Disc + mastery = shield spam dominant again

[Deleted]

Mastery scaled the same pre patch as it does now. It's percentage based and the only factor that's changed is a bigger shield. That doesnt mean mastery scales better after the patch.

Hence why I also wrote " to scale with " probably my fault for not being fluent in english that you probably got me wrong. But generally said it scales better after the patch even though it's % based, the fact remains that it's got more to - scale with - rather than what I said before, just being scaling. Though that wasn't the point but thanks for correcting me.

[Bigslick]

Blizzard certainly is not beyond wrecking things if you don't play their way, which unfortunately is never published until the next patch notes. Its kind of like driving on a road with no signs only to be told you were speeding.

They said at the end of Cata they didn't want to continue with or return to a an environment where spamming one button with little thought to alternatives was a best- or near-best-performing solution. These signs were placed for Cata before the cars first hit the roads, so if you choose to ignore them you've only yourself to blame for being surprised should Blizzard decide to realign things.

No they never said it shouldnt be viable they said they wanted to try to move away from it however if a spec is severely limited and playing terribly because of intended nerfs they will say well this is no good noones playing it...and pvp rofl priest without protection is just a snack for most dps classes...once shield is down there roasted especially by dk's.

They never said it shouldn't be viable, true. But it's hard to make players move away from performing in a way that yields the best results when it's viable. So if they want to make people move away from that playstyle, there are two options: Make it so that it cannot be done due to restrictive mechanics, or make it so that it is clearly not a best alternative. Our post-4.0.6 shields are much stronger, increasing the desirability of spamming them in an environment where the only restriction in place to keep it from being spammed is limited mana, yet that barrier is already being breached in late T11 content and will be overcome completely by most in T12 content and beyond. From a pvp perspective being able to spam shields does little to provide for a priest's personal survivability; what we could really use there is some dispel protection, without which a 100k shield just really isn't much better than a 12k shield in any sizeable conflict where you'll have someone purging.

[Devotions]

I'm fairly certain Blizzard will put a stop to shield spam as well - probably both raising the mana cost and nerfing the protective value. I doubt Disc will get dispel protection in pvp; from what I understand with the buffs, they're doing significantly better anyway.

However, at the time we are speaking it is undeniably the most effective form of raid healing from any class, period. To discuss or make use of any other style of raid healing is irresponsible - you're doing your guild and raid a disservice by performing in a way that is at best subpar, and likely just bad. Discipline tank healing is another beast entirely, and is, in my own opinion, in an excellent place right now. If shields are nerfed like I'm expecting, it'd be very nice to see a compensative buff, possibly to Penance, to keep tank healing where it at now.

[Memoryz]

I'm fairly certain Blizzard will put a stop to shield spam as well - probably both raising the mana cost and nerfing the protective value. I doubt Disc will get dispel protection in pvp; from what I understand with the buffs, they're doing significantly better anyway.

However, at the time we are speaking it is undeniably the most effective form of raid healing from any class, period. To discuss or make use of any other style of raid healing is irresponsible - you're doing your guild and raid a disservice by performing in a way that is at best subpar, and likely just bad. Discipline tank healing is another beast entirely, and is, in my own opinion, in an excellent place right now. If shields are nerfed like I'm expecting, it'd be very nice to see a compensative buff, possibly to Penance, to keep tank healing where it at now.

Shield's aren't healing.
I really wish people would stop saying this.
And they don't need to buff penance.
Don't see why people want to tank heal so much.

[Siri]

Hehe, i knew you would say that :P The mana gained over a period of time increases, but so does the consumption - the mana per cast remains the same. In essence (ref *very* crude maths below my post about it) it acts very much like a base mana cost reduction.

Well, just as a rough comparison, if a shaman gets haste it increases your throughput as well as the mana returned over time. If any other healer gets more haste, it's merely an increase in throughput. Casting a spell to get mana back is actually something you find among all healers except holy priests. Disc casts shields, get mana when they break. Druids cast lifebloom and/or rejuv and has a chance to get mana back on ticks. Paladins can judge insight and get mana back. Shamans can cast HW, GHW, HS, Riptide or CH and have a chance to get mana back. The difference is that all these effects are on a cooldown except for imp water shield. This is why I say that it scales with haste, because it increases the mana returned over time whereas more haste on any other healer doesn't increase the mana return over time at all.

You could look at it as a base mana cost reduction, you could also look at it as mp5 which allows for an easier comparison across classes.

[Tsenjin]

I understand that the OP finds 1-button healing objectionable, but I find it laughable that he's singling out his own class as the only culprit. Let's ignore the obviously skewed 25-man case of "I pre-bubble the raid, then sit on my thumbs while other healers pick up the slack after the ginormous AoE hits" and look at the more balanced 10-man scenario where you have to heal even when everyone has WS up because, well, you don't have 5 other healers to fill up the pretty green bars.

