That’s all. Just a reminder that it is still terrible and in need of even a single member of the balance team to remember it is in fact an option in PvE and that PvP and PvE can (and should) be balanced differently.
And no I’m talking about how you play it in your LFR or Normal Raid or +7 keys. The spec just cannot even come close to Voidweavers output. Even if you send double premonitions it does less healing than a Voidweaver doing one Mindblast combo and the latter is on a 17 second cooldown, not 2 minutes like Oracle.
I’m pretty sad to hear how abysmal Oracle Disc’s output turned out to be. I personally prefer a more Light magic oriented Disc playstyle— so I was really looking forward to Oracle. I was excited for Voidweaver to come in and maybe splinter off the pet gameplay style, while Oracle could return to a bit more of a shield healer again, along with typical Atonement gameplay of course.
It seems they captured the Oracle playstyle I was hoping for pretty much perfectly for the PvP build. I guess if they cranked up the tuning knob on that build for PvE to match Voidweaver, perhaps things could work?
I wonder what you think that would entail. Would we need even more of a percent buff for Smite, Penance, and Holy Nova through Preventive Measures? Would we need larger absorbs like buffing Divine Aegis and PW: Shield? Adjust the Atonement healing percent for Oracle specifically?
I’m curious about specific solutions for this because I’d love for Oracle Disc to be a respectable pick in PvE.
Idk About 0 Representation but i kno im for sure 1 of the oracle priests, But because its not represented in WCL or showcased by Content Cretors ect, its just automatically bad? Idk im indifferent. Oracle HPS is amazing, But just lack in the DPS department Is kinda big, just simply due to not having a lot of active spells to deal Dmg with unlink Voidweaver
I’m the Oracle Disc priest. I haven’t been pushing 10s, but I did get KSM and have been farming 7s in the first week with relatively little challenge playing strictly Oracle disc outside like 2 times while leveling.
For what it’s worth, Oracle disc doesn’t work in raids, nearly at all. Especially in comparison to VW. VW has way higher atonement transfer and atonement scales up to 20 players incredibly well, so Oracle realistically has no chance to beat it.
That said, Oracle is decent healing in dungeons. It has a couple flaws, but I honestly think it’s better for pug healing at most levels. The HPS is very high, and it has cooldowns for pretty much every given situation.
If I were to push at my current ilvl (and without tier) my guess is I could get 9s done in most dungeons, a 10 in mists should be relatively easy. The only real challenge I’ve run into while I was playing was City of Threads, which has several bosses that don’t really jive super well with Oracle’s healing style. The third boss, in particular is way harder on Oracle (granted, this could also be because I went straight into +7 from like a +2 in COT) because anti-heal shield into his void pulse is tough to cover without using 2 CDs at a time and there’s no real good time to use Uppies because the fight requires a lot of movement.
Uppies has actually been surprisingly good in this dungeon set though. For some reason it’s doing more ‘ignore the thing on the ground’ than it is ‘get hit by the thing below you.’
Realistically, I think the spec’s healing is OK though, it just lacks damage. My average DPS in a dungeon overall looking at details is somewhere in the 150-200k range and that’s been very consistent at every difficulty level (since we have no uncapped AoE). Most healers are around 250 in +10s. Voidweaver in particular is usually in the 250-300 range from what I’ve seen of +10 pugs. So it’s a significant damage loss.
But I do think the spec has a few problems:
Prayer of mending is useless for it.
It’s only 4 stacks, gets none of Holy’s modifiers so it’s generally low HPS.
PoM doesn’t bounce if damage isn’t done. PW:S blocks damage. If the shield doesn’t break, PoM just falls off. Less of a problem for Holy when the PW:S is only 300k. But when I crit an 8mil shield in rapture the PoM doesn’t even work. It’s just anti-synergy.
Solace feels hard to control and use as an external in PvE because it might not be up at the right time, and it’s just more of what you already do but weaker as a disc priest.
Also reflective shield should work with this. IDK why it doesn’t.
The tree could use something that benefits Dstar/Halo for damage, or just some other way to generate damage. The current increase is OK, but not anywhere near any other healer. Hell, if they wanted to, they could buff the reflective shield talent in oracle and really emphasize the PW:S build the spec seems to want you to do.
