Atonment healing + Boss Dmg debuffs

[Deleted]

Discipline is enriched by the mechanic of knowing when to switch from Atonement DPS healing to more direct healing. That is a novel play style that isn't offered by other healers. Remove it and you not only lower one of the measures of how to judge if someone is playing well as a Discipline priest (knowing when to switch away from filler to a different style yet one that grants a higher HPS) but Disc becomes little more than a copy of another one of the healers that instead of healing shields things.

I'm pretty certain this is what was attempted in ICC and that only led to the replacement of Druids as PW:S coverage was far superior to RG x 5 and WG.

Yes, assuming that there is an actual choice. Currently the damage spells are more/just as powerful for healing purposes in most situations while also adding damage. Nerf the healing of offensive spells significantly so there actually is some drawback to using them and we'll have to make decisions, more healing or damage at the cost of healing, which is exactly what you are asking for and not how disc is right now.

I agree I'd rather see our actual "healing" spells buffed in order to have Atonement take a hit. Unfortunately, Blizzard cannot seem to make up their minds. Obviously we were overpowered in 5.1 but I think the extent to which they nerfed our actual usage of "healing" spells was too much. Now, you see atonement spam instead of say...poh/spirit shell spam. Its just frustrating tbh.

I agree entirely.

Again, not particularly defending atonement as mentioned before, I just think people need to have a bit of perspective.

I think all healing classses are stuck with too many smartheals right now, but disc are the worst "offenders" (on some fights there's litterarly a handful of globals where I target anything but the tank or the boss). I'll agree that shamans and possibly mistweavers are almost as bad regarding this.

Disc priests are still VERY strong healers even without atonement healing. On somthing like tsulong, there are baddies all around for your to regen mana on. You just actually have to cast heals. Additionally you can be the raid/tank healer and your sheilds benefit from the buff you get from tsulong's breath. Which trivializes that portion.

Disc wouldn't be competitive with the other healers if atonement was removed right now. I think it should be (or nerfed significantly), but we do need buffs in other areas if this happens.

[Irielle]

That cap is BEFORE the damage (aka healing) increase effect takes place. I don't think it's right to touch their healing, but I do think they should reduce the damage by 50-75%, and buff Atonement healing to compensate (no changes to healing), so only their dps is nerfed.

I could get on board with this. Although, I really dont think the small percentage of fights this applies to really constitutes the sky is falling.

[Deleted]

That cap is BEFORE the damage (aka healing) increase effect takes place. I don't think it's right to touch their healing, but I do think they should reduce the damage by 50-75%, and buff Atonement healing to compensate (no changes to healing), so only their dps is nerfed.

Would solve (or decrease) the balance issues significantly, which I think is great. But we'd still play (mostly) the same way, so I'd rather see other adjustments that would change this as well.

[Amaxas]

Seeing as we are middle of the pack as far as healing goes I don't see a problem with it. It's an interesting play style and I love having the pressure of being that utility player the raid depends on for SS, PS, and Barrier. I would be ok with doing less HPS but so long as other classes can perform better I think it's in a good place.

[espoire]

I pretty much switched to Atonement from Shadow because that's where my gameplay went. It used to be that Shadow could switch to healing mode to cover intense healing phases, and I liked that gameplay. Now the closest thing Shadow has to an AoE heal is Binding Heal, and all of the heals it does still have have been heavily nerfed. If Atonement really is OP (which is only true on a few fights- but then, this is true of every spec) I'd rather see the healing nerfed and the damage buffed than see the damage nerfed.

Frankly, the biggest problem with Atonement is that it's a really shitty DPS spec. Not numerically; I mean it has huge design flaws. 2-button DPS is quite viable; a /castsequence macro can get ~90% of optimal DPS. Haste hard-capping is extremely prevalent; needs a 2.0sec+ filler instead of 1.5. It has precisely no cleave; on 3-4 targets, the single-target rotation exceeds Mind Sear damage (this would be okay if it were the only problem; it'd just be a quirk of the spec rather than an obvious flaw). It has a mandatory DPS glyph. It only has two secondary stats of any value; none of mastery, spirit and hit effect DPS at all. 4pc t14 is so good that it easily outclasses Throne of Thunder gear of the same "difficulty".

