Discipline priest raiding compendium - Page 12

Jazzer · 02/24/09, 1:18 PM

Rapture had to be dealt with, (though I don't understand why illumination wasn't hit at the same time).

I don't particularly like what the change to rapture has done for the way that we heal. I'm supposed to use shields more now, but without predictable damage on multiple targets, it's going to be hard getting the most out of my regen from rapture in most cases.

I would have much preferred a change to the heal value which returns the 2.5% of our mana. They could have doubled the amount needed to heal to return the 2.5% mana (Rapture Mana Return = (Healed or Absorbed Amount / 22920) * 2.5% * Mana Pool) and we could keep our unique mana return mechanic.

Time will tell at this point how big of an issue mana will be for us though. I'll be spending my fair share of time on the PTR to see how it all plays out. Looks like I'll probably have a use for shadowfiend again.

The soul warding talent is really nice though. With regular haste levels coupled with borrowed time, we should be able to hit the 1s GCD with our shields allowing for very rapid group shielding.

TheDoctor · 02/24/09, 1:24 PM

Grace
The change is straight out ridiculous. Losing a grace stack on the primary target because you use flash on another party/raid member is crazy. I started a thread in healing/test realm forums - take a look if you agree bump it. Basically unless we only heal the tank the +6% one of only two straight bonuses to healing is gone. Might as well have BoS in raid and drop Grace completely.

Soul Warding
This is great for shielding more people, being off CD is nice and 30% reduced cost helps with the new rapture. The problem is even though we can cast it more it doesn't yield more rapture. Also the biggest limiting factor is that for the MT/OT it still can only get applied once every 15 seconds.

Focused Will
The 3% crit gives this more throughput but is it worth 3 talent points?

Enlightenment
Another 1% haste isn't going to fix Disc scaling or throughput. Especially considering with BT we can already reach the GCD limit on haste and now that we can PW:S more we can get to the GCD limit pretty close to whenever we need mana allowing.

Stacking Shields
This is a buff... But we won't see a 10k shield unless you are significantly overhealing with high crit. With mana being a real concern I don't think you will overheal that much. Also Greater Heal moved to lower priority so looking at Flash crits it would take a few with 0 incoming damage to get a significant shield size. Buff but needs more math to see how nice it is.

Improved Flash
Mana reduction helps to balance Rapture loss some. Though the crit when <50% is crap. We need increased healing not increased crit imo and it shouldn't be tied to <50%. If we have Grace we won't be using this that often off-healing. The tank shouldn't be getting sub 50% often if at all, and if so only very situationally like Sarth 3d breaths.

Rapture
Expected a nerf but this is fairly significant in regards to our mana. It is a buff for utility and for the recipient of the PW:S which is some utility though at huge cost to our mana. Doesn't make sense to me considering Holy Concentration has no listed maximal uptime and Paladin mana regen doesn't get touched?!?

I don't see much if anything in the way of moving Disc throughput closer to Holy Paladins... Grace moves us further away. 1% haste and 3% crit (Focused Will) aren't enough. I don't see DA stacking enough to compensate. Mana will be a much larger issue for us compared to Holy Paladins as well

Working on updating my spreadsheet and math models. There needs to be some sort of compiled issues with supporting data from PTR players regarding these changes. My character copy is pending so any assistance would be great, lets make sure we aren't crippled come 3.1 live.

popeondope · 02/24/09, 1:25 PM

What worries me most with the talent changes and the addition of the penance glyph, is that they completley phased out greater heal usage for discipline and we are basicly putting 5 points in a talent in the holy tree to reduce the cast time of a spell we aren't really using.
Granted we can stick 2 in healing focus and 3 in improved renew to feel they are less of a waste but even renew is a situational spell which I currently only use inside vortex when both PWS and PoM are on CD.

And the Grace change is beyond me. Pally's can crossheal with spamming the MT and putting their beacon on the OT or vice versa depending on who takes the most damage but we get penalised for crosshealing between tanks? Or are they stating here that Ulduar are one tank fights?

*edit: also now with spammable shields I hope something has been done about the combatlog and tracking of these shields so we can collect some hard numbers on how efficient DA and PWS really is in a raid environment.

Elimbras · 02/24/09, 1:55 PM

In fact, I hope and guess they'll change the grace misconception. This is really incredible.

But however, I'm not really happy with these changes, and the impact I can expect on playstyle.
It pushes us more or less towards a spaming style, where we use shields and penance (6s...) on cd, and fh between. Fh becomes more efficient that gh, I fear :s
And if we have spare time because the MT is not taking any damage, then we can't heal reactively the raid, just put shields... And that's "only" if the spelling

At least, I do hope that now, Divine Aegis shields from 2 different disc priest can stack. That would be the only real playstyle improvement (with the POH targetable) change.

Sureall · 02/24/09, 2:01 PM

What am I missing here? With the now spammable PW:S we can successfully abuse borrowed time to a point where a large portion of our casts can be hasted significantly.

edit: I found your point noted above

"Enlightenment
Another 1% haste isn't going to fix Disc scaling or throughput. Especially considering with BT we can already reach the GCD limit on haste and now that we can PW:S more we can get to the GCD limit pretty close to whenever we need mana allowing."

