(BETA) Dragonflight Priest Talent Tree Feedback Thread

Classes Priest
#2387

PW:S was broken for 2 expansions (though really it was closer to 4). As was the spirit shell version in WoD/MoP. They tried to balance absorbs and couldn’t in the modern game and took efforts to step away from absorb based healing. on all classes.

The whole point of turning PW:S into a CD is to make it an absorb that feels more significant. Chances are it sees some sp buffs. This is the same thing as the legion iteration, except Renew is better than plea was.

Why would this make Disc play like holy? Disc played more like holy in WoD when they had PoH and had to spam it for absorbs. If anything, adding a CD to Smend and PW:S push the spec to rely more on atonement and its applicators - which is very very different from Holy.

Being good faith, I think the idea is to make PW:S a better baseline ability for the class. To do that, they need it to feel good for other specs to hit. To have it be that strong an absorb, it can’t be something that Disc can just spam out there, so they need a new default atonement applicator (renew).

Smend didn’t need the change - but to me how I see it is they want all the talents to feel like a choice you might make. Disc wouldn’t TOUCH the left side of the tree with a 10 foot pole if they didn’t want to cast Flash Heal ever - and Smend being on no CD eliminates flash heal use. So they put it on a CD and gave disc flash heal so the left side is a more interesting set of talents with SoL.

At least that’s my guess as to why they went this direction.

Holy in high level play has to use damage spells all the time - casting damage isn’t exactly hard, and Disc actually became a lot better at passive healing now that they have renew ticking and ways to heal out of combat.

I’m not trying to say you’re wrong about how you feel, here, but I just am feeling like what you’re saying isn’t actually what’s happening to Disc. I don’t see any big shift towards holy’s playstyle or anything.

Renew is significantly better than plea because it’s passive healing at a flat mana cost and a HoT (which bolsters up atonement as a pre-emptive heal). Plea was a flat heal and expensive beyond 3 targets at that. Managing Disc in early legion was very difficult. It was powerful because atonement was really, really good for the most part - but man was atonement application a pain.

Plea was a nightmare because of the mana cost increase. It would not have been all that bad if it weren’t for that.

The current changes do very little to change how difficult the spec is. Mostly it adds two keybinds, which is possibly not a good thing - but Disc had less keybinds than holy to begin with.

3 Likes
#2388

I am kind of curious how this hybrid approach is going to work with Disc.

PWS and Shadowmend now have a cooldown so that leaves casting Renew outside of Radiance to spread your atonements around the group. If you have a Resto Druid you’re pretty much competing with them on the hot healing department and overlapping roles. The more Renews you cast the faster your PWS cd resets as well with one of the talents.

I will say comparing the Disc to Holy tree: the bottom of the Disc tree is a lot cleaner. Also, Disc gets Mind Bender and Shadowflame Prism, but boy is it a hassle to get those talents.

#2389

I think their point is more on how many talents in the disc tree are giving fillers CDR on more important spells, which is the core mechanic of holy’s holy words.

I’m personally not a fan of how much cdr disc is getting between fiending dark, train of thought, and protector of the frail.

3 Likes
#2390

OK, that makes more sense. Perhaps I don’t see it as a problem largely because I don’t think it ever makes a real change on playstyle for Disc. All those talents seem more like bonuses than anything to actually play around. Train of thought is the only talent that’s really doing that to a core spell, and I don’t think anyone would randomly apply atonement to get the PW:S CD down or smite specifically for penance CD.

Holy words feel like a core mechanic, the spec is based around them often granting bonuses to holy words or followups - and the CDR is significant. Wheras fiending dark is really just a cooldown decrease on mana regen. It translates to throughput sure, but Shadowfiend/Bender aren’t going to really reverse a damage event on their own.

2 Likes
#2391

I really want atonement removed from the root node as disc so it’s damage can be buffed. Add mind flay to shadow covenant. Let me cheat on queue times for random bgs by playing a “healer” when I want fast games.

