[6.2.3] Discipline Priest Discussion

[Spotnick]

Must say, it's a breeze to heal as disc priest in heroics and challenge modes. On the other hand, it's a nightmare on my mistweaver.

However, one thing I'm not sure. I didn't respec from 90 to 100 and I still had FDCL as a talent and I actually found those instant flash heal very useful, I went back to solace after ready a few posts here but not really sure it's worth it to be honest.

It's a nice thing to not have to spam holy nova, enjoy it while it lasts lol. I still really hope they had a different sound for Clarity of Will, been annoyed by that since beta.

[Symmone]

This whole twitter attack thing was stupid to begin with imo. I don't care if I'll be spamming 1 button in raids, I did it in wrath, I'll do it now.
Would you rather the spec got annihilated, absolutely no viability at all in order to get some more spells? If you say yes to this, you're foolish.

As long as disc is still a strong healer, I'll be fine with spamming pw:s forever.

Would rather the spec was balanced and engaging. WotLK is not something I'd want to go back to as a healer.

Same. Spamming bubble in Wrath was not ideal...and it was boring.

Besides, Blizzard presented healing in WoD to be intuitive, smart, and engaging! Then they slashed spells and derped on disc. Its not intuitive, smart, or engaging.

"We want you to really think about what to cast as a healer" Well, if we have 1 spell to spam then the thinking part really isnt an issue.

[Nevakanezah]

Also, just a cool little side idea for the spec that I wanted to share and (sadly) know will never be implemented:
<HN example>

I like the idea, but it feels like it would rely on a bit of a spammy playstyle not unlike holy, rewarding people who cast as often as possible. I've always preferred the notion of disc as more surgical, picking the right tool for maximum effectiveness.

To that end, here's some notions that we certainly don't need, but would be fun to play with:

Consume any shields you have placed on the target, healing them for an amount equal to the value of those absorbs. If this amount exceeds their current health pool, the additional healing is retained as an absorb shield. Applies the weakened soul debuff. 15s CD

Place an absorption shield on your target for <amount> which splits to two nearby party or raid members when it expires or ibroken by damage, shielding them for 50% of the previous shield's value each bounce. This effect can bounce up to 2 times (6 applications total). Replaces prayer of mending

Your prayer of healing heals for 30% less, but places an absorption shield equal to the amount healed

Upon reaching five stacks of atonement, your non-instant healing and shielding spells gain a 5% increased critical strike chance per stack of atonement, and consume one application of atonement when cast. Consuming an application of atonement in this manner prevents additional applications of atonement until all five stacks have been consumed.

Your absorb shields slowly restore the target's health, returning 3% of their maximum health every 2s at the cost of an equivalent amount of shielding for as long as the shield lasts.

[Deleted]

I could say for 5mans in general "disc is always harder to play, but always more effective compared to holy". It's like it has those things it has to do, but once it does them, it's more prepared. It's in a sense more clunky, and it needs more preparation, but once that is done, you have the tools to proceed, holy can more readily spam things around, do some healing anyway, but be usually suboptimal.

I'm not sure about raiding (or 10-15+ players) but I wouldn't be surprised if it's similar.

I mean, what's holy gonna do? Spam Divine Hymn? bah.



OK, dropping the floor chakra might be something.

[Floopa]

Its not intuitive, smart, or engaging.

healing has never been any of these things. it's always been a case of "spam the best spell".

tbc shaman > chain heal to victory
wotlk disc > pws to victory
wotlk resto druid > rejuv to victory
cata paladin > holy radiance to victory
5.0 MW > rem uplift to victory

... and so on.

i will say though idk how anyone can have trouble healing CMs as a disc priest. the spec is amazing in 5 mans, its crazy how strong it is tbh

[Deleted]

healing has never been any of these things. it's always been a case of "spam the best spell".

tbc shaman > chain heal to victory
wotlk disc > pws to victory
wotlk resto druid > rejuv to victory
cata paladin > holy radiance to victory
5.0 MW > rem uplift to victory

... and so on.

i will say though idk how anyone can have trouble healing CMs as a disc priest. the spec is amazing in 5 mans, its crazy how strong it is tbh

I prefer disc for everything other than cms atm. Holy is just so easy in daily cms that I don;t want to put the extra effort in to them as disc.