I completely agree and wish and hope that blizzard implements some sort of raw throughput boost. I am not looking forward mashing buttons to the point where we are limited by GCD. However this seems to be exactly where blizz put us. We heal for far less than holy but cast quicker with less mana. Reminds me of pallies in TBC

Headhuntress · 02/24/09, 2:13 PM

Spammable PW:S isn't really a buff. Remember Disc are tank healers so most of the time there are only 2 or 3 tanks involved. Shield a random guy and you actually lose time. 25% spell haste turns out to be 0.3ish seconds for a 1.2s cast. With GCD being capped at 1s you lose 0.7 sec of healing because your shield didn't help a tank nor you healed that time. Don't forget that you can run 3-target shield rotations already with the 4 sec cooldown because Weakened Soul lasting 15s. I really hope for Rapture change to be reverted and just nerfed because this is just wrong. It's like they have no idea where they are heading to.

Squeakster · 02/24/09, 2:15 PM

Good news guys, I just tested the new Rapture on the PTR and it looks like the 12 second rule only applies to the energy/rage/blahblahblah gain and not to our 2.5% mana returned. I tested it on an elite in Icecrown, this is the important parts of the combat log:

2/24 14:04:07.099 SPELL_AURA_APPLIED,0x01000000007B5559,"Squeaksterr",0x10511,0x01000000007B5559,"Squea ksterr",0x10511,48066,"Power Word: Shield",0x2,BUFF
2/24 14:04:27.997 SPELL_AURA_REMOVED,0x01000000007B5559,"Squeaksterr",0x511,0x01000000007B5559,"Squeaks terr",0x511,48066,"Power Word: Shield",0x2,BUFF
2/24 14:04:28.570 SPELL_ENERGIZE,0x01000000007B5559,"Squeaksterr",0x511,0x01000000007B5559,"Squeaksterr ",0x511,47755,"Rapture",0x2,504,0
2/24 14:04:31.173 SPELL_AURA_APPLIED,0x01000000007B5559,"Squeaksterr",0x511,0x01000000007B5559,"Squeaks terr",0x511,48066,"Power Word: Shield",0x2,BUFF
2/24 14:04:39.724 SPELL_AURA_REMOVED,0x01000000007B5559,"Squeaksterr",0x511,0x01000000007B5559,"Squeaks terr",0x511,48066,"Power Word: Shield",0x2,BUFF
2/24 14:04:39.988 SPELL_ENERGIZE,0x01000000007B5559,"Squeaksterr",0x511,0x01000000007B5559,"Squeaksterr ",0x511,47755,"Rapture",0x2,504,0

You can see the PWS is removed through damage at time 14:04:27.997, the mana gain from rapture occurs soon after at 14:04:28.570, I then recast PWS and it is removed through damage at time 14:04:39.724 (11.727 seconds after the last PWS was used up) and the Rapture return occurs at 14:04:39.988 (11.418 seconds after the last Rapture return). So the Rapture return occured again in less than 12 seconds.

I am going to retest this once I find another elite that can deal more damage because 11.4 seconds between PWS removals is a little too close to 12 seconds for me to be comfortable that what I am seeing is true and not due to lag. Will report back soon.

(Actually I should test this with someone else. The combat log only lists one "energize" effect from Rapture when I should be seeing two: the 2.5% returned to the caster and the 2% mana given to the target. Not sure what is going on.)

shatter · 02/24/09, 2:22 PM

I'm a bit disoriented by these notes, too. I thought Blizz had mentioned that they wanted healing to become less frantic and less limited by GCD's. How will that happen with the massive shield spamming these changes seem to direct us to? With Soul Warding removing PW:S's cooldown, wouldn't that lead us to shield across the raid so we get as much Borrowed Time haste as possible?

On a similar note, we haven't heard about PW:Barrier again. I thought that would be a nice solution to help mitigate our raid healing issues, bringing us more on par with what Holy Paladins can do - assuming Discipline's design is to be a great tank healer that can also help around when needed.

Lastly, seems like we get to use even less of our arsenal of spells. It was pretty satisfying to be able to weave through a 'rotation' involving Penance, PW:S, hasted GH's and PoM 'cooldowns' when the tank was in danger, using FH and even Renew in between. It was the closest experience that felt similar to the fun I had DPS'ing as a Shadow Priest, for instance. Will that go away in favour of a more simplified PW:S + FH spam pointing my mouse all over Grid's boxes?

(e) sp

TheDoctor · 02/24/09, 2:29 PM

Some initial thrown together numbers. Because DA stacks overwriting no longer matters checking the numbers is much easier.....

@ 2400 Spell Power, 40% Crit, 25% Haste ... Raid buffed and mainting a 3x Grace stack but not factoring in BT.

Flash Heal
HPS - 4378.7
MPS - 656.8
HPM - 9.89
MPM - 1.48

Penance
HPS - 7115.8
MPS - 1067.4
HPM - 13.82
MPM - 2.07

Greater Heal
HPS - 5382.4
MPS - 807.4
HPM - 6.97
MPM - 1.05

*MPS is Mitigation per Second. MPM is Mitigation per Mana.

