Disc Vs Holy 5.2

[vanityking]

I think it's a matter of player, some people switched to monk at the beginning just because they could top the meters easily, then when they were nerfed they switched to disc priest. Just because there are a lot more of one class doesn't mean the others are bad.

[Kalmah]

If Disc were a separate class, and had the same amount of players...you'd STILL see the same amount of Holy, because there are finite players, and within that, a finite amount that play healers.

Rerolling has a much higher cost than just respeccing.

[Noradin]

The problems with these changes is that when disc with its aborbs is no longer stronger on the meters than other healers on fights where there is a surplus of HpS the spec wont be able to to bring enough through put on fights where through is needed.
Whenever there is enough healing to reliably survive the fight (which means some HpS to spare) absorbs will have an advantage on the effective healing logs, only when there is not enough healing at no time will absorbs not shine on logs - still if there is not enough healing because the spec is lacking in total HpS then having those HpS in absorbs doesn't really help anything.

It is most likely possible to nerf disc enough so that it kills the spec for progression in such a way that it still looks stronger than others on non progression logs where there is a surplus of healing.

[HPLathus]

Mastery changes will correct disc not having throughput. Having an extra 20-25% healing is like having archangel up full time.

---------- Post added 2013-02-17 at 06:27 PM ----------

Not to mention having archangel available for when you need even more...

---------- Post added 2013-02-17 at 06:32 PM ----------

Has anyone confirmed if atonement double dips in 5.2?

[Deleted]

Maximizing disc bubbles wasn't hard on 25 man LK, and I don't suspect it will be in 5.2.

You make it sound "easy" to balance, but I have a strong suspicion your randomly thrown around "5%" numbers are not the solution you think. There are some pretty damn brilliant people at Blizzard, as while there is the occasional bonehead decision there are far too many factors to consider that weigh into any semblance of "balance."

And yes, to me disc is mind numbing. You use more of your toolbox in 10s than 25s, and it's still extremely boring.

My numbers are anything but random. They take into account the benefit of absorbs over a large number of encounters not only in this tier, but cataclysm as well and the difference in reactive healing between disc and other classes. There are no other factors at all. That is all you need it is that easy. The problem is people just don't believe it is simple. As EAP said: "By undue profundity we perplex and enfeeble thought and it is possible to make even Venus herself vanish from the firmanent by a scrutiny too sustained". The only problem with this is that disc as it is is so complex, that very few people actually squeeze enough performance. These numbers will make the spec unapproachable to the average player. I don't see that as a problem. The other issue is correctly estimating the throughput, as what you can achieve on paper is not the same as what is achievable in practice, but you can do that if you have access to the logs from a lot of fights and blizz can do that.

With these numbers disc will be great in some encounters but consistently behind other classes in many others. As long as blizzard does not make every fight have a crazy burst ability on a convenient 1 minute timer and little damage outside that.

Disc bubble spam is certainly mindnumbing for people who can't play it well. The intricacies of maximising it require many more buttons, more planning and more awareness than holy ever uses, even if PoH does the brunt of your healing.

[Deleted]

Mastery changes will correct disc not having throughput. Having an extra 20-25% healing is like having archangel up full time.

Apart from the fact that disc gets overall less output from the mastery+crit changes.

[Deleted]

Cookis is right, the nerf to crit value is enough to offset that increase in healing, however remember that big crits have more overheal so bigger non crit heals and bubble crits are actually more valuable. I think it will end up being a very minor buff, not enough to get disc where it needs to be for 25 man.

[Maleric]

Healing output aside, the other issue disc is going to have in 5.2 is that it will have holes in its toolkit for dealing with multitarget raid damage. If multitarget damage is predictable disc will be able to pre-shield, if it's raid-wide or near-raid-wide disc will be able to use PoH, but for other damage patterns it won't have an adequate response. The options will be to either rely on gimpy healing from Atonement and ProM or resort to spot healing with GH/FH/Penance.

So not only is disc likely to have crappy healing output, but it won't even be able to bring what output it does have to bear on some fights.

[Deleted]

Cookis is right, the nerf to crit value is enough to offset that increase in healing, however remember that big crits have more overheal so bigger non crit heals and bubble crits are actually more valuable. I think it will end up being a very minor buff, not enough to get disc where it needs to be for 25 man.

Well, if you indeed changed from crit to mastery stacking it'd probably be a very very slight buff in the end (once you factor in overhelaing). Considering the importance of atonement and that crit adds an significant amount of dps probably means that most discs will put crit at a higher value than mastery in 10 man (I will), despite these changes, and in that case it definitely ends up as a net nerf.

