Beware to Rejoice On Disc's New Easymode

Classes Priest
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there’s probably plenty of people hailing the new Discipline Priest spec changes as potentially ushering in a new era of Disc popularity and/or maybe bringing it to the mainstream of healing once again, considering how the population of Disc players plummeted dramatically since Legion, with the Legion “re-work” if we want to charitably call it that, and those numbers have never recovered.

because this is a game, i think it is fair to draw a correlation between popularity and fun. if something isn’t fun, people aren’t going to play it. we should also probably grade on a curve, meaning that the top 4% to 5% performers of any spec should be disregarded as to what they will or wont play, because those people are not normal. those kind of people may very well be treating the game as a for-profit business for one thing. if they are a streamer, or on a professional team. so they may play whatever they are asked to play by the team manager. they may play whatever spec is numerically optimal, even if the experience of playing that spec causes enormous psychological damage to most people, simply because they don’t care what they play as long as they are getting paid for it. and it is these people who tend to over-perform relative to the general population, as they have incentives and circumstances that allow them to play in ways most people cannot. so they tend to achieve better in-game performance results. for these reasons, whatever spec and playstyle is typical at the very high end, should be disregarded as evidence for what is “fun,” because it just muddies the reality of the situation.

so disc wasn’t fun. i know those 4(5) words will be like an alarm bell to bring in some random person to say THEY find it fun, THEY’VE ALWAYS found it fun, but i’m referring more to the success of the spec as a whole in the environment of the game relative to other specs. disc became extremely unpopular. so did mistweaver. they weren’t fun for a long time.

disc’s population is on the recovery now, but these upcoming changes should be viewed with skepticism. if any of you have been keeping track of the Priest feedback thread on guardians of the dream PTR, you’ll notice its a bunch of priest screaming into “the void,” confused, upset, begging for insight, and receiving nothing. blizz is doing a good job roleplaying “the void.” another thing you’ll notice if you read that thread is just how poorly the shadow and holy specs have been treated this patch cycle.

my tin foil hat theory is these new disc changes may just be a set up. a pretense for further nerfs leading into 11.0. now that the spec will be becoming as easy to play as holy, we can all expect the results of the average discipline player to increase. once the population starts to see better results, that will the be excuse for the nerfs to begin rolling in. so i hate to be so cynical on what’s about to happen with priests. but ever since dragonflight began, with such high hopes, it has been downhill for priests ever since.

why would blizz want to ruin the popularity of one of their most enduring classes? i dunno. equity probably. not enough people playing mistweaver or shaman. something like that. just guessing of course. people’s fantasy of being a healer can’t be allowed to be too homogeneous. even if such fantasies are ubiquitous and universal. they might see it as a personal failure, as developers, if they cannot scatter us to the winds, conceptual winds, equally toward each of the different healing specs.

right now raider io lists all m+ unique populations for healers:
67,000 Preservation Evoker
96,000 Restoration Druid
32,000 Mistweaver Monk
94,000 Restoration Shaman
57,000 Discipline Priest
70,000 Holy Priest
55,000 Holy Paladin

well, well, well… turns out Priests aren’t even the most popular healers. unless you combine the specs. and despite the 10.1 buffs and successful (but still flawed) rework, Holy Paladins are still struggling a bit. i guess it was all the disfiguring from the nerf bat hits after the rework landed them in exodia. so if the neglect to holy priest, and nerfs to shadow isn’t to chase people away from Priests as a class because its too popular, which it doesn’t seem to be, maybe it really is just punishment for exodia. maybe its just a grudge after all… in which case i fear my warning of nerfs may come to pass even more than i thought before…

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Disc totally is fun though. Most people shy away from it because it is hard to pull off, and takes a lot more effort and practice to do well than all other healers–albeit Mistweaver and R druid are not very easy either. Hence, it is simply not fun in the beginning because it is hard. Others may view it differently, but I view it as a spec with two rotations and kind of as being two specs in one. Hence it is tricky. It can also be a handful because to play it well you have to have mastered both rotations, you have to know what to do when, and you have to be pre-emptive–meaning you wont do very well at it without knowing exactly what you are up against beforehand pull to pull–or in raid boss ability to boss ability.

As for the rework, meh. There is less button bloat but the reason for that is because some buttons did virtually the same thing (that was what I didnt like), they folded some abilities into one button (vs two) and so you had a cluttered up UI–which now looks cleaner (on PTR currently). The new version is better since they got rid of Solace–which you pressed just for mana. But Mind Blast and Mindgames do virtually the same amount of damage and in the past Smite and this or that spell (I forget the minor details) also achieved the same result–with different mana costs–which seemed silly.

Disc will never be super popular because it is probably the most difficult healer and even most difficult spec/class in the game. I dont blame anyone for their preference for an easy spec with a few buttons. Then you can focus on other things in the game right off the bat vs learning a lot of other things first. I also dont blame anyone for playing FOTM because then you get full access to harder content if you want to challenge yourself. Off-meta can be problematic if you feel you are not fully contributing what you could to your group and/or you get frustrated being autodeclined (vs autoinvited) for higher content (such as >20 keys or even lower).

