I'm confused. How do we play Discipline Priest in Warlords of Draenor?!

[Master Po]

All I hear is Atonement is being nerfed, I can respect that, it's all good.

But, I just wonder where our focus will be? Do we cast more slow heal like Holy does? (hence Greater Heal) or just Heal, very slow 2 second spells.

I mean, what will be our spells used to keep people alive and maintaining mana?

[Arac]

i sure as hell will try as hard as possible to keep the dps as high as possible. one can only hope it won't kill too many raidmembers =)

[Floopa]

you'll be single target healers.

atonement sucks, your aoe heals are bad compared to renew/rejuv spam

[Nightstorm]

Don't expect Disc to sit at the top of meters anymore. Not because disc is nerfed but because other healers are useful now that hp is rarely topped of. Disc will prob take on new roles. It is a versatile spec until the community comes up with a "this is how to top meters" spec and play style. What I can say is it is not easy to top people off when some of the tuning was turned up. In raid a disc is going to be the savin grace on someone whom is taken hard damage over time, if the throughput is not there the shield that moment of catch up time. Now that you are not expected to be the top of meters it's time to get creative with the spec. What can you bring?

[Deleted]

It is such a pity that Blizzard has taken one of the more different healing playstyles that was at least interesting for people jaded with the more common whack-a-mole gameplay of the other healing classes and utterly removed it. I keep hoping that Atonement might make a resurgence in some capacity, even as a means to solely tank heal, since it was nice to have the option playing a spec that wasn't based around direct healing.

Still, I'll be giving this single target tank healing niche a try. It could be fun and maybe nostalgia glasses will see me through the first couple of months. However, if it is catastrophically boring and a return to a healing model that I've personally not found interesting for a good while I'll be popping that as my reason when I stop my sub!

[Modestia]

Time to switch to my hpal, methinks.

[Master Po]

I ment...... can I play Discipline as (using Penance to heal target I want, instead of using it for damage) then using Smite, Holy Fire as tiny bit healing, and use Penance and Shield again to keep people alive, plus Flash Heal? Bit mix it up, instead of one target enemy spam to heal all? Cus I aint doing that EVEN now.

[Jinxz]

Disc still exists in WoD!?!???

[Alarinth]

Don't expect Disc to sit at the top of meters anymore. Not because disc is nerfed but because other healers are useful now that hp is rarely topped of. Disc will prob take on new roles. It is a versatile spec until the community comes up with a "this is how to top meters" spec and play style. What I can say is it is not easy to top people off when some of the tuning was turned up. In raid a disc is going to be the savin grace on someone whom is taken hard damage over time, if the throughput is not there the shield that moment of catch up time. Now that you are not expected to be the top of meters it's time to get creative with the spec. What can you bring?

Very well said. I for one am excited to see exactly this. Having played it on the beta, it felt so bad I swapped over to Shadow in 15 minutes.

[Nurasu]

Very well said. I for one am excited to see exactly this. Having played it on the beta, it felt so bad I swapped over to Shadow in 15 minutes.

You're excited to see disc in the toilet? The first half of your sentence doesn't match up with the second half...

[Alarinth]

You're excited to see disc in the toilet? The first half of your sentence doesn't match up with the second half...

I'm excited that being #1 is no longer the default. And I am also excited over the fact that this means creativity will have to find its way back into the gameplay again to ensure it does not, as you so eloquently put it, go down the toilet. Seriously, if I elaborate more, I'll just be paraphrasing what I originally quoted.

[Deleted]

I'm excited that being #1 is no longer the default. And I am also excited over the fact that this means creativity will have to find its way back into the gameplay again to ensure it does not, as you so eloquently put it, go down the toilet.

You can't take something that is mechanically and numerically broken, apply something as abstract as "creativity" and come out with something which is competitive. If the foundations aren't there, you won't be able to do much at all.

In raid a disc is going to be the savin grace on someone whom is taken hard damage over time, if the throughput is not there the shield that moment of catch up time.

In what way? Discipline will be more useful (as per meters) for these situations only if their healing can act non-competitively and inhibit a throughput healer. With doubled health pools, shields and healing are more equal and if people aren't topped up regularly then Discipline loses much of its advantage offered through shields.

Being "creative" won't help you get around a lacking class and a model that inherently disfavours your method of healing. The one saving grace for Discipline might be in a tank healing niche but that certainly doesn't rely on player creativity to fulfil and instead is utterly within the hands of the developers. If they create the role by making Holy Priests, Druids, Shaman and Monks weaker in a direct healing capacity then that is all good. However, the structured tank healer / raid healer roles will not benefit challenging 5 man content design.

I'm all for new healing styles (that's a slight lie, I still want to use Atonement) but we actually need to be viable before we can get creative!

[Alarinth]

You can't take something that is mechanically and numerically broken, apply something as abstract as "creativity" and come out with something which is competitive. If the foundations aren't there, you won't be able to do much at all.

You are of course entirely correct here. My mistake is assuming they'll fix the numerical aspect as soon as the mechanical one is sound. Currently I'm aware we're lacking bigtime in both departments, but we're starting to see the outlining of the mechanical one, and as long as this is beta, I don't really bother too much with the numbers, more so the feel of the spec itself.

[Deleted]

You are of course entirely correct here. My mistake is assuming they'll fix the numerical aspect as soon as the mechanical one is sound. Currently I'm aware we're lacking bigtime in both departments, but we're starting to see the outlining of the mechanical one, and as long as this is beta, I don't really bother too much with the numbers, more so the feel of the spec itself.

Yup, very true. Unfortunately it sounds like the feeling of the spec leaves a lot to be desired. There is still time yet of course.

[Deleted]

I hope that in WoD we will be able to choose which 'role' we perform as a healer, ie raid- or tankhealer. Like holy pally in wotlk, where you could choose between holy or. FoL spec. I really hope Disc will become the go to tankhealer together with holy pally..

[tachycardias]

Overall healing in WoD will be much more deliberate and thoughtful. Right now, its almost optimal to just spam Smite and hit the other buttons on CD. They've changed it such that now you have to choose when to Smite and when to actually heal. Smite during periods of low damage; PWS + Heal (or Clarity of Will) with higher damage. Penance sounds like it got changed back to being somewhat beneficial offensively, though not all the time; sometimes we'll actually have to use it on allies as it won't be a smart heal any more (and it won't overheal as often).

I'm somewhat excited about Clarity of Will; at least with the current number tuning it looks absolutely massive. 600% of spellpower compared to about 300% on your standard Heal. I wonder how it will play with mastery; it seems as it would be absolutely nuts if full mastery applies.

One direction I think they're taking with the lvl100 talents is to change up playstyles for a lot of builds. Clarity could make a single target/tank heal build viable with Mastery + haste rather than Crit.