DPS > Healing

[Gamdwelf]

In cata atonement was introduced that allowed some dps to go out to heal groups. Many time in 5 mans dpsing only could sufficiently keep up groups.

Now with the new talents relieved and with the point that holy can also use atonement and it will function with penance, how do you guys think the viability of an all damage to heals spec being viable in MoP.

[Deleted]

Tbh, I hope this won't be the case. It's fine if there's fights like Ultraxxion where u get to dps a bit more than other bosses. But if I wanted to dps I wouldn't choose a healing class/spec. I love disc priests because of their versitility and by making an all dmg to heals spec, you take away some of that versatility. I want healing combined with dpssing =)

[Ellumina]

Do you mean Disc? It doesn't appear that Atonement will be under the Holy tree, just Disc.

Discipline
Atonement: Now also works with Penance.
Spirit Shell: Shield absorbance increased to 9343, up from 5231.

I am an Atonement priest and I love to DPS during all my downtime. I'm not much of a fan of sitting around to regen mana, or building a bunch of DA stacks via PoH (unless it's before a boss pull).

Even with the change, I still think a Disc Priest can be half a DPS at best. Now, I'm not sure how much of a DPS increase the Penance addition could be, but IMO, if there's a Disc Priest there that's meant to just DPS, get another "real" DPS. I just don't see Disc being a competitive DPS spec.

[Gamdwelf]

Oh, they stated earlier in a blue post one time they wanted atonement to be a glyph, instead of a spec skill, so I assumed that it was going to be available to both holy and disc.

[Sanguinare]

if you could be top dps and top heals at the same time you would see a lot of people get the bench for a FtoM if you need to say hit the boss but because of some buff on you you do no dps but heal that could work but as it is you just need the dps to level/solo quest any thing more and you push other healers to the side lines.

[Gamdwelf]

I never said anything about top dps, just a spec where a vast majority of your healing came from doing dps.

[Ellumina]

Oh, they stated earlier in a blue post one time they wanted atonement to be a glyph, instead of a spec skill, so I assumed that it was going to be available to both holy and disc.

I could very well be wrong too! Just posting what I saw from the recent blue post ^^ Frankly I like how Atonement is unique to Disc. I don't think I'd like it as Holy.

[Crashdummy]

I dont know.

I have been a full time healer since TBC, i always loved healing. But if i'm not mistaken Blizzard i still sticking to the fixed (or almost fixed) mana pools for healers. I think that change is the limit i will take on Blizzard punching me in the face. That's the last punch i will tolerate.

If thats the case, and since i really like to play Cata, i will probably go DPS. I dont like it more than healing but at least my role wont be redone every expansion.

The fact that healers always get replaced by DPS after the initial kills on bosses are not helping either, but that's not entirely Blizzard's fault anyway.

[Gamdwelf]

I could very well be wrong too! Just posting what I saw from the recent blue post ^^ Frankly I like how Atonement is unique to Disc. I don't think I'd like it as Holy.

Yeah I saw that too, but originally it was not listed for either spec and both had evangelism, when somebody asked they said atonement was going to be a glyph.

Under the data mined stuff from beta, it is just listed as a priest skill next to smite and inner fire.

[zakaluka]

Penance has much higher DPCT than smite, and about the same as holy fire.

Thing you have to realize is that a penance cast has to replace a smite cast, and penance's DPCD (damage-per-cooldown) is much, much lower than smite. What this means is that while using penance and HF on cooldown will be a good idea for atonement, it's going to represent a very minor HPS gain for a 'smite-spam' priest (less than 10%).

Atonement still won't be a faceroll linear DPS-to-heal spec. As far as I gather, the monk heals won't be as game changing as people once thought, either. The idea of having a hybrid DPS spec that can manage competitive HPS numbers, well it just isn't a viable idea from a balance perspective. There'd be no reason to have anything BUT monks and disc priests healing your raid.

[Deleted]

Yeah, I'm a little worried on this to be honest. You simply can't make a healer have decent DPS and be competitive HPS or it makes all the other healers completely uncompetitive. It's a balancing nightmare.

From what I've seen of the priest changes I really think we've got to see something change with Disco.

[Noradin]

Also, if you choose to use penance on an enemy you will still get most of the healing it would have done on an ally, but no grace stacks. Someone who knows when to cast penance directly on an ally might do a bit less damage but a lot more healing.