Disc Priest. Shadow Covenant. Debate.

[Ahili]

I have been using Shadow Covenant exclusively for awhile now. So far I can say that if used correctly atonement healing isn't really necessary anymore. It honestly simplifies many things. It can allow a disc priest to be reactionary much easier than with atonement--i.e. adaptability is increased.

Look up Ahili-Eldre'Thalas in warcraft logs. I cannot have a link in here cause I am new. There will be some logs that include the use of Shadow Covenant for raiding.

Emerald Nightmare Normal and Heroic are really the only ones populated. These are all pug groups.

Feel free to analyze the data and consider it. Perhaps it will give some data to a much heated debate.

[Pearl1717]

It's shit. The logs are shit.

There is no debate. It's shit.

[Supliftz]

the talent sucks dick

[Yunzi]

What Blizzard could do is buff Shadow Covenant. There's nothing wrong with having a viable way to AoE heal reactionally, especially given that some fights are designed that greatly benefit that kind of healing (Il'gynoth, Helya).

Right now Shadow Covenant is way underpowered. Warcraft Logs registers the full healing that Shadow Covenant does, but doesn't penalize you for the healing shell it leaves behind - other healers (as well as your own subsequent heals) suffer from that. So it greatly overvalues the spell in raids - the more healers the worse the overvaluing.

If Blizzard is committed to having Shadow Covenant they should buff it. Either decide that reactionary healing is an option for Discipline, or remove it from the game.

[Imoral]

It's shit. The logs are shit.

There is no debate. It's shit.

If you looked at the logs you would see their HPS is very solid, but at the cost of DPS. So its clearly good for HPS, but if you are just pushing for HPS I think you'd be better served just switching to Holy.

[Yunzi]

If you looked at the logs you would see their HPS is very solid, but at the cost of DPS. So its clearly good for HPS, but if you are just pushing for HPS I think you'd be better served just switching to Holy.

It's not good for HPS - Warcraft Logs does not debit the healing shell from the Disc. That shell reduces the HPS of the rest of the healers (as well as the Disc's subsequent healing for those 6 seconds).

It's "good" for the Disc's HPS *meter*, because Shadow Covenant is a powerful spell if the healing shell is ignored.

This is one more reason to look at the entire reality of a fight, not be a slave to the meters.

Shadow Covenant is underpowered at it's current tuning.

[Zka]

There is no debate, the talent is crap.

[Pearl1717]

If you looked at the logs you would see their HPS is very solid, but at the cost of DPS. So its clearly good for HPS, but if you are just pushing for HPS I think you'd be better served just switching to Holy.

If you looked at the logs you would know you subtract ~40% of the healing done by Scov. So lets say drop all his hps by 35%. Yup. Like I said. Shit logs are shit.

[lcs]

If you looked at the logs you would know you subtract ~40% of the healing done by Scov. So lets say drop all his hps by 35%. Yup. Like I said. Shit logs are shit.

For the record, the logs.

Overall Healing



Healing absorbed by Shadow Covenant



So 18.71 million healing was absorbed when compared against 59.59 million total healing from SC. This means each SC is actually 31.3% less effective than it presents itself to be in the logs.

If you remove the 18.71 million healing from the overall total of the Disc priest, you get 110.03M adjusted healing. This is equivalent to 280,866 HPS, or only ~88% of the reported healing.

[pseudoJ]

If you looked at the logs you would see their HPS is very solid, but at the cost of DPS. So its clearly good for HPS, but if you are just pushing for HPS I think you'd be better served just switching to Holy.

Nobody is denying that the numbers *look* good...on meters. If you want to pad meters.

On more reasonable note -- if the numbers were actually great, even than I would consider that spell to be terrible from a gameplay perspective. What confuses me is that Blizzard admitted that the whole absorb style of healing was not a good design as it pretty much makes other healers less useful (or feel less useful). And then in contrary to that opinion they introduce the same mechanic except this time not only does it prevent the other healers from healing, it also doesn't mitigate the incoming damage. As as healer not being able to heal is a bit frustrating for me -- one could almost look at SC as kind of a mini necrotic

[PosPosPos]

You know that your argument is flimsy when you have to create multiple accounts just to post assenting opinions to your own thread. And that you have to post your thread on a sockpuppet instead of your main.