Here's what I propose to make the smite rotation more appealing to ex-Shadow players:

• Atonement healing no longer scales with Damage Taken modifiers on the target, both positive and negative, including PvP Resilience. Since the heals will not reach absurd sizes due to unusual fight mechanics any more, Atonement is no longer capped at 30% of the casting Priest's health.
• Atonement heals now prefer targets other than the Priest. The casting Priest would need twice the health deficit as other potential targets to receive the heal.
• Holy Fire now deals [ 307 + 26.568% of Spell Power ] Holy damage immediately and every 3sec for 12sec. (Same total damage per cast as before, barring Haste scaling effects.) Cooldown removed. Power Word: Solace now refunds the mana cost and generates 1% mana on Holy Fire cast, with a 10sec internal cooldown.
• New spell: Chain Smitening - 3.0 sec cast, hits up to 3 targets in a small radius with your Smite. If it strikes only one foe, deals double damage instead.
• Divine Fury removed from Discipline; Discipline priests now have Spiritual Precision instead.
• Mastery no-longer effects Atonement heals directly, but instead increases your Holy damage dealt by the same amount as the current healing bonus.
• Glyph of Smite nerfed; now increases Smite damage of targets afflicted with your Holy Fire by 5%, down from 20%.
• The 4-piece t14 healer bonus now reduces the cooldown of Penance by 2sec, down from 3sec.

[Anastacy]

Spazzeh - Logical reasoning is different than logical outcome, but I wouldn't expect you to know that since either way your response was asinine and useless.

First of all, do not assume what someone does or does not know just because you got in a huff that someone might disagree with you and, like so many other forum posters these days, decide that your word is magically more important than others'.

Secondly: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_reasoning. Scroll down to "deductive reasoning" and replace the appropriate sentence (I'm sure you can find it) with this one: "When a Disc Priest DPS's, Atonement heals. The boss has a damage modifier. Therefore, Atonement heals for less/more depending on the modifier."

What you may or may not have meant to say (instead of "logical") is "Does this make sense from a gameplay point of view?" Which is, as I said, an opinion.

[Tricksterjim]

I do not want Atonement healing removed but I do think the dmg portion needs a nerf. I enjoy playing with it, and can help my heroic dungeons move faster etc. There is a real problem with the amount of dps it does, because currently in some fights 2 atonement disc priests = 3 druid/shammy healers + 1 dps (and in most other it equals 2 heals and 1 dps). That is a HUGE trade off not having disc priests.

I think it would be fine if (a) it did half the dps it currently does and the healing coefficient is increased & (b) the healing portion did not benefit from non-player based dmg increase/decrease buffs on bosses. (I previously thought hostile targets but I really don't know what pvp ramifications this would have). The dps portion then would be more in line with dmg other healers can put out (like druids talented to do some dps) and the heals would not be so over powered in boss fights with dmg increase mechanics.

Oh and Spazzeh - angry much? Do you plan on eventually actually contributing to the conversation?

[Noradin]

That cap is BEFORE the damage (aka healing) increase effect takes place.

I believe you misunderstood that. The cap affects the point where the damage is translated into healing, thus damage increasing effects cannot make your healing exceed it, healing increasing effects which are applied afterwards can.

[Anastacy]

Oh and Spazzeh - angry much? Do you plan on eventually actually contributing to the conversation?

Haha, did you really pull a "umadbro"? That's quite...awesome, I guess.

I responded to your original post (which was more semantics based than anything else); how much more contribution do you require?

But, although you asked in a manner that could be considered "baiting," my personal opinion on the matter isn't much different than yours. Lower the DPS, up the healing, and negate any +dmg = +healing modifiers (but keep things like Elegon's aura, that affected just the healing).

[vanityking]

I think a better fix would be to not have Atonement be 100% of the damage done but to work on the same formula. (I don't know the formulas these are examples) Suppose Smite did 10000 + 100% of spell power damage then have Atonement heal for 10000 + 100% of spell power. That way if there is a damage buff, our damage would be buffed as the fight intended but the healing would remain the same. It also means that in a fight like Primordius we wouldn't have to take any of the blobs from the DPS or be forced to not use Atonement.

[Einai]

Atonement does NOT cap at a % of our health.

If, for example, we say that the atonement cap is 30% of a casting priest's health, we would see atonement healing for much more than it does on Horridon. A heroic geared priest (let's say ilvl 520) has around 480k health raid buffed. 30% of that is 144k, so we would theoretically be seeing (144k + healing mod) atonement heals. However, this is not the case. On Horridon with a 200% damage buff, the heal from atonement caps out at around 110k (without archangel).

