Tier 11 Disc Vs Holy, come help the fight

[[-Spiritus-]]

Actually I am still shield spamming and I am still #1 hps.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOk2lNb8ToM

When 47.5%[ish] of your HPS is attributable to PoH and only 34% is from PW:S, I'm not certain if you can call it "shield spam" anymore.

Also, the only thing that makes the number of shields that you cast viable is 2 rotated MTTs [which may have been matched to the Grounded Soul ICD, but I can't tell that for certain].

3.0.6 will put a serious dent in that viability.

EDIT: Overall, though, nice minmaxing.

[Vordie]

Let's see...

4pT10: 5% to PW:S (80%+ of your healing), 10% to CoH (<15% of your healing)
3x better for Disc? Balanced.

4pT8: +250 SP for 5s after PW:S
Useless as Holy? Balanced.
Disc gets either equal, or as low as 83% out of the bonus as Holy. Gross imbalance, clearly. We've never seen sets that favor a spec before. Evar. Oh wait... they almost always favor a spec if the same set is used for multiple specs. T7 and T9 PoM bonuses gave Holy a disproportional buff as well. Heresy!

So you're saying we are being punished, because Blizzard didn't (and doesn't) know what balance is?

I think it's a good idea to have +spirit when rapture procs.

[scandore8472]

You seem to be really dense, and I'm sorry you are. You seem to be FAILING greatly to see the point. If I were to cast penance on a target without weakened soul, I'm now locked out of getting the buff. No other healers have that sort of worry. NONE of them do, except disc. Why is that difficult for you to understand?

The better question is why would you be casting penance on someone without weakened soul? 1) Renewed Hope increases the crit chance by 10% on targets that have weakened soul. 2) Penance doesn't consume BT. I generally only cast penance on someone right after I've shielded them first.

[Dediatha]

The better question is why would you be casting penance on someone without weakened soul? 1) Renewed Hope increases the crit chance by 10% on targets that have weakened soul. 2) Penance doesn't consume BT. I generally only cast penance on someone right after I've shielded them first.

Normally, I do too, but there are chances where it doesn't happen. Sometimes, you might just cast penance first. Is it wrong? Yes, but it's a reaction. That's my point. Also, there are fights and mechanics in the game where you wouldn't bubble a person. Just an example on an old fight, Jaraxxus. Part of the fight you had to heal a person with Incinerate Flesh which bubbles had 0 effect on. I'm sure we'll see more things like this. Now that's just 1 small mechanic, but Blizz has been known to put things like this in game. Another concern, if let's say, we casted a shield on the person already, and an effect happens that by passes shield mechanics. Maybe something that brings you down to 10% health no matter what damage mitigation you have. After the effect, you want to shield and penance a target, but the shield you have on is stronger then the one you are casting, so your penance hits a non-weakened soul target. Or, you have another disc in raid, you go to penance the tank, but the other priest heals him with strength of soul. Now WS falls off, and you're stuck waiting 10 more seconds. This last one is currently the biggest concern of many disc priests.

No other healer has to worry about another healer messing up their bonus. No other healer has to worry about a debuff falling off at the last second. No one else has to manage a debuff at all on top of casting a spell with a CD. Is it really wrong that we just want to have a normal mechanic for this buff like the other 4 healers? I think not.

[harky]

Actually I am still shield spamming and I am still #1 hps.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOk2lNb8ToM

Interesting. 'Shield Spamming' now means getting less than 1/3rd of your healing from PW:S casts and over 50% from PoH? Very interesting...

You're casting shields on the move because otherwise you'd have nothing to cast. Because you move a lot on that fight, you shield a lot. Not even remotely close to what shield spamming implies.

[sp101]

Interesting. 'Shield Spamming' now means getting less than 1/3rd of your healing from PW:S casts and over 50% from PoH? Very interesting...

You're casting shields on the move because otherwise you'd have nothing to cast. Because you move a lot on that fight, you shield a lot. Not even remotely close to what shield spamming implies.

I've been wondering, how does Holy Nova HPS compares to bubble spam HPS assuming you have 5 targets in range? I've always just holy nova spammed on my way to the next position on Magmaw >.<

[[-Spiritus-]]

I've been wondering, how does Holy Nova HPS compares to bubble spam HPS assuming you have 5 targets in range? I've always just holy nova spammed on my way to the next position on Magmaw >.<

It really depends on what the damage patterns look like. If everyone is at an even health %, I can see HN being a decent cast. However, if you have 4 or 5 people that are at 30% while the rest are at 70%, I would throw PW:S on the 30%ers before I ever reached for HN.

