Atonement needs a fix, but how?

[Deleted]

Just a post to explore thoughts on how the community feel about Atonement, its power, current/cataclysm viability and how it should be moving forward.

Its current state pins it as a nifty tool for dungeons that we were outgearing over a year ago, buffing numbers to force viability may force 1 button specialization [supposedly dying with WotLK], so how can this be tweaked to be a viable option in raids, remembering huge hitboxes and other pitfalls of current atonement, without being our only viable option?

Some ideas being thrown around are:

-Atonement only healing the target of your Grace.
-Dividing the heal between all targets of your Weakened soul
-Remove the passive heal, make Atonement a buff gained from smite which enhances Penance when cast [Holy orbs?]
-Casting Smite causes your current Prayer of Mending to heal>jump>always cause Divine Aegis
-Casting Smite places Atonement on your target absorbing x damage from their next damaging attack [Lovechild of Divine aegis & Necrotic Strike]


*Anything* to contribute, please do, I'm sure there's other, better, concepts out there for how it could be implemented.. so share! This should be an effort from the whole raiding community, these are just some thoughts I have come across to get things started!

Aregios: Grace as a targetable buff
Harky: +30% base mana gain from Archangel.
Hellash: Your Smite spell also heals the lowest health friendly unit within 60 yds of the enemy and affected by your Weakened Soul or Grace effects for an amount equal to 50/100% of the damage dealt.
Kelesti: Glyph of Atonement - Your Atonement heals are drawn to the target with Grace, when in range.
Lysdexic: -8% mana cost of healing spells under Archangel

[Nurvus]

The idea of Atonement is an "intelligent" heal - not an AoE heal.
It's not supposed to be a 1-hit wonder.
It is supposed to be a viable replacement to Heal when properly specced.
With it, you gain Evangelism, and through it access a viable burst-heal & mana recovery tool.

I like the way it essentially creates 2 specs (that play very differently) within 1 tree.

Imo, the only conceptual downfall of Atonement is it's unpredictability - lack of control.

My suggestion would be to widen the radius but adding a way to reduce and control wich targets are valid. Like this:

Your Smite spell also heals the lowest health friendly unit within 60 yds of the enemy and affected by your Weakened Soul or Grace effects for an amount equal to 50/100% of the damage dealt.
Healing done to yourself through this effect is reduced by half.

[Deleted]

The idea of Atonement is an "intelligent" heal - not an AoE heal.
It's not supposed to be a 1-hit wonder.
It is supposed to be a viable replacement to Heal when specifically specced towards that end.
With it, you gain Evangelism, and through it access a viable burst-heal & mana recovery tool.

The first idea would be to widen the radius - but checking the lowest health target among a bunch a targets might be stressful for the server, as well as becoming even more "automatic".

You're right, it shouldn't be a 1 hit wonder, but when its matching heal, providing mana regen, activating burst heal cooldown and even picking low health targets for you, a 1 hit wonder is exactly what it becomes.

I'm sure one of the reasons it has a minute radius effect currently is to stop people spamming smite endlessly which would eventually heal the entire raid in order of lowest health.

There needs to be a reason to cast other spells.

[Kelesti]

Glyph of Atonement:
Major Glyph

Your Atonement heals are drawn to the target with Grace, when in range.

That's it, that's all "Atonement" needs.
Archangel is another story.

[Nurvus]

You're right, it shouldn't be a 1 hit wonder, but when its matching heal, providing mana regen, activating burst heal cooldown and even picking low health targets for you, a 1 hit wonder is exactly what it becomes.

I'm sure one of the reasons it has a minute radius effect currently is to stop people spamming smite endlessly which would eventually heal the entire raid in order of lowest health.

There needs to be a reason to cast other spells.

There is. I think you missed my point.
PW:S, Penance, and other spells are used even when specced into Atonement... except Heal.
You trade Heal with Smite, and shift your priorities.

When you spec into Evangelism, Archangel and Atonement - you are legitimatelly replacing Heal with Smite in your healing spells.

When you do -not- spec into Atonement, you gain 2 talent points to spec somewhere else - like the talent that causes your Heal to reduce Weakened Soul duration by 4 on the healed target.
This in turn causes you to have more PW:S running on your main healing target, wich in turn causes more bubbles to pop per minute, wich means more mana back from a certain talent.

So you have 2 choices:
- Cost-effective healing based on Heal with the advantage of short Weakened Soul duration on 'Heal'ed targets?
- Cost-effective healing based on Smite, with the advantage of building a decent +healing & +mana cooldown for heavy healing phases?

