[Legion] Discipline Priest Discussion

[Yunzi]

Now, assuming Atonement is a functional mechanic, there's a 'balancing point' somewhere. As you do more damage, you end up with less Atonement healing (not enough buffs in play). As you do less damage, you end up with less Atonement healing (more buffs, but less damage to transfer). If we just assume everything is the same, then that point is around 5 Atonement buffs.

That's a reasonable average, but depending on the encounter and phase of the encounter (the damage patterns) that might be more or less - when we need more than 5 we use PWR and when there's no need for even 5 (only tanks taking damage) we just use PWS on them and Smite or Mind Blast if they are taking heavy damage. During Feast of Souls we would ideally have the entire raid blanketed in atonement, but realistically we would cast two PWRs, hope for the best regarding applications since the group is stacked, and then use Penance and Mind Blast, alternating with recasting PWR to reapply atonement.

Because there's a tradeoff between time spent applying atonement and time spent doing effective healing with damage spells, the larger the number of people we apply atonement to the less healing *per player* we'll do - there's a constant tradeoff for us between healing a few players for a large amount or healing a large number of players for a small per player amount.

At 5 Atonement buffs, a 200% Spellpower Mind Blast will heal 500% - which is a bit more than PW:S (given the Mastery change) and (probably) Shadowmend. A 100% Spellpower Smite would only heal 250% - quite a bit less than the other options. Indeed, I can easily see even Mind Blast getting pushed off the damage rotation in multi-enemy fights. If you're just running through dungeon/raid trash, it's unlikely you'd use anything but SW:P (assuming infinite health trash) - you'd run out of casting time for damage before you ran out of SW:P targets and the rest of your time would be spent placing the Atonement needed to capitalize on the SW:P.

A lot of trash doesn't last 18 seconds - even many boss adds don't last that long. We'll have to see how the numbers hash out, but my best guess is that the typical "over/under" for whether it will be good to cast SWP on a mob is whether it lasts for 12 seconds after the cast.

Think of Shadow Mend as a Flash Heal. It also applies an absorption shield that cannot exceed the target's current damage. This absorption shield loses the top 10% of its value (it doesn't lose anything if that part of the absorption shield is already gone) every sec until the absorption shield is entirely gone.

So if you throw it on your wounded tank, it's essentially a double Flash Heal - the 'absorb' portion will get blown through long before it ever gets a chance to tick away. If you throw it a random raid member, it's merely a Flash Heal (because the 'absorb' portion will just wither away to uselessness before being used).

That's a good way to look at it - but unlike a true absorb shield the cast itself can get sniped - it's just as vulnerable to sniping as Flash Heal is right now. Plea heals for much less, costs 2.5 times less mana, and is almost impossible to snipe (the snipe would have to occur at a speed greater than your reflexes to stop an instant cast) - after all, it applies the exact same quality atonement as Shadow Mend.

I'm not sure because Radiance is awfully vague. It hits the 'nearest' targets, which makes it seem more like a stacked heal with a limited range than something that can blanket a spread raid.

That may well be, but Blizzard put ranges in many of their descriptions (such as Holy Priests' Prayer of Healing having a 15 yard range to the target) while they didn't put any range in the description for Power Word: Radiance, so it's reasonable to believe it won't have a range limitation, but we'll see.

[Deleted]

It just seems weird that DIsc, which was never really about DPS healing, has pivoted to it, while MW, which was, is cutting it.
That's definitely fair. There are many reasons, but a big one is that Priests have another spec if you don't like DPS->Heal.(WarcraftDevs)

[Deleted]

I like the changes.
100% will be at least trying it.
I see a big skill cap yo this spec. Balancing number of atonement and how much damage you can get out.
If mind blast hits for 40k and uou have 5 attonements up that's 100k of healing.
I am hoping for some talents to help spread attonements. But with swp ticking. I can see discs filling a good niche or group healing.
Your healing increases 100% for each attonement buff out. One attonement on a 40k hit is 20k. And as it's not split you're basically duplicating the heal.

This seems like it the talents and artifact compliment right. This could be my new main.

