[Discipline Priest] PvP Perspective and Feedback

[Narthy]

Hi - posting this to the Beta forums later tonight. Currently I can't do that from work as I don't have my authenticator.

Replies are welcome and feedback is encouraged.

Ability Pruning:

There are a few key items that have been pulled from our kits. Binding heal was an important tool to heal spread pressure from teams like LSD, RLS, LSD2, etc. Granted, we now have Holy Nova, but the throughput isn’t comparable really and we have to sacrifice our positioning and our partner’s positioning to make use of it. It isn’t a suitable replacement. I can deal without Binding Heal to some degree. I think the tool itself was valuable, and you may want to think about adding it back to Disc. Currently Disc has less active buttons to hit than any other healing spec, which is just food for thought.

Losing Renew is a pretty big deal for Disc especially since we also lost instant cast Mending. Whilst I understand Blizzard is of the mindset that they want to ‘promote more casting’ I would think that this newer casting paradigm is meant to limit the amount of immediate healing available to players via instant cast healing spells. Renew doesn’t have a terrible amount of throughput frontloaded (like Riptide does, comparatively) and currently the only instant cast healing spells Disc has that warrant using are all integrated somehow into a talent tier. Things like Divine Star, Saving Grace or FDCL procs are all that Disc brings to the table for actual throughput inducing instant cast healing. I don’t understand why Disc lost not only Mending as an instant cast spell but also Renew. We are also lacking in dispel protection now due to these ability pruning changes. We’ll get to the dispel piece of the issue in a bit.

Inner Will and Inner Fire being removed is a tough nut to swallow. From a skill perspective, juggling between stances before being swapped to and thus anticipating your opponents switch and lessening the damage was a relatively simple differentiator for good Discipline Priests vs. average/poor Discipline Priests. Good Disc Priests (and all healers, for that matter) ask themselves questions constantly “am I on stun DR,” “how is my positioning related to my opponents,” “is deep off CD,” “if I push up for a Fear – am I leaving myself open to a swap,” “is that enemy Rogue pooling energy for a Redirect Kidney Dance on me?” Knowing and anticipating when you need to swap into Inner Fire in a 3v3 environment was something many of us enjoyed, and yet another aspect of the class that is being removed leading to a less skillful or homogenized healing archetype. I was under the impression that this type of anticipatory skillful gameplay was something Blizzard promoted. For me, Disc used to be that healer that really separated itself from its peer healers when piloted by a skilled player – currently the spec isn’t even viable on Beta in anything but skirmishes and Ashran. And just to be clear – the return of skirmishes is fantastic, and I absolutely love Ashran. I understand that the ‘bloat’ was becoming as issue for abilities, and I empathize – but I think reducing a classes ‘fun factor’ should also be considered when pulling out abilities that have come to define the class and spec. Inner Fire has been around since vanilla for example.

Void shift is gone. Good. Most players agreed the CD just wasn’t necessary. Disc needs other tweaks, not another big CD to save someone’s life. I don’t miss Hymn of Hope or Rapture particularly, since I anticipate our mana regeneration being comparable to other healers once a tuning pass is completed and throughput is evened out.

Please stop trying to pigeonhole Discipline into this ‘Evangelism’ and ‘Archangel’ play style in PvP. I understand the idea behind it, and the design intent was clearly stated by Celes in a previous post. It actually makes a lot of sense, and I think in PvE it’s a great idea – but it doesn’t work in PvP. Disc’s overall throughput in PvP cannot be throttled and held back under the assumption that ideal ability usage includes hitting Archangel. There is far too much risk to actually put this button into practice in PvP. Not to mention the upkeep cost is demanding. Disc already has through put issues, so to try and keep stacks up by spending globals offensively nuking isn’t feasible. Shield needs a buff or we need some other sort of preventative damage mitigation for our partners in order to have the spare time to nuke and keep stacks up (and risk being locked). Holy Fire is an ability that has far too many iconic Disc facets baked into it. I can either choose to Death a poly with the Inquisition glyph, or I can assist burst and try to stack for Archangel. If I’m locked on school I can’t do either.

