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  1. #1

    [Priest] State of Discipline - 4.0.6

    Alright, so continuing the current trends, this is a continuation of the last thread here.

    New patch going up. Yay. What's changed?

    Power Word: Shield was buffed significantly.

    Strength of Soul applying to all the spells Chakra Serenity does helps to bring the specs closer in line.

    The Focused Will change is already live.

    Atonement is now capped to prevent its abuse on gimmick fights.

    And Grace is no longer single-target.

    The first two would look further cement the idea that Discipline is a "tank healer", but most people will overlook just how much of an impact the Grace change is when it comes to raid healing.

    So long as the buffed Shield doesn't become the "go-to" spell, and hold off Wrath, this looks to hold Discipline in a rock-solid place.

    What's your take?
    Last edited by Kelesti; 2011-01-06 at 05:14 PM.
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  2. #2
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    I'm giving Disc another try in Heroics after these changes.

    I don't know if I'm going to bother with Atonement. I just prefer the knowledge that Heal will be guaranteed to heal who I want. 15 yards still seems small.

    Grace buff is very nice. It felt useless a lot before because it would drop off the tank as soon as I went to heal someone else.

    Shield Spam? Probably gonna be doing that in 5 mans, maybe 10s to some degree.
    Last edited by Failmuffins; 2011-01-06 at 05:06 PM.

  3. #3
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    What failmuffins said. Looking at these changes, I might have to get rid of my shadow offspec and dive into trying out Disc again. It didn't seem very great before for 5 mans, but a lot of these changes look good. I'm expecially glad they finally stopped Grace overriding. That should help raid healing, and even tank healing on fights where there are multiple tanks.

    I hope PW:S hasn't been overbuffed to the point where its WolTK shield spam again. Obviously the mana cost forbids this, but I like to think of the spell as a tank rotational ability and a "I need to stop the damage on X person to give me a chance to heal them". Look like they might of finally gotten there with these changes.

    SoS is also nice for tank healing, for when we must use a FH or GH. Wish that change was there from the beginning though =(

  4. #4
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    I very much hope these changes stick and go live - very positive things for discipline - the Buff to PW:S and Grace alone are just awesome and firmly put Disc up there as a competant tank healer. [currently feels like tank support healer] I guess PW:S will become a life saver again rather than a slight buffer to damage. All good stuff. I just hope the current rapture mana return stays as it is.
    I cant see shield spam happening - mana is and will remain premium - we still need to watch it and once we start hitting heroic raiding we will again struggle no doubt.
    Atonement changes are already in-game - shame it isnt affected by Grace though...and shame Atonement is still random...

    Overall - a huge step in the right direction for Disc.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Failmuffins View Post
    I'm giving Disc another try in Heroic safter these changes.

    I don't know if I'm going to bother with Atonement. I just prefer the knowledge that Heal will be guaranteed to heal who I want. 15 yards still seems small.

    Grace buff is very nice. It felt useless a lot before because it would drop off the tank as soon as I went to heal someone else.

    Shield Spam? Probably gonna be doing that in 5 mans, maybe 10s to some degree.
    trust me your not gonna be shield spaming...do you see that mana cost!

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by PlatedPriest View Post
    trust me your not gonna be shield spaming...do you see that mana cost!
    True... maybe spam is an extreme, but I think Disc will be using them a lot more if they aren't the high-cost paper-shield that they are currently.

  7. #7
    I may have been wrong on Archangel (no matter how clunky it feels) but is it just me or is Atonement still a complete piece of crap, and actually forced to remain so by Blizzard?
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  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kelesti View Post
    I may have been wrong on Archangel (no matter how clunky it feels) but is it just me or is Atonement still a complete piece of crap, and actually forced to remain so by Blizzard?
    I used to hate Atonement spec - But now i absolutely love it. Yea - the heals may be random in the sence that they may not land on the person that needs it most - BUT overall ive had good results. For example: Blackwing Descent: Maloriak, I used Atonement pretty much all through the encounter and i would say 80% of the heals from it luckily landed on the tank. the good thing about Atonement is you have 18 secs max until your stack drops off - so inbetween Smites you can cast whatever other healing spells you need to until you can resume smiting.
    Heres my WOL report for Maloriak if you or anyone is interested..also for what its worth i was ranked too.

    http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/u...?s=6289&e=6643

  9. #9
    I'm excited more than anything else by the change to SoS. That's going to be dead sexy.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Kelesti View Post
    I may have been wrong on Archangel (no matter how clunky it feels) but is it just me or is Atonement still a complete piece of crap, and actually forced to remain so by Blizzard?
    It all depends. It may just be in 25 mans, but I was looking at a few WoLs and I see that Atonement Priests do fairly well. I went and tried an Atonement spec myself and it's interesting. I pumped out 2.1 and 2.5mil damage on our two progression 25man kills. This accounted for roughly 2.5mil+ healing. If I compare myself to the Holy Priests or the other healers for that matter I stayed 'fairly' close behind them. If I didn't pump out that damage and heal the melee I'm sure we would have wiped all night on those two fights. I guess (with all specs) it depends on your play style and what you are good at.

    I want to iterate that I wasn't spamming Smite/HF glyphed all night. I pumped out bubbles for Rapture and used Inner Focus/PoH with a BT proc when I could.

    Thanks to Amalisa for this great Sig!

  11. #11
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    This.
    Quote Originally Posted by PlatedPriest View Post
    trust me your not gonna be shield spaming...do you see that mana cost!
    I think the cost increase coupled with the buff make this a much better safety net to be cast on certain low-health members, rather than anything you would want to spam. It was just too weak before, imo.

