So 5.3 caused disc to be miles ahead again.

[Basmothh]

Still, none of those encounters have more than 25% of the priests healing from PWS, mostly under 20% actually. If the spell is so good, and spammed, how come its under 20% of total healing? Theoretically it can do more hps than poh maybe, but they serve completely different purposes. You wont use PoH if the damage didnt happen yet, and you wont use PWS if the dmg already happened, maybe on several people. I still think a spell can be considered spammed when it replaces other spells better designed (or should I say, intended) for the purpose. Ofc in some fights, PoH wont be the best answer most of the times due to spreading, but that still means we choose a spell according to its limitations and not replacing it blindly.

That's because Disc Priests have other spells on cooldowns (note: these spells are limited by their CDs) that they cast in between PW:S. If you actually did the math, you'd realize that in those logs, the Disc Priest was casting a PW:S every 4-5 seconds.

Also, you're kind of stating the obvious. While PoH cannot be used before damage occurs for obvious reasons, the reverse isn't true for PW:S. The main flaw with your argument is that you haven't accounted for the fact that every boss this tier has mechanics that either do pulsing damage or damage for x seconds.

Look at these logs - the ratio of PW:S to PoH is so clearly skewed in PW:S favour.

How does this statement go with the spell being spammed? If you use it intelligently and time it, then you don't spam it? For me, spamming has a "mindless" component attached.

Do you think heavy PW:S has much thought or effort associated with it? It has none of the cast time, range limitations or even overhealing consideration of most spells. It's the exact definition of mindless, regardless of your arguments over what spamming construes.

It can be, when the group limitation is a problem. When it's not, I suspect PoH+SS is still better - and there are plenty of encounters with stack up and heal tactics.

Of course PoH+SS is better. That's the only reason you don't see much heavier PW:S usage. Still, it has to be said that PoH+SS has a cast time/movement restriction unlike PW:S.

Depends on your setup and how badly you farm the place. If overhealing during heavy raid dmg while stacked is such a big deal, than maybe you run too many healers, or you just overgear the place? The worst heavy raid dmg that cross my mind now are megaera's rampages and overloads on council and we hardly can complain about overhealing on those. I'd say PoH suffers more from spread encounters where it doesnt get to hit enough people, or on encounters where damage is random and you can end up with 3 people needing healing and 2 not - but that is PoH's issues and being able to alleviate the issue of having a single aoe spell by using other spells is normal. Holy priests dont raid heal exclusively with PoH, I see no reason why disc should.

Under heavy raid damage, your typical Disc Priest is going to use PW:S to maximize BT usage and PoH between these casts for efficiency. That's fine, it's not an issue. The issue arises when PW:S starts doing similar HPS as PoH under ideal conditions for PoH, as it means that PW:S surpasses PoH as a raid healing tool under almost every circumstance. Go have a look at specific portions of logs (i.e. the Iron Qon log), and you'd see that PoH's overhealing isn't negligible even under heavy raid damage.

Arguing semantics=/=picking at worthless straws. You agree yourself that good shielding requires good timing - which is what I stated too: you use PWS when logic dictates its a good opportunity to use them (tanks or raid debuffs of the sorts you listed), but that is not mindless spamming. I never stated that PWS isnt a good spell, I just argued the fact that it is spammed (at least outside overgeared stuff).

H-Jin'rokh, H-Council, H-Durumu, H-Primordius, H-Consorts and H-Lei Shen all see heavy PW:S usage beyond shielding the tanks or people with debuffs. You can harp on semantics if you want, but it doesn't change the issue that Disc's can rely heavily on blind PW:S usage and still do exceedingly well.

Yes, its called using the right spell for the right issue. Nothing wrong with using a spell that is core to the specc. It's like complaining beacon is useful in a lot of encounters. At least the way I see it, blizzard wants PWS to be strong, because it is one of the very scarce alternatives we have for raid healing. As long as I dont see logs with priests getting 50%+ of their healing from PWS, I don't see the issue. We have a weak prayer of mending, a weak prayer of healing, a pretty much unusable renew, our level 90 talents arent any better than holy ones, atonement - as smart and handy it is, is not an especially high hps tool, our gheal doesn't have any particular strengths either, so all we are left really in terms of tools against heavy raid dmg are absorbs, as a mean to catch up from our rather pitiful actual healing.

