Disc 5.2 Nerf Discussion

[Havoc12]

Whats going to happen here is the good disc priest will continue doing well while the bad ones that rode the fotm thing will fail to do well.

Mate you are deluding yourself, what is going to happen is the good disc priest will be at the bottom half the meters and the bad disc priests will be at the bottom of the meters with 30-40% less healing done than the 2nd to last healer.

No disc will do well unless its a fight that favours atonement, or extremely spikey fights, where your now very limited absorbs can be used to their best advantage, even then disc will be in the top half rather than at the top.

We were nerfed effectively back to what where we were at the start of MoP.

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A smart healing PoH without a CD has two modes: Mode a) It is slightly higher HPS than our other spells so we spam PoH to exhaustion or (b) it is weaker than our other spells so we don't use it unless our better option are on cooldown or unusable.

That is why blizzard put a CD on effectively all strong smart heals from all classes.

[Venaliter]

Everyone keeps saying oh absorbs are more useful than heals. Let me tell you something, if you have absorbs but do 30% less HPS than everyone else no one gives a damn. You are useless. The reason why at the start of MoP we were useless was because our max HPS was too low.

I have a lot of respect for Havoc.

At the launch of MoP lots of ppl were saying its all fine, disc is not so bad. Guess what they were wrong, because disc max HPS was too far below everyone else.

They were wrong, and we were right. Even sadder, certain people say we will be viable if the PTR goes live tomorrow. So ridiculous it bears repeating.

Now here is the real extent of the nerf.

In relation to what we had at the start of MoP (see the math section below): Spirit shell 80%, PoH, 96.75%, penance 120%, Rapture no change (it was nerfed back to 150%), PWS cost reduced by 25%.

So go back to the start of MoP nerf spirit shell by 20%. Nerf PoH by 96.75% and remove its ability to stack aegis buff penance by 120% and reduce PWS cost by 25%. Now ask yourself is disc viable.

I have issues with you you calculated SS. We *don't* know how or if they changed the formula. It may not incorporate the DA nerf.

Mate you are deluding yourself, what is going to happen is the good disc priest will be at the bottom half the meters and the bad disc priests will be at the bottom of the meters with 30-40% less healing done than the 2nd to last healer.

Yes.

[Heap]

Whats going to happen here is the good disc priest will continue doing well while the bad ones that rode the fotm thing will fail to do well.

I don't mind them dealing with the actual problem of absorbs being too powerful or w/e, but a this large raw AoE throughput nerf is uncalled for. Hell give SS a much longer cooldown if you have to but don't use that spell (and DA) as an excuse for us to be weaker overall.
Imagine re-doing this tier with your PoH only healing about half of what it did before, because that's what we're getting (currently).

Sure, we might become amazing tank healers in 5.2 but that won't help 10man raiders much.

[Manamontana]

On the PTR testing of Horridon our Disc Priest was doing the same about of raw HPS as the buffed Resto Druid was, sometimes even higher.

Bad Disc Priests will find themselves out of luck. Good. The good Discipline priests will still do well. That's how it should be.

[Venaliter]

On the PTR testing of Horridon our Disc Priest was doing the same about of raw HPS as the buffed Resto Druid was, sometimes even higher.

Bad Disc Priests will find themselves out of luck. Good. The good Discipline priests will still do well. That's how it should be.

That's not how it IS, though.

Meanwhile: As most of you know, on the 5.2 PTR Rapture has been changed to -25% less mana on PW:S and 150% Spirit when Rapture procs.

Compared to live, and for ease of calculation, we'll try Rapture at 250% (it's 200, but ~250 with Spirit procs) I'd like to calculate the effects of this change.

From what I understand, well geared Priests average about 13k spirit. So let's use that number. (If there's a better one, use that instead.)

PW:S costs 13,725 mana on the PTR, and increases spirit on proc (150%)

On live, PW:S restores 250% and costs 18300 mana.

The question: How many shields would we need to cast to equal the mana gain of Rapture, for 12 seconds, on live?

[Manamontana]

That's not how it IS, though.

Meanwhile: As most of you know, on the 5.2 PTR Rapture has been changed to -25% less mana on PW:S and 150% Spirit when Rapture procs.

Compared to live, and for ease of calculation, we'll try Rapture at 250% (it's 200, but ~250 with Spirit procs) I'd like to calculate the effects of this change.

From what I understand, well geared Priests average about 13k spirit. So let's use that number. (If there's a better one, use that instead.)

PW:S costs 13,725 mana on the PTR, and increases spirit on proc (150%)

On live, PW:S restores 250% and costs 18300 mana.

The question: How many shields would we need to cast to equal the mana gain of Rapture, for 12 seconds, on live?

You do realise Rapture is too good on live? A scaling mana regen mechanic in general is too strong.

[Venaliter]

You do realise Rapture is too good on live?