    Also, as long as Grace is applied from PoH, the changes are freakin' awesome.
    Last edited by Deadkipper; 2011-01-06 at 06:08 PM.
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  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Deadkipper View Post
    Plus, as long as Grace is applied from PoH, the changes are freakin' awesome.
    Why would it be?

    Grace is still only applied by the same spells, it just doesn't fall off the second you touch someone else.
    Last edited by Kelesti; 2011-02-20 at 04:27 AM.
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  13. #13
    So with the change, there's probably no reason to have Heal on my bar. Greater Heal lowering both Weakened Soul AND the Inner Focus cooldown seems like it would make Heal undesirable.

  14. #14
    I'm pretty happy about all of them. During the first few weeks of Cataclysm I spent a lot of my time trying to contribute and bump threads on the Official Priest forums that argued for a lot of these points, so I don't feel like that was all a waste of time. Especially the Power Word: Shield buff. No one wants to go back to Wrath but our supposedly main healing spell was made as something to break once and get goodies out of. Now I might actually want to get some of my mastery back.

    Grace with multiple targets...That'll be so great. Being a Disc Priest trying to heal even easy AoE damage always feels like I'm grasping for straws even though it is currently manageable.

    SoS being buffed makes me very happy. I had actually spec'd out of it because it was so useless.

    Atonement being capped makes me a sad panda though. It's a step back for us Evangelism/Smite healers. I still think Evangelism/Smite healing needs more buffs so that it can be more viable in 10 man raiding though.

    I don't know if I'm going to bother with Atonement. I just prefer the knowledge that Heal will be guaranteed to heal who I want. 15 yards still seems small.
    Not saying you should try it as it's pretty much a spec for people that like to take a little risk in their healing and not extremely viable in raiding BUT...it is the same range as Circle of Healing now.

    I am kind of sad to see so many people just gave up Disc previously instead of learning to work with it, which thanks to the great Priests on the official forums I was able to do. But at the same time I know Disc was probably the worst healing spec and a lot of people just did not want to deal with it. Huge step in the right direction indeed, if this works out how we hope, then Disc will only need tweaking instead of massive buffs like this. And maybe they can finally give some attention to Smite healing.

    I may have been wrong on Archangel (no matter how clunky it feels) but is it just me or is Atonement still a complete piece of crap, and actually forced to remain so by Blizzard?
    I been using it since ICC and I gotta say, it feels pretty damn good to heal 3 people for 14k each sometimes while maintaining 3-5k DPS. I think Atonement is fine (hopefully it will still be after this patch) but the way you get your stacks up is too slow and clunky for great use in 10 man raids (correct me if I'm wrong as I've yet to do them in Cata) They need to make Evangelism much last longer or make Smite cast faster to start with because at least in ICC 10 it felt like I was leaving my other healers to deal with actually healing while I just spammed Smite to get my stacks up. It's just not real viable for fights with only 1 or 2 other healers with a lot of movement.

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  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kelesti View Post
    Why would it be?

    Grace is still only applied by the same spells, it just doesn't fall off the second you touch someone else.
    You have to admit, it would have been nice, though.

    Still good even if it is off the same spells.
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  16. #16
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    I'm thrilled with the changes. I love the feel of a disc priest and wouldn't have moved away from it, buffs or no buffs.
    I honestly feel like the shield buff, while completely necessary is going to be too over powered. As it is, I still almost spam shields as I have stacked nothing but straight mastery. We are an absorbs class and stat stacking in any other fashion moves away from our general healing niche.

    I had become accustomed to saving my penance for the tank in order to reapply my 3 stacks of grace if I had healed any other member, so these new changes to grace will only make things a thousand times easier.

    Plus with the new changes to SoS it will be a talent that I again spec into. I had moved away from it towards ToT because I found I was never using heal unless I was in a less hectic situation. Heal is a great spell and I'm using it more and more but the fact that a shield will now stay on it's target for even one extra second will already make SoS more appealing and to add the addition of our other two main heals will make it a needed talent.

    Overall, I think these changes are going to make me feel a little overpowered again. The mana increase to the shields is minimal and with the shields being twice as strong I see more heals being cast in the future and therefore less mana used over all. I anticipate that many of the former disc priests will return to disc and that we will once again be back on top of the meters. Given that mastery is now even more attractive than before, combined with the DA procs off PoH, I can't wait to see this new spec in action before it gets nerfed backed to oblivion again.

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Kelesti View Post
    I may have been wrong on Archangel (no matter how clunky it feels) but is it just me or is Atonement still a complete piece of crap, and actually forced to remain so by Blizzard?
    complete piece of crap may be pushing a litlle to far but yeah, i won't spec into it until they (maybe) change it so its healing goes to those who have the grace buff (now that it can affect more than one target at a time).

    maybe divide it among all grace stacks? (10k smite, 1 target with 3 stacks, another with 2 => first gets 6k healing while the other receives 4k) and return to default smart heal behaviour if no graced players around smited target?

  18. #18
    Possibly the best disc priest (pvp) change I've seen since, goodness, since penance was introduced probably:

    The PvP Priest 4-piece set bonus has been redesigned. When Power Word: Shield is cast on the priest, movement speed reduction effects are temporally suppressed for 4 seconds.
    I can finally get away ?

    <3

  19. #19
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    Hmm with the new official PTR patch notes, Im not seeing the grace changes anymore, anyone else notice this??
    It was on the first post a few hours ago now nothing =(

  20. #20
    I am so very happy with all the current buffs to PW:S and SoS!! Grace not dropping everytime you switched heal target is a major plus!! If for whatever reason it drops from the tank you can always open with Penance to reapply 3 stacks of Grace

    The only way i will use Atonement is if they give us a buff similar to Beacon so we can select the primary receiver of the heals. Imagine if you could "Beacon" a tank and go to town the boss while gets healed
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