Greater Heal which gets no real buffing in the Disc tree and is extremely hampered for efficiency, throughput isn't bad. Penance is far and away the strongest and most efficient. DA is a decent buff to throughput but isn't enough to challenge Holy Paladins for throughput or efficiency. Previously Flash/Greater were in the 11+ hpm considering rapture.

Squeakster · 02/24/09, 2:36 PM

Ok here is a better test:

2/24 14:23:22.391 SPELL_AURA_APPLIED,0x01000000007B5559,"Squeaksterr",0x10511,0x01000000007B5559,"Squea ksterr",0x10511,48066,"Power Word: Shield",0x2,BUFF
2/24 14:23:42.087 SPELL_AURA_REMOVED,0x01000000007B5559,"Squeaksterr",0x511,0x01000000007B5559,"Squeaks terr",0x511,48066,"Power Word: Shield",0x2,BUFF
2/24 14:23:42.455 SPELL_ENERGIZE,0x01000000007B5559,"Squeaksterr",0x511,0x01000000007B5559,"Squeaksterr ",0x511,47755,"Rapture",0x2,504,0
2/24 14:23:43.834 SPELL_AURA_APPLIED,0x01000000007B5559,"Squeaksterr",0x10511,0x01000000007B5559,"Squea ksterr",0x10511,48066,"Power Word: Shield",0x2,BUFF
2/24 14:23:44.121 SPELL_AURA_REMOVED,0x01000000007B5559,"Squeaksterr",0x10511,0x01000000007B5559,"Squea ksterr",0x10511,48066,"Power Word: Shield",0x2,BUFF
2/24 14:23:44.770 SPELL_ENERGIZE,0x01000000007B5559,"Squeaksterr",0x10511,0x01000000007B5559,"Squeakste rr",0x10511,47755,"Rapture",0x2,503,0

As you can see, the "ENERGIZE" effects occur 2.315 seconds apart and return 504 and 503 mana, respectively (the number near the end of the line: ,0x2,504,0). I did this at 20143 mana, and 504 is 2.5% of 20143 mana.

This is great news, the "not more than once every 12 seconds" must apply to the rage/energy/runicpower gain and not to the 2.5% mana return to the priest. Although I expected to also gain 2% of my mana from the other Rapture effect because I was also the target of the shield, and it appears that did not occur. It is a minor issue but I'll post it on the PTR forums.

Borderless · 02/24/09, 2:39 PM

Did you see the 2% mana return that the target is meant to receive, once every 12 seconds? (in addition to the personal 2.5%)

EDIT: nm you already posted that you didn't

atrinitydream · 02/24/09, 2:49 PM

Has anyone confirmed the Grace change on the PTR?

I say that because it's not in the information MMO pulled, only in Blizzard's notes - so it's possible it won't be implemented. (I would certainly hope not - if it stands it's the most counter-productive and probably worst nerf in the patch.) I would test it myself, but I'm in the (probably rather large) group of those whose PTR transfer hasn't gone through yet.

It's still speculation at this point, but I think it's possible Soul Warding replaced Power Word: Barrier. The net effect (more raid-wide shielding) is certainly similar, and it occupies DS's position which it was implied PW:B would do.

Also, to those comparing Discipline to Paladins keep in mind Divine Plea is now a 50% healing reduction. It's obviously not on the level of the Rapture nerf (and may not prove to be enough of a change to bring their regen down to the level of the other classes), but saying their regen isn't being touched is incorrect.

We didn't get any scaling talents, but (as mentioned by others before me) that the Penance glyph is a non-trivial throughput boost. Penance scales better in addition to being more efficient.

TheDoctor · 02/24/09, 2:59 PM

I do not think using it on yourself would be intended to provide a 4.5% mana gain. I hope that the results that the rapture returns are not 12 second limited is true that would be a great news for rapture not being so constrained. Though I want the tooltip fixed to know for sure the intent.

Sharajat · 02/24/09, 3:04 PM

Hmm, question. Reflective shield is now supposedly working. Is it direct damage, or does AOE damage count?

I'm just thinking for fights like Malygos. The Vortex seems like an amazing place to use the new Rapture 2.0 (shield 6-10 people just before and going into the vortex is anywhere from 15-25% mana back, and mana/rage to them). If shield is 6k, and a 1.3 second cooldown or so (with haste) we're talking about 2.1k dps from Reflective shield when you're casting it on AOE heavy fights. And this will scale with gear.

Am I crazy? I know the philosophy of WoW has always been healers heal, DPS does DPS, but I really don't see any reason that we can't be helping the DPS, especially when I finish the talent calculator and am looking at two reasonably worthless points that I'm going to end dumping into something like Desperate Prayer or Imp Renew.

Squeakster · 02/24/09, 3:05 PM

Grace now lasts 15 seconds and I just had it up both on a druid tank and myself at the same time, so it looks like the 1 target only might be false (or bugged).