More Disc talk (Sky! Falling! Duck!)Follow

If shields are too expensive to keep up WS on people you are healing it also has the affect of nerfing Rapture and Renewed Hope. Low crit rates also will devalue Divine Aegis. Those two effects will combine to make mastery next to worthless. As no absorb effects means no use for the mastery.

Its kind of weird that they would make PW:S not the focus of the tree as that is the whole focus of the tree right now. Even with the Cata talents PW:S seems to be the focus of the tree but most blue comments seem to be indicating that PW:S is not the focus of the tree.

Soul Warding still drops the CD to 0 which combined with recent blue posts leads me to think the tree is getting another pass. Regardless, too many talents propping a spell they don't us to be able to use with a high frequency creates an awkward spec.

Which wouldn't bother me, because Holy deserves some new bells and whistles. But there's no reason to fundamentally change Disc in the process. I'm all for them making changes in accordance with the overall healing changes: make me use more than one spell, make sure I'm not spamming one or two buttons over and over, make me think about what to use, make me think about mana. But they need to find that middle ground between shield being the only button we push and making the spec not about mitigation anymore.

It would be fine to make shield an occasional spell but why replace it entirely with direct healing? If you want us to push more buttons, give us more mitigation buttons. I'm sure there are other creative ways to absorb or decrease damage besides PW:S. Heck, even put shield in line with your new 3-heal philosophy by giving us the big expensive shield, the medium mana efficient shield, and the instant really expensive shield. Obviously it's too late for them to put in a bunch of new spells, and in any case I can see why they wouldn't. It's a different spec but it's not a different class, after all.

But. Middle ground, Blizz. Middle ground.

I agree and think this is the biggest part of the problem. It sounds to me like they've reduced the importance of shield way out of proportion with the number of talents based around it as well as the tree's mastery. Even the description of Disc says "Uses magic to shield allies from taking damage as well as heal their wounds." On paper, they're still claiming this tree is based on preventing and reducing damage, but I haven't heard one person on the ground say this is happening at all effectively.

It seems like a transitional phase, like they want to move away from what Disc was, but haven't yet decided what to replace it with. Essentially I feel like I've got a mish-mash of stuff that doesn't fit together well, with a bunch of talents that no longer support how I'm expected to heal. I don't really know what Disc is supposed to be. I keep hearing the voice of one of the Bobs from Office Space in my head: "What would you say you DO here?"

They don't want niches like must heal tank/must heal raid anymore, which I think is nice, but the tree still has to feel like it's unified under some overarching concept. When the changes were first announced I thought that using shield and smite together, already nicely effective, was going to become even more so. Prevent damage, deal damage, heal damage, in that order. I was thrilled with the idea, although I'll recognize it's problematic for raiding and that's probably one of the things they're struggling with.

This is all purely theoretical for me based on what I'm reading though. I'll see what I think when I can actually try it out.

Moz make a beta post regarding disc in the post teacake linked.

The thread is interesting BUT...

No one is mentioning the fact the 90% of the talents in disc, especially the 3 pointers, are based off of a system consisting of shield spam with a high crit percentage to proc DA which is non existent in Cata and is what is causing all of the hubbub.

Offending talents are:
Mental Agility, we don't spam an instant so is devalued at 3 points.
Soul Warding, a 3 second CD reduction on a spell with a 3 second CD is retarded.
Rapture, once a huge mana source with less shields it becomes very meh.
Borrowed Time, to large of investment if they want us to shield less as we will not be under BT as often.
Reflective Shield, should work on all shields we cast not just self ones. Reduce damage if needed.
Divine Aegis, lower crit rates make it pricey and dicey.
Grace, a penalty for changing targets is never fun.
PW:B, should be centered on a person not a location.
Divine Fury and Empowered Healing, one of these needs to be 2 points and EH makes more sense.
Desperate Prayer, should be baseline.

Tell them to make Disc be Smite healers. Discipline as healing through pain would be awesome.

You go, Moz and Horse!

As I understand it, it currently cannot. It's one of the things people are suggesting to help fix what they see as Disc's problems. If it's an absorption spec (as the mastery would seem to indicate), then give us more absorbs.

