Blizzard needs to make up their mind: are we first and foremost absorb/mitigation “healer” with damage-to-heal on the side, or are we a damage-to-heal “healer” with absorb/mitigation on the side. Right now it feels like they have split disc between the two, slightly favoring absorb/mitigation this xpac.
They jump back and forth over the line every few years. In Legion they jumped away from it and brought in Light’s Wrath and atonement. In SL they jumped back to absorbs with Spirit Shell. Not as crazy as it was in Mists, but still, we’re back into absorbs/mitigation being the key takeaway, and the “damage to heal” model from Legion has now taken a back seat.
IMO, Spirit Shell was a regression. Anything “shield spammy” is a regression to the old style. That includes Rapture, which is a holdover from the old pre-Legion style…also, pressing the same button 7x in a row is not an interesting game design. Useful, yes, but not interesting.
If it is supposed to be a damage-to-heal spec, then atonement xfer or damage absolutely needs to be buffed, particularly in 5-man PVE content, and shields or mitigation should be removed (example: replace lenience with something to buff damage or atonement xfer in 5-man PVE content). If spamming shadowmend - a ST heal - is what disc is all about, there are others that do it better (including Holy).
Atonement transfer is poo rn. Disc is just in a weak state rn bc SS was so over-tuned in raid.
Now we have neither as a strong backup. I’ve honestly enjoyed playing Holy in keys more bc it just plays better. FC did something great to holy’s design while disc does still feel like a clunky relic.
All they have to do is undo the beta nerfs, and keep the SS nerfs (though really, just delete SS from the game). We were fed these nerfs in a tuning pass when SS was fully in and test-able. And they blew the spec up outside of using SS - which was still completely overpowered.
That alone would make Disc a competitive healer and a great fit for most comps.
In a perfect world, they could keep the PW:S nerf but reduce its mana cost. But I think they want Disc to be the healer that burns through their mana most. At least, it seems to be what they’ve intended for Disc since legion.
Maybe. I didn’t used to main disc, and only played it on and off in previous xpacs, but in one xpac it was super OP. I think Blizzard has moved to the mana burn thing to stop it from being OP, but think they have wrecked the spec entirely, to be honest.
Holy is a not bad but a lot less than ideal option, but I find FC means you have to keep the buff up, which means less time to do damage. You also have to do one or the other, which I don’t like. I main disc, so don’t play holy much–and so am rusty. But when I play holy, I do maybe half or less of the dps I do as disc. That is not a good thing when it comes to timing keys.
Naw, and maybe this is just my opinion, but I think it’s trash. I mean, I used to watch Moadmoad streaming healing high keys every day and he had a hell of a time with it. He was constantly complaining about the mana issues, constantly asking for innervates, and his damage was garbage. The lower damage also meant the fights were longer and the mana issues were more real.
This is not a reflection on him, either–more a reflection of the spec than anything. And guess what he plays now. If you guessed H paladin, you guessed right.
I’d also add that Jak heals his dungeons as holy and does so because of the disc mana issues. In my experience the mana issues are a really big hassle in a lot of groups. You don’t get innervates, you go into pride a lot low or oom. It does depend on the skill of the group, but Disc really bites in low skill groups and the problem gets worse in harder content.
How’s this for an idea?! How about a dungeon talent tree?!?! I mean disc is so mana hungry, why not have a dungeon talent tree to compensate for this? That or suggestions along the lines of the OP?
The problem is that we have a few vocal priests here that have stockholm syndrome and love when disc gets nerfed. I think they are under the impression that we will get compensation buffs or a rework mid expansion when there is 0 evidence in the history of modern disc to indicate that will happen.
Instead blizz will happily read those posts for validation that gutting the spec patch after patch makes us all happy.
Chris was only shadow, and he only took over during SL development after sephuz left at the end of 8.2.
Not sure who does healing priests.
As far as what disc needs?
1: Up atonement transfer rate or damage.
2: Delete SS and replace it with a talent tuned around small groups / dungeon healing. Searing light or something that plays on the same themes is an obvious choice.
3: Fix the overhealing problem with evangelism, and either give it an immediate payoff to justify the GCD, or take it off the GCD.
I main disc… I don’t understand why anyone would willingly want a nerf… I’d gladly take a 30s c/d with 110% shield size Spirit Shell. I’d gladly keep SS up and cheese every single fight.
Why should I care about how other healers feel? It’s about me and my output not theirs.