You removed our Shadow spells for assist burst but seemingly wanted to give Disc an added bonus for playing more offensively. I actually pressed Archangel a few times on Beta, and the through put was helpful, but the additional healing you get converted from our damage onto our friendly targets/partners just isn’t enough. I also know you can’t meaningfully buff the healing from atonement because of PvE implications. I couldn’t tell you the last time I felt like I was keeping someone upright or doing any meaningful healing by hitting Smite/Holy Fire. I don’t have a resolution for you, to be fair.

Shadow Word: Death being removed hurts, but not unequivocally. It’s unfortunate that we lose yet another defining ability that skillful Disc priests used to utilize in appropriate matches and now we have to rely on the Holy Fire Glyph for a similar effect. Note that in WoD – I now have to spend 3 major glyphs on ability traits and bonuses that would not require a single Major glyph two expansions ago. That’s pretty jarring.

Talents Choices:

The first point I’d like to remind everyone of is that Blizzard has always stated they want talents to be a difficult choice for a player and they want players to choose their talents for what best suits their situation. Many of the Priest Talents aren’t a choice, much like many of the glyphs. Most of the Priest talents just aren’t very interesting or engaging, which leads to a disparity in healer mechanics comparative to something like a Resto Druid. Also come to think of it – if Blizzard is promoting more casting, why are Resto Druids seemingly left out of this new paradigm? Doesn’t that seem counterintuitive?

The first tier isn’t ever a choice really. In 2v2 against double melee – currently I’ll run Angelic Bulwark. But it’s not a button I have to hit, so it’s not fun or engaging – and it doesn’t make me feel like a choice I made in global usage added to my survivability. It’s not even something I notice when it procs, which is probably user error. For literally every other scenario I run Spectral Guise. I don’t like doing that either. Spectral Guise is too good compared to it’s Tier 1 counterparts. Guise doesn’t fit that tier either since it isn’t a heal at all.

The biggest complaint I have with Spectral Guise is very similar to the complaint I have about Angelic Feathers – it makes getting Psychic Screams off very, very trivial. I used to have to spend multiple globals prepping my partners with Shields, Mending and Renew before I could push out and spend valuable time moving/deathing CC in order to get a clutch fear off. Now I drop a feather, Guise, and get a fear for free. No one I’ve spoken to agrees with Guise being a good talent for Disc – or Priests in general. We don’t need more mobility; Disc needs more throughput and offensive capability. Desperate Prayer can’t be used while it’s stunned, and you can save 22% of your health by Shield/Guising anyhow. I would recommend replacing Spectral Guise with something else entirely that assists with survivability – making Desp Prayer usable while stunned or increase its throughput – and making Angelic Bulwark a button I have to press with a shorter CD. Even something that drastically buffs Disc’s multistrike rating when below 30% health, or healing someone below 30% health would be decent instead of Guise.

The second tier is actually okay without Angelic Feathers. They’re nice to use on partners when another healer is pillaring – and they can be used ‘skillfully’ by putting some down near a pillar in anticipation of having to move past that point in the near future – but they make getting Fears/CC off too effortless. Two globals and I can be at another enemy healer and they don’t have a prayer of avoiding my Scream. Hydra recently posted a video discussing Disc changes, and he recommended removing Glyph of Shadow Magic and replacing it with a Tier Two talent that brings back Inner Focus to replace Feathers albeit without the mana reduction baked into Inner Focus. I agree with this change for the most part. The second tier is our mobility tier – so here’s something that bothers me about our mobility.

• Why is our 2pc PvP set bonus designed to increase our mobility when the effect won’t stack with Body and Soul, for example? We don’t need that type of design. I would much rather have a Freedom effect – self only – on shielding like Disc used to have back in the day. Take things like Body and Soul/Feathers out to prevent abuse. Currently our 2pc Bonus works directly against our mobility tier of talents. Using Penance offensively giving a snare is nice bonus, but otherwise it isn’t impactful.

