Disc is the Bastard Child

[anurok]

Yes, it really is the bastard child of healing.

So, in 3.1 with tier sets I noticed that there are melee/spell/healing sets for both the Shaman and druid according to MMO Champion. This makes perfect sense seeing as how it is needed and should have always been that way.

Now Disc is a viable healing spec outside of BG's and it has been since LK went live. Our tier sets are given to PVP gear only.

Why is it that I am forced to take pieces of holy gear and pieces of shadow gear to make a good set of gear to use in a raid setting? The shadow gear with hit on it, I don't want. That is fine. But the shoulders and gloves have great +crit on them while some of the holy gear does as well.

However, it looks like the t8 4p bonus on the Holy Gear gives some kind of bonus that reflects PW:S. Now, the effect of it may be a place holder but I can see them sticking something into this set that has to do with the shield.

So, will disc be forced to take 4pc holy to get the effect if its good enough and sac a TON of crit from shadow to gain haste rating with holy gear + the 4pc set or say F it and just be mixed to basically 2/2 or 3/3 holy/shadow like most of us are now?

Gah, so stupid.

Oh, PS. I <3 DISC (but I still think it should be a monk spec)

[Tigercat]

Hm. What, exactly, is your point again? Rogues don't have three sets for three different ways to deal melee dps, nor do warriors have 2 sets for their dps specs.

[anurok]

My point is that they more than likely will stick something that is a Disc staple into the Holy 4pc set while its itemization is garbage for Disc healers. The shadow stats on most of those pieces are better for disc than the Holy gear but the holy 4pc is centered around a (essentially) disc spell.

See what I am getting at?

[Mandible]

What is this supposed "shadow" gear? If you think you need to take +hit gear your way off course. Besides that noone forces you into sets you don't think is usefull for you.

[anurok]

What is this supposed "shadow" gear? If you think you need to take +hit gear your way off course. Besides that noone forces you into sets you don't think is usefull for you.

Its on the front page of MMO Champ. You know...the shadow pve sets and the holy pve sets? Just like how it is in t7? Except this time around they are forcing in a PW:S bonus mechanic that will more than likely seem viable to Disc priests more so than holy priests while the stats for holy are not as great as the stats for Disc.

I know no one forces me to take anything...but if the effects are good enough on the 4pc set like some people have speculated 240SP for a certain duration after casting PWS, that is a great boost in throughput.

[Zeuq]

I'm really not seeing what's so bad about the T8 gear for Discipline. Every piece is Stam/Int/Spirt/SP and either Haste or Crit. As it stands, 3 of the pieces have Haste and 2 have Crit. So, sure, if you ONLY want Crit, then the best you can do is 2pc T8, but you probably still want at least a little Haste and considering that the 4pc is a very good bonus for Discipline, giving up Crit on a couple pieces for the bonus is probably a trade worth considering.

Besides Blizzard has said that they don't want the set pieces to necessarily be clearly BiS otherwise all the non-set pieces are just a waste and gear decisions become too easy. You will almost never see a serious raider with more than 4/5 because they still want the bonus but at least one piece is beat by a non-set piece.

Plus, I think the Shadow set will be much less attractive to Discipline now because of the signficant changes to the regen model. That is, the T7 Shadow Gloves are nice because they don't have Spirit and have both Haste and Crit. Chances are, Spirit will become a more attractive stat for Discipline because mana won't be in virtually endless supply. For instance, the T8 Shadow hat has both Haste and Crit, but it's lacking Spirit, so the T8 Healing hat with Crit and gobs of Spirit will be a lot more regen. The T8 Shadow Shoulders and gloves may be attractive to Discipline, because you're basically trading Haste for Crit, but you can't get both and maintain the 4pc bonus and, chances are, there's better loot out there for at least one slot, so you probably really can't afford to pick up either since you could easily trade in a higher iLevel Glove, Shoulder, or Legs with Crit on them instead of Haste.

[anurok]

You make very valid points about trading haste for crit.

However, as of now, fully raid buffed with all possible auras I sit at only 30pct crit. I want to be around 40pct while maintaining only 10pct haste.

If my crit starts to wane in comparison to my haste...there is something wrong. ESPECIALLY when DA is now going to stack. You want more crit than you want haste in all cases.

That, and being able to trigger borrowed time WHENEVER you want is a bonus for haste in itself.

[eA-Zaku]

anurok, if the bonus is really "good enough on the 4pc set like some people have speculated 240SP for a certain duration after casting PWS, that is a great boost in throughput" then you'd take it without complaint. Either you take it and sacrifice certain things for it or you don't take it because it's not worth it. Simple as that.

