Discipline jumping ship to Holy - Dawn of the new Bubble Bots

[Bigslick]

To all you new holy bubble botters, do you use inner will or inner fire?

Haven't tried the holy bb bit yet, but suspect IW unless they have a truckload of regen tools (self- and externally-provided).

[Ultima]

Inner Will. I cannot maintain bubbles with Inner Fire up.

Speaking as a Priest in a 10 man who doesn't have the 4-set yet.

[Vook]

To all you new holy bubble botters, do you use inner will or inner fire?

Inner Will. 15% mana reduction is niiiiice.

All they need to do is make it like glyphed Shadow Word: Death, so when you cast 2 shields within 5 seconds, you activate a 5 second cooldown. Problem solved. Have at it.

Or just remove Soul Warding. Or just nerf PW:S's value. Heck, even if they reduced it to where it was ~22k in a mastery-heavy set, that'd still be better than the measily 10-12k that it was before.

[Balladar]

They will just prolly move soul warding down the tree, making pre-shielding an unviable mechanic in raids because discipline isn't mana capable of doing it.

.

Probably , i just hope they do it soon , before holy gets used to bubble spam.

[Bigslick]

Or just remove Soul Warding.

Take it with a grain of salt if you like, but my interpretation of Blizzard's expressed design intent as it applies to PW:S is that they don't want to restrict you from using it successively on occasion, but they do want to restrict you from spamming it as an 'IWIN' button. People will spam it to a degree Blizzard considers excessive if it is both manageable from a mana perspective and desirable from a performance perspective, for which both conditions held largely true at 4.0.6's release for disc priests with mostly 359 gear and any reasonable external regen at all.

Currently Holy is able to deliver a lot of the utility that Disc had been gaining from it in the absence of Disc's ability to manage it from a mana perspective. Holy priests are not using it quite to the extent that disc had been, but that is because they have an array of other healing tools that are also viable to raid healing that disc priests did not have (and continue to lack).

Currently some rebalancing is required to restore discipline's ability to raid heal, which was fine, if PoH-heavy, in 4.0.3. When 4.0.6 hit, PW:S spam covered up the new weakness of PoH to excess. Now that PW:S spam is lessened for disc (though pre-shielding many is still easily doable), PoH's shortcomings as of 4.0.6 are becoming more pronounced.

So here's the problem: Discipline's only two real options to effectively manage raid burst damage are proactively in the form of PW:S spam and reactively in the form of PoH (yes you can cast it proactively but it's even less efficient than before at the nerfed level, despite the extra DA from crit given our generally abysmal crit levels in current gear). Both of these are weaker solutions now than they were in 4.0.3. Address PoH to correct it and you imbalance holy. Address shield to correct it and you're treading the water that makes spamming shields viable once again.

Removing the CD reduction of SW would radically imbalance disc raid healing, requiring availability of a whole new spell or a massive boost to our functionality of PoH, but that would restore us to PoH spam once again anyway. For the short term, until a better solution can be found, it seems to me that if they choose to do something to put a stop to holy shield spam a better fast solution would be to swap positions of Soul Warding and Reflective Shield, making GCD spamming of shields unique to disc (which sort of fits their mitigative defining role better anyway).

/end ramble
/begin flame

[Purpleisbetter]

Simple fix:

PW:S ---> available only for Discipline spec. Can affect only one target.STRONG shield. HIGH mana consumption, some CD.

PW:B--> reverted to be little AoE Shielding (5 target max), cannot stack with PWS. (Disc-only spec). Enhance AoE heals done by the priest.Minimal cd, no totally mana hungry.

(the original design promised for Cataclysm launch)

*Or simply...Boost everyother heals and rise the fuc***g bossed damage.

[Ultima]

*Or simply...Boost everyother heals and rise the fuc***g bossed damage.

Yeah, bring back Wrath.

[Purpleisbetter]

Nah i don't want wrath healing back, but my opinion of "if u want to bubble, go disc" won't ever happens.


And ye, bubblebotting is pure evil!

