[Priest] 5.2 PTR notes

[Maleric]

Maleric we're going to see at least 40k mana return from each Rapture next tier with current numbers :-\ That's pretty ridiculous.

Maybe 250% Rapture will be a problem in tier fifteen and maybe it won't. But that will depend on a lot more than returns from one effect. "Big numbers therefor ridiculous" isn't a very convincing argument.

[Deleted]

The new Solace seems tailored for disc priests (and atonement ones at that, though I'm not sure if there are any non-atonement disc priests anymore), and does absolutely nothing for holy or for shadow. Actually, before the change it had some potential of being better for holy than mindbender on fights with lots of downtime (though, if you have so much downtime you're not likely to need the extra mana anyway). Now, it has 0 potential for that, as holy gains nothing from holy fire, so it will gain nothing from solace.

[Deleted]

Where are they even going with rapture, removing spirit procs was sensible but buffing to 250% pfft, it's done nothing to stem the flow of a discs regen, and can only be considered a nerf if raiding with a resto shaman.
With DA buffed so considerably, I can guarantee all that will happen is 70%+ overhealing from PoH while stacking DA throughout the fight although this can already be seen in current top logs and this change simply intensifies that.

[nobodysbaby]

Very good point Varda, about the buff to Rapture. It is a pure buff unless you raid with Rshamans, and it wasn't really needed. Holy needed the extra manaregen a whole lot more.

[Venaliter]

Maybe 250% Rapture will be a problem in tier fifteen and maybe it won't.

I suspect it will. I also suspect there's no way to fix it then either, unless they slash priest mana costs or add a new form of regen for both Holy AND disc.

as holy gains nothing from holy fire, so it will gain nothing from solace.

Pretty lame for Holy, as the best part of Solace would be the interaction with Evangelism and Atonement. Another design failure...for now.

...about the buff to Rapture. It is a pure buff unless you raid with Rshamans, and it wasn't really needed. Holy needed the extra manaregen a whole lot more.

Very much needed in PvP. But I think slashing mana costs would have been perhaps more sensible.

[Deleted]

I wrote a short blog post earlier on the changes to Spirit Shell and Rapture. (Hint: They're good changes in terms of balance.)

http://posix.me/post/38625640020/why-is-disc-op

[Anastacy]

One Word: Firelands.

We will most likely see no spirit cloth items in the new raid. (and probably leather and mail neither). Too much hit pieces for the DD specs, too much regen for the healing specs.

We only saw so few spirit pieces in Firelands because there was inly 7 bosses. Loot bloat?

New raid has almost double that.

[Outofmana]

Problem with absortion healing is that it limits boss design.

For example:
Let's say everyone has 400k HP health and you would want to design a boss with a raidwide cooldown which hits for 380k and there are (HoF first boss style) discs flying around that hit for 50k (and are thus dangerous after the raidwide boss cd). If you run into a disc right after the boss cd you die, simple as.
- Bring a disc priest and this boss cd becomes only a 220k hit and lolol everyone doesn't even care about discs.
- So how would you tune the boss? You can't really tune it around having a disc and let it hit for 500k, since raids without discs will be fucked.
- You can only make the discs hit 300k so getting hit by one after the boss ~380k/220k CD will always result in a death either way, but that's not what you intended, you only wanted to make the discs dangerous after a boss cd but instead you will have to make them deadly during the whole encounter, otherwise bring a disc and the mechanic is gone.

Just a small example, yes it would be a horrible boss, but there are many situations where discs are totally destroying intended boss mechanics, I remember being disc for LK25HC and spamming shield on 5 groups the whole fight just for that one DoT so that it wouldn't even damage people.

TLDR: absorption healing sucks for bossdesign / fun in healing, with the OPness from disc right now it's downright ridiculous and I don't see any real nerfs for discs inc for 5.2, just some adjustments that will not fix the issue. (or any real buffs for the terrible Chakra/regen state Holy is is atm).

Maybe it's time to destroy the disc spec for PvE and use holy as the only healing spec for PvE bringing the class in line with other classes, absorbtion healing should've never found it's way to PvE and should've stayed in the battlegrounds imo.

[kouby]

Problem with absortion healing is that it limits boss design.