[Deleted]

Thank god for these changes. They just gutted MW, will have to reroll priest to have an interesting heal spec.

[Tabbycat]

I don't get it. They say that Holy's Chakra system is cumbersome and wanted to remove it.

Yet they don't think that casting healing spells and shields on players and then switching to do dps so you can get the atonement healing and then switching back to casting all your heals and whatnots so you can dps for 15 seconds to heal isn't going to be cumbersome?

Plea, Power Word: Shield, and Shadow Mend also apply Atonement to your target for 15 sec.
When you deal spell damage, you instantly heal all targets affected by Atonement for 50% of the damage done.

That is going to be extremely cumbersome.


Plea plea plea plea plea dps dps dps oh crap the atonement fell off that guy now I gotta recast plea on him again. Oops tank died.

[TenYearsOfDisc]

What's bad for MW is good for disc?

Bliz: "Our goal with Mistweaver Monks is resolve some core gameplay issues. We’ve redesigned their abilities so that you can directly use the spells you want rather than having to set up an excessive amount of other abilities first.

We’re also focusing Mistweavers solely on healing, rather than supporting a type of mixed attack-healing gameplay that felt awkward and ultimately didn’t live up to our goals for the spec—it was unintuitive, and chiefly useful as a mana management tool."

Then, as posted above,

Bliz: "That's definitely fair. There are many reasons, but a big one is that Priests have another spec if you don't like DPS->Heal.(WarcraftDevs)"

They basically say, yeah, it's fine to do that for disc, because they have another healing spec - so if someone hates it, and wants to heal, they can just roll HOLY. I don't want to heal as holy, I want to heal as disc, why would they take this shit method that clearly didn't work for MW and give it to disc... oh that's right, because the spec is expendable, since we have another healing spec.

I agree with those above who have been saying it's going to be a nightmare, staring at health bars, staring at dps targets, timers, buffs, cooldowns... always needing to have a DPS target to do any meaningful healing at all... just too much! For the first time it looks like I am going to have to stop playing as the one spec I have loved throughout these years playing WoW.

[Franarok]

I don't really think this method will arrive the live.

In a first view sounds fair and funny. On cataclysm I loved the way of heal doing dps using some shields , penances and players between.

But the new system is shit. First I feel a bit annoyed because blizzard said that the new discipline system is bad and no intuitive.... But is OK because we have holy...... OMG hahaha

Complex and stupid not always mean fun. On this case we need take care of the buffs on our raiders at time that each 6s place a shield on one of the tanks, then dps on boss for a few seconds, cut dps to place shield on the second tank, a few seconds of dps and remove buffs on raiders..... Bad

Also fornincoming damage, what you can do? The new area heal is expensive, and only put the buff the half of time. Overheal people to pit them the buff? Not fair.

Also when random people taking damage..... Will you spam pleas or just put pleas to a few ones and do dps? Again stopping to shields tanks each 6s

And the shadow heal is bad. To much slow and easily the other heals will make it overheating and make lost the shield.

And they quit Nova and cow?


Nah, I disliked this changes. Of course I expected important changes, but I am really dissapointed by the moment.

[Jimjam38]

I just have to ignore some of the posts here that clearly didn't read or carelessly read the Disc overview.

Anyway. Some things I have to address:

• "WAAH WAHHHHHH RAMP UP TIME" - Yeah okay Disc currently does and always has had a ramp up time. It's an inherent element of absorbs. Even with the MoP Smart Heal system, disc still had significant elements of pre-emptive healing in the form of Spirit Shell and DA Blanketing. And now more than ever with PWS spam pre-emptive healing with ramp up time is basically the entirety of our gameplay. If you're not shielding people before the damage happens you're doing it wrong.
  In Legion Disc will play more like MW monks does currently. Rather than ramp up time due to having to pre-emptively place absorbs, MW monks have to pre-emptively spread ReM and pool Chi, and with the 4set, also need to pool ReM charges to then follow up Uplifts with ReM to place Extend Life for targeted healing. It has a lot of ramp up and pre-emptive healing to it, and has a high skill cap.
  