Healing output aside, the other issue disc is going to have in 5.2 is that it will have holes in its toolkit for dealing with multitarget raid damage. If multitarget damage is predictable disc will be able to pre-shield, if it's raid-wide or near-raid-wide disc will be able to use PoH, but for other damage patterns it won't have an adequate response. The options will be to either rely on gimpy healing from Atonement and ProM or resort to spot healing with GH/FH/Penance.

So not only is disc likely to have crappy healing output, but it won't even be able to bring what output it does have to bear on some fights.

Agreed, this+atonement being way too strong (which is more of a playstyle issue than a balance issue) will be the main issues for disc come 5.2.

[ramennoodleking]

My numbers are anything but random. They take into account the benefit of absorbs over a large number of encounters not only in this tier, but cataclysm as well and the difference in reactive healing between disc and other classes. There are no other factors at all. That is all you need it is that easy. The problem is people just don't believe it is simple. As EAP said: "By undue profundity we perplex and enfeeble thought and it is possible to make even Venus herself vanish from the firmanent by a scrutiny too sustained". The only problem with this is that disc as it is is so complex, that very few people actually squeeze enough performance. These numbers will make the spec unapproachable to the average player. I don't see that as a problem. The other issue is correctly estimating the throughput, as what you can achieve on paper is not the same as what is achievable in practice, but you can do that if you have access to the logs from a lot of fights and blizz can do that.

With these numbers disc will be great in some encounters but consistently behind other classes in many others. As long as blizzard does not make every fight have a crazy burst ability on a convenient 1 minute timer and little damage outside that.

Disc bubble spam is certainly mindnumbing for people who can't play it well. The intricacies of maximising it require many more buttons, more planning and more awareness than holy ever uses, even if PoH does the brunt of your healing.

I still don't think you are factoring all of the variables. If you have constant, pulsing AoE akin to ICC fights, disc absorbs (even if only 40% of healing) are still going to be taken into account first. Sure, this gives specs like resto Druids and holy priests time for their hot to tick, but disc bubbles are still at the forefront.

So lets remove that type of damage from the game.

What's left? Spikey tank damage. Again, PW:S and DA and SS would welcome your crushing blows, as they will surely get absorbed. Leave the scraps for the other healers, if the disc doesn't Penace them first and start the cycle over.

Ok so scrap that too. How about heavy, regularly intervals of massive raid damage? Crap! Disc absorbs those first too.

The only damage model I can imagine disc wouldn't naturally excel in is randomly targeted, unpredictable damage spattered upon the raid, much like Lei Shi or Protectors water bolt splashes. Now, if Blizzard includes exclusively that sort of damage, disc becomes ridiculously mediocre, as proactive healing is just a guessing game at that point.

The point is, you can pretend all you want that it's "easy" to balance the spec, but it absolutely is not. As long as absorbs play any considerable role in Discs arsenal, there will always be a large number of ways to shift this to your advantage.

And don't try and patronize me, please. Disc bubble spam is nowhere near as intricate as you pretend it to be. Using trinkets/PI/AA/ToF or whatever cooldowns you plan to synchronize and then spamming bubbles on raid members about to take damage is not difficult whatsoever. Rapture is hardly a difficult cooldown to manage either, and without much effort you can get good uptime.

Bubbles amount to drop and pop. It was no different on heroic LK, which I did in both 10 and 25 man pre-4.0, and unless something drastic changes, it will be no different now. Only now they have SS which acts like a party-wide PW:S on a one minute CD. And also now comes wrapped in with a heal while dpsing mechanic called atonement, which relegates you to a smite-turret that smart heals all over the place.

[Anastacy]

Was the "Oy" necessary? We are having a nice discussion here, lets respecting one another.

I think you're wrong. If holy was a different class than disc, it would have had more userbase from players who play monk, shammy, and druids. The fact not many play holy now is because disc is so much stronger in most fights, brings lots of utility, and allows 10m groups to beat enrage timers.

As for 4.2, go back and read threads of how poor holy was at the time. No raid cd, very limited mana regen, even Blizzard eventually came to the conclusion it needs a buff, and they did just that in 4.3. To you DH makes things nicer, to many it was a necessary cd, and in DS it proved to be a very powerful tool. In MoP it is slightly less effective.

Necessary? No. Expected? Yes. "Viable" means worth having. "Not viable" means DO NOT BRING, which clearly wasn't the case as proven by guilds using Holy Priests in Firelands. "The sky is falling" mentality gets old.