So maybe PWS is too strong, but we do have other areas where we are too weak. The fact that you will see excessive shielding in order to bypass any other heals on farm times is nothing surprising, nor should it be taken as a good argument on class mechanics. You wont be able to spam shields when appropriately geared, just like paladins wont be able to spam heals with 70% overhealing just to build IH. All classes end up spamming high hps spells when overgearing encounters.

What exactly construes appropriately geared? The mana costs of spells remain static, which means that we've long past the gear threshold to sustain PW:S usage this tier, and it's going to become even more sustainable next tier at this current rate of gear inflation.

You can argue that PW:S isn't too strong based on the proportion of healing it makes up, but I'd disagree, because SS and Atonement are equally big problems too. I mean, look at Resto Druids/Shamans, Holy Priests and Monks - these healers are easily interchangeable and can fill each other's role with ease. Then you look at a Disc Priest's toolkit and you see such outliers in heals - PW:S, SS and Atonement are so unique and strong in their niche that it is a problem when it comes to balacing healers.

You can't possibly argue that a 180k average instant on-demand shield from PW:S isn't too strong, especially when you consider the single target equivalents from the other classes - all of which have a cast time and don't even come close to the numbers PW:S puts out. Then you have SS on a 1-min timer - it's bar none the strongest tool at addressing mechanics that do one-off damage on a >1min timer. No other class can lay claim to a skill that is that potent and on a 1-min timer too. And you have Atonement next - it's by far the best tool to spot heal the raid, is very efficient and spammable, and yet requires very little effort to utilize properly. This isn't even factoring in its ability to contribute damage. Heck, even DA is becoming really powerful with increasing crit levels, especially if you use it in conjunction with a Disc Priest geared heavily for Atonement (more Int/Crit, less Spirit).

Disc's numbers may be balanced in a 25-man, but that doesn't mean that the main trifecta in its toolkit isn't too strong for the kind of spells that they are. Disc's deficiencies in its raw healing toolkit should not be an excuse to keep Disc siutationally much more powerful than the other healers (Horridon, DA, Megaera, Ji-Kun, Primordius, even H-Lei Shen as no other healer comes close to what Disc can do for transitions/P3), especially since it's still very strong on fights that do favour raw healing.

[Drye]

How people can't comprehend that anything that prevents dmg> healing after dmg has been done is beyond me.

[TirielWoW]

How people can't comprehend that anything that prevents dmg> healing after dmg has been done is beyond me.

It is interesting that people don't seem to quite grasp that healers - not unlike DPS - tend to look for dependable results. Pretty much nothing is more "dependable" than PW: Shield, and the only real "downside" to using it is mana. If mana were an issue, this might be enough to tone it down, but...

On our first H Durumu kill, PW: Shield was 42% of my healing. :-\

[Deleted]

Disc's numbers may be balanced in a 25-man, but that doesn't mean that the main trifecta in its toolkit isn't too strong for the kind of spells that they are. Disc's deficiencies in its raw healing toolkit should not be an excuse to keep Disc siutationally much more powerful than the other healers (Horridon, DA, Megaera, Ji-Kun, Primordius, even H-Lei Shen as no other healer comes close to what Disc can do for transitions/P3), especially since it's still very strong on fights that do favour raw healing.

I'm sorry, maybe I have a harder time understanding your point, but most of your arguments for me contradict themselves.
You claim PWS is spammed, and then say that any disc should cast other things prio. You also argument the fact that 25% of healing done only means that disc uses spells that are on cd in between. Guess what: disc is heavily reliant on cds and its a pretty shit healer outside those. All we do is juggle between different cds, either its stuff like SS/IF/Archangel/Cascade (or w/e level 90 talent), or its stuff like 15 seconds WS. So cds for a disc are a a major part of the specc, not just something we toss between PWS.

You claim PWS is too strong, but that should not be an excuse for the rest of disc's deficiencies in raw healing. Are other healers not allowed to have 1-2-3 really good abilities, and the rest mediocre?

You end up saying that disc numbers may be balanced in 25 mans....so, where exactly is the deal? Are we too strong or are we balanced?

And last, since you think that PWS/Atonement/Spirit Shell are too strong, do you consider these should be lowered by a lot, while leaving the rest of the disc toolkit same - meaning one cluncky aoe heal and one single target long cast spells that does nothing especially different than the equivalents of other classes and is just as little used as other classes use it. Where should disc shine in your opinion?

What exactly construes appropriately geared?

3-4 minutes kills of jinrokh hc, like the one you linked, can, for ex, classify as overgeared encounters.