For example:
Let's say everyone has 400k HP health and you would want to design a boss with a raidwide cooldown which hits for 380k and there are (HoF first boss style) discs flying around that hit for 50k (and are thus dangerous after the raidwide boss cd). If you run into a disc right after the boss cd you die, simple as.
- Bring a disc priest and this boss cd becomes only a 220k hit and lolol everyone doesn't even care about discs.
- So how would you tune the boss? You can't really tune it around having a disc and let it hit for 500k, since raids without discs will be fucked.
- You can only make the discs hit 300k so getting hit by one after the boss ~380k/220k CD will always result in a death either way, but that's not what you intended, you only wanted to make the discs dangerous after a boss cd but instead you will have to make them deadly during the whole encounter, otherwise bring a disc and the mechanic is gone.

Just a small example, yes it would be a horrible boss, but there are many situations where discs are totally destroying intended boss mechanics, I remember being disc for LK25HC and spamming shield on 5 groups the whole fight just for that one DoT so that it wouldn't even damage people.

TLDR: absorption healing sucks for bossdesign / fun in healing, with the OPness from disc right now it's downright ridiculous and I don't see any real nerfs for discs inc for 5.2, just some adjustments that will not fix the issue. (or any real buffs for the terrible Chakra/regen state Holy is is atm).

Maybe it's time to destroy the disc spec for PvE and use holy as the only healing spec for PvE bringing the class in line with other classes, absorbtion healing should've never found it's way to PvE and should've stayed in the battlegrounds imo.

Yeah, because you don't like a class, destroy it. Perfect idea.

And simply because you don't know how to balance a fight doesn't mean it is not possible. There a lots of raid CDs that have the same effective effect as having 200k absorbs on a raid. How do you balance a fight around warriors being able to give +20% health to everyone on the impact of your "dream encounter" thingy just above? How do you balance around palys being able to bubble and totally avoid some mechanism? How do you balance around Monks who can heal people they don't have in range? How do you balance around death knight tanks who absorb and auto-heal? (oh the sacrilege hey)

Just because you don't know how to balance a game doesn't mean a game company full of professionals can't.

[Amnesti]

I've never seen so much meter QQ in one thread.
I've never seen such a reason to infract before. Okay, exaggerating, but still don't post like this. --Kel

[theherecy]

Where are they even going with rapture, removing spirit procs was sensible but buffing to 250% pfft, it's done nothing to stem the flow of a discs regen, and can only be considered a nerf if raiding with a resto shaman.
With DA buffed so considerably, I can guarantee all that will happen is 70%+ overhealing from PoH while stacking DA throughout the fight although this can already be seen in current top logs and this change simply intensifies that.

I anticipate the changes will allow for further balance tweaks once testing begins, imagine from a dev's point of view trying to balance mana/cost of spells on something like HC stone guards, it's impossible and can't account for whether or not a shaman is present. Now this wound is closed up the healing process can begin, no pun intended.

As for the DA changes, numerous sources point to it already being 50% and the tooltip hasn't been updated till now, no surprise there.

I wouldn't take much from this now, only that a nerf to actual healing numbers will come and when that happens there's gonna be more spirit reforged out of into other stats to provide throughput.

[Venaliter]

imagine from a dev's point of view trying to balance mana/cost of spells

I think Rapture is impossible to balance unless it's a set value. At 250%, Priest regen will blow everyone else out of the water. Period. No question. Sure, we spend more mana, but the sheer amount of regen will compensate for that. The other issue of the issue is PvP, and how much priests struggle with mana there. Really, the BEST solution would be to have Rapture make a shield FREE to cast every 12 seconds, and slash mana costs of Priest spells to bring up regen, because both Holy and Disc need it terribly.

TLDR: Rapture as a % isn't balance-able; and Blizzard is flatly incompetent when it comes to Priests.

[HPLathus]

They really just need to make it a flat 20k


Problem solved.

[Meaks]

I thought that's basically what they were going to do when they announced static mana pools (since it used to be based off max mana)

[Venaliter]

I thought that's basically what they were going to do when they announced static mana pools (since it used to be based off max mana)

Should have been. Bad design; but this is hindsight. A lot easier to judge.

