[7.0] Legion Discipline Priest Guide and Discussion

[anon5123]

Just for exercise

Light's Wrath with 5 Atonements: 1050% SP ¤ 2.3 sec cast (with some haste)
Penance with Castigation with 3\3 Confession: 784 SP ¤ 1.8sec cast (with some haste)

With a mastery of 20%

Casted consecutively they heals the party for 1283% SP (70% of total damage spell power) in around 4 seconds excluding critical procs etc

With 28.000 SP for example, their combined heal is about 350-360K

Considering i'm not looking at critical it seems good, obviously this combination can only be used once every 1.5minutes

You can pop the Mindbender to increase aoe healing in other situations and also Power Infusion...

Maybe the 1.5 minute CD is applied considering all those factors but i'm just assuming it, i don't know what are the thougths behind this choice.

Sometimes obviously i would like it to be a 1 min CD, but maybe we have to wait some Raid experience\data mining to evalue that

Just like Divine Hymn and Tranq, Light's Wrath seems to have its damage/healing amount balanced around raid groups.

Though unlike Divine Hymn and Tranq, it did't get "+100% healing when not in a raid", for whatever-the-fuck reason, which leads to it being really weak in 5mans. Doesn't really heal that much more than a single Penance, as you pointed out.

[Maues]

Just wanted to let everyone know that the option to gather the books for the Discipline Hidden Artifact skin is unlocked at artifact knowledge level 4. I don't think I have time to gather them all atm but I will edit this post when I do to confirm that it works and we get the skin.

Edit:
Just got the skin. Everything works as intended. Books can despawn though so you might need to wait around a bit.

[Goshko]

It's hard spending 1 gcd to apply atonements to 60% of the group?

Did I say it was hard?

[Deleted]

Just like Divine Hymn and Tranq, Light's Wrath seems to have its damage/healing amount balanced around raid groups.

Though unlike Divine Hymn and Tranq, it did't get "+100% healing when not in a raid", for whatever-the-fuck reason, which leads to it being really weak in 5mans. Doesn't really heal that much more than a single Penance, as you pointed out.

Yeah, but it deals damage.

I think that a lot of "i dont heal as other healers" of Discipline Priest is because we are actually contributing to dealing damage, and it's a versatile option (in raid more than in dungeons because you are supported by other healers).

I'm not argumenting in favor of actual LW state, i'm just discussing it

[Nurasu]

Why is it even being compared to DH and Tranq in the first place? Last I checked those were not on 90 second CDs. I don't think our artifact ability is supposed to be or should be a freaking raid CD.

[Vampiregenesis]

Nah , disc is not really a healer , yes you may heal a mythic with it , i healed some dungeons with shadowmeld but it really lack the tools to compare with holy , its not even close , the dps is really low if you try to fulfill your healing role and the opposite of this will result in a dead group under serious pressure which means that disc is a suboptimal healer for mythics and his real strength comes in raids as a support dps class but his main role is obviously dps. Dont get me wrong , IT IS a strong class but its not a healer thats it , if you fall behind for some reason as a disc , gl catching up , im not getting any opening to use my offensive spells at all on mythics , rarely i will be able to spam smites , i just cant see how a class like this will keep a group up on its own , you just cant be everything , you will either shadowmelding or smiting and the second option would make more sense. Shadowmelding is not fun at all , i rather play holy than do this , where besides a flash heal , i have serenity,49394949 cds,redempt spirit,mastery,renew. Shadowmeld is just a bit better than flash heal with grace but thats it , its not close at all.

[Djriff]

Nah , disc is not really a healer

False, disc is just fine as a healer and if you aren't healing mythics well with it, then that may be on you. I've had no troubles with a non upgraded artifact at all in mythic. Raids will be cake as well.

yes you may heal a mythic with it , i healed some dungeons with shadowmeld but it really lack the tools to compare with holy , its not even close , the dps is really low if you try to fulfill your healing role and the opposite of this will result in a dead group under serious pressure which means that disc is a suboptimal healer for mythics and his real strength comes in raids as a support dps class but his main role is obviously dps. Dont get me wrong , IT IS a strong class but its not a healer thats it , if you fall behind for some reason as a disc , gl catching up , im not getting any opening to use my offensive spells at all on mythics , rarely i will be able to spam smites , i just cant see how a class like this will keep a group up on its own , you just cant be everything , you will either shadowmelding or smiting and the second option would make more sense. Shadowmelding is not fun at all , i rather play holy than do this , where besides a flash heal , i have serenity,49394949 cds,redempt spirit,mastery,renew. Shadowmeld is just a bit better than flash heal with grace but thats it , its not close at all.

