Incoherence

This is certainly true, whether you used PoM on every cooldown or just when you knew it would be efficient. I would hope that those of you in the beta are complaining loudly about this; the worst that can happen is that Koraa says something stupid to excuse it again. A PoM that generates no threat at all is vastly preferable to a PoM that generates threat for the casting priest, and a PoM that generates threat for a tank is even better (although I can understand where that would be a counterintuitive mechanic and therefore something Blizzard wants to avoid).

 

Doctah

Could possibly be the new boosts to defense stance etc. that are supposed to place them at 175 or 189% (I forget the exact number). Probably not a huge issue now but they seem to be more careful this beta of anything with the possibility of scaling further than it should.

 

Mideci

Najentus.... Tidal shield
Bloodboil... Bloodboil
RoS... Phases 2 and 3
Shaz ... Fatal Attraction splash damage, etc.
Illidari Council ... Cast it on almost any of the tanks
Illidan .. Phase 2... Flame bursts in Phase 4....

Anetheron... Swarm

Halazzi... Phase splits
Hex Lord... Spirit Bolts
Zul'jin... Phase 3

Prayer of Mending is an insanely great heal in TBC. It's only moderately great on Gorefiend? OK, fine.

 

Thorongil

Of course a PoM that doesn´t generate any threat is preferable to one generating threat for the priest. But that´s just pointing at the bleeding obvious (to me at least). You say you do understand why they don´t want it to generate threat for the one that gets healed but in exchange you want a PoM that doesn´t generate any aggro at all? A bit unrealistic, isn´t it?

Nevertheless, just look at the examples given above. Some here constantly point out to these "aggro-sensitive situations" for which especially it is such a great nerf for PoM to generate aggro. Tell me, when in a raid (especially in a boss fight) do these situations occur? Give some hard facts and examples that can be argued about, just tossing in comments like it has been done several times is no basis for a discussion.

As a sidenote: I do not argue that aggro sensitive situations do frequently occur in 5-mans (heroics). But do you want your class designed around 5-mans or raids?

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...erks/Idril.png

 

Liths

In any fight with newly spawned adds it's going to be a bit of a risk factor. In most cases it's not a terribly big deal, but it sure is going to suck on felmyst. To have a heal which you could pop on people at the start of p2 and not worry about getting aggro was pretty damn good.

 

Thorongil

I agree that Felmyst P2 is such a situation. As a sidenote you shouldn´t forget Binding Heal in such situations. I have made the experience that the low threat helps massively in such situations if you can afford to use it mana-wise (although that is hardly a comparable example but the AoE-mobs right before Vexallus are another such situation, where Binding Heal yielded great results for me when running without an AoE-class).

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...erks/Idril.png

 

cutfang

I tend to PoM the person who is Doomed, or the Offtanks on Supremus as a buffer against the burst damage they are likely to take.

I'm not really s ure where all this worry about the threat from PoM is coming from either. It seems unlikely that the extra aggro i'll generate from PoM will give me concern on threat sensitive fights like Bloodboil. After all, we can easily spec into 20% aggro reduction, and unlike druids or shamans we have Fade. If we did pull aggro, its either because of slacking tanks, or other healers arent pulling their weight, or you healed too early. Preshield and PoM ought to be enough time for a (wotlk) tank to keep aggro on all mobs in 5mans.

 

Ellyh

Redesign of divine hymn coming, no details but hopefully they make it more attractive and useful. Also they are asking for feedback from holy and disc priests on how they feel about doing Naxx 10. In particular they want feedback on how the 51 point talents feel while doing Naxx. So if your unhappy with GS (or even penance) let them know.

 

Havoc12

My biggest issue is the unpredictability. I would much rather pom generated a set amount of threat when cast and the bounces being non-threat. That way I could control it. I provided several examples of this. Nightbane (and also moroes, ilhoof), vasjh phase2, karathress begining, morogrim, hydross (especially problematic), leotherass (can also be really nasty), void reaver, anathereon, azgalor, bloodboil and many others. Its a pretty long list if you ask me.

=========================
Oh this is pretty bad.

 

gia

Can't post on the US forums but I've cleared 10 man Naxx as full discipline (Spec) and I really enjoy playing it.

I'm getting a ton of mana from Rapture and the new Penance is a great reactive heal. PW:S->Penance will save anyone from all kinds of spike damage (unless they're getting 1 shotted of course), I wish I could also use Pain Suppression but in those situations the GCD is often times better spent on using Penance right away. I wish it was off the GCD because right now I'm only using it when I can anticipate the damage or when I want to purposely lower someone's threat.