---------- Post added 2012-12-24 at 12:46 AM ----------

Going to go out on a limb here and predict how Disc Priests will stack up in PvP to some of the more dangerous PvP classes. Most of this is just educated guesses and theory. I don't believe Disc was buffed sufficiently to be a viable PvP class, but we'll see how things turn out on the PTR:


Warrior:

Arms Warrior are all about stacking up TfB charges (still.) and stacking their CDs to blow you up. You really have no chance to get them off of you for any period of time. Psychic Scream easily negated by Berserker Rage. Your best bet is to save your fiend when his TfB charges could possibly drop off or when he finally uses his cooldowns to go for the kill. Shockwave has been nerfed, so you won't have to work around it so often. It's basically impossible to solo a warrior as a Disc priest. Def Stance + 2nd Wind will probably negate any damage you do. If you do choose to go for it, make sure your fiend is available.

Death Knight:

Frost DKs are capable of quite a bit of damage, very quickly. - easily capable of killing if if they catch you with your defenses down. (or possibly up). You can Phantasm out of Desecrated Ground. It may be possible to kill one solo, as Disc, by carefully whittling him down. Keep your HP up as much as possible - Soul Reaper can deal a tremendous amount of execute damage if you're low.

Feral:

The match-up is a *little* better now. Displacer Beast got a fairly justified nerf - but it's not good news for us. It's pretty much impossible to escape a feral druid; you'll have to stand and fight unless you have help to get away. You can phantasm out of Faerie Swarm/Infected Wounds if it'll help. Dispel Cenarion Ward if it's cast, it's fairly good healing now. They have multiple CDs so sustained damage will be fairly high. Nature's Vigil's CD and damage % was halved, so you can expect that more often. You'll need to fear or throw down your psyfiend as needed. Most Druids, as far as I know, take Mighty Bash, which they will throw at you before attempting their burst, plus their cyclones you will likely need to trinket.

Mages:

Mages took a hard nerf in 5.2. Deep Freeze no longer allows such tremendous burst, but mages are even more slippery and their sustained damage got a fairly decent nudge upwards. They can no longer Silence you per-emptivily - they will have to wait for you to cast. Use this to your advantage. Be sure to dispel the spells they steal off you as much as possible; they can no longer spam it ridiculously like they could at Launch. Mages may perhaps be one of your easier matchs in a 5.2 world, and can possibly be soloed, even as a healer.

Monks and Rogues:

I have no idea how this is gonna work out. My first thought is Rogues were ridiculously overbuffed, followed closely by Monks. I bet they will be toned down, and Disc perhaps buffed a bit more.

Shadow Priest:

The mirror will be a tricky fight. You can dispel their dots basically with impunity - their set bonus is badly designed and DRs with itself - and you should. A shadow priest will attempt get you as low as possible, pop fiend/trinkets, silence you, and go for the kill. If you get to execute range it's likely all over. A shadow priest's healing will easily overwhelm any damage you do solo, but if you have a partner be sure to dispel their magical buffs. Otherwise, don't bother. Disc's have limited mana and a Shadow Priest's is basically endless. The good news is they don't have an interrupt, so you may cast pretty much to your hearts content.

[Deleted]

Very good point Varda, about the buff to Rapture. It is a pure buff unless you raid with Rshamans, and it wasn't really needed. Holy needed the extra manaregen a whole lot more.

The "nerf" also affects trinket buffs influence, so its not only for the case of raiding with a resto shaman - though I agree that one held the biggest slice.
Otherwise, its not a "buff" that I was expecting.

[Deleted]

Problem with absortion healing is that it limits boss design.

For example:
Let's say everyone has 400k HP health and you would want to design a boss with a raidwide cooldown which hits for 380k and there are (HoF first boss style) discs flying around that hit for 50k (and are thus dangerous after the raidwide boss cd). If you run into a disc right after the boss cd you die, simple as.
- Bring a disc priest and this boss cd becomes only a 220k hit and lolol everyone doesn't even care about discs.
- So how would you tune the boss? You can't really tune it around having a disc and let it hit for 500k, since raids without discs will be fucked.
- You can only make the discs hit 300k so getting hit by one after the boss ~380k/220k CD will always result in a death either way, but that's not what you intended, you only wanted to make the discs dangerous after a boss cd but instead you will have to make them deadly during the whole encounter, otherwise bring a disc and the mechanic is gone.

