Leveling disc priests should have a proving grounds of sorts to queue for dungeons.

[Nuba]

For some reason Blizzard thinks it is entirely ok to balance disc around being 470+ ilvl with bis everything. while all other specs are balanced for all levels of play

even in like tier lists people do, theyre always like "yeah dude disc is not tier S but its like tier A or B+ if you have all the bis gear, 470+ ilvl, bis trinkets and corruption and know how to play"(I saw this on skill capped tier list, I laughed hard) like wtf

I have absolutely everything so I am completely fine playing priest and understand where people are coming from when they say this, but damn that is such a bad way of "finding balance"

Like immagine people who arent 3k RIO or 2700+ PvP experienced, how the fuck do they even begin?

[Scrysis]

Disc has some really odd pitfalls, and some of them aren't even the player's fault.

I want BFA tanks who do 5 man content and who aren't familiar with disc priests to go through a proving grounds with an NPC disc healer. Seriously. Or maybe just a PSA on how to tank with a disc priest in the group. Especially when it comes to mythic plus. Maybe 90% of pug tanks just don't know how to tank with a disc.


Think I'm kidding?

Most of the time, when you go do a dungeon, the tank does a big pull, then sits down to camp out, have a beer, etc. That works great for other healers. But it's TERRIBLE for disc priests. Why? Because disc priests have to do damage to get the majority of their healing. Think of it as fuel. You have to power the healing engine to get healthbars back. If you run out of mob fuel, you run out of healing. It's terrible to sit there and almost helplessly fumble around as you try to laughably shadowmend everyone as bursting/grievous/mechanics just eat away at the party's health. And instead of adjusting play styles when you mention that you're having issues, the party just shrugs, assumes that you're terrible, and keeps doing business as usual.


So how does disc want its pulls? Small-to-medium groups in chain pulls, if you can afford it. Bolstering is the only thing that messes with this, and good groups will have one that stays up just a little longer. Chain pulls allow for continuous, smooth healing.


You're not wrong, OP. Trials are a bit much, but there should be some sort of in-game tutorial for new players on how to play disc. Also, tutorials for tanks how to play WITH a disc.

[Popastique]

For some reason Blizzard thinks it is entirely ok to balance disc around being 470+ ilvl with bis everything. while all other specs are balanced for all levels of play

even in like tier lists people do, theyre always like "yeah dude disc is not tier S but its like tier A or B+ if you have all the bis gear, 470+ ilvl, bis trinkets and corruption and know how to play"(I saw this on skill capped tier list, I laughed hard) like wtf

I have absolutely everything so I am completely fine playing priest and understand where people are coming from when they say this, but damn that is such a bad way of "finding balance"

Like immagine people who arent 3k RIO or 2700+ PvP experienced, how the fuck do they even begin?

Except you don't need that gear to start with, people didn't start progressing as disc priests in dungeons or PVP with BIS gear and bis everything. And how does every person begin if they want to gear and progress rio/pvp? Find a group of people to play with, enter guilds.

[Marrilaife]

I really hope they scrap / rework current disc. In the last 2-3 years I haven't played with an amazing disc priest, some were tolerable but vast majority of them do extremely poor healing, however raiding guilds constantly insist on recruiting disc priests / forcing other healers to reroll or respec disc even though 99% of population has no clue how to play it. Outside of world top 100 guilds it's basically impossible to find a person who is skilled at disc. I've seen the worst grey parsing discs that basically all they know is spam pw:s and smite randomly and pop barrier when healing officer calls for it, and then the whole team is expected to compensate for lack of healing, I've seen endless wipes when a person died with no fault of theirs, from expected damage, after using their class defensives, healthstone, health pot, etc. and they're still told it was their fault meanwhile healers are untouchable holy cows.

A lot of guilds are copying top streamers / world race guilds so I've seen complete phasing out of resto druids from raiding despite it's actually a fairly easy class and could help pad the hps many raid teams lack.

Seriously, our disc priest in mythic EP:


Different guild, disc priest in Nyalotha:


I wish this spec didn't exist, because raid leaders / gms obsess about getting one and this is the most common result. Bet Uldir logs expired by now but my guild went through 4 or so disc priest trials, none of them could heal.

And don't even let me started on m+ where the spec is already sub optimal in comparison to paladin, druid or monk, and then it's also harder to play and played badly. Last week I had the misfortune of pugging weekly m+15 with a group that invited a disc priest, deaths from bursting were numerous. Doesn't help that the spec is fairly ill equipped to deal with bursting or grievous, but then we also have people who tbh should just play holy because it would be so much easier for them.

