These are just my thoughts and feelings since Shadowlands launched. I’m by no means a top tier player because I got bored of disc this expansion (primarily from keys). I also haven’t done much higher content as disc because the game got too boring for me in 9.0.
My whole issue with disc has been the amount of healing that actually comes from atonement. Coming from BfA, I felt like I could do higher keys and ~50-65% of my overall healing was via atonement. Much of that is now replaced by PW:R and Shadowmend. It’s weird because when spirit shell was first a thing, you could stack loads of absorbs and it multiplied nicely into HPS because of raid setting. However, this whole expansion has been very lackluster for discipline in keys. It has amazing utility and damage reduction, etc, but the whole core of the spec is supposed to focus around atonement.
I think they did a very poor job balancing this. It seems very hard to top anyone up or produce noticeable healing via just atonement. I feel like there’s too much reliance on shadowmend for it to be as fun as it could have been.
And now, the tier set bonuses focusing around shadowmend/penance? Why couldn’t they focus on higher transfer rate via atonement?
Maybe I’m alone in this, but I feel like the whole point of the spec is to heal via damage (atonement), and I also feel like that has lost its prominence within the spec.
It’s fine for raiding, but it’s very hard to balance disc numbers because a small tweak makes them overly overpowered.
I think the design works great for raid. But for keys, it’s damage seems lackluster at the moment - If disc atonement rate of transfer was lower, but damage higher, it would be great. But again, in progression raiding it would be overly overpowered. World first comps already stacks 2 discs priests.
Maybe a solution could be similar to how Hymn of hope works for holy priest, in smaller groups it heals for more individually, but in large groups, it heals less (but always heals everyone).
I find that I have to anticipate things more then react to them. If I apply PW:R after I see the damage and then try to heal through Atonement then there is no way. But if I am prepared for the big damage incoming I can already have my atonements up and already be healing when the damage pops up.
An example of this is the Shards in HoA. As soon as I see them casting Thrash I’m already hitting Radiance followed by my Kyrian Boon so that by the time the damage starts I am already blasting for massive heals. Same thing on the Ritual of Woe on the very last boss…
No doubt Disc is a lot harder in M+ but it really excels in Raids and PvP so its not like it is too unbalanced. There are also plenty of Disc players with KSM.
Could be a stats thing. Atonement does about 35% of my healing. I find it’s sufficient in keeping groups up on typical trash pulls, and is very strong during heavy damage with Barrier and/or boon.
I dont think atonement is meant to be able to keep groups up entirely on its own in higher keys, it would be too easy and would free up too much dps time.
Blizzard just needs to add in some M+ only talents. Then that whole balance issue would vaporize.
I think that’s the issue I have. I honestly feel that lenience is super lackluster. Okay more DR, cool… but, it’s the last talent in the tree… it should be more impactful imo.
Agreed, if would be nice if it increased the damage reduction based off of how many people have atonement. 3% damage reduction, increased by .5% for every member of your party with atonement up to a maximum of 5%.