More Pruning... What's left for disc?

[Floopa]

Disc can be the #1 healer for WoD, it doesn't mean it will be enjoyable to play. That's the point of this thread. The spec has zero depth now.

does it have any depth atm?

[Larynx]

does it have any depth atm?

Yes, it does. It was also shaping up to be amazing in WoD with the new healing model, DS nerfs and atonement nerfs, too bad we'll never see that.

[Floopa]

Yes, it does.

PoH + Divine Star is depth? you're keeping both of those. Atonement? you're keeping that.

actually, in SoO you don't really make use of strength of soul, or train of thought, or void shift, and inner focus is only used to buff up your SS - it's not actually used intelligently, it's akin to a druid using NS just to get 1 more cast off during their legendary meta or (in WoD) during moment of clarity.

call me naive, but i dont think disc has particular depth atm. i don't think any healer does.

[Basmothh]

I really don't know how many times I have to STRONGLY EMPHASIZE this, but:

Number changes, removing spirit shell, nerfing atonement and capping level 90 talents
Are Not The Reason To Be Concerned
these are expected and somewhat reasonable changes and are not what the experienced disc priests are talking about when we say the spec will become unplayable if these cuts go live.

The REAL CONCERN is the loss of all our significant, non-bloating, non-overpowered mechanics which were the
ONLY THING that remained to give depth to playing this spec.
Anyone who managed to get wave 30 proving grounds endless healer this patch as a DISC PRIEST is keenly aware of just how important Train of Thought, Borrowed Time, Strength of Soul and Inner Focus are to the spec.
[/B]

I'm going to have to disagree. Losing SoS and ToT is fine, considering the passive nature of those abilities. A Disc's spell selection has never been dictated by either of those abilities, and I don't forsee that changing even if they kept them in WoD unless one wants to be reckless with mana.

Also, losing SS has me concerned. It's our core ability and probably the only one in our toolkit right now that actually add some complexity to our game play. Numbers be damned, I would hate for Disc to become even more simplified.

[Deleted]

People really don't understand the concept of alpha testing. You can't test a class without said talent without removing/nerfing said talent.

Things like Inner focus are no longer necessary in the new model= a spell mostly designed to counter blanket silences (which are mostly removed) and provide a small burst heal (that is no longer needed in the new model since priests can just penance/shield when they come outside of cc). Same thing with so many passives: there's no point on having an ability give you a cool effect on mana regen when you can simply remove it and adjust mana regen.

The goal here is: what's left counts. And since we're still in alpha, even this is still not true: anyone remember when psychic scream was made a talent only to be made baseline again?

As a last reminder, ability pruning brings a reward in the end: after all the clutter has been removed, Blizzard can start once again adding complexity to classes via spells/talents. Like they said multiple times, the problem is that at the moment we all have TOO MANY abilities, most of them completely useless in a grand scheme of the gameplay Blizzard wants.

[Basmothh]

PoH + Divine Star is depth? you're keeping both of those. Atonement? you're keeping that.

actually, in SoO you don't really make use of strength of soul, or train of thought, or void shift, and inner focus is only used to buff up your SS - it's not actually used intelligently, it's akin to a druid using NS just to get 1 more cast off during their legendary meta or (in WoD) during moment of clarity.

call me naive, but i dont think disc has particular depth atm. i don't think any healer does.

Rapture isn't used intelligently? There was a time at the start of this expansion (before the LMG proc for sure) when maximizing Rapture procs was a major part of optimal Disc play. Also, it doesn't make sense that Void Shift is lumped with those spells, considering the fact that it requires some modicum of reflexes and attention to health bars. Just because SoO is horribly undertuned doesn't change the clutch nature of the spell.

Then you have SS, which is probably the only spell in Disc's toolkit that requires a little thought and effort to use. So yes, Disc may already be simple, which makes even less sense why they'd want to make it even simpler.

[Sinnik]

What concerns me as well as the removing of depth in WoD is the new healing mode. Absorbs are only good if they are fully used. With WoD being a sub 100% environment, this increases the problem. If am absorbs fades without being used because of damage pattern why bring a disc priest when u can easily bring another throughput healer instead. The problem I see is that absorbs are not effective healing and disc traded 200% crit healing for 100% healing + 100% Absorb on crit.