I mean, look at Resto Druids/Shamans, Holy Priests and Monks - these healers are easily interchangeable and can fill each other's role with ease. Then you look at a Disc Priest's toolkit and you see such outliers in heals - PW:S, SS and Atonement are so unique and strong in their niche that it is a problem when it comes to balacing healers.

Maybe the fact that they are interchangeable only means the fact that in the end, there's only so many ways to "just heal"? Yes, disc is unique. Cant see why would we want another version of a "classic healer" of the holy priest/resto shamans/resto druid kind. Considering the fact that IH is just a passive effect really, paladins pretty much "just heal" too. They couldn't come up with a 3rd version of "pretty heals on the ground" spell other than making it more shit and different coloured, and you want them to make another holy priest?

I dont deem the complete interchangeability being a very interesting line of thought: encounters shouldnt be done easily with 6 druids any more than with 6 disc priests. I dont think we should ever see again abominations like LK hc where disc was mandatory, but I haven't seen in 2 expansions such an encounter. Class diversity is a plus, not a minus. I'd prefer them to find more unique things for the other healers, not delete the unique things that disc has. If all classes did more or less the same, why would you play one over the other?

Looking at rankings for 25 man hc in ToT, I see disc dominating horridon (with obvious gimmick mechanic) and very strong on jikun hc (both being amongst the easier encounters as well) and having a fair presence of 20% or 30% for Durumu, Primordius and Dark animus. For the other 5 hc listed on wol there is no disc priest in the top 10 and I dunno about leishen/raden but the twins encounter atm is bugged and not showing as hc, so no way to see those clearly. Arguments about the extra utility can be brought in, but in the end, if dps were decided to not need to pay a hybrid tax, I fail to see why disc should.

In the end, we all appreciate what feels worthy: arguing semantics will get nowhere as long as subjective opinions are involved. When you are dead set on proving your point and brushing aside any weakness of a spell as being irrelevant, only highlighting the advantages, the argument starts falling under the "personal feeling" category and as such, it cant be argued, everybody is entitled to their personal feelings. Show me a log with disc priest topping the healing with a 50% use of PWS and we can discuss (though I suspect a pile of gear would be needed for such reckless spam). Until then, I'll consider that as a core spell to the specc, having 20-25% of a disc healing from PWS is reasonable. The fact that you need to use it in conjunction with archangel and to know that the target you chose will take 100k+ dmg in the next 15 seconds adds enough depth to the spell for me.

How people can't comprehend that anything that prevents dmg> healing after dmg has been done is beyond me.

It comes from learning that both heals and absorbs have their own downsides. Not all dmg is predictable, nor should it be. If absorbs were always better than heals, people would stack 6 disc priests in world firsts and be done with it. Somehow, I never heard of such.

Each to his own.

[Dracodraco]

It comes from learning that both heals and absorbs have their own downsides. Not all dmg is predictable, nor should it be. If absorbs were always better than heals, people would stack 6 disc priests in world firsts and be done with it. Somehow, I never heard of such.

Each to his own.

Most top 10 kills consisted of a mix of 5 disc priests and paladins (whose mastery also builds insane absorb shields, gasp), and one shaman for mana tide. Sometimes a disc or pally would be rotated out for a mistweaver or two due to their bugged tier sets making them insane at constant-raid damage healing (animus, tortos, etc).
Just saying <.<.


Also, saying that not all damage is predictable is bullshit. There's not one fight this tier where you can't predict when heavy damage is going to hit the raid. Jin rokh's storm is on a timer, horridons dire call is on a timer, councils abilities are on a timer, tortos stomp is on a timer, rampages are a scripted event happening when heads die and are thus predictable, quills are on a timer, durumu's beams and maze phases are on a timer, primordius has constant raid damage going for him, animus jolts are on a timer, Qon's AOE-rape damage (scorch, windstorm, fist smash) are on a timer, twin's nuclear inferno and cosmic barrage is on a timer, Lei shen's Thunderstruck and balls are on a timer, Ra-den's vita lightning is a set order and you can thus shield every person soaking it to minimise dmg in p1, along with constant dmg in P2.

ALL raid damage is entirely predictable <.<. Healing up random burst hits is what atonement is for, not shields (obviously), as they're just that - shields. Doesn't help when the damage has been done, and thus you use smart healing to counter things like shit on the floor on horridon. The major part of the damage in the fights, though, is still entirely predictable and absorbable.

