WoD: Disc Priest Golden Time?

[PosPosPos]

Finally somebody who gets it. The general idea of disc playstyle isn't broken at all. Its the t90 talents scaling with crit and gear snowballing in general that makes them seem op. Every healer is viable atm and thats what counts.

Revival and raid-wide spirit shell on a 15 second cooldown is not op.

[Deleted]

Revival and raid-wide spirit shell on a 15 second cooldown is not op.

Are you trying to spotlight your inability to process written english with this comment ?
Exactly what i said, learn to read please. Thank you.

Also , pure overexaggeration.

[Basmothh]

Finally somebody who gets it. The general idea of disc playstyle isn't broken at all. Its the t90 talents scaling with crit and gear snowballing in general that makes them seem op. Every healer is viable atm and thats what counts.

Sorry, I just find the idea that Blizzard is good at balancing healers laughable. Of course every healer is viable when content is so terrible undertuned. This doesn't mean that they're balanced well at all.

Also, SS on 1-min timer needs to go and should be changed to a 3min CD.

[Deleted]

The healers aren't perfectly balanced but at least each class is viable which is pretty good going. This is hardly SWP or early Cata and I don't think the content is undertuned. It is poorly tuned, with many fights favouring absorption classes (hey, we even have fights which must have some bubbling to complete) but it certainly isn't undertuned. People aren't waltzing into heroic mode in 550 pieces and breezing through the first couple of bosses like in WotLK.

Revival and raid-wide spirit shell on a 15 second cooldown is not op.

Well, Lazu happily agreed that it is over powered but Divine Star is certainly not a raid-wide SS and Revival. Over exaggeration doesn't do anything to strengthen your points.

Hopefully for WoD we see all absorptions taken down a peg, the efficacy of DA reduced (though this is primarily due to the absolutely ridiculous gear inflation) and PoH reworked and discipline given some sort of decent AoE heal. It is still too early to tell if it will be a "Golden Time" but given the sheer amount of complaining about discipline being the root of evil and making everything "non-fun" I wouldn't bank on disc remaining in its current position.

SS is fine on a one minute CD in my opinion - the problem is that currently we don't have to be too concerned about the cost of PoH use and it is too easy to build large SS quantities because, again, we have crazy stat inflation. The last time we had inflation almost at the level of this was in ICC and, again, that led to disc becoming too good.

[Basmothh]

The healers aren't perfectly balanced but at least each class is viable which is pretty good going. This is hardly SWP or early Cata and I don't think the content is undertuned. It is poorly tuned, with many fights favouring absorption classes (hey, we even have fights which must have some bubbling to complete) but it certainly isn't undertuned. People aren't waltzing into heroic mode in 550 pieces and breezing through the first couple of bosses like in WotLK.

You seem to have forgotten how Norushen was 4 healed at the start of this tier. Let's not even start on bosses like Sha, Galakras, Shamans and Nazgrim. Or, perhaps you've also forgotten how end-bosses that are supposed to actually be challenging were <5 healed. Siege, Paragons and Garrosh are such jokes to heal.

Also, I don't see how SS is fine on a 1-min timer. There was no issues with its usage even with pre-5.1 buffs, and there's no realistic or even logical amount of mana increase to PoH that would preclude using it on CD. Regardless, the fact that it's on a 1-min CD allows it to abuse far too many mechanics by making them much less deadly, especially if said mechanics are on a >1 min timer (practically every ability, Dire Call anyone?). The fact that NO other class has a similar analogue makes this even more problematic, as it essentially forces raids into bringing a Disc Priest.

Lastly, I don't understand the whole argument about gear inflation. If a certain ability is scaling far too well with gear, and if other healers aren't seeing similar issues with scaling, then perhaps the issue lies with said ability in the first place. I honestly cannot wait for a massive Disc nerf, maybe then Holy will see some representation again.

[Deleted]

You seem to have forgotten how Norushen was 4 healed at the start of this tier. Let's not even start on bosses like Sha, Galakras, Shamans and Nazgrim. Or, perhaps you've also forgotten how end-bosses that are supposed to actually be challenging were <5 healed. Siege, Paragons and Garrosh are such jokes to heal.