  I imagine in Legion Disc will play very similarly to this. We will primarily place Atonement buffs out while doing minor healing using Plea (equivalent to ReM now), while weaving in PWS and Shadow Mend triage (equivalent to Soothing/Surging triage) and PW:R (equivalent to MW monks using RJW and Chi Blast).
  While this is happening we'll be maintaining SWP on as many targets as is viable, effectively turning all the Atonement buffs into a minor or moderate HoT (like I said, equivalent to ReM) depending on SWP damage and number of targets.
  Using damage abilities will then heal all targets with Atonement on them - this is equivalent to Uplift. As Myllior very perceptively explained earlier there'll be two distinct methods of Atonement utilization: Sustained and Cyclical. When you have Atonement on sufficient targets, you'll either weave in damaging abilities as well as direct heals (which will also apply atonement) in a relatively equal ratio (this is the sustained approach), or you will entirely swap to damage abilities until the atonement buffs drop off, then return to direct healing to reapply the buffs (this is the cyclical approach). In reality you'll be doing both, with sustained being the default and swapping to cyclical to prepare for and respond to burst AoE damage.
  
  Currently uplift is AoE capped, same as most healing spells, at 6 targets, and further ReM targets will split the maximum healing (6*Uplift amount) across all targets. This means that less than 6 targets is wasted chi and healing, at 6 targets you'll heal each target for the maximum amount, and at more you'll heal more people for a smaller amount.
  Although it isn't target capped, Atonement will function similarly to this effect due to the allocation of GCDs. I.e. for a given time period, you can apply the atonement buff to only a few targets and have more time to deal damage, effectively healing those fewer targets for a larger amount, or you can apply atonement buff to many targets and only have a little time to deal damage before the Atonement buffs start falling off, effectively meaning that you heal more targets for less. This will of course exhibit a tapering effect, where if you continue to dps without stopping to apply more atonement buffs, the first targets that atonement was applied to will receive the least healing while those that the buff was applied to last will recieve the most. Trying to reach the most optimal and effective management of this effect alone will have an enormous skill cap.
  
  Disc in Legion is going to have an even higher skill cap than MW does now. It's probably fair to say it will be the most complicated healing spec with the highest risk/reward. It's even possible it will be the single most complicated spec in the game to achieve maximum optimization of playstyle, when all factors are taken into account.
  
  
• In regards to how shadowmend works, for those still unsure: it heals for a large amount, applies atonement, then half the amount healed is lost over time from any source. For those of you still unclear about this, lets go with Draco's example from the other thread. Target is sitting at say 300k out of 600k hp (50% health). You heal with shadowmend for 100k. The target is now at 400k. Over a period of time, lets say 10 seconds, 50k of that will be lost, however if they take damage from something else, that counts towards the 50k that needs to be lost. We will assume that the shadowmend dot works like a standard dot, e.g. they will take 50k over 10 seconds = 5k per second.
  Lets consider 3 situations to further understand this:
  (1) The target gets hit for 40k damage immediately after being healed
  (2) The target gets hit for 50k+ damage immediately after being healed
  (3) The target gets hit for 40k damage 2 seconds after being healed
  
  (1) 40k out of the 50k damage has already been taken, the target will lose a further 10k from shadowmend, presumably over 2 seconds at 5k per tick.
  (2) 50k+ out of the 50k damage has already been taken, the target won't lose any health from shadowmend.
  (3) The target took 2 ticks of shadowmend (5k per tick) = 10k, then they took 40k damage from the boss. The full 50k has been lost, the shadowmend dot stops.
  