[harky]

I've been wondering, how does Holy Nova HPS compares to bubble spam HPS assuming you have 5 targets in range? I've always just holy nova spammed on my way to the next position on Magmaw >.<

With say 8k SP Holy Nova would heal for 3.4k. With 8k SP and 15 Mastery PW:S would absorb 11k and heal for 2.2k. So yes, Holy Nova should be better assuming it doesn't overheal by more than 30%.


And realist, why is the glyph of Penance considered baseline? Why are you given incentives for casting Penance on WS targets? Why Rapture designed around alternating PW:S on two tanks?

You can't be pigeonholed into something you're already doing. You're already doing it. Now you're still doing it, but you get a cookie. You want it to be 12 seconds so that the glyph isn't required to use it for full uptime? Sure, why not. You want it to be 15s so that it lines up with the WS duration? Cool beans. Is any of that actually needed? No. You're using Penance on CD on tanks anyway. You're complaining about free cookies. Personally I freakin' love free cookies. Hell, I even like paying for them. Holy crap, you know what, I've been known to go out of my way to bake me some cookies. You think someone else got a better cookie. I feel your pain. But you know what, get some milk to dip it in and chow down. You've still got a damn good cookie on your hands. You know what happened the last time Priests bitched about their free cookie? Our T10 was changed from Renew, to CoH. They took half our damn cookie away because some short-sighted Priests didn't realize how good our cookie bag was.

Please, think of the cookies.

[harky]

Penance is being used on tanks for Inspiration. Why did you think you were taking that talent? Why did you think the crit bonus from WS was important?

I'm sorry, but it really is a free cookie. You'll be using PW:S on your two primary tanks (things like Halfus are different, of course) and using Penance on cooldown on them to keep Inspiration active. This is your first order of business. Your spec encourages it. Your glyphs encourage it. Virtually any raid comp encourages it. Why would you complain that now one more thing encourages it.

And just an addition here... you're assuming that a tank 'needs a boost' every 10 seconds is needed. Sorry, but that's just not how hardmodes, or raids in general work. The likelihood of a tank not needing a heal at any given time is very low. Our tanks are almost never at full health.

As far as bias, ignorance, or experience? I've been main spec Discipline for about two weeks now. In that time I've used Penance on cooldown in pretty much every fight. The only exception has been Halfus. Here we have a Shaman make sure AH is maintained instead.

[Dediatha]

I'm having so much trouble reading Harky's posts without wanting to laugh and/or scream. I know for a fact not all discs are on the tanks full time (that's what the pallys do!). The shammies with ES on the tank are keeping up inspiration so... again... someone else is doing that already. MY first order of business is to support the other healers in whatever they need help with. Raid took extra damage, here's my shields and faster PoH's (cause I shielded and got BT). Oh noes, the tank is dipping, here's a fancy shield and some quick heals!. Random people about the raid are taking damage (think flash freeze on Maloriak) here comes some spot heals! Nothing's going on? Here's some bubbles before that huge AoE hits everyone! All we want is our buss to be 1 spell. Keep it at 10 seconds and make it proc just off penance being cast! That is ALL we want. We'd be able to use the spell how we see fit at least then. You know that whole design blizz has for healers right now? Using the right tool for the right tool for the right time? We just want to be able to follow Blizzard's design!

I'm sure in 2 weeks you have mastered what it is to be disc. Let's let all the BC disc priests go hide in our caves now, this guy obviously knows more then us.

[[-Spiritus-]]

I'm sure in 2 weeks you have mastered what it is to be disc. Let's let all the BC disc priests go hide in our caves now, this guy obviously knows more then us.

You mean the guys that got stuck w/ IMP-DS duty? Yeah, those weren't Disc priests. The Disc priest wasn't born as an independent and singularly viable spec until 3.0.2, and really wasn't balanced until 3.0.9. Saying you were a disc priest in BC is like saying you were feral DPS; you were there because of a buff.

I also know for a fact that there are tons of Disc priests that aren't tank healing. This is mostly due to the fact that paladins still can't sustainably raid heal and 95% of Disc priests from WotLK were bubblebots who are trying to find a replacement for the cheese [hint: its not tank healing].

Just because this is a fact doesn't make it optimal. It is mathematically impossible for a Disc priest of equal skill and item budget to outheal a Holy priest while raid healing. Since you can be Holy in 5sec, the only reason to stick in Disc, from a minmax perspective, and raid heal is if you have one paladin for each tank in a given encounter and having PW:B & PS makes the fight reliably easier.