Example: Player A takes a hit for 100K, you flash heal him. The flash heal crits for 50K healing + 50K absorb. The effective healing on the target is only 50K, if worst case scenario player A does not take anymore damage for 15sec, the 50K absorb is wasted. To make it worse say the player was 25% life.

Now if Disc had a mechanic to change absorbs into effect healing well this wouldn't be an issue, but alas there isn't one.

Edit: To date haven't any really discussion on this topic and a concern that is floating around in my head.

[nobodysbaby]

What concerns me as well as the removing of depth in WoD is the new healing mode. Absorbs are only good if they are fully used. With WoD being a sub 100% environment, this increases the problem. If am absorbs fades without being used because of damage pattern why bring a disc priest when u can easily bring another throughput healer instead. The problem I see is that absorbs are not effective healing and disc traded 200% crit healing for 100% healing + 100% Absorb on crit.

Example: Player A takes a hit for 100K, you flash heal him. The flash heal crits for 50K healing + 50K absorb. The effective healing on the target is only 50K, if worst case scenario player A does not take anymore damage for 15sec, the 50K absorb is wasted. To make it worse say the player was 25% life.

Now if Disc had a mechanic to change absorbs into effect healing well this wouldn't be an issue, but alas there isn't one.

Edit: To date haven't any really discussion on this topic and a concern that is floating around in my head.

About crit convertion; the same happens with overhealing crits but the downside here is the heal crit wont linger and wait to be used. So this 100% heal + 100% absorb is almost always better than a 200% heal.

[Sinnik]

nobodysbaby your right if you are working in am environment where people are at 100% life, but it WoD it is a sub 100% environment. How long people are in the sub 100% isn't clear, is it 50%, permanent, or 25% of the raid encounter. In Mist your statement is 100% correct, mist is all about burst healing and absorbs are the ultimate form in burst healing when u can get in front of damage

[nobodysbaby]

nobodysbaby your right if you are working in am environment where people are at 100% life, but it WoD it is a sub 100% environment. How long people are in the sub 100% isn't clear, is it 50%, permanent, or 25% of the raid encounter. In Mist your statement is 100% correct, mist is all about burst healing and absorbs are the ultimate form in burst healing when u can get in front of damage

Yes, right. I forgot in WoD absorbs will be more or less worthless... *cough*.

No, I dont think so. MoP was the most absurd healing xpack ever. Absorbs always had special value and will for sure continue to have that value.

My guess is; as usual, absorbs will be valuable during progression, and from that be more and more dominant with gears even if it wont be as overstated as in this xpack.

I have to add: Disc thinking they should have equal output as a raw healer without the added dps, and invisible to meters PW:B should think again?

[Larynx]

PoH + Divine Star is depth? you're keeping both of those. Atonement? you're keeping that.

actually, in SoO you don't really make use of strength of soul, or train of thought, or void shift, and inner focus is only used to buff up your SS - it's not actually used intelligently, it's akin to a druid using NS just to get 1 more cast off during their legendary meta or (in WoD) during moment of clarity.

call me naive, but i dont think disc has particular depth atm. i don't think any healer does.

Your opinion of how Disc is played has no bearing on how it is actually played.

[Floopa]

Your opinion of how Disc is played has no bearing on how it is actually played.

so you play it wrong? okay then

[swissedog]

Comparing only numbers, disc doesn't seem that bad though, at least for single target.

PW:S is a 508% shield at 3.2% mana. Other classes don't have any spammable instants that hit anywhere near as good, we exchange that for heal over times though.
Clarity of will is a 592% shield at 3.5% mana compared to hardcasted heals of other class at 250-300% power/2.3%mana.
Penance is a 300% smart heal(plus 390% damage) at 1.3% mana.

Too bad about mass aoe healing though, would be nice to just get rid of evangelism/arcangel since it's just a shitty way of making us do 0hps with holy fire and smite.

I'm sure disc will just be pigeonholed to just spam clarity of will/pws the tanks or mandatory soakers on mythical content.

clarity is a talent that replaces heal, and does twice the amount of heal as an absorb at 50% higher cost. So the talent is like casting heal 2 times and paying 3/4ths the cost. OR 25% off a fast greater heal (that lands as an absorb).