Disc is not a support dps class, it is not a support healer. Stop trying to spread misinformation.

[Woop Woop]

Nah , disc is not really a healer , yes you may heal a mythic with it , i healed some dungeons with shadowmeld but it really lack the tools to compare with holy , its not even close , the dps is really low if you try to fulfill your healing role and the opposite of this will result in a dead group under serious pressure which means that disc is a suboptimal healer for mythics and his real strength comes in raids as a support dps class but his main role is obviously dps. Dont get me wrong , IT IS a strong class but its not a healer thats it , if you fall behind for some reason as a disc , gl catching up , im not getting any opening to use my offensive spells at all on mythics , rarely i will be able to spam smites , i just cant see how a class like this will keep a group up on its own , you just cant be everything , you will either shadowmelding or smiting and the second option would make more sense. Shadowmelding is not fun at all , i rather play holy than do this , where besides a flash heal , i have serenity,49394949 cds,redempt spirit,mastery,renew. Shadowmeld is just a bit better than flash heal with grace but thats it , its not close at all.

Sounds like a L2P issue to me, and....not a healer? Disc isn't support, it's a healer that also does dps.
Disc is pretty competitive with other healers, and you get 100k+ dps for free.

Also, can you please stop calling it Shadowmeld? That's the Night Elf racial ability, starting to doubt you even play the spec.

[Nurasu]

Shadowmeld is just a bit better than flash heal with grace but thats it , its not close at all.

This isn't even remotely true. ShadowmeNd is leaps and bounds ahead of flash heal, especially when you're talking about Grace. And I have never once experienced this "difficulty in bringing groups up" that everyone keeps complaining about. Even if your rotation does temporarily devolve into SM spamming, you then have all your atonements up and can seamlessly switch to Penance or LW and efficiently bring everyone up.

[Vampiregenesis]

False, disc is just fine as a healer and if you aren't healing mythics well with it, then that may be on you. I've had no troubles with a non upgraded artifact at all in mythic. Raids will be cake as well.
Disc is not a support dps class, it is not a support healer. Stop trying to spread misinformation.

Im not spreading anything , the math are clear:

Disc arsenal

Shadowmeld(a flash heal more or less)

Shield (instant flash heal with cd)

Plea (lets call it a renew if you spec grace , i think its a bit worse)

Penance (worse than flash heal , better than renew)

Shadow word: pain ( a trash hot , unless you can multidot which doesnt happen often its worthless but even then its not great)

Radiance: almost worthless aoe heal and really slow


As far as healing goes , thats your best options

Cds: mass shields , prevent dmg for some secs , 40% reduce for some secs


Holy Arsenal

Flash heal = shadowmeld (with talents flash heal is obviously better but lets just call them equal)

Holy word serenity>>>>>>>>power word shield

Renew>plea

Poh>radiance

On top of that you got sanctify AND echo of light(which boost all your heals and make them by default stronger than disc heals)

Holy cds

Divine hymn>>>>>barrier , guardian spirit>>>>>pain suppression , apotheosis>>>>rapture


Dps comparison

Dps as a healer is something that you do when you feel that your group is not under serious pressure , if you face serious pressure then you cant nuke , if both holy and disc decided to nuke , i believe they would be very close , the whole difference is that disc would offer some healing which is pretty worthless healing , smite is a joke and dont get me started with the hot i said it above , that only leaves penance which isnt even close to enough , if you are playing holy then your healing will be so much superior and that will give you more time to dps , so i believe this rule will make some sense *if you have time to nuke as disc then you have time to nuke as holy and holy will get more time to nuke due to superior healing* , holy will also not get punished easily when he overexted with his dps because it has the buttons to turn a bad situation around , if something goes bad as a disc then gl turning it around which makes me think that disc will have to be even more cautious about dpsing.

