is disc more friendly in bfa?

[Deleted]

I´d never been able to heal in mythic+ so much , quite difficult when unexpected damage happens, but maybe now with the change of pws, Do you think that will become a bit noobfriendly?

[Trizle]

I don't think the PW:S change will make the spec more easy to play in m+ compared to live. Rather, harder. PW:S on live is our strong single target instant heal, and that has been very useful if you find yourself in a position where someone takes more dmg then you anticipated, that utility is gone now since the PW:S is kinda weak. However, we got some other tools to help us in BFA so depending on what you have struggled with it might be easier.

For me the worst part of healing M+ as disc in legion has been bursting and grevious since our out of combat heal is quite limited. Depending on how strong it ends up when BFA hits live Contrition might be a good, and quite easy to use, help for that, though, the loss of CoW on the other hand is a big blow instead. We will see how it ends up, but i think the difficulty in healing as disc will be about the same in BFA as legion.

[MendUS]

I don't think the PW:S change will make the spec more easy to play in m+ compared to live. Rather, harder. PW:S on live is our strong single target instant heal, and that has been very useful if you find yourself in a position where someone takes more dmg then you anticipated, that utility is gone now since the PW:S is kinda weak. However, we got some other tools to help us in BFA so depending on what you have struggled with it might be easier.

For me the worst part of healing M+ as disc in legion has been bursting and grevious since our out of combat heal is quite limited. Depending on how strong it ends up when BFA hits live Contrition might be a good, and quite easy to use, help for that, though, the loss of CoW on the other hand is a big blow instead. We will see how it ends up, but i think the difficulty in healing as disc will be about the same in BFA as legion.

For dungeons:

> Rapture is an extremely powerful cooldown which essentially makes your party invincible for the duration.

> Mastery now scales our direct heals instead of just Atonement.

> Atonement healing is more relevant in dungeons in BfA.

> Level 75 tier of talents are all equally lackluster, but fill different niches depending on content. There are instances where you would use all of them, but SotM might be used a majority of the time in dungeon content with SCov and Contrition filling more niche roles (like for Bursting or Grievous).

> Luminous Barrier is actually a decent cooldown to take for M+ but could also be a trap. I'd probably only recommend it if you know you won't need to use PW:Barrier in the dungeon

> Shadow Mend got a buff, and now scales with Mastery. Don't undersell our direct heal too much; it's really powerful.

> Desperate Prayer is now a thing, which is a godsend for higher keys since we'll have a powerful personal CD.

> Power Word: Fortitude is also now a thing... which means Priests are going to be highly sought after for the added HP (3% more than a scroll).

This doesn't cover everything, but as you can see Disc is looking extremely good for M+ right now. The consensus among all healers is that Disc will be the top pick for M+ groups due to the utility, added DPS and healing throughput it brings. Obviously there will be balance changes between now and live so we'll see where it shakes out, but Disc is currently looking very good from a gameplay perspective, and I think that won't change drastically before launch.

To answer the question if it's "friendlier" or not, I'd say marginally it will be. Getting rid of Plea reduces the number of buttons and there are some talents that are Passive and very powerful that people could spec into making the spec a bit easier to play overall.

[Clozer]

disc in bfa will be way easier than on live.

on live using your burst heal right after a big boss ability requires you to prepare well by applying attonments with pwr and watching timers closely. (Let's be real every non mythic raider doesn't really care about boss timers and just want to do dps/heal). this is more or less gone, since our biggest burst ability is gone.

second big thing to make the spec easier is the fact that pws has no more a cd. everyone who didnt use pws on cd missed out a shit ton of hps, so that's gone too. Third thing: the plea "trap" is gone and it's even ok to use shadow mend in raids now.

so overall - yes, disc is waaaaay easier than on life. Personally im super happy with the removal of our burst healing and back to mainly using pws again is awesome. So great changes.

[MendUS]

disc in bfa will be way easier than on live.

on live using your burst heal right after a big boss ability requires you to prepare well by applying attonments with pwr and watching timers closely. (Let's be real every non mythic raider doesn't really care about boss timers and just want to do dps/heal). this is more or less gone, since our biggest burst ability is gone.

second big thing to make the spec easier is the fact that pws has no more a cd. everyone who didnt use pws on cd missed out a shit ton of hps, so that's gone too. Third thing: the plea "trap" is gone and it's even ok to use shadow mend in raids now.

so overall - yes, disc is waaaaay easier than on life. Personally im super happy with the removal of our burst healing and back to mainly using pws again is awesome. So great changes.

