Disc requires too many globals and costs too much mana to ramp up sufficiently in raid groups over 20 players.
Atonement doesn’t last near long enough to make it worth the effort. I’ve tried several ways of applying atonement and don’t like any of them.
I appreciate what they did in simplifying the DPS part but wasn’t enough to make the spec better.
Disc needs a passive to apply atonement.
I tried talking about Atonement in my own post and was met with interesting discussion. I agree Atonement could be made a bit easier to track and manage. Especially in a world where I would prefer to use fewer addons and WeakAuras when optimizing my gameplay.
I find the Atonement mechanic convoluted mostly by which the various spells apply it at different durations. Basically, the duration baseline could be longer than 15 seconds, and I would like to see the penalties from application by spells like PW: Radiance and Ultimate Penitence equalized and brought up to either 100% application length or no lower than 75% of the base application duration. It’s very annoying to have to micromanage these durations— especially in large group content like raiding.
I also really dislike how weak PW: Shield can feel and the fact that it has become a glorified Atonement spreader next to Renew.
i see where you’re coming from, but disc’s throughput is balanced and designed around atonement windows. it doesn’t always feel like it, but disc is a burst healer.
moving closer to 100% atonement uptime (which is already possible or close to it in dungeon content) would make the spec MUCH stronger, and you would need to compensate by lowering disc’s throughput in another way, which would not feel good
this is very fair, pw:s is tuned to be weaker than flash heal and that’s kinda obscene for a spell that’s core to the disc priest fantasy
My biggest complaint with these Atonement windows is that we’re so forced into the shadow magic side of the tree with Shadowfiend/Mindbender gameplay, playing in the bursty way is the only option anymore. (Don’t get me wrong here by the way, I do like this playstyle, I just hate that it’s the only one.)
If the holy magic side was viable, and PW: Shield was a bit more potent (Divine Aegis as well), we could have at least the choice to return somewhat to the damage prevention and sustain healer Disc used to be.
I’m not saying over-buff shield mechanics again because I realize shield healers can be absolutely busted, but I just miss the way things felt before Disc was pushed into the new mega-burst window playstyle.
Whether or not this ever comes back is neither here nor there, it’s just something I used to like. I just want less of a cookie cutter playstyle for Disc and more choices in the talent trees like other classes get.
Maybe the holy magic side could allow for longer Atonements and the shadow magic side could penalize Atonement lengths to supplement the burst heal style as it does now. That distinction of “shadow magic talents make Atonement not as long, holy magic talents make Atonement last longer” could be a schism in the spec that makes each side of the tree easily distinguishable from the other— that these are two playstyles.
Idk I’m just spitballing here. I just miss older Disc like from Cata to WoD.
i like the way you’re thinking, i too miss disc having absorbs be a primary part of their throughput, but as you said shield-based healers are fundamentally difficult to balance and disc has completely broken the game at several points
I think they tried to give us a more powerful shield with the talent Aegis of Wrath though it has the drawback of absorb decay unfortunately. I think it could be buffed honestly lol. This talent is great in PvP but falls flat as a competitive choice in PvE compared to the shadow side’s throughput.
Then we have the talent Indemnity that extends the length of our Atonements through PW: Shield by 2 measly seconds. And then maybe I’m crazy here, but Evangelism being a 1.5-minute cooldown which only extends our Atonements by 6 seconds? And this is in competition with Lenience being a 3% flat damage reduction. Evangelism seems horrible in the current game, it’s not like it’s really difficult to get Atonement up, it’s just annoying to micromanage it.
Just some real weird stuff going on in the tree and I really really hope to see either some talents reconfigured around positionally, or outright buffed honestly.
I played when atonement was 100% of damage rather than the weakness it is now. It’s ok to have a busted healer or to give disc chance at meta.
I propose by applying atonement it should reset atonement on 3-5 existing atonements. The 15 seconds atonement window is way too short of a window factoring in the time needed for additional applications of atonement. Once you start your dps rotation some of the atonement’s are falling off.
I dont know where the original idea of doing damage to heal came from, but Rift did have it with the Chloromancer.
It had a type of beacon through Synthesis, and it had 2 self buffs one for single target healing and the other for party / raid healing.
Whoever had synthesis was healed more with Lifebound Veil and life damage (nature) would be converted to healing more than other types.
You also had other direct forms of healing, but it was quite fun and didnt feel hectic at any point.