[Deleted]

Most top 10 kills consisted of a mix of 5 disc priests and paladins

I reckon I dont keep up that close with such things, but can I see some proof of that?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=bMRAox_qCUU - world first lei shen hc 25 man, doesn't seem to have any priest in the team.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=Mtr96cCc5w4 - iron quon, there's 2 priests, didn't have enough patience to watch and see what is Isheria playing, but either way, its 2 priests, 2 palas, 1 shaman and 1 monk.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=13ILplrqbyw - dark animus - 1 disc priest, 3 palas, 1 druid and 1 monk visible on skada.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=0aTwVZP8jwk - primordius - seems 2 healing priests, 3 paladins, a monk and a shaman.

If anything, paladins stacking seems more of an issue than disc.

Also, saying that not all damage is predictable is bullshit. There's not one fight this tier where you can't predict when heavy damage is going to hit the raid. Jin rokh's storm is on a timer, horridons dire call is on a timer, councils abilities are on a timer, tortos stomp is on a timer, rampages are a scripted event happening when heads die and are thus predictable, quills are on a timer, durumu's beams and maze phases are on a timer, primordius has constant raid damage going for him, animus jolts are on a timer, Qon's AOE-rape damage (scorch, windstorm, fist smash) are on a timer, twin's nuclear inferno and cosmic barrage is on a timer, Lei shen's Thunderstruck and balls are on a timer, Ra-den's vita lightning is a set order and you can thus shield every person soaking it to minimise dmg in p1, along with constant dmg in P2.

You are confusing general damage with raid damage on a timer. Damage in a raid doesn't come exclusively from timed aoe abilities.
You cant predict who will get the lightning ball on jinrokh, you cant predict who will get agro from adds on horidon or on who some sand trap will spawn, or an ice orb or a lightning totem, you cant predict on who will shit on jikun land on who will get caw-ed or who will get cheerped by adds, you cant predict who will get hit by adds on megaera, you cant predict who will get hit by a spear or lightning on quon, you cant predict who will get barrage on twins and so on.

If you want to argue which dmg is more important or less important, that's another issue, all I said was that not all damage is predictable.

[Fenixdown]

What the OP is saying, really, is that the discipline nerfs didn't do anything to discipline's actual healing numbers, while holy paladin nerf to mastery did do something to paladin numbers a bit, which is widening the gap between the two specs some.

Honestly, they've been going about this all the wrong way form the get go. What they should have done way back in 5.2 was just take away discipline's 10% baseline mastery increase. Without it, discipline then becomes in-line with other healing specs. Blizzard didn't really take into account with the 5.2 changes that all disc priests would do is swap all their mastery for crit, meaning Aegis still ends up as one of your top three heals on most encounters. Though the Penance nerf was justified, making that spell better for offense than for defense was just silly.

[Dracodraco]

I reckon I dont keep up that close with such things, but can I see some proof of that?

Council of Elders:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYP0Pg_KB5s 3 paladins, 2 discs, 1 monk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1eG1MjHzdk 3 discs, 1 paladin, 1 monk, 1 druid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2YLDmw0rCI 3 Discs, 1 paladin, 1 shaman, 1 monk.

Meg:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF4uqxPXI7s 2 discs, 2 paladins, 1 monk, 1 druid, 1 shaman.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_09uWMDsB4E 2 discs, 2 paladins, 2 druids.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iB_Poue1A08 3 discs, 3 paladins, 1 druid, 1 shaman.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taVf9qRvEXg 3 paladins, 1 disc, 1 druid, 1 shaman, 1 monk.

Primordius:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATBGoLCGbm4 2 disc, 2 pally, 1 druid, 1 monk, 1 shaman.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aTwVZP8jwk 2 disc, 2 pally, 1 mistweaver, 1 shaman.


The ones I can find in the top 10 of 3 of the more healing intense fights this tier. The pattern is quite clear - 4-5 absorb healers (be it paladins or discs), and then 1 or 2 support healers.

[Basmothh]

I'm sorry, maybe I have a harder time understanding your point, but most of your arguments for me contradict themselves.
You claim PWS is spammed, and then say that any disc should cast other things prio. You also argument the fact that 25% of healing done only means that disc uses spells that are on cd in between. Guess what: disc is heavily reliant on cds and its a pretty shit healer outside those. All we do is juggle between different cds, either its stuff like SS/IF/Archangel/Cascade (or w/e level 90 talent), or its stuff like 15 seconds WS. So cds for a disc are a a major part of the specc, not just something we toss between PWS.