Norushen was four healed out of necessity for the originally very tight DPS requirements. I'm pretty certain that a number of raid instances have had similar blips where one needed to really push tactics to succeed. Multiple shaman healers and having your raid reroll to leatherworking come to mind as tactics that were adopted during SWP progression. Was it needed for the majority of guilds to succeed? Hardly, they just wouldn't make as quick progress. Now, this will come down to a difference of opinion somewhat but I honestly don't feel one should try and judge the balance of a fight on the way it is handled by those on the absolute bleeding edge.

Siege, Paragons and Garrosh are jokes to heal because of the gear inflation and discrepancy that comes from upgrading and warforged items. If we didn't have a raid tier spanning the number of item "tier" jumps as the entirety of some expansions we wouldn't see such an efficacy of absorb effects nor would those encounters be being healed by less than six healers. Mind you, around this time people were starting to do something similar in ICC and DS? There we had sequential buffs / nerfs being applied whereas here we have the same effect through item upgrades and warforged item distribution. Only the latter method is a far quicker effective nerf of the content.

Also, I don't see how SS is fine on a 1-min timer. There was no issues with its usage even with pre-5.1 buffs, and there's no realistic or even logical amount of mana increase to PoH that would preclude using it on CD. Regardless, the fact that it's on a 1-min CD allows it to abuse far too many mechanics by making them much less deadly, especially if said mechanics are on a >1 min timer (practically every ability, Dire Call anyone?). The fact that NO other class has a similar analogue makes this even more problematic, as it essentially forces raids into bringing a Disc Priest.

Hardly. I don't think I have ever come across a fight where Spirit Shell is mandatory. I certainly can't think of one where you simply must have it in SoO. Mana could certainly be tuned to make SS layering on a one minute CD questionable.

Lastly, I don't understand the whole argument about gear inflation. If a certain ability is scaling far too well with gear, and if other healers aren't seeing similar issues with scaling, then perhaps the issue lies with said ability in the first place. I honestly cannot wait for a massive Disc nerf, maybe then Holy will see some representation again.

The problem with the gear scaling is exactly as you point out - the issue does lie with the ability but only under more "extreme" numbers which we shouldn't ever have reached in this expansion. Evidently, Blizzard decided at some point that LFR would effectively be a baseline for that tier. Which could have worked. Of course, we then had item upgrades introduced as a means to effectively nerf content. Only, this contributed to the problem seen with Hellscream's Warsong where increasing a player's power is more problematic than reducing the health and damage output of NPCs and it wasn't merely confined to one raid instance. So, on top of the sequential hike of the minimum item level brought about by LFR due to Blizzard feeling that this must always grant better gear than the normal content of the preceding tier, you have the additional power gain from item upgrades and then later the additional power from Thunderforged / Warforged. And on top of that, the introduction of yet another raid tier didn't help to keep numbers under control.

Simply put, Blizzard's lack of a road map for raiding content led to us getting to figures that we really shouldn't have been and the problematic extremities of power creep became ever more apparent (which I don't think Blizzard were anticipating or caring about given their approach to flex ilvl).

In short yes, the problem lies with the ability but it is only problematic because we are reaching a point of power gain that we shouldn't have. I'm all for a discipline "nerf" (I prefer the term balancing, nerf is so aggressive) should it allow for Holy to be better represented in PvE. On the flip side, it would nice for Disc to become more viable in PvP.

[Basmothh]

Norushen was four healed out of necessity for the originally very tight DPS requirements. I'm pretty certain that a number of raid instances have had similar blips where one needed to really push tactics to succeed. Multiple shaman healers and having your raid reroll to leatherworking come to mind as tactics that were adopted during SWP progression. Was it needed for the majority of guilds to succeed? Hardly, they just wouldn't make as quick progress. Now, this will come down to a difference of opinion somewhat but I honestly don't feel one should try and judge the balance of a fight on the way it is handled by those on the absolute bleeding edge.

Bleeding edge guilds weren't the only ones who 4-healed it. Guilds that killed it a week or two later, when DPS requirements weren't as high, also didn't bring more healers. The fact that you could easily 4 heal H-Norushen in the first week shows just how undertuned damage is.