I may have to go back to holy. That will certainly be different.

I'll admit it. I'm a shield spammer. I have enjoyed the disc playstyle. If I am being forced into being primarily heals, rather than absorbs, then I want to have the best heals I can. I've never been a smite spec. From what I am reading, the new heals from smiting are nothing great.

I leveled from 1 to 75 as holy. I fell in love with disc. Unless I read where in the new trees people are fun and effective as disc, and more than second class healers, I'll pass on it for this expansion. I've got some new talents picked out to last me until the patch hits, and I think tonight I'll head down a new hiway.

Edited, Sep 22nd 2010 8:09pm by dadanox

I admire your adaptability! Love my Naga, btw.

I've considered doing the same, switching over to Holy and trying to relearn the basics before all the new stuff gets added on top of it. But I'm not ready to give up on Disc yet. I'm waiting to see how it shakes out. Will the last one leaving the Disc tree please turn out the lights.

Woah! Is it just me or is that tree completely different? When did they put SoL way so far down in Holy too? Off to play with it...

(emphasis mine)

I knew I could count on them to do something. :) I think figuring out how Smite fits in with healing across the range of activities we do will be a learning curve, but an interesting one. It certainly brings a unique feel back to Disc. My only wish at this point is to see the numbers tweaked enough that absorbs remain our first line of defense, by which I mean, shield isn't the only button we push by any means, but at least for the tank/main target, it's the first.

I continue to reserve judgment until I try it but I feel better about it this morning than I have all week, certainly.

Edit: If Horse's linked trees prove accurate I'll start with some version of 34/7 to pick up Surge of Light and tweak from there. With crit % being so low I'm brave enough to pass on Inspiration for now. I may even leave off Borrowed Time to get the other stuff I want. I've never been very reliant on haste (yes, I know it's trendy and I'm uncool) anyway.

Edit 2: I also question the relative value of haste in an environment where spells cost more and you need to maintain mana for a longer period of time. This is not the hurry-up-and-cast paradigm we're living with now, and I wonder how haste is going to fare. Borrowed Time is a core Disc talent but I'm totally going to try without and see what happens.

Edited, Sep 24th 2010 8:15am by teacake

I'm glad to see they are keeping a close watch on the situation. Even though I beat out our druid on heals last night, for now maybe I'll come back to disc where I feel the most comfortable and see how things go. I like having the instant buttons of Shield and Penance available.

I can see that. But, I'm just going to say it, and you can all get the vapors: I'm not taking Grace anymore. Grace sucks, and I'm not going to be penalized for changing targets anymore. I've spoken my piece and counted to three.

For PVE I'd do this. For PVP I'd do the same thing except swap out Inspiration for Focused Will. I'd probably use the PVP version between now and 85 to move easily between solo questing, dungeons, and battlegrounds while preserving my second spec for something else.

Edited, Sep 24th 2010 2:28pm by teacake

Yeah, I'd LOVE not to take Grace, but the damn talent is just so ridiculously good you can't really skip it. Same with Inspiration. If you ever heal a tank, you need it.

Horse, no disrespect, but your spec looks terrible to me. The only thing I like is the idea using SoS as a filler since you go with Smite healing, but
A) Darkness over Veiled Shadows? What? Nononono.
B) Why 3 points in Empowered Healing? Yeah, then you might as well grab Grace.
C) Borrowed Time just to heal 'spike damage' with PW:S+Greater Heal is a terrible idea. As it is now, I wouldn't be surprised if haste simply became a no-go stat for healers. Cata healing is the opposite of WOTLK. If your tank is going to die, it won't happen in a GCD, but it'll slowly start happening over the next 15 seconds. No amount of haste on that Greater Heal isn't going to change much, and 15% isn't even a noticeable amount.
D) If this were a PvP spec, it could work, but since you mentioned spamming Heal/Smite I'm gonna go ahead and say you meant it to be a PvE spec. In which case you *need* Inspiration.

Edited, Sep 25th 2010 12:23am by Mozared