  
• Shadowmend will actually have excellent synergy with Atonement, because your atonement healing will act as a buffer for the shadowmend dot. The significance of this is fourfold.
  Firstly, it helps to reduce the potential damage a poor disc priest could cause with such a spell (keeping in mind that overhealing with shadowmend does not contribute to the dot, ie, there can be no net loss).
  Secondly it just further increases the value and reward of proper spell selection and weaving of damage abilities.
  Thirdly, I can imagine this possibly being abused for meter padding/ranking once content is on farm. Its likely that damage meters will implement algorithms to subtract shadowmend damage from a Disc priest's healing done or something to that effect.
  Lastly, damage done to players from shadowmend will be a common and likely problematic measure of the skill of a disc priest, and also a common source of misconceptions about player skill and such by non-disc priests (think, Raidleader: "Atonement, why the fuck does it say you're doing 3 mil damage to players?!")
  
  
• Rapture is a more interesting cooldown that it first appears. At face value, it just removes the cooldown on PWS, simply enabling current style PWS spam for a short duration. Nothing special it seems.However keep in mind that they've said they're probably going to remove Weakened Soul, which means that during Rapture we can PWS spam on one or two targets taking massive damage. This has enormous potential for raid strategy, likely allowing things like Malkorok Blood Rage solo tanking, especially when coupled with Disc's already strong utility of Power Word: Barrier and Pain Suppression. (God I hope the devs don't read this thread and then make it so that Rapture removes the CD but causes it to apply Weakened Soul again).
  
  
• There hasn't been much mention of this in any of the posts I've read here, so I'll throw it out there for ya'll to keep in mind. The artifact will have a number of passive and active effects to add to our core abilities.
  
  Given the theme of the artifact (light and shadow in one - just looking at the visuals will tell you this) and the new direction of the spec as a whole, I expect these 'artifact talents' to be centred around interactions both between shadow and holy, and between damage and healing.
  
  Some likely candidates for these 'artifact talents' are things such as:
  >Smite/Mindblast applying a buff (or debuff on the target) to increase the other's damage, and/or both increase the damage of penance.
  >Archangel to increase direct healing and/or Dark Archangel to increase damage done (which may or may not follow through to increasing atonement healing).
  >Direct heals increases next direct damage spell within a few seconds by some amount, or vice versa.
  >Surge of Light / Surge of Darkness type procs
  >Twist of Fate type passives
  > etc, you get the idea

Now, these kind of things are going to add even more depth to what is already looking to be a very complex and demanding playstyle. Needless to say, I'm super excited. Depending on the direction that we get taken during the Beta and with things like talents and the artifact talents, its likely that disc will have some, if not many, important niche applications. Until we get a much clearer picture of how the spec will play, I don't see any need to worry about getting a raid spot

[PosPosPos]

"WAAH WAHHHHHH RAMP UP TIME" - Yeah okay Disc currently does and always has had a ramp up time. It's an inherent element of absorbs. Even with the MoP Smart Heal system, disc still had significant elements of pre-emptive healing in the form of Spirit Shell and DA Blanketing. And now more than ever with PWS spam pre-emptive healing with ramp up time is basically the entirety of our gameplay. If you're not shielding people before the damage happens you're doing it wrong.
In Legion Disc will play more like MW monks does currently. Rather than ramp up time due to having to pre-emptively place absorbs, MW monks have to pre-emptively spread ReM and pool Chi, and with the 4set, also need to pool ReM charges to then follow up Uplifts with ReM to place Extend Life for targeted healing. It has a lot of ramp up and pre-emptive healing to it, and has a high skill cap.

Like sure, the mechanics are similar, but the low uptime and targets hit by atonement appliers put the mechanic on a much lower level than the ReM/uplift interaction.

[Jimjam38]

Like sure, the mechanics are similar, but the low uptime and targets hit by atonement appliers put the mechanic on a much lower level than the ReM/uplift interaction.

Not necessarily. Although I do agree, as we all do, that the duration of Atonement will need tuning, given that Atonement doesn't split the healing, it will actually work out relatively similar. If you haven't already, read through the section I wrote about comparing Uplift capping to Atonement healing.

[PosPosPos]

Not necessarily. Although I do agree, as we all do, that the duration of Atonement will need tuning, given that Atonement doesn't split the healing, it will actually work out relatively similar. If you haven't already, read through the section I wrote about comparing Uplift capping to Atonement healing.

It is on a lower level, but I didn't say it was a bad thing.