Overall disc is worse at every single thing than holy and that includes dps aswell(when both of them decide to play as healers) , on the other hand if disc can focus on his dps and just use instant attonement skills and nothing else then he will obviously have a different role (that of a support dps) and will be a higher value and close the gap between him and holy.


If you want to prove me wrong then specify why im wrong.

[Djriff]

Ok fine, let's compare.

shadowmend is the best ST in the game that doesn't have a CD. This is before you factor in grace which makes it even ridiculously strong. It makes flash heal look like a wet noodle, so comparing the two flash heal always loses. Additionally it gives the target atonement.

PW: S, provides a shield which almost always doesn't overheal, prevents damage from happening, prevents spell pushback, and provides atonement. Holy has renew, which isn't even worth the GCD half the time and you're better off casting smite.

You compares Holy Word: Serenity to Power Word Shield, two completely different spells that have different intents in casting. You literally compared apples to oranges.

Plea is a spot heal that places atonement on people that need it, it's also mobile and can be used to "prehot" people.

PW: R vs PoH. Again, apples to oranges. PW: R is used to rapid apply atonement to multiple people, not heal them. PoH is designed to heal a group of people up and that's it.

SW: P while an ok source of healing, provides steady DPS, and is better than renew, additionally it can heal multiple people at once with no DR AND can be applied to multiple mobs to provide steady solid throughput.

Let's take CD's into account, PW: B vs Divine Hymn. PW: Barrier can be crazy strong, however most of the time it's of little use. Divine Hymn is usually the better choice, especially the 10% extra healing buff it gives. However PW: B leaves you free to cast other spells and is essentially an AoE version of Pain Sup. Additionally if you have the trait it can do a very nice bit of healing to allies inside of it.

As for external CDs Pain Suppression and Guardian Spirit are about even. While GS does provide some additional throughput and is a nice oh shit the tank is dying button, you'll get similar effectiveness from Pain Sup as GS does nothing to reduce damage and if they drop below 1 HP you lost your additional healing.

Both classes are completely viable and both classes heal differently. You can't really compare them like you tried to as they are played differently.

[zerobeav]

Hello,

I have a quick question.
What are the best trinkets for Disc?
Would we want to have a DPS trinkets on for our atonement healing?
Sorry for asking this I am new to Disc and will have to run this for my guild on Tuesday and want to be prepared as best I can.

Thanks!

[Vampiregenesis]

shadowmend is the best ST in the game that doesn't have a CD. This is before you factor in grace which makes it even ridiculously strong. It makes flash heal look like a wet noodle, so comparing the two flash heal always loses. Additionally it gives the target atonement.

Fair enough

PW: S, provides a shield which almost always doesn't overheal, prevents damage from happening, prevents spell pushback, and provides atonement. Holy has renew, which isn't even worth the GCD half the time and you're better off casting smite.

I doubt this is a decent comparison but lets just say i accept this , i rather compare plea to renew

PW: R vs PoH. Again, apples to oranges. PW: R is used to rapid apply atonement to multiple people, not heal them. PoH is designed to heal a group of people up and that's it.

So you basically accept that disc doesnt really have a decent aoe option and i dont mean topping 85% players but topping your whole group when it drops to 30% or below which isnt so rare at mythics and it can happen consistently in some cases.

SW: P while an ok source of healing, provides steady DPS, and is better than renew, additionally it can heal multiple people at once with no DR AND can be applied to multiple mobs to provide steady solid throughput.

I highly doubt this , renew ticks for like 22k + echo of light , SWP ticks for like 6300 or something

Let's take CD's into account, PW: B vs Divine Hymn. PW: Barrier can be crazy strong, however most of the time it's of little use. Divine Hymn is usually the better choice, especially the 10% extra healing buff it gives. However PW: B leaves you free to cast other spells and is essentially an AoE version of Pain Sup. Additionally if you have the trait it can do a very nice bit of healing to allies inside of it.