Siege, Paragons and Garrosh are jokes to heal because of the gear inflation and discrepancy that comes from upgrading and warforged items. If we didn't have a raid tier spanning the number of item "tier" jumps as the entirety of some expansions we wouldn't see such an efficacy of absorb effects nor would those encounters be being healed by less than six healers. Mind you, around this time people were starting to do something similar in ICC and DS? There we had sequential buffs / nerfs being applied whereas here we have the same effect through item upgrades and warforged item distribution. Only the latter method is a far quicker effective nerf of the content.

You do realize that gear inflation doesn't come as quickly for healers since top guilds tend to funnel loot to their DPS, right? H-Siege and H-Paragons were 4-5 healed by BL and Method with healers with ilvls around 555-560 (slightly higher for H-Garrosh). That small amount of gear inflation (debatable if there's even any) at that level certainly doesn't constitute the output of another healer.

Hardly. I don't think I have ever come across a fight where Spirit Shell is mandatory. I certainly can't think of one where you simply must have it in SoO. Mana could certainly be tuned to make SS layering on a one minute CD questionable.

Never said it was mandatory, but the EHP buffer it provides every 1 min to deal with a vast multitude of abilities constitutes a huge bonus to the raid, and top guilds are going to take every advantage they can. Disc has all these niche utility that only it brings (Atonement, SS, huge on-demand single target shield via PW:S) that it would still be a must bring even if it didn't have the OP level 90 talents)

[Deleted]

[QUOTE=Basmothh;25554523]Bleeding edge guilds weren't the only ones who 4-healed it. Guilds that killed it a week or two later, when DPS requirements weren't as high, also didn't bring more healers. The fact that you could easily 4 heal H-Norushen in the first week shows just how undertuned damage is.[QUOTE]

This might be semantics, but I would classify a guild that downed heroic Norushen a week or two later as still being on the bleeding edge. Norushen would also be a fringe case - if I am not mistaken the originally planned mechanics for the fight were considerably altered early in the tier, no?

You do realize that gear inflation doesn't come as quickly for healers since top guilds tend to funnel loot to their DPS, right? H-Siege and H-Paragons were 4-5 healed by BL and Method with healers with ilvls around 555-560 (slightly higher for H-Garrosh). That small amount of gear inflation (debatable if there's even any) at that level certainly doesn't constitute the output of another healer.

Which is a similar net affect, no? Shorter encounters, less of a healing requirement and less of a desire for healers which have better longevity over throughput. Again, we are looking at guilds at the absolute top end. For the record, the gear inflation I'm referring to is expansion wide. We are just seeing the worst of it in SoO due to the additive effect of two warforged additions and flex bumping things up even higher.

Never said it was mandatory

as it essentially forces raids into bringing a Disc Priest

That was my interpretation of the above statement. My apologies if I misunderstood your point.

Disc has all these niche utility that only it brings (Atonement, SS, huge on-demand single target shield via PW:S) that it would still be a must bring even if it didn't have the OP level 90 talents)

Atonement damage is a nice addition in 10 man (and can be rivaled by suitable HotW use) but isn't it pretty negligible in a 25 man outside of progression at the absolute top of the game at the start of a tier? Somewhat similar to how certain racials are nice but certainly aren't mandatory for all but a select few. The EHP added by SS is nice but for the sort of bursty damage we are seeing in SoO a quick burst of healing will fulfill the exact same role. The only thing that I can fathom as making PW:S anywhere near a must bring is the absolute train wreck that is Dark Shamans (which is a terrible encounter). At the moment what makes disc strong is the uncapped level 90 talent though without that I honestly think that disc would be really struggling.

[espoire]

(hey, we even have fights which must have some bubbling to complete)

We do? If you're referring to KK Dark Shammies, technically it deals 1 less than max HP. Being topped up is "enough" to keep someone alive. DPS could also use personal defensive cooldowns/healthstones.

...it does definitely favor Disc though.

[Basmothh]

Which is a similar net affect, no? Shorter encounters, less of a healing requirement and less of a desire for healers which have better longevity over throughput. Again, we are looking at guilds at the absolute top end. For the record, the gear inflation I'm referring to is expansion wide. We are just seeing the worst of it in SoO due to the additive effect of two warforged additions and flex bumping things up even higher.

Gear inflation has little impact on the undertuning of fights. It's not like our HP pools haven't increased in tandem with the inflation, so they Blizz wasn't exactly constrained when it came to just making almost every other mechanic hit harder.