AoE healing is being gutted across the board(again), so it stands to reason that we shouldn't somehow be the only spec to get a fantastic way to AoE heal.

[Amaravati]

For those that have not been keeping up with the tweets

How long is the atonement buff supposed to be?
Currently 15 seconds, with a talent available to extend that to 20 seconds.

No mention of Holy Nova. Is it gone?
The current plan is for Holy Nova to be Holy's method of dealing AoE damage.

Will solo healing 5-mans be inherently more difficult for discipline due to the changes in legion?
We'll be making sure that Discipline is still able to heal dungeons comfortably.

In Legion, will Shadow Mend overhealing still trigger the DoT? Basically, is it possible for it to be a net loss?
Nope! Only the effective healing will turn into a DoT.

Is atonement a buff that gets renewed or extended? for example, casting plea 2x in a row on same target = 15 sec or 30?
It gets renewed. We're considering having it behave similar to DoT effects, which have some leeway on when you refresh.

Reading the disc changes, is weakened soul being removed? or just not mentioned?
The current plan is to remove Weakened Soul.

Disc's 70/30 - how will healing be competitive without damage being significant. Guaranteed Disc raid spot still exists?
Those were just off-the-cuff examples. Goal is that they provide respectable damage and healing, and we'll iterate as necessary.

There is no mention of Divine Aegis in the priest blog, is it going to be gone?
Yes. The number of absorbs (especially passive ones, such as Divine Aegis and Illuminated Healing) is being heavily reduced.

So @WarcraftDevs how viable will leveling as Discipline be in Legion? I love Disc and don't want to go away from it to even level.
The goal is for healing specs to be fully viable for solo questing outdoors.

Penance damage only? Remove pom cast, it is only used as purge protection atm
Talents will offer some potential alterations to Penance.

How will Atonement work when enemies have damage taken up (or down) buffs?
Atonement healing should not be affected by those.

[PosPosPos]

Also, I feel that Atonement doesn't necessarily need a duration buff, because it doesn't really help the weaknesses of the new playstyle.

Instead, it should function as a smart heal if you don't have atonement up on any target.

[Melchey]

Also, I feel that Atonement doesn't necessarily need a duration buff, because it doesn't really help the weaknesses of the new playstyle.

Instead, it should function as a smart heal if you don't have atonement up on any target.

I agree with the buff duration. And that's a good idea. I'd rather it be extended to Atonement heals a random injured target and all allies with the Atonement Buff.

[PosPosPos]

I agree with the buff duration. And that's a good idea. I'd rather it be extended to Atonement heals a random injured target and all allies with the Atonement Buff.

Personally I don't agree with that - unless it's a talent alongside others with similar performance-increasing capabilities, then I feel it is a welcome and healthy design.

[Jimjam38]

This is an in-depth consideration of the potential healing of a disc priest relative to their damage contribution. It ultimately concludes that it would be reasonable for Disc priests to be fairly competitive with other healers, as even if they spend 50% of their time using damage spells, they will not be able to contribute anywhere near 50% the damage of a dps, with likely values in the 10-20% range.

First lets compare the wording and mana costs of the base heals of each spec:

Hpriest:

Heal
2.0% Mana, 40 yd range, 2.5 sec cast
A slow but efficient spell that heals an ally for a moderate amount.

Flash Heal
3.5% Mana, 40 yd range, 1.5 sec cast
A fast but expensive spell that heals an ally for a moderate amount.

Renew
2.5% Mana, 40 yd range, Instant
Fill the target with faith in the Light, healing them instantly for a minor amount and then a large amount over 15 sec.

Hpala:

Holy Light
2.0% Mana, 40 yd range, 2.5 sec cast
A slow but efficient spell, healing a friendly target for a moderate amount.

Flash of Light
4.0% Mana, 40 yd range, 1.5 sec cast
A quick but expensive spell, healing a friendly target for a moderate amount.

