WoW has politics? You bet your FOTM it does!! Holy disc priest!!

[Frmercury]

You can't truly balance an absorb heavy spec with a pure throughput spec, just by the nature of absorption mechanics.

[Mormolyce]

Remember that time that Holy and Disc had exactly the same HPS, mana efficiency and shone exactly the same on all fights and nobody on the forum had anything to complain about?

[nobodysbaby]

I don't want Holy & Disc to have the exact same HPS, mana effeciancy etc. I love how different the speccs are now.

They did a great job making the speccs totally different and I applaud that!

They need to balance the dmg Disc do and the usefullness of absorbs, PWB etc with the healing of Holy, wich atm is not the case. If healing classes "with benefits" don't want to slip behind the other healers on the meters, the solution is simply to give more utility to the lacking ones.

Sure, we all shine on different occasions, like SS=pillows, LW/LS=faster recovery (hm, put this on a 1 min timer?;D), PWB=better for stacked heavy aoe, DH=better for spread aoe, but they forgot to give Holy something to compensate for Rapture & cheap healing via Atonment (manaregen), and utility to match the usefullness of absorbs and dps (something like Sanctuary actually doing something usefull, or Inspiration like ability).

[Blachshma]

Yea but when you start to sound like a broken record it really does nothing to further the argument. Let the numbers speak for themselves.

And no, disc was "considered" by the majority to be far better up until DS because of the 3 minute arms race and was still technically better in 10s during DS due to fights like spine, madness, zonozz, yorsaj, and gunship. Disc was better and more represented all of Cata.

Disc was only worse than holy during the very absolute beginning of MoP, but was quickly remedied by blizzard hotfixes.

All things considered, disc has been generally considered the preferred spec since ICC.

So yes, broken record that's been playing since ICC. The two can and will never be balanced when absorbs and dps are on the line. However, as I've been trying to state, disc may only make the fight a bit easier, but because it is not necessary I say holy is fine. It's underrepresented because disc is doing so well and has been for some time.

Hmm...I don't think anyone's looking for a complete balance, that'd be mission impossible for Blizzard and it can't be done without getting the two specs too close to each other. That said, some balance is in fact possible and not hard to achieve. Playing holy should never feel like you're hurting your raid, and right now it does, especially in 10m. Its not that the spec is bad or not viable, its very much possible, but for progression guilds, if you have a spec that offers absorbs, utility, and additional dps, why would you choose a spec with a meh single target healing, poor mana regen, chakra mechanics and no additional dps? Oh yes, because its fun to play, but fun to play doesn't cut it for progression guilds, they want the kills, and they want them fast. That's where Blizzard has been failing badly with hpriests for the past 2 expansions now (some would argue 3). Its not that we can't heal well or can't be valuable, its just that there is zero reason to play a holy priest over disc.

Now, if you give holy some useful utility, better regen, fix some of their bad mechanics and make them unique again, more people will play holy, and the two specs, while still being very different, will offer something special. on DS the specs weren't totally balanced, but you clearly had fights that favor holy, such as Spine (hots, lightwell, serenity chakra was great for debuff), Hagara (movement healing), and some favor disc, such as Zonozz and Morchok. Other fights were pretty much equal on both specs.

Even in LFR holy feels comepletly useless, because no matter how many heals you spam, you will overheal most because some other priest can smite, and that's pretty much covers all the damage.

[Noradin]

I don't really see disc priests doing half the dps of a dd, anyone have some logs of that? I think its more like 25%-30%. They don't really have the maximum throughput other healing specs have either (which doesn't seem to matter for most encounters right now, but it might in future ones).

[Vilbu]

They did a great job making the speccs totally different and I applaud that!

Amen. I feel like the both specs play fine in 25 environment, but disc feels just too superior in 10's because of the dmg output. I would never go holy in 10's unless I had to. Maybe the atonement nerf will set things better since we wont heal so much during dps rotation.

[Rorschachs]

Yeah, as a r.druid digging his way thru hc progression, i can say there's nt really much of a point on anything else then a disc priest or a h.pally, what's is weird is not because h.priest or druids or monks are bad per se, actually they can carry the job fine enough, its just absorb specs are just better and if you add a good chunk of damage on top of it, then competition is dead before even starting.

Attonement is a good thing and must be preserved, but it should give the feeling of the 0.5 dps; while in fact its a 1healer+0.5dps. So does the absorb,have to stay for the sake of spec identity but not in this scale.

5.3 is a golden chance to change this before in the next expansion we end up with fistweaving monks with AoE cocoon, H pallys with a small spammable SS and R.Druid swapping rejuvanation for a Abosrb Over Time kind of monster while having huge multidot capabilities.

Holy paladins and disc priests, and on top of them shamans because of their utility and monks because they have better raw healing than holy priests and druids. We don't need absorbs, we need something unique. Probably anything would do. (lifebloom for example is actually pretty good enough to consider resto druids. They just need a little more raw healing to be compared to monks in 25 man.)

[checking facts]

I agree balancing two healing specs is not easy. I wouldn't call it a bad idea, what would priest be without both disc and holy?

fun fact: disc was originally supposed to be a monk-like melee dps spec.

[Mctriple]

Thats not an impossibility, it was more 50/50 at the start of MoP, and has been the case for start of expansions for a while and also mid DS for example, so it's clear many are interested in playing Holy IF they are "good".

And no, I won't silently accept Holy being so low in representation, even if that would make me "sleep better", I sleep much better when I express and fight for something I strongly believe in.

Actually it was more priests getting sat, so 0/0.

Can you please name the fights that favor holy other than Tortos?

