Hello my name is Oskar and i’v been a disc main since the start of legion when the atonement style started and i have years of experience in the top 50 world raiding scene. My feelings on disc is that we are very much being left behind right now in its design and numbers tuning and its been a frustrating feeling being forced to respec to Holy to sustain the high end raiding scene so i decided to do a write up that could maybe provide the developer with some fresh ideas of what the spec could use and im going to try and keep it relativly short and straight forward.
Here are just a few of my random ideas that i think could be cool for the spec while still keeping its fantasy with shadow and light and helping the spec out where it struggles.
Favorite Ideas
Scov/Evangelism node
Make scov and evangelism go together as 1 button so when pressed it turns us in to this Holy twilight angel changing all our spells in to a mix of shadow and light increasing their power while also extending atonements making you feel powerfull and lets the design team create this cool form that would make disc feel and look more uniqe. By doing this we can also remove twilight equilibrium because that talent only adds difficulty and annoyance to the specs gameplay and removes the smootheness of the spec.
Full commite to the shadow/Holy playstyle dont split them up in 2 camps like they are now let us be the ‘‘bridge’’ between holy and shadow utalizing both at the sametime. Lights wrath choice node
Node part 1: Normal lights wrath like it is now but it does more dmg cuz yes currently lights wrath is a noodle and it feels very bad casting it and watching the raid be healed for 35k when max HP is 600k+ and this button feelt SO much better in legion cuz then it was actually a cooldown now its just a very sad button to press
Node part 2: Lights wrath casts the same but insted of doing the dmg instantly it applies a radiant dot doing the same dmg but over 5 seconds
This would allow disc to adapt to Burst dmg VS rot dmg while still keeping the cooldown relevant and giving us an option
Remake Contrition in to a cooldown causing penance to either cleave to 2-3 enemy targets when used offensivly or 5 allies when used defensivly 30 second cooldown (also spreads Purge the wicked if it hits enemys with purge the wicked). This would make for a great 5 man M+ cooldown while also being good in raids for multi enemy target fights while also helping disc with its lacking aoe dmg problem. (This cooldown would preferably be off the GCD to avoid clunkyness, It could also be baked in to penance as a 30 sec cd passive but it would also remove controll for the healer which id honestly say is a very bad thing for all types of content)
Or better yet just remake contrition to a passive 1 point talent that makes Penance passivly cleave heal 2-3 ppl everytime you offensive penance kinda like the scrapped 2p from 10.1 but make the penance heal stronger then the 2p one was
Let Purge the wicked cleave so when applied it hits 2 targets insted of 2 kinda like sunfire as currently disc just dosnt have any relevant Aoe dmg spell so allowing us to spread dots easier is something disc could rly use to improve their aoe dmg in M+. (Holy nova is a terribly designed button forcing a cloth class to run in to melee and that just spells death in a lot of M+ pulls)
More Ideas
Prayer of mending applies atonement when it jumps to help disc with its outside of ramp healing and helps to smooth out the difficulty curve of the spec
Halo applies a short atonement on everyone hit for 6-7 seconds to give disc a reactive Aoe healing tool to use between ramps to assist with the large downtime disc has between ramps
Slim down buttons because right now we have to many, like mindgames is just mindblast but 5% stronger and is mainly a pvp talent and just feels horrible to press in a pve enviorment. Schism and scov are doing the samething, solace is basically smite but gives mana so baking the mana return in to just shield disc talent or smite would be a lot better for the spec kinda like MW monk while blackout kicking gives them mana.
While doing this we can also bake power back in to the buttons we have left so buttons like Penance feels strong again like it did in legion insted of us having 10 buttons that feels bad to press
Luminos Barrier and Barrier honestly its a great change you adding it as a choice node it however does need a small numbers increase to be relevant probably around the 350-400% SP mark as then Luminos is better on spread fights and barrier keeps its relevance on stacked fights
Make Rapture feel like a solid cooldown honestly this is kinda just a numbers game i dont think rapture is a bad button but the Power word shields are just to weak even when you try to pick up all shield talents you just lack power in this button for it to feel like it helps you in raids and M+. For raids its just to apply atonement and in M+ the shield breaks from a single dmg tick on a +20 key which isnt even considered to be high.