[Darkener]

My point from the beginning is that the PW:S spam playstyle is irrelivant because it is against intended design. ...

I just happen to be arguing from a position of strength as the status quo is in my favor.

Funny how this "intended design" only just surfaced after patch 4.0.6, and after Disc suddenly dominated charts with one spell, a situation Blizzard created in the first place by making that spell much more powerful. If the developers really intended for all healers to adopt a triage mentality for Cata then why on earth did they completely leave the disc spec behind in terms of triage-healing capability? Damage mitigation doesn't fit very well into a design focused on triage. They made a poor attempt to boost healing by changing Grace, but they left absorption as the Mastery. Enhancing absorption through Mastery isn't going to make a disc priest triage any better, in fact it encourages a disc priest to blanket the raid with absorption to make up for the lack of triage skills. The drastic changes being made to disc to try to fix it, and the knee-jerk hot-fix reactions to reverse boo-boos suggests that they haven't really worked-out an "intended design" for the disc spec yet in Cata. They seem to recognize what they don't want pretty clearly, but can't figure out what they do want. Probably because they feel obligated to hold onto absorption as a signature Disc strength but then they violate their own design for the other 4 healing specs to triage. There's nothing to triage if the damage is mitigated. Geez, Jean-Luc Picard, you broke your little toy. Blizzard made bubble-spam break the design by making it the most effective way to avoid having to lag in triage. They need to abandon absorption as mastery, and refocus the disc spec on something else. Either that or abandon their intended design for Cata and apologize to healers for jerking us around so much.

There's a ton of suggestions that can be made to replace Disc mastery, but one that I would like to see would focus on Penance, a unique Disc-defining ability. Mastery would cause a percentage of the Penance heal to also heal targets buffed with Grace. They would need to overhaul how Grace is applied to targets, but this would allow a disc priest to tank heal while funneling heals to other targets.

One thing is for sure, we haven't seen the last of priest changes. Intended design or making it up as they go along?

[Paladinwtf]

See, this is the problem. While it may not *technically* be an exploit, it is clearly an abuse of the game mechanics counter to what Blizzard has stated it's intent for healers to be (required to utilize their tools for healing), just like Pally tanks not requiring hit/expertise, or having their HoPo generating abilities not require a hit to generate resources. Sure it may be extremely effective, and a huge benefit to a raid. It also if a magnet for the sort of attention he doesn't want, and exactly what he got. I'm glad he got so much attention, cause now he's gonna get all of you "tuned".

The Pally forums have erupted in exactly the same hue and cry with each round of nerfs to bring them in line too, and guess what - they are still great healers and great tanks. The sky isn't falling.

The Holy Paladins in the forums only went crazy for the LoD "bug" fix.

Everything else on the Holy Nerfs, we all agreed on "we were OP, we'll adapt to these new changes."

[fizikz]

Take it with a grain of salt if you like, but my interpretation of Blizzard's expressed design intent as it applies to PW:S is that they don't want to restrict you from using it successively on occasion, but they do want to restrict you from spamming it as an 'IWIN' button. People will spam it to a degree Blizzard considers excessive if it is both manageable from a mana perspective and desirable from a performance perspective, for which both conditions held largely true at 4.0.6's release for disc priests with mostly 359 gear and any reasonable external regen at all.

Currently Holy is able to deliver a lot of the utility that Disc had been gaining from it in the absence of Disc's ability to manage it from a mana perspective. Holy priests are not using it quite to the extent that disc had been, but that is because they have an array of other healing tools that are also viable to raid healing that disc priests did not have (and continue to lack).

Currently some rebalancing is required to restore discipline's ability to raid heal, which was fine, if PoH-heavy, in 4.0.3. When 4.0.6 hit, PW:S spam covered up the new weakness of PoH to excess. Now that PW:S spam is lessened for disc (though pre-shielding many is still easily doable), PoH's shortcomings as of 4.0.6 are becoming more pronounced.

