State of Priest - Enter the Mists [5.0] edition

[Kelesti]

Apparently I'd forgotten that Inner Fire now is actually awesome, somewhere along the way. *goes back to update first post*

[espoire]

Mind Soothe is gone (and noone cared)

I'm gonna miss it. It saves face pulls in pugs a lot, and it's useful for stealthing to objectives while leveling. I have it keybound. By the fact that I don't keybind my Hymns, you could say it's more important to me than they are.

[Darkener]

I'm gonna miss it. It saves face pulls in pugs a lot, and it's useful for stealthing to objectives while leveling. I have it keybound. By the fact that I don't keybind my Hymns, you could say it's more important to me than they are.

With Spectral Guise you no longer need Mind Soothe and it works everywhere not just on Humanoids. You can speed boost yourself then Spectral Guise past mobs.

[Deleted]

<OPINION>, AA is too good to pass up. AA+Spirit Shell looks really potent combined - or as complementary abilities when the other is on cooldown. The extra burst from AA really brings a lot to the table, and disc needs all the help it can get right now. </OPINION>

I was under the impression that AA doesn't integrate with SS and the latter would still absorb for the same amount regardless whether u have AA active or not.

Can you confirm this??

[Pinkbyte]

Ghostcrawler actually acknowledged this concern in the solace thread, and said they would nerf AA until this was no longer the case.
Whether that means AA will be nerfed or not is anyone's guess. Frankly, it's one of those areas that really need some strong theorycrafting or opinions voiced.

<OPINION>, AA is too good to pass up. AA+Spirit Shell looks really potent combined - or as complementary abilities when the other is on cooldown. The extra burst from AA really brings a lot to the table, and disc needs all the help it can get right now. </OPINION>

Can anyone provide a link to this "Solace" thread, it has me intrigued. Would really appreciate it.

The current state of disc allows the player to choose between going AA or SoS simply because either do not completely outshine the other, this is obviously play-style and content dependant as well as highly opinionated. This is all im really looking for in Disc in MoP, for SoS to remain a viable play "style". Is this the case on the beta at the moment?

[Danner]

I linked the solace thread back on page 3, but it doesn't hurt to do so again: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/6201271578
As Dawn Moore on wowinsider said: it's a great thread that every healing priest should read!

AA and SS is not working together the last time I tried. It is also quite obviously a bug, and I believe it was posted on the US forums. I can't remember if it was acknowledged or not though.

[derevka]

It's funny-- I actually disagree with Dawn on that point. I HATE that Solace thread. It's become the defacto thread for QQing , and most of it unfounded. It paints, IMO, and overly negative and inaccurate portrait of the status of the priest in beta. Sure there are some good posts in there but there seems to be far more complaining and doomsaying than constructive commentary.

Caveat Lector

[Darkener]

The current state of disc allows the player to choose between going AA or SoS simply because either do not completely outshine the other, this is obviously play-style and content dependant as well as highly opinionated. This is all im really looking for in Disc in MoP, for SoS to remain a viable play "style". Is this the case on the beta at the moment?

In my AA spec on live I also take SoS, so it's not an either/or thing now anyway. SoS in MoP is baseline but will only remove 2 seconds from Weakened Soul. However, if you take the talent Divine Insight your Penance will have a 40% chance to cause PWS to ignore and not create Weakened Soul. In between Divine Insight procs you will notice it takes more heals before you can re-shield the tank. But, yes, the SoS "playstyle" still exists in MoP.

Incidentally, I would say that Disc is skewing more toward tank healing. In fact AA doesn't feel at all like a bonus, it's mandatory to get throughput for aoe closer to the other healers so that when its on cooldown we really lag behind. It doesn't help that PoH and a few shields makes us go oom. Once you are oom after using sfiend you are pretty much stuck that way for the rest of the fight. I was using FDCL with Atonement and free Flash Heals, but I wasn't healing for much that way. I think Disc will be much better a couple tiers into MoP when regen gets better from Spirit. If you do go Disc you will need an active regen talent like Mindbender or Solace. I hope to test those out but I think beta will be turned off soon.