[Symmone]

healing has never been any of these things. it's always been a case of "spam the best spell".

tbc shaman > chain heal to victory
wotlk disc > pws to victory
wotlk resto druid > rejuv to victory
cata paladin > holy radiance to victory
5.0 MW > rem uplift to victory

... and so on.

Youre right! And it shouldnt be that way! Citing the past doenst mean that is our norm for the future. Just means it didnt work out well all those times either.

[Floopa]

Youre right! And it shouldnt be that way! Citing the past doenst mean that is our norm for the future. Just means it didnt work out well all those times either.

you can't change it. unless you basically make every spell the same there's always going to be a "best spell" which you spam as a healer.

unless you force healers into rotations, which then removes the point of healing really.

[Deleted]

you can't change it. unless you basically make every spell the same there's always going to be a "best spell" which you spam as a healer.

unless you force healers into rotations, which then removes the point of healing really.

You can have a "best spell" for different situations. That's been achieved before in the past.

Examples being:
WotLK Discipline before 3.3
Restoration Druid in Cataclysm after the mess that was ICC.
Shaman in Ulduar, before and after their buff.
Ironically, Discipline in SoO wasn't a one button spam.

Some of the examples you listed were forced into a rotation anyway.

[Deleted]

I prefer disc for everything other than cms atm. Holy is just so easy in daily cms that I don;t want to put the extra effort in to them as disc.

You either don't know how to play disc or you play holy like a god, because I've found holy to trick me into thinking it's good but that was only in heroics. When it got to "oh shit" moments of challenge mode holy barely manages to top people up since it can not pre-shield and it's still lowbie in gear at this early in the expansion so it can't just spam PoH indefinitely or even effectively.

Frankly, if you do find holy easy in cm, I bet you will be able to play disc.

Because holy is low output enough at the moment to require predictions.

You can have a "best spell" for different situations. That's been achieved before in the past.

Examples being:
WotLK Discipline before 3.3
Restoration Druid in Cataclysm after the mess that was ICC.
Shaman in Ulduar, before and after their buff.
Ironically, Discipline in SoO wasn't a one button spam.

Some of the examples you listed were forced into a rotation anyway.

That reminds me of an "officer" that did a single question to new disc recruits. "What is your main spell?". If they did not answer "Prayer of Mending" he would deny their application no matter what.

Sadness.

[Symmone]

you can't change it. unless you basically make every spell the same there's always going to be a "best spell" which you spam as a healer.

unless you force healers into rotations, which then removes the point of healing really.

You can have a "best spell" for different situations. That's been achieved before in the past.

Examples being:
WotLK Discipline before 3.3
Restoration Druid in Cataclysm after the mess that was ICC.
Shaman in Ulduar, before and after their buff.
Ironically, Discipline in SoO wasn't a one button spam.

Some of the examples you listed were forced into a rotation anyway.

Yes. We should have spells that can be used in different situations...not one spell to be used in all situations. Give us some color! Give us some flare!

[Dracodraco]

Now, while Floopa and Draco are correct about shaman being in a bad place, it's not unreasonable to protest against PWS spam, even if it's viable, simply because the main problem it causes is that it brings back the 'only one disc per raid group' issue that almost disappeared in 5.4. Holy Nova categorically should not be so weak that it's still not as much throughput as a single PWS when healing 5 targets and no overheal. That's just wrong. So what's what we're pressuring them for, a buff to holy nova again, to make it viable again. It shouldn't increase our throughput in any significant way, because they should only make it slightly stronger (~3-5%) than a PWS, if not almost even, when healing 5 targets, and thus we would only be substituting one for the other. Even if they were exactly even (an impossible feat) it would at least give us a tool that felt more appropriate to the raid healing AoE situation than a single target absorb.