You claim PWS is too strong, but that should not be an excuse for the rest of disc's deficiencies in raw healing. Are other healers not allowed to have 1-2-3 really good abilities, and the rest mediocre?

You end up saying that disc numbers may be balanced in 25 mans....so, where exactly is the deal? Are we too strong or are we balanced?

And last, since you think that PWS/Atonement/Spirit Shell are too strong, do you consider these should be lowered by a lot, while leaving the rest of the disc toolkit same - meaning one cluncky aoe heal and one single target long cast spells that does nothing especially different than the equivalents of other classes and is just as little used as other classes use it. Where should disc shine in your opinion?

1) Once again, why are you hung up on semantics? The logs I linked has PW:S cast every 4-5 seconds, and this interval is probably much lower when you factor in the fact that not all points of the fight require heavy PW:S usage (i.e. PW:S tends to be spammed not on all points of the fight, but during specific portions). This high degree of PW:S usage is a problem if you futher consider that it's easily supplanting PoH as a raid heal under most circumstances.

2) Every class is reliant on CDs. The point is that spells that do well like Penance, PoM and our level 90 talents are balanced by the fact that they have CDs.

3) The fact is that too much of Disc's output comes from absorbs and Atonement. SS needs to have its CD increased to put it more in line with other heals, PW:S needs to either get a mini-CD or have its mana cost increased so that it doesn't simply replace SS, and Smite-Atonement simply needs to be nerfed further. In return, Disc should receive buffs to its raw healing. This would effectively address Disc's issue of being too strong at addressing front-loaded damage, while also boosting its weaker sustained healing output.

3-4 minutes kills of jinrokh hc, like the one you linked, can, for ex, classify as overgeared encounters.

PW:S featured heavily on fights like these far before we started outgearing them and certainly before we got the LMG. With the length of fights remaining relatively similar across tiers, and with current gear levels already being sufficient to sustain high usage of PW:S, would the outgearing argument still be valid for the start of next tier when people are relatively undergeared? After all, spell costs don't change, so what's preventing similar levels of PW:S usage?

Maybe the fact that they are interchangeable only means the fact that in the end, there's only so many ways to "just heal"? Yes, disc is unique. Cant see why would we want another version of a "classic healer" of the holy priest/resto shamans/resto druid kind. Considering the fact that IH is just a passive effect really, paladins pretty much "just heal" too. They couldn't come up with a 3rd version of "pretty heals on the ground" spell other than making it more shit and different coloured, and you want them to make another holy priest?

There's no issue with giving different classes their own flavours. There is an issue when one healer has a niche that makes it situationally much better than every other healer, while also making it impossible for any other class to fill that role. It is entirely possible to still retain Disc's flavour without making its niche irreplaceable.

Just because fights can be defeated regardless of healing comp doesn't mean that the balance between the healers should be ignored.

For the other 5 hc listed on wol there is no disc priest in the top 10 and I dunno about leishen/raden but the twins encounter atm is bugged and not showing as hc, so no way to see those clearly. Arguments about the extra utility can be brought in, but in the end, if dps were decided to not need to pay a hybrid tax, I fail to see why disc should.

That's the thing though, people often cite the fact that Disc isn't dominating the meters as evidence that it's a balanced spec. But numbers don't aren't the end all and be all. If they were, you certainly would see much higher Holy Priest representation. The fact of the matter is that no other class provides what Disc does, whereas you could easily swap out one of the other healers for another. This poses a big issue when it comes to balancing, and it certainly is going to affect 10-mans much more than 25-mans.

Until then, I'll consider that as a core spell to the specc, having 20-25% of a disc healing from PWS is reasonable. The fact that you need to use it in conjunction with archangel and to know that the target you chose will take 100k+ dmg in the next 15 seconds adds enough depth to the spell for me.

I'm curious though, since you say that you don't see such heavy PW:S usage, but would you have any issues if they gave PW:S a short CD and a cast time?

You are confusing general damage with raid damage on a timer. Damage in a raid doesn't come exclusively from timed aoe abilities.You cant predict who will get the lightning ball on jinrokh, you cant predict who will get agro from adds on horidon or on who some sand trap will spawn, or an ice orb or a lightning totem, you cant predict on who will shit on jikun land on who will get caw-ed or who will get cheerped by adds, you cant predict who will get hit by adds on megaera, you cant predict who will get hit by a spear or lightning on quon, you cant predict who will get barrage on twins and so on.