And no, don't wanna even imagine how it is at lower levels of content where skill of players is 10x lower too.

In comparison to other classes that are highly sought after atm in raiding (brewmasters, holy paladins, fire mages, bm hunters, destro locks, havoc dhs, arms warrs) disc is the only one that is hard to perform well on even in proper gear.

Yes, Blizzard should do something, even if that means reverting the spec to being braindead easy at a price of lower hps ceiling "when played well", if that means top guilds will stop using them, so be it, will be for the health of the rest 99% of the playerbase.

Also, Blizzard, please stop designing raid encounters around hps requiring 3 healers but cooldowns / dispels requiring 4 or 5. And don't make any mythic Azshara ever again where there's nothing to heal but absorbs / damage reductions are OP. Let healers heal and not be just cooldown bots.

[Charge me Doctor]

Proving grounds were never a good way to teach players anything.

A disc priest failing at queued dungeons will fail on any healer

[Marrilaife]

So how does disc want its pulls? Small-to-medium groups in chain pulls, if you can afford it. Bolstering is the only thing that messes with this, and good groups will have one that stays up just a little longer. Chain pulls allow for continuous, smooth healing.

Which fucks up the cooldown management of dps classes that usually like big pull to pop cds on followed by few smaller pulls where their cds recharge, same with tank cds.

Also chain pulls are not only fucking with bolstering, also with necrotic, with rogues ability to restealth, etc. Also if someone dies you have to pause to rez or 4-man it when the person corpse runs (might not even be a good idea if you skipped some mobs with other trick than awakened portals). Sometimes healer has no mana and it's risky to just pull and hope it's gonna work. There are also areas where there's just space between packs.

Disc is also extremely annoying to play with on non-monk tanks because you have to burn cds on pull because you need time to build resources and disc needs time to even start healing, so the risk of getting instagibbed is twice as much.

Doesn't help that half the disc priests don't spec into shadow covenant which is often the only tool they have to deal with sudden group damage.

Basically disc does not fit into typical m+ dungeon run, in the same way as arcane mage or affliction warlock just don't fit into typical pace of m+. They might not be bad specs per say but they have unsolvable issues when it comes to doing dungeons the way it's optimal for majority of other specs.

[Nuba]

Except you don't need that gear to start with, people didn't start progressing as disc priests in dungeons or PVP with BIS gear and bis everything. And how does every person begin if they want to gear and progress rio/pvp? Find a group of people to play with, enter guilds.

what does your comment even has anything to do with anything?
My point is that unless you have absolutely everything then you are not Tier A(as it was ranked in Skillcapped video for arena PvP), or even not Tier C(M+, I think it was in methods tier list), but rather some kind of weird Tier C(PvP) or -F(M+), a literal drag for your team.
"just find people willing to carry you" (your comment) makes no sense and doesn't help the discussion

[scelero]

Is this about playing Disc, or the negative response from people you think should have big d!cks?


Stop talking the way you do.

[Popastique]

what does your comment even has anything to do with anything?
My point is that unless you have absolutely everything then you are not Tier A(as it was ranked in Skillcapped video for arena PvP), or even not Tier C(M+, I think it was in methods tier list), but rather some kind of weird Tier C(PvP) or -F(M+), a literal drag for your team.
"just find people willing to carry you" (your comment) makes no sense and doesn't help the discussion

You can say that about any healer whatsoever with starting gear and starting corruption, who is a beginner A literal drag for your team because you don't know how your class works. And those tiers are very subjective, it varies depending on content. Disc Priest can't compete with RDruid or Hpala in high level keys, but when it comes to mythic raids - druids do not have the necessary dmg output+healing cooldowns compared to priests. Do not know about PVP coz i don't participate.
Find people willing to carry you? You are twisting my words there. You don't jump into high keys or mythic raiding or gladiator ranks right off the bat, one starts off with people as clueless as him/her and goes up step by step, learning and experiencing stuff.

[Jetstream]

There’s a reason I stay Holy.

[Nuba]

You can say that about any healer whatsoever with starting gear and starting corruption, who is a beginner A literal drag for your team because you don't know how your class works.
Find people willing to carry you? You are twisting my words there. You don't jump into high keys or mythic raiding or gladiator ranks right off the bat, one starts off with people as clueless as him/her and goes up step by step, learning and experiencing stuff.

no you can not. A 450~ with half the essences disc vs druid (same ilvl, same level of essences) is ridiculously different, as in the druid will heal almost 3 times what the disc heals in a M+ or PvP enviroment(not exagerating, it is really a 300% improvement). There is absolutely no reason to take a disc unless you are PvPing at 2700+ or the disc has a super high io

[Popastique]

no you can not. A 450~ with half the essences disc vs druid (same ilvl, same level of essences) is ridiculously different, as in the druid will heal almost 3 times what the disc heals in a M+ or PvP enviroment. There is absolutely no reason to take a disc unless you are PvPing at 2700+ or the disc has a super high io

Right, and then you decide to go proper mythic raiding progression and boom - druid goes out the window
Depends on content, like i said earlier. WoW endgame activities will always have meta setups, there is no way around it.
You still can do high M+ as a disc priest but not as effectively as some other healing classes.