Holy Shock
1.5% Mana, 40 yd range, Instant, 10 sec cooldown
Instantly trigger a burst of Light on the target, dealing moderate Holy damage to an enemy, or moderate healing to an ally.
Holy Shock has double the normal critical strike chance

Rsham:

Healing Wave
2.1% Mana, 40 yd range, 2.5 sec cast
A slow but efficient wave of healing energy that restores a moderate amount of a friendly target’s health.

Healing Surge
4.1% Mana, 40 yd range, 1.5 sec cast
A quick but expensive surge of healing energy that restores a moderate amount of a friendly target’s health.

Riptide
1.5% Mana, 40 yd range, Instant, 6 sec cooldown
Restorative waters wash over a friendly target, healing them for a moderate amount and an additional moderate amount over 18 sec.

Rdruid:

Healing Touch
2% Mana, 40 yd range, 2.5 sec cast
Heals a friendly target for a moderate amount.

Regrowth
3.7% Mana, 40 yd range, 1.5 sec cast
Heals a friendly target for a moderate amount and another minor amount over 12 sec.
Regrowth has a 60% increased chance for a critical effect.

Rejuvenation
1.9% Mana, 40 yd range, Instant
Heals the target for a moderate amount over 15 sec.

Swiftmend
1.6% Mana, 40 yd range, Instant, 30 sec cooldown
Instantly heals a friendly target for a large amount.

and finally MW:

Soothing Mist
Passive
Your Effuse, Enveloping Mist, and Vivify also trigger Soothing Mist.
After casting these spells, you continue to channel healing mists into the target, healing them for a minor amount every 0.5 sec, until you take any other action.
Developer Comments
Need efficient healing? Cast any heal and let Soothing Mist continue to provide free healing as long as you feel comfortable!
Need high-throughput healing? Cast any heal and move onto the next target in need of healing, without spending time on Soothing Mist.
For Mistweavers, it’s OK to have open global cooldowns between heals—Soothing Mist fills these gaps.

Effuse
1.8% Mana, 40 yd range, 1.5 sec cast
A fast and efficient spell, healing the target for a minor amount.

Enveloping Mist
6.0% Mana, 40 yd range, 2 sec cast
Wrap the target in healing mists, healing them for a huge amount over 6 sec, and increasing healing received from your spells by 30%.

Now, lets compare this to disc:

Plea
1.2% Mana, 40 yd range, Instant
A quick, efficient plea to heal an ally for a minor amount.

Shadow Mend
3.0% Mana, 40 yd range, 1.5 sec cast
Wrap an ally in shadows which heal them for a large amount, but at a price.
The ally will take minor damage every 1 sec, until they have taken half that amount of total damage from all sources, or leave combat.

Power Word: Shield
3.5% Mana, 40 yd range, Instant, 6 sec cooldown
Shield an ally, absorbing a large amount of damage. Lasts 15 sec.
While the shield holds, spellcasting will not be delayed by damage.

Smite
0.75% Mana, 40 yd range, 1.5 sec cast
Smite an enemy for moderate Holy damage.

Mind Blast
3.0% Mana, 40 yd range, 1.5 sec cast
Blast the target’s mind for strong Shadow damage.

Penance
2.5% Mana, 40 yd range, Channeled, 9 sec cooldown
Launches a volley of holy light at the target, causing huge Holy damage over 2 sec.
Channelable while moving.

Shadow Word: Pain
2.0% Mana, 40 yd range, Instant
A word of darkness that causes minor Shadow damage instantly, and an additional huge amount of Shadow damage over 18 sec.

To make these comparisons I'm assuming 2 things. Firstly, I'm assuming that the wording is intentionally consistent to reflect relative strength between comparable abilities, i.e. that Heal and Holy Light will have roughly the same spell power co-efficients as they are both worded as "moderate" and, this is supported by the fact that all the basic heal spells in game at the moment are relatively similar in terms of base healing. This is a safe assumption for comparison of same-type spells (hots to hots, direct heals to direct heals, aoe to aoe).
Secondly, I'm assuming that this comparison translates relatively well between damage and healing abilities, i.e. that a "moderate" hot and a "moderate" dot would have roughly the same spell power coefficent. This is based on two things, firstly the wording of Holy Shock, which says "moderate" for both damage and healing, and its not unreasonable to assume it has the same spell power coefficient for both, and secondly, Mindblast reads "strong" damage for both Disc and Shadow. This is not an overly reliable assumption, but in the absence of any better reference for comparison, this will have to suffice.