[Jimjam38]

one could almost look at SC as kind of a mini necrotic

It IS a necrotic. No "almost" about it.
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...deaths&death=3
Look at the DK tanks death in that log. In the 13 seconds leading up to it, Shadow Convernent absorbed ~1.6 million healing on the tank alone, and only healed for 3.1 million. (Note that this is also a lot more than you can find in the tables and summaries - they don't accurately show how much healing is actually absorbed)

Ahili only did 1.5 mil effective healing (3.1-1.6=1.5) on him, and basically caused him to die, because after every SC cast, his health drops lower than before you cast it, since the DKcontinues to take damage, while the healing on him just gets absorbed. If you'd use actual heals instead, then he would have been healed for your healing, plus the other healers 1.6 mil that you absorbed, and the DK would have had higher hp before taking each melee hit, so he probably wouldn't have died. Lets say instead of SC, you had used Shadow Mend. With your stats (35919 int, 3534 crit, 11979 haste, 555 vers, 2459 mastery), and with vampiric blood up during this time, one shadowmend would have done 435k (870 on a crit) healing and applied atonement, which would have done an average of 126k over the 13 seconds from SWP ticks. You cast 4 Shadow Covernenets, so lets say you instead cast 4 Shadow Mends, you'd have done ~2mil healing (averaging for crit chance), and not absorbed the 1.6 mil from other healers. Tank definitely wouldn't have died.

Lets look at the total AoE healing you did during that period too. You cast 8 SC, 3 Penance, 1 shadowmend and 2 PWS during that 13 seconds, for a total of 17mil healing 14.8 of which was from SC. For now, lets ignore how much healing you absorbed from that. But it was at most 7.4mil, and probably around 5mil at least.

Lets say instead, you took PtW and used PWR instead of SC. You'd have done 1.3 mil from casting 4 PWR and applied 12 atonements, add in 2 PWS and now you have 14/14 people covered with Atonement. Ticking from PtW would have done 1.6 mil, a penance would have done another 2.7 mil. Each smite you add would do 850k. A Light's Wrath would heal for 4.7 mil, or 9.4 mil on a crit.
So, lets say you only cast the 2 PWS, 4 PWR, then LW (Non-crit), Penance, Smite, Smite, you'd have done 10.7 mil Atonement healing and another 1.82 mil from Non-atonement healing. So a total of 12.5 mil, just in that 13 seconds, with ZERO necrotic absorb.
Of course, that's not the most effective atonement healing you could have done, and your PtW will actually last longer than 13 seconds, could have multidotted on tentacles, you'd get more than 1 Penance in, could have used shadowfiend, etc etc. And I'm not counting ToF either, which you did proc during those 13 seconds. You had it up for the last 5.2 seconds of that 13 sec window - this would mean it would have procced from your PtW ticks, and been up for light's wrath, penance and smites. That'd increase the atonement healing from those from 9.1 mil up to 10.9, so the total atonement healing would become 12.6, and the total healing would have been 14.4 mil.

Shadow Covernant is just a dumb ability, there's no debate to be had. If you want to heal reactively play a holy priest ffs.

[Yunzi]

Shadow Covernant is just a dumb ability, there's no debate to be had. If you want to heal reactively play a holy priest ffs.

We very well know there's entire encounters and certain phases during other encounters not well suited to preparatory healing. Also, the healing shell only lasts for 6 seconds - if the player receives no further healing during those 6 seconds the healing shell isn't a downside. At that point Shadow Covenant becomes extremely powerful.

So consider the standard use of Shadow Covenant, which noone currently implements because of how suppressed the talent has been in the community. A fight with random damage where we want to react to it, but we can't except through Shadow Mend spamming. Most of Il'gynoth, most of Helya, and parts of many other fights.

Random damage is precisely the kind of damage that's unlikely to be repeated to the same player over the next 6 seconds. Il'gynoth's eye beam, for example.

[AyuZ]

We very well know there's entire encounters and certain phases during other encounters not well suited to preparatory healing. Also, the healing shell only lasts for 6 seconds - if the player receives no further healing during those 6 seconds the healing shell isn't a downside. At that point Shadow Covenant becomes extremely powerful.

