[PW:S] Complete paradigm shift

[Lysdexic]

What if PW: S was a bit of a cooldown, completely changing the emphasis of the spell. I was first thinking it could apply to discipline in its entirety, but then thought of maybe implementing the concept as a pvp (read: "interesting" "choice" - the blues) talent for disc (or holy!!).

So the first concept is putting a decent cooldown on PW: S to make it a big deal, and maybe have a secondary benefit of granting something to the target. Currently, you have the "disc-nay-sayers" who want your typical disc priest to think of PW: S as a powerful instant danger heal instead of a filler to consume 9/10 GCDs; this would keep them happy. It would make everybody happy, I think, because it would make PW: S more interesting. Sure it would end up as a relatively low portion of your heals, but let's say PW: S being something like 20% of your total. Add DA in there and some crit/mastery gear, and you'll maybe have 10-15% of your total healing being DA. I think 45% of the total being absorbs still sounds pretty cool. Druids in cata might have a similar amount coming from HoTs!!

Two things come to mind immediately. One, you can make the bubble big enough to really put a dent in big incoming damage. Two, Weakened Soul will likely have less than 99.99% uptime in an environment like this.
Another thing comes to mind, which is that it will mean disc priests will not always pre-bubble (I think currently in 5v5 for example, prebubbling entire team means those plate dps with 35k in their arena gear have more like 43k. Or those clothies will have 35k instead of 28k. It's pretty dramatic (until it gets stripped away instantly by loldispelspam ofc).

As a "stealth-nerf" it would also means mortal strike is more effective against disc priests (atm since bubbles are such an integral part of disc priest defenses and they ignore ms...).

The secondary effect I was really thinking about was making PW: S make you immune to snares or something while it's up. This could be the disc (or holy!) pvp talent I was thinking about before. Honestly, the idea hit me when I was thinking of that arms warrior knockdown, and thinking how gay it will be if it's considered a knockdown (and not share any drs because its unique).
Warrior: LOLKNOCKDOWN ORLY?
Priest: LOLPW: S (immune) YARLY.
Warrior: :'(

[Elothie]

You don't like PW:S? why change it.Already Blizzard stated that the lolpreshield spam won't be effective and dispels will matter in pvp and they won't be spammed as they are right now.

[Lysdexic]

I never said I don't like PW:S though, I just want to make it more interesting, rather than something that is by default on.

Blizz didn't say lolpreshieldspam wouldn't be effective, they just said it wouldn't be sustainable, afaik. They never said how either, I'm providing a way for this idea of theirs to work. It would also give priests a BIG help in the mobility department if you could use bubble to help you make a quick getaway.

Maybe the snare or w/e immunity could get rolled into Body & Soul (not at all biased towards holy, honest!!!)

[Auraye]

Two things come to mind immediately. One, you can make the bubble big enough to really put a dent in big incoming damage. Two, Weakened Soul will likely have less than 99.99% uptime in an environment like this.
Another thing comes to mind, which is that it will mean disc priests will not always pre-bubble (I think currently in 5v5 for example, prebubbling entire team means those plate dps with 35k in their arena gear have more like 43k. Or those clothies will have 35k instead of 28k. It's pretty dramatic (until it gets stripped away instantly by loldispelspam ofc).

So what you're saying is that you want Blizz to remove the talent Soul Warding, but leave Rapture. k

You know why PW:S is the main spell disc casts? It's because it's the most powerful. Discipline is centered on damage mitigation, and what you're suggesting is removing disc's biggest mitigator, making disc more like holy priests, but far less powered than holy.

OK, so what do you propose to replace disc's primary role for PvE, because suggesting PvP junk to replace disc's biggest spell which makes disc different doesn't cut it, not even for a second.

The only people I have ever seen complain about shield spamming are holy priests. I don't ever see bellyaching about other healers spamming renew, rejuv, or HL, even the holy priests. Hey, let's put a cooldown on renew too! Heck, let's take away everyone's instants, and their biggest heals.

[cruxxy]

I'm having the most trouble guessing what they are going to do with Disc. Holy/Chakra is promised to be great and it has a lot of potential. Considering what they did with pallies and holy power, I remain hopeful Chakra will indeed be an interesting mechanic.