[Nuba]

Right, and then you decide to go proper mythic raiding progression and boom - druid goes out the window
Depends on content, like i said earlier. WoW endgame activities will always have meta setups, there is no way around it.
You still can do M+ as a disc priest but not as effectively as some other healing classes.

who even cares about mythic raiding progression after the progression is over? When the raid is over 100 every 100 guilds will be able to down the bosses even with 18 man, sometimes even less than that (room for carries), being a disc in those situations matters nothing.

[Popastique]

who even cares about mythic raiding progression after the progression is over? When the raid is over 100 every 100 guilds will be able to down the bosses even with 18 man, sometimes even less than that (room for carries), being a disc in those situations matters nothing.

Flawless logic

[reauxmont]

WoW has had this problem for a while where classes have strengths and weaknesses and baked in "difficulty levels" from one to another, which in theory is fine, but when the weakness of the class is SOLOING (don't get me started) or in this thread's case "learning to do what the community expects of you," those baked-in difficulty levels are just manifesting in bad ways. It's a bad concept.

What's so bad about having specs that are hard to learn, hard to master? Most sane people try out a spec, and then decided that they want to invest the time to master it, or abandon it because it's just not their style, or too complicated. That's not really a problem of disc priest, most roles have at least one of those specs that's just harder than others. For example, I've heard that fire mage is a spec which is very punishing should you make mistakes, but also quite rewarding if played (nearly) perfectly. IMO, it's okay that something like this exists, since people who don't want to deal with a punishing spec can just play frost.

[ceall]

Well, that was a lot of dicks to read through.

So if I've read the OP correctly, your problem is discipline priest in LEVELING and normal/heroic/ regular mythic dungeons.

You need to understand that these environments are in place for EXACTLY what you want from these discipline priests: to LEARN how to play their spec.

That being said, everyone will always be new to the spec they're playing. They are already using these low tier dungeons to learn their spec. Your rant is invalid.

Even if you had been ranting about mid range m+ keys (10-15) and incompetent discipline priests, this rant would have also been invalid because you could have checked their Rio page (which shows the spec they're doing keys with) before inviting them to your party.

[vsb]

Disc priest is too weak at leveling, it does not have enough tools and stats. That's not about skill, just bad balance. It's better to spec holy.

- - - Updated - - -

I really hope they scrap / rework current disc. In the last 2-3 years I haven't played with an amazing disc priest, some were tolerable but vast majority of them do extremely poor healing, however raiding guilds constantly insist on recruiting disc priests / forcing other healers to reroll or respec disc even though 99% of population has no clue how to play it. Outside of world top 100 guilds it's basically impossible to find a person who is skilled at disc. I've seen the worst grey parsing discs that basically all they know is spam pw:s and smite randomly and pop barrier when healing officer calls for it, and then the whole team is expected to compensate for lack of healing, I've seen endless wipes when a person died with no fault of theirs, from expected damage, after using their class defensives, healthstone, health pot, etc. and they're still told it was their fault meanwhile healers are untouchable holy cows.

A lot of guilds are copying top streamers / world race guilds so I've seen complete phasing out of resto druids from raiding despite it's actually a fairly easy class and could help pad the hps many raid teams lack.

Seriously, our disc priest in mythic EP:


Different guild, disc priest in Nyalotha:


I wish this spec didn't exist, because raid leaders / gms obsess about getting one and this is the most common result. Bet Uldir logs expired by now but my guild went through 4 or so disc priest trials, none of them could heal.

And don't even let me started on m+ where the spec is already sub optimal in comparison to paladin, druid or monk, and then it's also harder to play and played badly. Last week I had the misfortune of pugging weekly m+15 with a group that invited a disc priest, deaths from bursting were numerous. Doesn't help that the spec is fairly ill equipped to deal with bursting or grievous, but then we also have people who tbh should just play holy because it would be so much easier for them.

And no, don't wanna even imagine how it is at lower levels of content where skill of players is 10x lower too.

