How do you feel about Disc

[Lyrrim]

It's not because the shields were too strong, or too fast to apply. Shields prevented other healers from getting to heal.

Yeah, pretty much this. As a long time healer main, I never worried too much about trying to beat Disc HPS (or HPS in general, really), but lots of raid leads simply didn't have enough understanding of shields to get what was going on, and would pick even terrible Disc priests over other, better healers because "recount." Having said that, I do miss having the utility of the old Disc shields on progression fights.

[Melusine]

You don't seem to understand why Disc was overhauled. It's not because the shields were too strong, or too fast to apply. Shields prevented other healers from getting to heal. Of course YOU liked it - it was like entering a foot race with a car. It made the experience for everyone else miserable. So they resolved to remove almost all shields (not just from Disc, from pallies too), and that required a complete overhaul of the spec. The other things that defined the Disc playstyle besides shields were proactive healing and healing-through-damage. Thus they attempted to make a completely new Disc out of those ideas. The current iteration is what they came up with. Is it perfect? Certainly not - I have been completely up-front about that. But it could NOT have stayed what it was, not even a little.

And it's getting really frustrating when you say things like Disc isn't viable for raiding, when plenty of us have shown it is, and we don't feel useless. Maybe YOU do, but you are not the spec.

I don't play disc. I went Holy and shadow with my priests, not even bothering with the disc artifact for anything other than to have it. I won't bother with it, either.

[phyx]

These forums are not a good place to discuss how bad disc is. My impression from Beta were spot on. You have a couple of players that can pull off the spec, while calling everyone else bad. You always had people pulling off shit spec, but doesn't mean they are not shit. But for some reason, for these people, the same logic doesn't apply to disc.

It's a bit weird to be honest. The fact is that Disc priest numbers dropped into oblivion, and that's all you need to know. People are not drawn to the spec. The atonement mechanic is definitely broken. I really hope they decide to tune it a bit better in the next expansion. How this affected me PERSONALLY - I've leveled 7 discs priests over the years. Even raided with multiple in the same tier, but this is the first time I really don't feel like raiding with it anymore. (Before Sups & Co starts calling me bad, I did reasonably well).

[Valkaneer]

Have you found that Disc also provides DPS? I'm not sure why this train of thought continues to confuse people: disc brings comparable (even if sometimes lower depending on encounter) healing as other healers, as well as a not-so-insignificant amount of DPS.

If you don't want to put the extra effort in, don't. Holy is a completely viable alternative and a lot easier to pick up.

I'm not sure why you keep trying to hammer peoople who keep saying, Disc is not easy to heal. Both Sups and Aspa said that Disc is the most difficult spec of any healer to play. Perhaps you think it's easy, but for the other 99.999% of the Wow population it's not. Seems like you're almost taking any critisim of disc personally. Might want to lay of the vitriol. Just go check out Sups rants on Disc in his recent interview on Finalboss. He is not happy with where Disc is now.

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These forums are not a good place to discuss how bad disc is. My impression from Beta were spot on. You have a couple of players that can pull off the spec, while calling everyone else bad. You always had people pulling off shit spec, but doesn't mean they are not shit. But for some reason, for these people, the same logic doesn't apply to disc.

It's a bit weird to be honest. The fact is that Disc priest numbers dropped into oblivion, and that's all you need to know. People are not drawn to the spec. The atonement mechanic is definitely broken. I really hope they decide to tune it a bit better in the next expansion. How this affected me PERSONALLY - I've leveled 7 discs priests over the years. Even raided with multiple in the same tier, but this is the first time I really don't feel like raiding with it anymore. (Before Sups & Co starts calling me bad, I did reasonably well).

True what they don't seem to be getting is that when ppl say disc is trash they don't mean the spec can't pull good numbers, what they are talking about is design. Remember when Sub was the highest dps spec but it was so hard to pull off that only top 500 guild type rogues could pull it off? Also another good example is I think it was MoP Enhanc Shaman, according to SimC it was the top dps, but it was so hard to do that it was near bottom of the logs for most players (exluding the top .0001%). So yes disc is capable of fantastic HPS, but does that mean most people can play it and be viable for them? Not sure, but I have been working on it myself, I have yet to try it in a raid though as I have only been messing around with it for a week or two. I know it can be done though and so the goal is to get myself to be proficent with the spec.