I think i win this one

As for external CDs Pain Suppression and Guardian Spirit are about even. While GS does provide some additional throughput and is a nice oh shit the tank is dying button, you'll get similar effectiveness from Pain Sup as GS does nothing to reduce damage and if they drop below 1 HP you lost your additional healing.

Soulstone effect increase the value of guardian by a lot

Both classes are completely viable and both classes heal differently. You can't really compare them like you tried to as they are played differently.

I dont think they are different at all because of how weak attonement healing is and because of spending gbc to do something at wow , you will obviously choose the highest value option and when it comes to significant healing , attonement isnt , it falls in the category of supportive healing , lets just say its between the gap of a healer and a supportive healer.


You completely left out holy words / apotheosis or circle / echo of light from this comparison , all of them are tremendous value for the holy spec , circle beats rapture all day everyday.


Since you play disc , i want you to name just one thing you can do better than a holy. Some of these things include:

1. your group get steamrolled , players continuously drop to 40% due to fire or high aoe

2. Dps output when nothing bad happens

3. Tank gets steamrolled and you have to keep him up


Dont get me wrong , i healed mythics as disc too and id say that i could do far better as a holy , ofc my gear wasnt perfect and traits but still... the only good thing about disc is that your mana rarely ends while as holy i seem to run out of mana a lot.

[Nurasu]

Since you play disc , i want you to name just one thing you can do better than a holy.

the only good thing about disc is that your mana rarely ends while as holy i seem to run out of mana a lot.

lol, that seems like a pretty big one to me...

[Noradin]

In 5mans sure, its not that strong. In raids, its stupidly strong because it scales exponentially with the number of atonements out. Its stronger than a revival on a 90s cd.

Its healing has quadratic growth not exponential growth with the number of atonements out.

- - - Updated - - -

Weird conversation about "choosing" between Light's Wrath and Penance in 5 mans. Just cast Penance and then cast Light's Wrath while Penance is on cooldown. It's not like it's some massively complicated choice.

So you advise us to always choose penance of Light's wrath?
Yes, that is why we call it "underwhelming" for a 90s CD compared to the 9s one of Penance.

[Djriff]

I doubt this is a decent comparison but lets just say i accept this , i rather compare plea to renew

Renew is a hot, plea is not. Plea is a very pitiful heal that it's main application is to apply atonement.

So you basically accept that disc doesnt really have a decent aoe option and i dont mean topping 85% players but topping your whole group when it drops to 30% or below which isnt so rare at mythics and it can happen consistently in some cases.

If your group drops that low then you have to resort to shadowmend spam, is it the most fun playstyle? No. Is it efficient? Yes. You won't find a holy priest spamming PoH to bring people to full in a dungeon unless they are taking a metric ton of AoE damage at which point they should just pop Divine Hymn and save their mana. It's well known that disc has problems with sustained aoe damage, that's been brought up several times, however atonement is unbelievably strong in a raid.

I highly doubt this , renew ticks for like 22k + echo of light , SWP ticks for like 6300 or something

I could be mistaken as I don't have the numbers right in front of me. I agree to disagree until I can double check them.

i think i win this one

In reality sure, on paper I still feel PW: B is the better choice since it doesn't actually have a cap.

Soulstone effect increase the value of guardian by a lot

Assume you don't have a warlock, Pain Sup still wins. Damage Reduction > Increased healing received always.

I dont think they are different at all because of how weak attonement healing is and because of spending gbc to do something at wow , you will obviously choose the highest value option and when it comes to significant healing , attonement isnt , it falls in the category of supportive healing , lets just say its between the gap of a healer and a supportive healer.

Well if you try to play disc like a holy priest, ie reactively you will slightly succeed but you'll have a difficult time. Atonement seems weak in a 5 man because you're only healing 5 targets. In a raid when you're healing 10+ targets it's a lot more valuable and isn't subject to caps like PoH, Sanctify, and CoH have.

I'm guessing by gbc you meant the GCD, as in the global cooldown. How exactly are you spending your GCD's as holy? Are you contributing DPS while maintaining your healing? Disc is all about perperation and being ahead of the game. You pre apply atonement so you can DPS + Heal when the damage is rolling. You weave in PW: R and PW: S when needed and keep it going. It's an insane amount of burst healing.