So consider the standard use of Shadow Covenant, which noone currently implements because of how suppressed the talent has been in the community. A fight with random damage where we want to react to it, but we can't except through Shadow Mend spamming. Most of Il'gynoth, most of Helya, and parts of many other fights.

Random damage is precisely the kind of damage that's unlikely to be repeated to the same player over the next 6 seconds. Il'gynoth's eye beam, for example.

that instance of it working seems so far and few between it just emphasizes the absurd amount of shit in the talent. its got zero flavor.

[Deleted]

We very well know there's entire encounters and certain phases during other encounters not well suited to preparatory healing. Also, the healing shell only lasts for 6 seconds - if the player receives no further healing during those 6 seconds the healing shell isn't a downside. At that point Shadow Covenant becomes extremely powerful.

So consider the standard use of Shadow Covenant, which noone currently implements because of how suppressed the talent has been in the community. A fight with random damage where we want to react to it, but we can't except through Shadow Mend spamming. Most of Il'gynoth, most of Helya, and parts of many other fights.

Random damage is precisely the kind of damage that's unlikely to be repeated to the same player over the next 6 seconds. Il'gynoth's eye beam, for example.

While a person may be able to find a situation to use SC its simply not a multi healer friendly ability, put your self in the shoes of any other healer having to deal one of your team blanket debuffing the raid.

[pseudoJ]

While a person may be able to find a situation to use SC its simply not a multi healer friendly ability, put your self in the shoes of any other healer having to deal one of your team blanket debuffing the raid.

Actually I am definitively going to screw with our resto druid the next time . For all the titanforged/legendary luck he has.

[Yunzi]

While a person may be able to find a situation to use SC its simply not a multi healer friendly ability, put your self in the shoes of any other healer having to deal one of your team blanket debuffing the raid.

True, but the response to Shadow Covenant in the community has largely been "it's bad (underpowered), don't use it" not "it's negatively social, don't use it".

The logical followup for us if we believe that Shadow Covenant should never be used regardless of it's tuning is to request that Blizzard remove it from the game. That's a valuable talent slot that could be taken up by something else.

Right now despite it's flaws Shadow Covenant is the only multi-player reactionary heal we have. Although one solution would simply be to remove the healing shell and reduce the amount of healing SC does to compensate, that turns it into nearly a copy of Prayer of Healing, the only differences being the position within the toolkit (talent opposed to base) and the maximum range from the targeted player (30 yards versus 20).

[PeopleReady]

True, but the response to Shadow Covenant in the community has largely been "it's bad (underpowered), don't use it" not "it's negatively social, don't use it".

The logical followup for us if we believe that Shadow Covenant should never be used regardless of it's tuning is to request that Blizzard remove it from the game. That's a valuable talent slot that could be taken up by something else.

Right now despite it's flaws Shadow Covenant is the only multi-player reactionary heal we have. Although one solution would simply be to remove the healing shell and reduce the amount of healing SC does to compensate, that turns it into nearly a copy of Prayer of Healing, the only differences being the position within the toolkit (talent opposed to base) and the maximum range from the targeted player (30 yards versus 20).

And still no one would take it, because no one takes Circle of Healing from Holy for the same reason. It's bad overall, and specifically less effective than either of the other two available choices.

[Memento1]

Last expac taught me definitively that showing high on the meters means nothing if it's a wipe. Saw so many idiot Discs who blanketed the raid in shields while the tanks died. Their numbers looked great, but the raid would have been better served by them CoWing the tank for 2 seconds.

I'm open to the argument Shadow Covenant may be the better tool in certain situations, but the argument that it looks good on meters means nothing to me.

[Pearl1717]

Last expac taught me definitively that showing high on the meters means nothing if it's a wipe. Saw so many idiot Discs who blanketed the raid in shields while the tanks died. Their numbers looked great, but the raid would have been better served by them CoWing the tank for 2 seconds.

Disc priests took CoW (besides early xhul/tyrant)? News to me. Man, this mythical class that was stupidly OP called holy paladins must not have existed in wod.