Also, shorter encounters have little bearing of healing requirements, not when mana is essentially a non-factor (and let's be honest, barring the very start of each expansion, mana hasn't mattered at all). The most important factor is peak healing requirement, and those are all easily met this tier.

Atonement damage is a nice addition in 10 man (and can be rivaled by suitable HotW use) but isn't it pretty negligible in a 25 man outside of progression at the absolute top of the game at the start of a tier? Somewhat similar to how certain racials are nice but certainly aren't mandatory for all but a select few. The EHP added by SS is nice but for the sort of bursty damage we are seeing in SoO a quick burst of healing will fulfill the exact same role. The only thing that I can fathom as making PW:S anywhere near a must bring is the absolute train wreck that is Dark Shamans (which is a terrible encounter). At the moment what makes disc strong is the uncapped level 90 talent though without that I honestly think that disc would be really struggling.

Oh, I don't think Atonement is that big of an issue in a 25-man, but I wouldn't complain if they gave Holy offensive options that doesn't rely on the clunky Chakra mechanic. Still, I mentioned SS and PW:S because these two spells, whilst not necessarily mandatory, provide a substantial yet unqualifiable benefit to your raid. No other CD from any other healer (or at least one with a 1 min CD) allows them to provide the raid with such a high EHP buffer. Also, no other healer has an instant on-demand absorb that can shield for 300-400k on average (with AA up).

Anyway, the point is that Disc bring so much utility that cannot be brought by any other healer, whereas the utility brought by the others is pretty much interchangeable. I guess Paladins are also an outlier, but tanks have become so self-sustainable, coupled with a million other incidental smart heals, that beacon is pretty much irrelevant. This is my biggest gripe with Disc, because as long as retains its EHP/absorb niche, raid leaders of top guilds will always have little impetus to bring a Holy Priest over a Disc.

[manybadgers]

Disc priests were terrible at the start of cata and mists so I'm guessing they also will be terrible at the start of warlords.

[Deleted]

Sorry, I just find the idea that Blizzard is good at balancing healers laughable. Of course every healer is viable when content is so terrible undertuned. This doesn't mean that they're balanced well at all.

Also, SS on 1-min timer needs to go and should be changed to a 3min CD.

1. : They never said they would balance them around meters, which is never going to happen by the way.
2. : Do you know what makes Spirit Shell a justified 1 min cd ? Unlike most 3 min healing CD's ( Healing Tide, Tranq , Spirit LInk , Revival, Divine Hymn etc etc.)
It has a.) A postioning requirement that not only affects YOUR positioning, but also the position of every person in the respective group
b.) A requirement to stand still and not be interrupted to get any effect of it.
C) to be cast preemptively instead of reactively, meaning that in order for it to be used correctly one has to have a working knowledge of the fight and
the playstyle/strategy of their guild.
You cant name any cd that has the same kind of requirements. Also like i said previously, whats "broken" is the stat scaling of lvl 90 talents with crit, nothing else.

Disc suffers kind of in the same way that Shadows do, mechanic wise. The difference being that Disc is extremely viable and shadow is subpar if not worse.
But the principle is the same, blizzard can't change any factor in the specc mechanic without blowing another out of proportion, because everything is tightly linked.
Every slight absorption nerf disc gets would snowball into the negative and make the specc completely undesireable for hc raiding guilds.
As for shadow, they can neither buff any of our singletarget abilities without buffing our multitarget too, which would snowball and make shadow multitarget way to sick ( jkjk.) , nor can they buff any singletarget ability because every single one of those abilities has a talent in the tree that enhances them (Mindflay -> Solace and Insanity, Mindspike -> FDCL, Shadowfiend -> Mindbender, Mindblast/Plague -> Divine Insight) and therefore said talent would become mandatory, which is contradictory of their "anti cookie cutter" MOP revolution. ( when insanity already is f'in cookie cutter as f*ck)
Also those talents are also linked to each other (Di buffing insanity etc etc.)