Plea:
So, assuming as above, Plea will be comparable to MW monk Effuse. Better yet its cheaper and instant cast.
Now I would expect Effuse is going to be tuned to be their basic heal such that it will be equivalent to Healing Touch, Heal or Holy Light or Healing Wave if you let soothing channel on them for roughly 1 additional second (giving it the same HPS as the aforementioned spells.

Now consider, Plea is going to have a similar base value to Effuse, then it will be receiving Atonement healing from SWP (which we will presumably try to have 100% uptime on). SWP deals a "huge" amount over 18 seconds, and given my assumptions, that makes it more than Renew or Rejuv, which are of fairly similar duration (15 sec vs 18 sec for SWP). Given 'typical mastery from gear' our atonement will trasnfer ~75% of the damage done. Given this, I would expect that SWP will transfer roughly the same amount of healing over 18 seconds as Renew or Rejuv does in 15 seconds, or perhaps slightly less. So between base heal + atonement, plea is roughly equivalent to Renew or Rejuv.

PWS and Shadowmend:
These both read "large", and the only other direct heal that reads "large" is swiftmend, which has a 30 second cooldown and is instant. Since PWS has a 6 sec cooldown and shadow mend has its damage drawback, and they both costs roughly 2x the mana of swiftmend, and are both intended to be some of disc's true direct heals, it's safe to assume these two have roughly comparable healing to swiftmend.

Smite:
This reads "moderate", which is the same as Heal, Flash Heal and all other typical base heals and fast heals. It has a 1.5 second cast time, and a low mana cost, but will only transfer ~75% of the damage to healing. It also has the significant limitation of requiring ramp up by applying atonement buffs. Given these factors (lower mana cost than a fast heal and lower cast time than a base heal, but lower output after conversion and has ramp up time and requires more expensive heals to place any atonement buff for it to transfer healing to) it seems reasonable that Smite would do roughly the same magnitude of raw damage as the magnitude of a Flash heal's raw healing, and so a Smite will be ~75% of the healing of a Flash Heal or a little less.

Mindblast:
"Strong" damage. Nothing comparable within healers (for reference, Mindblast for Shadow and Lava Burst for Elemental also reads "strong" damage). Its 4x the mana cost of smite but lower mana cost than most Fast Heals (Flash Heal, Healing Surge, etc). Like smite, the mana cost is on top of any mana required to place Atonement buffs. Thus it is reasonable to assume that Mindblast will do significantly more damage than smite, and so after atonement conversion would heal for at least as much as a basic heal like Flash Heal.

Penance:
"Huge" damage. No solid comparison amongst heals - Enveloping Mists also reads "Huge" but is a 6 second hot and much higher mana cost (Enveloping 6% vs Penance 2.5%) but no cooldown. Unconfirmed if only a damage ability as of yet. For reference, Chaos Bolt reads "huge" damage. Penance has always been one of the strongest heals in the game, and currently has a very large spell power coefficent. Very safe to assume after conversion it will heal for significantly more than basic heals like Flash Heal. However, it will have to be at least slightly less than Holy Word: Serenity, which is supposed to be the strongest single target heal and to restore around 50% of a players health, non crit.


Now, assuming no haste, all single target Atonement appliers have a 1.5 sec time requirement, and Atonement lasts 15 seconds. So the most you could have up at any one time without using PW:R is 10, and you won't have time for any damage spells before the first would fall off.
Using only PW:R, and assuming it doesn't apply atonement to the same target twice, you can get 3 casts in 7.5 seconds which would put the buff on at most 15 people, with 2.5 seconds before the first five fell off (assuming the buff is applied at the end of the cast - i think, someone can check the math on this if they want). 3 casts of PWR will also consume 22.5% of your mana and is just a silly approach.

