There is a lot less time "between cooldowns" than people seem to think. If you plan to spend any time OO5SR, the cooldowns work like a metronome. =)

I think the original disc direction of massive damage mitigation was really a great idea and its a shame that blizzard nerfed it all to hell.

I think the old 6% DR 6% healing grace + the new 6% crit talent on weakened soul rolled into a single 2-pointer, would make disc a very strong candidate for the top single target healer spot

[e] Also make DA work on total healing not effective healing.

The way I am expecting discipline to heal normally (the way talents are now), is as a single target healer mainly.

You can also put PW:Shield on other targets you expect to take damage. Doing that and having the shield entirely pierced from damage will yield Rank 14 PW: Shield (2230 + 1500*(0.8+0.4))*1.15*0.25 - 3862*0.23 = 1331 - 888 = 270 mana every 4 seconds at best, or 338 MP5. (Assuming 1500 spell power).

Since we really dont know much about how fights will go down yet, it is fairly uncertain if we can use PW:Shield on such regular basis, going back to single target mode, I would probably not use PW:Shield on the tank preemptively as it stands now. Instead I would use Greater Heal most of the time, and whenever a Greater Heal R9 crits, I would immediately follow up with a PW: Shield. The target would be shielded for ((3950+4590)/2 + 1500*1.61)*1.05*1.5*0.3 = 0-3158 from Divine Aegis with a 4634 PW: Shield, total of 4634-7792 damage. At this point I would start to cancel-cast-dance in order to enter FSR, cancelling as early as possible. If tank manages to avoid taking damage for so long that Grace happens to fall off, you can sit ready with Penance to stack it back up and then continue on as previously.

With multiple targets guaranteed to take damage, it would be best to avoid trying to go into FSR, and use PW: Shield as soon as its cooldown is up. It is unlikely you will manage to get into FSR a lot if raid is taking heavy damage, and judging by the current level 80 blue gear, we will end up with near 50% more spirit and intellect raidbuffed. 1000 int/1000 spirit would give a OFSR MP5 of 1126 MP5. 30% of that is 338. If you can get a 10% FSR during a fight, you'd gain another (1126-338)*0.1 = 79 MP5. Spamming PW:Shield on targets you know will take damage would yield 338 MP5. Clearly not entering FSR is advantageous.

Since disc priests are currently looking like they will be by far the superior healer when it comes to switching targets (Tank taunts (Brutallus), threat drops (Bloodboil/Void Reaver)), it may be the better choice to have the priest sticking with Greater Heals, and use PW: Shield as soon as tank is switched, and follow up with Penance. Thats 3 seconds of rather disturbingly high burst HPS.

On a side note:

If Prayer of Healing is made "Smart Targeting" and raid wide, it becomes an awesome tool for Disc. Prayer of Healing R7 would heal 5 people for ((2091+2209)/2 + 1500*1.61*0.5)*1.05 = 3525 each at a cost of 3862*0.48 = 1854 mana. If we guesstimate a 20% holy crit for the disc priest, 1/5 of those heals will crit and return 3525*1.5*0.3*0.25 = 396 mana. So a net cost of 1485 mana for pretty nice efficient healing (assuming raid is taking damage and makes full use of the entire heal).

If the Priest decided to go with a 43/28/0 build specifically tailored for this purpose, the cost would be reduced to 1483, and healed amount would increase by 6%. At 20% holy crit that is a mana return of 3525*1.06*1.5*0.3*0.25 = 420. At a 2.8 second cast (~10% effective haste), you will be burning off (1483 - 420) = 1063 mana every 2.8 seconds for 1899 MP5 used. Your income would be atleast 338 + 91 + 62 + (Replenishment, 2% of your total mana over 4 sec, assuming 3862+1000*15 = 18862 mana, 18862*0.02/4*5) 471. You then have a deficit of 1899 - 338 - 91 - 62 - 471 = 937 MP5. You'd last 18862/(937/5) = 100 seconds spamming PoH. Add onto that Power Infusion and Inner Focus.

Increasing crit rate to 40% somehow (and keeping spell power same) would reduce spent MP5 to (1483 - 840) = 643 mana every 2.8 seconds, for a 1148 MP5, and make you last 18862 / ((1148 - 338 - 91 - 62 - 471) / 5) = 507 seconds (thats 8 minutes 27 seconds.). This is a highly optimal situation however.