Overall though, it’s really not that bad in 5 man or PvP. It’s just got some major Raid problems (that I don’t think are really fixable).
No bro dont you wreck my fun. As a long time priest when we had PoM im glad to hear that noise bouncing around. Having said that i have a question, does it get buffed by atonement and if not it really should. Maybe a buff to 10 stack would be nice. Bit cheeky of an ask
Depending on pugs thats my damage range i can concur.
I have noted this as well.
I agree. I tried VW on a few keys. Im only doing low ones to get usd to the dungeons atm since time is limited but i found VW had some gaps. Atm fitting in with the "
And no I’m talking about how you play it in your LFR or Normal Raid or +7 keys.
[/quote]"
I do expect some more buffs tho to oracle> i would prefer buffs rather then they nerf VW.
I haven’t burst over 1m hps in VW but have as oracle so im not sure how true your statement is
I am curious. Im going to presume by this post and others you are in favor of oracle and wanting it to be cranking rather then dissing it?
I already covered that in my original post. I’m not really talking about content the balance team doesn’t need to actively balance for. No one really cares if Oracle is bad in their world quests, normal/heroic raids, or low level keys. Those are all doable without even having talents on.
Last week for Heroic raid I made a post saying Oracle had less than 2% representation in the top 100 on WCL and needed help. In Mythic it is actively at 0% for obvious reasons. In Mythic+ it’s completely absent as well. Hero talents are pickable in PvE in addition to PvP. There’s no reason to leave Oracle in such an abysmal PvE state just because it’s good in PvP. We have the technology to balance them independently.
Yes. That is what it means. You can literally go over to a target dummy right now and compare the healing output of both specs yourself if you don’t believe me. Voidweaver can do like 50% more healing on a 17 second cooldown than Oracle can do with a 2 minute cooldown. It is actually that abysmally far behind Voidweaver in both damage and healing. Arguably I’d say by design Voidweaver should do more Dps and less HPS. And Oracle should do less DPS but more HPS so they each have thematic niches. But right now Oracle just does less of both in PvE, for no benefit. You are playing a more complicated spec that performs worse objectively, there is no reward. This is just numbers. We have all the data before us and it’s not hard to see.
I’m sorry I’m not being polite but I’m tired of people being like “Well ackuuallyyy I play it so it’s good.” No. It’s not. I play it too because I think it’s interesting but I’m not delusional and I switch specs back to Voidweaver when I need to do something more serious like a 10-12 Key or Mythic Raid. It is by definition right now a cosmetic spec. You play it when you’re bored of playing Voidweaver. But I wish I had the option to think “Do I want Voidweaver or Oracles’ kit for the content I am about to do?”
If an NFL player was literally not drafted at all. Every single team avoided them. You might suspect something is up right? That is Oracle right now.
One of my last posts that I doubt the Balance Team saw because I’m guessing they don’t actually ever read user feedback from the forums, was that if the Devs don’t have time to figure out what Priest should be from a utility standpoint in M+, just turn their numbers up so they are at least playable in M+ and can brute force their way through their lack of utility since we have the M+ atonement modifier they hadn’t been using. And they did actually do that, thank goodness. And I can tell you it has helped, enormously.
So once again I am asking the Balance Team. If no one on the Dev side has time to look at Oracle and figure out what truly should change for it in PvE. Turn the numbers up so it’s at least playable in the meantime. Crank PvE Preventative Measures shields up by another 10% to total 50% so you can actually feel the bigger shields compared to Voidweaver. And turn the Damage portion up by another 30%~ to total 70%. If you want to keep damage lower because that’s Voidweaver’s thing, add a segment to Preemptive Care that buffs Healing Atonement Transfer so you can buff healing without touching the damage. Add a comment that says why you’re doing it. Then when you figure out what Oracle should be in the long run, turn it back down again. Sincerely, please.
Cool you’re like a 5th or 6th of the way to what Voidweaver can do in raid. And not even half of what it can do on 5 players in Mythic plus. You’re just supporting my argument that Oracle is more than 50% behind Voidweaver.
