Disc priest Changes. I dont understand them

Classes Priest
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Taken from an EU forum post i found very interesting .

Discipline

  • The goal of these changes is to reduce the number of cooldowns Discipline has access to and bake some of that power into other abilities. In addition, we’re resolving some pain points in the talent tree and making it easier to quickly get Atonements on allies by moving Overloaded with Light into a more central location. Finally, we’re re-theming Purge the Wicked into a Shadow spell so that Twilight Equilibrium can be more consistently activated.

I dont understand the need to do such a thing. on the contrary disc would shine with more cds than less , so each ramp can feel different and more flavorfull. Also the removal of uppies CDR is extremely questionable. It eliminates Oracle which was already dead in pve and reduces build diversity for VW , effectively making the whole tree a 1 point choice , shadowfiend vs mindbender (we currently have 3 builds , 1 standard non uppies , 1 with uppies and shadowfiend and 1 with uppies and mindbender)

  • The following talents have been removed:

    • Heaven’s Wrath

    • Rapture

    • Train of Thought

again , the main outcry in the disc community was the CDR gameplay for the pet. the endless frantic smite spam to meet timers was very annoying . You decided to keep void summoner and remove 2 cdr talents that noone had problems with ? ToT made ramping more fun for me since with enough haste you could fit PWS easier , and also you could fit in a second penance in your ramps or mini ramps with enough haste. No problem at all .

Rapture removal , i can see it being healthy for PVP and PVE , since it increased the EHP on high keys to the point of Disc being the only healer that can do that every 1 minute which in many cases its over powered.

But overall these changes i dont know why they are happening.
THey dont increase build diversity , they dont adress the outstanding issues disc has atm ,they dont help oracle in any meaningfull way to be equal or at least 2-4 % lower than Voidweaver to be considered playable in PVE. Also they dont improve gameplay , but on the contrary it stagnates and becomes even more rigid , it will be the same boring voidweaver minus the pet cdr which was the only thing that got you excited.

For the sake of providing my own ideas , so i dont come empty handed, I gently ask for the removal of TE and Expiation which do not provide any flavour or meaning in the tree , nor are they exciting to play around especially TE. Instead please introduce 2 new talents , that they have quite enough power to be situationally used . See for example broodtwister and Kyveza fight , we wanted to play a different build . it kept things fresh and exciting .

Please adress Oracle issues vs Voidweaver. Oracle atm lags behing greatly in atonement healing due to Voidheard( voidweaver talent ) and mindbender bug ( which makes mindbender have similar ScoV values with shadowfiend ) . Oracle does not have anything to go for since you just removed Uppies cdr .
Oracle does not fuction properly at this moment ,it severely lacks atonement healing compared to voidweaver . If oracle had a non atonement healing going for it, i would be all over it , but it doesnt do anything better than voidweaver. Now with uppies CDR removed, even less so

One idea to improve oracle is to add 1 or 2 new cooldowns on the spec treebased on the Light side of disc theme , similar to old archangel stacks that can be consumed for more healing from your light spells , to work nicely with inner focus and DA , like a non atonement style ramp .Give it a very long cooldown , to be like a desperate last invocation of the light to heal people. Come up with new and exciting ideas for that cooldown ,maybe a new spell also , penance cleaving many players or something similar . Flavor it with how disc of old functioned

  • Example of rework in the bottom of the spec tree
  • Remove expiation, Put Blaze of light in its place
  • HD 1 pointer , provides same power as 2 pointers
  • On Blaze of light node add the following 0/1 Talent : Archangel : each time you cast a healing spell or absorb , you gain 1 stack of Archangel . Consume stacks of archangel to increase your healing done by x% equal to the amount of stacks consumed . Max 20 stacks . cooldown 3 minutes.
  • Follow up talent to archangel down below Return to the Light : you return to the light . Your healing spells and absorbs are now amplified . Your penance now heals 3 more targets ,prioritising the lowest Hp ones . Radiance is instant cast and prioritises lowest hp targets. Renew is replaced with X ability that helps with healing . Cooldown 5 minutes
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Disc doesn’t need more CDs, it needs less. Coming from a person who hates CDs, literally because all they do is make things obnoxious. Do you know what Wrath of the Lich King did that made it such an iconic game from everything of PvP, to PvE to class design? It had less CDs and more sustained power in your base abilities.

If you went into PvP you had to keep track of 2 CDs per toon; their 1 offensive and their 1 defensive. That was it.

If you went into raids same thing; everyone had a single CD to use. This game has gotten so convoluted with CDs, from the offensive department to the defensive department, too, and that’s in everything from tanks to healers to DPS. It gets absolutely absurd and bonkers with how many CDs you need to keep track of in order to play this game at an efficient manner. Engineering in the real world used to have a very simple model: KISS. Keep It Simple, Stupid.