#2392

As always, your posts are well written and nice to read man… I couldn’t have said better. I wish I was as good in english as I am with my native langage so that I could explain as clearly as that :slight_smile:

That’s the feeling I’m getting as well. Although I feel that right now I’d avoid a lot of things just to avoid bloat…

There are a few things that overlaps I feel. That can be fine because it’s the whole point of the tree, to chose.

  • smend vs hw:life → Kinda feel like the same niche, in the same tree as well. A bit weird I feel…
  • mindgames vs light’s wrath → While I like both, and tuning could change things, I feel that both these spells are overlapping with mindgames bringing more utility overall with the mana return + reverse damage/healing. Maybe light wrath is going to be better in raid, with tuning, we’ll see.
  • Solace, never been a big fan of it even if I played a lot of it… I’m always debating the gcd every 15 sec or a more passive way or getting mana back. Maybe it’s counterpart will be fine with shield being less frequent so it might be fine.
  • Shadow cov vs Vampiric embrace. I feel these 2 overlap as well. And while shadowcov could use some help with the new tree, VE is still far behind in my book…

We’re basically removing mind sear in favor of renew, and everything else that isn’t baseline is a choice.

There are probably a few buttons that I have as keybinds that aren,t used that much or will be only picked contextually… Holy nova comes to mind as a slot that’s freeing up (at least for me right now)

I’m curious to see how some weeks will play out, like grevious…

1 Like
#2393

One thing to note about Mind Games restores 4% of your mana and there’s a talent that each Holy Fire + Smite cast reduces its cd by 2s a cast. Just soloing it’s going to be pretty strong…

Mind Games is very likely going to be a strong to mandatory pick for raid healing and M+ for healing priests because it’s healing and mana return is leaps ahead Holy Word Life.

Holy Word Life is probably going to be borderline op for arenas as it does the same healing as Serenity at almost no mana cost.

4 Likes
#2394

I am real excited to see the changes to shadow. As for all the water carry for discipline. Y’all sound like you are applying to be on the CC. None of what blizzard is changing is going to fix the core problems we have had from legion. Chock it up to one more casualty of Ion.

1 Like
#2395

Omg I feel you so much. I speak brazilian, what’s your language? Curious

From a super emergency heal, HW Life is better, less mana and more healing, a better CD as well, 10s past the threshold.

That’s exactly the point. Light’s wrath is basically a large group heal, Mindgames have more uses and it is available every ramp/mini-ramp.

They could finally tune the counterpart, I hate using solace on CD. Or it could have it’s CD and mana return improved.

1 Like
#2396

French :croissant:

Otherwise I agree with you points. I guess I’ll get a better feeling when I get to play it. It’s mostly an ‘on paper’ feeling…

Like many others, I’m actually quite enjoying post legion disc. And DF looks to be good so far on that front :man_shrugging:

1 Like
#2397

I just got invited into the beta so I’ll be happy to start copying over some feedback to the dragonflight beta forum from this and other topics here.

1 Like
#2398

New video from max on healer priest.

Edit: nothing really new I feel for us who are active in here. I’d summarize it as a nice wrap-up. Notably on the class tree where healer priests could do with some node placement changes.

#2399

Spirit Shell has been removed

source → https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/dragonflight-beta-development-notes/1278546/11

1 Like
#2400

rip SS. you wont be missed

#2401

Hey Blizz! If anyone is reading this from Blizz :slight_smile:
I’ve played disc priest as my main class and spec since wrath. Part of the class fantasy I always enjoyed was the idea of shielding my allies, rather than healing them. And the strategy of having to shield ahead of time, rather than heal after the fact, was always a big part of what drew me to the class and spec.

I fully understand how disc’s absorbs became a problem that was difficult to balance, I truly do. It’s not fun for other healers when disc can just negate entire mechanics up front, and the raid design team has to design around that ability being there. But at the time when you changed disc’s focus to damage to heal, I really believe you traded one difficult to balance thing for another. As long as shielding or damaging to heal is a thing primarily given to disc, you have to keep it at almost un-fun levels of mediocrity or it will be a mandatory raid slot. I believe the answer to this is to give some of these tools to other specs, ideally with some flare and aesthetics that fit with the class fantasy of the class and spec in question.

