I’ve also tried this, though my focus is M+. I’ve found that Oracle is woefully behind VW in M+. I’m not big on playing what’s meta and perfectly min-maxing, even for high keys. I prefer to play what’s fun. In the past I’ve played more shield and direct healing builds and avoided the shadow and dmg oriented side of disc because it’s what I like.
Right now though, the gap is not just a few % and on top of that VW is cooler and more satisfying/fun to play. This is subjective but rotating buffs have never been it. I’m sure it’s too late at this point, but I’d like to see oracle rebuilt entirely.
For disc, I would like to see Oracle really lean into the direct healing and shield side of things. Something like contrition but for all direct st heals and shields would be great. Or % of shields on targets below 50% hp are converted into health. And, unrelated, maybe some mobility 
This is kinda what Oracle allows us to do, currently. I played it up to +10, FWIW.
All of the buffs except for Solace are really good for this specific playstyle. Insight gives us mini rapture or radiance → penance → radiance → penance. Piety is pretty much universally great to use with any other button. Clairvoyance is pretty much just a full healing CD because it combines the two. Solace is just… PW:S again, but it doesn’t interact with any other PW:S talent.
I never really had HPS problems. The problem was entirely that this playstyle means doing ~50% less damage, even if you try to optimize. Ironically, I found running either IE Shadowfiend or Mindbender led to WORSE damage on Oracle for me. Twilight Equilibrium/expiation are still fairly unusable so dipping into those doesn’t really work either.
What ultimately felt bad is I’m doing a +10 and dealing 150-200k damage overall. If your DPS are slacking even a little bit (and they will), it feels bad to pug with because timers are tight especially with the new affix.
2 Likes
Nice work doing 10s as oracle disc 
!
I definitely see your point, but i still dont think the hero talents really do that much to bolster this playstyle. Cdr and a healing buff are just generally useful, as you said yourself, “Piety is pretty much universally great to use with any other button.”
I might be overthinking it. It has to work with holy too, afterall. It cant be so super specific throughout.
Oracle Disc is wonderful to play… if you want to play completely defensively. Oracle Disc has no luxury of good DPS. The best part about Oracle Disc is the extremely potent shields. That’s it. Voidweaver Disc gets consistent high healing output on top of consistent high DPS output.
If Oracle Disc was buffed up in DPS to bridge the absolute CHASM between it and Voidweaver, it would surely see more play.
I’m not even asking for DPS on par with Voidweaver here either. Shadow magic should be more damaging lore-wise. That’s fine. But Oracle shouldn’t be doing 1/6th of the DPS of Voidweaver. It should be closer.
Disc is still a “DPS to heal” healer. Both hero talents need to feel good playing into that overall theme.
1 Like
I did a couple of +9s as VW Disc while I was farming for rings/amulets.
All the boss timers and duration of AOE damage line up perfectly with your Mind Blast resets so there’s really no hps advantage to Oracle Disc over VW. Atonement lasts a lot shorter then it did in DF S3 and single target healing is weaker, but balanced out by bigger PWS.
The biggest weakness of VW though is your atonement healing is pretty bad when Mind Blast and Mind Bender are on cd and the group is taking a lot of damage which mainly happens on trash.
It’s a spec based heavily in an ability that has a short CD. CDR is really valuable to that, to be fair.
There’s parts of these dungeons that I actually think Oracle feels way smoother for than Voidweaver. Pretty much any point in these dungeons where there’s a dangerous single target debuff (I think the BEST example of this is arakara second boss, or the Dawnbreaker lieutenants?) Oracle handles with pretty much zero risk. You don’t need indemnity because you’ve already got longer atonements baseline, so your rapture shields are both gigantic and you’ve got 8 of them that you can space out over the course of a minute. Rapture’s down? Well you’ve got second rapture in any insight cast. That’s down? Well you’ve got piety to burst through with. That’s down? Then use solace which is an extra DR and absorb, etc.
Honestly I hate rotating buffs, generally. Specifically I really hate blessing of seasons and it’s why I haven’t touched my pally since SL. But Oracle actually feels pretty smooth in terms of healing - at most it needs some small buffs there. It just doesn’t feel anywhere near good enough to even slightly consider taking a 50% damage nerf though.
Blockquote The best part about Oracle Disc is the extremely potent shields. That’s it.
In Oracle, Preventative Measures increases PW:S by 25%. In VW Inner Quietus increases PW:S by 20%. Assured Safety also gives a nudge to PW:S, and Prophet’s Will empowers them on selfcast, but overall the big fat shields you get are from Weal and Woe + Aegis of Wrath in the discipline tree 
This is just a typo. Preventative measures is a 40% increase to PW:S on Oracle.
1 Like
Nothing feels better than instant Power Word: Radiance. Going back to Voidweaver after messing around on Oracle sucks in that regard.
The damage output on VW Disc is also pretty high. I can do 350-400k overall which is 50k more then what I can do as Archon Holy.
Healer dps output doesn’t really matter until +12s though. You can ++ 11s pretty easy.