If you want to argue which dmg is more important or less important, that's another issue, all I said was that not all damage is predictable.

It's interesting that you mentioned this though. It's undeniable that Disc's absorbs via SS is great a mitigating predictable one-off damage. Further, PW:S is a great tool at providing an EHP buffer when SS is down (H-Lei Shen transitions, DA Jolts). It's also undeniable that Disc has the best and only tool at spot shielding single targetted debuffs or damage via PW:S. And with Atonement, Disc also has the best tool at spot healing random raid damage, which are exactly the situations that you've listed.

You can argue that this is compensated by Disc's lower sustained output when the raid is stack during high damage phases, but then again, Disc is still capable of pushing decent numbers during such phases, and this is despite its raid CD not showing up on the meters like the other healers. Ultimately, Disc does too well in its niches, and this is a problem when it comes to the grand scheme of balancing the healers.

[Deleted]

1) Once again, why are you hung up on semantics? The logs I linked has PW:S cast every 4-5 seconds, and this interval is probably much lower when you factor in the fact that not all points of the fight require heavy PW:S usage (i.e. PW:S tends to be spammed not on all points of the fight, but during specific portions). This high degree of PW:S usage is a problem if you futher consider that it's easily supplanting PoH as a raid heal under most circumstances.

We are supposed to cast at least a shield every 12 seconds for rapture, casting 2 every 15 seconds only means you shielded both tanks, which is rather normal if you are the only disc and both tanks take some dmg. Add into this some points in the fight where you will know dmg will hit the raid and you get to spread 5-10 of them and you can easily get to that number of shields without them feeling exactly like its something spammed with regularity.
I'm tempted to believe that the shields you saw on those fights were rather grouped at specific moments rather than cast with equal regularity - which is what I do too, for ex, taking the bosses you linked: jinrokh-storm, council-overload, durumu maze phase, DA- shielding debuffs, primordius - I didnt see that fight on hc yet, but I can assume shielding random debuffs is neat, Iron quon - honestly on this one I'm not sure why would shielding be more useful than poh spam in the last phase, everybody is pretty stacked but I can see the benefits of PWS>BT>PoH.

On the other hand, I feel the "spam" a lot more prominent when I play my monk with RM/uplift and prolly some even when I play holy.

2) Every class is reliant on CDs. The point is that spells that do well like Penance, PoM and our level 90 talents are balanced by the fact that they have CDs.

In all honesty, when I play holy I feel a lot less cd constricted than as disc. I get mending as a proc and circle of healing, and there's also lightwell/hymn every 3 mins (which is large enough to not feel especially harsh), and level 90 talents that all priests have. Pressing Lightwell and having to move somewhere doesn't feel anywhere close to as punishing to pressing spirit shell at the wrong moment - as in, in less than 15-18 seconds till the big bang comes or when some random shit forces me to move. As disc I feel hard pressed to always cast something, and I often curse gcd, as holy, the pace feels slower. I'm not saying spirit shell is hard, but neither is lightwell.

3) The fact is that too much of Disc's output comes from absorbs and Atonement. SS needs to have its CD increased to put it more in line with other heals, PW:S needs to either get a mini-CD or have its mana cost increased so that it doesn't simply replace SS, and Smite-Atonement simply needs to be nerfed further. In return, Disc should receive buffs to its raw healing. This would effectively address Disc's issue of being too strong at addressing front-loaded damage, while also boosting its weaker sustained healing output.

Absolutely true - the problem is most other disc spells are not only fairly weak, but also completely unattractive. At least in 25 mans, single target long cast heals are more or less obsolete, its not that disc doesn't use them, nobody does. There isn't a single actual tank healing fight in this tier from what I could tell so far. There may be the odd time when tanks get a bit more dmg but 70% of that is covered by splash healing, beacons and their own healing/mitigation. I cast plenty of gheals in cata times, I really have no incentive nowadays, with the new aegis.
So what other spells would disc have? Prayer of healing? Well, they dumped that one after 5.1. The only reason we were spamming it was the guaranteed aegis, otherwise we barely touch it nowadays. Why? Because its a vanilla old spell, and nobody gives a toss nowadays to stay in their own groups. For holy it gets bigger healing from chakra, it has the mastery hot (with all its overhealing, its still a fair bit of any holy priest hps), and it can crit normally. What does disc poh do? It can crit for a random shield that might or might not be needed in the next 15 seconds, and for that shield, its trading the actual crit heal. Weehey.
Add the cherry on the cake from 5.2: inner focus nerfed by 30%.

