The Enigma Order
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#1 2009-11-03 11:00:09
Disc
I felt I had to get this off my chest after yesterday Anub10 HC because I'm pretty angry/disappointed with Disc atm. Basically I'm aware that Disc is really inferior to almost any other healing class/spec for tankhealing, but never before I experienced it like yesterday!
Fact is, Disc tankhealing is 1 big RNG fest while healing with a lackluster filler Flash Heal that scales like shit (for Disc) healing for ~5-6k non-crit (zomg) while waiting for Penance cooldown to pass. PoM is useful aswell, but not in phase 3 of Anub obviously because it would heal for too much. PW:S is crap mitigation on the tank, around ~7.5k (in my not so great gear) every 15 seconds which is NOTHING compared to what LS + the normal tank damage needs.
Atm Disc in general is just a gimmick spec on fights where (un)predictable spike dmg can be mitigated to either buy other healers time to heal or to prevent the dmg in the first place. The latter is even rarer and most of the times this is basically "useless" as other healers will easily heal it in a few seconds after the spike dmg anyway. This only makes it a niche when there is more incoming damage after the mitigated damage.
Fights like Mimiron, Knockx3, Jaraxxus, FC and Anub p3 PC healing are good examples. But on Beasts for example Disc does look nice on WorldofLogs, but actually you're not really contributing anything special as any raid healer could heal the same mitigated damage easily basically after it hit. Only when people fail to move out of the fire, etc it's useful but that shouldn't happen anyway.
A good example of this is Icehowl Crash. Actually if everyone is topped off it is never dangerous because there is never more damage after the Crash for around 30 seconds. Now a Disc priest can PW:S everyone pre-Crash, but it is basically useless as people will never get any damage after the Crash anyway and raw healing would be more than fine aswell (and alot faster) after the Crash damage.
This is a scenario you'll often see, not always but very often. Ofcourse weaving PW:S is safe to some extent, but is most of the times not the niche Disc brings and actually saving PW:S (no Weakened Sould debuff on target) for when someone gets spike damage is more viable and worthwhile than pre-emptive usage of PW:S im almost any case.
To get back to Anub, there is sadly no way I can heal 2 tanks during phase 3 as Disc. As I said FH heals for ~5-6k non-crit and this is all I can use when Penance is on cd, except for a weak PW:S every 15 seconds.
Funny thing is that the devs said that Disc is supposed to be a viable tankhealing spec like Holy paladins, but it is far from that at the moment. It's just a gimmick spec for mitigating dangerous dmg and supporting tankhealing with keeping Inspiration up, but for soley tank healing even the HPS of a Holy priest is higher than what Disc can dish out combined with mitigation from PW:S (once in 15 secs only) and DA. Holy paladins have >9k better single target HPS, not to mention BoL...
Bring the player, not the class...right.
/rant over
Last edited by Fairmont (2009-11-03 11:07:27)
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#2 2009-11-03 11:09:36
- Lamme
- Guildmaster
- Registered: 2005-08-21
- Posts: 8597
Re: Disc
Two questions:
- how does this look from the perspective of patch 3.3 where bosses are meant to hit for less but mofe often?
- as far as I can see the problem in 10 man raid (where there is 2 healers) how significant is the gravity of this issue in 25 man, where we have basically each healing spec present? (I know you refer to that, but I'd gladly hear some more plus other healers opinions on this).
(I find this matter intersting at least, since in general I'm a big opponent of the "class/spec x is broken" approach, but I know nothing about healing. Plus I've heard a few times that "what's holding us back is lack of disc priest on damage heavy fights)
Last edited by Lamme (2009-11-03 11:11:40)
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#3 2009-11-03 11:28:52
Re: Disc
Lamme wrote:
- how does this look from the perspective of patch 3.3 where bosses are meant to hit for less but mofe often?
I have not read about that yet but assuming this will be the case, still not much changes I guess. At the end they want the incoming damage on the tank to remain (relatively) the same so you still always want high sustained HPS on the tanks and Disc basically sucks at it because of the non-existing scaling talents in the Disc tree. Holy has Spiritual Guidance and alot of raw healing % modifiers like Blessed Resilience, Divine Providence, Spiritual Healing, Test of Faith and either Empowered Healing or Empowered Renew.
Disc only has Focused Power and Grace...