Also, ES on the tank means squat for 10% phy reduction uptime, especially with most shamans' crit levels. It requires an actual tank healer to keep up a near 100% Insp or AH uptime, anything short of that is not worth the 2TPs.

Disc priest talents and "signature" spells all point towards single target healing. Our single target healing is getting buffed in 4.0.6 like crazy and our raid healing is getting significantly nerfed. Our 4pc fits in perfectly with someone who is tank healing.

Disc desires to be a tank healer. Can it raid heal? Sure. Can it "float aimlessly around the healthbar grid not on assignment?" Sure. However, what Disc does best is effective and efficient single target healing.

[harky]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but I played Disc in BC. I played Disc in Wrath. I've been playing Disc as my off-spec for all of Cata. If you want to get really technical I played 'Disc' in vanilla as well. Might want to set the pretentious bull aside. Sorry, but I'm not on tanks full time. Nor did I claim to be. I use tanks to ensure Rapture procs and make sure the current MT has Inspiration up with Penance. This also keeps my 4p active, which I've had for a while now and has ~80% uptime when doing this. Your Holy Priests will not reliably keep Inspiration up at all times. Nor will your Shamans in several fights.

Sorry, but Blizzards design is bullshit. It's a selling point. We have things we keep up. Things we use on cooldown. Things we just spam all the time. It's just the way it is. The complaints about there being an unbalance is based on the idea that the 4p bonus is as important to Disc as it is to Holy. It isn't. It's based on the idea that it's hard to keep up at a satisfactory level. It isn't. It's based on the idea that you'll be using Penance all over the place on targets without WS. You shouldn't be.

Honestly, if that last one is your problem... put PW:S on them before casting Penance. Problem solved. The complaint is purely, "Well, they get 100% uptime." Yeah, well they get Circle of Healing too. Should we? They get Holy Conc. Should we?

If you had bothered to look around you'd see that the activation, uptime and net effect is different for every healing spec. Why would Discipline be based on the Holy Priest model for 4pT10 any more than the Paladin, Shaman, or Druid versions?

Edit: Because Spiritus posted above me I'd like to make this clear; He and I disagree strongly on what discipline is good for. I am not as tank healer, nor do I have any desire/delusion/aspiration/funky feeling in my pants that would lead me to trying to tank heal. And I was PVP Disc in TBC. No one said it had to be PVE.

[Dediatha]

You mean the guys that got stuck w/ IMP-DS duty? Yeah, those weren't Disc priests. The Disc priest wasn't born as an independent and singularly viable spec until 3.0.2, and really wasn't balanced until 3.0.9. Saying you were a disc priest in BC is like saying you were feral DPS; you were there because of a buff.

I also know for a fact that there are tons of Disc priests that aren't tank healing. This is mostly due to the fact that paladins still can't sustainably raid heal and 95% of Disc priests from WotLK were bubblebots who are trying to find a replacement for the cheese [hint: its not tank healing].

Just because this is a fact doesn't make it optimal. It is mathematically impossible for a Disc priest of equal skill and item budget to outheal a Holy priest while raid healing. Since you can be Holy in 5sec, the only reason to stick in Disc, from a minmax perspective, and raid heal is if you have one paladin for each tank in a given encounter and having PW:B & PS makes the fight reliably easier.

Also, ES on the tank means squat for 10% phy reduction uptime, especially with most shamans' crit levels. It requires an actual tank healer to keep up a near 100% Insp or AH uptime, anything short of that is not worth the 2TPs.

Disc priest talents and "signature" spells all point towards single target healing. Our single target healing is getting buffed in 4.0.6 like crazy and our raid healing is getting significantly nerfed. Our 4pc fits in perfectly with someone who is tank healing.

Disc desires to be a tank healer. Can it raid heal? Sure. Can it "float aimlessly around the healthbar grid not on assignment?" Sure. However, what Disc does best is effective and efficient single target healing.

Not just with IMP DS, but with going so low into the tree to pick up pain suppression for certain fights. I know it didn't become viable and amazing until wrath hit. But who do you think the first people were to go exploring into disc? All those DS priests! I know the second I heard that they were making disc a raiding spec I rejoiced to the world and embraced it wholeheartedly. I was also out healing Holy Priests in my gimpy DS spec (I'll admit they were terrible).

I'm not looking for a replacement for the cheese. Shields are still a big part of the disc priest arsenal, and even when I switch to tank healing for certain fights, I still try to keep up a few bubbles around the raid. If someone dips and my tank is fine, they'll get a bubble.