[Memento1]

These forums are not a good place to discuss how bad disc is.

You're a walking, talking example of why these forums are a bad place to seriously discuss anything at all. You have called the spec "shit", "dropped into oblivion", and "broken". You hope to be the reasonable one when you use nothing but hyperbole? You offer not one reasoned argument for why Disc is any of those things. You claim that the top elites are dismissive of the views of those who disagree with them, while doing the same thing back. You point to your own experience as evidence for why Disc is bad, they point to their experience as evidence it is good. One side will point to Disc's rankings on normal logs as evidence it is bad; the other will point to Disc's rankings in mythic logs as evidence it is good. Why not have a reasoned discussion of why it does bad in normals and good in mythics? I would gladly have that discussion, but people like you are why that discussion will never happen here - it just devolves into hyperbole and anger.

[Supliftz]

I'll tell you why I think disc is bad in normals.

Firstly, all the good disc players don't play in normals. This should be obvious though. Disc only performs well in the hands of a good player, and when all the good players aren't raiding normals, disc is on average going to do worse. This should be the main point to consider when you talk about performance of disc in a non-mythic setting.

Secondly, the raid damage is general non-existent or very low, and the random spot healing requirements are typically the only lethal damage. For example, Tichondrius on normal, there are zero brands of argus on normal, which means the only raid damage is carrion swarm. So basically the only thing that can kill you is if those targets with carrion swarm randomly don't stand behind a pillar, and start taking lethal damage. 7.1.5 Disc couldn't really reactively heal more than just casting a shadow mend on them once and atonement healing from that point, which is no where near the power level of a reactive holy shock. Now this is changing with the existence of aegis of wrath and the PW:S bracers. You can now just spec grace for normal tich, and reactively PW:S someone for 1500%+ SP.

Thirdly; people seem to be judging performance off the top 10 logs of each boss, rather than actually digging deeper into the real reasons why they're parsing so well. Basically every top parse in normals is basically solo healing a 25+ man raid, and killing the boss in 2-4 minutes. This doesn't really mean disc is bad per say, it is just no good disc priest is actively solo healing the content with a lot of people.

Somewhat related to this point is how people like to judge disc performance in heroics during week 1 of heroic release. I mean not only is the disc player new to the bosses, and is going to take a bit of time to learn the mechanics, but the other 5 healers' raid cooldowns and smart heals are all stronger due to the 10 additional targets. Disc as a spec is balanced around 20 man content, because that's where you can get the most efficient atonement blanket. Adding more targets does nothing for disc output, and arguably makes it worse because you are more of a victim to the random damage pattern and how PW:R picks its targets. Other healers can just spam their smart heals for the lowish raid damage, and be carried because they got to heal the damage first. All the large bursts of damage can also just be covered by overpowered raid cooldowns on 30 people, and since disc doesn't have a raid cooldown that shows on the hps meters, and atonement doesn't scale well into 30 people, disc output also suffers.

Personally anecdote here, my co-healers feel the same way about this. It's hard to really do good in a 30 man with the random low raid damage pattern, and it a lot of it comes down to smart heals and overpowered raid cds carrying you. We also sorta agreed that Velen's Future Sight is a workaround this problem, but you shouldn't need a legendary to fix a problem with how heroic raids work.

Lastly, Disc is just a hard spec to play. People like to meme about how pressing PW:R multiple times in a row is easy (I mean yeah it is obviously), but it's really more than just that. You have to grasp the concept that you should not be casting all the time on the disc priest. You must keep to grips with the idea that it is the correct play to have empty gcds between dealing with scripted burst damage. You have to either do the boss or read a guide ahead of time to understand where it is best to cast a bunch of Power Word: Radiances in a row, otherwise you're going to be behind. You need to understand which mechanic you want to spend a lot of mana on, and what other mechanics you don't need to invest any mana into. You basically need an addon (Bigwigs) to play disc at a competitive level. You also basically need mouseover macros for disc. There's other advanced things such as multi-dotting and proper management of atonements on the correct targets. All of this is combined with trying not to die on a spec with low mobility and basically zero difference cds. For a new player to disc, a lot of this stuff is a lot to ask for, which is confusing to me why people like to suggest disc is easy to play.