Disc is great in both the endurance and the "keeping people alive" department, where it feels inferior to Holy is in the raw throughput, both single target (Greater heal spam) or aoe (CoH spam). Power Infusion is a great tool to bridge that gap though, the cooldown lowered to 2 minutes really helps. I have a trinket+cast PI on self macro and with a low cd I'm not afraid to use it, basically every time I feel I'm going to start to fall behind on healing I'll instantly reach for that button and it does make a difference.

Ironically, even though many claim Disc to be just a tank healer, the situations where all I have to do is spam heal a tank are exactly where I'd like to be specced Holy instead. This was very clear on our patchwerk attempts where I was assigned to heal the offtank. Trying to focus just on him and spam GH I started for the first time to run into mana problems, I had much better results when I started using PW:S every cooldown on both tanks and cancel casting a lot more aggressively while keeping Penance ready for the burst on both tanks. Disc doesn't play well with overheal since Rapture only gives mana back on effective healing.

Honestly I think Discipline is an outstanding 5 man and 10 man spec at the moment, the only place where it might fall behind is in a 25 man setting where healing assignments are usually more specific, and I realize this is the concern of the majority around here. If given a lot more flexibility on assignments though I think it can still perform very well.

My main issues remain in the talent trees, there are far too many 5 point talents and while a PvE spec can somewhat work (even though I'm not taking Grace and I wouldn't know where to get the 2 points for it anyway other than from Imp. DS) a PvP spec is still a nightmare. Oh and Borrowed Time needs to be fixed/buffed/redesigned.

 

Vitalay

To whatever extent this matters, I prefer a PoM that generates threat for the Priest.

 

Tainter

How about stating a reason?

The reason I see for the threat change is that Blizz want the spell used as a heal, not as a small Tank AoE threat skill. I have no gripes with PoMs current healing power. The crit change will make it quite strong for Disc I suspect. From a PvP point of view PoM is moving in a good direction too.

If you can't join them?
Beat them.

 

Vitalay

Several reasons:

It will give mana to Paladins (particularly in the arena)
It will not improperly attribute aggro to DPS classes who are usually already carefully balancing the same
It will help with tracking healing done for review and tactic modification purposes
It will be more consistent with the rest of the healing aggro system in place

 

Kortar

1. PoM already gives mana to Paladins, as does Earth Shield.
2. This is a problem. However, the situations where PoM does bounce amongst dps classes tend to be those where threat isn't the primary issue (such as pulsed AEs).
3. Inarguably true. But it really isn't Blizzard's problem - people can (and have) coded parsers to accomodate it.
4. Absolutely true. But making every heal into Greater Heal would also be 'consistent'. Not necessarily better.

 

Havoc12

My disc PvE healing experience comes mostly from healing heroics and the occasional karazhan in my 3v3 PvP spec (has 2/3 imp healing 5/5 div fury). And even now I have the same experience as you do. The main issues I have as disc in TBC is endurance and raw throughput. From what you are saying endurance is fixed, I thought throughput was fixed through the introduction of massive damage reduction, but I think the recent nerf and the incredible bloat have taken its toll. Its not PS GCD that annoys me, but PI. I think it would be consistent with other abilities of the same sort if PI did not trigger the GCD. I use PS in a PWS/PoM combo if I foresee difficulties. I think one point in grace is a point well spent. You will have 3 stacks of it permenently while spamming it anyway and losing a stack is not too big a deal in the end.

Did you notice a significant reduction in incoming tank damage from disc? Can you post the spec you are using?

And yes disc is incredibly bloated now as there are 2 additional very necessary talents that you must take.

 

Vitalay

1. I'll confirm tonight--my understanding was otherwise.
2. Mostly true. I was using as my baseline 5-mans, where if a dps class inadvertently obtains aggro, you can not PoM them to help stem the incoming damage, because that will entrench the problem.
3. Indeed. This was mostly for convenience.
4. I disagree. The system in place attributes aggro from heals to the healer. PoM is the exception to this rule.

Mostly, my over-arching desire lies in number 4, with ancillary benefits being as outlined above.

 

Caligula

Was lifebloom changed as well? If I remember correctly, the final tick of that spell attributes the healing to the target rather than the caster.

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...s/Caligula.png

 

gia

PI does not trigger a GCD, not even on live. My spec is linked at the top of the post, but anyway: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I think Grace is not even worth 1 point at the moment, I'm just hoping it was normalized during the global buff/debuff changes and is just incomplete and will be reviewed in the next priest polish pass if there will be one.