In comparison to other classes that are highly sought after atm in raiding (brewmasters, holy paladins, fire mages, bm hunters, destro locks, havoc dhs, arms warrs) disc is the only one that is hard to perform well on even in proper gear.

Yes, Blizzard should do something, even if that means reverting the spec to being braindead easy at a price of lower hps ceiling "when played well", if that means top guilds will stop using them, so be it, will be for the health of the rest 99% of the playerbase.

Also, Blizzard, please stop designing raid encounters around hps requiring 3 healers but cooldowns / dispels requiring 4 or 5. And don't make any mythic Azshara ever again where there's nothing to heal but absorbs / damage reductions are OP. Let healers heal and not be just cooldown bots.

Ha-ha, I'm that disc priest. I don't want to spec holy because disc is infinitely more fun for me. But yeah people die and my parses are green kek. But I'm having fun so that's the most important thing.

[Sansnom]

No, I don't actually believe the hyperbolic extreme of the thread title, but god damn, something has to be done about the discipline skill floor.

Yes, I know, dear hardcore reader... your dick is huge and you disc heal mythic+agjillion with one hand tied behind your back, you're so skilled. All hail.

But the leveling disc priest, responsible for the same workload as every other healing spec... is half a healing spec in the hands of an unskilled or newer player, far more so than if they chose any other healing class. There needs to be a frank discussion about the skill floor, the role of the dungeon finder, the social mores of said dungeon finder, and the "master of none" that is the still leveling, still gearing disc priest.

I've heard holy paladins have a rough time leveling, but at least their core gameplay has a single bank of targets: the party. You heal the party. That's the core of what you do (yes you can do damage but it's not required for you to do your core job). Like every other "full healing class" from level one to cap. The disc priest, almost from the get go, has to juggle the party and the enemies. Now yes, O big dicked reader, that's not a lot to ask of you... but everyone is new once, and literally every other class has an easier ride at healing. By a lot. And people will choose the class they think looks cool, and think "well this is a AAA head of its genre, clearly it's developed well so my experience will be reaonably on-ramped and approachable just like everyone else's." They'll be wrong, they will struggle, and it will show.


As a career tank, flanked by career healer friends who come and go from the game these days, we are in universal agreement that a good disc priest is a superhero, but a new or "more enthusiast than expert" disc priest is the weakest link of their group. By an obvious lead.

I can't be the only one seeing a problem here. Why isn't this a bigger discussion? Disc started BFA where they should be: good enough at both damage and self sustain to solo effectively (the only priest spec that could claim that), and maybe a bit OP in groups. Honestly, that's how you do a class like that. A jack of all trades. They went from the jack of all trades to the master of none. You can't have a master of none still responsible for healing a 5-man group that can't be expected to care how new they are, as well as a similar player using a different class. "The holy priest was fine, what's wrong with you newbiedisc?"

Some of you are great, some of you are not. You all need to be as useful as the newbie [insert other healing class here], and that's not happening. That needs to change.

Thank you for reading, regardless of dick size.

As usual, passing the buck. This is their problem. Bring your A game or go home. So much for team spirit and helping. It is catch 22. People cannot learn to heal in a group unless they are in a group. They can only join a group if they know how to heal a group.

Healing has always been the hardest because that role is the most susceptible to player's mistake. They are the one who generally covers for player mistake if they are taking more damage than they should. And if they make a mistake, it is very noticeable. People die and then rage rage rage.

[Coldfrostzero]

The Legion changes to Disc made the spec unbearable for me. Having to manage atonement on 2-20 people was just not fun. By the time you get enough people buffed with atonement to justify the cost of Divine Plea (I believe was the spell name), you get maybe one decent heal off and some DoT/HoT healing happens. Focusing on a few people, if you get your heals sniped you just wasted a ton of mana setting up. I played a little bit of Disc in BFA before quitting, and the mana cost was reduced a bit iirc and atonement was a little more forgiving.

The problem is Blizzard has a fine line they can't figure out. In Cataclysm you could practically solo heal any fight with steady amounts of AOE, or single target burst heal without costing any mana, while also being on top or near top for damage (depending on amount of targets). Then they did a complete reversal and made disc extremely mana intensive while trying to juggle who you can heal and can't heal while doing a tiny bit of damage.

[Feral Druid ist Op]

All OP is saying is that disc has a much higher skill floor than the other healing spec and he is 100% correct. There should probably be a little more of an 'on-ramp' to the disc spec than there is currently.

Disco was always about ramp/pre shield, power infusion and painsup and im glad that blizz dont lissen to giga casualys like you and op in their decisions, if youre to bad dont touch disco play shaman and hit your head against the keyboard.