Generally this last point is perfectly fine in the context of disc priest, since you can always just play holy if you can't deal with the complexity of disc. That said, disc should probably have better tools in the talent tree to adapt to some situations, and allow for easier transitioning to disc, but it should remain an overall hard spec to play.

[Deleted]

I pretty much agree with everything above, with one note:

I'll tell you why I think disc is bad in normals.
Firstly, all the good disc players don't play in normals. This should be obvious though. Disc only performs well in the hands of a good player, and when all the good players aren't raiding normals, disc is on average going to do worse. This should be the main point to consider when you talk about performance of disc in a non-mythic setting.

I think this is a strong stop into the spec attracting more people. You basically have to just believe things might someday get better (and also convince your raidleader of it), and many just drop before this point.
I would lie if I said I didn't have moments of great satisfaction of disc this expansion. I'm not raiding anymore, but healing Cenarius as disc made the potential of the spec quite obvious. Still, until I actually got to know a boss well enough to start competing, the general feeling of frustration was so high, it really created a love&hate relationship.
Overall, I think the spec potential is too strong for its own good.

[Popokolara]

I'm not sure why you keep trying to hammer peoople who keep saying, Disc is not easy to heal. Both Sups and Aspa said that Disc is the most difficult spec of any healer to play. Perhaps you think it's easy, but for the other 99.999% of the Wow population it's not. Seems like you're almost taking any critisim of disc personally. Might want to lay of the vitriol. Just go check out Sups rants on Disc in his recent interview on Finalboss. He is not happy with where Disc is now.

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Quoting from mend

" meaning it's not that the spec is bad, it's that it requires a lot of practice, skill, and effort to master. It's an unforgiving spec and if you're prone to making mistakes your numbers are going to be terrible."

HOW THE FUCK IS HE BASHING PEOPLE WHO SAY ITS HARD?
Please explain to me what the hell is going through yours, and everyone elses mind, who feel this pathological obsession to shit on the spec SOLELY with hyperboles and comparisson to different expansions.

[MendUS]

These forums are not a good place to discuss how bad disc is. My impression from Beta were spot on. You have a couple of players that can pull off the spec, while calling everyone else bad. You always had people pulling off shit spec, but doesn't mean they are not shit. But for some reason, for these people, the same logic doesn't apply to disc.

It's a bit weird to be honest. The fact is that Disc priest numbers dropped into oblivion, and that's all you need to know. People are not drawn to the spec. The atonement mechanic is definitely broken. I really hope they decide to tune it a bit better in the next expansion. How this affected me PERSONALLY - I've leveled 7 discs priests over the years. Even raided with multiple in the same tier, but this is the first time I really don't feel like raiding with it anymore. (Before Sups & Co starts calling me bad, I did reasonably well).

Disc dropped to oblivion yes you're right: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/11#metric=hps

Sometimes I wonder if people really care to look at data or if they just decide things based on feelings.

[Deleted]

Disc dropped to oblivion yes you're right: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/11#metric=hps

Sometimes I wonder if people really care to look at data or if they just decide things based on feelings.

He said "disc priest numbers", I personally understood as in how many play the spec (suggested by the fact he continued with "people are not drawn to the spec"), which is a quarter of the next least played spec (mistweaver), and 12 times less than the top represented healer (resto druid). That is a lot less than EN participation, which means even people that did try to learn it, gave up on it. Disc atm feels very black and white: you either get really good to make it work, or you quit. Remember how you used to say that mediocre disc priests are dragging the rankings down, and it makes the spec look bad? I have a hunch those people gave up, which is why disc quality logs increased.

[MendUS]

He said "disc priest numbers", I personally understood as in how many play the spec (suggested by the fact he continued with "people are not drawn to the spec"), which is a quarter of the next least played spec (mistweaver), and 12 times less than the top represented healer (resto druid). That is a lot less than EN participation, which means even people that did try to learn it, gave up on it. Disc atm feels very black and white: you either get really good to make it work, or you quit. Remember how you used to say that mediocre disc priests are dragging the rankings down, and it makes the spec look bad? I have a hunch those people gave up, which is why disc quality logs increased.

