Oracle Discipline priests’ Preventive Measures now increases Power Word: Shield absorption by 40% (was 25%). Does not apply to PvP.
Atonement healing increased by 100% outside raid (was 70%). Does not apply to PvP.
Fixed an issue where Atonement critical healing was not increased by the correct amount outside of raid.
Shadow Word: Pain and Purge the Wicked damage increased by 20%.
Shadow
Voidweaver Shadow priests’ Void Blast damage increased by 20%.
Holy
Prayer of Mending healing increased by 65% in PvP combat.
I guess the data showed disc falling over in even these basic heroic dungeons… they never really have squared the circle of balancing atonement between raids and dungeons at various gear and content levels.
I don’t really think it’s that as much as a reaction to feedback from beta and content creators getting their final tier lists up all squarely putting Disc at the very bottom in ‘suck’ tier or ‘needs help’ tear or ‘turbo garbo’ tier. Even lists that came after the changes during prepatch.
Reality is it probably wasn’t THAT bad, but it did need some help.
I don’t really follow that stuff as much anymore since I went filthy casual in Shadowlands, but those tier lists seemed to have some serious grade inflation over time, where everyone got an A if they weren’t S class, or B-tier was interpreted as a stand-in for “this is the lowest we’re allowed to give”, as opposed to the reality that the tier lists were mostly arbitrary anyway.
I have seen players singing the joys of Oracle providing amazing HPS(but lacking DPS) and now their shield is buffed even further lol
More atonement is a welcome change IMPO.
Would like to see some buffs to VW
I like VW now as I am used to its rotation and timing and whatnot. Hence am not willing to switch to Oracle no matter how great it gets
Given we are doing so much shadow damage now, I might take Vampiric Embrace and see how that goes.
Did you try running +10 or honestly even any keys as Disc priest on the beta before making that claim? It is certainly as bad as people have said it is.
Yes their hps is buffed but right now you have 90% of people playing VW and it doing double the dps. People… for the moment are still in the mode of dps in keys matters for healers. We dont know this yet and everything i have read said otherwise but also they dont want so many playing one hero set so they will buff the other to kinda get people interrsted. So i knew this was coming, as in an oracle buff.
Interesting though i still think they casual base disc player will still play VW cause its EASIER to play over oracle and you prove that because you like VW and are unwilling to switch
edit… im not singing the praises of oracle cause of any large pws playstyle. I dont like bubble bot. I find oracle very engaging and 3 dark penances in a row very engaging playstyle
People will switch to Oracle once they go into M+ and realize the HPS potential of Oracle. But by that time Oracle will be very buffed and VW won’t matter.
Just because you get a dopamine hit by pressing an extra button from Oracle doesn’t make you or the hero’s talent better. But y’all stay on your high horse lmao
Those content creators played only Voidweaver with only Voidweaver footage for their videos but said “also played Oracle” to cover their bases but they either lied about playing Oracle or suck at playing Oracle or are horrendously bad critical thinkers and couldn’t figure out how to play it without someone making a guide for them first.
After playing only Voidweaver they found that throughput during SF/Bender in their Mind Blast window is good but throughput outside of it is trash and made videos about exactly that. They are right, but it’s an incomplete take.
Because there is no way that anyone who played Oracle Disc towards the end of beta and had the intelligence to figure out how to best use Premonition could make a video saying Disc throughput on both Hero Talent trees sucks. The only explanation is a skill issue.
I’m betting that the content creator echo chamber in the next few weeks is going to go from “Disc sucks” to “these changes are good but probably not enough” to “Disc is the best throughput healer in the game but the skill cap is high”.
Current Oracle Disc feels a lot like Disc from 7.0 to 7.2.5 where most players in most situations regarded Disc as garbage but it was Godly and mega OP in the right hands. If you play around Premonition and transfer 98% of your overhealing during Uppies to nearby injured allies or use CDR to Penance > PW:R > Penance > PW:R > Penance and still have another PW:R charge ready or be able to cheese mechanics with a 55% DR or a 5 million absorb or both; Disc is insane. The fact that this slipped right past the pro content creators is wild.