And the majority of the people that play Pally/Druid/Shaman/Monk play them because they like those classes (or other reasons). If they don't play Holy Priest now, they won't play Holy Priest just because Disc is a new class; they'll still play Pally/Druid/Shaman/Monk.

[ramennoodleking]

Necessary? No. Expected? Yes. "Viable" means worth having. "Not viable" means DO NOT BRING, which clearly wasn't the case as proven by guilds using Holy Priests in Firelands. "The sky is falling" mentality gets old.

And the majority of the people that play Pally/Druid/Shaman/Monk play them because they like those classes (or other reasons). If they don't play Holy Priest now, they won't play Holy Priest just because Disc is a new class; they'll still play Pally/Druid/Shaman/Monk.

As the above poster showed, plenty of people in progression guilds were holy. So refuting the person he was quoting, I raided t11, a harder tier than firelands overall, as holy. HOLY. I cleared heroic Nef, chogall, and al akir as holy while they were current tier. An 8 minute divine hymn didn't hinder us despite being one of the only healers without a 3 minute CD.

Next tier, I raided again as holy. Cleared all heroic content as holy too, with the exception of Majordomo.

Then came DS, where again I was holy for every fight except Spine and Madness progression for atonement. But I turned around and recleared them as holy.

Rewind to WotLk. Holy was also fine in ICC, though admittedly practically mandatory for H LK due to bubble spam elimanting the plague.

Fast forward to MoP. Lo and behold, holy can also clear every fight as holy here too. But again, as with H LK, disc allowed guilds to completely ignore certain mechanics on top of supplying dps, which made them more attractive, particularly for progression. Does this speed up progression, especially in 10s? Yes. Which sucks, but is true. But a holy priest can easily still keep a raid alive in those fights, there's just less room for error/slacking.

[shanthi]

Healing output aside, the other issue disc is going to have in 5.2 is that it will have holes in its toolkit for dealing with multitarget raid damage. If multitarget damage is predictable disc will be able to pre-shield, if it's raid-wide or near-raid-wide disc will be able to use PoH, but for other damage patterns it won't have an adequate response. The options will be to either rely on gimpy healing from Atonement and ProM or resort to spot healing with GH/FH/Penance.

There will also be glyphed Binding Heal, which will at least get three people, assuming you (the casting priest) need any healing.

[Danner]

I did not raid as holy in the firelands. I was pretty much parked outside in favor of pretty much any other healer spec where possible after the first week. I didn't see more than 5-6 raids until the dragon soul came out in total. I didn't feel capable of healing the content, mana being the primary (and pretty much only) problem, and the ability to sustain the heavy single target healing needed for most of the bosses that followed. I didn't want to reroll disc (we already had one). And we had 3 paladins more than eager to take my raidspot. So they did. Firelands sucked for me.

I know that there were people raiding successfully as holy in the firelands, examples given aplenty in this thread. But for me, I was very much "not viable". I ran oom, I failed to keep things alive, and I very much felt I didn't have the tools required. Of course, every time I speak about this trauma, someone always invariably calls me bad names. But let me be clear: firelands sucked for holy. For ME.

Dragon Soul was pretty awesome after I got the gear. Pandaria is totally awesome as holy. Tier 11 was great as well. But the Firelands is a mental scar that will never go away. Apart from the insane set, the firelands raid faction is the only faction I have yet to go exhalted with. I just don't want to go back to that horrid place.

So allow me to re-iterate this point. The firelands totally sucked for me. I was not alone in this. It was not a "l2p" issue, I very well know how to play holy. And I am not alone in feeling that it sucked, given how virtually all holypriests vanished within a week of its release. If it worked for you, great. But it took a very skilled raid group and healer to make holy viable in the firelands. If you didn't go into it with BiS gear, you certainly wasn't going to be able to handle it unless you went disc.

But hey. Old trauma is old.

[ramennoodleking]

I don't think it required BiS or a perfect raid comp, but I believe I'm the one that always had issues with your problems with holy as I personally, and others, didn't have those problems. I do think that if my raid group had more problems with dps or taking excessive damage that holy was, indeed, mana tight, but I never found it to be a hindrance, nor did my raid group. Disc was easier to maintain mana, for sure.

[Deleted]

I still don't think you are factoring all of the variables. If you have constant, pulsing AoE akin to ICC fights, disc absorbs (even if only 40% of healing) are still going to be taken into account first. Sure, this gives specs like resto Druids and holy priests time for their hot to tick, but disc bubbles are still at the forefront.

