Thoughts on Disc Priests in Wotlk

[Healbot411]

So far from what information i have gathered about priests in Wotlk i have some concerns with the functionality of the PvP healing specs. No I am not in the beta, so i haven't tested out the class, but these are just some of my thoughts.

I started playing wow when BC came out so i am not to sure how many new talent points each tree received with the expansion, but as of right now the Disc tree is getting 20!!! new slots to spend talent points.

Some of the new talents.

Renewed hope and Aspiration seem like OK talents, but i don't think priests will have enough free talent points to spend on them.

Rapture seems like a really nice addition since we are far below other PvP healing classes as far as mana conservation is concerned. 5 points to max this talent seems rough, with only 10 new talent points available its a huge chunk. Maybe condense these into 3 points instead of 5. I'm not quite sure how much mana is going to be restored through PW:S so any info from someone in the beta would be nice.

Divine Aegis at first seemed like a cool talent, but when you think about it, the whole Disc Priest healing is centered around mobility, and most of our healing and or Damage mitigation is centered around instant casts which causes this talent to looses a lot of its lackluster. I'm not saying its a worthless talent, but it would be nice to see something more in tuned to the play style of priests. Try standing still and chaining Flash/G-Heal and see how long u last in arenas.

Grace looks like a really nice talent. The 8 second duration seems a little low but it can be worked with. This will add to our survivability and the survivability of our arena partners.

Borrowed Time Also looks really beneficial to Disc Priests. Stronger PW:S is always good and the spell hast is nice to. But again another Huge chunk of our 10 new talent points available. Maybe condense these into 3 points instead of 5

Penance Looks Awesome!! I'm hoping it will be as good as i think it is. 2 sec channeling cast isn't bad and i can live with the 10 sec cooldown if it is a strong heal.



Here are some of my ideas to better suit the Disc Tree

Giving us a talent that refreshes our Pain Suppression , Inner focus, Power Infusion, and possibly Divine Hymn spells. I know what your thinking but other classes have talents like this so it isn't unreasonable.

Instead of Divine Aegis give us a talent that Dazes enemies for a few seconds within X yards of you when your PW:S is dispelled or finished.

Martyrdom seems worthless now that spell push backs have been introduced (assuming priests have 2 points in Healing focus, but who doesn't), so maybe something like a passive 10/20% reduction of interrupt effects.

I really love the buff to improved spirit since it is worthless to PvP priests at the moment because we don't have spirit on our gear

I think that Fade should be buffed to remove all moving impairments on the priest (within the base spell), and maybe merging improved Fade into the improved Shadowform so that Shadow Priests don't get screwed.


Having said all of this I'm not saying make every one of these changes but maybe take a look at some of them and rethink where the Disc Tree is going. I have heard a lot of people say the Blizz wants to make Disc Priests a viable raid healer, but wtf..., if i want to heal raids i will respec Holy, not go as Disc (for content that requires Holy not heroics and kara or Wotlk equivalent).

Maybe I'm way off and Disc Priests will be unstoppable idno these are just my gut feelings.

[Worshaka]

I appreciate you're looking at the tree from a pvp perspective but it was never blizzards intention to make disc the 'pvp' tree and holy the 'pve' tree.

As such the talents/changes introduced into the Disc tree have had a realy pve slant because it was under represented in TBC. You have to expect that most of the new talents/abilities are probably going to be more ideal for PvE.

As for PvP there is still plenty of funcionality in the tree... you're just going to have to decide what doesnt cut it for PvP and trim your points that way.

My personal belief is that there is nothing wrong with priests in PvP it's just that resto druids became far too powerful and as such are in need of a decent nerf. Their healing power, combined with their mobility, mana effeciency, surviability, uninterruptable heals, cc/root/snare resistance and awesome CC (Cyclone, Feral Charge & Bash) just made the other healing classes very lacklusture. I think that occured because druids were seen as a poor class in classic and blizzard over compensated.

The PvP environment these days is definitely about mobility so they need to remove some druid mobility or their mobility needs to come at a greater cost. I think priests were right on the money for mobility vs cost, and at the poor end were Shamans and Paladins that have to be still to heal. At least paladins get to wear plate mail and have some very nice defensive abilities and they did try to buff holy shock as a way to increase mobility but at the end of the day the classes that had to stand still when healing failed miserably.

[Healbot411]

I appreciate you're looking at the tree from a pvp perspective but it was never blizzards intention to make disc the 'pvp' tree and holy the 'pve' tree.

As such the talents/changes introduced into the Disc tree have had a realy pve slant because it was under represented in TBC. You have to expect that most of the new talents/abilities are probably going to be more ideal for PvE.

As for PvP there is still plenty of funcionality in the tree... you're just going to have to decide what doesnt cut it for PvP and trim your points that way.

My personal belief is that there is nothing wrong with priests in PvP it's just that resto druids became far too powerful and as such are in need of a decent nerf. Their healing power, combined with their mobility, mana effeciency, surviability, uninterruptable heals, cc/root/snare resistance and awesome CC (Cyclone, Feral Charge & Bash) just made the other healing classes very lacklusture. I think that occured because druids were seen as a poor class in classic and blizzard over compensated.

