That’s a very fair point. I think we were over 100 deaths into a first week RLP. I promptly swapped to preservation and haven’t looked back, at least until the 10.2 changes were announced. I quite like Disc currently, and I think simplifying the rotation will help a bit. Though tbh I’m not sold on Ultimate Penitance, at least in m+.
I have reservations about Disc. The aforementioned damage/atonement healing concerns. Also, I like it in m+, but I’m not sure I’ll enjoy the ramp healing in raid (especially heroic).
Lol, I’m in the same boat. My raid leader is probably sick of my indecision.
I want to play Disc, but I’m worried it won’t be tuned properly. I’m not crazy about Holy, but it does seem to have a decent set bonus for raiding.
I’m kinda sick of preservation. The range limitations and positioning requirements are annoying. They keep nerfing echo/resonating builds (the ones I like) and buffing builds around spells I don’t like (LF/EB/VE).
I would like to play resto druid, but we have a ton of freaking Druids in my raid and regular m+ groups. So that’s a no go.
Resto shaman is kinda in shambles from what I’ve gathered. The tier bonuses have been mid and it’s been a mediocre healer most of the xpac.
Holy Paladin is probably the safest option to stick with. It’s not exciting but it has a great variety of CDs. The upcoming tier looks awful and I usually like collecting mogs, so that’s kind of disappointing.
I don’t know mistweaver at all, but I know a handful of people that absolutely adore it. I’m gonna try it in m+ and raid this week and practice it a bit. I hopped into a +8 and had a blast with it yesterday.
I had a hard go of disc early on and wanted to play it more but there was just so much grinding to do for professions and I have a bunch of toons I leveled to 70 just so I could do all of my crafting myself. It was annoying that disc just did not seem to have any potent healing at all and M+ was pretty rough in pugs because people played the mechanics so poorly early on. I actually quit the game I got so fed up. “How could I be so bad?” I thought. “Am I doing it wrong??” Apparently with all of the talents I could not play it like I had in BFA and SL. It just did not work out with healing and damage and was a real struggle. I quit wow and played Diablo II R for a couple months or so until that got kind of repetitive. Then I came back and Disc was better.
Yup, my experience in BFA was similar. My first key and first time even healing disc was on a grievous key with friends. There were A LOOOOOOT of deaths. It was with friends fortunately and they were very forgiving and we finished the key, but I think with 25 or 30 deaths total. Lmao!
Resto druid was quite good in SL. I had played it before, but never as much as priest or holy paladin, but was astounded at how quickly the invites came vs on my priest. In fact I would queue up for keys on my near max geared priest and would get auto declined. Then I would jump over to my druid–quite poorly geared and with a much lower score and queue up for the very same groups only to get insta invited (and this was not for brez as I never queued on my priest for groups without one already). I could not understand at how foolish people were, and still wonder. Like at the 18 or so key level people will auto invite a 426 Holy Paladin over a 447 Disc priest–something I witnessed first hand on my main (full sockets and having healed 22s as well) last week (I was literally removed from a key for a paladin and the group already had a brez). Anyhow, druid kitty weaving was quite fun.
It’s sad very few play mistweaver, me included. I used to love it for its strong single target healing, amazing HPS, and for how fun kickweaving was. But it did not get the invites so fast so I dropped it at some point. I’m not sure how it is now, but it also had mana issues typically–at least for me. While it could really pump explosive healing and HPS, if you were not careful, you had to drink pretty often in M+. Maybe I was doing it wrong, I dunno.
Also an ex bouncer so drunken and combative is bad
I too started as shadow in ICC when i realized my guild needed dps plus off heals. Dabbled with disc because i used to tank and i like the thought of bubbles to shield people.
Went into cata, my fave expac and was shadow then turned to disc. WAs forced into holy mid way through WoD untill the pre patch for Legion when disc changed and i fell inlove and in sync with the play style straight away and never lookd back nor maimed any other toon. Played this guy since ICC and no other
I keep my hand in with shadow and holy but disc is my love.
I see people’s mogs and go “Oh I gotta have that!” Then I switch classes again. I’ve been told over and over by my friends to just pick something and be good with it.