Thus, with only single target, it would be relatively easy to maintain Atonement on 4-6 targets while weaving in damage abilities. With a cast of PW:R this can be easily pushed up to 9-11 targets with 6.5-3.5 seconds left respectively for damage spells before the first buff dropped off. If the first buff was applied using Shadow Mend this is extended to 8-5 seconds respectively for damaging spells, since Shadowmend is a cast time which means the buff is applied at end of the gcd/cast, as opposed to instant cast Plea or PWS where the buff is applied at the start of the gcd.

So given these potential values, it wouldn't be feasible for the Atonement buff to be much more than at most 20 seconds, as each additional 3 seconds gives you an extra 2 targets while still retaining sufficient time for dpsing. Even at only 20 seconds, you could easily maintain it on 7-9 targets, pushing up to 12-14 targets with PW:R, and then in the remaining 8-5 seconds respectively, heal them for something equivalent to several flash heals with a quick rotation of Smite, Mindblast and Penance, assuming my above speculation regarding relative strength of Smite, Mb and Penance is correct. This would be enormously powerful AoE healing, so unless the healing/damage of Smite, Mb and Penance is considerably more lackluster than I have speculated, it will be entirely infeasible for the Atonement buff to last any more than 18 seconds I would expect.

For the current iteration of 15 seconds, which allows easy maintaining Atonement on 4-6 targets, I think it comes out fairly balanced, considering you'll have to spend one gcd every 18 seonds refreshing SWP, and you'll inevitably have wasted healing/overhealing due to the difficulties of the ramp up and such. Add on the HoT healing from SWP + the direct heals from applying the Atonement buff, and we could actually be very competitive with other healers, with an extremely rewarding and interesting play style.

In a 15 second period where you maintain Atonement on 4-6 targets you'd be spending 6-9 seconds healing and 9-6 seconds dpsing respectively. This comes out as a ratio of 40-60% (at 4 targets) up to 60-40% (at 6 targets) time distribution of heals to dps respectively with a 50-50 ratio being the likely average over the course of a fight.

DPS spend 100% of their time doing dps, with multiple mechanics designed to significantly increase their damage done, as well as cleave and AoE.
On the other hand, Disc priests will not have nearly as much emphasis on dps, with only a single DoT and basic damaging abilities, Disc priests have no where near the damage potential of a dps (even if a few talents or possible artifact passives eg. twist of fate, were to buff our damage done slightly).

Even if a Disc priest spent 100% of their time doing damage, they wouldn't even manage to do 40% the damage of a DPS spec, and would have done zero healing to get there. At what will likely be 50% of their time casting damage spells they won't even come remotely close to 50% of a DPS's damage done. It'll be more like 10-20% at best. In my opinion, a single healer providing 10-20% the damage contribution of a dps isn't enough to warrant them being uncompetitive with other healers. As such, I would conclude that it's entirely reasonable for disc priests to be fully competitive with the other healing specs.

- - - Updated - - -

Also, I feel that Atonement doesn't necessarily need a duration buff, because it doesn't really help the weaknesses of the new playstyle.

Instead, it should function as a smart heal if you don't have atonement up on any target.

I don't think its a weak play style at all. In fact, entirely depending on how the damage of Smite, Mb and Penance compare to other healers direct heals, I think it could be a very strong play style. What about it comes across as weak to you?

[Isheria]

Mastery is multiplicative not additive, to transfer 75% of dmg done as healing you need 50% mastery not 25-28% as listed in the typical mastery on the preview.

[Jimjam38]

What gave you that impression? Was there a tweet about it?

[Isheria]

Because that's how all masteries work unless explicitly said so. Additive effects use "an additional x%" instead of "by x%" so unless they made a typo you can assume it's multiplicative. No there was no tweet about it yet.

[Jimjam38]

Because that's how all masteries work unless explicitly said so. Additive effects use "an additional x%" instead of "by x%" so unless they made a typo you can assume it's multiplicative. No there was no tweet about it yet.

Yeah fair enough. That's probably right then, but hopefully we'll get clarification soon.