So here's the problem: Discipline's only two real options to effectively manage raid burst damage are proactively in the form of PW:S spam and reactively in the form of PoH (yes you can cast it proactively but it's even less efficient than before at the nerfed level, despite the extra DA from crit given our generally abysmal crit levels in current gear). Both of these are weaker solutions now than they were in 4.0.3. Address PoH to correct it and you imbalance holy. Address shield to correct it and you're treading the water that makes spamming shields viable once again.

Removing the CD reduction of SW would radically imbalance disc raid healing, requiring availability of a whole new spell or a massive boost to our functionality of PoH, but that would restore us to PoH spam once again anyway. For the short term, until a better solution can be found, it seems to me that if they choose to do something to put a stop to holy shield spam a better fast solution would be to swap positions of Soul Warding and Reflective Shield, making GCD spamming of shields unique to disc (which sort of fits their mitigative defining role better anyway).

/end ramble
/begin flame

So remove soul warding for holy only...? and Fix the disc problem some other way (as the hotfix was only a temporary fix) but at least something like this doesn't cause too many problems.... it fixes the loophole in their current hotfix without doing any real damage. holy shouldn't need soul warding in the first place.

[Deleted]

I still think that shield spamming was used by many ppl not cause they wanted to win meters (who cares about that seriously? only time i check logs is when i want to find out why were we dieing. Not ot mention that seeing disc on top of meters is normal due to nature of our 'heals'.. is not smth u would brag about, its a normal thing.. like getting up in the morning.. its not fucking amazing thing that only few ppl can do it), not even cause it was most optimal thing to do.. it was only thing to do.
Seriosly.. what else can i do a a disc that gives me an edge over other healers. Or to be more specific.. why would u bring a disc priest to raid instead of holy? And dont gimme that crap about Barrier.. seriously.. ground based 10s CD that works best if ppl are bunched up and if u time it right with big aoe.. if u heal instead of try to time Barrier right u can prolly benefit ur raid more. Not to mention that is bloody useless if there is lag.

So yes.. one reason.. why would u bring disc priest to raid instead of holy. And no, person before spec doesnt count here neither.. its same person.

[Kacie]

It's not possible to bubble spam as holy, even with innerwill, unless you are as well geared as Tiduz and have the 4P t11 set.

Holy doesn't need to bubble spam because we are already strong healers, but the disc priest in my guild can still bubble spam even with the increased mana cost, but were only doing normal 25m modes.

[hikamiro]

It's not possible to bubble spam as holy, even with innerwill, unless you are as well geared as Tiduz and have the 4P t11 set.

Holy doesn't need to bubble spam because we are already strong healers, but the disc priest in my guild can still bubble spam even with the increased mana cost, but were only doing normal 25m modes.

Although Tiduz may have been completely spamming it, this is not exactly the strategy that i would recommend. Just a pre-bubble before heavy incoming damage, then PoH - Coh to top back health pools. This should be alot more sustainable then a full bubble spam

[Suzaku]

Discipline Tree and Holy Tree has a noticeable difference in healing disparity due to talents and mastery. As Mastery ratings increase, the healing disparity will only increase and the only way for Discipline Tree to match Holy Tree, then they have to use Power Word: Shield and use it often or they will fall behind in throughput. And I believe that it is unfair that Discipline Priests should watch the meters so that their HPS wouldn’t be so much greater than other healers lest they be nerfed in the following hotfix or patch. This happens fully to Blizzard developers being unable to balance the Discipline Tree with the Holy Tree in healing throughout and absorption.

