Patch 5.3 PTR. Attonement Nerf

[swill655]

Like i said, I agreed with the nerf. But IMO we need a buff of another part of our toolkit to offset this nerf.

[Deleted]

Yea, if this turns out to be true. I'll be rather upset.
Guessing it's Blizzard's punishment for priests doing nothing but atonement healing. I've never abused this heal, despite the community saying it's the only way to go. It's never my number one source of healing. I guess my frustration is more with the community abusing something and then it gets ruined for me, woo...

How can you moan about something being ruined that you apparently didn't use overuse? atonement is still going to be powerful, it was just too strong the way it was atm.

[Urumii]

Disc is still extremely powerful even after the changes they made in 5.2. On any given fight, atonement will be 20-30% of my total healing. This is a 4%-7.5% nerf at most to overall healing. Still keeping disc well above other healers and not requiring any buff in another place to offset this nerf.

I already use all my spells, so this nerf won't effect my playstyle at all.

[Deleted]

Disc is extremely fine, pulling 100k hps+ aint a problem. and that nerf will change nothing. If you only do smite right now, you are doing it wrong.
Yes you use it most of the time, but Priest also has very nice tools, even if they are very situational.

[HPLathus]

This atonement nerf makes sense.. and is a good thing for good-gameplay. I mean you are seeing far too many people just sit in one spot and mash smite the entire fight, 'steal' heals (which would have come in from other sources-- ie. druid HoTs)

Disc played well is more than just smite smite smite solace, penance smite smite smite... its building Evangelism, using AA, and Spirit Shell timed around fight mechanics--- AND using Smite, and offensive/defensive Penance, Prayer of Mending, and prayer of healing.

80% isnt the end of the world either.


To expand a bit more as well... and to get the discussion off of the QQ of the official forums; Disc is in a great place with our whole toolkit. Are there areas where, if I were to have my druthers, would I want a buff? Of course... but post nerf, this really isnt the end of the world. It just means you cant just sit there and act as a DPS and be just as good of a healer as everyone else.

TLDR: Use your whole toolkit, and this nerf is really of little consequence.

Another amen.

[Amnesti]

Would've liked to see them nerf Smite/HF SP scaling instead of nerfing Atonement as a whole. Either way, reasonable change.

[Rucati]

I don't see why anyone is surprised by this, Disc is one of the highest healing specs in the game and can also push out 30-40k DPS on a lot of fights. Begs the question why anyone would ever take anything else.

In my 10man we run Disc Priest and Resto Druid 2 healing, sometimes with a Monk healing too if the fight requires it, and the Disc Priest is just about even with the Druid on every fight, but the Priest also does 30k+ DPS on every encounter. Now, obviously 30k DPS isn't a ton, but given that other healers do 0 DPS it's a nice little addition.

[ramennoodleking]

This is an excellent change in the right direction, though I'll have to see how it plays out in raid. You should play disc to be a healer, not as an extra dps. It's too tempting for 10 mans.

And it helps keep holy attractive.

[Deleted]

Horrible change, compare the raw healing of disc priest compared to a druid or a pally. It's nowhere close.

[ramennoodleking]

Horrible change, compare the raw healing of disc priest compared to a druid or a pally. It's nowhere close.

Disc are ranking among the highest parses. Atonement shouldn't be a crutch, and that's exactly what it currently is because it scales well with damage modifiers, nerfs included. They are trying to wrangle it in. I think just removing its ability to interact with damage modifiers would be fine.

Raw healing should always be more attractive than the ".5" healer model. Sure, it's helpful, but that's exactly what the problem is. You create an incentive for progression that pressures people to roll Disc.

[Dorfie]

I'd rather atonement just straight didn't benefit from damage modifiers.

[Soulstrike]

mmmm nothing surprising tbh it was long overdue imo(and its smart heal :P)

[Skottz]

First thing that came to my mind after reading that Patch Note was: "Hey guys, what about equipping those T15(H) pieces?"

Obviously, with current model T14H-4/4 (2/2upg) is still way too strong (aka I feel like I can't live without 6s CD penance even when I don't have heroic upgraded t14).

[Bartolo]

When it will be down to 25% of damage done, will be 20 yards AND will bring no benefit to healing then you can call yourselves monks, you know .. "THE" dps-healer :/

[Deleted]

My atonement sometimes ended up as highest heal. But mostly it isnt rly. Still i wonder, and I ain't home so I can't check numbers rly. But when I red this. Will penance still be better using it on hostile targets then friendly targets?
And another thing, Will this affect the ppl that are going 1:1 ratio on crit/mst?

[laplacedemon]

When it will be down to 25% of damage done, will be 20 yards AND will bring no benefit to healing then you can call yourselves monks, you know .. "THE" dps-healer :/

We already went through that stage... Atonement used to have 15yard range, Smite had a longer cast time and the whole thing was used mostly for Archangel. If history repeats itself, monks will be great Fistweavers on next expansion ^-^

[Deleted]

I'd rather atonement just straight didn't benefit from damage modifiers.

Oh don't you worry. They can do that as well! More the merrier! ..wait, what, no?
Yes, damage modifiers gone would be good. It'll still be too good on damage modifiers (Horridon etc, hello). It might just become too weak for times without damage modifiers. Which gets it nerfed even further. Sigh.

And obviously, still nothing for holy. Though it's coming stronger and stronger with spirit comfort zone being acquirable. Still, unfun chakra mechanic just states that I don't want to go there. Not unless it performs way over disc levels, in which case 'everyone' will dump disc anyways.

I guess they also forgot to nerf Solace. Not that it would matter with the 10 sec cd, it's not big deal.

[temp2021ph]

No, this is the wrong way atonement heal should be strong. stronger than even now. stronger than regular healing.
Disc priest should be equal to other healers it terms, without using atonement.
Using atonement should provide an extra, but not mandatory benefit. Not the way it is now tied with Archangel, and also meh for the grace mechanic.

Atonement should be something that priests would jizz in their pants every time they have the opportunity to use it, but also something that would incur an increasingly heavy (veeery heavy) penality on repeatedly use.
A plain % nerf will just put this awesome mechanic to the same shelf, Holy Nova went to.

[Deleted]

I wish they'd nerf the damage instead, i'd like to be able to swap to holy without feeling guilty for dropping 30-40k dps from the raid

[Pool of the Dead]

If anything you should be glad that the most brainless form of healing known as atonement got nerfed, this change was actually long overdue considering how much atonement heals for and how little mana it costs. Now you might actually have to use healing spells instead of dpsing for 70-80% of a fight!

If I wanted to Heal using healing spells. I would fucking spec Holy.

Well this blows, I spent the last 3 weeks gearing my Attonement Disc priest because I love the way it plays and now it is going to go down by 20 fucking %

G fucking G.

Back to Tanking/DPS for me since all other healers are lame and boring.