Holy Nova. Honestly, I just can't. This is such a bad spell. low mana, but also low heal, proximity only, can be used on the run. This will be the bane of any disc priest. Jumping around like an idiot casting holy nova on any free global.

Here's my prediction, yeah based on nuthin but my own pessimism and experience.

But I think it's going to break down like this. Disc will be very desired for mythic because of shielding from clarity and PW:S (disc stands for Dude I Save Cookies). The priest will atonement heal outside of those spells, throw the nerfed lvl 90 talent on cooldown and will holy nova during any movement phases which will cheese certain fights.

The forums will be full of other healing classes and specs with one button cooldowns that top up the raid completely talking about how disc is OP.

Then they'll nerf the shield model either by increasing mana cost, reducing throughput, or maiming atonement They'll say, we don't think shield spamming should be a viable form of healing and find it boring. They will have to nerf this so completely that disc became entirely useless for 20+ man raid teams to NOT bring a disc priest with those mechanics. They can't increase the power of the other spells because that would unbalance that part of the equation.

As a solo or duo healer disc will have to focus hard casting single target spells, like Heal, and PoM, most likely take the WoM talent. Desperate priests will jump around casting holy nova in a vain attempt to keep people alive with aoe wet noodles... until they outgear the content then they'll shift to OP shield mechanics, Until then it will feel like you are always a step behind when healing with a disc priest. But they'll nerf the shields (see above) and that will cause mana issues where the priest can't keep up and the shields will be so low, or so expensive that they'll oom easily.

Highly skilled priests will be viable, but it will be using every available tool in an optimal way.

There will be much gnashing of teeth.

second tier disc will become viable as blizz buffs disc in an attempt to get someone to play the spec again or to put them back into something approaching viable across the whole pool of healers (not just the highly skilled).

Third tier disc will be excellent.

By the end everyone will hate disc because the buffs in the second tier are so out of scale that everyone claims that disc has been OP for the entirety of the last three expansions.

The End.

[nobodysbaby]

Yeah, here ^^ is something I am really worried about. Holy Nova. Seriously? Yuk... Amazed how easily you swallowed this AoE solution? Honestly cant think of much worse.

[swissedog]

Two solutions.

1. Holy nova should be a big spell, that explodes (like a NOVA!) and heals outward in a ring up to 25 meters.

Ya get me? That's right. We already have it, it's called Halo, baseline it for disc and change the talent into a spec specific talent (like the 100 tier).

2. Absorbs should not be a direct 100% block of damage. that's like having a running shoe that "absorbs" 100% of your downward force. redonkulous.
Absorbs should absorb a percentage of the incoming damage. This could even make a more interesting mastery for disc priests, higher mastery higher absorb percentage.

Now you can tune absorbs, other healers get to heal still, people get to pimp their one button healing classes and feel powerful, and everyone wins.

[Deleted]

Yes, right. I forgot in WoD absorbs will be more or less worthless... *cough*.

There's a big difference between absorbs beeing more or less worthless and more or less on par with classic heals. When you exagerate that much, to me it just seems that you're out of constructive arguments.

That said, there a big chance that disc is gonna still be OP next xpac. Bubble spamming was OP in WoTLK and it could be the same in WOD. No need for atonement, SS or L90 talents for a class to be OP. It's just a matter of tuning.
I think what the legitimate concern of every disc on this thread here is the dumbing down of a class that didn't have that much synergies to begin with. All of the disc posters are really constructive and take time to clearly explain their concerns. And they didn't talk about numbers so far.
Instead of posting childish comments like "about time, disc was op since vanilla LOL" (<-- see what i did there : exageration), I really think you should think about your favorite class/spec balance coming WOD, and express yourself in the dedicated threads like we currently do. Overall, it would be better for you, for the community, and for the game.

That said, If they stick to theses changes for disc, I really hope they'll have another pass afterwards to add some depth to the spec because right now, it also seems to me that disc mecanics are very, very dull. Even if bubble spam as the new disc is viable number wise, I think I won't be playing that : I'd rather renew spam as holy : at least i'll have fdcl and serendipity to play with.