You completely left out holy words / apotheosis or circle / echo of light from this comparison , all of them are tremendous value for the holy spec , circle beats rapture all day everyday.

Alright, let's discuss holy words. You have serenity which is hands down the best ST heal with an extremely short CD in the game. It's amazing, especially with the EoL it procs.

Apotheosis is a talent, one that most priests will take, which allow a holy priest to be a throughput powerhouse for 30 seconds at the cost of their entire mana bar. Disc's answer to that is Light's Wrath, which has a 90 seconds CD, no AoE cap, and also scales with targets. It also has no range requirement like Sanctify and can be boosted by the hidden artifact trait. It's so absurdly powerful it puts revival to shame.

Holy on the other hand has Sanctify, which is a good aoe spell, especially since it's instant, but requires people to be clumped up. If they aren't it sucks, disc has no limitations outside of PW: Barrier.

You should never be taking CoH in a raid since you're gimping your throughput by giving up apotheosis.

Since you play disc , i want you to name just one thing you can do better than a holy. Some of these things include:
1. your group get steamrolled , players continuously drop to 40% due to fire or high aoe

If my group is taking massive aoe damage then they are failing a mechanic and every healing class in the game will struggle to keep up with 40% damage continuously happening. That's not a weakness of disc, that's poor play.

2. Dps output when nothing bad happens

Disc heals by dealing damage, does more damage then holy as well (minus stacked burst AoE).

3. Tank gets steamrolled and you have to keep him up

Again shadowmend wins.

What else can disc do better than holy? See above.

Dont get me wrong , i healed mythics as disc too and id say that i could do far better as a holy , ofc my gear wasnt perfect and traits but still... the only good thing about disc is that your mana rarely ends while as holy i seem to run out of mana a lot.

To each their own. If you find an easier time with holy, then stick with it. No one is forcing you to play disc. Just don't spread misinformation that disc is bad or is a support healer when it's not.

[Noradin]

3. Tank gets steamrolled and you have to keep him up

This one for sure.

[Vampiregenesis]

Well if you try to play disc like a holy priest, ie reactively you will slightly succeed but you'll have a difficult time. Atonement seems weak in a 5 man because you're only healing 5 targets. In a raid when you're healing 10+ targets it's a lot more valuable and isn't subject to caps like PoH, Sanctify, and CoH have.

I'm guessing by gbc you meant the GCD, as in the global cooldown. How exactly are you spending your GCD's as holy? Are you contributing DPS while maintaining your healing? Disc is all about perperation and being ahead of the game. You pre apply atonement so you can DPS + Heal when the damage is rolling. You weave in PW: R and PW: S when needed and keep it going. It's an insane amount of burst healing.

How exactly do you apply attonement on 10 ppl and consistently keep it up? spam radiance? but that doesnt guarrantee it will hit those 10 targets.

[drtrann]

How exactly do you apply attonement on 10 ppl and consistently keep it up? spam radiance? but that doesnt guarrantee it will hit those 10 targets.

how often do you spam PoH on 10 targets? that's about how often you do it with atonement aswell.

the way attonement application works is that you wait until that healing is required (ie right before burst damage), then spam 4-6 PW:R's to apply atonement to 12-18 people, THEN pop a DPS cd, light's wrath, penance, smite a few times.

you end up doing WAY more healing, with less mana cost, while also contributing to DPS (which is significant in situations where the target you are killing is the phase trigger to get out of the AOE damage.

[Djriff]

how often do you spam PoH on 10 targets? that's about how often you do it with atonement aswell.

the way attonement application works is that you wait until that healing is required (ie right before burst damage), then spam 4-6 PW:R's to apply atonement to 12-18 people, THEN pop a DPS cd, light's wrath, penance, smite a few times.

you end up doing WAY more healing, with less mana cost, while also contributing to DPS (which is significant in situations where the target you are killing is the phase trigger to get out of the AOE damage.

Essentially this. You want the atonements applied before the damage. Essentially your penance will be mid air when the damage strikes.