Fury warriors had a similar problem for their DPS set. The stats were the best in slot for most pieces but the set was entirely tailored for Arms. You can't always have your cake and eat it. In b4 self-righteous consumer demands.

[rikken]

I dont feel as if we will be lacking at all in crit. Disc doesnt need to be over 30% and hittin 30% raid buffed is not a challenge at all, in fact right now its easy to throw in more haste gear/stackin spellpower for thoroughput. The fact that they even made the 4 piece have to do with a shield is a HUGE step in the right direction. Holy will throw them somtimes, but really disc is gonna be the biggest benefactor of the 4 piece.

As holy i probably wont even worry bout holding my 4 piece bonus if i can get 2 better items for other slots...

[Abandon]

Why does the bastard child of healing have the best healing spell in the game?

[Tigercat]

My point is that they more than likely will stick something that is a Disc staple into the Holy 4pc set while its itemization is garbage for Disc healers. The shadow stats on most of those pieces are better for disc than the Holy gear but the holy 4pc is centered around a (essentially) disc spell.

See what I am getting at?

Ok, let me make sure I've got this straight.

You're complaining that a set bonus is so good you have to get it, but you don't like giving up other gear in those slots?

Also, you think that the set in question is meant to be a "holy" set instead of holy AND disc?

[Zeuq]

I agree, 30% crit is not too difficult to achieve, even as Holy. I think I run around 27-28% Crit as Holy with 17-18% Haste fully buffed and I've been dumping Crit for Haste at every opportunity afforded me (Malygos and Sartharion will NOT drop the cloth Haste loot). Plus, Discipline gets more Crit from talents than Holy (4% from Renewed Hope, and whatever Mental Strength grants from extra Intellect; both get 5% from Holy Specialization), and they'll get even more from talents in 3.1 (3% more from Focused Will). Without changing my gear at all, I could easily run 35% crit as Discipline in 3.1, and that number will only go up as with Ulduar gear. I've already seen Discipline Priests that stack Crit running around 40-45% no, so I don't think it's out of the question that one could get 50-55% crit in Ulduar gear, if one were so inclined. I'm not sure quite where the point is with Discipline, but certainly somewhere before getting your crit gets that high, Haste will become a more desirable stat.

Either way, the 4pc bonus is VERY good for Discipline and to get it, the worst you'd have to trade two potential Crit pieces, for Haste pieces, and since you probably want at least two pieces with Haste on them anyway, it should be a very reasonable bonus to achieve.

[anurok]

I am just curious as to when Spirit became something associated with disc. This is why I say most of the itemization is better for the dps set as a disc healer than the "holy" set. As of now, spirit is useless and it is at the end of the line for priority.

I don't know...maybe gaining some haste to achieve the bonus wont be bad but we will see how much crit you end up giving up for the haste + 4pc.

Edit: The 4 piece healing set is...

Disciplined Power:
Increases Spell Power by 250 whenever PW:S is cast.

Yep, now I need to go 4/4 healing gear...there is no questions asked. You can have a 100pct uptime with this set as either holy or disc.

Source:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...71125143&sid=1

Middle of the page

http://thottbot.com/test/s64911

[Zeuq]

I am just curious as to when Spirit became something associated with disc. This is why I say most of the itemization is better for the dps set as a disc healer than the "holy" set. As of now, spirit is useless and it is at the end of the line for priority.

Spirit is back in the discussion for Discipline because mana regen will once again be a real consideration. That means, chances are, you will not be able to have too many piece that don't have Spirit on them since Crit and Spell Power are no longer regen stats. Right now, you could theoretically have every piece of your gear have no Spirit or MP5 and never run out of mana because of Rapture and Replenishment. With the overhaul of Rapture, you'll need to get a lot more passive regen, and Spirit is the best way to do that, especially since I'm really not seeing much loot with MP5 on it. Of course, you can probably still have a few pieces without Spirit, depending on how the mana situation goes, but I certainly expect it will become a meaningful stat once again.

[Syrenne]

The problem with the 4pc bonus for the holy T8 as disc is not the fact that you need to take 4 pieces of holy gear in order to get it. It is the fact that holy priests will be getting the bonus too. That means that holy priests (if they decide to actually take the 4pc) will want to use PWS as part of their normal rotation to increase their SP by whatever factor (assuming the 15 is a place holder for something actually decent or a stacking buff). This poses a problem for Disc priests and actually gimps the raid a little, since a Disc PWS is so much more powerful than a holy one. As a disc priest, nothing bothers me more than a holy priest giving Weakened Soul to the raid and preventing me from using my (much better) PWS on that person. I see a lot of this happening in the future if this bonus stays the way it is currently.