I will attempt to update this as more ideas pop up to hopefully see changes to the spec we all love and that is currently very much struggling in all PVE content
The numbers aren’t weak. Rapture is great to preemptively cover people before incoming dmg. With weal and woe ramp up and rapture combined you can create big shields which buy you enough time for the next ramp up. In fact rapture is in a much better position than some time before when PW: Shield was tuned so low that rapture was only good for quick spreading atonements.
Yeah of course. I didn’t play higher keys this season yet and there is a lot of room for improvements for disc but rapture is a solid ability for me. Short CD and reliable for many situations. I can’t imagine that they’d buff the numbers of it due to the general strength of dmg absorbs…
And I am telling you: in +20s, Rapture is pretty useless. Pretty much everything clears PW:S in 1 hit.
Unless there is no damage coming, Rapture is super cringe for ramp. I would rather use instant Radiance to set up all 5 atonments, and just spend the rest of the ramp to setup damage (Spread purge the wicked, schism, SCov).
I can’t imagine that they’d buff the numbers of it due to the general strength of dmg absorbs…
What strength, exactly?
You don’t play disc in M+ for shields. You play it cause it brings DR + PI + damage.
You don’t play disc in raid. Rapture is weak, PW:S is weak, Spirit Shell is not available, Luminous Bareer is laughable as a choice node with Barrier (there are 8 disc priest parses on mythic Sark, there are 100+ holy parses on mythic Sark - including our kill where we played 2 holy priests).
I agree with a lot of your suggestions. However it seems most of what you write is solely from a raider PoV, so I disagree on a few points:
This would work well in raids, but would most likely have a negative impact on m+. You could achieve the same by simply buffing evangelism to also increase atonement healing for a certain duration.
If they were to reduce button bloat but retain some difficulty, another option would be to remove schism and/or mindgames, but keep TE.
Or perhaps instead implement the merge of evang+scov, and make that a raid oriented option in a choice-node along with a significantly buffed version of TE (which would be the optimal choice for m+).
I would hate to lose solace. Having an instant button that feels good to press is just amazing. Definitely doesnt feel like smite at all to me
To be completely honest I think disc design is pretty good atm. The way they used sins as tuning knob between small scale vs. raid is working reasonably well. The issue is just the tuning overall. Disc has a bit too low throughput in all content it seems, and coupled with the difficulty it just makes it a no-brainer to go holy or another healer. A simple buff to atonement healing in general would fix the spec as far as Im concerned.
With strength I meant the general idea of dmg absorb shields. If they are really strong with big numbers they are the best defensive in the game (besides immunities). Because any absorbed dmg doesn’t have to be healed and therefore saves ressources. I’m all for buffing rapture. I just don’t think that it’s happening anytime soon…
With strength I meant the general idea of dmg absorb shields. If they are really strong with big numbers they are the best defensive in the game (besides immunities). Because any absorbed dmg doesn’t have to be healed and therefore saves ressources. I’m all for buffing rapture. I just don’t think that it’s happening anytime soon…
They were back in time, when progress raiding was all about preventing 1shots with absorbs and DRs.
Times have changed. This tier and VoTI had more frequent bursts of medium-bigish damage - instead of rare ultra-giga big hits.
Spirit shell preventing 1shots from big damage mechanics was what made absorbs strong. This damage profile has been mostly absent in DF. A lot of healing-intensive fights have more rot-like damage profile, where the raid is constantly ticking damage (Rashok, Magmorax).
Even on the fight that could be perfect for disc - Sarkareth with frequent big bursts of damage in P1 (soaks, glimmer) and P3 (4 debuff stacks before knockback → get into realm part of the fight) - Disc absorbs are just too weak.
Disc absorbs can never compete with current rot damage profile. Who cares about 10% hp absorb if you get 20% damage tick every 2-3 seconds?