The atonement cap is actually 1.5x the damage you would have done without a debuff, plus healing modifiers. Why does this matter, a cap is a cap? Because if you get a damage BUFF, your atonement heals will far exceed 30% of your health. Take Ji'kun for example, (I don't have any logs of my own to support this and I don't want to go find one, but you can go find one yourself or take my word for it. In the meantime, have a shot of my recount imgur. com/UvYDeiG ) if you get the Primal Nutrient buff, you get a huge increase to damage done and also a bit of an increase to healing done.

As for Horridon:

Horridon without archangel: imgur. com/gUTZna8

188500 /3 (damage debuff) *1.5 (cap) = 94250 (atonement heal cap without modifiers)
(94250 + 94250*.15) = 108387.5 (I have about 15% healing increase from mastery raid buffed)
As you can see, the heal from Atonement after the 188500 penance was about 108k (not exact since I'm not sure my exact mastery numbers, but 15% is close enough)


Horridon with archangel: imgur. com/p7bvX5o

178712/3*1.5 = 89356
89356+89356*.15 = 102759.4
102759.4+102759.4*.25 (adding in archangel buff) = 128449



TL;DR
Stop saying atonement caps at 30% of the priest's health, thanks.

[Deleted]

Frankly I would like more healing and less pseudoDPSing too. While pseudoDPS is so OP, I need to do it for the benefit of raid. + I cannot replace T14 set until HC T15, Penance shortened CD is way too powerful.
Best fix would be removing smite atonement completely. Both atonement generation spells would be on long CDs. Decrease Smite cost by half. Compensate lost healing by buffing PoH and targetted heals slightly. It would return choices to our gameplay.

[blargh312]

TL;DR
Stop saying atonement caps at 30% of the priest's health, thanks.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/1232869

Priests

The heal from Atonement is now capped at 30% of the priest's health before any modifiers such as healing percentage bonus effects/talents.

Unless this was reverted somewhere along the line (I can't find anything that implies it has been), it still works this way.

[Thelxi]

What's the point of damage increasing fights anyway? Make a certain type of gamer feel better?

[Einai]

Unless this was reverted somewhere along the line (I can't find anything that implies it has been), it still works this way.

It is possible that this is the upper limit (Ji'kun healing recount from lfr isn't exactly the best way to check, so if someone can actually check with logs and a very high stack of primal nutrient it would be better). My point is that 30% of the priest's health is not the only cap in effect, as shown by Horridon logs.

[Chimaera]

The cap at 30% of the priest's hp is definitely no longer in place. I am near certain it is now maxing at 50% damage increase. Looking at Horridon logs even though he is taking 300% damage you never reach heals of 30% of your hp. The heals are always in the neighborhood of 1.5x normal atonement heals.

I personally prefer the way atonement operated in Cata. It has become so buffed (specifically penance, with solace also being there for mana) that it is now rotational, rather than tactical. Anything more than this new imposed cap would make it an absolute necessity for raid comps on significant damage increase encounters. Even so Horridon already has disc nuking the boss the entire fight.

[Anastacy]

What's the point of damage increasing fights anyway? Make a certain type of gamer feel better?

Usually it's to encourage beating a boss a certain way (defeating the boss the way was intended, ala Elegon) or to lengthen/shorten certain phases of a boss (such as Sinestra, although this was a Haste buff not a straight +dmg modifier). Some offer different, although risky, ways to beat the boss, such as Cho'gall and having Mages get transformed early on.

One as "naturally" progressing as Horridon, however, fit neither of these models, and could very well function exactly the same w/o damage modifiers and just less HP.

[Noradin]

Yes, you could just as well reduce Horridons health and give him a damage reducing buff that looses a stack everytime he hits a door instead. It just wouldn't be as much fun.

[Frmercury]

Its gimmicky. Whatever. Atonement already caps at a % of our health so why is this a huge issue?

This is pretty much my feelings about it.

[Anastacy]

Yes, you could just as well reduce Horridons health and give him a damage reducing buff that looses a stack everytime he hits a door instead. It just wouldn't be as much fun.

"Fun" being "lol I just crit for 1 beeeeellion?"

Well, that was the point of bringing up why damage modifiers exist anyway. People like to crit for 1 beeeeeellion.