Fully aware; I'm on record on Twitter opposing it. But it's still a good question to ask.

[Manamontana]

Fully aware; I'm on record on Twitter opposing it. But it's still a good question to ask.

Hmm. I think the problem most priests have accepting these changes is the weird interaction between crit + mastery which is understandable, but every class has some weird oddity with their secondary stats. Take a Resto Shaman who goes the 50% mastery 3764 haste "stack crit" route of gearing: a Disc Priest nullifies the entire build because it's based around HST/HR doing most of the healing via the mastery. However the mastery works against crit because if you crit heal a target, you're going to be gaining less and less of the mastery. It's the same for Monks, haste is only useful for 1 skill and yet stacked because that skill is integral to the Mistweaver gameplay, while Mastery is a terrible stat and crit it only taken because it benefits Mana Tea in a very, very lackluster way and is only just better than mastery.

All of the healing classes suffer oddities with their secondary stats, I see no reason for Disc Priests to be concerned.

(Also: what aoe damage is there on Empress? The only "AoE" damage is a 18000 dmg/sec dot for 6 seconds in the add phase on 10 people (Healing Rain lol) and the Sonic Discharge.

[Saphiramoon]

You do realise Rapture is too good on live? A scaling mana regen mechanic in general is too strong.

Have you taken into consideration how much of that comes from short duration procs - which is fixed in 5.2 (as it should, really)?
Do you have any actual data on how the changes influence 25 mans? And I'm not considering actual data stuff like "disc is 25 ahead of all healers, and I think the aegis/SS/rapture nerf covers about that, even if I didn't do any math on it". You claimed non Aegis PoH can do 100k hps, have you ever checked how much actual healing from poh alone does your disc priest do? Go check that, add the overhealing to it, and you'll get the actual practical output POH will have. I'll eat my hat if its 100k.

Hmm. I think the problem most priests have accepting these changes is the weird interaction between crit + mastery which is understandable, but every class has some weird oddity with their secondary stats.

I think "oddity" is an understatement. While some stats may benefit your spells less than others, you dont have any spell that doesnt benefit at all from something:
- PWS doesnt benefit at all from crit, and has little gains from haste due to being an instant, and also borrowed time.
- all actual heals benefit only from haste and mastery, except on crits.
- you can stack crit to make mastery actually work, but if you stack crit, your mastery will be pretty low. Frankly, it doesn't really matter much, since on a target you already got a crit heal, you're not likely to desperately need a shield too. On top of this, we have no talents boosting crit, and you dont want RNG as a main stat for a healer.

A smart healing PoH without a CD has two modes: Mode a) It is slightly higher HPS than our other spells so we spam PoH to exhaustion or (b) it is weaker than our other spells so we don't use it unless our better option are on cooldown or unusable.

That is why blizzard put a CD on effectively all strong smart heals from all classes.

Or a range mechanic - like chain heal, which doesnt have a cd, but has a cast time/range limitation. I dont think changing poh to a smart heal is a viable solution, because you cant keep its current lack of cd/range/strength and make it smart too. Disc needs it own specific aoe heal spell, all we got in the last expansions are cds. We are overloaded with cds, but in essence, we're pressing the same healing buttons since vanilla.

[espoire]

I dont think changing poh to a smart heal is a viable solution, because you cant keep its current lack of cd/range/strength and make it smart too. Disc needs it own specific aoe heal spell, all we got in the last expansions are cds. We are overloaded with cds, but in essence, we're pressing the same healing buttons since vanilla.

Back when Power Word: Barrier was on the PTR, I assumed it was going to work like Anti-Magic Zone did at the time- the zone itself has a fixed amount of HP, and absorbs whatever would have hit people inside it. That'd be a pretty cool spammable-AoE heal. They'd need to do something to prevent layering more than one in the same spot though, else it'd devolve into the same-old rotation.

[Saphiramoon]

Back when Power Word: Barrier was on the PTR, I assumed it was going to work like Anti-Magic Zone did at the time- the zone itself has a fixed amount of HP, and absorbs whatever would have hit people inside it. That'd be a pretty cool spammable-AoE heal. They'd need to do something to prevent layering more than one in the same spot though, else it'd devolve into the same-old rotation.

As much as its the class flavor, I'm not sure I'd want another absorb: we already have an aoe one in the form of spirit shell. Absorbs are a bitch to balance, you can see everywhere healers saying they just cant compete, and its true. I think disc needs a bit of field leveling in the actual healing dept, where healers can actually compete. It would prolly have been better if Spirit Shell was a completely new spell, not a twist of existing one. In the end, pressing poh with archangel up or with ss up is still poh spam and its not gonna make us look less like a 1 button class.

[espoire]

As much as its the class flavor, I'm not sure I'd want another absorb.

You have a point. I'm not really fond of AoE healing in general anyway. It's why I originally picked Disc back in 3.0; I wanted to be a tank healer. If raids actually had a demand for that sort of thing, that'd be one way to move away from PoH spam and/or bubble-botting.