Sure. For the sake of clarity, let's say a fight favors one spec over the other if it is showing a 5% or more performance advantage, and I'm looking at "All Parses" set to the Default Measure over a 2 week sample period. Unless noted, I'm looking at 25 Heroic bosses, since I'm in a 25-man and focus on that. I've also noted repeatedly that, even given similar healing for the two specs on a fight, Disc has the DPS advantage in 10-man, which is less trivial.

Fights favoring Holy: Council, Tortos (very strongly), Megaera, and Iron Qon. (Iron Qon's data is not strong yet, but they're already following trends similar to normal, and given the fight changes I feel it's likely that they'll be similar, so I'm going to include it)

fights favoring Disc: Jin'rokh, Horridon (very strongly), Ji-Kun, and Primordius. There is even less data than for Iron Qon for Dark Animus and Lei Shen but it seems reasonable for now to say Dark Animus and Lei Shen favor disc.

We're only able to see Twin Consorts and Durumu data for normal modes for now, but Twin Consorts shows the two specs to be neck and neck with holy having the slight edge. Durumu has holy ahead a bit but by under 5%. Might as well call these two ties and up to preference or raid comp.

So that's 4 fights that favor holy. Only Tortos strongly favors holy. 6 fights favor disc, but again only one strongly favors this spec, too. 2 fights seem too close to call (but actually at least slightly show holy doing better, at least on normal).

Really, aside from expecting an exactly even break between the two specs with very clear cut winners on each fight (and isn't it ideal if they're very close and viable on every fight?), how much closer can you get? It is also very important to keep in mind that many priests are just used to playing disc from last tier and will use that as their go to spec for fights for now. Even with the fight break down being as acceptable as it is (IMO), it is likely skewed towards disc a bit for this reason for now.

[nobodysbaby]

What BS to say those fights favours Holy just by looking at meters. Im rly wondering what experience you have and how you value Discs dps and mitigation abilitys? You should have understood after several expansions not to judge by only healing done. The % of role gives a much better picture whats happening with the balance between healers.

Very common misunderstanding that Disc is not good on Tortos hc. Our tank kept loosing the crystalbuff since we were falling for the myth and went with a double Holy setup. Our main Disc specced Disc and that problem was solved and not only that, he did an excellent job saving low hp targets with absorbs before aoes.

[Blachshma]

Actually it was more priests getting sat, so 0/0.



Sure. For the sake of clarity, let's say a fight favors one spec over the other if it is showing a 5% or more performance advantage, and I'm looking at "All Parses" set to the Default Measure over a 2 week sample period. Unless noted, I'm looking at 25 Heroic bosses, since I'm in a 25-man and focus on that. I've also noted repeatedly that, even given similar healing for the two specs on a fight, Disc has the DPS advantage in 10-man, which is less trivial.

Fights favoring Holy: Council, Tortos (very strongly), Megaera, and Iron Qon. (Iron Qon's data is not strong yet, but they're already following trends similar to normal, and given the fight changes I feel it's likely that they'll be similar, so I'm going to include it)

fights favoring Disc: Jin'rokh, Horridon (very strongly), Ji-Kun, and Primordius. There is even less data than for Iron Qon for Dark Animus and Lei Shen but it seems reasonable for now to say Dark Animus and Lei Shen favor disc.

We're only able to see Twin Consorts and Durumu data for normal modes for now, but Twin Consorts shows the two specs to be neck and neck with holy having the slight edge. Durumu has holy ahead a bit but by under 5%. Might as well call these two ties and up to preference or raid comp.

So that's 4 fights that favor holy. Only Tortos strongly favors holy. 6 fights favor disc, but again only one strongly favors this spec, too. 2 fights seem too close to call (but actually at least slightly show holy doing better, at least on normal).

Really, aside from expecting an exactly even break between the two specs with very clear cut winners on each fight (and isn't it ideal if they're very close and viable on every fight?), how much closer can you get? It is also very important to keep in mind that many priests are just used to playing disc from last tier and will use that as their go to spec for fights for now. Even with the fight break down being as acceptable as it is (IMO), it is likely skewed towards disc a bit for this reason for now.

So basically, as a 10-man holy raider, I'm pretty much hurting my raid by not going disc. There is really no fight on 10s (maybe other than Tortos) where I should be holy, so what has changed since T14? Pretty much nothing - except that instead of Tsulong we have Tortos, and that's it, one fight. For 25m you have more room for more specs and you can afford 1 holy priest as a decent raid healer, but in 10m there is no room for a holy priest, and that's just a shame. Blizzard is forcing us, pretty much, to go disc in order to help our group's progression, and this has been the case for mulitple patches/expansions now. Attonment doesn't make disc 0.5 healer and 0.5 dps, it makes it 1.0 healer and 0.5 dps, so who can compete with that? And the nerfs won't mean a lot, and it'll come way too late int he tier anyway.

What makes it even worse is that I'm just not a good disc priest. I always played holy, I love holy, I know holy, and I think I'm a pretty decent holy priest, but as disc I'm just not that good. I love it how everyone gives 25-man as an example that holy is fine, but what about us 10m raiders? Go disc or go home.

[KaPe]

Actually, it's more of a "in 25 man, Disc Priest damage isn't nearly as important", which makes Holy better in a way, except for encounters with damage increases. Of course, it's still possible that Atonement will make it possible to push through some crucial phase just couple seconds faster, which can actually be huge, but it's nowhere near 10 man. Plus there's the inability to cap Spirit Shell on entire raid... and yet, it still feels that the spec is superior.

'Course, it might due to Holy feeling kinda-sorta like resto Druids - all hps and not much else, with even their raid cooldowns being pretty much the same thing. Depending on your healing team, they can feel rather redundant.