Yeah, I’m the same way. I enjoy many of the healers for a variety of different reasons. I can’t play as much as streamers do, so I can’t realistically play and gear them all to a level where I can regularly do +20s on each.
The issue that causes is I have to narrow it down to like 1-2 healers each season to play, and that’s where I have issues. On top of that, while each healer has good points, they each have drawbacks that could easily be construed as dealbreakers. So each season I’m more than happy to swap to fit the comp/meta or play whatever is strongest.
Also a sucker for good transmog. I hate to admit it, but I would probably stick to paladin in 10.2 if their tier wasn’t horrendous looking.
Though I am seriously debating Mistweaver. It seems silly because their community perception stinks, but it offers me something shiny and new: a healer I don’t know at all. Gives me something to learn/master.
That’s basically me with what I am trying to do this season. I wanna have a healer that I run with my group with and I want to have something that I can heal on when we aren’t all playing.
I really thought Paladin was gonna be my choice but then seen them everywhere and I changed and I didn’t really enjoy it as I previously did in SL.
Evoker was fun but we already have a Hunter and Shaman so I don’t really wanna be the third mail class.
I cannot get MW down so I’ll more than likely be passing on it as much. Don’t have a max level Shaman so that’s a pass.
So right now it narrows it down to Priest and Druid lol. This can of course change what I think of each class by tomorrow lol.
Resto Druid looks really strong next season, and I rather like the Grove Guardian/pet direction they’re taking the spec. My issue arises from the fact that my raid has like a half dozen druids, and my regular m+ comp has two ride-or-die druids.
I mained Resto Shaman in SL. It’s been kind of mediocre virtually all of Dragonflight. Very mid tier bonuses incoming for Resto, as well.
I’ve been maining Evoker all of Dragonflight. After 2 seasons the flaws with the spec are abundantly obvious to me, and I find it kind of frustrating to play now.
Holy Paladin feels bleh outside of CDs. The upcoming tier looks awful. It’s one of my least favorite healing playstyles.
So that just leaves Priest and Monk. I really like Disc, despite having some horrible experiences with it in the past. But I primarily heroic raid and pug +18-20s, which is content Disc isn’t great at. And I’m not really keen on playing Holy.
And that leaves Mistweaver. I’ve never really played it except for a couple of baby keys yesterday. I had a ton of fun. Plus it’s all new to me, which is exciting in-of-itself. I’m leaning towards this, even though I am aware that Mistweaver enjoys a spot next to Holy Priest for being the “worst” healer in terms of community perception.
At least priest and monk have excellent sets going into the upcoming raid. I’ll probably main-alt whichever one ends up not being my main to collect the mogs.
“well you have Power Infusion, slave, so just be happy you get to contribute in some way and that the lowest common denominator of dps can never be outdone by you and so doesn’t rush to the forums with some low IQ post about how ‘this should never happen’ while posting an image of them being out-dps by you, which of course everyone will act like its amazingly legitimate to think in this manner, but we at Blizz development offices especially will act this way, because the only people who are allowed to be shamed and embarassed are to be determined by us, and the rules of when this happens are vague on purpose, you will never know what the rules are. maybe you should just be happy we don’t nerf dps trinkets to do only 1/6th of listed damage when in a healing spec.”
Assuming no more changes, which is a stretch, Disc in its current state on the PTR remains the highest damage healer.
I have my doubts about Disc remaining in this state and remaining in a good spot for M+ in 10.2. The Nerf Gods will push it to middle the pack pretty much guaranteed. Why? Because this almost always happens, and if it is not middle of the pack then it will be lower down. The exception is its current state in 10.1.7–which in Disc’s history is rare, but this patch is gone soon and a lot of keyholders haven’t even noticed how good Disc is right now. Holy Paladin is looking strongest for M+ currently, and not for its damage but its utility. And this WILL continue.
The Nerf Gods are eyeing Disc, sadly. They want it below other healers for no good reason, and want H Paladin top yet again. That is just the way they roll. Accept it and bite the bullet. It is reality.
i feel like your being a touch dramatic, disc has been a reasonably good healer for M+ probably riding second place to pally, for most of the expansion. tbh all healers are good enough to do 20-25’s
Current PTR doesn’t have the latest round of nerfs.
