Discipline "Buffs" Feedback. TLDR, Useless

Classes Priest
1

  • Developers’ notes: We’re increasing Discipline’s direct healing throughput to help in situations where no enemy target is present to trigger Atonement. We would also like to nudge Discipline’s performance up in raid, particularly for Oracle.

  • Power Word: Radiance healing increased by 20%.

  • Flash Heal healing increased by 15%.

  • Premonition of Piety increases healing done by 20% (was 15%).

  • Preemptive Care increases Atonement duration by 4 seconds (was 3 seconds).

This is feedback for PvE, especially since the Dev note calls out PvE content.

For Flash Heal and Radiance

This equates to about a 1.5% buff in Raids, on a good day. In Mythic+ it does essentially nothing.

The problem with buffing Radiance is that I can’t rely on Radiance to fix a problem, it’s locked behind charges and cooldowns. Which I’d argue could just be removed since we clearly have no problem with Flameshaper healing the entire raid on 30 second CDs. I don’t really know why Disc is limited to 10 Atonements within a 30-36 second window through Radiances.

But regardless. Just imagine you’re fighting Venomshell in CoT. On every Poison AoE you send a Radiance. The fight ends right as he puts out another poison so you have exactly one Radiance to use. Venonshell easily does like 200% of your health bar at the 10-12 range in keys which I’d argue should be balanced around since most of the community tries to get to those keys for the loot cap… So we all have the debuff and my Radiance heals for uh… Maybe like 400K-ish post buff? Out of a 6-7 million health pool? That’s going to cover 6%~ of the 200% health bar that ability is about to do.

Flash Heal and Radiance do absolutely nothing. If you’re ever casting Flash Heal in dungeons you probably misplayed the scenario. And Radiance is usually cast before damage ever happened so you get 0 value from this buff, and will absolutely not fix a problem where you’re taking damage with nothing to hit.

Also even if you did cast it out of combat to help top the group, you’re now down a Radiance charge going into the next pull, and because our base Atonement duration is so short, you now have to figure out how to play with only one available Radiance for the next pull.

For Piety and Preemptive Care

So one second of Atonement duration is whatever. Your atonements as Oracle already last long enough, that’s not what Oracle needs. Your Atonement healing output is lower towards the end of an atonement than the beginning, so 1 extra second does basically nothing because it’s just extra time when you’re at your weakest. I would be very surprised if this was more than like 1 to 2% HPS increase over the course of a raid fight and is useless in M+ where Oracle doesn’t have an issue with keeping people Atoned.

Next - Buffing Piety? Really? The strongest spell we have? How about buffing the weak parts of Oracle. Not the literal only thing it has going for it at the moment. The only time Oracle feels good is when you have Piety up. It doesn’t need buffed. Buff the rest of Oracle. Particularly “Preventative Measures.”

I am absolutely going to look a gift horse in the mouth on this one. I’d rather not even see a section for Priest in the patch notes over these mockeries to be honest. Because when there’s nothing in the Patch notes I at least still have hope something might show up eventually.

6 Likes
2

I was excited- then immediately shocked to see the buffs. I read them and actually was super surprised to see they pretty much just went full ham into buffing direct healing.

I really wanted a Preventive Measures buff for more Oracle DPS output in order to compete with Voidweaver.

2 Likes
3

Disc’s single target healing is pretty dookie this expansion so I’m not surprised they’re getting some single target healing buffs.

+15% on Flash Heal really isn’t much though it needed to be like +30% or more.

2 Likes
4

I mean… Seeing what paladin got for “mana concerns,” I’m surprised we didn’t get nerfed lmao.

2 Likes
5

Personally, I am happy to see these changes for m+

20% to radiance as not nothing. For my gear, this means ~300-390k extra healing off this one button press. Radiance should not be cast before damage goes out, it should go out AS damage goes out. If you really need the healing before hand, spare time for renew to get pw:s cd back and mitigate/preheal as much as possible.

“Casting flash heal in a dungeon is misplaying”? Just… What?? Flash heal heals your target and yourself, applies atonement to your target and yourself, applies 10% dr to yourself, and lowers the cd of pw:s by a second. You absolutely should be casting flash heal at the right times and a 15% buff is welcome.