Burst healing is definitely not gone... it's most definitely alive and well. PW:S is extremely weak in BFA and is intended to be an efficient Atonement applicator. We still have PW:R, Penance, and Shadowfiend / MB in addition to Evangelism still being a talent. Obviously you can play the spec how you want, but if you think it's just going to be PW:S spamming you're going to be in for a rude awakening.

[Clozer]

Burst healing is definitely not gone... it's most definitely alive and well. PW:S is extremely weak in BFA and is intended to be an efficient Atonement applicator. We still have PW:R, Penance, and Shadowfiend / MB in addition to Evangelism still being a talent. Obviously you can play the spec how you want, but if you think it's just going to be PW:S spamming you're going to be in for a rude awakening.

if you miss that sniper heal of lights wrath on a big hit, you will be bottom of the meters. All you can do in bfa is penance and then smite spam. So we were cut by what 60% of our burst, if not more. So yeah we cant snipe heal/burst nearly as good. And we will surely use way more pws than we do on live.

[Nurasu]

if you miss that sniper heal of lights wrath on a big hit, you will be bottom of the meters. All you can do in bfa is penance and then smite spam. So we were cut by what 60% of our burst, if not more. So yeah we cant snipe heal/burst nearly as good. And we will surely use way more pws than we do on live.

There are still burst windows for Mindbender and Evangelism - if you miss them, you will still be at the bottom of the meters. Bfa Disc is no less preemptive than Legion Disc - you still have to have your Atonements out before you need them, and if you weren't good at doing that in Legion, you won't magically be better in Bfa just because Plea is an absorb now. Radiance is back at an 18 second recharge which also means less room for error.

[Clozer]

There are still burst windows for Mindbender and Evangelism - if you miss them, you will still be at the bottom of the meters. Bfa Disc is no less preemptive than Legion Disc - you still have to have your Atonements out before you need them, and if you weren't good at doing that in Legion, you won't magically be better in Bfa just because Plea is an absorb now. Radiance is back at an 18 second recharge which also means less room for error.

We will lose LW+Velens. So we can not snipe heal anymore, we still can prepare for a big hit with pre casting pwr but still the healing we would have done with lw+velens is now split on our other spells. So not preparing by casting 2 pwr before a big hit comes up wont cause nearly as much problems as it does right now. And healing over the course of 15 seconds with 2pwr+evan+mindbender, is no "burst" healing and surely gives way more room for errors than what you have to do with lw+velens.

[arizonapriest93]

We will lose LW+Velens. So we can not snipe heal anymore, we still can prepare for a big hit with pre casting pwr but still the healing we would have done with lw+velens is now split on our other spells. So not preparing by casting 2 pwr before a big hit comes up wont cause nearly as much problems as it does right now. And healing over the course of 15 seconds with 2pwr+evan+mindbender, is no "burst" healing and surely gives way more room for errors than what you have to do with lw+velens.

I think you're missing the point. Yes we lose LW and Velens, with Velens being the definite big hit. However you're also misdefining burst heal. You're talking meter sniping, not actual relevant healing. You're reading too much into the burst, perhaps a better term is "spurt" healing, i.e. large healing over a small, but not tiny period of time. An example would be mythic argus chains, or m aggs intermission. Concentrated damage period of about 15-20ish seconds that you pump concentrated healing over that period with bender, penance and so on. This further attests the loss of Velens, which you did point out, but the healing exists outside of that too. We don't suddenly fall back on being useless outside of velen's periods, it's just where we do most of our work. You give LW too much credit, can it be powerful? Certainly, but I'd rather have the power level of penance right now, thats what does the real heavy lifting.

You also made a statement earlier about we'll be casting pws more. Duh. It has no cd now, just because it's being cast more does not mean it is suddenly the bulk/core of our healing. That will still be atonement. Which you will want to get out before the damage comes in. Why? Because if its out when the damage hits already you're already actively healing, if you're putting them out when the damage has already hit, you're behind, you're losing people because the real core healing of disc, atonement, is missing.

To the OP's question, although I think Mend addressed it quite well, I think it will be easier to heal M+. I believe this as the bulk of the toolkit has had adjustments that allow it to be more applicable to scenarios present in m+ vs live.