If my math somewhere happens to be wrong I'm sure you will be kind enough to help me correct it. I did not adjust up PoH or GH to the actual level 80 values (as they are not learnt on level 80).

And Havoc12, I agree, DA should be based on total healing, not effective healing. (I always assumed it was supposed to.)

Divine Aegis uses the full amount the spell would have healed for regardless of overhealing. It triggers when spamming yourself at full health.

With grace as it stands now though I don't think it will matter too much what Divine Aegis does other than in PvP. Also PoH is most likely not going to be raid wide, wouldn't take them this long to change it and changing it much earlier would make sense if they want people to actually test it. I think we are stuck with what we have now with numbers tweaked here and there.

And how exactly are you planning on getting out of FSR when your primary spell is on a 4 second cooldown and you have to fill that space with SOMETHING if you want to (a) keep Grace up and (b) be at all useful in terms of HPS? You don't have clearcasts at all, you have one Inner Focus every 2 minutes, and in the end one PW:S is roughly equivalent to 2 seconds of OOFSR time anyway.

On another side note:

If the Disc priest does nothing but spam Greater Heal R9 with 1500 spell power, 1000 int/1000 spi (338 MP5, 18862 mana), blessing of wisdom (91 MP5), mana stream totem (62.5 MP5) and Replenishment (471 MP5), using the 43/28 build, with ~10% haste.

GHR9 Heals for ((3950+4590)/2 + 1.61*1500)*1.05*1.06 = 7440 Average hit, 11160 Average crit, DA for 3348.
You spend 3862*0.32*0.85 = 1050 mana for each GHR9 every 2.25 seconds.
From Rapture, assuming a very nasty 75% overheal rate (before considering crits), you gain back 7440*(1-0.75)*0.025 = 46.5 mana every 2.25 seconds.
Your other mana returns are 338 + 91 + 62.5 + 471 = 962.5 MP5 or 433.125 every 2.25 seconds.

This puts you at a deficit of 1050 - 433 - 46.5 = 570.5 BEFORE Divine Aegis.

In order to gain back 570.5 average mana back from Divine Aegis, you would need a crit rate of 507.5/(3348*0.25) = 60.6%.

Edit;
I see mages are playing around with 3000 spell power.

GH9 heals for ((3950+4590)/2 + 1.61*3000)*1.05*1.06 = 10128 Average hit, 15192 Average crit, DA for 4557.
Mana used is same, 1050 over 2.25 sec.
Rapture, assuming now a lower overheal of 40% (You are allowed to single heal tank, noone else helps), you gain back 10128*(1-0.4)*0.025 = 151 mana every 2.25 seconds.
Your other mana returns are the same.

This puts you at a deficit of 1050 - 433 - 151 = 466 before DA.

You need to have 466/(4557*0.25) = 41% crit.
(Talents 5%, Moonkin 5%, Totem of Wrath 3% = 28% needed from gear/enchants/gems/buffs).

Or to put it in perspective. With a mana pool of 18000 (+ mana pot of 3000, and Mana Tide of 18000*0.24 = 4320 => 25k'ish total), and 25% crit (should be fairly simple to get in raid), 3000 spell power, 1000 int/spi.

GH 10128 Avg hit, 15192 Avg crit, DA 4557.
Rapture from GH9 = (10128*0.75 + 15192*0.25)*(1-0.4)*0.025 = 170 mana back.
Rapture from DA = 4557*0.25*0.25 = 284 mana back.
Net Usage: (1050-170-284)/2.25*5 = 1325 MP5.
Net Deficit: 1325-962 = 363 MP5

So with a 25000 Mana Pool, you are looking at a sustainability of 25000/(363/5) = 344 seconds. (5 minutes, 44 seconds.) Innervate has a 6 minute cooldown, I'm sure your local Feral Cat DPS druid is happy to help you out.... Oh right, I believe we kept our ShadowFiend too, and it will be nasty with 3000 spell power.

Of course, Personally I'd PW:Shield after a Crit heal, and start eating some OFSR time, and also you got Power Infusion and Inner Focus to further help the above numbers.


TLDR;

Disc Priests seem to be the new Holy Paladin Pre-Illumination nerf?