[Felade]

I'm still waiting to hear how this 10% mana cost reduction has turned out...has it gone live on beta yet? Does it make Solace more optional?

[banyentertainment]

i can`t handle the chakra animation so will never go holy

[Fenixdown]

I'm still waiting to hear how this 10% mana cost reduction has turned out...has it gone live on beta yet? Does it make Solace more optional?

It has gone live on beta. While questing I'm not going OOM nearly as much as before, which is great. Before the mana cost reduction I would run out of mana at least once every quest. Now I run out more like once every three.

Just transitioning that to a healing perspective, which I think is relatively fair, it should greatly alleviate the "Solace = mandatory" issue that's come up with some.

[Felade]

<OPINION>, AA is too good to pass up. AA+Spirit Shell looks really potent combined - or as complementary abilities when the other is on cooldown. The extra burst from AA really brings a lot to the table, and disc needs all the help it can get right now. </OPINION>

I really wish they'd make AA a talent again and divorce it from Atonement. That way, both Atonement and AA become optional and available to Holy (and AA available to shadow <3).

I think GC said they were going to nerf Solace, not AA. I don't remember any comment about AA nerfing, although I might have missed it since I wasn't paying as much attention to the Disc issues in the Solace thread.

[Kelesti]

Yeah, that was the nerfing of Solace until it was no logner the "everyone has to have this talent". Because once that happened, they could tweak our mana sustainability without it being propped up by Solace.

This happened. Solace was nerfed pretty freaking hard. Priest healers had each and every single mana cost drop by 10% (except Power Word: Shield?). That's exceptionally significant. But nothing was really said for Archangel being nerfed. They viewed it as pooling HPS, storing some in low times for usage later.

The only thing they really changed about Archangel was that it no longer tries to fool newcomers that it restores mana (when restacking Evangelism costs more mana than Archangel actually restored). And they acknowledged that, and buffed the healing output so there's no confusion what it's actually intended for.

[Venaliter]

Blizzard did state Archangel is entirely optional, NOT included in the classes HPS formula, and would be nerfed if it became a problem. It was a blue post somewhere.

[Kelesti]

Blizzard did state Archangel is entirely optional, NOT included in the classes HPS formula, and would be nerfed if it became a problem. It was a blue post somewhere.

Can you link that, i don't remember that at all, and I'd like to hope it's not because I'm getting old

[mookspal]

This thread makes me sad. I dont want to switch to a monk or pally but I will have to if Priest are not fixed.

[Mazi]

This thread makes me sad. I dont want to switch to a monk or pally but I will have to if Priest are not fixed.

No you don't. Because everything fluctuates every tier. That's just how the ebb and flow of this game is. But if you want to play the FOTM then go for it...

[Deleted]

Haven't tested Disc yet (lots of bad reviews, I agree, still have to see how people manage SS on progression), but from what I see on beta, shadow and holy are not in such a bad shape that you would want to reroll IMO.
I'm not quite satisfied with the shadow gameplay on single target fights, but I find it enjoyable on multi target fights even though it was dumbed down with procs. Holy is very fun to play (for me) and I think it can be competitive this extansion.
What I'm most concerned about is new shadow gameplay TBH.

[Deleted]

Apparently I'd forgotten that Inner Fire now is actually awesome, somewhere along the way. *goes back to update first post*

Apparently I'd forgotten that Inner Fire now is actually awesome, somewhere along the way. *goes back to update first post*

Awesome? Its practically the same. It increases healing by 5.8% just like it did in cata. In any case we can't really afford to be in it for very long both as holy and as disc. Inner will is the way to go right now especially with holy since like 4 out 5 casts are instants, especially if you did the smart thing and picked DI.

Holy is in a good spot right now. As long as you understand how to play it. Single target healing is a bit weak, but there are no major problems.