[Basmothh]

1. : They never said they would balance them around meters, which is never going to happen by the way.
2. : Do you know what makes Spirit Shell a justified 1 min cd ? Unlike most 3 min healing CD's ( Healing Tide, Tranq , Spirit LInk , Revival, Divine Hymn etc etc.)
It has a.) A postioning requirement that not only affects YOUR positioning, but also the position of every person in the respective group
b.) A requirement to stand still and not be interrupted to get any effect of it.
C) to be cast preemptively instead of reactively, meaning that in order for it to be used correctly one has to have a working knowledge of the fight and
the playstyle/strategy of their guild.
You cant name any cd that has the same kind of requirements.

No offense, but I also main a Disc Priest and actually have more experience. All these 'limitations' for SS are so easy to work around for any semi-competent Disc Priest that they're basically non-factors. The only significant issue would be PoH's positional requirement, but even that's addressed by the simple expedient of having groups arranged properly.

Also, you may lose one cast of SS if you have to move during it, but a Holy Priest loses the entire channel if movement is required. Now, that's what I'd consider a real weakness.

[Deleted]

No offense, but I also main a Disc Priest and actually have more experience. All these 'limitations' for SS are so easy to work around for any semi-competent Disc Priest that they're basically non-factors. The only significant issue would be PoH's positional requirement, but even that's addressed by the simple expedient of having groups arranged properly.

Also, you may lose one cast of SS if you have to move during it, but a Holy Priest loses the entire channel if movement is required. Now, that's what I'd consider a real weakness.

The fact that those limitations can be bypassed by some effort doesn't make them non existent. And to be fair, i have played disc challenge modes on a world 3lvl so i, too , kinda know whats going on.
I get that holy is shit, but if you use hymn at a point where you have to move is your fail not the spell being limited. Druids have Spiritwalkers Grace for tranq so holy really is the only specc with that limitation.

[Basmothh]

The fact that those limitations can be bypassed by some effort doesn't make them non existent. And to be fair, i have played disc challenge modes on a world 3lvl so i, too , kinda know whats going on.
I get that holy is shit, but if you use hymn at a point where you have to move is your fail not the spell being limited. Druids have Spiritwalkers Grace for tranq so holy really is the only specc with that limitation.

Those factors your listed don't even limit the usage SS much, if at all. You have yet to justify why such a major CD deserves to be on a 1-min CD. Also, challenge modes =/= HC raiding, they're completely different environments.

[Deleted]

Those factors your listed don't even limit the usage SS much, if at all. You have yet to justify why such a major CD deserves to be on a 1-min CD. Also, challenge modes =/= HC raiding, they're completely different environments.

Because you can't compare apples to peaches , thats why.
Spirit shell is potent, i know that. But if you start picking out every "gamebreaking" spell there is and try to put it on a justified cd in relation to its potency, where do you stop?

Healing rain for example is the most overpowered shit there is compared to its cd, yet nobody bitches about it. Spirit Shell is fine on a 1 Min CD, if they increased it to 1.5 it would be fine too, but 3 min is just too much.

Also concerning cm's versus HC raiding, i've healed various HC fights and to be honest healing in Heroic Raids, especially as a disc in 25 man (have also healed most of 10 man hc fights) is not challenging at all. You can heal every fight with an average healer ilvl of 560 without any problems whatsoever. In challenge modes , at least as disc, you can't rely on yourself smiting out of spirit shells and rely on other healers to top the grp since you are the only one there. I'm talking about speedruns/recordruns of course since pure gold is easily doable with a group of 3. In cms you have to actually use your whole toolkit and be aware of everything as well as manage your opportunities to amber yourself up, which are scarce if you wan't to manage a good runtime.

Fyi i am in no way trying to promote my disc gameplay nor is my intention to downtalk disc in raids.My sole point is that raidhealing in itself has been extremely dumbed down because of smartheals, which every healer has, and the term "skill" is only justified in rare occasions. (e.g. 10man hc solo garrosh by Jhazrun).

That being said healer balance is a weird topic in general since healing requirements are vastly undertuned. I know everyone who mains a healer will disagree and bash me, but sadly the history of this patch speaks for itself.

[Deleted]

the way everything is being scaled down, do you think Disc will be extremely viable?

Mind explaining how a blanket percentual reduction of every single statistical combat value has anything to do with Disc coming out ahead?