• It is super counterintuitive for Disc PvP for us to have to glyph into Shadow Magic (Aura Mastery) as a mandatory glyph thus giving us a 1m 30s Fade CD. That literally makes something like Phantasm virtually useless for PvP since it’s a self only Freedom on a 90s CD that we can’t use. We have to take Shadow Walk for an Aura Mastery every 90 seconds in the form of a 90 second CD Fade. Phantasm interacts with Fade, but Fade will always have a 90s CD for Disc PvP. Phantasm gives us a Freedom effect on Fading, but because we use Fade for Aura Mastery we should stand and cast when it’s active – not use the Freedom effect Phantasm grants. Our Talents and Glyphs need to stop working against each other, currently that is how Fade is designed with regards to being a glyphed aura mastery or a talented freedom. It doesn’t make any sense.

Remove Feathers – put in Inner Focus and remove Shadow Walk glyph. That gives us something that lets us stand still and tank damage while casting, something like assists our partners on Shielding and something like gives a self-freedom. Change the 2pc PvP bonus since it doesn’t stack with anything on this tier.

The third tier is okay. FDCL is good in 3s even with a reduced proc chance (it probably shouldn’t have been nerfed) and Mindbender is good in 2s. PW: Solace has never had a place in PvP, so perhaps I’m used to just overlooking it – but I also don’t think every talent tier needs a viable PvP talent either.

The fourth tier upsets me. Void Tendrils is a talent that is nullified by any freedom effect or an amount of damage done to our targets. A Paladin Freedoms himself, a Monk Lusts, etc – and it cancels out an entire talent that has a very similar CD. Why is it so commonplace for baseline abilities of other classes to counter Discipline Priest talents?

Psychic Scream is a 6s Duration Talented Fear now. Why are Priests the only healer without a baseline form of Crowd Control? Why is it okay for something like a Resto Druid to be immune to snares, have a talent for an AoE incap, a talent for a stun, Cyclone and instant cast healing? Shaman have Hex and Cap Totem (I forget if Cap is removed), Paladins have at least their Stun, Monks have Para, Priests have absolutely nothing. We have to talent into another Priest ability that has been a staple for the Priest kit since the classes inception. Why? Not to mention the fact that it now has less of a Duration and DRs with more abilities. If Priest Healers bring less untalented CC to the table than every other healing class – why aren’t we fortunate enough to have something like a double offensive dispel or really meaningful off school assist burst like we used to have? Dominate Mind is channeled, and for 3s, it DRs with too much to use it. So, our choices for 3v3 is really just Scream – and it now has a longer CD, lasts for less duration, DRs with more, and requires a talent point investment. I agree with Psyfiend removal – the talent was brainless and relatively unfun except when it randomly ate a trap for me off and on. But you have a lot of work to do here, I think. Keep in mind:

• The Tremor nerf was a big buff to Priests, but not as big as everyone thinks. Scream DRs with more, and has a longer CD with less duration – so the ability inherently is a lot weaker than the MoP/Vanilla variant.

• While we’re mentioning tremor – you should look at giving the following abilities a similar adjustment. Having any class with more than one ‘Trinket’ effect just isn’t compelling gameplay. Anything that I can press and it immediately nullifies a mistake I made by getting CC’d just waters down the competitive and skillful aspect of the game, further homogenizing the classes. Nimble Brew, Desecrated Ground, BW, Berserker Rage, Lichborn, IBF, Unbound Will, etc should all be given similar treatment. Skillful use of ability before the incoming CC is used against you should be promoted – not outright ignoring someone’s stun because you have an extra trinket you can use against it.

• I see that Celes mentioned Disc might be getting Silence. If it stays relatively the same CD and duration, this would be a very impactful buff. Keep in mind, though, that it would allow a Disc to fear a Shaman’s partners and Silence the Shaman to prevent Tremor. This might break a paradigm you may have just recently gotten balanced. Should we assume that Silence would come baseline and not require a Talent point investment?