That means pretty serious loss in tank DR and mana efficiency. Unlike gheal PWS is not only free it also returns mana and now it adds 6% to crit rate.

I dont think you are forgetting that PWS is a 30 second buff. In tank switch situations its extremely advantageous to cast PWS on the second tank 15+ seconds BEFORE he tanks damage, so you can have another PWS available to cast the instant the old one is used up.

Not keeping PWS up 24/7 on your current target is simply not an option. With the new 40% factor, at 1000 spell power you are looking at 3400 absorption base + 15% ==> 3910. 25% of that is 977 mana. PWS already returns mana at 1000 spell power. At 2000 spell power the absorption is (2200+2400)*1.15 = 5290. This returns 1322. At A mana cost of about 870, the return is absoludely massive. Spending mana on gheal when you could be gaining mana from PWS to gain a little ooFSR time is really a bad bad idea. To gain FSR time, your best bet is to go Inner focus right after a PWS and then when the tank needs it cancel cast gheal 2x and follow with penance.

Trying to use criticals + PWS to gain oofsr time is really counterproductive. It makes you far worse than a holy priest who can just spam away due to 16% clearcasting, serendipity and test of faith, who can easily get FSR time without a significant break in throughput.

DR from PWS and DA is a very important part of why disc is a useful single tank healer. If you want to sacrifice that for more ooFSR time, the raid is better off with a holy priest.

Since DA works on total healing and not effective healing, then

absorption per second from DA = absDA = 0.45*c/(1+0.5c)*HPStotal, where c = crit rate

At 2000 HPStotal and 31% buffed crit rate (+6% from weakened soul)

absDA = 241 that also returns 60.4mps or 301mp5

Absorption from PWS is 5290/16 = 330. That also returns 82.7mps or 413mp5

Absorption from grace is 3% of incoming tank DPS

At 40% overheal 2000 HPStotal is 1200effective HPS, which translates to 30mp5 or 150mp5 from rapture

At 5000DPS on the tank a disc priest will apply a reduction of 571+0.03*5000 = 721 DPS. This is 14% of incoming DPS. This is actually a fairly massive nerf, as with the old values we would be looking at

212+305+0.06*5000 = 817 or 16% of total tank DPS with only 2 talent points instead of 4 and on top all other healers on the tank would get 6% more healing. At lower incoming damage say 3k, the difference is smaller, but the loss of 6% healing on the tank from all healers and the 4 points required instead of 2, still make it a very big nerf.

If we reverse it and add the reduction to the disc priest, then the 1200 effective HPS becomes 1200+721 = 1921 effective HPS

While doing this the disc priests gains 413+150+301 = 864 mp5. This would cut the mana expenditure from gheal and serendipity by 60-65%.

Now for a holy priest
Stipulate:
x1 serendipity heals with average 70% overheal
x2 non serendipity non test of faith crits with average 20% overheal
x3 test of faith heals with no significant overheal



For x1 = 0.3 and x2 = 0.5, you burn 31% (0.7*0.3+0.2*0.5) of your non test of faith heals as overheal. However your test of faith hits are significantly larger. They benefit from 15% more healing and 10% more crit. So test of faith heals are H*1.15*(1+0.5*(c+10)), where H is the average value of a non test of faith heal and c is your crit rate. With 15% base crit rate that is 29% larger. The beauty of test of faith is that the 15% amplifies the value of your existing crit too. It also amplifies +heal buffs on the tank.

To put it together your total overheal is 0.31*H and your effective healing is 0.69*H+ 0.2*1.29*H = 0.948*H.

Thus total overheal is 0.31/(0.31+0.948) = 25%.

In addition 30% of gheals as serendipity heals return 172.8 mana per gheal and 16% clearcasting also reduces the cost of gheal by 16% in addition to easily adding 5-10% more oofSR time. The total regen is difficult to predict without a good idea of the values, but I would be very surprised if its significantly different from the disc value.

A holy priest outputting 3k total HPS with 25% overheal returns 2250 effective HPS. With 2.5k total HPS he delivers 1875.

Without these nerfs a disc priest was nearly equal to a holy priest at single target healing overall and slightly superior when the tank takes massive damage. With the recent nerf a holy priest is a better by a relatively small margin at single target healing.