The other spells? They are there for you, and are useful.
When you use Archangel, your game switches from mainly PW:S, Smite & Penance to mainly Flash Heal, Greater Heal, Prayer of Healing, etc.

[Kelesti]

When you spec into Evangelism, Archangel and Atonement - you are legitimatelly replacing Heal with Smite in your healing spells.

When you do -not- spec into Atonement, you gain 2 talent points to spec somewhere else

5 points, really. No point for the others with no Atonement.

[Nurvus]

Glyph of Atonement:
Major Glyph

Your Atonement heals are drawn to the target with Grace, when in range.

That's it, that's all "Atonement" needs.
Archangel is another story.

Archangel isn't the focus of this discussion, just mentioned it to distinguish the roles of Smite spec and Heal spec.

Your idea makes Atonement lose its purpose - wich is to heal the lowest - and instead just heals whoever you're get you Grace on... always.
That would actually be removing any decision-making from the talent and instead turn it 100% into a math challenge to decide wich spec (Heal or Smite) is more effective, since there would be no difference in playstyle between Heal and Smite anymore.

5 points, really. No point for the others with no Atonement.

Yes, my bad.
Just makes my point stronger, tho.

---

The radius in my suggestion can be made smaller, but the point is giving -some- control over who gets healed by Atonement.

Anyone with Grace and/or Weakened Soul is a valid target for the heal.
- If the encounter has no AoE damage, then Atonement would only heal the tank anyway...
- If the encounter has AoE damage, then you're probably not doing your job right if you only Shield/Heal the tank. At least shielding various targets to gain mana back from them breaking from damage is a meaningful course of action.

[harky]

The problem with a lot of these ideas is that if Smite gains things like Grace scaling, or even grace-targetting is it will become a full Heal replacement that also deals damage. This would cause Heal to not be used and make 7 optional talents into required talents. When you look into how to fix Atonement that needs to be kept in mind. The main 'fix' that is needed is to increase the range to 10 yards from the hitbox, rather than 15 yards from the center of the hitbox. Atonement is 100% worthless on many fights due to this mechanic.

People are expecting too much of an optional bunch of talents. If anything Atonement should be removed and replaced with an interesting healing talent. Then add in Glyph of Atonement to do the same thing it does now. It's currently weak enough that it would not be an overpowered Prime glyph and it would give the option to Holy Priests, who would be able to make much better use of it.

Edit: And no, it is 7 points. The other 5 points are worth taking as DPS talents, soloing talents and potentially PVP talents. All 7 points would be completely required if Smite ever became as good as Heal.

[Deleted]

Feel free to mention archangel, its not the title point but the two are so connected that it isn't worth taking one without the other.

As mentioned, Atonement playstyle takes 5 talent points, one glyph [two if we're suggesting another] just to -match- the output of a spell we already have.

The fact that it is possible to spend so much investment just getting up to par implies that Atonement needs improving from its current form [it gets lost in oversized hitboxes, wont heal ranged, can't be used if you are forced away from an enemy to smite]
Note: some of these are simply differences from heal, which has its own drawbacks compared to smite, but some definately do need addressing.

Anyone with Grace and/or Weakened Soul is a valid target for the heal.

Is something awesome to consider, single target Atonement hitting Grace, Aoe Atonement on Weakened Souls ...Yay? Nay?

Harky: There's recent blues suggesting they are trying to make atonement healing atleast viable, it's just a case of making it viable, without completely overtaking heal in absolutely every situation.
About the damage - I'd happily take a hit of 50% reduced output of smite if atonement healed for double the amount.

[Citaxis]

I'm not sure why you think there's something wrong with Atonement. Blizzard's entire stated aim of Atonement is to make you "not feel guilty about tossing a little DPS when you get a break from healing". It's the same thing with Telluric Currents in the Resto shaman tree, Denounce in the Holy paladin tree, and Fury of Stormrage in the Resto druid tree. The point is that you're not punishing yourself for throwing in a bit of DPS when you aren't needed to heal right away. What you want out of Atonement and what Blizzard's design intention are for Atonement are two completely different things. It shouldn't "legitimately be replacing Heal". In fact, if it actually effectively ever does, I'm fairly sure Blizzard will remove it.