I’d take that with a big grain of salt… At least in my personal testing during beta Oracle was not competitive with Voidweaver on “real” hard to heal content, it has gotten some buffs but I still don’t think it will be optimal choice… Not really about the damage but simply because it just did more healing overall despite having to deal with the ups and downs.
This is also in-line with what the Priest Discord people are saying as well as other high-end Priests like AutomaticJack… I mean it’s possible to be proven wrong but I think we’ll have to wait for M+ to really tell, current heroics are not really a good test-ground for this.
I guess with the buffs Oracle seems to be leaining a bit more into stronger single target, maybe that could be its niche in M+ so maybe for a dungeon that heavily emphasizes that it could be good, but I think most of them you’d rather take the stronger and more consitent burst AOE healing.
As a quick TLDR on why imo Oracle was not competitive…
As Oracle you had to commit everything you have (Mindblat + Squid + Premonition of Clarivoyance) and that whole combo would do about as much healing as Voidweaver only using Mindblast which it can do every like 20s… And really nothing from Oracle could match Voidweaver using both Mindblast + Squid (which is available about every 40s)…
Or I guess maybe with Uppies you could somewhat match it but that’s on a longer CD and is much less consistent, a lot of cases where you’d need that sort of healing didn’t let you use Uppies properly cause you’d had to cancel it or die.
Anyways… I mean even if not optimal I think Oracle will be viable if it’s your prefered choice, or maybe I’m wrong and it’s the other way around, still they don’t seem as far from each other as before so I think you could realistically play eihter outside of the very top-end content.
I think Oracle will probably have the higher skill-ceiling because there are more things to optimize but oddly enough Voidweaver might have a higher skill-floor because it’s easier to leave yourself vulnerable and need healing when you don’t have any. I think my deam scenario would be Voidweaver but with two charges of Mindbender, that’d be sick (tierset idea maybe??, please…)
I did run some beta keys. I was in from the alpha though so I didn’t play towards the end of beta. For the vast majority of the time Disc was unplayable because it was just completely bugged.
Post bug fix and pre-PW:S buff I did like one dungeon that was decently high running a heavy absorb disc build. It worked out - was a bit tough but definitely doable. Presvoker felt a lot safer yeah, but I didn’t feel like we were that much worse than Hpriest - but content creator videos would put Disc a whole 2-3 tiers below in ‘dumpster’ tier. I probably woulda said it’s the worst spec with my limited testing, but not complete garbage.
They then gave them a decent buff, and now are giving them a second one. I’d say they’re probably in the ‘good’ range now.
Oracle disc is likely not running the traditional squid build or relying on blasting Squid into piety. This sounds super odd, but a lot of their healing is going to come from beefed up PW:S/radiance and the ability to have enormous health shields on anyone at any given time.
I’ve heard a lot of people say stuff like “it’s really cool you can insight and triple penance” But I think that’s pretty much almost always the incorrect play on Oracle right now. Insight is better used as a mini-rapture/PW:R reset more than anything. An oracle priest with AoW pretty much has rapture shielding + PoM as baseline, now, and they can reset the PW:R CD. Rapture itself ALSO got better, and you’re feeding into protector of the frail for pain supp. Also our tier set is gonna interact with this as well, and IIRC all these bonuses were multiplicative so that’s kinda neat.
I do agree though, time will tell. I still think VW will be more common because the damage profile is WAY better and getting a 15% buff to Atonement is pretty sick for them.
It’s all feelycraft right now though and nobody has any real idea for 2 more weeks. I will say on beta though, it DID work and it’s been significantly buffed since.
W..W..Were Discs really pressing Clairvoyance and not using the CDR? Not using the instant PW:R? Not using the shield and then saying Oracle was bad? Were they really not utilizing PW:R, Harsh Discipline and Penance? They actually just pressed Clairvoyance and played Disc as usual and then concluded that it’s bad?!
Discs in beta were actually pressing Mind Blast during Clairvoyance?
I just got a 3.6m single hit heal from Piety which did 20m healing overall in a 15s window and I alt tab to learn that Discs in beta had no clue how to use Premonition at all…righto.