"But wait", he said, "I can show you parses of 10-man heroic priests doing 65-70% of their heals with PW:S, the world is still a horrible mess where priests are doing silly things!"

So, when several people linked several different 10-man parses to try to make the above points, did they not actually look at the other healers in the parses, or was that too much effort? One of them featured a holy paladin who did over 70% of their healing from divine light (counting direct casts, beacon procs, and mastery procs), which is, wait for it, a ridiculously inefficient heal, but now "sustainable in current gear levels".

But hey, it's not just about 10-man, is it? Certainly not, given that most of the QQ has been about 25-man playstyles being goofed up by this. So, even while talking to the world's (currently) best disc priest, the OP seems to not even blink when it's suggested that some fights involve spamming GH (guess what, folks; another ridiculously inefficient heal) instead of spamming PW:S. So, apparently, we have no issue with spamming inefficient heals, nor with heal selection going down as incoming damage and gear quality go up, but the problem is directly tied with.... Using... Disc's... Signature inefficient heal?

It boggles the mind, really. I agree that any good healer has all/most of their healing buttons a keybind away, and knows how and when to use them, but if you really want to make sure nobody gets more than 40% of their healing from one inefficient-but-high-throughput heal, the problem isn't with priests, the problem is with regen as a whole. Look at the big picture, and stop trying to get your own class and spec nerfed.

[Deleted]

It's ashame so many people care so much about where they stand on recount, so much so that they want other classes nerfed that will be only benefiting their raid as a whole as it is right now. Disc is a unique spec, absorbing 15k HPS is not the same as doing 15k HPS in actual healing, you wouldn't be able to take 7 disc priests to a raid and the 15 second weakened soul debuff means it's power is limited from being too OP on any one target. Sure, it's very useful to mitigate some damage and a side effect of that might be that it comes top on recount but its sad that people care so much because their classes, classes of a completely different playstyle, can't do the same.

I don't play disc myself but I've never cared who is top on recount for healing, as long as the right targets are being healed at the right time who cares. The disc priest plays an important role in making the proper healers lives easier, and being top on recount is just a side effect imo. I think it's sad that clearly alot of people in this thread are only healing so they can look good on Logs.

[Bigslick]

Shield's aren't healing.
I really wish people would stop saying this.
And they don't need to buff penance.
Don't see why people want to tank heal so much.

Whether you're talking about a heal or an absorb or a mitigation effect, it's all about resolving incoming damage in efforts to keep the target alive. They're different tactical approaches towards the joint healing strategy.

As to tank healing, well, some people enjoy it. May as well say "Don't see why people want to _____ so much." and fill in with the role of your choice, be it dps / raid heal / tank heal / tank / pvp / pve / whatever.

[scsc0rp]

I would be more than happy to see a nerf to PW:S if they buff disc aoe healing.

[Deleted]

Whether you're talking about a heal or an absorb or a mitigation effect, it's all about resolving incoming damage in efforts to keep the target alive. They're different tactical approaches towards the joint healing strategy.

As to tank healing, well, some people enjoy it. May as well say "Don't see why people want to _____ so much." and fill in with the role of your choice, be it dps / raid heal / tank heal / tank / pvp / pve / whatever.

Stealing the meters is not healing if we wanted to we could have x2 disc priests, plenty of innervates and they'd handle the raid damage? Then if the so called " heal " is an absorb then how are you supposed to get people up? Shielding is not healing as it's two different factors. One is mitigating like it been said, the other one is the so called " healing". Since how are you supposed to recover people's health if all you got is a shield to rely on?

People need to stop being so dull on the arguement " Shield is Heal too but in a different way ! ". Hell no, it's a Shield and a Shield is mitigation. Period. Don't go put it in some different category, it will be a mitigative spell since it's not getting people's HP up.

In current raid content or any AE damage fight you won't be able to absorb all the damage, for example Maloriak. And that's where "Healing" & -- > Mitigation works togheter. The damage is so huge that you won't be able to keep up ( Hard Mode ) and by using stated methods, Shielding do become viable as it prevents the period of damage - > Lava spew etc + Last Phase <- Making HEALING alot easier.

So I don't see why you categorize it in the same category when it in my opinion are two completely different kind of facts.

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

the Shiled spamming only works in 25man where you most of the time got 1-4 innervates, maybe 2-3 mana tides and 2-3 Hymn of hope. In 10man you're lucky if you got 1 of each. think it's time blizzard looked into making mana tides a limited use per combat like they did with combat ress, soulstone and ankh. Lets say you cant use more than 1 mana tide per 3 minutes in 10man and 3 per 4minute in 25man?

[Liliyah]

So I don't see why you categorize it in the same category when it in my opinion are two completely different kind of facts.

Because it makes things easier to compare.

30k damage is about to hit Player who has 100k health.
Scenario 1: I'm a disc priest. I cast a 30k shield on player. Damage hits. Player's health is 100k.
Scenario 2: I'm a holy priest. Damage hits. Player's health is 70k. I cast two G Heals. Player's health is 100k.