Just a small example, yes it would be a horrible boss, but there are many situations where discs are totally destroying intended boss mechanics, I remember being disc for LK25HC and spamming shield on 5 groups the whole fight just for that one DoT so that it wouldn't even damage people.

TLDR: absorption healing sucks for bossdesign / fun in healing, with the OPness from disc right now it's downright ridiculous and I don't see any real nerfs for discs inc for 5.2, just some adjustments that will not fix the issue. (or any real buffs for the terrible Chakra/regen state Holy is is atm).

Or maybe such encounters are bad design themselves. I dont agree with world of casualcraft , but neither with world of hardcorecraft where if you dont raid on a top system/ms, then you better dont raid. I see no fun in a boss where if stars align badly, and you get 2 abilities close together, you get one shot. As much as I appreciated the LK encounter, the Infest part was bad design, and I hope it never returns. On top of that, as other have posted already, disc doesn't hold the only absorb/mitigation mechanic ingame: war shout, aura mastery, spirit link?

Maybe it's time to destroy the disc spec for PvE and use holy as the only healing spec for PvE bringing the class in line with other classes, absorbtion healing should've never found it's way to PvE and should've stayed in the battlegrounds imo.

You might have missed the last 2 expansions. Raid cds played an increasing role in design encounter, and I wouldn't call it boring/bad. Predicting damage is an intelligent mechanic, it only becomes bad when its constant blanket with no repercussions - just as much as constantly spamming your highest heal is.

[theherecy]

I think Rapture is impossible to balance unless it's a set value. At 250%, Priest regen will blow everyone else out of the water. Period. No question. Sure, we spend more mana, but the sheer amount of regen will compensate for that. The other issue of the issue is PvP, and how much priests struggle with mana there. Really, the BEST solution would be to have Rapture make a shield FREE to cast every 12 seconds, and slash mana costs of Priest spells to bring up regen, because both Holy and Disc need it terribly.

TLDR: Rapture as a % isn't balance-able; and Blizzard is flatly incompetent when it comes to Priests.

My point still stands, it's more controllable and more predictable. Remember how fire mages could cheese amber shaper and warriors could take 20% off tsulong health each day to night phase through rallying cry. It's complete BS.

Now imagine this bs happening on every fight *enter disc priests*. I'm not saying it's perfect now, but it's a lot easier to control. And you want to talk about priests awful balancing come over to the rogue forums sometime. It's the equivalent of compton over there.

[HamSandwichFace]

Rapture should get changed back to it's original value of 150%. Using PW:S shouldn't be a mana gain, if anything Rapture should just equalize with PW:S cost to make tank healing more suitable. Disc Priests have 4 types of mana regen compared to every other which has 2 maximum, some healers just have 1.

[Deleted]

The "nerf" also affects trinket buffs influence, so its not only for the case of raiding with a resto shaman - though I agree that one held the biggest slice.
Otherwise, its not a "buff" that I was expecting.

The 50% buff to rapture directly cancels out the mana regenerated from the rapture effect on spirit procs not to mention it is now more stable than before. Thus, the change to rapture is ONLY a nerf when raiding with a resto shaman, which in 25m is more likely, unfortunately I raid 10m so.

Like I've said before, it needs to be a set % of your mana not spirit. It shouldn't scale with gear, or at least not as much as it does. They could also look at making rapture return a set amount + a smaller % of spirit as mana to keep it scaling. I mean shamans have crit mana regen scaling so I'm not against scaling mana regen if it's done correctly.

My point still stands, it's more controllable and more predictable. Remember how fire mages could cheese amber shaper and warriors could take 20% off tsulong health each day to night phase through rallying cry. It's complete BS.

Now imagine this bs happening on every fight *enter disc priests*. I'm not saying it's perfect now, but it's a lot easier to control. And you want to talk about priests awful balancing come over to the rogue forums sometime. It's the equivalent of compton over there.

Removing spirit procs from rapture regen was obviously coming and 100% necessary. I doubt anyone is or can argue for it in the interest of balance. But why buff it to 250% huh especially considering the known state of disc and the community feedback, it's madness.