[Priest] State of Discipline 4.1.0

[Rezman]

For me, I'm going main spec shadow till Disc is once again useful. Right now it's just not fun for me. I enjoyed it very much all though Wrath. I never did like Holy spec much.

Also this bubble spam style, I never did that unless it was needed. Great example, Lich King's Infest. It pretty much rendered Infest useless against anyone that you shielded. Other then that I kept the tank shielded and anyone who was getting low on health to give another healer time to get a heal off on them if I didn't get them healed. Like all priest kept PoM bouncing around. I could also solo heal the tank and myself using Binding Heal on Sindragosa and not worry about the Mystic Buffet stacks on myself in 10-man. Unchained Magic was the only thing that rendered me useless for the most part.

[Karfragnor]

So you where never brought along to a Lich King fight to spam PW:S to protect from Infest? Strange... 2 years and yet not one bubble spamming session with the good auld lich king ^^

Ha! I only killed him twice, both 10-man. Keep bubbles up on 10 people for infest was done, but by no means was it the only thing I was doing.

[swunk]

No, they shouldn't. Because then you still have a Discipline Priest cycling half the raid before burst damage (so bring two!).

Discipline may have strengths with their absorbs, but they are still first and foremost healers, and Blizzard is going to continue down this line. They let you shield, they bolster them and make them great, but you're still supposed to heal too.
Secondly, the comparisons to Arcane Mage and Discipline are two different classes, two different roles. There are ways to screw up that "omg 1 button" (which it isn't, you clearly don't actually play a mage, just look at them on recount), when there's not really ways to screw up 30 second Shields, going down the list and keeping Weakened Soul on everyone.
Few people like TiduZ want that playstyle, everyone else wants there to be more to a healer's success than just doing that.

I find pw:s the nerf a bit easy. Pw:s will still function the same for the groups equal and under 10 men. So the point here is that there is "no" nerf for pws on that aspect. How? Most skilled players time their shields before aoe damage, and 15 seconds is more than enough to pw:s 10 men or under. So the only nerf that disc got about pws is in 25 men setups... And the approach to this shouldn't be "go get another disc in group", or is it the part of the nerf also?. That's why I find the nerf easy, it is the easy way out and it doesn't effect pw:sing other than 25 men setups...
I don't think Tiduz even has a play-style, i see Tiduz as a veteran wower who can use a tool to get the most efficiency out of it, a tool that was given to him in the 1st place. If you change the mechanic he will find a way to maximize its output some other way so its not about spamming buttons nor abusing it, it is using mechanics wisely...
Well we will live with 4.1 somehow, all we need is to wait for another patch or so... And there is always this imbalance, i mean, after a patch, when you go look at wol parses, a certain class is gets the whole top 10 or so. It was disc before 4.1., now i see druids. I am looking forward to see a statistical balance on that aspect, but i must admit it is a very hard goal.
Another question could be "why do we need to shield 25 players before aoe (btw, we can still do it other setups than 25 men, it is only for 25...)?" It is the most challenging stuff, ...to time-pws 25 men just before aoe, so right now I see it as they have taken the jelly from our doughnut, less fun. Still, after 4.1, the best hps for disc is pw:s, so it didn't even change even for 25 men... as you cannot replace/blend pws and heal better with other new upgraded 4.1 stuff (see wol), you still have to pws spam (if you can) or time your pws.

It came up to me that i would love to see a shielding that would absorb less when you kept it spamming. So, lets say single shield absorbs 30k, when you do a second shield to another player while the other shield is up, it would absorb 28k, and when you put the 3rd one it would absorb 27k.... goes on, and keep 30 secs duration. This could be a perfect mastery revision. So if you are single target healing you'll have your 30k shield, but if you are to raid heal, do not expect to spam all 30ks around...

[Darkener]

Blizzard to introduce "Prayer of Awesome" to the Priest class in patch 4.2 (source).