It’s not THAT bad. But it is a ~16% damage nerf in dungeons, and a ~3% healing nerf overall.
My problem with it is mostly that our damage is only really high because of bender, void summoner, IE and our tier.
If those get nerfed, or we move on to next xpac or patch and they get removed or changed, we’re once again gonna be in a really lame position, because blizzard keeps doing more blanket nerfs (often times just aura nerfs) to keep damage in line for very specific problem talents that they create. I hate that whenever one ability feels nice, everything else gets a damage hit for it. Penance was very satisfying on PTR. It’s going to feel way less satisfying now, all because IE/bender were giving us too much damage.
It’s an on-going pattern at this point. Blizzard buffs a part of disc too much → People point out that what they did is pretty crazy → Blizzard nerfs the entire spec’s damage then buffs healing to compensate → New patch comes out that totally blows up the overpowered thing → Disc is now a very weak spec.
I hope I’m wrong, and to be fair if it happens again, at least we’ll get a patch of feeling great.
I don’t get that feeling at all. I get the feeling they want people to play disc. Maybe after those number loving people test the new changes we will see pretty soon how the changes play out.
On that note, I am probably working on putting together a disc set today lol.
Just in case
I never sell heroic/mythic track gear unless it is a duplicate so I should be able to come up with something halfway decent.
Question: those of you who play disc, do you have a different set for raid and keys?
It’s a 16% damage nerf there because 140 → 120 is 16% drop.
It’s way harder to determine how much it impacts raid without actually looking at how sins scales in raid again. But very likely not nearly as much of a nerf there. Damage-wise it’s less of a nerf than dungeons though.
I am a drama queen, and wont deny it, and this everyone knows. As for Disc? I dunno. I am an M+ enthusiast more than anything in this game, and I prefer the healing play of Disc by a mile over any and all other healers. That said, I had a blast playing Holy Priest in SL when it was meta with Flash Concentration, and simply loved Kyrian Boon. I have healed since vanilla and on all healers quite a bit, except for maybe R Shaman which I have healed on, but not very much vs all others.
Some dude did a video recently where he looked at all of the healers and their state throughout all expacs and patches and did an analysis of their standing. Holy Paladin was top. Resto druid was second. Disc was middle of the pack. Holy Priest was down at the bottom with Mistweaver.
Is this going to change?! Is any one healer going to move a lot from its typical positioning over time? Maybe. I’m crossing my fingers for Disc, but am not going to expect it to be good. I’d prefer to be pleasantly surprised if it is.
sounds like this dude was full of it. all the healers can do 20-23 when piloted correctly. Automatic jak was saying disc is a in a comfy spot too and he’s usually a doomer. tbh this season actually looks good and balanced for healers
I dunno. I guess it depends on how you look at it–and there are a lot of ways to do that. In my own judgement there is a huge difference between “can do” and “optimal for,” and the players pushing into the hardest content know this. That said, a lot look at what the top players are doing and copy them as if that is the one and only way to do it. I’d also add that some healer types are a lot harder to “pilot correctly” as you put it as well. And some healer classes, like Holy Paladin, have incredibly potent utility that other healers dont. Some abilities are incredibly powerful and life-saving and really boost group survivability (in M+) and other healers just dont have anything that is even close–such as in Brez, Lay on Hands, and Immunities like BOP. Furthermore, in my opinion a lot don’t know how to heal well on a harder healer like a disc priest or a mistweaver, and are doing it poorly, and they can give a spec a bad rep. Then too, it is not that hard to gauge things if you look at the person’s history in terms of how many timed dungeons they have done. You could also look at logs, but very few do this.
Do I sweep aside such videos as rot? No way. They give you insight into what people actually think and more importantly: what the numbers are saying. The law of averages and the law of large numbers also come into play making the collection of numbers and rationale used for judgements behind such assessments have some very scientific validity. I guess on a very casual level you can say or think what you like depending on how you feel, but numbers dont lie. That said, taking every conclusion in such videos as gospel is a bad idea.