Everything you said I fully agree with. Especially this part.
I don’t want to see Voidweaver nerfed at all. I think it’s in a perfect spot given the lack of utility of the Priest class which you talked about. Oracle is definitely more complicated and not as passive gameplay as Voidweaver. With Oracle, you literally are playing like you’re a psychic Oracle lol. Like, you have to predict a lot and cycle the Premonition buffs very well. That gameplay could be rewarding if it was actually tuned accordingly to the challenge.
Oracle simply needs to be cranked up to match Voidweaver while we wait for the holy grail of a Priest rework that may or may not ever happen (lol).
I agree and that’s not what I’m asking for. I’m saying before numbers even came into the equation at Blizzard HQ, during the design phase, when you think about a Shadow Healer and a Holy healer. The Shadow-based one would probably be damage oriented while the Holy spell based one would be more healing centric.
Instead what we got is one that does both and the other does nothing.
I don’t think Voidweaver should be nerfed at all. According to the metrics the healers (aka Voidweaver, because there are no Oracles) are all very even at the moment except for Preservation which is like 20% ahead of every one (as I fully anticipated because the balance team never took into account the lack of Tier set during heroic week, it’s the strongest preservation Tier set to have ever existed so as soon as Pres start completing it they were going to shoot ahead, not sure how that one slipped by).
What I’m asking for is Oracle buffs. I think its healing should at least be buffed to the point where it’s on par with Voidweaver.
Logic lacks. One, talking keys not raiding. we have already conceded oracle isnt good in raids so not sure why you went there, and 2 i was comparing to what i have done in keys when comparing, which has nothing to do with what someone else in a set group or much better gear then my 595 can do. My comparison was oracle has done FOR ME and my gear lvl more hps then VW has.
Good to hear that clarification for those that might need to hear it.
Which I was fully expecting during the beta cycle! I said way up in this forum how I was hoping for a more traditional shield and atonement style for Oracle, rather than the shadowfiend and hard DPS to heal style Voidweaver brings, for variety. I still hope they offer the style I was hoping for eventually in a viable way. I love how Voidweaver plays and it’s nice to have that variety in one spec, but I really have missed “old Disc” for a very long time, and we’re so close to maybe having that in some small way.
I think to make that work for Oracle without breaking anything, the DPS knob needs to go up a lot more than it currently is too. Maybe not on par DPS-wise with Voidweaver of course due to the thematic nature of shadow magic being more offensive, but not as low as it feels now.
Believe it or not I was 595 once as well. We all were. I was capable of doing 2 million then, I’m more than capable of it now. I have nothing else to say than you’re playing Voidweaver wrong. Voidweaver can sustain significantly higher HPS over longer durations when required. And it can reach astronomically higher burst windows when needed at their discretion, on a fraction of the cooldown.
sigh missing the point. Capable and doing is 2 different things. Read what is written. Im saying as a comparison oracle did more. But as we all know we only heal what is needed to heal. So if your healing 2m at that ilvl then something went badly wrong. Im experienced at playing priest and sit on +20’s every xpac. Im not playing it wrong. It may be that i just haven’t needed to hit 1m as VW yet. But i can only say what has been done. factually done. Not supposition.
Edit. Now can you argue that VW is a better spec based upon the numbers doing at a high lvl yes. Thats factual. But i find VW boring, and too easy which is why i hope oracle gets buffed so at a higher lvl when i push i dont get kicked for wrong hero talents lol
It is wild that I can go into a thread and basically say “Hey this spec will work for most players in M+ but just fundamentally won’t work in raid, IMO it’s better if you’re doing low level pugs but could use buffs, here’s some specific problems with the spec.”
And that gets twisted into somehow glazing Oracle and not doing high enough keys to have an opinion and a debate on healing output. I played in +12s on beta (granted, on Paladin), and they only required like 1.5m sustained on the hardest bosses. This stuff is possible for Oracle to do, especially with real gear.
I’d like to talk about the spec’s problems, what can be fixed and do it within what it seems Blizzard’s goal for the spec is (which SEEMS to be a PW:S focused ‘lightside’ healer). Not pretend that the spec is awful and can’t do +10 keys that are so mythically hard for them their healing output won’t keep up, despite, you know, only needing 1m sustained to do for the majority of them.