I do in fact have to holy pallies in my raid, thus freeing me up from the job. I also feel that I do more for a raid by mitigating damage coming out. PW:Shield, PS, Barrier, and DA are all very good tools to use smartly.

My shammy does more then just ES the tank. He knows to keep the buff up. Also, holy landing a crit on a tank will keep it up. There's many other people in raid to keep it up, not only the disc priest. For us, the shammy is either on tanks or melee. When he's on melee he's still watching the tanks. Why do I need to keep up a buff he's already keeping up?

I thought that they were buffing the DA proc's from PoH though? Did I miss read that? Wouldnt the slight nerf also come as a buff to DA? Isn't it going to proc a DA no matter what, and additional bubblage from the crits? I could be wrong on this one; I just thought I read that somewhere. Also, aren't bubbles being made larger? I don't know about you, but I don't have any mana issues. If I can keep maintain at least 5-10 bubbles about the raid, then I will be doing just that.

Disc is like a swiss army knife. We have a tool for many jobs. If you want to tank heal, you tank heal. If I want to float about and fill in the gaps where needed, I will do that. If joesmoe wants to raid heal, he will do that. Blizzard has said in the past they want us to be able to do any of these fairly well. So now the question is, why doesn't Blizzard let us have a set bonus that let's us be free to choose which type of healing we prefer. All the other healers have that option.

*Edit*
Wanted to add something to Harky.

I just want to get this straight. I don't care about the 100% up time. What I care about is the fact that if something happens (ie: another disc priest lands a heal with SoS on someone and the WS falls off) then you are locked out for 10 seconds. No other class has that worry, so why should we? Is it really so wrong to not want that type of issue to occur? I mean really, if it needs to be balanced a certain way, make the buff 8 seconds and take off the weakened soul. I'm sure you'll still get people talking about the imbalance, but not from me. My game play wouldn't be affected by what other people (or even what my SP procs) do. I really don't understand why a few people are against that.

[[-Spiritus-]]

Not just with IMP DS, but with going so low into the tree to pick up pain suppression for certain fights. I know it didn't become viable and amazing until wrath hit. But who do you think the first people were to go exploring into disc? All those DS priests! I know the second I heard that they were making disc a raiding spec I rejoiced to the world and embraced it wholeheartedly. I was also out healing Holy Priests in my gimpy DS spec (I'll admit they were terrible).

My point was that anyone who claims to be have been Disc from BC cannot claim continuous authority from this time. Its like if you were the employee of ACME Corp. for 20years selling pots and pans, but then ACME switched to selling pianos over the last 5 years. Sure, you have been an "ACME" employee for 25years, but your breadth of knowledge on their current business is only 5 years old [in short, your experience as disc in BC is inapplicable].

I'm not looking for a replacement for the cheese. Shields are still a big part of the disc priest arsenal, and even when I switch to tank healing for certain fights, I still try to keep up a few bubbles around the raid. If someone dips and my tank is fine, they'll get a bubble.

I do in fact have to holy pallies in my raid, thus freeing me up from the job. I also feel that I do more for a raid by mitigating damage coming out. PW:Shield, PS, Barrier, and DA are all very good tools to use smartly.

This is a misconception. The only "more" you do for the raid as a disc raid healer [as opposed to specing holy] is PS & PW:B. Pound for pound, DA off of PoH is mathematically, and in 95% of cases practically, weaker than Holy PoH + EoL. PW:S, as you mentioned, can still be used as an "ass-save" on random raid members while tank healing very easily b/c of BT. Disc demands to be turreted to push the highest HPM & HPS possible and drastically looses healing potential while moving, as opposed to Holy that can save CoH and toss renew if still moving [which, btw happens fast b/c of PW:Nike].

A Disc priest simply brings the best A game to the table as a tank healer, while still being able to PW:B, PS, and PW:S on the fly.

My shammy does more then just ES the tank. He knows to keep the buff up. Also, holy landing a crit on a tank will keep it up. There's many other people in raid to keep it up, not only the disc priest. For us, the shammy is either on tanks or melee. When he's on melee he's still watching the tanks. Why do I need to keep up a buff he's already keeping up?

I'd be interested to see the uptime on AH/Insp with your shaman "watching" the tanks and incedentals from the holy priest. I may be completely wrong, but I just cannot imagine it being more than 60%, which is low. Really not much more I can say about that without further, non-speculative information.

I thought that they were buffing the DA proc's from PoH though? Did I miss read that? Wouldnt the slight nerf also come as a buff to DA? Isn't it going to proc a DA no matter what, and additional bubblage from the crits? I could be wrong on this one; I just thought I read that somewhere. Also, aren't bubbles being made larger? I don't know about you, but I don't have any mana issues. If I can keep maintain at least 5-10 bubbles about the raid, then I will be doing just that.