Buffing piety is weird, but if you consider that piety is included in clairvoyance then every other premonition cast has another 5% healing bonus. Would have rather seen changes to solace, but hey it’s something.

My only concern is that by dialing up direct heals a lot, they are closing the door on adding more dps to oracle since more dps also means more atonement heals.

6

This is exactly my concern too. I can’t see how they’d get away with increasing Oracle DPS now either with these buffs. Sigh. I was really hoping for more Disc Oracle DPS.

At least for the “non-DPS healers” like Holy Priest for example, their DPS is bursty and each spell like Holy Fire packs a punch since it’s cast in smaller doses. These more direct healers need to take the time to use globals on actual heals and defensives for the party, so higher DPS on their spells is a requirement, or their DPS will be entirely inconsequential.

This issue is highlighted by Oracle Disc right now. Oracle Disc plays a bit more like a traditional healer than Voidweaver. You’re spending more globals casting Power Word: Shield and cycling your Premonitions, even casting the occasional defensive Penance when you really need it. All the while, the pet (Mindbender) isn’t as substantial of a build on Oracle Disc. Smite’s CDR is less helpful- only lowering Penance’s CD, rather than both Penance and Mindbender.

Voidweaver has high DPS overall, but it’s consistent rather than bursty, which works because you are constantly pressing your damage abilities on Voidweaver as opposed to Oracle. If traditional healer’s DPS acts like sprinters, Voidweaver is an endurance or marathon runner.

Right now, Oracle’s DPS is a marathon runner with a broken leg.

7

:rofl: i like your marathon runner analogy.

I feel like they would be better off giving us something like dracthyr visage out of combat party regen. If they want to fix out of combat healing, something that only works out of combat would be best so we dont end up in this situation where we cant adjust damage and such in combat.

8

The issue is that with this expansion is they funneled all the power into PWS at the expense of Flash Heal and Penance. This in turn has made Disc really bad at funneling single target heals on people with nasty dots like in Dawn, SV, etc.

9

But flash heal lowers pw:s cd and penance stacks weal and woe so you can funnel giant shields onto people. It’s not great if they’ve already taken the damage but it’s kind of the same for stopping dots and such.

10

Yeah, my issue with this is: why play Oracle Disc in this defensive way, when you can have better results playing Holy Priest in this manner. It’s not that having more powerful defensive healing on Disc is bad, it just doesn’t correct Oracle Disc’s pain points as directly in my opinion.

Voidweaver is the default for Disc Priest because it lends so well to the “DPS to heal” style which Disc is based on.

Oracle wants to play in the “DPS to heal” style with Atonement, but also spends many globals on pressing higher amounts of defensive buttons. On top of having fewer damage spells overall. You have Smite, Penance, a wimpy Mind Blast that has a long cooldown, and Purge the Wicked.

Voidweaver has access to Entropic Rift, Void Blast, beefy Mind Blast, Dark Reprimand in the optimal build, and Voidwraith/Mindbender/Inescapable Torment.

Shadow spells also heal more in the optimal Voidweaver build. Generally, Voidweaver is just passively much better and has a simple flow, while being able to pump insane damage over the course of a fight.

Oracle Disc DPS is hamstrung from the get-go, while also being hugely undertuned.

1 Like
11

I mean, because you won’t.

Oracle Disc, for all its failings, is probably better in high key than holy by virtue of having more mitigation, and PW:R (after these buffs) being a stronger AoE healing tool than anything Holy has in its kit (and it can reduce the CD with insight and fire 3 off).

Oracle disc isn’t better than VW still (so you still won’t run it), but these changes probably put it over Holy, lol

12

Disc is up there timing top keys with Resto Sha0mans because they have Rapture, Lenience, and Barrier to help prevent people from getting one shot by mechanics that hit for 10mil+ unmitigated. Voidweaver can also do 400k+ overall dps which is the highest out of all the healers. The damage gap is really the biggest thing between Oracle and VW atm.

Disc just has stinky single target heals this expansion and Dawnbreaker is probably the most miserable experience as Disc. The mini-bosses put dots that shred peoples hp bars while also pulsing out AOE damage. You literally have to choose between funneling single target heals into somebody or healing the group.

Then you got mobs that will beam two people simultaneously for 2 mil a tick on +10s and higher.

+15% more on Flash Heal is barely going to do anything.

