Lack of Priest transparency? Zero feedback on Disc from twitter

[Larynx]

should just stop validating his comments with attention.

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Post, you are being far too logical for this thread.

ITT: People whining because they feel neglected based off of a metric that isn't worth judging anything off of (Twitter). This is the same as people crying about blue posts. Insinuating that Blizzard treats Priest development as secondary based off of this is... crazy.

Disc needs work, but its still early. Deep breaths everybody, give them time.

He would be making sense if Cataclysm or MoP didn't exist. Now he can't even claim naivety. He's being intentionally ignorant. This is the third expansion in a row with little direction or feedback for Disc during the beta. It's not a stretch to say it'll also be the third in a row for release Disc to be a boring, unplayable mess.

"It's just beta."

Yeah, just like it was just alpha. It was just beta in MoP. Just beta in Cataclysm. The point of a beta is to respond to changes in the beta.

"I don't like the new races."

"don't worry it's just beta."

That's the fucking point. The beta process is when they're most open to change. If no one voices concerns, Blizzard won't do anything.

Cya guys in December, when we're all playing Holy.

[Post]

Like what?

I don't understand your view at all, because this is literally what happened in the last two expansions and even with numerous feedback from the healer priests about how not playable it is (I remember many threads about PvP for Cata beta and I even remember some from Isheria on PvE). You might be optimistic and say that they're actively working on disc, but they literally didn't listen to feedback for two expansions and they literally didn't know what to do with disc, so we got some last minute fixes. It might sound unimportant to you, but lack of direction and lack of information about disc is just *why* we ended up with PoH buffs, Rapture buffs, Penance in Atonement, no DR in lvl90 talents... If they continue to keep silent, be sure that we'll just get another win button after a week into the WoD.

Feedback to them via beta forums, even twitter, whatever. I really think you're misunderstanding my point, I'm not telling you it'll be okay, I'm saying whining about not being tweeted "we're working on disc!" is pointless. Them telling you they're working on disc won't make it so they don't screw disc up again, arms warrior is a good example that some people pointed out earlier. Essentially this thread is complaining about the wrong thing.

should just stop validating his comments with attention.

You should really calm your tits and stop being so hostile just because someone disagrees with you. The rest of your post is just claiming things I didn't even say for some reason. I'm not saying to not voice your concerns, read above.

[laplacedemon]

Actually, if they said "We're working on disc" somewhere, we could deduce that what we have right now on beta is not all what we're going to have and people would either ask them what their plans are, how far along they are or give them time to wait and see.

You say feedback through forums or Twitter, but it's really just what we did in the last two betas (although less Twitter I guess) and much like now, we didn't get any kind of response from developers. Any kind of feedback from them, even if it's "We have plans for disc, but it's not working right now" would show that this beta is different from other betas, because when all we have silence, then we know that they either don't know what to do with the spec or what they think would work just doesn't.

I don't think that you're being too optimistic or anything, but at this stage of the game where disc is quite 'barren', I rather hear something at all rather than giving them continuous feedback, because if they think something works, it takes them until release to agree that it actually doesn't work even if we gave them numerous feedback before. Even if their plans are really really bad for disc, I would be rather happy that actually have an idea instead of being at the stage of removing everything and re-adding them to see if the abilities are useful or not...

[Post]

Any kind of feedback from them, even if it's "We have plans for disc, but it's not working right now" would show that this beta is different from other betas, because when all we have silence, then we know that they either don't know what to do with the spec or what they think would work just doesn't.

I guess that's where we differ, I don't think hearing "we're working on disc!" means this situation will be any different. Again, look at what happens with arms warriors. What happens then is a week after they say "we're working on disc!" after people have spammed them about stuff and they don't answer that, people will continue to complain that they're ignoring them.

I want to say again, I'm not even confident that they'll make disc not horrible as per usual. I just don't think tweeting that they're working on disc will fix anything, and there's proof that it really doesn't matter. The changes come from feedback from the players, them telling people they're working on stuff doesn't get things done, even if it pacifies a small amount of people for a small amount of time.

