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

[Liliyah]

it just means they prefer a less robust playstyle.

My preferred playstyle is to maximize my contribution to the raid. This generally means maximizing my HPS unless I am trading it off for valuable utility. It's not that I specifically prefer bubblespam to using a variety of spells, it's that bubblespam is currently the way to accomplish my overall goal.

[Revitalize]

I realize that I will 100% always play the best available spec to me. I am speaking of the HOLY spec, in case you are not clear on that. I have always been holy, and only switched to disc to help my raid because it was best at the time. Now with the nerf, ofc I will be going back to holy. I will be picking up Soul Warding simply because preshielding things such as electrocute is extremely useful.

I guess I misread you and I apologize as this is is about discipline.

[TiduZ]

Which was the exact problem with WotLK. The nuance in performance between a "good" bubblebot and an "average" bubblebot was negligible ...

not so much. TOGC looked the same.

[cmagrad]

Why not just make shields only useable on people in your group and remove the latest round of nerfs.

[Ynna]

I'm always careful when speaking about Discipline Priests, since I vastly prefer Holy and therefor play Holy, but I still like to say a few things.
1. I think Blizzard should have overhauled the Discipline tree and spellbook a lot more during the Shattering. There was a Blue Post about how they realized that shields would very powerful in the Cataclysm Healing Philosophy, but their reaction was to make PW:S very weak, then buffing it, then nerfing it again. If they had reworked the focus of Discipline into 50% Damage Reduction (not only shields, but more things like Barrier and Pain Suppression) 50% Healing and more or less reworked the tree from scratch, Discipline could have retained their unique niche of damage prevention/reduction, while still being at the right powerlevel and with engaging gameplay. Taking the tree from WotLK and just trimming it down, into an environment where it would be either overpowered or underpowered was a bad move, in my opinion.
The best (but probably hard) course would be to redevelop the Discipline tree, leaving the very iconic stuff in it, but slightly changing what the tree is about, while expanding the toolbox. For example: a mana efficient shield, with a cast time, on a cooldown.

2. No matter how effective spaming one spell might be it will never be fun, or challenging gameplay. Therefor one should expect it to last very long. I understand wanting to contribute as much as possible to your group, be it 5 man, raid, arena or a battleground, but a spec should offer fun, engaging gameplay which is what bubble spam, be it Discipline or Holy, certainly is not.

[akaTheDude]

Maybe they should just go back to the old days where disc was pvp and holy was pve :\

Well it already seems that way, lol

Me toooooo

[Deleted]

Which was the exact problem with WotLK. The nuance in performance between a "good" bubblebot and an "average" bubblebot was negligible and neither were very engaging playstyles, according to the developers.

For christs sake you act like ALL other healers are so complicated to play compared to the shield spaming disc priest...
I raid with ALL healing classes, a druid, a pala, a shaman, a holy AND used to raid as disc.

ALL the classes are pisseasy to play if your not a complete idiot, if you consider pushing 3 buttons instead of 1 more complex and more challenging your standard is really low......

[[-Spiritus-]]

not so much. TOGC looked the same.

That picture means nothing without a larger sample from each of those fights and armory links for each of the samples. All that picture means was that you were #1. It doesn't show the "gap" between 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 5 & 6, nor the relative item budget differences between those spots, all which are needed to disprove the demonstrative point.

[twopac187]

For christs sake you act like ALL other healers are so complicated to play compared to the shield spaming disc priest...
I raid with ALL healing classes, a druid, a pala, a shaman, a holy AND used to raid as disc.

ALL the classes are pisseasy to play if your not a complete idiot, if you consider pushing 3 buttons instead of 1 more complex and more challenging your standard is really low......

I didn't see anything in his post that compared a bad bubblebot priest to any other healing class/spec.... All he said is that during Wrath it was difficult to tell the difference between a good bubblebot priest and an average bubblebot priest, which is 100% true.

[[-Spiritus-]]

ALL the classes are pisseasy to play if your not a complete idiot, if you consider pushing 3 buttons instead of 1 more complex and more challenging your standard is really low......

My standard isn't important. However, Blizzard's standards are, and they seem to think pushing 1 button isn't compelling gameplay comparatively to what other classes have now in 4.0.6.

[Maldread]

there is no reason to play a disc priest. holy does what you WANT to be able to do. and holy does it better, costing less mana, with higher mana regen, and better numbers. bliz just ruined disc priests, straight up. NO MOAR DMG MIT FOR YOU! you can freeze in the shadow of holy healing numbers, or you can go to hell, and stick with your disc spec. (if you are disc, you realize youre in hell)...

[gotpriest]

For christs sake you act like ALL other healers are so complicated to play compared to the shield spaming disc priest...
I raid with ALL healing classes, a druid, a pala, a shaman, a holy AND used to raid as disc.

ALL the classes are pisseasy to play if your not a complete idiot, if you consider pushing 3 buttons instead of 1 more complex and more challenging your standard is really low......

3 Buttons?

Heal
Flash Heal
Greater Heal (very sparingly admittedly)
Prayer of Healing
Prayer of Mending
Renew
Circle of Healing
Power Word: Shield
Binding Heal
Lightwell
Leap of Faith

11 Buttons that I use routinely in a fight.

Skills that share the same button:
Holy Word: Serenity
Holy Word: Sanctuary

So make that 12. And I know I forgot some.

Don't know where you get 3 from.

But it disappoints me when I can do Magmaw with PW:S, PoH, and Renew alone.