Well, to be fair, he is correct that Disc isn't represented as much as other healers and that is a problem. I've been open the fact that Disc needs an easier barrier to entry, however, he went on to say that the entire playstyle is not working, which is incorrect. Giving a blanket statement of "The atonement mechanic is definitely broken" is ridiculous.

Regardless if his point was "disc numbers" being number of players or actual performance, he is wrong. The reason people don't play Disc is because they gave up trying to learn it in its current form, not that the spec doesn't work. It takes time and effort to learn to competitively heal with other healers. For some reason people think "well why should I put in all this effort to do the same healing as other healers" and completely disregard the DPS we bring to a raid.

Anyhow, this is a dead horse that we've beaten to a pulp over the past several months and people still refuse to come to grips with Disc being a hard healing spec and that Holy is a suitable alternative. I hope in 7.2.5 there are some balance changes that make the barrier to entry a bit smoother for folks and brings new people into the fold for Disc.

[phyx]

You're a walking, talking example of why these forums are a bad place to seriously discuss anything at all. You have called the spec "shit", "dropped into oblivion", and "broken". You hope to be the reasonable one when you use nothing but hyperbole? You offer not one reasoned argument for why Disc is any of those things. You claim that the top elites are dismissive of the views of those who disagree with them, while doing the same thing back. You point to your own experience as evidence for why Disc is bad, they point to their experience as evidence it is good. One side will point to Disc's rankings on normal logs as evidence it is bad; the other will point to Disc's rankings in mythic logs as evidence it is good. Why not have a reasoned discussion of why it does bad in normals and good in mythics? I would gladly have that discussion, but people like you are why that discussion will never happen here - it just devolves into hyperbole and anger.

The irony of this post is so sweet, I won't have to eat sugar for a month. Where was I using a hyperbole? I was merely expressing my opinion of the spec (hence the capitalized PERSONALLY), and it just happens to be that my opinion is backed by evidence (to an extent, at least). I am not interested in discuss why and what specifically is broken with the spec. I think that pretty well know at this point. I was just pointing out how these forums reach to any criticism of the spec (again, my own PERSONAL impression).

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Disc dropped to oblivion yes you're right: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/11#metric=hps

Sometimes I wonder if people really care to look at data or if they just decide things based on feelings.

I was wrong. The irony of this post is even sweeter. Please look at the number of parses. Thank you. (Don't forget to look for 7.0-7.1.5, and not 7.2. The representation is even worse).
@MendUS

I'm ridiculous by claiming that the spec is broken? Disc was the most played healer last expansion. Now, it's by far the least played. What happened?

Your arguments are extremely weak. Specs are made for people to be played. If the spec isn't played, is that a success? Is it not a failure? Driving people away from the class and possibly, the game? Of course it takes time to learn to heal competitively with other healers, but the effort doesn't give a proportionate reward. Not even close.

And the DPS argument is hilarious. After 6 months of Legion, and 3 different raids, you still think people would bring us for our DPS component? Wow. Even on the hard DPS checks DISCs couldn't find a place, mainly because no one cares about our DPS. Only Discs themselves. And Blizzard when they try to justify the state of the spec.

And thanks for making my point. It always the same 5 people that run to defend the spec, while at the same time you literally have tens of thousands people leaving it behind. Luckily, numbers don't lie, and those hundreds (!) of Disc can keep having fun. I'm not going to even touch the fact that past 1st 3 mythic bosses, DISC representation is obnoxious.

[MendUS]

I'm ridiculous by claiming that the spec is broken? Disc was the most played healer last expansion. Now, it's by far the least played. What happened?

Spec went from being overpowered and easy to balanced and hard?

You ignored my entire post here:

Well, to be fair, he is correct that Disc isn't represented as much as other healers and that is a problem. I've been open the fact that Disc needs an easier barrier to entry, however, he went on to say that the entire playstyle is not working, which is incorrect. Giving a blanket statement of "The atonement mechanic is definitely broken" is ridiculous.