However, what will Disc become? Yes, they've said shield spamming will not be viable. Will that be because the mana cost will be too high? Or will shields not scale with the dramatic increases in HP? Keep in mind that right now, shields are ~30% of max HP for non-tanks.

Also, they say shield spamming will not be viable but absorption is the Disc mastery. Will they somehow boost the DA mechanic?

Many months ago, they had mentioned the possibility of another type of shield, to give Disc 3 shielding options, like a tank shield with a longer cooldown. As that has not been mentioned in quite a while, I'm guessing that idea was dropped.

Single target throughput is stated to be higher for Disc; my guess would be some boost to the Grace mechanic. Perhaps incorporate Grace into DA proc rate or size?

I've really enjoyed the uniqueness of Disc. I won't go negative nancy, but I'm lost as to what Disc will become in Cata.

[Auraye]

Making PW:S more costly sounds like a likely outcome. They could work toward that end by removing Rapture too.

[Kelesti]

Making PW:S more costly sounds like a likely outcome. They could work toward that end by removing Rapture too.

Or keeping the target energize, but not the self one?

[sacrypheyes]

just thought they could also give disc's pw:s some really special feat, like :

<put a talent name n°1>
whenever a friendly target is under the effect of power word : shield, he regains 1/2% of his max total health points every 3s. (ie, if pw:s makes it to the end, it'll restore 20% of target max hp)

or

<put a talent name n°2>
whenever a friendly target gains a shield effect from your holy or discipline spells (ie trinkets won't count but aegis will), they are also healed for 15% of the absorb effect. (stacks with pw:s glyph for a total of 35% heal of pw:s)

[Lysdexic]

maybe have a secondary benefit of granting something to the target.

Maybe everybody misunderstood me here. I wasn't referring to Rapture. What I was referring to was this PvP talent I outlined below. Either on any target cast, or just on the Priest, some kind of mobility button. I'm thinking similar to Hand of Freedom, but obviously that would be faaaaar too powerful.
Assuming the change to PW:S is made, and my idea gets rolled into B&S, it could look like this:

[Body & Soul]: Sprint 60% for 4 seconds on any target. Poison immunity while Shield remains unbroken (only for priest).

Functionally it has the same benefit of being able to dispel poisons from yourself (but obviously much better and not *borderline* useless).

Edit: and I'm thinking of a cd on PW:S anywhere from 15-30 seconds. This means in a pvp environment (in today's game) it could absorb like 15-20k.


Edit2:
To anybody thinking I want to gimp disc priests by nerfing the tool they use the most, obviously it would all be relative. They would get compensated with better heals. This is happening anyway. If in a 20 second period with the current PW:S you can get.... 12,000*20 = 240,000 absorb... With my model it would be something like.... 20,000*2 + 200,000 healing = 240,000. With a 20 second cooldown you could get 2 of those new bubbles in for a total of 40,000 absorb, and in the meantime you'd be mashing sexy heals.

This is just a meter/number analysis however. In the new model I think healing meters will drop in importance (like in TBC) and being efficient and saving lives will take precedence again.

What I'm trying to show here is a means for giving Discipline a signature ability, which instead of being a cushion on the raid, will be a cushion significant enough to help out a tank. This will also help mobility/survivability in PvP.

[Nisala]

Right, and that sounds great for pvp - but what do discipline priests do in pve? You've still removed the main spell for discipline (and Blizzard has confirmed it aims for it to remain the main spell, just less so than on live) and made no pve offering to replace it.

[Lysdexic]

That's funny, I could've sworn you still had about 10 other heals at your disposal. What is a Holy Priest's "main spell" ? As far as I can tell the breakdown is usually like 20/20/20 from PoH/PoM/CoH and then a mix of everything else.

If you want to argue that Holy's main spell is CoH, remember its on a 6 (10 in Cata) second cooldown.

--
Blizzard wants to kill bubble bots. They keep nerfing the coefficient on Borrowed Time, etc. They want you to cast bubble less often. At this rate it will end up being borderline useless while still being in the same --spam on the raid-- niche.
I thought disc was supposed to be a little heavier on tank healing anyway, and this would help that.

