[Legion] Discipline Priest Discussion

[Deleted]

Wait, does that mean that as main Shadow I can farm Artifact Power to put into my offspec artifact? Sounds really cool.

that is how I understood it. You gather your artefact points as a valor points now for example and then you can put them in any artifact/specc you want. Additionally artifact weapons do have a weekly cap of ho much you can upgrade them, gathering points does not. Someone correct me if I'm wrong here

[Isheria]

There is no cap whatsoever you can farm (or bot) 24/7 artifact power if you so desire. Some things you should, artifact power items don't stack so if you wanna level as a different spec than the one you're planning to use the artifact power items on you better have your whole inventory empty from all the hoarding you will be doing during levelling. Artifact power items apply directly to your currently equipped artifact meaning you have to respec to the correct spec before using them else you'll pretty much waste them.

[Totaltotemic]

You gather your artefact points as a valor points now for example and then you can put them in any artifact/specc you want.

Yes

Additionally artifact weapons do have a weekly cap of ho much you can upgrade them, gathering points does not.

No, no caps involved at all.

Wait, does that mean that as main Shadow I can farm Artifact Power to put into my offspec artifact? Sounds really cool.

You can, yes, but that's also power you don't get to put into your main weapon. As you get later in the weapon ranks they start to cost so much power that you can realistically get 5-10 traits in another spec and not lose much progress, but it is virtually impossible to keep two specs at similar levels without falling far behind.

As for leveling, you can certainly start leveling as Shadow and simply hoard power items until you hit 110. There are several drawbacks to doing this though:

1) Much of the power is in small items, and they do not stack. By the time I got to 105 doing this, I had 30 slots in my bags for power items just sitting there.

2) You can't start the Order Hall quests (which involve some timed missions that take several hours) until you unlock the first trait for your weapon. This means either going and getting Light's Wrath as soon as you hit 102, or blowing 300 power on your Shadow weapon. Now, you have to go get Light's Wrath at some point anyway, but the scenario takes a decent chunk of time (around 30 minutes for me from accepting the quest to having LW). If you're looking to level faster, it's faster to just pick Disc at the beginning.

3) Shadow leveling sounds like it would be a lot faster from experience in the past but honestly... it isn't. Mobs die marginally more quickly (maybe 2-3 seconds faster than a Penance/Schism/Smite rotation) and AoE is virtually nonexistent in Shadow too because Mind Sear is horrible under around 5 targets, but if 5 targets are on you as Shadow, you're dead. Finally, named quest mobs and rares do annoying amounts of damage especially as you get to higher levels, and I found that Disc actually finishes those fights more quickly because stopping to spam Shadow Mend as Shadow is awful, but Atonement keeps Disc alive indefinitely without commiting more than one GCD every 15 seconds.

I tried the whole "start as shadow, go get Disc weapon later and pour power into it" thing, and really it was just more complicated and longer than just leveling as Disc. It's some combination of Shadow's sustainability being terrible, the Voidform mechanic not working very well with outdoor content, and Disc actually doing respectable damage that makes the whole detour not really worth it.

[Symmone]

Is there an updated list of all our spell changes etc? The lists Im seeing still have all the old info on them.

[Djriff]

The first post should be up to date. Wowhead is good if you wanted to just take a look at all the abilities for the spec.

[Symmone]

Would mindbender/shadowfiend be considered a healing cooldown now?

[deviantcultist]

Would mindbender/shadowfiend be considered a healing cooldown now?

I believe it doesn't really scale with Atonement, does it? If pet attacks count, then yes it's a healing cd. Otherwise, I would personally go with Mindbender as a mana regen thing.

[Totaltotemic]

I believe it doesn't really scale with Atonement, does it? If pet attacks count, then yes it's a healing cd. Otherwise, I would personally go with Mindbender as a mana regen thing.

Mindbender and Shadowfiend damage does cause Atonement healing. It is both a healing and a mana cooldown.

[Djriff]

They reverted shadowfiend to give mana again?

[deviantcultist]

They reverted shadowfiend to give mana again?

I believe it's only for Mindbender. Regardless, having the pet cds contribute to healing as Disc is an extremely interesting mechanic.

[Deleted]

Mindbender is 75% Spellpower per hit with a regular 1.5s swingtimer at 0% haste, increasing in haste. Only in discrete steps of course. Though the expected value of Mindbender

E[75%SP * (12/1.5) * (5/6*1.15+1/6) * (1+haste)] = 675%SP * (1+haste)

on a 1 GCD instant cast. That makes it pretty much our strongest spell in HPET For comparison, at 30% haste a penance (castigation) and Purge the wicked provide

800/(2/1.3) = 520%SP HPET (Penance)
(100+500/(1.3))/(1.5/1.3) = 420%SP HPET (Purge)

while the mindbender provides

(675*(1+3))/(1.5/1.3) = 760.5%SP HPET

(Keep in mind that mindbender hits in discrete swings, so haste doesnt add up anything to mindbenders damage until 13% haste. Between 21% haste and 25% haste no swing lands in the downtime of Shadowcrawl. Beyond 50% some shit also happens. And a lot more stuff going on. It is crucial to understand that mindbender scales very well with haste, but by no means linearly as my above formula might suggest).