Sorry to say, but this is bullshit. You want to protest against PWS spam, when what makes druids overly powerfull is the fact that they can roll double rejuvs in 5 mans right now? Resto druid and Disc doesn't play much differently, and you're envious of the druids. Let's put it in perspective -

Druid healing and toolkits:

The basic heals.
Rejuvenation.
WG.
Effloresence.
Lifebloom.
Swiftmend.
Genesis.

They accomplish these tasks:
Rejuv - mobility + coverage of group to anticipate damage. Double-rejuv talent makes it VERY spammy.
WG - used-on-CD aoe heal. one of druid's two AOE heals.
Effloresence - Ground AOE you want to keep
Lifebloom - tank damage buffer.
Swiftmend - more tank damage buffer/snapheal.
Genesis - used to combat burst. Uses up all rejuvs you've spammed in order to burst people's HP up - big effect causes big issues (all hots suddenly lost, need to spend time ramping up).


Disc healing and toolkits:

The basic heals.
PW:S.
Prayer of healing.
Prayer of Mending.
Penance.
Solace.
Holy Nova.
Archangel.
If you so choose, CoW.
Lvl 90 talent (halo).

They accomplish these tasks:
PW:S - mobility + coverage of group to anticipate damage. Currently VERY strong (1 shield has same or better throughput as the double-rejuv from druid, with half the globals spent).
Prayer of healing - heavy mana cost AOE heal that can be used on demand; no cooldown.
Prayer of Mending - cheap heal that can be pre-emptively placed in anticipation of future damage; with 3-4 bouncing a group they do a significant amount of healing.
Penance - tank damage buffer/snapheal.
Solace - instant heal that helps keep AA stacks up + returns mana.
Holy nova - cheap AOE that can be spammed without actually losing mana, useable on the move (gives you something to do even if PW:S, Penance and Solace are all exhausted).
Archangel - the counterpart to druids Genesis; instead of sacrifising your current stability, you build stacks when there's downtime, so you have it ready for
emergencies. This is far more effective because instead of giving up your entire buffer of hots(absorbs) to burst, this *is* your buffer - sacrifice healing early on for a major return when it's actually needed. As mentioned, solace keeps stacks up meaning as soon as you dedicated 3-4 smites to it, you'll never lose the benefit during that pull/fight.

CoW - extremely strong tank healing ability to compliment the "basic" heals.

And last but not least, Halo - that thing can still pack a serious punch if you know how to place yourself correct. I usually use it to heal the melee, and at optimal distance, it hits for about 30K, for less mana than a flash heal at the same speed of a flash heal - and half the cost of a PoH. This can very well be the counterpart to effloresence.


The raid / party CDs will have the druid winning (60 sec cd ironbark, 3 min tranq, 5 min HOTW vs 3 min pain supp/barrier), but only because throughput and consistency is so damn important at these gear levels.


Essentially, I can't find anything in druids toolkit that isn't atleast partially matched, or outclassed by priest, apart from the cooldowns - the only thing that is lacking in the current content (5 mans and CMs), is the output difference. There's no denying that druids do have a stronger output - but they have a stronger output than every healer. That means nerfs to druids - not buffs to discs.
The fact is, though, druids probably spend more of their time nursing their 10x rejuvenations on the party, than disc spends casting PW:S throughout a dungeon.

[Myuer]

I've done UBRS bronze today with my discipline priest. Very cool to heal, but I still think that discipline has problems on refull people when there is a lot of damage.

[Deleted]

Halo - that thing can still pack a serious punch if you know how to place yourself correct. I usually use it to heal the melee, and at optimal distance, it hits for about 30K, for less mana than a flash heal at the same speed of a flash heal - and half the cost of a PoH. This can very well be the counterpart to effloresence.

Wait, it's the only spell I like from that tier too, but isn't it supposed to be exactly the same heal below 25yards? Is there a glitch?


edit: ah wait, unless you meant 25yards anyway, in which case, ignore this message.