[anurok]

You have to think about tank healing situations though.

I personally would not try to keep this up 100pct now that I think about it. If the buff is 250 spell power for 5 seconds after casting PWS on a target like thottbot claims it is only useful for burst healing throughput.

Sure, a disc priest may have the buff up more than a holy priest simply because when I see someone taking damage I usually shield them if shield is not on CD. Its just easier to do that then let the raid healer take care of the rest.

With this 4pc bonus you are looking to STILL tank heal like this:

PWS Tank > Gain borrowed time + Disciplined power > Penance > Gheal using Borrowed time

If the tank is STILL taking heavy damage you can:

PWS Off tank/self > Gain BT + DP > Penance (4s cooldown, yay) > Gheal +BT

This is a DIRECT buff to Disc priest throughput while giving them crappy itemization through SPIRIT. I have still yet to see ANY disc priest on the PTR saying that spirit is any good at all.

[Zeuq]

Okay, I apparently misread it as a 10s buff instead of a 5s buff, so yeah, 100% uptime isn't really practical. But you're correct, it will always be up for burst Healing for Discipline, which is really when it matters most. And thanks to the shorter duration than I thought, it's even worse for Holy because Holy will not even want to cast it keep the buff up. I suppose Holy could try to use it for burst healing as well, but in that case, they're still better off letting a Discipline Priest shield do the burst healing, as Holy should generally be reserved more for the predictable burst damage and not trying to PWS->GH.

As far as Spirit for Discipline on the PTR, I don't know, but it seems likely that it's value will increase. Granted, I don't expect it to reach the value of of Intellect or Crit without adding a talent to convert it to Spell power. I haven't seen any empyrical data on just how much Discipline's mana is hurt in 3.1, so it's difficult to judge the worth of Spirit.

[anurok]

^^

What I have heard from some Disc priests on PTR about spirit is that it is still as useless as it is now for us. They are recommending stacking Int/spell power to benefit from throughput and more mana returns via replenishment. Most disc priests on the PTR sit around 25K+ mana and gain nearly 300mp5 just from replenishment. There are still gains to be had from rapture but only every 15 (or 12) seconds.

So, now the numbers come down to this:

Will gaining haste + spirit to obtain 4pc holy for the 250 spell power buff be worth losing the Int + crit?

It will be hard to determine that...but if I were to gain 4pc holy I would have to gem for crit and int to make up for the lost stats...which I suppose is not too bad.

[MTVRiffRaff]

I didn't read through all of these replies, so don't bash if i say something already stated. TY! =D

The thing with disc is that our itemiazation is actually almost similar to pallies, with a holy priest mix in there as well. There's a bunch of cloth pieces in game that are giving huge amounts of straight forward MP5, which is absolute sex for disc since we aren't spec'd into anything giving us X% more of Spirit. With Spirit regen also being nerfed(From what I've heard that is), we're gonna be needing more straight Mp5 rather than your traditional "OMG GIMME THE MOST SPIRIT I CAN GET" kinda gearing. Also Disc regen is similar to pally regen, thanks to rapture giving us huge amounts of return, based on our %of overall Intell. What this means is that your int should also be a huge concern for you as disc, along with your While casting Mp5. Balancing all these out actually can give you more longevity in the proper raid setting than even a holy pally. If a holy pally OOM's themselves, they need to wait for a Divine Plea or a pot, While a disc priest, if you find some way to OOM yourself, you can ask for an innervate for a full mana pool, or a shadow fiend for about 25%(not 100% accurate I know).

Disc isn't the bastard son thanks to how much utility it brings. Given the proper player, you can offer a raid more than a holy priest can.

[Ananan]

Mp5 on gear will be about as good as spirit on gear for PvE disc priests. How the two compare depends on your intellect, but from the quick math I did in some other thread you don't have to spend much time at all outside the 5 second rule for spirit to be equal to or beat mp5 once you get your int to 1400-1500, which should be much easier in Ulduar gear. For my own part I will also take into account how much more useful spirit is than mp5 outside raid-boss fights.

Int rocks as usual, but don't be afraid of pieces with spirit. It's not like you could find a piece with 150 int instead of one with 75 int and 75 spirit.

PvP gear is a whole other matter. We have way too low int in PvP gear for spirit to be anywhere near mp5 in effectivity. Unless you get Innervates you would do much better with mp5 on PvP gear than with spirit.