To fix the problem, I suggest the following changes:
1. The cooldown for Power Word: Shield should now be reduced to 1.5 second. PW: Shield with HPM and HPS before the hotfix was not actually overpowered and it was the spamming of PW: Shield that made the spell so overpowered. PW: Shield should work with a system similar to Soul Shards for Warlocks. Priests start out with 4 of these resources and they regenerate every 30 seconds, so on average Priests can cast 1 PW: Shield every 7.5 seconds which doesn’t seem so terrible.
2. Soul Warding should now function similar to Strength of Soul. After casting Flash Heal, Greater Heal, Heal, the first tick of Penance and maybe Prayer of Mending, it would immediately regenerate one of the resources. Soul Warding should be moved up another tier so it would only be available to Discipline Priests. This talent would allow Discipline Priests to balance between casting PW: Shield and their healing spells. To be honest, the real balance for Discipline Priests shouldn’t be the percentage of the healing but the balance of casting PW: Shield with healing spells. They should move either Train of Thought or Renewed Hope in its place.
3. Divine Aegis should now proc off of all heals and casted direct heals would proc a 15% shield while instant casts could proc a 5% shield. Mastery should increase all absorb amounts by 10% and each additional point would increase absorbs by 1.5%. This would allow bring our Power Word: Shield down while at the same time allows all of our heals to also be scaled by our mastery.

I think this system would work much better at controlling Discipline Priests while at the same time not always using Mana as the only taxing resource for Priests. If Paladins receive Holy Powers from the Light, why can’t Priests do something similar.

[Deleted]

I dont think blizz will implement an extra resource for disc priests just to look how it will work out.

I would prefer a Arcane Blast like debuff, for every shield you get a stacking debuff which increases mana cost. The debuff wont disapear by casting other spells but will only last 4-6 sec. Using Power Infusion inhibits the debuff for its duration.

You may cast two shields in a row but then cast one or two other spells to lose that debuff

[drubibu]

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what the heal meters say, it matters if you were able to accomplish the goal of keeping people alive from 100%-0% boss HP. Shields are just one of the mana healer tools that help to accomplish this goal. I'm not sure where all the hate is coming from, even within the priest community.

It is not about the end of the day it is about the beginning of the day. After a wipe, than you look at the meters to analyze the problems "and looky what we have here: an underperforming healer. Priest, go Holy, and heal Moar!"

[Chob]

Right, after reading most of the thread here are my views and questions. I raided last night where we took down halfus hc for the first time, cleared BoT and half of BWD in 3 hours, with me as discipline spec post hotfix.

Even with conservative use of bubble I really noticed it hurting my mana pool, I never really went completely out of mana (other than halfus hc) but here's my 2c on why this spec is completely broken now.

First of all our entire purpose of healing is preventing damage, which is reflected in our mastery and a lot of our talents. By taking away the regular use of power:word shield, it's a direct nerf to our mastery as well. But here comes the kicker: because we can only use this scarcely now it's also a direct nerf to our rapture procs, and our borrowed time procs. Not to mention it nearly negates the return of mana, I thought this mechanic was in place to make up for the difference in mana regen between holy and discipline priests. So they didn't just prevent bubble spamming, they indirectly nerfed our mana regen and healing throughput as well. I firmly believe this is where it's hurting the most - I was never a huge bubble spammer, but I do like using it as a 'buffer' where whenever someone drops below 60 % health, I would always shield + penance/GH them back up. The shield buys time in case more damage is incoming. I can't do that anymore, because I simply just run oom before the fight runs out.

They should just not have increased our shields by so bloody much. A buff was warranted, but they overdid it to the point that bubble spam became too viable. Right now I can't think of a proper solution, other than please oh please revert the mana cost, just revert it back to 4.0.3 values as tbh I feel weaker now than I was pre 4.0.6, but that may be playstyle issues.

World of logs from last night:

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-ee2o6lvi4mqw42p8/

[KnickKnack]

Simple fix:

PW:S ---> available only for Discipline spec. Can affect only one target.STRONG shield. HIGH mana consumption, some CD.

Go.
Die.
In.
A.
Fire.

Worst idea I have ever heard.

[ContentsMayVary]

There is no real point in playing a spec where you are discouraged from using its defining spell too much. And when you realise that your mastery is all but useless because it mainly affects that spell that you mustn't use too much, you realise it's time to give up on that spec.

Holy is so much better in so many ways now than Disc, there is no good reason not to switch. And no, Power Word: Barrier alone is not a good reason to play Disc.

Disc is dead. Long live Holy.

(Ah well, my Disc spec did last all of Wrath and partly into Cata. Now it's back to what I levelled with back in Vanilla and then through Burning Crusade: Holy)