Fifth Tier is okay I suppose. Twist of Fate is barely noticeable when it procs in PvP for Disc, really. I don’t think it affects Shields and it probably should. Power Infusion is worth it to press. Spirit Shell is another Disc ability that didn’t really have any place in the game for WoD but you’ve made it a talent. I like the idea of it, but I think it takes too long to be worthwhile and have a meaningful stack – and while I’m building that stack, I’m leaving myself open to interrupts and effectively wasting mana that I could just be using for flat throughput. I think PI is the clear winner here, and while it isn’t as unfun as other tier choices – the other two in this tier certainly could be better thought out. Again, this tier is more of the same ‘there’s not a real choice here – virtually every decent rated Disc PvPer is going to choose PI’.

You won’t see Disc use anything but Divine Star since we need another button we can press without having to cast. Plus the directional nature of the spell makes it sort of skillful for pulling classes out of stealth or sending a Divine Star pre-Kidney so it comes back for a chunk of healing while I’m stunned, for example. Cascade has a place in RBGs, so I’ve heard, and Halo as well. The cast time on them limit the exposure you’ll see in PvP though since Disc has less instant buttons to press.

The last tier just doesn’t make much sense either. From a tuning perspective, PoMending doesn’t have almost any throughput whatsoever. I cast the ability but only because I have to off and on. I don’t feel like it keeps anyone alive or does anything noticeable, and I certainly don’t want to invest a talent point in the penultimate row of Priest talents towards promoting a spell that does very little for healing. If it stacked a bit faster it might be okay, but it still can’t compete with Saving Grace – which is the crux of the issue for this tier of talents. Clarity of Will seems to have too long of a base cast time for a Healing spec lacking completely in untalented instant cast throughput. It almost looks like CoWill was meant as a Shield replacement – so why not go ahead and make it a direct replacement for PW: Shield? As of now, I think I’ve been able to get a cast of it off a handful of times in a fifty games where I’ve used it.

Saving Grace is awesome, but it’s too awesome. Instant cast, low cost, huge heal with no CD that just puts an MS effect on me for a few seconds. It needs adjustment, but I don’t really have insight into what to replace it with. The Disc talents need some serious adjustment, and I’m a bit terrified that the adjustment isn’t coming before launch. Saving Grace needs to be brought back in line and the other two talents need to be buffed or replaced. I’d love to use CoWill but the cast time keeps me from doing that – it needs to be a faster cast.

Perks:

Empowered Archangel is mostly PvE related and not applicable. Enhanced Focused Will is an awesome idea, but its also tough to utilize since if I’m taking damage I can’t really be expected to spend tons of globals on bursting with my partners. I have to heal myself when Focused Will is up since I’m being focused. Enhanced Leap of Faith isn’t noticeable since the long CD on the ability means you only really get the see any benefit from it a few times a match. Improved Smite is fun, and I do like that some of Disc’s offensive assistance is back – I can do pseudo meaningful burst but I don’t get to use it very often due to needing to constantly heal due from throughput problems.

Glyphs:

Fade is factored into way too many glyphs. I suspect this is because it doesn’t have a lot of PvP usage outside of dropping aggro on some pets – but just between Glyphs and Talents, Fade is an ability that can:

• Reduce damage by 10%
• Provide an Aura Mastery
• Provide a self-freedom

Why are so many key PvP utilities factored into one ability that ends up needing to have a 90s CD? Glyph of Fear Ward should probably just be baked into the ability at this point. Glyph of Mass Dispel and Penance are fun and engaging and fit the glyph paradigm. Purify is decent against specific comps, Restored Faith is alright as well. I remember reading a quote somewhere stating that Blizzard would be happier if more classes had more mandatory glyphs. I just don’t think particular spec/class traits should be left to something like a glyph. I didn’t agree with that design in MoP either with the Death glyph.