Seems so silly to me to want a nerf… why not just make us super OP? That’s what I’d want…
Yeah I know I just assumed based on the lack of development/growth of Holy or Disc there hasn’t really been one. Chris was also on Mistweavers but I can’t be upset he didn’t fix them before he left because of the resources he had to put into Shadow.
I agree with all of your points in regards to what Disc needs. Especially the GCD change.
Evangelism does do “something” when you press it. It just doesn’t feel that great that the only thing it’s doing is extending atonement. It’s not a good enough reason to leave it on the global.
Mistweavers have the same problem with Chi’ji/Yu’lon. The button feels like complete garbage to press because it doesn’t do anything other than summon the celestial.
I’ve been trying to advocate this since beta. Initially with Trinity but Searing Light would be better.
Albeit this line is kind of taken out of context, the point exemplifies the main problem. It is healer balance. I mean, the whole point of my post is underpinned by the class balance issue–one that remains a problem across the game no matter what you play. So what, you like a class but feel forced to play the flavor of the month most OP class every time when you like other classes?
In my case my main for nearly a decade was a holy paladin. But last xpac and now this one again it is OP. But maybe some of us like other classes and specs for a change. Maybe we like one or two classes here or there a lot more than others, but feel that if we play what we like we don’t get the invites we would if we played OP classes.
That is the whole point here. And in the case of disc priest, in my case I play a lot of M+. And in M+ they are rudely outdpsed by Venthyr H paladins, and hence are displaced by them in high keys. And in mid and low keys they fall short of what a lot want–namely resto shammies. Plus they have horrible mana issues in a lot of groups. And their damage is mediocre.
We aren’t playing a single player game where anyone can just re-roll their character, power level to max, and be caught up to where their actual favorite character is in a week. This isn’t Borderlands or Diablo. It’s wow. Your 15 dollars a month isn’t any more special than everyone elses lol. That’s why the goal is a balanced game where every class/spec is good/wanted.
Not everyone’s definition of fun is being overpowered.
The changes ur suggesting grossly overpower the class running 3rd right now for overall, and 2nd in highest m+. You’re asking for single handedly the most radically huge buff to a class that is already performing well above average.
The ONLY healers that need work at the moment are mist weavers and hpriests.
Personally i feel that schism is getting a passive nerf, seeing as how it was mostly used to pump up spirit shell. The increase of damage is barely noticeable when factoring in our abysmal atomement transfer. Personally i feel like lenience should increase armor by 5%, making it ideal for targets with higher armor (the tanks), and increase atomement transfer by 20%. When spec’d into lenience and factoring in our mastery, it would make our actual healing viable.
I also think shadow coven should be changed, as its super clunky when you play around it. Would be nice if it was just a 1 min cd that gave the raid 15%-20% leech for 10 seconds.
I honestly feel like we are not going to see anything significant for Disc Priest in 9.1. Maybe when they see that Disc Priest is literally not played anymore in 9.1, then may see some changes in 9.2… But I would not hold my breath, they have no clue what they are doing when it comes to Disc Priest(reintroducing Spirit-Shell) They don’t know what they want us to be, either buff up atonement transfer and damage so we can be a damage dealing healer or buff up our shields so we are more a mitigation healer… Right as of now, we are neither, we just dont do either good, we just mainly end up spamming SM because our damage and atonement transfer is abysmal… They need to get rid of the prepatch nerds as a start, but, as I said, I have lost all faith in Blizzard when it comes to making Disc Priest good in 5 mans, hell even in raids i often times get blown away by Holy Pally/Resto Shaman and hell, if it’s a good Resto Druid I can barely keep up… Given I’m not the best raid healer, I mainly M+, but its still crazy how much work I put into healing in raids for mediocre results… Idk, pray to the light I guess for a miracle, but I really doubt it…
Running third? On what basis do you mean this? The mana issues are a big problem. Disc damage is mediocre. The best healer priest in io score, above all disc priests is a holy priest.
Disc is not second highest in M+ at all. First, if you look at LFG, you get groups constantly asking for resto shammies–this is like non-stop.
Second, 19 of the top 20 healers in io scores are paladins. One is a resto shammy. In the top 60 one is a Disc priest. That’s right. One.
Arguably these healers need work–but honestly, holy priest pumps great healing in sheer hps (without mana issues), and the buff coming in 9.1 is going to make H priests a class to invite to raids. Also, as mentioned above, the #1 priest healer in IO score is a holy priest. Also, if you are a holy priest, you can easily just play disc. Also, Holy Priests are extremely strong in Heroic raids–especially given how they can heal groups of 30 with extremely potent raid wide heals. Also, if you are a holy priest, albeit disc is a lot harder to master, you can play disc.