[Jimjam38]

I guess that's where we differ, I don't think hearing "we're working on disc!" means this situation will be any different. Again, look at what happens with arms warriors. What happens then is a week after they say "we're working on disc!" after people have spammed them about stuff and they don't answer that, people will continue to complain that they're ignoring them.

I want to say again, I'm not even confident that they'll make disc not horrible as per usual. I just don't think tweeting that they're working on disc will fix anything, and there's proof that it really doesn't matter. The changes come from feedback from the players, them telling people they're working on stuff doesn't get things done, even if it pacifies a small amount of people for a small amount of time.

You're right, just saying that they're working on it would be irrelevant, because as we all know, they have a habit of working on something and getting it completely wrong anyway. If, however, they actually answered some of the questions people asked, like they have for most other specs, then, even if the answers were not what we wanted to hear, at least we'd have some idea where they were taking it, and with that knowledge, we could provide better feedback from the beta and from the community about where we think it should be taken, what's good about where they're taking it and what's bad. If we know how they think disc should work and be played, we can actually try playing it like that and see how it fairs, rather than just comparing it to how we expect it to work and how it works now. Not everyone just wants tweets to be reassured they'll be op or given time to reroll the FotM, some of us want the communication to provide better feedback.

Look at what happened with DK's and Army of the Dead: When blizzard removed it, everyone was outraged. If blizzard hadn't responded to any questions about why it was cut, they might have never realized why the community was outraged. But they did respond to questions about why it was removed - they said it was clutter, it wasn't a very effective dps gain anyway, it was problematic with accidental pulls etc, a lot of hardcore people hated it for these reasons but felt it was enough of a dps gain that it needed to be used, and that blizzard just wanted to reduce cooldowns across the board anyway. Because Blizzard responded to these questions, the community was able to understand the reasoning behind it, and then, rather than having to keep hasseling and QQing about its removal, they were able to give the important feedback, which was that for the vast vast majority of players, Army of the Dead was an essential element of DK class flavor, and was even more essential due to the ghoul becoming unholy only and other such changes affecting flavor; people wanted to keep it regardless of its effectiveness as a dps cooldown, some even proposed making it into a minor glyph with no combat purpose. As such, Blizzard returned it, making it do 75% less dps, and making a few QoL improvements for its usage.
Admittedly this isn't the best example in terms of class balancing and numbers tuning, etc, but it is an excellent anecdote to show why its important for them to respond to at least some of our questions.
Regardless of whether you think its redundant, arrogant or just plain stupid of us to expect them to tweet us or respond to questions, the fact is that they are using an iterative development process with deliberate community engagement as a core element of that process. This kind of development relies on communication between the testers, being the community, and the developers, with each and every iteration. When the developers aren't responding to our questions, the quality of our feedback is severely diminished since we can't understand their perspective, and hence can't test it in the way it is intended to work. And this isn't just lack of communication between QQing non-testers tweets and the developers, there appears to be a total absence of communication about disc, even with the beta testers. I don't see how you can continue to defend their lack of communication, when their entire development process relies on feedback in the later stages, which we are now in with the beta having been up for several weeks now.

[Venaliter]

LET US FORMULATE THE PERFECT QUESTION AND ALL TWEET IT OVER AND OVER AGAIN 8D
(halfjoking)

We did this not too long ago. Here's the tweet in question:

Greg Street ‏@OccupyGStreet Aug 14

Dear Shadow, we buffed you because you weren't at our 5.4 targets. We did not buff you because you campaigned for buffs. #nothowthisworks

[Post]

Look at what happened with DK's and Army of the Dead: When blizzard removed it, everyone was outraged. If blizzard hadn't responded to any questions about why it was cut, they might have never realized why the community was outraged. But they did respond to questions about why it was removed - they said it was clutter, it wasn't a very effective dps gain anyway, it was problematic with accidental pulls etc, a lot of hardcore people hated it for these reasons but felt it was enough of a dps gain that it needed to be used, and that blizzard just wanted to reduce cooldowns across the board anyway. Because Blizzard responded to these questions, the community was able to understand the reasoning behind it, and then, rather than having to keep hasseling and QQing about its removal, they were able to give the important feedback, which was that for the vast vast majority of players, Army of the Dead was an essential element of DK class flavor, and was even more essential due to the ghoul becoming unholy only and other such changes affecting flavor; people wanted to keep it regardless of its effectiveness as a dps cooldown, some even proposed making it into a minor glyph with no combat purpose. As such, Blizzard returned it, making it do 75% less dps, and making a few QoL improvements for its usage.