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I tried the whole "start as shadow, go get Disc weapon later and pour power into it" thing, and really it was just more complicated and longer than just leveling as Disc.

Though you forgot the point where shadow scales way better with gear than disc and that your testing was with 680 instead of 750 gear. In god-mode from 100-106 shadow should be ahead at least. I will actually try both in the coming weeks as you did. Maybe with some 800 crafted gear on hand.

[Yunzi]

Would mindbender/shadowfiend be considered a healing cooldown now?

Yes. Let's think about the nature of our healing spells for a moment:

Light's Wrath - 2.5 second cast healing bomb

Penance - 2 second cast staple big heal

Smite - 1.5 second cast mild heal

These are our direct heal all atoned players spells. Then we have the HoTs:

Purge the Wicked, Shadow Word: Pain, and Mindbender.

Mindbender is a HoT which lasts for 12 seconds and provides mana.

[Sticky]

Tried my first instance tonight and it was embarrassing. I didn't have enough output to get past Fenryr. Keeping 5 atonements up while trying to do enough DPS to live through the DOT felt impossible. What am I missing?

[Deleted]

Tried my first instance tonight and it was embarrassing. I didn't have enough output to get past Fenryr. Keeping 5 atonements up while trying to do enough DPS to live through the DOT felt impossible. What am I missing?

I had the exact same feeling.
The first instance I did went fine, a bit of adjustment here and there, I think it was Neltharions lair.
The second one however, Darkheart Thicket literally made me want to stop playing, I felt terrible.

We had to skip Dresaron because I just couldn't deal with his Down Draft consistently.
I feel like the spec is quite clunky and in an environment where you're the only person to deal with things, I don't feel like we have enough tools to do so fast enough. In a raid setting where there are others to perform that role, I could see us doing well but I just dont see how we handle burst?

[Sticky]

I had the exact same feeling.
The first instance I did went fine, a bit of adjustment here and there, I think it was Neltharions lair.
The second one however, Darkheart Thicket literally made me want to stop playing, I felt terrible.

We had to skip Dresaron because I just couldn't deal with his Down Draft consistently.
I feel like the spec is quite clunky and in an environment where you're the only person to deal with things, I don't feel like we have enough tools to do so fast enough. In a raid setting where there are others to perform that role, I could see us doing well but I just dont see how we handle burst?

Thank goodness I'm not the only one. I haven't studied the fights with a magnifying glass yet but what happens if there's a fight where all mobs are immune to damage but players are still taking damage. How are we expected to heal in a situation like that? Doesn't Cordana have a mechanic like this which would prevent us from healing at all?

[Djriff]

I had a disc priest rolling with us, it may be the premade toon having issues. The rings and neck only have stam on them so you're missing a bit of Int there. He swapped holy and we were fine.

[Sticky]

I had a disc priest rolling with us, it may be the premade toon having issues. The rings and neck only have stam on them so you're missing a bit of Int there. He swapped holy and we were fine.

That's exceptionally frustrating. I feel pretty confident that a capable design would mean while I may not exceed at a fight, I can at least competently do my job without having to switch specs.

[Ersula]

Tried my first instance tonight and it was embarrassing. I didn't have enough output to get past Fenryr. Keeping 5 atonements up while trying to do enough DPS to live through the DOT felt impossible. What am I missing?

Fenryr is a damage race above all. With Rapture, healing shouldn't be a problem. But at that point if you can't get past that boss, it's the DPS's fault.

[Djriff]

That's exceptionally frustrating. I feel pretty confident that a capable design would mean while I may not exceed at a fight, I can at least competently do my job without having to switch specs.

It's not entirely on you or the spec either. Ilvl played a big roll for all of us. The tank getting trucked at the same time as everyone else isn't easy to deal with, regardless of the spec.

Fenryr is a damage race above all. With Rapture, healing shouldn't be a problem. But at that point if you can't get past that boss, it's the DPS's fault.

I think they should restrict dungeons until you have your artifact weapon at least. At 680 they feel a tad overtuned. Most boss fights lasted a good 5-8 minutes in comparison to the 3-5 minutes at the beginning of WoD.

[Totaltotemic]

You guys should start recording logs and posting them if you're having issues. There's absolutely no way to tell if it's Disc as a spec, your handling of Disc, or the other players in your group that make things hard without the logs.

I will say that if you're having trouble in the normal dungeons, it's not Disc as a spec that's the issue.