So lets remove that type of damage from the game.

See that is where you are going wrong. Pulsing aoes are usually associated with high burst phases too. Like spine of deathwing. What happens is the pulsing aoe cannot get eaten up competely by the disc shields because you can only hit 1 group at at time, but practically every other class and particularly shammies, palas and holy priest can set it up so they have a hot on the whole raid. So disc is only slightly ahead between bursts. When the big burst comes disc has nothing, because PoH is so slow. Worse of all disc is not helpful at all in these encounters even if it can pull decent numbers, because the problem is usually surviving the bursts, where other classes can do better. Spine of deathwing was one of the encounters where disc throughput was really luckluster. So by keeping the absorbs reasonable you can pretty much stop disc from being too OP on anything except very bursty fights with long low HPS phases followed by massive massive spikes or fights where the boss has a fairly big damage buff.

As for this:

The point is, you can pretend all you want that it's "easy" to balance the spec, but it absolutely is not. As long as absorbs play any considerable role in Discs arsenal, there will always be a large number of ways to shift this to your advantage.

And don't try and patronize me, please. Disc bubble spam is nowhere near as intricate as you pretend it to be. Using trinkets/PI/AA/ToF or whatever cooldowns you plan to synchronize and then spamming bubbles on raid members about to take damage is not difficult whatsoever. Rapture is hardly a difficult cooldown to manage either, and without much effort you can get good uptime.

Absolutely and completely ridiculous. When MoP launched our absorbs were easily 60% of total healing. Was disc OP? It was barely viable. Shows just how much you know about disc.

The 2nd paragraph makes is even clearer. What you put in a nutshell is only a small part of what is needed to maximise disc performance. That is pretty much what people who don't play disc think, but that is like saying using that spamming CoH, PoH and PoM in blue chakra and using divine hymn at the right time is all you need to know about holy. This is not me patronizing you, I can only judge you from what you are saying and what you do say makes it obvious that you don't know disc even remotely as well as you suggest you do.

If you think that disc is easy and boring, then there can be no doubt that you don't really understand the spec very well. PWS spam is not the same as cata and MoP bubble spam. Not even remotely. Disc bubble spam after the introduction of spirit shell the aegis boost and the baseline archangel has become a very intricate affair with branching choices at every point, where the best option is very difficult to discern, unless you are aware of quite a lot of parameters. You also need to use a hell of a lot more buttons than holy.

Healing output aside, the other issue disc is going to have in 5.2 is that it will have holes in its toolkit for dealing with multitarget raid damage. If multitarget damage is predictable disc will be able to pre-shield, if it's raid-wide or near-raid-wide disc will be able to use PoH, but for other damage patterns it won't have an adequate response. The options will be to either rely on gimpy healing from Atonement and ProM or resort to spot healing with GH/FH/Penance.

So not only is disc likely to have crappy healing output, but it won't even be able to bring what output it does have to bear on some fights.

I don't think you have captured the problem. The main this is that PoH is now a really weak spell especially given its limitation. In fact its just a filler now. Glyphed binding heal, PoM and penance are all higher priorities when healing ANY damage including high raid wide damage. Basically if PoH makes a good chunk of your healing, disc will perform badly.

Due to the buffs to atonement disc is now fairly strong at healing low level random damage through atonement and if the necessary conditions are fullfilled PoM and glyphed binding heal. The real crux comes anytime you have either long periods of strong raid damage, or any fight with a high HPS requirement. In a garalon style fight in 5.2 disc is going to be very very weak in 25man and relatively weak on 10man.

So really low HPS fights with strong short occasional bursts disc is balanced. Moderate HPS fights of any sort disc is weak on 25man, but viable in 10man. High HPS fights of any sort disc is broken on 25man and weak on 10man.

The exception is windlord style fights where most of the damage comes in short hard bursts on a timer that is convenient for spirit shell.

[ramennoodleking]

To the first point:

A modern fight to point to would be garalon. Steady AoE damage with 30 secon intervals of heavy raid damage. Very little overheal from disc since absorbs get pulled in first, so it is competitive on these fights. Heavy raid pulses, disc is ahead. There's little arguing this.

Absolutely and completely ridiculous. When MoP launched our absorbs were easily 60% of total healing. Was disc OP? It was barely viable. Shows just how much you know about disc.