I've done UBRS bronze today with my discipline priest. Very cool to heal, but I still think that discipline has problems on refull people when there is a lot of damage.

Are you me? I did that too just before. I found that power infusion is probably a good idea lately for mass-throughput.

That guy from method that used it in soo probably knew where it's at from the beta testings.

I also get cow lately, though I find it more like niche, since it's mainly a tanking-only thing.

[Dracodraco]

Wait, it's the only spell I like from that tier too, but isn't it supposed to be exactly the same heal below 25yards? Is there a glitch?


edit: ah wait, unless you meant 25yards anyway, in which case, ignore this message.





Are you me? I did that too just before. I found that power infusion is probably a good idea lately for mass-throughput.

That guy from method that used it in soo probably knew where it's at from the beta testings.

I also get cow lately, though I find it more like niche, since it's mainly a tanking-only thing.

Yea, 25 yards and above on halo - position yourself well, essentially, and it's a free PoH level heal on the group (apart from you, but you're a good player, so you avoid all the damage. Right?)

Also, I much prefer power infusion to anything atm; it has an effect on everything, and the passive bonus healing from ToF doesn't feel nearly as impactful (and it's not like you have time to shell).

[Myuer]

Are you me? I did that too just before. I found that power infusion is probably a good idea lately for mass-throughput.

That guy from method that used it in soo probably knew where it's at from the beta testings.

I also get cow lately, though I find it more like niche, since it's mainly a tanking-only thing.

Ahah, good job!

Yea, 25 yards and above on halo - position yourself well, essentially, and it's a free PoH level heal on the group (apart from you, but you're a good player, so you avoid all the damage. Right?)

Also, I much prefer power infusion to anything atm; it has an effect on everything, and the passive bonus healing from ToF doesn't feel nearly as impactful (and it's not like you have time to shell).

Answer to both regarding Power Infusion:
I'm using it for a lot and I've never changed it. I think that is a very powerful CD that we have and I think that will be the best in the raid.

For Lvl 90 talent I'm using Cascade. Tried Divine Star but I didn't like it too much. Cascade still, you cast it and then reaches everyone with his healing and I think that in raid will be one of our powerful spells.

[Deleted]

Also, I much prefer power infusion to anything atm; it has an effect on everything, and the passive bonus healing from ToF doesn't feel nearly as impactful (and it's not like you have time to shell).

I found Spirit Shell irrelevant for almost all fights because what it does is basically a "when the group is full health"-thing. It directly makes no sense at all when you actually have to heal with PoH (or other heals). When I went into working on the second boss of skyreach challenge mode, arguably the hardest healing content at this time, I eventually realized that while it could have its use there, it would STILL be possible or more reliable even, to go with power infusion or even the <35% one, just because the times in fight you'll have >80-85% HPs are very likely to be mainly the first 30 seconds when it doesn't matter what spell you use anyway (though later on I did find in that fight that omitting your direct healing during the few seconds of downtime is key).

Twist of fate (the <35% thing) does seem like an interesting spell though it's a victim of an irony: the better you are, the worse it becomes.

Unless maybe a fight requires it in very predictable ways.

[Jimjam38]

you can't change it. unless you basically make every spell the same there's always going to be a "best spell" which you spam as a healer.

unless you force healers into rotations, which then removes the point of healing really.

Yes, you are correct that there's always going to be a best spell for any given situation, but it shouldn't be the same spell for every situation, which is how disc is at the moment with PWS being optimal for everything.

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Sorry to say, but this is bullshit. You want to protest against PWS spam, when what makes druids overly powerfull is the fact that they can roll double rejuvs in 5 mans right now? Resto druid and Disc doesn't play much differently, and you're envious of the druids. Let's put it in perspective -

Druid healing and toolkits:

The basic heals.
Rejuvenation.
WG.
Effloresence.
Lifebloom.
Swiftmend.
Genesis.