That's a nice way to look at it, but I'm not sure them tweeting telling people why they removed it suddenly made everyone stop raging and give constructive feedback/suggestions. I'd be more inclined to think that the huge outcry about it and suggestions that they gave to blizz got it back without needing the "we removed it because X" tweets.

Just look at Spirit Shell, they didn't tweet about it, but tons of people tested and told them the decision was horrible so they put it back.

[SomethingWycked]

Now we've gone through several iterations of the beta without any notable changes to Disc, and its being reported as nearly unplayable on certain encounters. Atonement is required for Archangel, which is required to make other abilities perform decently, but Atonement was nerfed into the ground so keeping AA up now feels like a "penalty" in the words of one tester. Funny, that, since Blizz outright stated they made changes to Chakras to make them feel less like a penalty, and then they go and do this to Disc... with no changes incoming and still no feedback from the devs about how they think the class should be playing.

[Larynx]

Now we've gone through several iterations of the beta without any notable changes to Disc, and its being reported as nearly unplayable on certain encounters. Atonement is required for Archangel, which is required to make other abilities perform decently, but Atonement was nerfed into the ground so keeping AA up now feels like a "penalty" in the words of one tester. Funny, that, since Blizz outright stated they made changes to Chakras to make them feel less like a penalty, and then they go and do this to Disc... with no changes incoming and still no feedback from the devs about how they think the class should be playing.

It's also unable to complete Bronze proving grounds.

http://healiocentric.wordpress.com/2...-pg-challenge/

Of course, that's more of a tuning issue really. I still don't see how spamming CoW is "fun" gameplay though.

[Nestar]

It's also unable to complete Bronze proving grounds.

http://healiocentric.wordpress.com/2...-pg-challenge/

Of course, that's more of a tuning issue really. I still don't see how spamming CoW is "fun" gameplay though.

That's the old bronze proving grounds, the new healing setup isn't supposed to be nearly that unforgiving.

[wrynil]

Cant remember which of the 3 streams it was that i was watching, but they ran 2 priests. one holy and one disc, hps wise the perfomed equally. From the small sample of streams on the beta tested bosses healers seemed pretty much in line. And they can still tweek the small things.

[laplacedemon]

Cant remember which of the 3 streams it was that i was watching, but they ran 2 priests. one holy and one disc, hps wise the perfomed equally. From the small sample of streams on the beta tested bosses healers seemed pretty much in line. And they can still tweek the small things.

That's *really* so far away from what everybody else is saying (and from what I saw too)... Holy priests and druids seem to be quite ahead of others, then comes MW, Shamans, Paladins and Disc Priests in that order. Oh and... healers aren't really balanced or doing the same hps although some are close to each other.

So I am really curious which stream it was; because either someone 'made' disc work AND they did it so well that it can perform as well as holy which is quite ahead at the moment or their holy priest had a problem with something and underperformed.

[ThePlanckEnergy]

That's the old bronze proving grounds, the new healing setup isn't supposed to be nearly that unforgiving.

I have very bad news for you. Do you remember the beginning of Cata? Would you like a healing model that is more punishing and restrictive than that? Buy WOD and you'll have it!

...one has to assume they're going to at least attempt to fix the mess they've made before it goes live, but as is on the Beta right now... WOW.

[Nestar]

I have very bad news for you. Do you remember the beginning of Cata? Would you like a healing model that is more punishing and restrictive than that? Buy WOD and you'll have it!

...one has to assume they're going to at least attempt to fix the mess they've made before it goes live, but as is on the Beta right now... WOW.

Yes, and you completely missed the whole point of that blog post. These proving grounds, with healing changes were meant to be impossible. They just happened to be able to beat silver of a few healing specs. Disc was the only healing spec unable to beat bronze.