The 2nd paragraph makes is even clearer. What you put in a nutshell is only a small part of what is needed to maximise disc performance. That is pretty much what people who don't play disc think, but that is like saying using that spamming CoH, PoH and PoM in blue chakra and using divine hymn at the right time is all you need to know about holy. This is not me patronizing you, I can only judge you from what you are saying and what you do say makes it obvious that you don't know disc even remotely as well as you suggest you do.

If you think that disc is easy and boring, then there can be no doubt that you don't really understand the spec very well. PWS spam is not the same as cata and MoP bubble spam. Not even remotely. Disc bubble spam after the introduction of spirit shell the aegis boost and the baseline archangel has become a very intricate affair with branching choices at every point, where the best option is very difficult to discern, unless you are aware of quite a lot of parameters. You also need to use a hell of a lot more buttons than holy.

The problem with disc was just raw output in the beginning, I was there. Obviously we are talking about current disc. Balancing disc is incredibly hard since you have to toggle absorbs with raw healing, and damage patterns dictate which of these is more successful. Even "barely viable" early disc would STILL be able to nearly mitigate raid mechanics, which is the issue at the very core of this discussion. It's what makes disc so unique and feel necessary.

Secondly, you are over valuing discs "rotation." It really is a nutshell of healing. In fact, MoP bubble spamming currently doesn't exist in MoP except for in PTR 5.2. And it really didn't exist much in Cata either. Any disc priest knew PoH spam was better. So again, what the hell are you talking about?

If blizzards plans go through, bubble spam will make a comeback in 5.2. Bubble spam is not hard, and you've said nothing to the contrary. And as I clearly mentioned in my previous post, atonement, SS, and associated cooldowns (PI, AA, IF) will be part of the rotation. None of that is hard, all you really need to know is when damage is coming. Smite away in between.

There is no "intricate" branching. Raid damage coming? SS or PW:S preshielding. Downtime with spotty, random damage? Smite/holy fire, occasional PW:S and penance to targets you need to get heals to quick. Use PI/AA/IF prior to dumping out your presheilds.

Discipline healing is a god damn flow chart. It's about as rigid of a healing spec as you can get.

But hey, agree to disagree.

[HPLathus]

If blizzards plans go through, bubble spam will make a comeback in 5.2. Bubble spam is not hard, and you've said nothing to the contrary. And as I clearly mentioned in my previous post, atonement, SS, and associated cooldowns (PI, AA, IF) will be part of the rotation. None of that is hard, all you really need to know is when damage is coming. Smite away in between.

I don't think bubble spam will be viable in 5.2.

While you will be using PW:S more on multiple people to stop damage, it won't be anything close to what it was in WoTLK and 4.0-4.1 cata.


I do agree with disc having to dig deeper into their toolbox for maxing their healing, but it's good change. That's how most other healing classes are played, and look. They all do fine if the player is good enough.

No healer should be able to "top meters" simply by using PoH and SS on cool down... it just never felt right to me, while it felt good that I was absolutely helping the raid out... it felt like cheating 90% of the time.

I think people are just upset because disc shined SO much previously that people aren't sure what to do now.


Personally, and I say it again. I think the changes are welcome because it forces disc to really think about what they are doing as a healer, not just mindlessly using cooldowns to pad skada/recount/WoL.

Will they be 50 miles ahead of every other healer anymore? No

Will they do just as good as any other healer? Yes

Will some healers excel more then others on different fights yes

[Deleted]

I do agree with disc having to dig deeper into their toolbox for maxing their healing, but it's good change. That's how most other healing classes are played, and look. They all do fine if the player is good enough.

No healer should be able to "top meters" simply by using PoH and SS on cool down... it just never felt right to me, while it felt good that I was absolutely helping the raid out... it felt like cheating 90% of the time.

I think people are just upset because disc shined SO much previously that people aren't sure what to do now.

In 10 man atonement spam was already just as prevalent as PoH spam, and it's even more mindless than PoH. What do you think the result will be when PoH gets nerfed and atonement, which already was the best option in most situations, gets stronger? Disc isn't more creative or use more spells on the ptr than now, if anything we use less, and the ones we primarly use doesn't even require us to chose a target.

Will they do just as good as any other healer? Yes

No, no other healer on the ptr has a weakness as significant as disc.

[ramennoodleking]

Yea, i agree Cookie, atonement is one of the things driving this spec into the ground, especially in 10s. Discs creativity was little in 5.0/5.1, and with current changes it feels as bad or worse. Again, my feeling remains the same: disc healing is a flow chart.

And Lathus, by disc spam I mean preshielding, which will be very prevalent. I don't think we will ever see it again on the level of ICC.