So, they left actual healing spells disc has bare, they buffed PWS (mana reduction and crit chance) and they buffed atonement to high heavens. And now you wonder why those spells are what they are?

As for spirit shell comment: if it has its cd increased to be more in line with other cooldowns (I assume you meant that, not heals) - will it also have its 15 ramp up time and mana cost aligned? Atm SS is hardly an output gain compared to simple poh spam once you take overhealing out of the equation. People often point fingers at spirit shell doing 25% of a disc priest healing, do they also see that it takes 25% of the disc priest time to cast it compare to most other cds that are at best few seconds to channel every 3 mins?

PW:S featured heavily on fights like these far before we started outgearing them and certainly before we got the LMG. With the length of fights remaining relatively similar across tiers, and with current gear levels already being sufficient to sustain high usage of PW:S, would the outgearing argument still be valid for the start of next tier when people are relatively undergeared? After all, spell costs don't change, so what's preventing similar levels of PW:S usage?

Damage will change. Put a disc priest in overgeared encounters and his absorbs will leave nothing for the other healers. Put him in the start of the tier and his shields will melt in seconds. I know PWS will also become bigger with more gear, but the curve of a single target spell can only get so high. If regen is such a non-issue, why dont druids reju blanket?

There's no issue with giving different classes their own flavours. There is an issue when one healer has a niche that makes it situationally much better than every other healer, while also making it impossible for any other class to fill that role. It is entirely possible to still retain Disc's flavour without making its niche irreplaceable.

Just because fights can be defeated regardless of healing comp doesn't mean that the balance between the healers should be ignored.

How would healer balance look like in your eyes?
Is there any encounter that was not doable without a disc priest? Ïf yes, what was the reason? Absorbs? world firsts often defeat bosses undergeared, so hp buffers evidently are extremely valuable, I'm just not sure if classes should be balanced around world firsts significantly more than they should be balanced around overgeared stuff. Part of me says world firsts are a good indicator of a class being op, but then again, if that content is experienced by 1% of players, is it significant?

That's the thing though, people often cite the fact that Disc isn't dominating the meters as evidence that it's a balanced spec. But numbers don't aren't the end all and be all. If they were, you certainly would see much higher Holy Priest representation. The fact of the matter is that no other class provides what Disc does, whereas you could easily swap out one of the other healers for another. This poses a big issue when it comes to balancing, and it certainly is going to affect 10-mans much more than 25-mans.

I agree disc niche is extremely powerful in 10 mans. I generally see 10 mans as more susceptible to class imbalance. I cant say I raided with 5 other resto druids this expansion, but generally you can take any healer in the team in a 25 man.

I'm curious though, since you say that you don't see such heavy PW:S usage, but would you have any issues if they gave PW:S a short CD and a cast time?

Good question.
They tried PWS with a cd for disc before, and it never worked. It felt clunky and I think for good reasons: the problem isn't that disc is spamming PWS, as mentioned before on a regular 3-4-5 seconds interval blanket style, the problem is you want to spam it in key moments. In a 1 min interval I might just use the minimum 1/15 seconds for rapture and nothing else until the last 10 seconds when I will spam 8 shields because the big bang is coming. This will make it look like in 1 min I used 11 shields, or as you said, a shield every 3-4 seconds. There's nothing wrong for a healer to throttle healing like this, all of us heal at a medium low level and blow mana on short bursts.
Which makes me get to the point: what tools does disc have to deal with burst? PWS and spirit shell. Spirit shell is bound to poh, and inherits all the flaws of the spell (party bound and all that shit). All the other healers can burst down half their mana pool for superior hps in key moments and its a good model. What will disc blow mana on? You cant say that PWS on a 4 seconds cd will still be good enough, damage comes in bursts, you need that 10 seconds out of 1 min, if you didnt put some shields up before it, they are just a trickle.
Second issue - cast time: atm disc has holy fire on a 10 sec cd, which also requires a hostile target, glyphed penance on a 9 sec cd, mending...and a shit renew. The main heal on the move disc has is PWS. All other classes have more instants or ways to deal with movement.
So, if you come up with a good solution for disc burst healing and a good solution for healing on the move, sure, why not, put PWS on a cd and cast time.