What's doubly sickening is that it renders useless or pointless the contestably best Healing Mastery in the game (EoL that is)

[Simian]

Add a 3-4 second cooldown to Power Word: Shield, revert the changes on the mana cost, so that we're forced to do something else other than spam bubbles. I agree that if they did add a longer cooldown on Power Word:Shield they would have to increase our healing throughput in some way. But as long as Shields are powerful and spammable there will be discipline priests that will continue to do exactly that. I agree with Blizzard that it really isn't an interesting playstyle to just bubble everyone in sight, there needs to be some method to this madness And if anyone tells me "well POH spam with holy isn't interesting either", I agree with that as well.

[Zeuq]

Except they'd have to buff Prayer of Healing to even remotely consider that balanced.

Okay, did you not see where I said to add it to Renewed Hope? If that isn't enough, adjust Renewed Hope so that it still adds Crit to the other spells, but increases the effectiveness of PoH on those targets by something like 10/20%. Or leave Renewed Hope alone and make the new bubble add Grace stacks. Or make an adjustment to the Mastery so that it buffs absorbs by some amount less than it is, but also increases healing done to targets with an absorb affect or Weakened Soul by some amount, sort of like how the Druid Mastery works with HoTs, so it would encourage pre-shielding and following up with direct heals, and it ought to have little effect on tank healing since they ought to almost always have PWS, DA, or WS on them.

Either way, I do agree that it would require a buff to PoH to work, and that buff would have to be in a way that didn't affect Holy, but those are just a few ideas right off the top of my head, and all of them would increase healing by PoH for Disc without touching Holy's throughput, so I don't think it'd be terribly difficult to achieve.

[Deleted]

Correct. Here's a cookie.

but the whole point of disc is it being an alternative to the standard damage/heal. my disc priest is only an alt but i never felt amazingly op in raids with bubbles in wotlk or did the main raiding disc's. but it was prob far too bubble relient - but i think making bubbles less used would ruin the feel of the spec. also its tricky with the usefulness of their mastery. either way i think getting rid of bubbles isn't fixing it, its changing it

[Deleted]

My standard isn't important. However, Blizzard's standards are, and they seem to think pushing 1 button isn't compelling gameplay comparatively to the other specs.

Mabye because people like you keep whining all the time how boring pushing one button is as disc ?

You DONT see holy palas druids OR shamans which are AS boring and easy to play a disc crying for NERFS because their class is too easy to play.

Somehow it seems that its ONLY the priest class which generates such silly "i want my class to be 10 times as complex as the others, because then i feel i am better than the others and more intelligent etc....

[MasterOfNone]

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.

your counter-point is flawed.

EVERY spec EVERY class has something that is not intended for regular game/raid mechanics. it is not exploiting if you are the person that discovers/uses it. by your logic there should be no creativity in specs. creativity is what happened and you are saying he is abusing mechanics of the game. rogues solo patch...shamans tank VOA...first couple of examples i could think of that prove it. yes i know in both cases they were well over-geared for the encounter, but by your logic people should never be able to do that because its "an abuse of game mechanics". out of all the classes i think the wow educated folks can all agree that disc is in trouble. not just because of nerfs. it is a clunky in-efficient spec. the nerf made it even LESS viable. its like the straw that broke the camels back. why would you play disc and be in-efficient as opposed to holy and be useful to the raid? IMHO the more blizzard "fixes" priests, the more they break them and take away the "taste" of disc healing. disc healing is supposed to be about shielding damage. a healer that anticipates damage before it happens and helps ease the workload of other healers by doing such. not much of a spec when you oom because your main flavor (shields) are mana in-efficient or weak...

/rant on my .02

[[-Spiritus-]]

Mabye because people like you keep whining all the time how boring pushing one button is as disc ?

You DONT see holy palas druids OR shamans which are AS boring and easy to play a disc crying for NERFS because their class is too easy to play.

I seriously doubt Blizzard bases its design decisions based on forum posts on the O-boards and MMO. I'm fairly certain they came to the conclusion after shifting through tons of data and testing from WotLK to develop the Cataclysm model, which is aimed a preventing pushing one button.

Also, I never once called for a throughput nerf to Disc, rather just to have the optimal playstyle modified so it was more robust.

Somehow it seems that its ONLY the priest class which generates such silly "i want my class to be 10 times as complex as the others, because then i feel i am better than the others and more intelligent etc....

Actually, I want all healers to have the joy of orchestrating a complex healing design. It is far more rewarding, IMO. Its like playing co-op where one dude has to run, jump, crawl, shoot guns, and punch to win and the other guy only has to use a shin kick to win. I mean, yeah, you can go through the game walking forward and shin kicking everything, but I know that character I want to play. Some people want to play the shin kicker, and that's fine, if it wasn't against the intended design of the game.

I don't think I have treated anyone with rampant disprespect, nor talked down to anyone; merely presented facts and opinions. If you believe that is my attempt at trying to feel superior, then there is little I can do to change your mind.

[Staplecrab]

Reduce the mana cost and effectiveness of PW:S. Buff DA a smidgen for PoH balance between specs. Holy no longer uses shield outside of sparkle sprint. Disc can use Bubbles as a filler spell (since no one casts heal) and for BT by weaving it between PoHs while raid healing or between GHeals while tank healing. This will at least let us use our spec defining spell more than occasionally.

[G l o w y r m]

i personally dont understand why you will want to bubblebot as holy. holy has SO many awesome tools why would you single in on pw: shield?

Because it raises the effective health of the raid. Prevention is always better than reaction, it saves lives and buys time. Mix that in with the proper tools to heal when the shields are gone (stronger PoH, CoH, PoM, Renew, oh they even have a single target instant heal akin to Penance!) and you have the best of both worlds.

Big changes are needed. Discipline needs a new AE tool for when PoH isn't useful (among other things, the DA on PoH sounds nice but itsn't always useful after the damage hits). That tool used to be PW:S (which was a tool for other time as well which was the initial problem).