whats so wrong with shadow covenant?

[Vampiregenesis]

this talent looks massively better to me than either grace or purge the wicked , isnt basically a prayer of healing for disc?

[ryklin]

I think it can actually be decent on like il'gyna for trying to get people high fast because, but other than that, unless crit levels start getting really obscene, and the mana cost is pretty high on it too, but I think there are some situations where it'll be worthwhile before the xpac ends

another big thing is it removes radiance (the biggest reason imo), and at that point it can get so hard to get atonements out that you have to ask why you're not just playing holy, I do really feel like it could be great in some places and if anyone's given the talent a lot of time, please do share, I might try it out on my priest on nyth some time at the very least


also, it greatly lacks mana efficiency and tolls out on other healers, but purge the wicked is a huge mana efficiency and healing/damage gain on fights with adds (most of them), but I do also feel there could be some niche situations where the raid is going to get hit for most their hp in 2 big hits or something (nef where you need people topped off for something big while theres incoming damage and fights with big hits where you want people topped off faster than you want mana efficiency so they aren't liable to die), I can't recommend it on ursoc for the same reason though because I feel like the atonement healing over time in the time period between charge to roar 2 is just going to be stronger

or if the burst damage durations are short or on/off enough that it's not a big deal to lose more sustained healing (i.e. garrosh or tectus), where it becomes more mana efficient than atonement due to atonement being balanced around a high duration), so basically fights where you don't want the hot-like nature of atonement (basically fights where you wouldn't want a mop mistweaver or disc as it currently plays)

maybe what I'd like to see is just make so there's like a 5s delay before the absorption comes in maybe so it can be stronger when a boss is popping a big high damage nuke

I feel like this talent is one that would fit more into a healing model where single spells deal more % of a person's hp or if there were a way to be sure of the targets, but as it is now I just feel like there's too much wrong with the talent that can't just be done by others (I do feel like it'll probably show up in log ranks down the line though)

but I still think it's worth a chance and who knows, maybe someone will put together a full crit vers set and find out it's broken or some shit, but for now I feel like it goes against disc's intended playstyle, so it would need to basically overpower the rest of the disc toolkit

[Al Gorefiend]

Biggest problem - it doesn't spread atonement and leaves a debuff behind. If it spread atonement it would be on par with the others and have its mana cost justified. But it doesn't, so it's a trap talent that only nerfs whoever takes it.

[barrsftw]

I love it. Less mana, shorter cast, more healing than its counterpart. In raids maybe not as I generally just concede aoe healing to the other healers. But in mythics it's worked very well for me.

[Xar226]

No Atonement and replaces Radiance. You're actively taking away from the one thing Disc has going for it: Its damage potential.

Look, I certainly get that doing some regular old healing as Disc is inevitable; you're going to have to hit Shadow Mend sometimes whether you like it or not. However, you should also be looking at it as every second spent doing that is making you less and less valuable to your group or raid. In other words, it needs to be minimized. Taking a talent that not only does not play to the strengths of your spec but actively makes playing to the strengths of your spec harder is not likely to be a good choice.

[barrsftw]

No Atonement and replaces Radiance. You're actively taking away from the one thing Disc has going for it: Its damage potential.

Look, I certainly get that doing some regular old healing as Disc is inevitable; you're going to have to hit Shadow Mend sometimes whether you like it or not. However, you should also be looking at it as every second spent doing that is making you less and less valuable to your group or raid. In other words, it needs to be minimized. Taking a talent that not only does not play to the strengths of your spec but actively makes playing to the strengths of your spec harder is not likely to be a good choice.

I feel like you almost just proved the point for why you should take Shadow Covenant. You can AOE heal your group much faster, allowing more time for damage. SC heals 5 players, rather than radiance's 3. You can PWS / Plea x3 almost as fast as casting Radiance one time in order to spread atonement. I'm not saying taking SC is for sure better than the alternatives but people are definitely overlooking it.

[Yoyozou]

You can PWS / Plea x3 almost as fast as casting Radiance one time in order to spread atonement.

This doesn't hold up at all in raids because you're going to need a non-rapture method of applying atonement to people after your first 6, and plea is way too expensive to use at that point. You say you just concede AoE healing to the other healers which is just baffling to me. Disc is designed to have massive burst healing on a ton of targets after big boss hits, so it you're not regularly using Radiance then you're doing something very wrong. In dungeons you won't need Radiance I guess, but at the same time you'd be passing up Grace which is borderline necessary in the higher mythic+s. If you're talking about standard mythics and below, then you can pick whatever you want because it doesn't really matter.

Shadow covenant is a complete trap talent and completely goes against disc's strengths. Disc's kit doesn't synergize at all with having a bad version of Prayer of Healing, and when it actively takes away Radiance which is one of their most important spells, that just seals its fate as a completely useless non-choice.

[Totaltotemic]

You can PWS / Plea x3 almost as fast as casting Radiance one time in order to spread atonement.

Today I learned 6 seconds is "almost as fast" as 2.5 seconds.

[Deleted]

Today I learned 6 seconds is "almost as fast" as 2.5 seconds.

He did say 3 casts so that would be 4,5 seconds, which still isn't almost as fast but yeah.

[Totaltotemic]

He did say 3 casts so that would be 4,5 seconds, which still isn't almost as fast but yeah.

Oh right, not PWS and 3 Pleas but 3 of any combination. Doesn't really change the fact that it's a ridiculous thing to think that 80% longer is "almost as fast."

[barrsftw]

This doesn't hold up at all in raids because you're going to need a non-rapture method of applying atonement to people after your first 6, and plea is way too expensive to use at that point. You say you just concede AoE healing to the other healers which is just baffling to me. Disc is designed to have massive burst healing on a ton of targets after big boss hits, so it you're not regularly using Radiance then you're doing something very wrong. In dungeons you won't need Radiance I guess, but at the same time you'd be passing up Grace which is borderline necessary in the higher mythic+s. If you're talking about standard mythics and below, then you can pick whatever you want because it doesn't really matter.

Maybe it's just a difference in play styles or maybe I'm just bad. In raids, I generally pull over 200k healing (which is about on par with the other healers in my raid) while doing 110-140k dps without ever casting radiance (nor SC).