Why do some disc Priests go with crit instead of mastery?

[Altariaz]

This is the main reason a lot of 25-man priests are reforging to crit: in preparation for 5.2

If the raid healing 25 man disc priest is doing that now, before 5.2's release, they need shooting!

[jairash]

Reforging/gearing crit? Yes, i was thinking to do so.
Better or worse i like to experience myself changes instead of believe blindly on someone else analysis.
I want to see the % difference between atonements and poh/ss with the secondary stat prio switch.
Just that.

Yes, i will probably heal less because it's still 5.1. But atleast i have an idea of what's going on with changes.

[Yetiman]

Lo and behold, Mr. Crab has spoken:

Power Infusion - in addition to current effects, also increases all damage by 10%.
And now, Discipline. Recall that the main problems we are trying to fix for Disc in PvE are that they are overpowered and relying too much on Prayer of Healing spam, especially in 25s. We made some changes to Divine Aegis, but we're not happy with them. Because of the interaction with crit and mastery, we worry Disc will be too crit-dependent and won't be strong enough when they fail to crit. On top of that, we're worried that it will be too easy to push Disc priests into loving mastery and hating crit or loving crit and hating mastery. To try and address all of those problems, old and new, we are trying a few different things:

1) Divine Aegis now works differently. It causes any critical heal to proc a bubble for 100% of the heal instead of doubling the heal. In other words, a crit for Holy is a 200% heal. A crit for Disc is a 100% heal + a 100% bubble. The bubble however benefits from mastery, so it's more likely a 100% heal + a 130% bubble.
2) Power Word: Shield can now crit for Discipline.
3) Mastery now boosts shields by 1.6% per point (down from 2.5% per point) but now also increases all healing by 0.8% per point.

What we hope this does:

Keeps the kit of Divine Aegis making crits do something special.
Makes Disc still awesome at bubbles, but not quite so weak at heals. (Holy will cast bigger heals than Disc, but not 50% higher.)
Makes Prayer of Healing good for periods of restoring damage, but makes Power Word: Shield better for periods of preventing damage. (Inner Focus to force Divine Aegis and Spirit Shell also help with preventing damage).
Making crit a good stat, because it benefits most of the toolbox (including PW:S) and causing Divine Aegis bubbles, but also keeping mastery a good stat, because the bubbles are large, and even when you don't get a bubble, it will still help your heal.

Well, apparently crit and mastery will remain priorities with this change. Although, does anyone know atonement healing will be affected by this change to mastery? I know that they just posted this, but I'm curious regarding the possibilities of the crit heals from atonement double-dipping (maybe even triple-dipping, though that would be plainly ridiculously OP).

I also like the change with PI, although I wonder if it affects healing as well, or just straight up damage (guess this was to address shadow's clamoring for a burst CD/improvement of PI to make it more competitive with the other 2 talents).

[cuisdy]

I am betting good money 2 weeks into 5.2 you will be either spamming atonement and spirit shell, re-speced holy or riding the bench if your guild is pushing progress. In your case along with anyone who thinks the 5.2 changes are good for disc you will deserve it too, because you didn't do enough.

If you think that you don't think that pushing max results with bubble spam requires a lot of effort then either you are the best wow player in the world or you pretty much suck. My money is on the latter.

^ This. Disc is OP currently, yet these changes (though I absolutely admit, somewhat mitigated by today's changes) would send us to the bottom. By far. Removing mastery from SS and an 80% reduction in PoH's mastery proc, IN ADDITION to a giant rapture nerf (not to mention taking the skill out of it, now you don't even have to try to manage procs); Disc would have been(and still is) in a bad place

Remember when MoP came out, and for WEEKS virtually no serious guild even considered bringing a Disc priest? I remember that. Remember how everyone said 'it'll all be fine when live hits' and they turned about to be completely and absolutely wrong? I remember that.

[Deleted]

I know priest mechanics just fine, I have been playing a priest since this game was released, so I have a perfect grasp on the situation. And I never said that I WOULDN'T be smiting, I merely stated that isn't ALL I would be doing. You are the one who thinks that all someone would be doing is smiting, which is not the case, for numerous reasons. Your "the sky is falling" mentality does not other than cause people to ignore you, perhaps you should learn how to communicate with people better, and they might listen.

People do listen to me, because so far my predictions have been bang on. Only those who live in their own little word choose to ignore me, because they are just incapable of facing reality.

No one said atonement is all you will be doing. I said atonement will now be your major heal even in 25man. Atonement is now too strong as a tool for spot healing random damage as PoH is too weak, PoM requires constant ticks and glyphed binding heal requires you to be injured too.

Rolling PWS before damage spikes is pointless with the nerfed rapture we just can't afford it. The only bit of higher PWS usage that we will do is an additional PWS within the rapture ICD, so we can squeeze an instant, penance and a cast into borrowed time, during high damage phases. The only real difference from 5.1, is that now disc requires zero skill. You atonement spam until a burst hits, then you either spirit spell, or cast a PWS or two and PoM and penance, glyphed, binding heal, PoM and PoH through the damage. If the bursty damage is high enough however to make PoM, PoH and binding heal an appreciable part of your healing you will NOT be disc, you will be holy because it is much much stronger. So disc priests have three options in a guild that is actively trying for progress and demands good performance: 1) Atonement spam and spirit shell for the majority of the fight, 2) Respec holy if the fight has a high HPS requirement, 3) Ride the bench.

The sooner ppl realise that the better.

The spells you are using most in 5.1 on 25man are PoH, penance, holy fire, PWS, smite and PoM. The spells that you will use the most on 25man in 5.2 are penance, solace, smite, PWS, PoM, binding heal and PoH. The only difference is that you will be using glyphed binding heal a little more than before, but you will also be using smite a lot more, because mana will be tough with PoH nerfed like that and the fact that rapture returns have been nerfed a lot.

Having atonement as your major heal rather than a filler is totally retarded. If I wanted to be a retarded healer I would roll a shaman and do 60% of my healing with a ground aoe and fire and forget totems.