13

Just play Aegis of Wrath+Weal and Woe instead of Harsh Discipline.

With the tier set, Disc’s PW:S is good even in voidweaver, you can keep people alive through the focus damage with rotating rapture and pain supp. Honestly I don’t even think Dawnbreaker’s that bad for disc. Grim Batol and Stonevault feel far worse.

1 Like
14

Okay instead of using Holy Priest as my example, put Resto Shaman in there. Or Holy Pally.

The point I’m making is Disc Priest isn’t a direct healer. Having direct healing that isn’t completely peewater on Disc is great, but Oracle needs to play into the “DPS to heal” role better like Voidweaver does, or no one will ever waste their time with it.

For all the clunk and extra thinking one has to do to play Oracle, on top of the terrible healer DPS on a healer meant to heal by the Atonement mechanic, with DPS worse than even a direct healer— Oracle is nothing but a Power Word: Shield and mitigation bot right now.

Voidweaver has better small moments of burst with the pet and can refill health bars through Atonement much faster than Oracle. Oracle must worry about avoiding damage in the first place to a greater extent than Voidweaver adding another layer to Oracle’s challenge. Topping health bars up again isn’t as easy after large damage events for Oracle. Maybe with these buffs it will be a little better though in that department.

My main focus isn’t even about Oracle’s viability regarding how well it can heal and support a group anyway. It seems you really care a lot about that whenever people discuss Oracle Disc. Oracle Disc’s healing and mitigation is far and away some of the best in the game, I don’t dispute that.

What I keep trying to make apparent on the forums is that Oracle Disc has probably the worst DPS by large in the entire game. Disc Priest’s DPS spells (Smite, Penance, Mind Blast, Purge the Wicked) are uniquely weaker individually than most of the other healer’s individual DPS spells. I’m sure this is to reign Disc Priest in, and make it so they’re not doing true DPS spec damage.

Compare Disc Smite to Holy Smite. Penance to Holy Fire. Over the course of the fight Disc ends up having higher DPS because it’s all they are doing. Well, Voidweaver anyway. But piece by piece, Disc does less damage upfront in comparison to other direct healers to keep the balance.

Oracle Disc’s main issue is that its DPS is still being reigned in, on top of having too low of a DPS modifier through Preventive Measures. As well as, fewer modifying spells (the shadow spells Voidweaver gets), and modifying talents that boost Atonement healing (Shadow Covenant, Abyssal Reverie).

I speculate that Blizzard doesn’t know how to offer Oracle Disc the current level of defensive play it has- along with better DPS. Buffing Oracle DPS more means buffing Atonement healing more. I think that could turn Oracle Disc into a monster. Or perhaps they aren’t putting too much effort and thought into this issue because a Priest rework is on the horizon in a patch or two. Who knows.

For the record, I don’t think Holy Priest is perfect either for what it’s worth. I was just using their DPS as an example. The largest glaring issue I have with Holy Priest is using Guardian Spirit as an AoE heal with Oracle Holy. And for that matter, Holy has terrible AoE healing tools other than Halo. It’s pitiful. (I wouldn’t be opposed to Holy getting some form of simple active damage reduction as well— more than just Solace).

Just another reason I think a Priest rework is being done behind the scenes.

15

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head here,

I like that Oracle and VW have differing strengths in respect to single target healing/shielding vs large aoe throughput with atonement, so personally I don’t want to see Oracle atonement buffed at the expense of the current playstyle. I know I’m not the only one who likes this old fashioned shield playstyle which really rewards planning and fight knowledge. Really, this is the essence of the hero talent. This is what it means to be an “oracle” with “premonitions” and “clairvoyance”. If Oracle did more damage and got little to no extra healing through atonement, that’d be just fine with me. The HPS is rarely the issue.

16

I hesitated to say this in my post, but I actually think I agree too. I’d be more than willing to take an Atonement modifier/percentage hit if it meant my DPS felt better on Oracle.

The only way I can see this being done is to nerf Atonement healing outright/overall, then put a modifying talent into Voidweaver somewhere that brings Atonement healing back up to the current level we have right now for Voidweaver specifically.

The Voidweaver talent Voidheart currently increases Atonement healing by 20% when Entropic Rift is active. They could add a baseline modification to this talent that increases Atonement healing by X% baseline (whatever the nerf is, this X% could offset that), while keeping the 20% Entropic Rift buff it already has.