The PvP environment these days is definitely about mobility so they need to remove some druid mobility or their mobility needs to come at a greater cost. I think priests were right on the money for mobility vs cost, and at the poor end were Shamans and Paladins that have to be still to heal. At least paladins get to wear plate mail and have some very nice defensive abilities and they did try to buff holy shock as a way to increase mobility but at the end of the day the classes that had to stand still when healing failed miserably.

Im always glad to hear other peoples point of view, but i have to disagree with you on the basis of your post. Whether or not Blizz wants Disc to be PvP oriented it is. If you want to heal 5 mans, groups, and raids then why oh why wouldn't you go Holy, more healing, free heals, and CoH (not saying u cant do most of these things as disc but your way more efficient as holy). If you want to heal in arena's you are forced to go in there with PS, thats not an option (if your serious). So thats 41 points already assigned to disc. And furthermore healing PvE with shields on the MT is just not a good idea (rage starvation, mana regen, and threat issues). Not saying that a well times shield can't be useful in PvE, but its not something most tanks want thrown on them regularly. So if they are trying to make us more PvE oriented then why dont they address this problem with shields (since 18 talent points in disc are centered around PW:S). Furthermore if you are going into the disc tree just for the Divine Aegis then i wish u the best of luck...... this will even complicate the shield problem more.

As for the mobility part of your post i agree with most of what you said. Mobility is the key to PvP and especially PvP healing. Since its not likely they will ever tone down Druids being so OP, then all we can hope for is that blizz gives us enough mobility to compete with the new talents and spells coming out. Yes we have more instant casts than paladins and Shaman, but they get some spells to counter this like Ghost wolf and Blessing of Freedom, so dont feel to sorry for them.

[Gothri]

Im always glad to hear other peoples point of view, but i have to disagree with you on the basis of your post. Whether or not Blizz wants Disc to be PvP oriented it is. If you want to heal 5 mans, groups, and raids then why oh why wouldn't you go Holy, more healing, free heals, and CoH (not saying u cant do most of these things as disc but your way more efficient as holy). ... Not saying that a well times shield can't be useful in PvE, but its not something most tanks want thrown on them regularly. So if they are trying to make us more PvE oriented then why dont they address this problem with shields (since 18 talent points in disc are centered around PW:S). Furthermore if you are going into the disc tree just for the Divine Aegis then i wish u the best of luck...... this will even complicate the shield problem more.

Koraa in a blue post today has said that threat and rage/mana will be different in 3.0. He has apparently healed 5-, 10- and 25-mans as Discipline in beta and said that there were no problems with the tank losing aggro.

I'm reposting this also since it is apt:

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I think people may be missing the point.

I perceive the Holy tree as being the "health restoration" tree, and Discipline as being the "damage mitigation" tree. Owing to the priorities and mechanics of PvP it is not surprising that Discipline is better suited to PvP.

But in a raid or instancing environment, I see no reason why Holy should automatically be better than Discipline. Each tree is approaching the problem of PvE damage from completely different perspectives. One complaint I've read over and over is that Discipline doesn't do as much hp/s as Holy. Well, duh. But if played properly, Discipline mitigates enough damage to close the gap. Another way to look at it is to compare a bear druid and a prot pally on the last trash pull before Nalorakk in ZA in TBC. If you analyze the data after the pull (they both tank identical groups), the bear druid has taken much less damage and, therefore, has taken less healing.

I'm excited by the different style of PvE play that the Discipline tree potentially represents. I just hope Blizzard gets it right.

[Mora]

I disagree that Holy is the clearcut better way to spec for healing. What does a holy priest do in the time between heals? Wind up more heals because there's no additional mitigation...after I get a decent crit heal and a bubble and a mending on the tank, I'll be free to toss some DPS spells to help us move along faster. I'll be able to regen mana both through casting spells and through side regen, I won't need free heals. AND I'll be better suited for PVP, as has been expressed here.

I am not seeing how holy is that much better than disc. Here's a good way to look at it...Holy may heal for 30% more on a crit than I would heal for, but a lot of that could be overhealing. Where as my heal will proc a bubble which, as long as the target is taking damage, is 100% effective. no overheal. Gotta look at the good, not the bad here guys.

[Ntrails]

1: I'll be free to toss some DPS spells to help us move along faster.

2: I am not seeing how holy is that much better than disc. Here's a good way to look at it...Holy may heal for 30% more on a crit than I would heal for, but a lot of that could be overhealing. Where as my heal will proc a bubble which, as long as the target is taking damage, is 100% effective. no overheal. Gotta look at the good, not the bad here guys.

1: You would seriously do that? Outside of massively easy content.... why? 5sr applies to you too, no one is going to be completely avoiding mana issues, just ugh.

2: You have benefits and negatives. That is an extremely specific situation in which you may perform mildly more efficiently. Holy heals for more, thereby needing to heal less frantically, may be more mana efficient, has a more powerful renew allowing Gheal, renew, and then stopcasting until nec to get outside 5sr.... Wait til you can go in an instance and do your job and then see how it performs.