[Deleted]

Well, crit scaling down from 200% to 150% should certainly reduce DA potency
Apart from that, the item squish (which I guess is what rckstdy was refering to) willl have absolutely no impact.

[Deleted]

Gear inflation has little impact on the undertuning of fights. It's not like our HP pools haven't increased in tandem with the inflation, so they Blizz wasn't exactly constrained when it came to just making almost every other mechanic hit harder.

Also, shorter encounters have little bearing of healing requirements, not when mana is essentially a non-factor (and let's be honest, barring the very start of each expansion, mana hasn't mattered at all). The most important factor is peak healing requirement, and those are all easily met this tier.

Gear inflation does have an impact upon how fights are tuned though. Instead of Blizzard designing fights that are approachable from a certain ilvl, they also have to consider making those fights reasonable for people who have pieces of gear one or two or even three tiers (LFR, Flex, upgrades to both) lower than someone who is completely decked in, for example, all normal pieces. It is pretty obvious that this is the way Blizzard tunes their encounters as they aim to hit a majority with the correct tuning, not those at the very forefront of competitive PvE. This has been stated numerous times.

Secondly, simply making mechanics hit harder outright suggests that healing / absorption potency increases in a linear manner, in line with stamina acquisition. This isn't the case and one only needs to look at how both mastery and critical strike change the scaling upon discipline absorbs to confirm this.

Shorter encounters (where one drops healers) do have an impact upon healing requirements and mana. You have less healers available to make up the peak healing requirements which forces them into higher HPM spell use. Shorter encounters which don't require healers to be dropped of course are immune to this problem.

Oh, I don't think Atonement is that big of an issue in a 25-man, but I wouldn't complain if they gave Holy offensive options that doesn't rely on the clunky Chakra mechanic.

Agreed. Chakra is pretty terrible in my opinion. Stances are also pretty terrible. Same with pets. *Insert further ranting here*

Still, I mentioned SS and PW:S because these two spells, whilst not necessarily mandatory, provide a substantial yet unqualifiable benefit to your raid. No other CD from any other healer (or at least one with a 1 min CD) allows them to provide the raid with such a high EHP buffer. Also, no other healer has an instant on-demand absorb that can shield for 300-400k on average (with AA up).

Again, the effectiveness of SS (and PW:S to some extent though I don't feel it is quite as potent as you do( comes from the absolutely stupid gear scaling this expansion which is only made worse by the interactions of mastery and crit for discipline. If we hadn't seen numbers runaway to such an extent I doubt we would be having this discussion. PW:S definitely is potent - it also has a high mana cost that will lead to quickly OOMing outside of LMG RNG and Rapture. Not to mention Weakened Soul prevents the ability being repeatedly layered. Of course, for what PW:S grants, disc is certainly lacking in AoE healing provided by utterly passive abilities like Healing Rain and Efflorescence.

This is my biggest gripe with Disc, because as long as retains its EHP/absorb niche, raid leaders of top guilds will always have little impetus to bring a Holy Priest over a Disc.

The problem isn't holding an EHP niche, rather that the encounters and gear scaling simply favour that too much. My hope for WoD is that Blizzard actually goes in with a proper game plan for item level distribution instead of asking for advice on Twitter, a few weeks before a patch releases.

We do? If you're referring to KK Dark Shammies, technically it deals 1 less than max HP. Being topped up is "enough" to keep someone alive. DPS could also use personal defensive cooldowns/healthstones.

It does? I am pretty certain that it deals 100% of maximum health (Icy Veins and wowhead appear to corroborate the notion that simply being topped off will not allow survival). I'll need to try letting one go off on someone that is simply topped and not shielded but if memory serves correctly it will kill them. Certain personals will keep DPS alive but I've never heard of simply using a healthstone following the damage as being effective. I could be wrong. Regardless, the encounter design that explicitly favours absorbs is absolutely terrible and quite the example of bad design.

Well, crit scaling down from 200% to 150% should certainly reduce DA potency

I keep forgetting about that change. That will definitely make a difference. (Hopefully DA will also be given a lower cap)

[Isheria]

Well, crit scaling down from 200% to 150% should certainly reduce DA potency
Apart from that, the item squish (which I guess is what rckstdy was refering to) willl have absolutely no impact.

That's for PvP only it's not universal, crits in PvE still do 200% baseline.