[mtotho]

While I agree I love rolling bubbles on the whole raid, blizz has stated they arent going to be implementing crazy AOE damage in all their mechanics like they are currently in ICC. That being said, it seems the need to spam the whole raid might dwindle, and perhaps be better use on people with bigger deficits, or use it on a group of people you know are going to take damage soon.

When I was less geared as disc (and doing easier content), I found myself being more conservative (mana was an issue), and only using bubbles reactively and maybe when I knew there was gonna be burst aoe raid damage. Perhaps that is the style it will shift to, and we will be given tools to use in the down time.

[Lyren]

The simple reason shields will be ineffective is because of the intended plans to reduce the "instant death" situation which occurred often in wotlk. In that instance, increasing the max damage someone can take is invaluable.

In a world of little to no instant death, shields are shunned as simply being an instant "heal" without mechanics like on LK, which require everyone to be at 90%+. What's the point in burning mana on the shield when a heal with a cast time that you can afford to do will cost you less mana?

[Lysdexic]

The simple reason shields will be ineffective is because of the intended plans to reduce the "instant death" situation which occurred often in wotlk. In that instance, increasing the max damage someone can take is invaluable.

But this hasn't been true since Ulduar...

What's the point in burning mana on the shield when a heal with a cast time that you can afford to do will cost you less mana?

Ok... So if you don't change the flavor of how PW:S works, you're already admitting it will GREATLY diminish its utility. I want to make the spell a little more situational (which you're already saying it will become) to make it more unique/special/useful.

What it boils down to, I think, is what you're saying. If you have a more mana efficient, albeit casted, heal to replace PW:S, then PW:S loses its bread and buttteryness. If it's not going to be your go-to heal anymore, why not spice it up?

[sacrypheyes]

if they want to they could still make sure we'll often use pw:s by giving it a 50% or 100% proc that reduces remaining pw:b cooldown for ex.

[Fichek]

But if you have to use the other spells more, what would make a disc-priest different from a holy priest?

Disc would be a very weak holy priest, that would be the difference. No chakra, no coh, no buffs for PoM and the rest of the heals that holy gets. So Op's suggestion is just "nerf bubble" and that should somehow "fix" disc?

[Kelesti]

Discipline spends more talent points on +healing than they do on actual absorbs, Fichek. Discipline also gains access to a more stable blue bar, and an on demand haste buff.

You already don't have a buff for Mending, but you still use it, and as a healer expect to see Discipline in 4.0 casting a lot of Heal, and less Power Word: Shields. This was intended as a stepping stone to help bridge the gap between then and now, making the transition easier, both for people that bubble-spam, and for those new to the spec to realise that this isn't the way it's supposed to be done anymore.

There's nothing really wrong with his idea.

[Pab]

I think complicating PW:s Would stop people using it as much, whether thats a good or bad thing...?

[Fichek]

Discipline spends more talent points on +healing than they do on actual absorbs, Fichek. Discipline also gains access to a more stable blue bar, and an on demand haste buff.

You already don't have a buff for Mending, but you still use it, and as a healer expect to see Discipline in 4.0 casting a lot of Heal, and less Power Word: Shields. This was intended as a stepping stone to help bridge the gap between then and now, making the transition easier, both for people that bubble-spam, and for those new to the spec to realise that this isn't the way it's supposed to be done anymore.

There's nothing really wrong with his idea.

Mind listing Discipline talents that improve Discipline effective healing. After you do that, i'll list talents that solely benefit PW:S and talents that in addition to other spells benefit PW:S also.

[Kelesti]

Twin Disciplines, Focused Power, Improved Flash Heal (weak), Renewed Hope (a 1 minute buff on shield isn't counted as an improvement to shield), Grace, Penance.

Healing Focus (possible), Divine Fury (unlikely, but possible), and Inspiration.

Versus... Improved Shield, Borrowed Time, and Soul Warding. You can sort of count Rapture, but it doesn't really increase your shield's "effective healing".