Its very important to consider however the different modes of healing. Serendipity and test of faith put a holy priest in a very advantageous position when tank healing. You can spam gheal at shallow damage and you will only really spend mana when the tank spikes. If the tank spikes hard you also have test of faith to ensure that your heal will be massive. IHC and test of faith also give you plenty of available time to do other things.

Good point about putting up PW:Shield before a tank switch.

And yes, PW:Shield starts to return obscene amounts of mana as you start ramping up your spelldamage, thats why I took a very very moderate value of 1500 spell power in my example. (You gain 1.2*1.15*0.25 = 0.345 mana back pr spell power over 4 seconds, or 0.43 MP5 pr spell power)

As long as people WILL take damage, keeping PW:Shield on cooldown is awesome. This means you need less focus on mana regeneration and more on spell power. Haste does not help much. Crit does nothing.

This somewhat conflicts with what you want for Greater Heal spam, which is Spell Power, Haste and Crit. (Since Rapture scales directly with all these stats).

This is unfortunate, as it means Disc brings no real advantage beyond Divine Spirit and burst HPS to the raid.

Something just hit me:

Guardian spirit + test of faith.

With say 8.5k base adn 15% base crit rate a GS+ToF heal would be 15395 on average 13685 non crit and 20527 crit.

I also noticed this:
Focused Power (Tier 6) now increases your total spell damage and healing done by 2/4%. In addition, your Mass Dispel cast time is reduced by 0.5 sec.

This changes things a little and adds yet more bloat

I would say the best disc build right now is

Disc PvE build

That means most of the nerf now is really the 6% healing buff for the other healers and a total of 4 talent points.

The changes however are interesting for PvP disc. Though the bloat is out of this world.

Disc PvP

With leeway on the distribution of points between aspiration, reflective shield, mental agi, unbreakable will, absolution, silent resolve and divine specialisation depending on your team.

I think I personally would move the 2 points in Improved Divine Spirit over to Improved Inner Fire.

Inner Fire now gives 120 Spell Power. At 20% increase pr point, that is another bonus 24 spell power pr point. At 1000 Spirit Imp. DS would give 30 extra spell power pr point, at 1500 spirit 45 pr point.

But since Imp. DS will not stack with things like Flametongue Totem (73), Focus Magic (150) and Totem of Wrath (not yet known), Imp. DS will almost always fall behind one of the other 3 buffs.

Although you could argue that unlike Totems (out of range/Shaman dies) and Focus Magic (Apparently has charges), Imp. DS is permanent.

Only considering yourself, once you get more than 24/0.03 = 800 Spirit, Imp. DS beats Inner Fire. In a raid situation however, Imp. DS is most likely beaten by other nonstackable buffs.

If you dont have to use flametongue you can use another fire totem and focus magic needs to be recast fairly frequently, so impDS is a net gain for your raid and thus worth specing into IMO. Its still a judgement call and will depend on your raid though.

I am really dissatisfied with the bloat though. Its results in several hard choices.

The Disc primary spell is on a 8 second cooldown and will bring Grace back to 3 stacks on your next cast. So that deals with (a). As for (b) that really depends on the situation on the ground so its hard to comment w/o context. But my point still stands, cooldowns are probably a minor concern.

According to MMOChampion's Shaman skills page, in the current build Totem of Wrath "increases the damage done by spells and effects by 160 for all party and raid members, and increases the critical strike chance of spells and effects by 3% against all enemies within 40 yards. Lasts 2 min." Every caster in the raid would need 2,666 Spirit (plus a few hundred more Spirit to reach equivalence with the totem's +3% crit effect) to get the same boost from Imp. DS in its current state.

I haven't seen this mentioned, but I've had the opportunity to test a priest on beta and tried Glyph of Power Word: Shield. While it claims that shielding a target should heal them for 20% of the shield value, it doesn't actually appear to have a heal, whether cast on yourself or another person.

I feel vexed when I can't save mana in some fashion by using a downranked heal to touch up a target, so having PW:S be able to do a small heal would have been a very good thing, especially setting the tank up for the next pull. (so far I've healed two undergeared DKs through Utgarde Keep, they don't gripe about shield costing them rage) Granted that I'm not running out of mana but my priest is also epic-geared and well over what a normal fresh-to-70 priest would be experiencing.

Penance however has turned into one of my favorite heals, having been halved in cost but remaining as effective as GHeal at about 1200 spellpower. The quick delivery of healing really makes it as a spell.

