because of my specc. disc is very much fine in raids, but for me, the performance of disc in challenging 5 man content was a dealbreaker. not rolling priest now.

edit: i only played disc and practiced very hard. holy just flows out because its obvious how it works. just my testing

[Noradin]

So to answer the part where I talk about the fact that high AoE damage and/or unpredictable AoE damage is the norm in non-raid environments, you list a few raid encounters?

Maybe you should have said so in your first post in a thread explictly on disc in raid enviroment. Then we would have known to ignore your post for being off-topic. Or you could have told us when you noticed that we assumed you were trying to be on topic and everyone continued to speak about raids (or explictly mentioning whenever they were not).

And yes, Shadow Mend being our obvious recovery tool if we ever miss our preperation time and being a rather clunky one is true (I have pointed that out before). I would like to have an alternative on a long cooldown to take care of that, but right now we have to just let the others in the healer team handle it, it happens to all healers sometimes.