Shadowlands Feedback - Disc Priest

Classes Priest
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After going trough the changes for Priest I want to give my feedback on the changes I see. I hate to be pessimist after what looks to me like the devs are really trying to make things better, but now is the time to give feedback so I rather not hold back.

The biggest thing that jumps out for me is Power Infusion making a return and being usable on allies. While this is cool from a “fantasy” and RPG element, I fear this might cause a lot of issues for Disc because it has the potential to be extremely strong when used on a friendly DPS player in Raids.

Disc already brings great damage in Raiding, increasing the contribution to DPS even further is dangerous and might cause Disc to get nerfed over and over again. I believe Disc needs damage buffs that are targeted specifically for M+ but not Raids (something like a GCD efficient way to deal AOE damage but that has minimal impact for single target).

Next one is Mind Soothe, this one feels like it might have some niche uses in M+ and questing, but doesn’t seem too major. I see this one as a positive.

The rest of the changes are kind of cool thematically and I specially like having SW:Death back even if it’s not that big for Disc. But I don’t think any of those really achieve much in terms of addressing the main issues with the spec.

I don’t see nearly enough M+ utility to make Disc, or any Priest spec for that matter to be competitive in that context. Doesn’t look like there’s an attempt to maybe make Disc more approachable to casual players either. Or to give some better alternatives for single target or spot healing.

I understand this is early in development but so far to me this looks like Disc is once again heading to a place where it’s great or even overpowered for Mythic Raiding but without the toolkit to be competitive in anything else.

Edit: After more time to digest the changes I wanna add just a few things… My initial post was a bit negative because the changes don’t seem to address what I think the kit needs to be in a better and more balanced state, but they do add a ton of flavor to the spec, which is good.

The changes in general don’t break the spec nor remove the core atonement mechanic which I love, so that’s a big positive, so in general the sky is not falling. Aside from the Power Infusion thing that has me concerned, everything else seems “good”.

I think the changes presented are an “ok” initial proposition, but I really hope to see a bit more.

Edit2: After looking a bit more into the changes seems like I overlooked the redesigned Shadow Covenant.

It could be very nice addition for M+. It does a pretty strong heal on all 5 targets and then buff your shadow damage done, this should be pretty helpful in M+. I don’t expect the “negative” of temporarily being locked out of Holy spells to be that big of a deal.

There’s a recent AutomaticJack video where he goes trough the changes too and I think he does a very good job at explaining some of the things I talk about in this post and also talks about how the talent tree could really use an update. Leaving the link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd1WSCnSPOg&feature=youtu.be&t=1102

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Yeah, that sums it up for me. No change to the status quo. As a non-Mythic raider, I see no reason to come back to the spec. I’m waiting to see how the other healers shape up so I can pick my new main.

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Omg Power Infusion is back! Thank god I loved that ability. And Mind sooth, Ive wanted this ability back since ages ago, not so much for mythics or any high level gameplay. But Just so i can wander around the world and not agro everything.

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The point of spells back to me is to add flavour

Power infusion might cause issues but it was like that in classic. It’s baseline so you aren’t taking a talent for it so just enjoy

Mind soothe I called for it to come back. Used it so often in classic. Can see world and mythic plus uses

If SwD is added to our atonement damage kit that’s great. It didn’t say

Mind blast I see as a possible weak lights wrath. The reason I say that is the “mana cost” mentioned

Shadow covenant - 3rd time lucky tho I have no issue with its current iteration will be interesting because your spelll locked

The barrier ability I’m not sure of… the wording is off. Does it mean when we barrier we heal people and when it ends it heals. Or what

I think other classes have some more interesting spells like pallies WoG baseline but I’m happy to get power infusion and mind blast with SwD. I can deal with it

Edit. On mythic plus I would be very interested on the heal and CD of shadow covenant. Will that help bursting also did they say mind blast had an absorb? If so that would help on grevious and bursting

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It will be interesting to see if Power Infusion has any interaction with atonement. If it dose that could make for some cool plays.

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I would say so yes. From memory there were different versions of power infusion. I think one was 20% haste and mana reduction and one was 20% healing and damage. I stand to be corrected on those

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Lol one update comes out and boom not coming back to disc.