Hell don’t trust me. Go find a prolific pug player doing their 10 keys. Most BDKs will do because they all track healing done. Watch what the healer averages on harder bosses in +10s right now. Who needs a sustained 2 mil hps or whatever imaginary number we’re talking about?
I AGREE that the spec needs some help. But holy hell no it is not this dire outside raid, lol. TBH though, I can think of a bunch of minor tweaks that would give it better HPS than VW in 5 mans. I think the hero tree is just fundamentally screwed without significant changes in raid content though.
Specifically, if you want to play M+ and you want a shield/light magic playstyle you can absolutely play Oracle right now unless you’re trying to play at the absolute highest key and you’re only playing for score. I’m waiting to even attempt a push until I’ve got better gear, but I don’t doubt it’s possible. The only thing stopping you is yourself.
So, I think the dissonance here is that you guys are kind of strictly arguing about healing output, at least from everything I’ve been reading. Whereas, most of the complaints about Disc Oracle in comparison to Voidweaver are about damage output. It’s just not in your best interest to run the hero talents with lower DPS, especially in mythic+ — and Oracle doesn’t offer a massive benefit for playing it over Voidweaver. If Oracle absorbs actually felt really strong, I think it would be a major contender for people that prefer that style. But right now, it’s so easy for people to be like, “oh Voidweaver does way more DPS, and it’s easier to play? I’m picking that one!”.
We all know Atonement healing is done through a conversion of our DPS, which Voidweaver is excelling at. Voidweaver plays essentially passively which allows for a very straightforward rotation that’s basically what we are used to (same rotation as we’ve been doing for an expansion now essentially). This let’s Voidweaver play super well in a very tight environment like a high key mythic+ dungeon. More damage in a mythic+ dungeon means you are able to clear it a little faster, on top of the benefit of huge burst healing windows with the pet, which are kind of unmatched compared to Oracle.
Oracle (in my opinion) needs to lean into the niche of stopping damage with absorbs before it happens. This thematically makes sense for Oracle because you’re “predicting” damage before it happens, and Oracles see the future. Then, buff Oracle DPS more (not exactly as strong as Voidweaver DPS), because it really does feel noticeably way worse, and regardless of being an Oracle Disc or Voidweaver Disc, DPS healing is what we do. It should feel good.
It’s apathy like this that makes situations like DF Season 2, 3 and 4 God Comps exist. It doesn’t matter if you don’t do the highest content. The community perception has a high likelihood of trickling down to affect you anyway. There is no harm in attempting to shore up gaps in performance between specs and hero talents.
Opening Thread: “Hey I really enjoy Oracle but according to the public data in addition to higher level anecdotal evidence, it simple sucks compared to Voidweaver. Can we get some numbers buffs until the Devs get around to figuring out why it’s not competitive and the direction they want to take it?”
50% of the Replies: “Actually it performs great in my +5 you just suck.”
So did I. On every single healer. Hundreds of keys with feedback that was properly ignored. I was right that Preservation would be the highest HPS by a long shot. I was right that Resto Shaman would be the meta healer pick for M+. I was right Resto Druid would be largely unplayable. I was right about just about every prediction I made.
I’m telling you right now, Oracle will not be usable on the higher end of the spectrum at it’s current tuning compared to Voidweaver. It’s possible that will trickle down through public opinion to the content you enjoy doing, it’s possible it may not.
I am not saying you have not found success with Oracle in the content you do. I’m not saying you can’t play it. I’m just saying numerically it literally cannot compete and you will find substantial flaws with its design philosophies the higher you go until you have to abandon it, or abandon doing higher content. It is a problem that for the most part can be fixed with simple numerical tuning in the interim.
I really do not understand the pushback for asking for simple numbers buffs until the spec can get proper attention and the devs can figure out what they want it to really be.
Prob the way you set about making your case. No one disagrees that it can use some love. Indeed i would be very surprised if in the next 2 weeks it didn’t. They can’t look at their data and say well no 10’s cleared by oracle and no heroic raids, and not act. Well in a normal world