It's interesting that you mentioned this though. It's undeniable that Disc's absorbs via SS is great a mitigating predictable one-off damage. Further, PW:S is a great tool at providing an EHP buffer when SS is down (H-Lei Shen transitions, DA Jolts). It's also undeniable that Disc has the best and only tool at spot shielding single targetted debuffs or damage via PW:S. And with Atonement, Disc also has the best tool at spot healing random raid damage, which are exactly the situations that you've listed.

You can argue that this is compensated by Disc's lower sustained output when the raid is stack during high damage phases, but then again, Disc is still capable of pushing decent numbers during such phases, and this is despite its raid CD not showing up on the meters like the other healers. Ultimately, Disc does too well in its niches, and this is a problem when it comes to the grand scheme of balancing the healers.

I dont deny the fact that disc is a strong healer. I dont deny it has an excellent niche. I'm only against shallow approaches that call for nerfs on spells without considering it in the context. I think balancing would be a better choice. Sure, nerf absorbs, I think they are a nightmare to balance. I think spirit shell, as noble the intention of finally giving disc an aoe shield has just ended on making disc unbalanced. But before you nerf absorbs, take a disc output, delete absorbs and see if what is left can compete with a shadow priest.

Sorry, this has been way too long.

[nightfalls]

The ones I can find in the top 10 of 3 of the more healing intense fights this tier. The pattern is quite clear - 4-5 absorb healers (be it paladins or discs), and then 1 or 2 support healers.

Right, and paladin absorbs, unlike disc, were heavily nerfed in 5.3 (both from the 4pc and the mastery scaling), so discs would naturally dominate.

[Noradin]

1) Good Disc Priests know when to time their PW:S, and it's evident by the much lower overhealing numbers from PW:S.

Where ever would you get those numbers from?
Numbers from expired absorbs don't show up the combat log. Obviously 'overhealing' by absorbs is thereby zero if taken from the logs - because they don't register.

[TirielWoW]

Where ever would you get those numbers from?
Numbers from expired absorbs don't show up the combat log. Obviously 'overhealing' by absorbs is thereby zero if taken from the logs - because they don't register.

They do, actually, as far as I know. Maybe not in Recount and Skada, but WoL tracks them.

[Noradin]

They do, actually, as far as I know. Maybe not in Recount and Skada, but WoL tracks them.

WoL calculates an estimate as far as I know, since it can't take the numbers from the combat log, as those don't exist.

[TirielWoW]

WoL calculates an estimate as far as I know, since it can't take the numbers from the combat log, as those don't exist.

Well, the combat log records how much your shield will absorb for on cast. It also records, per shield, how much is consumed. It again records when a shield expires, and how much absorb was left. So...I don't see how it is estimating anything.

[Strakha]

The real question is, how successful is a raid without a disc priest?

[TirielWoW]

The real question is, how successful is a raid without a disc priest?

Hard to say. In 10 mans, Priests are so common that it's hard to find a raid without one. And since, of the two specs, Disc is the stronger at that raid level, nearly all of them are Disc.

I don't know of a serious 25 man that doesn't have at least 1 Disc Priest. Mine has 2 (or 3, depending on whether they want me as Disc or Holy). But we always have at least one Disc in the raid.

[Deleted]

I'm the only disc in our guild (clearing 7 Hcs atm 25 man) and though I'm in nearly every raid, the only difference I saw in how they downed stuff when I was away for a week was in that our resto druids healing skyrocketed. They did semi whine when I got back, but from all I know it was more due to gimmicky bosses like Horridon. Didn't hear them having problems downing bosses, so I wouldn't go as far as to saying a disc priest will make or break most raids in 25 man, where the dps increase seems rather unsignificant. That said, I'm not claiming discs wouldn't bring some utility to the raid, just nothing that cant be countered really.

I can only speak for the heroic bosses we've downed though, for all I know discs might be necessary on the bosses I miss, such as heroic Lei Shen, Animus and Twins.

[TirielWoW]

I can only speak for the heroic bosses we've downed though, for all I know discs might be necessary on the bosses I miss, such as heroic Lei Shen, Animus and Twins.

Animus was nerfed so that Disc and Pallies wouldn't be necessary (though they are without a doubt beneficial). Twins...well...I stomped all over the Disc Priests (yes, we had two) on that fight as Holy. And as for Lei Shen, as I recall, Method didn't bring a single Priest - Disc OR Holy - to the encounter. They're not very good for the last phase.

[Deleted]

The real question is, how successful is a raid without a disc priest?

So seems like the napkinmath answer to your question is, that a raid can be equally as successful without a disc priest at least in 25man where the added dps isn't substantial o/