This could give them a knob for Voidweaver, while keeping Atonement healing lower for Oracle so it can keep playing in the way it does now with heavy shield and mitigation focus— while not also doing outrageous healing throughput with Atonement too if they ever decided to make Oracle’s DPS not feel terrible.

Random idea. Could be awful. Just something I’ve pondered.

1 Like
17

Yeah, but the answer to these is the same as Holy priest - because you want to play a priest. You could question why anyone would play any spec compared to the absolute top meta spec. The answer is going to be because they don’t like that one.

And FWIW, Paladin plays nothing like Resto or Holy priest or Oracle Disc. Even if you’re not playing melee wings it’s not going to feel even remotely the same (resto shaman same thing but I’ll give you that you can play both using mostly cast time heals with no CD?).

Yeah, I’ve said as much. I’ve also said I wanted oracle disc to have more damage. I don’t think Blizz wants to do that for some reason, but you’re not really saying anything I haven’t said.

I think there’s ways to accomplish this that doesn’t even require major changes to abilities. I think there’s ways to accomplish this with larger reworks to things, too. It just seems like they don’t want to.

18

I’m talking about the DPS their spells output compared to Disc Priest in general, and how they are designed differently fundamentally due to the nature of the way they heal. The focus is the DPS in the end for my discussion on Oracle vs Voidweaver DPS- using other healing specs as a medium of comparison. Voidweaver plays like Disc Priest is fundamentally meant to play based on the way Blizzard seems to be pushing Disc to play. Oracle’s DPS seems like it cannot be buffed or else it would be brokenly powerful with all the shielding/mitigation plus the high Atonement healing that would result in the hypothetical DPS buff. I’m not sure why you’re not seeming to understand what I’m talking about. I’ve tried very hard to be extremely verbose on purpose, but I guess it doesn’t matter lol.

Seems like they don’t want to is the real rub of it all innit.

19

Well your initial question was ‘why play X over Y if both direct heal?’ hence my answer.

I just have never thought that the damage comparison of individual buttons between healer specs is a conversation worth having after Blizzard made it clear in every single change since Nighthold back in legion that they thought “the high DPS healer” thing was a mistake.

It becomes a problem again when they make a giant mistake and drop something like Venthyr Pally in Shadowlands, or the earthquake leggo that just does insane dps making a spec far outstrip everyone else. But outside that, we’re most of the time talking about the difference of like 3-5% of the group overall damage most the time. Oracle disc is putting out 250-300k currently. Voidweaver’s doing 400-450. When you put that in a group that’s doing 4.8 mil vs 4.6 mil overall you’re looking at 4%. And with significantly better gear/higher key the gap only gets closer because DPS vastly outstrip healer damage - good DPS in high keys right now is near 2 mil overall. Now, healer damage is not completely unimportant (which is why you’d run VW if you’re a top keyer). But I’m pretty sure Blizzard is looking at that difference and shrugging.

This kinda mirrors a conversation in the other thread. Where it seems clear that Voidweaver IS doing more damage than other healers. But because it’s not significantly more - do we care? The same thing applies here, only it seems like we do care. :stuck_out_tongue: If I were to guess it’s because we’re talking about potentially the top tier spec vs the bottom tier spec in terms of damage both being available to Disc - and they share nearly the same utility.

There’s solutions, for sure, I personally wish it did a bit more. But in the end we are arguing over a very small amount of damage, if that makes sense. I can see why Blizzard took this route - even if I don’t agree with it.

I don’t think anything you’re saying is incorrect, FWIW. Only was saying that there’s a reason to play Oracle, and it’s if you like the spec. And that if you like direct healing, it’s probably better than Holy (which is funny in an ironic way to me).

20

This isn’t even really the reason I think healer damage matters. This statement is true, but I think how your character literally feels when doing damage matters.

The feeling of Holy Fire on a Holy Priest feels like it does something. Oracle Disc’s spells do not pack significant punch. The juxtaposition to Voidweaver only exacerbates this feeling. I think Oracle’s DPS should feel good to the player. I’ve never asked for Oracle Disc to do the same amount of DPS as Voidweaver. I’ve expressly highlighted how much of a chasm there is between these two hero specs, and I think that matters.

If you disagree that’s okay.