As for nerfs and class balance, Blizzard has never made it a priority. They have also let gross imbalances persist at times for a very, very long time. When Disc had Spirit Shell, for example, other healers hated Disc. Disc would literally do a majority of healing on some raid fights with that ability, and make other healers near useless–sniping absolutely all of the big healing if you had two in a raid group. Ashen Hollow is another ability that let Holy Paladins pump insane amounts of damage, comparable to pure dps classes. And Blizzard did nothing to bring those two abilities in line for ages. As for pure DPS specs, the differences in damage they do across specs is often HUGE. And in my opinion Blizzard only seems to react when the complaints roll in and are excessive. Otherwise they sometimes do very very little to bring balance in line.

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I was really surprised to see shamans making such high numbers. I feel like most of the chatter I hear people generating about that spec is negative. The druid numbers didn’t surprise me though; but I am biased.

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Im going to take a punt here… Are you talking mythic plus or raid. Vast differences in keys and in raid. and in raid disc will play as it always has. timers, burst etc. The dps rotation is just a little easier but the spec plays as it always has and no amount of " dps side is easier" will change the fact that ramping to timers is what makes a disc priest good or bad. So i think those people who think disc is easier, will be in for a shock in raids.

Keys. If a drunk 50 yr old keyboard turning clicker can do 20’s then no disc in keys isnt hard. BUT the amount of people playing it will be as Dyscords graph says. Disc will never see 100k playing them. Its just not that kind of spec

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You guys are being to doom and gloom around here, just relax and enjoy the rework! The spec looks excellent, and if they are a bunch of evil scientists cackling madly trying to get us all to play disc just to nerf it into the ground so be it, I’m going to enjoy it while it’s good.

Also disc is not necessarily the only ramp raid healer now, since both MW (CF build) and druid both play a ramp style in raid. There ramps are a little easier (IMO) to pull off than disc, but same idea.

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Your statement assumes no one enjoyed how disc was before :slight_smile: I enjoyed playing with TE etc. I had no issues with disc as it was. I have yet to decide on the new disc playstyle even tho ive played some keys on the ptr

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Disc had a clunky and overly complex DPS rotation. The ptr just made it a two button spec and it’s no harder than Aug evoker to play. They removed the high barrier to play, but it’s still going to be the hardest healer to play properly.

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You can’t make this objective statement based on popularity in games that have very competitive midcore scenes, unfortunately, because strength and difficulty tend to have a major effect on those choices.

If the most important part of a healer being popular is that they’re fun, well then the most popular healer in M+ wouldn’t be shifting much at all each patch. In fact, what we tend to see is that the easiest specs usually maintain a large audience. We also often Holy Paladin starting as very unpopular until they’re clearing the very highest M+ keys then the popularity shoots up but never really usurps resto druid (they’ve literally never had a raid tier they weren’t desired).

That said, it’s not just WoW that’s like this. Competitive online games with any type of class or character selection (mobas, hero shooters) see the same thing. The most popular characters tend to be the easiest characters, with a bit of a bonus if they’re more competitive.

Yeah Disc’s not going to be as easy as Holy. The healing delivery is still just slightly more obtuse than other healers, and we’re likely going to see an influx of Disc players that find out they’re not very good at disc, then drop it. High level players are going to flock to it so long as it can outperform other healers, but even that’s yet to be seen.

As far as if Disc will get nerfed, uh yeah of course it will. Disc has been a punching bag whenever it hits meta in any sense.

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In an M+ setting, which will be easier to play well now holy or disc? Disc has always felt like a relaxing healer for me (not always, oops: in SL before talent trees and especially in BFA it did), which I could use recently. Is it still hard to optimize and what specifically will disc need to optimize? Holy has been feeling like a juggling act recently. I just want a healer where I can spam a bit and do well without all the juggling.

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I honestly have no idea. I plan on trying both out to see which one I settle with for M+.

Disc is a lot easier to play compared to before because you don’t need to juggle weaving smite/mind blast 4 times to buff Penance and having to refresh Schism/Shadow Covenant every 30s.

Post update all you do is hit Mind Blast every 20-24s, cast Mind Bender on cd (30-45s reset w/ 4 piece), and spend the majority of your time just hitting Smite and Penance. You have Ultimate Penitence to use as a dungeon healing cd which you can use a dps or healing ability.

Holy is going to play the same as it does now with stronger single target heals and the 4-piece is going to make or break us in M+. You have to passively cast Renew and rely on your 2-piece Renews to try and proc your 4-piece so you get extra Holy Words.

If the 4-piece procs often: that makes Holy actually kinda strong if you can bank 2 extra Holy Words to actually use to counter boss damage. You could use 3-4 Holy Word Serenitys in a row which also means more uptime on Divine Image… If it doesn’t proc often and its too RNG then Holy isn’t going to do that great.