They accomplish these tasks:
Rejuv - mobility + coverage of group to anticipate damage. Double-rejuv talent makes it VERY spammy.
WG - used-on-CD aoe heal. one of druid's two AOE heals.
Effloresence - Ground AOE you want to keep
Lifebloom - tank damage buffer.
Swiftmend - more tank damage buffer/snapheal.
Genesis - used to combat burst. Uses up all rejuvs you've spammed in order to burst people's HP up - big effect causes big issues (all hots suddenly lost, need to spend time ramping up).


Disc healing and toolkits:

The basic heals.
PW:S.
Prayer of healing.
Prayer of Mending.
Penance.
Solace.
Holy Nova.
Archangel.
If you so choose, CoW.
Lvl 90 talent (halo).

They accomplish these tasks:
PW:S - mobility + coverage of group to anticipate damage. Currently VERY strong (1 shield has same or better throughput as the double-rejuv from druid, with half the globals spent).
Prayer of healing - heavy mana cost AOE heal that can be used on demand; no cooldown.
Prayer of Mending - cheap heal that can be pre-emptively placed in anticipation of future damage; with 3-4 bouncing a group they do a significant amount of healing.
Penance - tank damage buffer/snapheal.
Solace - instant heal that helps keep AA stacks up + returns mana.
Holy nova - cheap AOE that can be spammed without actually losing mana, useable on the move (gives you something to do even if PW:S, Penance and Solace are all exhausted).
Archangel - the counterpart to druids Genesis; instead of sacrifising your current stability, you build stacks when there's downtime, so you have it ready for
emergencies. This is far more effective because instead of giving up your entire buffer of hots(absorbs) to burst, this *is* your buffer - sacrifice healing early on for a major return when it's actually needed. As mentioned, solace keeps stacks up meaning as soon as you dedicated 3-4 smites to it, you'll never lose the benefit during that pull/fight.

CoW - extremely strong tank healing ability to compliment the "basic" heals.

And last but not least, Halo - that thing can still pack a serious punch if you know how to place yourself correct. I usually use it to heal the melee, and at optimal distance, it hits for about 30K, for less mana than a flash heal at the same speed of a flash heal - and half the cost of a PoH. This can very well be the counterpart to effloresence.


The raid / party CDs will have the druid winning (60 sec cd ironbark, 3 min tranq, 5 min HOTW vs 3 min pain supp/barrier), but only because throughput and consistency is so damn important at these gear levels.


Essentially, I can't find anything in druids toolkit that isn't atleast partially matched, or outclassed by priest, apart from the cooldowns - the only thing that is lacking in the current content (5 mans and CMs), is the output difference. There's no denying that druids do have a stronger output - but they have a stronger output than every healer. That means nerfs to druids - not buffs to discs.
The fact is, though, druids probably spend more of their time nursing their 10x rejuvenations on the party, than disc spends casting PW:S throughout a dungeon.

First of all, I'm not envious of the druids, I don't think I implied that at any point. I don't think any part of my argument was comparing disc to druid? I have no problem with out throughput, my problem is that they nerfed holy nova by 50% when it was already barely ahead of PWS in AoE. It is by no means unreasonable to expect our AoE abilities to do more healing in AoE situations than our single target. Furthermore, there's no mechanic in rejuv spam, or any druid ability, that means having multiple of them is a disadvantage, where as weakened soul does mean that having multiple disc can be problematic. If nothing other than weakened soul was exclusive to the casting priest then I'd really have nothing much to complain about. If Divine Aegis, CoW and Spirit Shell can all have multiple from different priests on a single target, why cant PWS?

I agree with your comparison of the abilities, although I think holy nova is more like a non-automated ground heal, an efflorescence (or healing rain or SCK etc) that we have to actively press.

- - - Updated - - -

Wait, it's the only spell I like from that tier too, but isn't it supposed to be exactly the same heal below 25yards? Is there a glitch?


edit: ah wait, unless you meant 25yards anyway, in which case, ignore this message.

Actually, someone did the math for halo and it's actually more like 27 yrds for *absolute maximum* because the formula is a bit wonky and the tooltip is off because of it.