It isn't going to be some sub-spec of Discipline, it's simply going to be a reasonable alternative that isn't a waste of mana and cast time. What you're asking for, in Atonement starting to do fancy things, is directed, effective healing, while doing damage, while stacking up for mana return from Archangel. That's edging into overpowered, not a neat little assistance tool when you're not pressured. Right now, it's still the best out of all the similar talents healers have. Imagine if that Lightning Bolt, Exorcism, or Wrath that shammies, pallies, and druids (respectively) could fire off also smart-healed the lowest-health target in range. That's what Smite does right now, as Atonement is. Already a step better than all three. Hell, even as the base "free DPS for a healer" part, shammies get instant mana return, and pallies and druids simply have zero mana cost, while the priest's stacks up for Atonement, which is mana return + increased healing. Different mechanics, increased healing balanced out by the stack time plus extra activity to receive it.

On top of this, you want to add directional effectiveness, and replace an entire healing spell with it? I'm not sure why you thought this was a reasonable idea. Who cares about Enrage timers, let's just stack the raid with Atonement priests spamming Smite, they can do just fine doing two roles at exactly the same time. Atonement doesn't need a fix. What needs a fix is Holy's resource recovery, and both specs' effective healing competitiveness. We're looking to be balanced, not overpowered.

[Ultima]

Would it be safe to say that Attonement is impossible to balance in a Raid PvE setting?

If it gets buffed to be viable, it could just become 3.1+ again, replacing Power Word: Shield as the main spam spell with some others to cover players at range (or just ignored completely like the days of "Shaman on melee, Druid on ranged").

I think the range is a major issue, but if that's buffed, then it over-rides Heal. A terrible thing? Heal is meant to be our auto-attack, Smite could replace it in that respect. However this removes the effort from healing or even looking at raid frames as you just spam Smite and let the heal go where it needs to.

And do not get me started on Archangel balancing.

So, is Attonement healing a flavour choice which cannot be taken too seriously...like Lightwell (was/is/whatever you want)?

[harky]

I would say that in its current form it is not something which will be possible to properly balance. If Smite were bumped up enough that it was legitimately competitive with Heal then Heal would become useless as Discipline except for spot healing. However, that spot healing would be completely replaced by Penance, making it a non-issue. Disc gameplay would become: Penance -> Smitex2 -> Penance -> Smitex2. For this to happen Smite would need an ~65% buff. As it approached this value Discipline Priests would gradually move entirely away from Heal and start using Smite.

The solution is of course to then reduce the damage component proportional to the healing gains. So if you're hitting 7k and healing 7k, this would shift towards healing 11.5k and hitting for 3k. However, this would only be a stopgap. This is because you are getting 100% free damage. You may only be doing 1500 DPS, but that is 1500 DPS that you get while being a full-fledged healer. The issue with Atonement is not just balancing it, but balancing how much you get for free. With the current implications Heal is much better as a healing ability than Smite. Even if they have the same HPS heal is cheaper, more predictable and more flexible. Because you are trading something this is acceptable. You heal for less, but you do damage at the same time. If it ever became the case that you healed the same and still did damage at the same time you would be in an exploitable situation.

The current response to this by Blizz is simple: You should not get anything for free. That is what people wanting Atonement 'fixed' are actually wanting. You want free damage attached to your healing spell. Is that acceptable? Sure. Make it deal ~25% of the healing it does and rebalance the spec around this damage. Ask Shadow how it felt in BC to be nothing except a battery...


As far as Archangel? That's an easier discussion. Archangel need to refund 30% base mana + 5% max mana. This would make it an easier button to push for those who choose to use Atonement without making it a 'mana regen' cooldown, only a 'cost reduction' cooldown.

Oh and Lightwell is amazing right now. Best personal survivability talent in the game. Just put it in a corner where you (and maybe your BFF) know where it is and voila, you just got yourself a free Divine Plea that's off the GCD.

[PlatedPriest]

IMO the only thing that needs to be fix about atonement is the 8yards from center(which gm in game say is a known problem and they are working on it). other than that i think it does what it is meant to do.

i personally think archangel also does what it is suppose to do as well. basically only refund the mana cost of smiting (not a OP mana regen button that gonna trivialize healers mana again) and put you into hardcore healer mode with the +healing benefit.

as a disc priest who pvps a lot i think this design is spot on!

[Deleted]

Nobody wants Atonement to be their spam button.

If anything I'd see it heal for less than heal but buff the output of Archangel, then you are making the choice to underpeform using smite when you could be using heal, in order to access your throughput cooldown.

It's easy to say 'Buffing it will cause it to be spammed' but without it, the situation will be exactly the same, except for the fact you'd switch to heal.

The archangel mana return, atleast to me, doesn't need touching. It might refund less mana than you spent smiting but in return you have dealt damage, provided healing if specced into Atonement, and activated your healing buff.
It's a *much* more interesting design than most other healers work with who usually work with generic +heal talents and modifiers requiring little/no interaction to improve output, with disc we have the option of making decisions with timing output to when we require it, there just needs an implementation to make decisions between smiting and healing based on the situation.