[Klatar]

Disc is going to be just as bad as holy is, and thats how it should't be

http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/Overall_D...00000000111111

Disc far ahead on p1, holy still clear number 2.

So far, priests will stay the best healing class by some distance. I wonder where all those numbers come from, when disci is totally overpowered atm and holy is still the second best healing specc. So far, the weak speccs are shamans and resto druids.

[Fenixdown]

No offense, but until DS, holy divine hymn had 8 mins cd and was worse hps than poh spam. It was cheaper tho. A raid cd that does less than your normal rotation?



He was talking about utility. What you listed are a bunch of holy spells that disc has too (replace coh with penance, guardian spirit with pain supp and divine hymn with barrier). Yays for Spirit of Redemption .

If you guys are happy with where holy is, that's cool. I'm sure the good holy priests will always get a raid spot. I'm wondering how many of the mediocre ones will tho, when they wont have disc to fall back onto. You can argue as much as you want about holy numbers being fine, just lacking the mana and not much utility - the fact remains, that a oom healer is a useless healer.

So bad healers getting raid spots because a spec is overpowered = good design?

Wat?

[Saphiramoon]

So bad healers getting raid spots because a spec is overpowered = good design?

Bad choice of words, my mistake. I meant holy priests that are not a lot above average. I saw some raidbots links around here, its not a site that I usually use, and those links claim holy priest is the 2nd most played healer, which I find hard to believe given their general position on ranking on wol, but hey, one way of looking at it can be just as bad as another. I have no clue how raidbots gathers their data.

[Mazor]

I'll eat my hat if its 100k.

Prayer of Healing according to wowhead:

"A powerful prayer heals the friendly target's party members within 30 yards for 8450 to 8927 (+ 83.8% of SpellPower)."

Let's assume 20% crit, 40% mastery, 10% haste (arbitrary and low, considering uptime on Borrowed Time will be higher next patch) and 27500 SP, all are of course raid buffed:

(8450+8927)/2+27500*0.838=31733 healing per person, before haste and crit.
Averaged out, you'd get 4 people getting 31733 healing from a single PoH, the fifth will get a crit for 63466 (notice, no meta gem bonus) and an additional 44426 Divine Aegis.
This totals to 234824 per PoH, or 103322 HPS (factoring haste).

Notice, that's without Power Infusion, Inner Focus and Archangel.

If you are wondering about the high crit and low mastery, I am assuming Discipline Priest will favor Crit for PoH spam fights, if haste is higher than crit for that end then this number is even lower than what you can actually get.

I'm not arguing whether it's balanced or not, I am arguing it's over 100K HPS.



What the changes do is make PoH usage more punishing when used incorrectly-
You use PW:S to pre-snipe and buffer.
You single target atonement or direct healing, doesn't matter, to heal random damage and tank damage, or to fill your time if nothing else is needed (TBH, should be more punishing on the last part there IMO).
You PoH when many people took damage.

As opposed to -
PW:S for Rapture.
Single target because there's nothing to do (yes, mostly atonement) at the moment.
PoH for everything else.

Mazor.

[Maleric]

What the changes do is make PoH usage more punishing when used incorrectly-
You use PW:S to pre-snipe and buffer.
You single target atonement or direct healing, doesn't matter, to heal random damage and tank damage, or to fill your time if nothing else is needed (TBH, should be more punishing on the last part there IMO).
You PoH when many people took damage.

My gripe - and I realize you're just stating how it's going to be, not necessarily arguing for it - is the bolded part. Disc is not going to have a good way to deal with damage to several people spread across each group. And it's not going to have a consistent way to prevent that kind of damage either, except when it hits predictable targets and can be absorbed with PW:S

[Kalmah]

I don't see such a weakness as a problem. All healers are weak on certain damage patterns. Priests tend to be strong at healing raid wide damage and weak at spot healing. Paladins completely suck at dealing with raid burst damage if the raid isn't stacked. Rain of Blades on wind lord is trivial to heal as a priest and painful as a paladin.

[Maleric]

I don't see such a weakness as a problem. All healers are weak on certain damage patterns. Priests tend to be strong at healing raid wide damage and weak at spot healing. Paladins completely suck at dealing with raid burst damage if the raid isn't stacked. Rain of Blades on wind lord is trivial to heal as a priest and painful as a paladin.

There's a line between being weak at healing a given damage pattern and not having the tools to respond to it at all.

[BarryManaLow]

im holding massive reservations about DA being withdrawn from PoH. after literally jsut doing garalon hc (other healer a holy pally) if DA wasnt there, as a disc priest i would feel incredibly vulnerable not being able to "reliably" mitigate the incoming damage

why not jsut decrease the imposed HP cap from DA and SS? down from 40% an 60%, to maybe 20% and 30% respectively.