One Blizzard insider, who wishes to remain anonymous, says that the new "Prayer of Awesome" spell is so awesome that it will probably end up being the "go to" spell for most priests post 4.2. "It's just so much better than all the other spells, it's that awesome." "It handles everything from healing to dealing damage to CC in one spell", says one developer who is assigned to the spell-test team. MMO-Champion regulars have already lit up the message boards in protest. "It's not the correct playstyle!" says one veteran Priest regular who secretly plays a Druid. "This will ruin WoW for all Paladins" cries the 9 year old son of an Activision VP, "I'm telling Daddy".

Whether this awesome spell or the resulting catastrophe comes to fruition or not still remains to be seen. Stay tuned as we bring you more on this late-breaking news.

Patch 4.2 Update:

We managed to corner one nerdy Blizzard employee into giving us more details on this new "Prayer of Awesome" spell: "Think Prayer of Healing combined with the original Divine Hymn (the one that CC'd 12 targets as it healed) throw in a Power Word: Barrier, Mind Sear and a Mass Dispel and you still haven't even scratched the surface of how awesome this new spell is."

Another developer explains, "We wanted Priests to levitate more, and that's why we decided to refund the full 20K mana cost if the Priest levitates after casting this spell."

Update 2: The Interview

We managed to interview two of the developers working on this new spell, we will call them Dev1 and Dev2.

Us: So tell us how this new spell works, how can it be as awesome as you suggest it is?
Dev1: Well, you see, for the first time in WoW history we actually created a SPELL that could tank the boss.
Dev2: Yes, that's right, we are really proud of that accomplishment.
Dev1: The SPELL is actually tanking, not the players.
Dev2: So you can be like, casting the spell at one moment and tanking the boss, and like when the spell is over there's no aggro on the boss or anything.
Dev1: Yeah, like none, until you cast the spell again.
Dev2: Yeah, then the spell continues tanking right where it left off.
Dev1: It's pretty much the definition of fire and forget, you don't even really need to invite other players to your raid.
Dev2: Yes, exactly, it's going to make raiding so much more accessible ... for Priests, that is.

Us: Tell us more about the damage component of this spell, how does it compare to the other priest damage spells.
Dev2: Well, its like a Mind Sear in that the damage is an AE.
Dev1: Yes, but the AE does direct damage AND applies a DoT that procs another version of the AE on each target.
Dev2: So you essentially have an AE with a 30 yard range that can damage a target and proc another AE with a 30 yard range.
Dev1: And it stacks so the new targets are re-applying it to the original targets and all other targets within 30 yards.
Dev2: So it pretty much goes on forever with infinite range so long as targets are present.
Dev1: Ya, we tested it on one server and it instantly killed the entire enemy population.
Dev2: Yep, all of them, bam.
Dev1: It's pretty awesome.
Dev2: And we're proud of that.

[Geschan]

To me 4.2 sounds like one big ugly troll.
The 4 pieces setbonus is a second lolwell.
Disc-Mastery is most likely going to get chained to Atonement, which forces it down our throats even more.
Prayer of Healing still has the most akward mechanic of all healingspells.
Rapture is still a cd without any notification without any addons.

They wan't Discs to stop spamming shields? No problem... give us an alternativ... (for example Prayer of Healing NOT being chained to a stupid Groupmechanic). And while doing that, they could think about changing some Talents. A lot of these useless Shieldtalents could become usefull Talents for the Spells they WANT us to use...

[totalfailure]

For me, I'm going main spec shadow till Disc is once again useful. Right now it's just not fun for me. I enjoyed it very much all though Wrath. I never did like Holy spec much.

+1. It does not look like a fix is incoming. Just keeps feeding my altaholism.

[Gallahadd]

heyheyhey, quick question I've started playing my disco again, gone atonement and finding it very fun, one thing which is a bit confusing though is Glyphs. At the mo I'm using PoM and divine accuracy, and my mate who ROCKS the Disco says I should use Mass Dispel for the third Major, but wouldn't glyph of Smite be more useful? to boost my damage, and through AA/A my healing?