[Yunzi]

PWS's lack of cooldown is a nerf to Disc's power, since the spec is balanced around it's HPS, not it's DPS. Currently the "Plea or Smite?" choice often favors Smite, particularly when the direct healing component of Plea is lost on a full health character. Now the "PWS or Smite?" choice leans toward PWS, since there's much less wasted, as well as the mana benefit to Shield Discipline. This means that Disc's HPS will rise, it's DPS will fall, and it's strength will be reduced accordingly. This also makes Disc even more of a raid healer than it currently is.

So the argument of "same gameplay, Plea just is replaced by PWS" is really wrong. BfA raid healing is a synthesis of WoD PWS spamming and Legion atonement healing.

PWS not only replaces all Plea casts, but many Smite casts as well.

[MendUS]

PWS's lack of cooldown is a nerf to Disc's power, since the spec is balanced around it's HPS, not it's DPS. Currently the "Plea or Smite?" choice often favors Smite, particularly when the direct healing component of Plea is lost on a full health character. Now the "PWS or Smite?" choice leans toward PWS, since there's much less wasted, as well as the mana benefit to Shield Discipline. This means that Disc's HPS will rise, it's DPS will fall, and it's strength will be reduced accordingly. This also makes Disc even more of a raid healer than it currently is.

So the argument of "same gameplay, Plea just is replaced by PWS" is really wrong. BfA raid healing is a synthesis of WoD PWS spamming and Legion atonement healing.

PWS not only replaces all Plea casts, but many Smite casts as well.

That's absolutely 100% incorrect. PW:S is (in terms of actual gameplay choices) an absorb version of Plea... you will still Smite/Penance if a majority of your Atonement targets have taken damage. You're over estimating the amount of absorb that PW:S does on average. If Mastery was still the way it was earlier in Beta/Alpha, sure, I could see what you're saying. The thing is that after Mastery was changed to "Grace" our healing abilities will scale relative to each other. PW:S won't become more powerful than Atonement which means DPSing to heal Atonement targets after they have taken damage will always result in more healing than casting 1 PW:S.

Let me give you an example... you have 5-8 Atonement's out and they all are below 90-95% HP so that your Smite will do sufficient healing. Would you rather cast PW:S (10% of one persons HP roughly) or would you rather cast Smite and heal those 5-8 people?

[worcester]

PWS's lack of cooldown is a nerf to Disc's power, since the spec is balanced around it's HPS, not it's DPS. Currently the "Plea or Smite?" choice often favors Smite, particularly when the direct healing component of Plea is lost on a full health character. Now the "PWS or Smite?" choice leans toward PWS, since there's much less wasted, as well as the mana benefit to Shield Discipline. This means that Disc's HPS will rise, it's DPS will fall, and it's strength will be reduced accordingly. This also makes Disc even more of a raid healer than it currently is.

So the argument of "same gameplay, Plea just is replaced by PWS" is really wrong. BfA raid healing is a synthesis of WoD PWS spamming and Legion atonement healing.

PWS not only replaces all Plea casts, but many Smite casts as well.

I think PW: S and Plea had the exact same functionality in Legion, albeit PW: S being more efficient and having a cooldown. The only reason it was separated was the backlash of absorbs being so dominant in WoD.

I think the removal of PW: S cooldown has more of an impact than it merging with Plea simply because you don't have awkward pause moments of either wasting atonement applications or PW: S recharge times. This definitely improves gameplay.

PW: S vs Smite debate is the same as PW: S + Plea vs Smite now. I don't see a big difference. PW: S contributes <10% healing with all the artifact traits which have a significant boost right now. There will be situations where each spell is useful.

To answer thread topic: Disc will definitely be better in BfA because it is more intuitive. Direct healing is no longer strictly bad. Removal of Light's Wrath allows healing to be balanced evenly over time instead of cyclically which lowers the burden of atonement set up (consequently because of PW: S changes, Rapture is another thing we don't have to track). This is more relevant in dungeons than raids because of the importance of reactive healing instead of pre-planned cooldown usage.

I personally think this is the best hybridization of MoP, WoD and Legion versions of disc. And honestly looking at the state of other specs, the mere fact that disc even came out of beta as a wholly functional spec already puts it miles ahead. Look at holy, it has taken a step backward in terms of non-raid content and I highly doubt it will ever be competitive in high m+ at this rate. Holy paladin and resto shaman also feel a bit lacking compared to Legion even though they will still probably be top tier.

On a side note: I think Lenience is low key broken in raid situations.

[Deleted]

Seing the new azerite traits i'd say disc is in a fantastic position! Not necessarily easier but in a great spot