[Mora]

On live, when doing felmyst, when she flies into the air, I always throw a shadow word pain and a holy fire, assuming I'm not targeted by the beam. That's just one example, but yes, I throw damage spells around a fair amount.

Well, on the PTR I have solo healed a kara run (yeah, I know it's just kara, but it still proves the point) and I had no problems...Kept my mana up, kept dotting opponents, and kept the group alive. Mana kept coming in from the bubbles I had placed and from the heals that were needed, so 5SR didn't play as much for me. I will have to see how it works at 80, but by then i'll have even more talents to play with. (I healed as a 48/13 for inspiration)

[Ugoli]

Better...is relative.

Discipline Priests are gonna be a new option for a raid in my opinion. It will all come down to your playing style and how much you number crunch. If you belong to raiding guild that give a character 3 lashes for being second on healing done then you will be obssessed with which classes you bring and if they are "better" than other classes.

If you are the vast majority of raiding guilds (that have realistic expectations of players) in WoW, then you realise that Priest Paul sometimes has RL issues and won't make Thursday night's raid. So you have to take Pally Pete or whoever is available. Can they do a better a job? Does it matter? Did you finish the instance and get what you wanted out of it? If raids start wiping because they had Disc Priests compared to Holy Priests then the question can be raised over Discipline's future. I doubt this will ever happen.

From some of the testing I have done on PTR with a deep Disc tree, the mana regen (not to mention mana pool), damage mitigation and threat dump abilities that Disc brings makes it the specc of choice for me.

Imagine this scenario: Boss X needs a DPS race. So ranged and melee DPS are going flat out, just before aggroing the Disc Priests start Pain Suppression on the culprits that are about to beat the MT. Coupled with those classes own threat dumps, or in scenarios where those dumps are resisted (hunter FD), PS suddenly comes into its own. Its not a lot of threat dump but it could be a life saver. Very useful.

Having said that it would be useful if PS could come in an Amplify Magic/Dampen Magic flavour, i.e. you can boost a tank's threat that has had a string of misses. Or Disc Priests can bang "modified PS" (if it existed) on a tank at fight start.

Rapture and Borrowed Time keep the deep Disc healer as a very useful addition in my opinion. Without haste gems BT can decrease the cast time so much that gem slots can be free for gems that could be very useful to Disc Priests, e.g. Int, Crit etc. Int seems to be central to a succesful Disc Priest (with initial observations).

If you are feeling blue about the Priest class in WoTLK, give deep Discipline a go, I think you won't be disappointed. Even if you level to 80 with that specc.

[MortuariusBC]

I appreciate you're looking at the tree from a pvp perspective but it was never blizzards intention to make disc the 'pvp' tree and holy the 'pve' tree.

As such the talents/changes introduced into the Disc tree have had a realy pve slant because it was under represented in TBC. You have to expect that most of the new talents/abilities are probably going to be more ideal for PvE.

As for PvP there is still plenty of funcionality in the tree... you're just going to have to decide what doesnt cut it for PvP and trim your points that way.

My personal belief is that there is nothing wrong with priests in PvP it's just that resto druids became far too powerful and as such are in need of a decent nerf. Their healing power, combined with their mobility, mana effeciency, surviability, uninterruptable heals, cc/root/snare resistance and awesome CC (Cyclone, Feral Charge & Bash) just made the other healing classes very lacklusture. I think that occured because druids were seen as a poor class in classic and blizzard over compensated.

The PvP environment these days is definitely about mobility so they need to remove some druid mobility or their mobility needs to come at a greater cost. I think priests were right on the money for mobility vs cost, and at the poor end were Shamans and Paladins that have to be still to heal. At least paladins get to wear plate mail and have some very nice defensive abilities and they did try to buff holy shock as a way to increase mobility but at the end of the day the classes that had to stand still when healing failed miserably.

life bloom overdone and great mana regen

this is why resto was overpowered and it was mostly in smaller scale pvp 2s and 3s in particular and to an extent WSG because that game is about running and/or turtling

ever see a resto in 5v5? maybe... but their surviveability goes down the tube the 2nd they get stunned in caster for and a pally pops JoJ on them

priest were very well represented in 2s 3s and 5s till the later seasons when resto shaman seemed to be the trend

id love to see disc retuned, i think blizzard lost their way in terms of direction of the class in the disc tree

[Gothri]

life bloom overdone and great mana regen

ever see a resto in 5v5? maybe... but their surviveability goes down the tube the 2nd they get stunned in caster for and a pally pops JoJ on them

priest were very well represented in 2s 3s and 5s till the later seasons when resto shaman seemed to be the trend

You can't compare the Disc tree in 3.0 and WotLK with the things you are experiencing in live. The mechanics are changing. Lifebloom has been nerfed. Druids will probably still be the healing class of choice for 2v2 and possibly for PvP in general, but there's no way to know for sure right now. Everything is still in beta.

In PvE, I feel pretty good that Discipline will be raid viable in LK.