The tank needs kings, light and might before Sanct and grace is only 1 pt.

As things stand disc is not viable above 10 mans imo so impDS and grace have to be taken. The question of aspiration vs imp healing is tough to answer until we get some idea of what the raiding env is like.

Kings yes, light is gone, rolled into base value of pally heals and if you have a dps warrior he can do the shout. But honestly the odds are good you have a prot pally in any serious 25 man raid for trash collection who can do this buff.

Anyway Grace is a week week ability at 3% max and outside of the first couple of Patch/Brut Kills you will never notice it. If you did take Grace you have to spend 2 points as 1 point is only 50% application chance which risks the stack falling off. Finally depending on your haste value there may be no point in taking more than one point in Aspiration as a 7 second gap would be of more utility than a 6 second gap.

As mentioned earlier (way upthread) it makes no difference when it is applied. Say a 10k hit, with armor sufficient for a 50% reduction:

10,000 * .97 = 9700
9700 / 2 = 4850

10,000 / 2 = 5000
5000 * .97 = 4850

I can never see Grace being a needed buff in high-end raiding. How many Afflication locks did you see in Brutallus raids with their -5% physical damage reduction?

If Imp DS is in the same boat as Flametongue and other similar buffs yet is considered the weakest overall (except for Spirit heavy specs) but is permanent - I would hope to see a secondary benefit tacked onto Grace that would make it superior to BoSanc and it's 8 second duration increased massively.

Disc Priests in 5v5 are considered the best "healers" (I'm no Arena junkie but from news sites they seem to be the most represented) and imo and experience no healer can match the effective healing output as a COH priest or sheer utility of a SP - do we need to be buffed much more or is Blizzard's WOTLK Beta signalling the end of Priestly hegemony over healing? Will this be a good thing for the healing community as a whole? (well perhaps not for Priests).

If all specs are meant to bring some utility - what do Holy Priests bring apart from pure healing? Will Guardian Spirit/Lightwell be our utility?

Hopefully not. The day it will be required to spec Lightwell to fulfill my expected role is the day I'll stop playing my priest. I'm glad it's so weak that I don't have to bother with it currently, and I'm hoping that it stays that way or gets replaced with something more interesting one day.

On the other hand this reminds me of the Rebirth situation. Now that Bloodlust/Heroism stacking is gone, I wonder if we'll see Rebirth stacking. Let's just immagine for a moment that resto druids are finally up to par with priests/other healers in power. Rebirth alone is such a huge factor in many fights that the choice would be skewed towards the druid.

But back to the point, I don't think we'll see any changes to Rebirth unless things get out of hand. I do think though that priests will retain their edge over other healers in general, simply because raid buffs and utility will continue to be an important factor.

I do expect us to get some utility, given the recent quotes on the subject. Especially considering the recent changes to rogues, the purest DPS class of all, with the new misdirect and damage debuffs. Considering we seem to be getting a pass in the near future (to futher change some things to Shadow, and hopefully change Disc to be viable), I'd be hoping/guessing that they will add it then, because as it is, Holy is indeed pretty much the one healing spec without true raid utility. And may they nuke Divine Hymn and replace it with something useful too, as I've mentioned before in this threat ;p

Disc priests in 5s are only spot healers, usually. Mostly they are there for mass dispel on DPS train targets, Pain Suppresion for mitigation purposes, and shadow weaving/misery for Euro.

They are almost never the main healers except, perhaps, in 4 DPS comps, which use them, again to mitigate incoming damage to a small degree. (They plan on just dropping the target on the other team before it matters)

Just an fyi.

I've read over a lot of calm discussion over the current situation of things but I think it's all moot - let's face it - they fucked up Priests so bad with the last wave of raid stacking changes that they really have no choice but to go in and overhaul the class.

Before any of this, I think it was entirely possible for them to just release Priests as they were, but now after these changes I don't see how they could - who here would actually stick with the Priest class if they did?

I'd imagine Priests, especially Disc, will be getting a lot of attention soon.

Agreed, except I'm also pretty sure that Paladins are the only class capable of healing a 4 man DPS team effectively, a Priest healing a 4 man DPS team is more about throwing a PS and hoping your team just flat out wins - he/she won't be able to heal much at all.