Discipline on the other hand is problematic. The output is low, but not as low as it looks like on the meters because for some reason Spirit Shell does not show up. We have pretty strong CDs but there is also quite a lot of them in addition to some short duration buffs. Some noobs complained about having to DPS, so blizzard did they stupidest thing possible and nerfed penance returning 3 evangelism stacks. Disc was teetering on the brink of viability before. Low output vs strong CDs, with this nerf our output went down further and we are probably not viable. Also our problem of having tons of CDs and short duration buffs to track became worse. I really dont get what is wrong with people. How is using penance on boss "DPSing". You use it on boss because penance becomes 3 smart heals, which is fantastic for filling gaps left behind by PoH. You never need to use an actual DPS spell. Just switch target to boss. If ppl found that too hard they need to switch to holy or reroll, because there is no way they can get good performance our of disc.
The nerf has not made archangel any less essential, but it means that now we can't afford to let evangelism drop, so we have to use every penance on the boss and we have to use an actual DPS spell (holy fire). The nerf also gave us a humongous 10% nerf in our sustained stress HPS. An area which was the main reason for disc's lack of throughput. Everytime you see a sustained high damage phase you know that you are going to be on the bottom of the meters now. GJ blizzard and the morons who think targeting the boss is DPSing. Right now disc has to keep up evangelism (huge buff to penance), grace and aegis on top of having to track the CDs of weakened soul, rapture, penance, holy fire (thanks to the morons mentioned above), archangel (yep you still have to do it and now you actually have to dps), cascade and inner focus. Then you also have the long term CDs: PI (only option for disc right now IMO), penance, barrier and spirit shell on top of all the common priest CDs. The best bit is that the CDs actually clash with each other and it throws everything out of synch. E.g. archangel and inner focus don't work with spirit shell. Having to use penance on the boss on CD now means you had better not let grace drop on the tank either. That means we have to keep 3 short duration buffs and we really cant afford to let them drop. Aegis, grace and evangelism and you have to time all your CDs perfectly to line up with the damage pattern in the fight. That is why I say to noobs who say we dont like using penance on the boss. Please respec holy, you dont have what it takes to play disc.

Worst of all this nerf hit disc right where it hurts. Our weakness has always been our lack of sustained high HPS, we rely too much on bursting with CDs, especially in AoE healing. As soon as we get a protracted high damage phase we fall behind. Having archangel on demand even when we need to produce high HPS and a 1 minute spirit shell was a great step in the right direction. Now that we lost that disc slipped below the point where its definately viable. We might get a spot in raids because of our CDs, but our lack of healing output is now serious and might set us back. Unless blizzard reverts this change or gives us something else, the future looks bleak for disc.

As for being outhealed as holy you need to revise your strategy. Holy is competitive right now. I been doing LFR since it came up and I can confidently say that holy on 25 man at least is right up there with paladins. Monks are still broken. For example on elegon LFR I had no trouble chain casting through the whole encounter and being 2nd on the meters with 3 monks in the raid. I dont even have solace since I am testing mindbender. The second priest was struggling and running oom all the time, until I explained to him what to do then he did really well too. I was neck to neck with the top monk until until p3. Then he suddenly pulled a lead within a minute or so, with Chi Bursts and thunderfocus uplifts. Monks are still really OP when it comes to stacked healing. Uplift is like Cataclysm holy radiance on steroids. Basically the monk can hot up the entire raid, by applying the hot and keeping it going with uplift. Once he has the whole raid HoTd each uplift refreshes the Hot and heals the whole raid on top. He can then use his thunderfocus tea which doubles uplift healing for 30s and use up excess chi for chi bursts. Holy priests on the other hand are really awesome on high movement spread out fights, due to coh, renew, pom and cascade being instant.

[Dracmaul]

I'd like to post a question to beta priest healers. After reading up on the forums an noting feedback from priest streamers I'm asking the question what spec would be best for healing straight off the start of the expansion? From what I know I realise the answer will most likely be holy, however I am only referring to 5mans and heroics, as I am unable to raid most of this expansion.

I know blue posts have stated 5heroics won't be as hard as the beginning of cata, but is disc really that low throughput that it will be that much of a problem? (at least until I learn the fights damage output). I am hoping that once I do a fight once or twice in shadow I'll be fine discing it after paying attention to the mechanics. Some quick feedback would b great. Ty