[Kelesti]

To me 4.2 sounds like one big ugly troll.
The 4 pieces setbonus is a second lolwell.
Disc-Mastery is most likely going to get chained to Mastery, which forces it down our throats even more.
Prayer of Healing still has the most akward mechanic of all healingspells.
Rapture is still a cd without any notification without any addons

This is the first iteration of 4pc, and we're the only healer to take on the "flame" theme. This won't last through PTR.
"Disc-Mastery is most likely going to get chained to Mastery" what does that even mean?
Prayer of Healing being linked to groups was something we were talking about all Alpha and Beta. Considering it has a 30, not 12, yard radius, and you know [i]exactly who it will heal, its Group-basing is just as much a blessing to those who can game it, as it is a curse to those who can't. But Blizzard was pretty adamant about not giving us "CoH with a cast-time", or a 5-person, non diminishing Chain Heal.
Rapture, I'll concede your point. However, if they ever put a timer for it in-game, base-line, it would encourage players to never use it outside of that timer refresh, making talents like Soul Warding, Borrowed Time, and Strength of Soul look pretty piss-poor.

They wan't Discs to stop spamming shields? No problem... give us an alternativ... (for example Prayer of Healing NOT beeing chained to a stupid Groupmechanic). And while doing that, they could think about changing some Talents. A lot of these useless Shieldtalents could become usefull Talents for the Spells they WANT us to use...

The alternative's been here. They like that outside of pouring Manatides down your Priest's throat, Discipline tends to showcase so many schools of thought being used (Archangel builds vs not, Strength of Soul vs Inner Will, etc), and how broad the healing spectrum is for their output breakdown. It really is one of their success stories.

It should be pretty clear that they want Shield to be an attractive button to push, just not the only one. And "some of those useless talents" play into that. Borrowed Time is an excellent example, so is Strength of Soul, and Renewed Hope.

---------- Post added 2011-05-05 at 09:25 AM ----------

For me, I'm going main spec shadow till Disc is once again useful. Right now it's just not fun for me. I enjoyed it very much all though Wrath. I never did like Holy spec much.

A spec that can push out more than 90% of the raw "HpS" that Holy can, while doing so in a much more refined manner, not to mention a higher single target output, instant flex healing between roles, a castable Shield Wall, a raid wide shield wall, a personal on demand 15% output trinket, and a targettable mini-heroism on a shorter cooldown.

No, this spec has to be pretty useless if 80% of your healing can't be through one spell anymore. Assuming you csn play it right, it's in more demand than Holy.

[Geschan]

I really should reread posts :X
Thats what i meant:

Disc-Mastery is most likely going to get chained to Atonement, which forces it down our throats even more.

They changed the tooltip: Atonement now heals for "a percentage of the damage dealt" instead of 100%.
Maybe thats just me being pessimistic.

Most of the shieldtalents ARE "piss-poor". If your aren't decked in masses of mastery,the efficiency of Powerword:Shield is pretty bad.
And if you are, you basically dumb every other Spell because they simply don't heal enough, as they scale way worse with Mastery.
The only time PW:S IS efficient is when Rapture is up. And that is only every 12 seconds.
So basically you can diminish every shieldtalente around the number of shields out of the 12 second frame, your mana is able to compensate.
If you toss out one shield every 12 secs 1 point Strength of Soul is enough.
And Soulwarding well, it IS pretty easy to heal without it .
The only reason i take those talents is because the alternatives are even worse (renew, surge of light) or part of that aa/a-thing (me not like )or 2% haste in the shadow tree.

The problem with the Groupmechanic is that bosses simply don't care in which group you are.
As long as whole groups are hit prefect, Prayer of Healing is the way to go.
BUT as soon as Bosses for example use a chainlightning spell you are basically screwed.
The only thing you can do is wait till at least 3 people in one grp need heal OR you start fixing them one by one.
Holys hit CoH, Shamies chainheal, Druids Wildgrowth and Paladins hit Light of Dawn. Disc-priests are simply missing one healing tool.
The other problem with the groupmechanic is that it forces the groups to be sorted around that mechanic.
Ever tried to heal nef phase two with 2 people max in the same group? no fun at all.

