[Priest] State of Discipline - 4.0.6

[Iannis]

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

Im down with that too, again just nervous that the Grace change has already been scrapped. Cant find it anywhere on the "official" notes. Also it looks like PWS now costs 31% more mana for 208% more effect, wiggy

[Dahrken]

It doesn't appear in the official notes, the data initially on the MMO Champion page was datamined though wasn't it?

[[-Spiritus-]]

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.

Oh hai! Yeah, let me put it this way. My guild is trialing a second paladin for a raider spot. Because of these changes, and the possible addition of a 2nd paladin to my raid, I am 99% sure I am going to move back to holy for the foreseeable future.

Disc has been, with these changes, cemented as a fantastic tank healer. Being able to keep Grace up on both the MT & OT allows for more liberal use of penance [ie, no longer a grace applier]. Shields now cost 31% more, but has its base amount increased by x2? The mana cost now makes it even more prohibitive in raid healing & reduces the net mana gain on rapture. However, with GH triggering both ToT & SoS, single target throughput has increased dramatically and finally feels synergistic with PW:S being a bigger bubble and not just a mana pinata.

I do not see the grace change having any sort of impact on raid healing, tbh, unless PoH starts applying grace, which will never happen b/c the talent is meant as a buff to single target throughput. As a disc priest, PoH is the only serious tool you have to counter heavy raid damage, so unless you are talking about a primary tank healing disc priest spot healing a low DPS via PW:S->Penance, I don't see how grace is worth a spit to anyone other than a tank. Quite honestly, the DA "fix" to disc PoH was just that, a fix. It allowed, in a pinch, for disc to be somewhat competitive with other raid healers. However, in order to be any sort of competitive at raid healing, it is imperative for a disc priest to be flatfooted, something that doesn't bode well in most Cata fights. Quite honestly, the only reason why a disc priest should be a raid healer is if the raid has two paladins and the raid requires PW:B & PS. If there are one or no paladins in your raid, your disc priest should be tank healing. If your raid has two paladins and the raid does NOT require PW:B & PS, then you should consider holy.

Of course, this is from a min/max perspective. As been said many times before, most healers in cata can fill any role they desire and still do a decent job.

[KnickKnack]

So now the grace change is not being implemented?? BB now posted the offical changes and I don't see all those wonderful things from the last batch of fixes.

[Bigslick]

So now the grace change is not being implemented?? BB now posted the offical changes and I don't see all those wonderful things from the last batch of fixes.

The official patch notes don't necessarily reveal everything, so it's possible some of the datamined information is valid as well.

I'm very excited by these changes, and hope they prove sufficient and yet not so strong that Blizzard needs to swing back the other direction. SoS is fantastic with this update, and if the datamined grace change holds true then tank healing will be a lot less distressing when you need to fire off some individual heals -- or when you are dealing with a tank swap and want to pre-load grace on the incoming tank without losing it on the outgoing.

[Moistie]

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.

is this mana-feasible for a priest?

[KnickKnack]

is this mana-feasible for a priest?

It will be his problem. Flash Heal and Greater Heal will be sucking the mana out of him.

[JustTed]

As the others are saying, I really hope that the Grace change makes it live. While, I have no problem using Binding Heal, it would be nice to be able to use Penance and FHeal on targets that are about to go down without removing Grace from the tank.

[BishopXQ]

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.

I agree 100%. If all this goes live my Disc priest will be used again. Some much needed changes that make sense. I don't know which of you all slept with one of the Blizzard GM's to get this done, but thank you for this

[sacrypheyes]

while buffs are always better than nerfs (well when they're needed), i just don't get why many sound like disc was a broken spec blablabla, at least for pve (pvp's another story). i mean, i've had little to no problem healing hc or raids up until now. i don't mean i'm a pro or that some spells didn't need some love, but it was okay.

[[-Spiritus-]]

is this mana-feasible for a priest?