[Deleted]

Grace and Atonement should be merged together and work like Focus Magic, Pally-Beacon or Vigiliance.

You place your buff on your target of choice (eg tank). Now everytime you smite the buffed target get the healing no matter how low on health other players are. If you want to heal those you have to use heal oder PoH. Also, you can only stack Grace on the buffed target, preventing a penality (by loosing grace) if you have to heal a target other than the tank.

[babylon]

how about getting rid of those 5 points and replacing them with anything survival related? (dispel resistance, self-heal on hit, escape mechanics)

there already is a perfectly viable build for discipline tree not including smiting. as i see most healers also have 1 healing pattern in their tree with optional spare points for other trees. why is it so important for discipline to have smites viable for raids while non-smiting is viable for raids already? since decent disc priest, healing, should never outdps or outdmg a decent tank (same gear lvl), lets not overestimate this amazing dps input disc priests could bring to raids.

what disc priests lack, in my opinion, is something pvp-related, not necessary dps-related.

[Citaxis]

If anything I'd see it heal for less than heal but buff the output of Archangel, then you are making the choice to underpeform using smite when you could be using heal, in order to access your throughput cooldown.

It's easy to say 'Buffing it will cause it to be spammed' but without it, the situation will be exactly the same, except for the fact you'd switch to heal.

The archangel mana return, atleast to me, doesn't need touching. It might refund less mana than you spent smiting but in return you have dealt damage, provided healing if specced into Atonement, and activated your healing buff.
It's a *much* more interesting design than most other healers work with who usually work with generic +heal talents and modifiers requiring little/no interaction to improve output, with disc we have the option of making decisions with timing output to when we require it, there just needs an implementation to make decisions between smiting and healing based on the situation.

The problem is that you're trying to make Atonement and Archangel into something more than Blizzard's intended design. Archangel is not a throughput cooldown like Divine Favor. It isn't a built-in standard mana recovery tool like Shadowfiend or Hymn of Hope. Archangel is simply a unique way of letting a healer DPS when he/she gets time, without using up essential mana for healing. See Telluric Currents, Fury of Stormrage, and Denounce. They all have the exact same purpose, just different functionality. You know, that whole thing with trying to give classes similar-functioning abilities without homogenization. Priests aren't balanced around having maximum uptime on Archangel. Raids aren't balanced around healers throwing in as much DPS as possible. It is a nifty little raid tool. The purpose of this tool is for when you're not spamming heals, you can help toss in a few Smites instead of sitting on the floor with your hands in your lap. The reason I just went over Archangel is because it is a basic talent, to which Atonement is an addition. Now, not only do you not feel guilty about using mana for DPS instead of healing, when mana really matters, you also toss in a little healing on top of it all.

The implementation for when you use Smite instead of healing is already in. It's called, "when you're not spamming heals, and nobody is in imminent danger of death". That's the point. So you can help drop the boss a little extra, and not find yourself suddenly OOM because you didn't like standing around staring at the scenery instead of helping. You've got the idea that the intention is something other than Blizzard's design, and trying to ask for balance around that. It isn't a primary healing tool, and isn't intended to be. With Atonement, a priest's "I have nothing better to do" DPS is a distinct step above the other three healing specs' similar tools. It doesn't need any changes, it just needs to be used as intended.

[Deleted]

There's blue posts here:

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/1...-403a-hotfixes

Stating that they are actively trying to get smite as a viable option, matching it to the value of heal.

What you are suggesting IS a step towards homogenization with holy using heal.
If you are in a raid situation where you don't need to spam heal then Atonement would be a total waste of talent points altogether, bare in mind that Cataclysm raiders will be hovering at around 70% hp if the healers are doing adequate/not excessive healing, there will always be an an opportunity to do more healing to buffer the next incoming damage.

It's far too heavy an investment to be sidelined as farmraid fodder.

[Deleted]

As I've already mentioned it in the Discipline thread, I've been using Atonement for quite some time now in low level instances and it seems to me that it ALWAYS heals the one with the lowest percentage health in range. Am I just always lucky or missing the point of your argument?

[PlatedPriest]

As I've already mentioned it in the Discipline thread, I've been using Atonement for quite some time now in low level instances and it seems to me that it ALWAYS heals the one with the lowest percentage health in range. Am I just always lucky or missing the point of your argument?

no you are right. it is just the raiders are worried about it healing a dps who slip up vs the tank who they were assign to heal.

all i hope is that the developers fight for atonement to be successful like they have for lightwell