The scov Evang thing yes it would kinda be like resto druids flourish so if the rest of our kit wasnt as undertuned i dont think it would create much of an issue for M+ just like rdruids works
TE is piss easy to play around but it is just annoying and in keys you mainly ignore it anyway during your Scov window which is the moment when you need the heals the most and currently the number 1 high key build shield disc dosnt even use TE so i dont see it affecting M+ much
Solace is a smite its just instant if you compare the abilitys dmg its a very pathetic button for a talent and it rly dosnt add much to our gameplay when we are already swarmed with buttons to press.
Sins of the many is a very good tuning knob for disc for raids and M+ and is 1 good thing this expansion brought and it is something the community has asked for since like the legion rework happened and M+ became a thing so it just took a while.
But i do not agree that disc is good design wise overall. Currently a raid ramp rotation is 7-8 different dps buttons and then if you start counting the rest and both evangelism and shadow covenant that are 2x dead gcd’s you throw in a row before you can even start doing dmg so the entire raid ramp is just overfilled and clunky as hell and if you add all uniqe buttons together 1 ramp is 13-14 different spells used in a very specific rotation.
The problem that happens for disc now is that we are undertuned so you feel terrible even when executing this correctly and when you do execute it correctly you wont do any relevant healing untill all of the million buttons are pressed so all dmg spells just feels mediocre insted of having a few spells that actually feels strong to fire away like penance used to do back in legion
And just to clarify i dont mind the difficulty of the spec iv mained this for years in high end raiding and done some semi high keys but currently we just have to much stuff to fit in a window that is the same size as it was back in legion
You need healing too frequently in m+ to bake a big chunk of your power into one cd. The reason it works for rdruids (and other healers) is because they have several powerful cds. With your suggestion disc would have one big cd, and unless it has 30 sec cd we’d need other major cds too.
I checked all the top disc builds on subcreation (half of which were shield build) and looked at the #1 m+ disc and they all had TE, so idk. TE could definitely use a buff, especially if they’d make it an option to scov+evang, but I really dont see the need to remove it. It adds nice flavour and especially in m+ feels a bit more impactful than it does in raids.
I like the current design, but coming from a m+/pvp perspective, and yes I can see it being not that great in raids. The problem in raids however is healing throughput and ramp globals, not the lack of an iWin button imo. Atonement should get a flat increase. Evang could be redesigned to be used preemptively and make your shields apply to an extra nearby target + extending atonement durations, and possibly also increase atonement healing on those targets.
The mana return is also a nice feat, but mainly its about having an instant button that stacks up harsh discipline. I would hate to lose it.
Or… scrap the whole attonement playstyle which just basically makes you a mage or warlock and go back to the spec idea it was in early wow: damage absorbs are the main way a disc priest ‘heals’.
Atm it’s convoluted and messy. There’s so much stuff on my bar that I can’t even keep track of what to use first as a newcomer to the spec. I get the idea, but the execution is such a mess it turns me off to just try it when Holy both heals more and feels more fluid to play.
Make PW:S a very short or even no CD, bring back the Rapture mechanic from wrath but give it an extra bonus in terms of healing done instead of just mana return.
(ofc they would have to bring back Weakened Soul so you can’t endlessly spam shields on the same target)
For example: when your PW:S get’s destroyed it will give you some mana back and will increase your healing done and your absorbs by 5% for 6 sec, this effect can stack if multiple shields break at the same time.
If you play right your next 2 PW:S and/or Pennance will be exteremely buffed, giving you the ability to spotheal someone from 20% hp to full or give your tank a massive shield.
Mastery can be either just a flat increase in your absorb effects or any non- absorb healing you do will give your target a small damage absorb effect for 5 sec, like the Pala mastery from way back. Makes more sense to give it back to disc priests.
As for filler spells aside from your PW:S and Pennance you still have PoM and Flash heal.
New spell: Linked Soul. Link two targets at the soul, duplicating all healing, absorbs and damage they take for 10 seconds. 1 min CD
This is a bit of a hybrid Beacon of Light combined with Blessing of Sacrifice, but something you can play around when you have a big CD coming up to put on both tanks for example. Use it wrong and the second target takes more damage.