Even before this change, GH w/ ToT x2 had nearly the same HPM as Heal, while outputting 260% the HPS. Now it becomes even more efficient with GH effecting SoS.

i just don't get why many sound like disc was a broken spec blablabla, at least for pve (pvp's another story).

It wasn't broken, just not polished. Things like the grace mechanic and SoS seemed clunky in a raiding environment.

[Preacherman]

while buffs are always better than nerfs (well when they're needed), i just don't get why many sound like disc was a broken spec blablabla, at least for pve (pvp's another story). i mean, i've had little to no problem healing hc or raids up until now. i don't mean i'm a pro or that some spells didn't need some love, but it was okay.

So you were perfectly fine being a handicapped holy priest? No one said you could not heal raids or heroics, you were just better off being replaced by any other healing class that could have done it twice as good.

[saberon]

I'm loving these buffs.
Favourites include:

PW:S Is more than doubled, for ~30% increase in mana.
Rapture is now 6% (which MORE than makes up for the PW:S Mana increase)
Strength of Soul - Wow. Along with Train of thought, this will make tank healing absurd.

[Zephriel]

Has ne1 been on PTR and confirmed the grace changes? God I hope these go live on Tuesday... i hate healing as holy

[sacrypheyes]

So you were perfectly fine being a handicapped holy priest? No one said you could not heal raids or heroics, you were just better off being replaced by any other healing class that could have done it twice as good.

i didn't feel like disc nor holy could be qualified as "handicapped". last patches (or hotfixes whatever) made it more comfortable (quite a bit too much imo) but yeah, what we needed most was tweaking, not buffing.

and the only ones who could potentially considered as doing twice as good as any other heal spec were HPallies, while they're still a bit above other healers, they're not as far ahead as they were few patches before, and upcoming patch may take them back in line with everyone else at last.

[shaa]

I wish they'd make SoS proc w/ binding heal as well...

[Deleted]

Grace is my main bugbear with disc at the moment. Having to GHeal for heals on anyone other than the tank so that penance is up to restack grace is a bit of a chore. Also means healing two tanks at once is pretty gimped.

Really hoping the grace change goes live.

[Siri]

I think atonement overall is very mistreated by the community, none expects you to heal fully with smites, and it's not awesome on all encounters but the fact of the matter is that smite heals for a significantly higher amount than Heal, has a shorter cast time and with full evangelism it is only slightly more expensive. Sure, you can't target the heal but it will target the person with the largest deficit which is where you would want the heal most of the time anyway.

Clearly if a lot of people need a lot of healing you're not going to keep smiting. Pop archangel for the healing buff and start using something else.

One has to be aware that there are times where it's simply not reasonable to to use a smite spec for much of anything, like phase three of the Ascendant Council encounter for instance.

In regards to the changes as a whole I think this puts disc in a MUCH better place and I will probably even use it for a bunch of encounters now. I am a bit wary of the PW: Shield buff as this may very well make it way too good to the degree where it will get nerfed later.

[Karzen]

Removing grace clunkiness and improving our shields (I was thinking before the patch notes that the shield should absorb about 25k to be useful, in my gear it'll be about 30-31k with raid buffs, which makes me even happier!). The extra mana cost means I have to be wiser about when I use it and I may run inner will for progression fights where mana is an issue.

SoS becoming a useful talent makes me happy as I have always liked it, but have had to respec out of it due to the sheer usefulness of it. I will have to play around with my spec to find a good balance between getting atonement/archangel, SoS, ToT, and the new Surge of Light. I really am thinking for raids I may have to let go of AA, even though it has its place.

Maybe this will make people realize that even though already disc is a great raid healer, they will be even better put in the hands of the right person, and not say to go holy or go home.

[babylon]

im very happy with the changes but not sure if there was a need for all of them. comparing to other healers, maybe with exception of holy paladins, i been feeling quite powerful already (i only have the comparison of 10 man environment)

as for pvp, i hope the changes will help, but already can imagine myself going ape at my (+208%)15/30% fancier shield being dispelled right after cast :P