Edit : My rant is not aiming someone in particular. Just wanted to be clear about that

[Sinnik]

Yes, right. I forgot in WoD absorbs will be more or less worthless... *cough*.

I don't think absorbs will be useless in WoD, but the effectiveness of an absorb is directly based on how much it absorbs any unused absorbs is lost effective heal which a thoughput healer doesn't have.

For example: Player A is at 35% health, you flash heal the player getting a crit of 100K (100K healing/100K absorb) and a fellow healer throws heal out and crits for 200K (200% crit healing). As disc your output with the fellow healer are equal
200K(effective heal) = 100K(effective healing) + 100K absorb, but this is only true if the 100K absorb is fully used. if not and say only 50K of that absorb is used your effective healing is already down to 150K and in a sub 100% environment losing 50K healing I see as a big thing.

No, I dont think so. MoP was the most absurd healing xpack ever. Absorbs always had special value and will for sure continue to have that value.

I agree with you hear, every time I look at one of my logs and see my effective healing sub 50% to my absorbs you know something is wrong.

I have to add: Disc thinking they should have equal output as a raw healer without the added dps, and invisible to meters PW:B should think again?

Yes I think the output of healers should be comparable , y should an absorb class be singled out from other classes. We are in the end a healer not DPS. With the changes to atonement DPSing as disc will just to a mini-game/building up stacks for arch angle.

I have been a priest since vanilla and out of all the healing classes I am still in love with my priest. I went disc in CATA and have never looked back. What I love with disc isn't atonement, it is the best at triage. I my opinion there is no other class that can pump so much healing into one target in a few GCDs. With the bubbles, penance, flash heal, g. heal and the much forgotten/hated grace.

[Spotnick]

We lived without spirit shell before, but we had Divine Hymn. Removing one without giving back another cooldown isn't really good news. As much as barrier is good, it's not useful on many fights due to people being spread out.

I don't care much about the other abilities, many things like Inner Focus were in macros with other abilities until Thok this raid, I guess for pvp priests it's not a good thing.. removing renew only helps to close the gap between bad and good disc priests.

Now without spirit shell, why do we even have Prayer of Healing? I think Holy Nova will end up being better than a group limited heal.

I think we're missing something in the big picture..

[Mahourai]

Did I miss something and not read that Penance is going to be an offensive only spell that provides 0 healing?

That's not what I said. Penance now heals with Atonement again, and is much more powerful than a single-target friendly Penance, which means that actually casting Penance on a player instead of on the boss so it heals via Atonement is not something anyone will ever be doing. Again, much like the changes that discourage shield weaving, keeping Penance as an Atonement spell and the changes to Grace encourage never casting Penance on your allies. It's a modal spell where one mode is a trap for bad players.

[Deleted]

Disc can be the #1 healer for WoD, it doesn't mean it will be enjoyable to play. That's the point of this thread. The spec has zero depth now.

It's not just Disc which is lacking in depth in MoP, currently all healing for all specs is completely lacking in depth because healing gameplay can generally be summed up as lining up cooldowns against bossmod timers, waiting for incoming damage, and then unleashing those cooldowns with big AoE and Smart heals (or blanket absorbs in the case of disc).

The current model for all healers is a HPS meters race where spell choices are pre-determined and choreographed for the entire boss fight because nearly every situation has a single blindingly-obvious "correct" answer rather than being about true choice and situational awareness for the healer. Target selections are meaningless, and resource management is non-existent. The real reasons that MoP healing has zero depth is actually a combination of several different problems.

Blanket absorbs such as SS are one part of the problem, and it seems that's being addressed. Infinite mana is another part of the problem, which is hopefully being addressed by flattening out the regen scaling. Smart healing is another part of the problem, which is also being addressed (by making "less smart" heals.

The last thing Blizzard need to do is ensure that direct single-targeted heals are more useful and powerful than they are at the moment, and that there are real compelling reasons to prefer targeted healing above AoE and 'smart' healing; I'm still hopeful that they'll do this.

The way to put depth back into healing is move away from the blanketing, the automation, the HPS races, and the focus on boss/cooldown timers. Healing needs to be about mana management, target selection, spell choice and actively preventing players in your group from dying, then hopefully we'll start to see more depth to healing gameplay, with things back to the way they were before MoP.