No I mean I guess only the shield was not accounted there, but otherwise yeah using the CDR to beef-up machinegun some penances… Maybe that’s the wrong play and should be focused more on shields with all the buffs it has gotten.
But I mean before the current buff it only had a 25% buff to PW:Shield, which wasn’t really that much better than the 20% buff Voidweaver has so I don’t think it made that much sense to center your playstile and build around it.
But I mean happy to be proven wrong if Oracle is really storng now… I guess I’ll believe it when I see it… Maybe that’s an interesting video idea you can make if you are still into that, not many are giving Oracle that much credit so could be interesting to see.
I’m starting to think that the best thing about Voidweaver is that it’s simple. It doesn’t really change Disc gameplay at all. It requires zero thought or decision making and it’s almost entirely passive.
Perhaps Voidweaver allowed for content creators to logout of DF, load up beta, press the same buttons, play the same way, do the same things and then compare details logs to come to an opinion about Disc, and Oracle caught the stray?
I mean I did my thing and tryed to test it to what made the most sense to me but it’s always possible I either did something wrong or something I tested could have been bugged and not working as well…
What I described was just my experience, I don’t know what others did to test it so assuming everybody did the same I did is a pretty huge leap… I know Jack tested it pretty extensively much more than I did and he’s also a much more seasoned Disc player so I guess it might be a bit of validation BIAS on my end but in general my conlussions seemed to line-up with his.
For a bit more speciffics I tested City of Thread at +7, we struggled a bit on the 2nd boss but that one was mostly us learning the mechanics I wouldn’t attribute it to the spec, but the last boss was the one where I simply couldn’t keep up with his AOE mechanic as Oracle, we had multiple attempts on it but just couldn’t do it.
Did a Mists +10s, that one wasnt so bad, that dungeon seems to have way less damage than the rest, the only ackward part on that one is that I was trying uppies and was pretty though to use it cause of swirls on the ground.
Also did a Grim Batol, I don’t remember the exact key-level (like +5 or +7 probably), the last boss was also quite though to try to keep up and again had issues ussing Uppies during most of the trash.
Oh also attempted a City of Echoes +10 but that one couldn’t get past the fist boss, I also struggled with the AOE on that one as Oracle, but that one also had a lot to do with people eating swirls and the group not beeing able to deal with the adds.
But again, maybe I was playing it wrong. I’m willing to accept that but I mean I’m just me… Dismissing what more seasoned Priests and Priest Discord are saying assuming they all did the same as me is just, well a big leap.
Yeah, I’ve been experimenting with Oracle and seeing all the content creators and all the whining on the forum is baffling. Better shields, good self DR, better PWL. Oracle disc reminds me of TBC disc. Very strong, not flashy but good heals and can survive well.
IMO that a lot of the testing makes sense. Since the rework, the Bender line has easily been the best AoE healing we have available by far. PW:S is on a short CD and single target. A LOT of these beta dungeons had giant AoE damage in a bunch of pulls and the bosses. In the current heroics you don’t feel these scenarios pretty much at all. The only like kinda hard thing to AoE heal is if you pull the very last wing of stonevault all together into the boss, and that’s partially cause you’re just getting knocked up constantly.
Like even just the first boss of stonevault is HILARIOUSLY low damage in heroics in comparison to the M+ I ran on beta. I like barely have to heal that boss at all right now, where it was a struggle in beta on every healer.
It’s very easy to look at the rest of the talents and go ‘that’s not gonna give me enough for these AoE bursts’ because it’s true. So they kept the bender line and tried going into scov like you would with voidweaver only oracle gives you 4x penance instead. And THAT feels good, but you feel weak as hell in any other scenario because voidweaver just outdoes you with that line.
I think even competent people are gonna have a learning curve with oracle, because it feels a bit like a more powerful version of Shadowlands Disc. You HAVE to preplan the difficult stuff, and you have to use more globals to do it than VW does. So you feel global locked under pressure.
And if you’ve only got one charge and Solace is your next prem cast you’re in trouble if you don’t have rapture/uppies ready and something bad is coming.