Beyond that bigger design issue though, the core gameplay of disc has been pretty stagnant since legion. I am so tired of Evangelism ramps. And for people who like post-legion disc, that’s probably been fine. For me, it’s felt like the class and spec I was drawn to for a certain class/spec fantasy was fundamentally changed to something I don’t enjoy, and has since stayed that way for years now. It feels bad to put in 3x the work of other healing specs that just get to press one button and poop out all their healing and then to barely compete with them, or even fall behind them. And that’s related to that big design issue of giving disc something other healers don’t have–we are balanced around doing damage too, which other healers have to choose between damage and healing. If it’s too good, even slightly too good, it becomes mandatory.

But ultimately the TLDR of this post is this: I love the class fantasy of shielding and strategically preventing damage. I get why that needs to be pretty limited, or given to other healers too, in order for it to be remotely balanced. Right now though, with the removal of spirit shell, that fantasy is almost completely lacking from the game, and that feels bad to me. When I read, “spirit shell has been removed,” my heart sank. I had been looking forward to experimenting with a limited, cd-based shielding spec in dragonflight. And now instead I’m looking at legion disc 2.0 with yet another expansion of evangelism ramps or swapping to another healer whose fantasy I don’t enjoy either.

Anyway, maybe I’m a very small minority and not worth designing around. But this change in particular made me come back to the forums and post about it, and I hope someone reads it.

2 Likes
#2402

Holy dps just got a lot more complicated. The introduction of Mind Blast on a short cooldown, Empyreal Blaze (my beloved), Divine Word, Mind Games (which can be lowered like a Holy Word), Shadowfiend (3 min cooldown), makes it fairly random what you’re going to press next. Tools of the Cloth makes PW: Shield another button to press every ~12 sec. Managing SW: Pain on single target is annoying and you will still need to use Divine Star on cooldown in single target. Since we’re still level 60, I’m missing Light of the Naaru, Harmonious Apparatus, and Apotheosis. Hooray for the most complicated ranged dps :)))

#2403

I played around with this a bit on the beta and got a feel for the new damage routine.

  • Mind Games hits like a bus and it’s worth talenting into.
  • Empyreal Blaze is fairly forgiving. Your hard casted Holy Fire cd resets separately from the Blaze cd so if you don’t press it before using the cd you can press Holy Fire again right after the 3 casts. The buff lasts 30s or until you consume all 3 charges so you have plenty of time to dispense it. The dot also stacks… you can have a 30s rolling Holy Fire dot.
  • Mind Blast is basically garbo and can be deleted off the bar. Smite w/ Searing Light does more damage than Mind Blast.

The current damage routine is the same as it is now except you got Mind Games and Blaze to weave in every 30s.

Divine Word is also really strong. You can activate +50% increased single target + renew healing, +25% increased crit chance on those spells, and -25% reduced mana cost for 15s. It’s easily a more powerful Apotheosis in my opinion because it’s cd is also half as long.

I don’t know what it does for damage though. It’s not working atm.

1 Like
#2404

You re not alone. I love Spirit shell so much I was looking forward to test it soon, but now with that gone I’m so sad, I can’t even describe, I lost 80% of the interest in the next expansion cause that’s what I love about disc, the shields. I really hope they revert this change, but with no hope since there are a lot of people bashing Spirit shell since it’s returns

1 Like
#2405

The playstyle must be so fun. That’s why you see bunches and bunches of discipline priest. That’s right you don’t. :rofl:

2 Likes
#2406

Damage mitigation > throughput healing is the problem. Preventing and reducing damage is much more powerful than healing after the fact. This is why Disc Priests were S-tier in Castle Nathria because of the 1 minute Spirit Shells.