Regardless if his point was "disc numbers" being number of players or actual performance, he is wrong. The reason people don't play Disc is because they gave up trying to learn it in its current form, not that the spec doesn't work. It takes time and effort to learn to competitively heal with other healers. For some reason people think "well why should I put in all this effort to do the same healing as other healers" and completely disregard the DPS we bring to a raid.

Anyhow, this is a dead horse that we've beaten to a pulp over the past several months and people still refuse to come to grips with Disc being a hard healing spec and that Holy is a suitable alternative. I hope in 7.2.5 there are some balance changes that make the barrier to entry a bit smoother for folks and brings new people into the fold for Disc.

But then again, it fits your motives to just ignore me saying that there is an issue with the barrier of entry to the spec because you just want to troll.

[phyx]

Spec went from being overpowered and easy to balanced and hard?

You ignored my entire post here:



But then again, it fits your motives to just ignore me saying that there is an issue with the barrier of entry to the spec because you just want to troll.

Balanced? I'm not the best debater, but holy mother you like to ignore the facts.

I give you arguments, and numbers, and you draw your conclusion from a pool of 10 people, and I'm the troll? Nice.

Also, I addressed your every point in my post, but go ahead, keep on coming. This isn't really a challenge when all the numbers back up my claims. But, no, please, go ahead.

[Kuruption]

People are not drawn to the spec.

Well I main swapped from MW to Disc in December. And I haven't regretted it. And I had no ambition to play pre-Legion Disc.

[Deleted]

I love the Spec, it went from Boring getting sick of the spec during MoP/WoD to refreshing and having a blast in Legion.
I got 2 disc priest and i fucking love it.

Hope blizzard wont change the spec next expansion because it isn't represented as much as the other healers.
It only needs some tweaks on mana consumption because going oom on trash packs alot faster than others isnt that much fun.
Playing the Mana game in raids is not an issue for me and i actually like it.

[MendUS]

Balanced? I'm not the best debater, but holy mother you like to ignore the facts.

I give you arguments, and numbers, and you draw your conclusion from a pool of 10 people, and I'm the troll? Nice.

Also, I addressed your every point in my post, but go ahead, keep on coming. This isn't really a challenge when all the numbers back up my claims. But, no, please, go ahead.

You deserve a medal.

[Popokolara]

Balanced? I'm not the best debater, but holy mother you like to ignore the facts.

I give you arguments, and numbers, and you draw your conclusion from a pool of 10 people, and I'm the troll? Nice.

Also, I addressed your every point in my post, but go ahead, keep on coming. This isn't really a challenge when all the numbers back up my claims. But, no, please, go ahead.

Noone denied EVER that disc is "unpopular", in fact that has ever been the case, and so said by multiple "defenders" of the spec. Like 1 or 2 posts before the one you claimed this?

Viability of the spec, as in what it CAN do when properly played, is proved by those who play in the proper way. If your criteria of the spec's ability, is to trust the mass and their every random interaction and thought, people who will not even care to read all their tooltips, more than people who will spend hours to test and try and find ways to achieve the best result, well you have already realised thats a pretty dumb method by reaching this line of text.

If you want to judge the spec as a popularity context yea it sucks. Thank god its actually a gameplay choice - game being something that needs to offer CHOICES to the players, because, you know, its a GAME.

We all agree the time and effort requirement is a major hurdle that should be fixed, and that its the biggest problem the spec suffers from atm.

[MendUS]

Noone denied EVER that disc is "unpopular", in fact that has ever been the case, and so said by multiple "defenders" of the spec. Like 1 or 2 posts before the one you claimed this?

Viability of the spec, as in what it CAN do when properly played, is proved by those who play in the proper way. We all agree the time and effort requirement is a major hurdle that should be fixed, and that its the biggest problem the spec suffers from atm.

He thinks popularity and viability are somehow one in the same. Probably was the same guy who felt like he was inadequate when the popular kids refused to play with him on the playground.

[phyx]

He thinks popularity and viability are somehow one in the same. Probably was the same guy who felt like he was inadequate when the popular kids refused to play with him on the playground.

You do realize, that by that definition, there wasn't a single unplayable spec in the history of WoW, right?