As for reducing tank damage with disc, since I'm not taking grace it all amounts to how effective PWS and DA are, and Inspiration. PWS and DA don't really reduce damage, but they do increase the tank's effective health which is great for providing some breathing room to do other things or to cancel-cast more safely. I was critting greater heals for 11k and my tank had around 26k hp so with a DA proc or a PWS I was giving him an extra 10% health or more. The new talent giving crits on weakened soul also helps a lot on keeping inspiration up.

 

Vvildcard

I'd like some feedback on a thought I've had about a talent like Serendipity...

My theory is that the playstyle it introduces (ie: spamming GHeals) is detrimental to other healing classes, depending on how the spells hit the target. If the priest heal hits the target and heals, for this post I'll assume it doesn't trigger the refund. I'll also assume either healer's heal returns the target to full health and causes the other healer to experience 100% overheal. If the priest is spamming GHeal because it has now become incredibly efficient when overhealing, especially when you can land a heal that heals some damage but still gets the refund, it leaves the other healer much more vulnerable to overhealing.

So given those assumptions, there are two possible outcomes:
1. Priest hits first and uses full mana cost, Other healer hits second and wastes full mana cost.
2. Other healer hits first and uses full mana cost, Priest hits second and gets refund.

It seems like the refund is hurting both players. Changing the priest's playstyle will exploit the refund less (in theory) but increases the risk to the target by reducing the amount of anticipated heals. It also seems a waste to take the talent only to use it when overheal happens to slip in... since it has the potential to be exploited much more effectively.

I've been able to reduce GHeal overhealing to a very low percentage with cast-canceling and it almost seems like Serendipity is a wasted talent, given strategic heal placement.

 

Supermerkicus

True, but stop-casting is rather annoying and monotonous, and IMO is even further responsible for making healing tedious and detracting from enjoying the actual game.

As a DPS class or main tank I'm able to actually enjoy the game and visuals of what's going on, but as a healer I'm constantly watching health bars and my greater heal progress bar to mash my stop-cast macro.

So if Serendipity helps diminish some of that then I say "yay".

 

Vvildcard

As opposed to spamming one heal?

I think we're talking about the same thing here... but that's not really the point I'm getting at.

 

Erdluf

Threat meters did (and may still) attribute the threat to the target.

Extensive testing seems to conclusively show that nobody gets the bloom threat.

Lume the Mad Blog Archive The End Heal of Lifebloom Generates No Threat

 

Caligula

That's some good testing there. It would really make the most sense if they removed the threat component from ProM. As it is now in situations where it is most effective, it would be hazardous to use. Imagine Felmyst phase 2 if all that threat from ProM was attributed to the healer?

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...s/Caligula.png

 

Incoherence

Let me rephrase myself:

I realize that a spell that gives threat to the person it heals is slightly counterintuitive. Stepping back a bit, Prayer of Mending doesn't actually say it gives the threat to the healed player, and even if it did it'd be really strange for a heal that YOU cast to raise OTHER PEOPLE'S threat. So I'm not entirely surprised that that behavior was changed.

There's a downside, though. At the start of a pull (raids or otherwise), threat for healers is a concern. I remember pulling aggro on Onyxia several times by landing a heal too early. (I also remember doing it intentionally during the lab packs in BWL, but that's because I was bored of doing the instance for a year straight without getting a Rejuvenating Gem. But I digress.) A Prayer of Mending that gives threat to the tank means that it's actually a GOOD thing for you to be keeping it on the tank pre-pull, and getting as many off as you can while you're moving into position (obvious example: Archimonde). PW:S was used for this pre-BC, but while it's an effective reduction of healer threat (it's damage that you don't have to heal, and it gives time for the tank to get initial aggro), it also comes at a slight rage cost. A PoM that gives the caster threat has a slightly more pernicious version of this problem: the mob's first landed hit is going to set it off, and unless the tank has landed a hit or a hunter Misdirect has landed, you're going to pull aggro and probably die, just like I did on Onyxia.

I do not think that making PoM threatless is unreasonable; see Lifebloom's bloom effect.

Now I'm curious: does this also apply to Earth Shield?

 

Ellyh

Stopcasting is almost certainly an unintended artefact of the 5sec rule and massively spiky damage. I would not be sorry to see it go. Also if you ping is bad you need to stopcast very early to make sure that you actually cancel the cast so it's not something everyone can do. Interesting to hear that you are having trouble with maintaining mana on single target fights, and I agree that with grace nurfed into oblivion there is far less of a reason to have disc as MT healer only. I'm still concerned about rage starvation in 5 mans though.