[Kelesti]

I really should reread posts :X
Thats what i meant:

They changed the tooltip: Atonement now heals for "a percentage of the damage dealt" instead of 100%.
Maybe thats just me being pessimistic.

I wouldn't worry too much about Atonement just yet. 4.1 datamining said Body and Soul was going down to 25%, and that just never happened. We'll see what's going on with it, but I really doubt Atonement's going to be the new Mastery.

Most of the shieldtalents ARE "piss-poor". If your aren't decked in masses of mastery,the efficiency of Powerword:Shield is pretty bad.
And if you are, you basically dumb every other Spell because they simply don't heal enough, as they scale way worse with Mastery.
The only time PW:S IS efficient is when Rapture is up. And that is only every 12 seconds.

For a 28k instant "heal", it is pretty efficient. Its overall efficiency isn't the problem, the sustainability is. And yes, our community's gone over the need for another mini-absorb to come into play to make Mastery a better stat.

So basically you can diminish every shieldtalente around the number of shields out of the 12 second frame, your mana is able to compensate.
If you toss out one shield every 12 secs 1 point Strength of Soul is enough.
And Soulwarding well, it IS pretty easy to heal without it .

Do you ever use Flash Heal? Sometimes even two in a row? It's "pretty easy" to go without two Flash Heals, but when you need them, suddenly if you can't, you're going to be in trouble. That's the point of Soul Warding in the current healing metagame.

Shields are a valuable tool to be used, more than once every 12 seconds. Imposing a restriction on yourself is as bad as a Holy Priest that only uses Renew every... whatever the extra tick duration pushes it to. I can understand you not liking that Atonement/Archangel thing, but really, you're overstating the mana increase.

The problem with the Groupmechanic is that bosses simply don't care in which group you are.
As long as whole groups are hit prefect, Prayer of Healing is the way to go.
BUT as soon as Bosses for example use a chainlightning spell you are basically screwed.
The only thing you can do is wait till at least 3 people in one grp need heal OR you start fixing them one by one.
Holys hit CoH, Shamies chainheal, Druids Wildgrowth and Paladins hit Light of Dawn. Disc-priests are simply missing one healing tool.
The other problem with the groupmechanic is that it forces the groups to be sorted around that mechanic.

Sorting Groups around their role still has its place. Keep Ranged together, healers together (toss a healer into the ranged if you have to) melee, and put whoever has the highest survivability (lawl Subtlety Rogue, Drain-Lock) in with the tanks. Or in the case of splitting (Thorim, Yogg Saron, Valiona, Nef) you can plan your splits accordingly before you pull.

Ever tried to heal nef phase two with 2 people max in the same group? no fun at all.

Why would I only have 2 people on my platform? Where'd the other 6 go?

[Verth Aeyta]

Why would I only have 2 people on my platform? Where'd the other 6 go?

They jumped in the lava to be mean

In all seriousness we have a 3/3/4 on our platforms for Nef 10 P2. It's not a big deal with the grouping mechanic as disc, at least I never have an issue with it in my guild.

[Geschan]

Think you missunderstand me
2 People Grp1; 2 People Grp 2, 2 People Grp3, 1 Person Grp 4, 1 Person Grp 5, BUT all on the same plattform (25 man)(not that much of a problem in 10 man as there are only two grps)
Welcome to a manmade nightmare for disc and holypriests.
Schamies, Druids, Paladins simply don't care an heal like they always do.

[Deleted]

Think you missunderstand me
2 People Grp1; 2 People Grp 2, 2 People Grp3, 1 Person Grp 4, 1 Person Grp 5, BUT all on the same plattform (25 man)(not that much of a problem in 10 man as there are only two grps)
Welcome to a manmade nightmare for disc and holypriests.
Schamies, Druids, Paladins simply don't care an heal like they always do.