I love the ‘cast more’ idealogy, but melee haven’t suffered any intrinsic change to the way they operate. If casters and healers all have to cast more why is it more difficult if not impossible to juke interrupts? And why hasn’t Melee uptime been adjusted? Warriors, Rogues, Ferals all have insane uptime. DKs and Rets aren’t far behind. There are a lot of other posts around here about that stuff, so I’ll leave it at that but I hope you change what needs changing.

I love WoD so far, but I’ve had much more fun playing Resto Shaman and Resto Druid since Disc just isn’t viable right now. Great facets like Skirmishes for prizes/gear and Ashran are absolutely going to keep me playing – but I’d like to be able to play the class and spec that I fell in love with years ago.

Recent Quotes from Celes:

It’s indeed a very multifaceted spell, especially in PvP. However, the Atonement healing t provides should not be a huge factor in that case, so is lessened

This sort of proves our point, right? The Atonement healing in PvP isn’t impactful, but the throughput gains from Archangel are needed to keep us even at an average throughput ratio. So we’re essentially wasting Holy Fire to keep up a buff that we need to maintain to stay competitive, and that keeps us from using Holy Fire for things like Deathing CC.

This answer is similar to Holy Fire, but we see all of those potential customizations as a good thing. All of the things you mentioned are talents/glyphs that can be swapped in/out based on need. That kind of customization is generally good

Not when Disc needs an Aura mastery for PvP, so we have to glyph it. Glyph of Shadow Walk means all of a sudden our self-freedom has a 90 second CD, and so does the 10% damage reduction. There is no way that we’d go without an Aura mastery with how many interrupts there are currently out there and how often we have to cast compared to every other healer. Phantasm and the 10% damage reduction glyph are now going to be avoided in PvP just because we can’t make use of such trivial benefits when they’re on a 90 second CD for minimal benefit compared to the aura mastery we’re getting. Fade essentially is becoming Inner Focus without the mana reduction baked in for Priest PvP, it won’t be used as anything else.

One thing that may not be obvious (or may be bugged) is that it affects its own healing. If you spam it for 10sec, the last half of that is doing some pretty weak healing. Then you're doing none for 10sec... And now you're spending 2/3 of your time doing no healing. I don't expect that it'll get much use the way you describe.

Understood, and last I checked – Saving Grace did effect its own healing. That’s not the issue though. For PvP, the talent is just too good to pass up which means the other two talents might as well not be there at all. There isn’t any choice. We can also use Spectral Guise after SGing ourselves to 80% health, then Shielding – and Guise just lets us ignore 3-4 seconds of the Saving Grace debuff. The entire last row of talents for Disc needs a lot of attention and adjustment.

[Venaliter]

It is my impression that Celestalon is the numbers guy. He's got no idea of PvP theory, or what makes a Priest a Priest. Ability pruning wasn't supposed to take out buttons we use. We shouldn't have lost Psychic Scream, we shouldn't have lost SW: D, SS shouldn't have been made a talent. We should have lost Shackle Undead, Fear Ward - which we didn't. The whole of WoD is blizzard completely falling flat on their face and scrambling to ship. Being a Disc Priest, I expect to be shit on during expansion time, but this is the worst expansion Disc has ever had. I'm probably done with the game.

I mean seriously. As soon as ability prune was previewed, a whole bunch of people, myself included, IMMEDIATELY asked about CC breaks. If CC was being toned down, CC breaks become conversely more powerful. Holinka's response was "We're watching it/Listening." and this was six months ago. It's apparent what we predicted has come to pass, with melee dominating the scene. Still no changes, and it's probably too late to fix it now. WoD's pvp might very well be MoP 2.0"We're watching" may as well be code for "We disagree. No immediate changes planned." because if they WERE watching, they would have seen this coming. We did.

Also, Silence? Disc priests tweeted Holinka for MONTHS about MELEE. Adding Silence is better then nothing, but that's not much help when melee are going to eat you every time you step into a pvp battleground or Arena.

To hell with it. I like Holinka, he's a good guy, but WoD is not filling me with a ton of hope.