Here's the actual formula: ( 0.5 * (1.01)^(-1 * (((Distance-25)/2)^4)) + 0.1 + 0.015*Distance)

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i...x+from+1+to+35

Where you can see that it actually peaks at 27, although between 26 and 28 it's almost flat, meaning that the difference between hitting at 26 yrds, 27 yrds and 28 yrds is basically negligible. There's also only ~10% difference between hitting at 22 yrds or 30 yrds and hitting at 27 yrds, but as you can see, it drops quickly after reaching the optimal, so you're actually losing a further 10% by hitting at just 1 yard more than 30 yrds, and almost another 10% at 32 yrds. Now, it is actually possible to hit targets at >30 yrds because of their hitboxes, so for best gameplay you want to aim for ~27 yrds, but going under is substantially better than going over. The widest range with the smallest loss between max and min is 23 yrds to 29 yrds.

- - - Updated - - -

Also, guys, now's the time tuning is happening, so please frequently (and politely) tweet celestalon about Holy Nova needing a buff and / or Weakened soul being specific to the casting priest since all other absorbs can be stacked from multiple priests.

[Dracodraco]

Yes, you are correct that there's always going to be a best spell for any given situation, but it shouldn't be the same spell for every situation, which is how disc is at the moment with PWS being optimal for everything.

- - - Updated - - -


First of all, I'm not envious of the druids, I don't think I implied that at any point. I don't think any part of my argument was comparing disc to druid? I have no problem with out throughput, my problem is that they nerfed holy nova by 50% when it was already barely ahead of PWS in AoE. It is by no means unreasonable to expect our AoE abilities to do more healing in AoE situations than our single target. Furthermore, there's no mechanic in rejuv spam, or any druid ability, that means having multiple of them is a disadvantage, where as weakened soul does mean that having multiple disc can be problematic. If nothing other than weakened soul was exclusive to the casting priest then I'd really have nothing much to complain about. If Divine Aegis, CoW and Spirit Shell can all have multiple from different priests on a single target, why cant PWS?

It does. Our main AOE ability is Prayer of Healing. Holy nova is the cheap "can be spammed while actually regenerating mana"-AOE heal that we have, that is as you say, equal to effloresence (and healing rain, come to think of it). All three have in common that they are relatively small AOE-radius heals, all three cost a very neglible amount of mana, and all three doesn't heal for a lot - Effloresence heals less targets but lasts longer and is stationary, healing rain heals for about 75% of nova but is stationary and needs upkeep every 10 seconds, nova is mobile and heals for the most but requires a global each time you use it. I think the issue here is that you seem to think that Holy nova build be a "viable AOE" spell, when Holy nova is really only there to provide disc with a mana-positive button to click if nothing is going on. It isn't there to be a competitive AOE heal (or even do more throughput) than a spell like PW:S which costs mana, and has a 10 second debuff limiter (meaning you can't spam a target).

As for PW:S giving the target a debuff, you're never getting rid of that. Being able to stack multiple PW:S on top of each other is simply too powerfull. It already shields for 25% baseline (50% crit) of a persons healthpool - you'd stack as many discs as possible to deal with "target takes X damage" abilities, or just spikes in general, if they could stack (3x discs, 150% shield HP in one global. Yea, no). Being able to deliver an instant high powered, mobile snap heal is strong enough as-is; being able to deliver multiple on the same target is just insane. And remember, we're supposed to be seeing 4-5 healers this tier; 2x discs as the balance is atm probably won't be worth it for most encounters. Stackable PW:S would make them a borderline requirement (spirit shell v2).

[Well]

I noticed that when my Solace crits, the heal is equal to a non-crit? Is this a bug or intended? It has been bothering for a week now, but I always forgot to ask about it. Specifically, a normal hit is ~7.5k and the heal is around there, the crit does ~15k, but the heal is shown to crit, but does ~7.5k again.

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Oh, also, about Halo. Is there a weak aura or something to track your range from someone? Your target for example.