Lol get raid assist and fix groups so they work around your healing, as you said it yourself the others won't care anyway.

[Kelesti]

Lol get raid assist and fix groups so they work around your healing, as you said it yourself the others won't care anyway.

Pretty much this. If your heal lead won't fix it, get an assist and do it yourself.

You are your own biggest obstacle.

[OverClokx]

To be fair, I think that while a lot of this argument is infact valid, the biggest point is being missed in the sake of discipline's arguable point of usefulness/viability to be selective in tactical healing.

The only problem I find with this (speaking as a mainspec discipline priest since mid WOTLK, and continuing even into the middle part of Cata) is that while discipline is a viable spec, and it is infact useful for most encounters, the viability of the class is slowly being reduced to the point where it's no longer as useful as a mainspec holy priest just due strictly to throughout. As where a holy priest can exude a lot of healing quickly, and easily regen it (spirit is extremely valuable for them) via manatide/etc. Holy priests have not only better mana regen, but much better throughput with healing abilities, and the direct-scaled mastery+haste+chakra bonuses, as where disc is a bit lacking. While discipline does benefit from manatide as well, the nerf to innervate is obviously an attack on us, since most of the 'shield spamming' disc priests are getting fed 4-5 innervates in a 10minute fight. While this is tolerable, the further reduction of PW:B is a real hard-hitter as well, being that most fights consist of a min-AoE range to prevent x skill from chaining, making PW:B less useful. Now, with less effect (5% is significant), and with a +1 minute cooldown is another significant nerf to us, on top of the PW:S duration. Overall, I can't help but wonder at what point Blizzard is going to finally rework the spec instead of nerfing it down to prevent one particular form of play and significantly hinder the 'proper' forms of playstyle.

Overall, I think that discipline will continue to be 'viable', but is slowly losing it's hold on being a 'balanced' healing class with others when played right. As other classes continue to get buffed, and as our skills continue getting nerfed further and further, and the less valuable mastery becomes due to the very significant amount of reliance on RNG for it, the class is being slowly more and more unfun to play, and will soon be 'obsolete', due to the fact that we'll lack the necessary cooldowns to make up for our lack of throughput, our mana regeneration is critical to using a skill that consumes so much mana that the kickback (Rapture in this case) barely makes up for the mana used on PW:S. The class really needs to be reworked. It was reworked in WOTLK to become a bubblebot, and still maintains the same general spec behind that mentality, and until the class is balanced/changed somehow, similar to how someone said to allow POH to be a smartheal instead of a party-only heal to combat with holy being the 'superior' output spec for throughput.

I'm not bashing discipline at all. I love the spec, I really do. I love the class, and what it revolves around. But, it needs to be changed to get rid of the bubble-bot mentality. Talents need to be revamped to affect heals in some other way than increasing absorbs, and we need to be given better advantages to using heals over absorbs, or some better mesh other than with crits being so RNG, especially this early in the xpac with such low crit rating. On top of that, we just need a spec that's not completely centered around the PW:S skill. I understand some focus on it, as all specs have some centerpoint skill, but don't focus on a skill with an entire talent tree of over 20+ points affecting the skill either indrectly or directly, and then tell us we're not supposed to use that skill too often, because it's bad. Remove some amount of preference in the talent tree for PW:S and give some love to healing/aegis' functionality, and we can make progress from there.

[Deleted]

Lol get raid assist and fix groups so they work around your healing, as you said it yourself the others won't care anyway.

I always sort the groups to optimize my PoH before fights, you're chucking away healing by not doing it.

[Robofish]

Is any one else a little bit sore from the shafting we got now that Hpaladin mastery is what Divine Aegis should be?

[Kelesti]

Is any one else a little bit sore from the shafting we got now that Hpaladin mastery is what Divine Aegis should be?

Paladins are still raging that Illuminated Healing isn't more awesome "omg doesn't apply to holy radiance, worthless stat, crit is useful for everything"

So yes, while we should feel a bit sore, generally speaking they're complete fucking idiots, so don't worry about it.