- as far as I can see the problem in 10 man raid (where there is 2 healers) how significant is the gravity of this issue in 25 man, where we have basically each healing spec present? (I know you refer to that, but I'd gladly hear some more plus other healers opinions on this).
Bascially in 25-man we always have at least have 1 Holy Paladin and often 2. They cover tank healing for a big part and I'm never soley on tankhealing duty unless we only have 1 Holy Paladin (depending on encounter though). The niche of Disc is mitigating dangerous dmg and they really do fine there, so I'm shielding low hp people and supporting the Holy paladin(s) with tankhealing when I'm not shielding. This way I also always keep Inspiration up on the tanks. So to answer your question, in 25-man there is not really a problem because I'm not soley on tankhealing duty most of the time. But still, even when I am it's supportive and lackluster, simple.
Edit: And in ICC I'm really wondering how effective Disc will still be. Every other healing class/spec is getting huge upgrades everytime they get a higher ilvl piece, but since Disc throughput scales so crappy I'm very concerned. Only PW:S scales decent, but it's "trivial" for sustained single target healing anyway. For the few gimmick fights Disc will still be okay I guess, but that's all.
Last edited by Fairmont (2009-11-03 11:36:29)
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#4 2009-11-03 14:05:46
- Mox
- Officer
- From: Norway - Oslo
- Registered: 2007-09-03
- Posts: 1493
Re: Disc
I don't find Priest to be particulary strong with focus in either talent trees. Holy might be slightly more versatile as the heals are stronger, but I still feel like I'm just support for more specialized healers. Then again, other healers might see this as our strenght. There are pros and cons I guess.
Retired Priest master.
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#5 2009-11-03 14:32:41
Re: Disc
That's right Mox, but the difference is that 1) Holy scales really good compared to Disc and 2) it has a much bigger and more viable toolbox for the role it is aimed at. Disc is a wannabe tankhealer spec that is forced to shield spamming low hp targets atm.
The devs even said that Disc is supposed to be a tank healing spec. It says enough that the HPS of Holy is alot higher on single target healing. This doesn't make any sense to me. There is also nothing magical about mitigation on tankhealing because it is a spamfest anyway and tanks take so much damage that mitigation doesn't make a difference between life or death with a 50k hp. I just see it as increased critical healing that can't overheal, nothing more nothing less.
If nothing changes Disc is soon to be dead except for gimmick fights like FC. I'm still really mad about yesterday, it's just retarded tbh. All I could do was spam FH and wait for Penance cd and it wasn't remotely enough for tankhealing Anub p3 and I'm pretty damn sure I can't do anything about it.
I hate it.
Last edited by Fairmont (2009-11-03 14:49:12)
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#6 2009-11-03 17:12:30
Re: Disc
I understand how you feel. I felt useless as a pally healer through most of vanilla wow, but we were still there, spamming our tiny heals, waiting for better times.
I'd say just hang in there, and things will turn around. There's no doubt that disc priests are wanted in raids, and are a valuable contribution, but I can agree that they are not capable of holding their own in tank healing, but combined with 1 or 2 pallies, it's absolutely win.
I'd like to hear what kinda fix you'd suggest for disc healing? How about removing penance cooldown completely, would that be a start?
Oh, and as a sidenote, even if I've only been to Anub on normal mode a couple of times, I can say that I truly hate that fight as a healer, please never do anything like this again blizzard, it's not challenging in a fun way.
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#7 2009-11-03 18:48:04
Re: Disc
Yes it doesn't feel good in 10-man. In 25-man it's not too much of a problem even though we are still weak on tankhealing there.
How can they fix this? Scaling. Give Disc an Int>SP conversion like Holy has from Spi. This is one step in the good direction. For the rest we need Grace as passive healing modifier like Holy has from various talents. Then Penance cd needs to be reduced for sure and Renew needs to be ALOT better for Disc to make it worth casting on the tank once again. This would fix alot of problems already.
Maybe they could also let our heals give an extra % of mitigation from healing on targets afflicted with Weakened Soul debuff or something, or just increased healing either direct or over time (Hot). I'm just brainstorming but there are enough ways to fix this. Maybe they could also let our crit heals give us a temporary buff that increases our healing or something. They can be creative.
Anyway, the problem is PvP. Disc is pretty strong atm in PvP so this is again PvP fucking over PvE. Buffs to Disc would buff them in PvP too which means they will become OP there.
Meh...
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