[Aparthia]

Someone beat bronze as disc. Only Dayani and Hamlet were unable to. The spec is not their main class. It was later completed by someone who's MS is disc and is actually in the comments of that blog if you cared to read it.

[Nestar]

Someone beat bronze as disc. Only Dayani and Hamlet were unable to. The spec is not their main class. It was later completed by someone who's MS is disc and is actually in the comments of that blog if you cared to read it.

It would appear that he managed to do it by exploit (FDCL not consuming the buff?)

Regardless the point of it is that damage patterns like that of untuned proving grounds are specifically outside of blizzard's intentions. If the best of the best are able to beat it that's fantastic but it doesn't change what still needs to be fixed.

[Deleted]

It would appear that he managed to do it by exploit (FDCL not consuming the buff?).

That´s how it works currently in the beta till they fix it. No reason to take that talent atm

[laplacedemon]

Procs not being consumed but being able to be used multiple times for their whole buff duration has been fixed (I think on the last build), but doing bronze or whatever with bugged FDCL isn't saying much as you can cast ~15 FHeals instead of 1.

[Larynx]

Someone beat bronze as disc. Only Dayani and Hamlet were unable to. The spec is not their main class. It was later completed by someone who's MS is disc and is actually in the comments of that blog if you cared to read it.

Despite being wrong, you also managed to miss the point of the post. You'd see if you actually cared to read it.

[Deleted]

It's also unable to complete Bronze proving grounds.

http://healiocentric.wordpress.com/2...-pg-challenge/

Of course, that's more of a tuning issue really. I still don't see how spamming CoW is "fun" gameplay though.

That looks really grim - in the tuning, differences between classes and the seemingly predominant play style "emerging" for Discipline. Nothing quite like taking something fun and a little different and throwing it away...

This comment from the article really emphasizes why Discipline is in a poor place in WoD currently and with the new healing model in general. Effectively feels like stuff myself and others have been droning on unsuccessfully (in terms of convincing other opinions) over;

"Spirit Shell talk ties into an important point about Disc healing: when a target is not at full HP, a shield is never better than a heal. It’s usually no different from a heal at all, but has a chance to be worse because it can fall off unused. And in the case of Clarity of Will, it can overcap on a target that’s at partial HP, which is impossible for a heal. In the present situation, Oto’s taking so much damage that those things rarely happen, so Clarity of Will functions no differently from a heal most of the time. We’re going from the Mists world where shields are usually better than heals because the HP buffer they provide is critical, to the Warlords world where they’re often worse, and situations where they’re better are rare."

While Dayani supposes that the reduction in emphasis on Atonement is a good thing, I'll argue that it isn't. Not only does it remove much of the flavor of Discipline it is problematic because the choice for Discipline now is either insufficient direct heals or shields which are insufficient in the proposed healing climate. At least having a slow, steady smart heal crux (make the rotation more complex if required) to fall back on would allow Discipline a small amount of breathing space.

Of course, it isn't enough to change how smart heals function entirely and increase health pools when it comes to Discipline.
Rants about one of the truly cool and different mechanics in WoW healing being removed...

SS as a talent also isn't super helpful, at least not in the same tier as ToF and PI which are general throughput talents. SS would make more sense in the same tier as CoW with WoM (also throughput) being an option over ToF / PI though an L100 SS might need to have baked in reduced mana costs for PoH instead of this pretty essential feature being tied to a tier bonus. Could also then come up with a neat new talent for Holy as a L100 and make DI baseline for both specs.

Also! Another point regarding shields;

I will note that Clarity of Will’s 20-second duration helps a lot in making the shield-falling-off situation less of a concern than any other shield (except, I guess, a Holy Paladin’s Eternal Flame-fuelled Illuminated Healing.)

In vacuo this is correct but in an environment where smaller absorbs still go first and Illuminated Healing has a longer duration (i.e. raids) that difference in duration is a small solace. It is nice, but it isn't game changing and likely won't allow for CoW layering unless an encounter presents an applicable damage pattern.