2 Likes
I know that you play Holy cause I’ve seen you around. What you may not immediately realize/feel (not trying to be condescending, I know you’re pretty good, I can tell from publicly available data) as much because you don’t itemize specifically for Disc is that as haste goes up, the cooldown on Mindbender and Mindblast goes down. Because both scale with haste. To the point where there are basically no gaps.
During Power Infusion, 50% of the weekly affixes (which obv go away at 12), and Bloodlust I can sustain basically 100% uptime on Rift/Mindbender. Outside of those circumstances, I only have about a 4 second window between Mindblasts and usually Mindbender is still going for that duration anyway. If you’ve thought ahead correctly, rarely is there any point where you’re caught out, and if you are you can just send Rapture, Barrier, Halo, etc to buy you the 4 seconds you need. Or you can greed yourself a PI which lets you chain from burst window to burst window for a super difficult pack which nets you like 45 seconds straight of having both active.
So when I say VW just obliterates Oracle. Imagine you were playing whatever VW spec/stat-weight you’ve played, but you’re sitting in Mindbender/Rift essentially permanently. Oracle really does not get nearly the same benefit and you need to do advanced calculus to figure out how to live from CD to CD. I do not frequently ask for buffs to things as I like to figure out ways to make bad things do well. But at least in M+, for Disc Priest, the gap between Oracle and VW is so big it’s just disappointing atm.
2 Likes
I tried a few keys with VW on the weekend. ITs just so much easier and in my mind easier should not be the go to tree for max dps and hps. Effort should equate to numbers. PWR after MB and your team constantly got the explosion. I felt it was too easy. Less stressful sure but also less fun. MB pwr and smite spam with some penance. Thats it. No real decisions being made like with oracle
I play Disc too and ran a bunch of 9s and 10s over the weekend. VW Disc is def the highest Priest dps output spec and imho after the recent buffs feels stronger than Holy. I probably would have played Disc this season if it wasn’t so undertuned at the start.
I went back to Oracle and pushed up to +10 keeping all of this in mind. I think that you are largely correct, Oracle actually does feel pretty smooth 
. As you mentioned earlier, the damage and Premonition Solace are where it lacks the most. More damage equates to more atonement healing, so I think bringing that up and making solace less of a niche single target ability would mostly bridge the gap with VW.
On the damage front, I’d really like to see some changes to Purge the Wicked for Oracle. It seems like the obvious choice for adding trash-clearing dps without changing the gameplay or creating any weird power spikes. It also feels really bad right now since Oracle often uses Contrition to heal so its harder to maintain uptime.
For Solace, having it do the same thing but as a stackable 5 charge buff would be great. So, you could penance someone and stack dmg reduction and shield, or cast an AoE heal and spread shield and dmg reduction to the party. Another easy change, in my mind anyways.
Yeah, in no way would I tell people to play it unless they really enjoy it - but it’s actually kinda OK. Just absolutely nuts how much damage you lose.
Pretty much a ton of places they could shore up the damage in the oracle tree. PTW would be good, giving extra penance or Smite damage based on how much your shield absorbs would be interesting. Buffing up reflective shield and letting that damage transfer into atonement would be really good.
As-is, I basically agree if you’re looking to do high key you should be playing voidweaver, because you get a ton of HPS and your damage is also the highest out of any healer - which makes up a bit for the lack of utility. But I don’t think Oracle’s healing specifically is that weak in dungeons. In raid it’s WAY behind because of how VW works.
They’re probably gonna be scared to buff it because of PVP though. I kinda expect we won’t see much till the .1 patch.
1 Like
Oracle isnt bad. It just needs some of the knobs in the tree turned up.
I did +11 with my Oracle bubble build on my undergeared alt that just got his 4pc.
The dmg is just a bit lower. I want purge the wicked to get the 40% dmg boost. And maybe buff that talent to 60% or something.
Wouldn’t mind a talent to make radiance heal like it used to in s2 DF
1 Like
I still maintain around 220k average which isn’t awful. But void does do more for sure.
Just need to be aggressive with ultimate penance and use the CDR talent and holy nova.
I would love this. I really love Crystalline Reflection. I wish it would also heal for a little more as well per shield cast. I still use it over Light’s Inspiration in many cases, unless I really feel like I need the personal survivability. The damage percentage Crystalline Reflection was doing for me on Oracle wasn’t really that bad relatively— it’s just the overall DPS of Oracle which is an issue. Buffing overall DPS through Smite, Penance, Purge the Wicked, as well as including a “thorns” function into our shields and making that feel viable- would make Oracle feel so good to play.
Leaning into being a shield Priest is so much fun for me. I hope to see it flourish.
Yep. Voidwraith pet with Inescapable Torment and Essence Devourer is essentially Oracle’s Piety, just without the overheal protection part. Voidweaver also gets this so much more often and doesn’t need to wait through a forced cycle like Oracle.
I’ve always wanted and hoped reflect dmg fed into atonement.
It’d be such a unique form of healing. Essentially like mini mistweaver cocoons popping
I believe it still double dips on versatility or any buff that amps dmg and healing like skarmorak.
Last time I ran bubble build on s1 DF the nokud lightning boss gave me omega reflect dmg.
1 Like