Right, but if your raid healing as Disc, your throwing your item budget into HST & MST, which makes your crits on PoH slim to none. Furthermore, relying on crit on a multi-target/spam spell is bollocks. This change may pan out in higher tier levels, but for T11 at least, I hardly think any raid healing disc priests will see any significant throughput increase from the "extra DA" from a PoH crit.

Disc is like a swiss army knife. We have a tool for many jobs. If you want to tank heal, you tank heal. If I want to float about and fill in the gaps where needed, I will do that. If joesmoe wants to raid heal, he will do that. Blizzard has said in the past they want us to be able to do any of these fairly well. So now the question is, why doesn't Blizzard let us have a set bonus that let's us be free to choose which type of healing we prefer. All the other healers have that option.

I do not prescribe to your analogy and substitute my own:

Every healer in Cataclysm is a different swiss army knife model that has the tools to perform all roles, but specializes in one in particular function. Disc priests and Holy paladins both have tools that make them better at single target healing. Druids, Hpriests, and Shaman all have tools that make them better at multi target healing.

It isn't a matter of their relative abilities to accomplish a task, its a matter of what is optimal and efficient. A swiss army knife that has a saw blade is prolly going to be easier to cut a braided rope with than one with a standard knife blade, though both can be used.

[Bigslick]

thats assuming you even bother to go down into inspiration as a disc, that similar buff is easily kept up by a holy priest and or a resto shammy..

If you have a disc priest, holy priest, and resto shaman as your healers and you're not opting the disc priest as your first choice for tank healing out of those three, you're not putting people into the roles by which they can best supplement one another. I'm not saying disc can't raid heal, just that it doesn't have the tools that work without compromise across the variety of encounters to do it as well. Even if you are in a position where you're primarily raid healing, inspiration for two points is imho a no-brainer for those times where you do need to focus efforts on the tank(s).

[Deleted]

To answer the OP:

Generally the 4set bonus is rather " horrible" but we gotta use the fact that rapture is our main source along with replenishment. Due to this fact the spirit bonus we gain by 4 set is simply a boost compared to what it'd meaen to holy.

Overall it's not a bad bonus since we're basing our regen on INT and not spirit while still spirit is a good resource. But if we turn the tables, the 2 set sucks for holy but is rather awesome for disc. ( It is in my opinion ).

The more critt chance on our " to go heal " results in more Aegis proc whilst in holy it result in a HoT that's most likely to get overwritten. So the bonus is kinda fair than punishing if we compare with resto shamans or holy paladins. Even if we may use Greater Heal for big incoming damage + Inner focus, Heal is our way to conserve mana along with rapture and still push healing depending on phase, it's a huge plus to have the extra Critt to make our heal bump a 16k heal + 8k Aegis Shield.

But yet on topic, the set bonus is very optional, but there are no actual options vs off sets until you reach heroic mode and you'll be able to tweak your gear some more depending on stats. But yes, the 4 set is a very situational bonus and it's a small boost.

[harky]

And yeah, Bigslick, I'm basically 100% raid healer as Disc. That said I still have by far the best uptime when supplying Inspiration/AH. Our Shaman? Raid healing. Our Holy Priests? Raid healing. Could they supply it? Yes. Do they sometimes supply it? Yep. The goal is to be keeping it up all the time though, not some of the time. Unless you're pure tank healing you give up nothing to get Inspiration. If you are tanking healing... Inspiration is required... So what are you doing that you don't have it? The only time you wouldn't is if you're a Smite spec and you'd only not have it because you won't be casting anything to supply it.

[Bigslick]

the set bonus is very optional, but there are no actual options vs off sets until you reach heroic mode and you'll be able to tweak your gear some more depending on stats. But yes, the 4 set is a very situational bonus and it's a small boost.

The set bonus is optional in the sense that you aren't forced to take it. But the fact remains that with it you're looking at 540 continuous spirit for holy, and somewhere between roughly 450-540 continuous spirit for disc (depending on uptime). With the ability to reforge the secondary stats on your gear, the benefit from itemization of offset pieces towards your preferred throughput stat is easily outweight by the huge boost in spirit freeing up spirit on your gear to be reforged without dropping below your desired regen level. In the end you're picking up 450-540 points of secondary stat itemization in exchange for commiting to some of your budgeted secondary stats on gear being decided for you, but you still can come out ahead in pretty much every stat at the end of the day.

[TiduZ]

bump the thread on official wow forums ^^