That used to be a very good design for many things, and it made things you did become very easy to understand and because they were very simple you could beef up the quality by a lot due to the design being simple.

Likewise, in games, you don’t need 42 flashy abilities or CDs to keep track of. Encounter designs already challenge you, as do dungeon designs or if you are in PvP then team designs already do this enough. Players are challenged enough already to the point most classes and specs should be very easy and simple to play so people can just simply stop messing up mechanics due to overcomplexity in their spec designs.

Because the pet did so much of the carrying for the spec, yes you had to rely on it. If they just buffed the spec’s abilities baseline, which they can do now, then it becomes much easier. When you rely too much on something like that and then it’s not up, then it’s bad design.

They’re also not done with the changes, this was just a first draft.

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They changed Void Summoner, and with the removal of Train of Thought, you aren’t tied to smite spam anymore, which was a very common complaint. I think this change in particular was generally a good one - though I agree the defensive part of ToT was nice. What I think was weird is they undermined (no pun intended) this change with adding a talent to let Smite extend atonements.

I love rapture, and its current iteration is really, really cool. So I’m sad to see it go, TBH, but it did come with a lot of power injected elsewhere in Disc, which is pretty nice.

I think this is incorrect.

These changes, for the most part, make Oracle an actually decent spec. Contrition baseline + the new twinsight talent is basically the canceled Season 3 (or was it 2?) tier set from DF. It’s actually a lot of extra healing baked into penance, with free damage, too. Because you’re getting the penance damage → atonement + 3 bolts + 3 contrition heals on everyone.

Oracle’s also going to benefit from the baseline increase to PW:S, and also can mini-rapture with insight, which VW can’t do anymore.

Realistically, pretty much every change in this patch benefited Oracle disc barring the SW:P changes. New 5 man cooldown in Evangelism, Twinsight meaning DA and Inner focus both benefit them far more, twinsight just being a pretty large HPS gain in general. Honestly the only thing that isn’t good for Oracle in this patch is where uppies moved because there’s not a lot of point in taking it and borrowed time isn’t a great talent either but they lock castigation.

Realistically, I can see Oracle disc use shooting up a lot.

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I agree here 100% , wholeheartedly. If baseline abilities gain power and cds are pruned i will be extremely happy. But is that the case in general? I would say no . Almost all classes sre built around their cd power and none actually play that way anymore. I wish they ultrabuff baseline abilities so the classes feel like wotlk. I honestly do though.

But realistically why i mentioned it needs more cds is that your ramps all feel samey. From m+ to raids you do the same thing over and over and over, extremely one trick pony-ish. There is no option atm for disc to do anything but atonement ( which wasn’t the case in older expansions that had more baseline power into abilities) And with presevokers having tbe better and more often ramp + healing outside of ramps, you are left with a disc that only lost going forward instead of gaining. Uppies was a nice alternative to a ramp every 2.30 mins but now its back to 4 . Usable once per fight or 2 if its extremely long vs 3- 4 times.

Overall its a bit conflicting. If you want less cds which i also agree, then baseline power. But what is discs baseline kit nowadays? Its only atonement and only that. You are already gated by your radiance and mindblast cooldowns. You dont have any means of actual healing outside of the same ramp in all situations. Maybe add more baseline healing spells???

I disagree here. The main catch of Oracle beside its extremely long cd ramp( every 2 minutes) was Uppies. Uppies atm on live is the only saving grace for oracle together with your insight+ piety ramps. Taking away uppies cd hurts oracle a lot.

The build diversity was for voidweaver which by the looks of it will be the only viable raid spec once again , and the only choice you can make is to pick uppies 10 man atonement healing with shadowfiend or to not pick it and pick mindbender and thats it.

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Am I the only one who was really happy with the cds for disc? at least in m+ ? Literally all I had to do was watch squid and mind blast and spam smite (which is fine?!) to keep CD low. My gameplay was figuring out what blow cd wise for burst events, or how to stagger them out. It was fun. It was engaging. It felt rewarding.

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In raid, maybe. But not in 5 mans. Uppies wasn’t like a fantastic HPS source in 5 man, because the CD was unreliable tbh. And I don’t think these changes benefit Oracle raid much.

That said, you’re forgetting the Evangelism change which can be done every 1.5 mins, and Oracle getting a very powerful talent in twinsight, which on top of being decent free healing/damage on every penance cast, it’s also free contrition procs now regardless of who you use it on.

Oracle 5 man is actually going to be a lot more powerful. The only issue is losing rapture especially in PvP.

1 Like
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I will help you understand them in a single word: Incompotance.