Disc is good in raiding period. If you can’t make it work in normal/heroic it’s a player problem.

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Maybe they just don’t like that they’re doubling down on atonement, which is perfectly fine, as it’s their opinion. That style of healing isn’t fun for everyone.

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I think most peoples issues, and im guessing here is disc for keys, not disc for raiding. The see no value on struggling mightily in keys to do what others find easier.

Would that be valid?

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I love disc for pvp and doing world stuff but disc for raiding isn’t great. We do damage yes but it’s not good damage and the heals were throw out aren’t comparable. Yes, I might pop to the top of the healing charts when I pop my cooldowns and huge raid-wide damage comes in but then I fall back down to the middle-bottom. When I raid as holy I do significantly less work and throw out WAAAAAAY more healing.

There’s something disc is lacking this xpac. Hopefully with these additions, it will be good again. Hopefully Blizzard doesn’t screw it up like they did last expac and then nerfed us into the ground again.

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I’m sorry that you’ve been belittled so much, Brighter. I wish the best for you.

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Aside from that, Disc is just annoying to play in raids and feels better in 5 mans ironically. In raids Holy is just smoother and more fun to play, although Holy feels good in 5 mans, too. It’s too bad it’s just always middle of the road.

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I think the key in the notes was " Additionally, Power Infusion can now be cast on allies." Originally the talent was something you could already cast on allies and that’s part of why I loved it so much. Going through versions of the skill on Wowhead, it seems there are versions of it that were a self cast skill only, so I’m going to assume that’s the version they’re bringing back. So it’s a haste/mana cost buff, which is not as fun as the original power buff, but I’ll take it.

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Some of it is that disc is a tricky wicket to balance too I think. Disc in a mythic raider situation where teams are tightly coordinated are extremely powerful and yeah, probably borderline OP. But the moment your group starts spreading out too much, or if your healing CDs aren’t tightly organized disc craters out pretty hard, other healing classes don’t suffer nearly as bad from this as disc does. M+ is also a very difficult situation, bursting in particular being a sore subject for a lot of disc priests, I’d give up mind soothe 10000x over to get flash heal back. It’s still very early of course, but it’s things to keep in mind as they work on balancing things.

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I see all of these changes in Shadowlands as positives honestly. Power Infusion is very strong, but we don’t know what iteration of Power Infusion we’re getting.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but when we had the Power Infusion talent back in Legion, you couldn’t cast it on others. It was a haste buff for only yourself. I’m wondering if we’ll be getting the version of being able to cast it on others or just ourselves.

Also, did you see what Mind Blast does for us? It’s a powerful burst of damage and Atonement healing, but it also grants an absorption shield similar to how Smite gives an absorption shield. (The debuff on the enemy.) They say Mind Blast will have a significant Mana cost, so I’m wondering if the absorption shield absorbs a lot.

Light’s Caress sounds pretty interesting too. It adds a heal onto Power Word: Barrier, healing whoever is inside it when cast, as well as another heal when it ends. I wonder how that’s going to work with Luminous Barrier, if it’s not on the same talent row/not replacing Luminous Barrier.

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The fundamental problem with atonement is scaling: its power scales with how many atonements are out. So in large groups it can scale tremendously high, but in small groups its underwhelming. Without doing something about the scaling - either capping it or making the power scale down with more atonements out - the fundamental problem persists. Straight buffs sound nice but do not solve the underlying issue.

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Even with large groups it has a limit. The reason why Disc is better for mythic raids and holy is better for heroic is because there’s no efficient way to spread out atonement to 30-40 people, it just isn’t happening.

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There’s more to it than that, but you’re correct I should have been more specific. Balancing occurs around strict 20-man size, so in sizes both above and below that, atonement loses efficiency.

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It’s why atonement is a terrible system. It only works best for content that a tiny percentage of the pop does, what kind of class design is that? I sincerely hope they actually balance it for 9.0, although I have my doubts.

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I mean, I like Atonement for PvP. I do Mythic+ as well for gear, but I like being able to do damage while healing.

In PvP I don’t have to worry about hard cast healing myself while a DPS trains me and slowly drains me. I can fight back, I can kill them, and they have to play in the defensive more and it won’t slowly kill me.

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