Mënd
5 years ago
[PvE] BfA Discipline Priest Feedback
(cross post from https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20762288286 )

Good morning (or afternoon depending where you are and when you’re reading this).

I’m Mend, co-admin and webmaster for Focused Will (a Discipline Priest community, focusedwill.com/) and guide author for the Icy Veins Discipline Guide. The current state of Discipline in Alpha/Beta has been overall close to the same playstyle we have today with some less bells and whistles we had due to the removal of Light’s Wrath. This isn’t really of major concern because I think this is the current state of any spec after losing many of the traits from the artifacts as well as the artifact abilities themselves. However, I think Discipline needs some work in regards to Mastery and several of the talents in order to remain competitive with other healing spec's in Battle for Azeroth.

I believe Discipline in Beta right now is about 80% of the way to being in good shape, with some minor tweaks still being needed. As a group, we’ve determined a few specific things that need some attention before BfA goes live (second post).
Edited by Mendpriest 04/27/2018 12:03 AM
Sigma
Game Designer
5 years ago
[PvE] BfA Discipline Priest Feedback
The talent row balancing comments are something we'll probably look at in a little more detail slightly later, though there is a simple buff in the pipeline for Luminous Barrier.

On the base rotation: while we don't want it to be as burst-oriented as it was in Legion due to Light's Wrath, we are looking to add a little more texture back as far as moments of higher damage/healing. In the next build, we're trying out Power of the Dark Side as a baseline part of the spec.

On Power Word: Shield (based on various comments in a lot of different places): Power Word: Shield will definitely be used a lot more than it was in Legion (obviously, due to not having a cooldown). But, we neither expect nor want it to be like the PW:S spam of Mists or Warlords. In those days, a rotation based almost entirely on PW:S did sufficient healing to make a Disc using that rotation into a top healer. Therefore it was doing roughly an entire healer's worth of healing in the form of absorbs.

Disc in BFA should not be able to put out that level of absorption, even if it uses a higher portion of casts on PW:S. Using PW:S, and absorbs generally, is still a core part of Disc's identity, but reaching full healing potential still requires a significant contribution of other mechanics like Atonement. We don't see it as a problem if PW:S is a major workhorse spell of the rotation in all contexts, but the opportunities to apply very high amounts of shielding are cooldown-limited (Rapture and Luminous Barrier), and current talents that buff PW:S generally do so without adding absorption (Lenience and Orison).
Sigma
Game Designer
5 years ago
[PvE] BfA Discipline Priest Feedback
A few changes for an upcoming beta build.

  • New talent: Sins of the Many. Your damage is increased by up to X%, diminishing for each ally with Atonement.
  • Likely location is L75, pushing Lenience to L100, and removing Grace.

We agree with trying to find a talent that calls to having a smaller number of Atonements out, but are trying a version that still provides some benefit in all situations.

Grace's concept was generally subsumed by the new mastery (which is seeming successful so far), and stacking Grace on top of mastery led to huge variance in the strength of Shadow Mend and Power Word: Shield casts. Making that choice with mastery is a better place than making it with a talent that was essentially required in some types of content.

The talent rearrangement should leave L100 as a row of talents that most show their strength when effectively healing a large number of targets, and L75 as a row of talents less focused on that situation.

  • Contrition's healing is increased by Power of the Dark Side

So that Power of the Dark Side remains neutral as to your choice of which mode of Penance to use.

  • Mindbender's damage reduced 24%

It has been unintentionally strong ever since the squish, as many people have observed.
Sigma
Game Designer
5 years ago
[PvE] BfA Discipline Priest Feedback
At the moment, there's some baseline compensation on Shadow Mend and Power Word: Shield, which were so often buffed by Grace in the situations where they were most important. The final amount that will be appropriate is still somewhat up in the air after all the changes (including having mastery affecting them). In any case, the main goal is that the ability to focus healing on one target shouldn't be so dependent on a specific talent. That was also a problem with L100 as it was.
Sigma
Game Designer
5 years ago
[PvE] BfA Discipline Priest Feedback
Quick clarifications (all still subject to ongoing change), since this build was in a slightly intermediate state.

--Sins isn't correctly working in this build. The buff appears, but isn't increasing damage or Atonement.
--Tuning is pretty preliminary, but for context on the 75 row, Contrition is likely too strong, because it skews the choice between the modes of Penance too much. Contrition's heal should be weaker than a Penance Atonement, so that it's still a choice about doing more group healing vs. focusing on one target.
--Also on the 75 row--we're currently planning to replace Orison with Shadow Covenant.
--Luminous Barrier is still intended to replace PW:Barrier, as before.
--Current plan is to buff Shadow Mend a bit, as mentioned yesterday. Less sure about PW:S after reviewing more. Shadow Mend was more strongly propped up by Grace.

We're seeing all the feedback on relative balance of talents within a row, but I don't want to make any claims or promises on which talents might eventually land higher/lower. We just rearranged a lot, and whatever I say will probably be proven wrong once we give a more thorough look and heavier testing happens on beta.
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