In both scenarios, I'm doing SOMETHING to resolve the overall situation (Player is going to take 30k damage). I just go about it in two different ways. In scenario 1, I am in a sense "healing" the damage before it lands. In scenario 2, I am actually healing the damage after it lands.

Everyone knows that absorbs don't raise a player's literal health, but they do temporarily raise a player's effective health. Which is how, in a sense, absorbs are a form of "healing".

[Lellybaby]

For all those saying bubble spamming isn't a problem because you need all these extra abilities that return mana, you are all missing the point.... As our gear improves we wont need these outside sources of mana reg and will be able to spam shields all day....

The problem has to be fixed now!

The only solution I have read from all the different suggestions that wont have such an adverse effect to pvp/pve/5man/10man is to add an Arcane Blast Debuff component that increases the mana cost of the shields.

This would be more in-line with Blizzard's view on healing in cata where you can make the choice to spam 4-5 shields quickly if you think the situation warrants it, but just understand that it is going to affect your mana pool.

If 25man raids just keep bringing in more disc priests to heal than there might have to be more drastic measures taken.

[Liliyah]

If 25man raids just keep bringing in more disc priests to heal than there might have to be more drastic measures taken.

No sensible raid would bring more than 2, so I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Having 2 of a certain healer has never been viewed as "stacking".

[Lellybaby]

No sensible raid would bring more than 2, so I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Having 2 of a certain healer has never been viewed as "stacking".

There is nothing wrong with bring 2x of a certain type healer, although I would almost consider having 2 disc priests instead of 1 holy 1 disc - stacking... just so you can still spam shield but only on 12+ people instead of 25 defeats the purpose of trying to prevent this bubble spamming.

If it was more beneficial to have 3 or 4 disc priests instead of running druids/shamans/paladins you don't think raid teams would compensate for that.

[Bigslick]

Stealing the meters is not healing if we wanted to we could have x2 disc priests, plenty of innervates and they'd handle the raid damage? Then if the so called " heal " is an absorb then how are you supposed to get people up? Shielding is not healing as it's two different factors. One is mitigating like it been said, the other one is the so called " healing". Since how are you supposed to recover people's health if all you got is a shield to rely on?

People need to stop being so dull on the arguement " Shield is Heal too but in a different way ! ". Hell no, it's a Shield and a Shield is mitigation. Period. Don't go put it in some different category, it will be a mitigative spell since it's not getting people's HP up.

In current raid content or any AE damage fight you won't be able to absorb all the damage, for example Maloriak. And that's where "Healing" & -- > Mitigation works togheter. The damage is so huge that you won't be able to keep up ( Hard Mode ) and by using stated methods, Shielding do become viable as it prevents the period of damage - > Lava spew etc + Last Phase <- Making HEALING alot easier.

So I don't see why you categorize it in the same category when it in my opinion are two completely different kind of facts.

If you're going to debate a point, it would help if you read the counterarguments instead of reflexively reacting to what you appear to assume they are going to say. I did not say absorbs were healing, but that they were a part of a collective damage management strategy. I did not suggest that disc priests can operate via absorbs in a vacuum without either themselves casting restorative heals or other healer doing so. Absorbing damage is 100% as effective as restoring it (though it can be more effective if it generates sufficient EH to prevent what would otherwise would result in a death).

Yes it's a mitigative spell. No it doesn't manage 100% of the healing effort required, and I didn't even remotely suggest that it did -- but it absolutely belongs in the category of effective healing, if you consider effective healing to be steps that prevent someone from being reduced on damage. A player at 10k that sustains a 30k hit but is saved by a shield absorbing 25k is exactly as alive as if they had received a 25k heal just before the heal landed.

[Alenoria]

how about they just increase weakend soul to 45 seconds or a minute... then people couldn't reshield without using another single target heal to lower weakend soul via strength of soul talent.
that way you could still spam shields if they anticipate damage, but it wouldn't be the only spell they used?

[[-Spiritus-]]

how about they just increase weakend soul to 45 seconds or a minute... then people couldn't reshield without using another single target heal to lower weakend soul via strength of soul talent.
that way you could still spam shields if they anticipate damage, but it wouldn't be the only spell they used?

There are several reasons why this would be a very extreme solution, foremost would be the utter destruction of the spec in PvP.

[Deleted]

As I said before, imho, they should nerf PW:S and make Grace stacks improve it. You could still spam bubbles but it only would be that great in 2 or 3 targets and it would make you stop spamming PW:S to keep Grace stacks up.

Is this a bad idea?

[Deleted]

Oh my god, you posted 31 pages in seven days!? Who should read that much!?
I've read some posts, so correct me when i'm wrong...

The best solution to prevent PWS spam would be to increase its mana cost and the mana restore of rapture. If you choose a disc spec, it increases the mana cost of Shields by 50% (preventing a punishment of holy and shadow priests). In addition, rapture will restore now 8% instead of 6% mana.