So which will perform better largely comes down to the damage patterns of the dungeons. Disc has a far easier time with dealing with damage patterns where the group just takes a big burst of damage and you have 10-20s to top everyone off. You just hit Radiance and cast dps spells while Holy has to manually heal one person at a time.

It also depends on how much dmg Disc does over Holy. Right now Holy does more dps and if Disc does more dps while having an easier time healing the damage patterns: playing Disc is a no brainer.

Also, if Disc becomes FOTM then you’ll get an easier time getting into higher keys. People might kick you for being Holy.

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To optimize Disc you have to know what buttons to press when. You have to have the right gear–meaing the right secondary stats–upon which it is heavily dependent. In my case, early on in DF, I tried playing it like I played it in SL and BFA and my results were mediocre at best. Now with all of the talents, optimizing is a lot trickier. For example, you have to know when you need mass dispel. You have to know when you need a disease dispel. Your playstyle, whether it be maximizing the power of your shield which is part of the Aegis build or maximizing your use of your pet has different stat requirements, etc. Whether this will be straightforward going forward, I do not know. I have heard a wide range of thoughts, for example, on how good Ultimate Penitence is, good or bad, and am undecided on it or anything else regarding the “new” disc.

As for the finer intricacies of abilities like TE, I find them a pain in the you know what. In the new season almost upon us, I think the options for optimizing talents will be fewer, but dont know what to think. I doubt the gameplay will change that much, but think it will be easier to get down fast–at least not for beginners that is.

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Its not as though I want to be doom and gloom. It is merely the memories of a better time, when even without the existence of direct communication or multiple Q&A’s, the dev patch notes used to read with more complexity and rationale, as if consumer happiness were more of an ever-present concern to the development team.

However now everything is always the same. Every justification for every change, PvE or PvP, is always “we would like” or “we feel.” Or some form of “comfortable.” “We aren’t comfortable with…” etc. Its all about their damn feelings. What about our feelings? They don’t care, or they certainly don’t care as much as they used to. And this is the predictable result of their dominance in the MMO space for so long. It is simple human behavior. They have become complacent and confident in their power.

It matters a lot less to them how they treat people. They will almost certainly get paid no matter what they do, or why they do it. And so it is this underlying aura that emanates from everything they do lately, that bothers me much more than any specific change.

Discipline
Developers’ notes: Discipline healing throughput (particularly in raids) is slightly higher than we would like, given their damage and utility contributions to the group. To balance them, we’re reducing some talents that are giving a lot of power for only 1 talent point. The goal is to improve talent balance while also bringing them in line with other healers.
    Divine Aegis absorption reduced to 5% of healing done (was 10%).
    Inescapable Torment damage reduced by approximately 19%.

These recent changes were sadly predictable… but the changes themselves aren’t too important. Even so, I hope you all enjoyed your extremely few days before the nerfs began coming in, and hey the raid isn’t even out yet. But I fear it won’t even end here…

No I think the far more important thing in nerfs like this is the realization that after these couple of decades since the MMO industry really began to take off, we all have to face the truth that the industry didn’t go in a way that would let ordinary people have more control over the world, more of an impact in how each world plays out. We are just along for someone else’s ride, being nickel and dimed all the way, and some small group of people make choices that we are all forced to live with…so its just like everything else in life, this isn’t the technology that was going to change anything after all, like nothing ever is it seems… no matter how long we wait, or what new thing comes along that makes us hopeful, it is always reduced to a small few, controlling all the decisions, and taking all the credit for everything.

And its sad, because it is probably true that most of them don’t even play their own game, or enjoy working on it, they probably don’t even like reading feedback or hearing about the game at all. After all, they are the ones who made Divine Aegis a 1-point talent from a 2-point talent. They didn’t nerf it then, they are only nerfing it now. I hate to hear them complain about it when they were too cowardly to nerf it to start with. They just lie to the players now, but not directly. It is with these style of change something without a nerf, and then nerf it shortly after complaining its too powerful for the points spent or something.

Its just this very cowardly way of doing things that they probably think its smarter to do it that way, as if it will cause less complaining. But I think they miss the fact that whether a lot of people will be able to understand or articulate their perceptions, there’s still going to be this sense that people get, that something isn’t as good as it used to be. That they aren’t being treated as well as before. That general discontent shall be sown by Blizz, unwittingly, because they are just lower quality team now than they used to be, and maybe its not even their fault, maybe the world itself just doesn’t raise good people as often as it used to. But also success has gone to their head for sure. Maybe I’m overthinking it.

You know the longer my life goes on, the more often I start to think maybe I need to accept that life isn’t about things getting continually better. For the longest time I thought that was some sort of cosmic law. Things just get better. To be honest I thought I’d be the one designing classes by now. Not because I had plans to join Blizz or any company. I just thought games would be that awesome by now.

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Have these changes already been implemented?

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I’m not sure, they are up on Wowhead, the article says these changes are coming Tuesday actually.