This is all just from the top of my head, but I really believe they should abandon the weird attonement mechanic, or at least don’t make the spec revolve around dealing damage with so much spells. If I want to deal damage I’d play Shadow or a mage.
I am sure you are no where near on a competitive level of gameplay, cause, above, you will see Sarkareth Mythic kill of a Disc priest, who literally is the world’s best Disc HPS on this fight (till now). He has Logged 100. And yet… A MW Logging 71 (on iLvL parse), has out healed him like for almost 30k hps.
Please accept this and let it go.
Besides i have posted a LOOONG post on this topic here
Which was saying similar things with the Topic Creator. I agree with what he says. Disc needs a Total overhaul.
Totally agree. When there is serious damage, it already does not protect AT ALL. And When there is no damage, i mean… why the mana waste ? I can use PW:S+Renew+Renew to spread atonements already. And yes, Hitting Radiance instead of Rapture already… Rapture is obsolete.
Make Radiance hit 10 people and we’re gucci. Dno what you’re on about. That and DOUBLE our DPS if not Triple and nurf healing according. A Resto druid can heal and DPS double our damage if he plays right.
The only reason there’s not so many Disc Priests in Raid atm is healing snipe (you need to pre-ramp to get heals) and the fact Holy is so miserably easy to play right now.
Also TLDR, EVERY PRIEST SPEC HAS PI.
Don’t where you get renew spamming from because that’s not a thing. Not in the realms of spam, what 20 casts in a 6min fight? That’s not spamming my friend.
we have frequent cooldowns with that + Rapture if they actually make rapture a strong button again we would actually have the exact same cooldowns as rdruid timer wise. And all we would need outside of them is for our baseline spells to actually be stronger such as Penance actually hitting like a truck moving healthbars again insted of only moving healthbars a littlebit during scov like it does atm.
Discs in M+ atm are dead they have all rerolled Hpala cuz of the wall and i dont mean for TE to be removed but it needs changes to stop the extremly restrictive gameplay that it has currently as it only adds annoyance and in M+ specifically its litterarly an ignored passive that you rly only care for to buff your dark reprimand and outside of that in M+ you dont care much about it at all. While in raids that button just forces an awkward rotation which thankfully right now isnt meta.
Solace mana return is very minor and if they just made penance a stronger button you wouldnt even notice not having your instant cast smite every 10 seconds. This button is just a questionable filler
That depends what the cd of the merged scov+evang would be (I doubt it’d be 30 sec like scov), and IF rapture+sfiend would be actual meaningful throughput cds comparable to tranq and flourish - which they atm definitely arent.
I would like a buff to dmg and/or atonement healing. But I feel like its hard to give it a meaningful buff if you also wanna implement a cd “revamp” / buff our cds significantly. And out of those 2 options Id much rather have the dmg/atonement.
I can imagine a more cd oriented design would feel better in a raid environment. But personally Im very happy with the impact our cds have atm. All thats needed for m+ is just a dash of healing increase. And I wouldnt want a talent/cd redesign to change the way disc works in m+, hence trying to suggest other means of buffing disc in raids.
So Id prefer a change to evang that didnt impact m+, such as my suggestion to make atonement application easier and/or give it a healing buff on top. IF they were to merge scov+evang it should be a choice node with something like a greatly buffed TE, which would be the optimal choice for m+.
Other things they could do to help disc in raids is make shield contribute to harsh discipline. I would love more emphasis on shields, and I think this is a neat way to make the shield button feel extra rewarding.
Not quite true. In m+ you can get quite a lot of value from buffing your ptw, since the spread ptws will also benefit from TE. Same goes for divine star/halo.
I would love to see some change on Rapture as well, and making it as a node, one for M+ and another one for raid
The M+ one should be the same rapture but with some damage reduction (10% or 15%) added to it this way we would have an enhanced shield AND some damage reduction that stayed for the whole expiation(so only 15/16sec), if it’s considered too powerfull you can change the cd to 2min and/or limitate the number of enhanced shields to 5
The Raid one would allow our shields to be cast on 5 people instead of one, those shields should be less buffed (like 15%-30%) and you would have only 2or 3 stacks of enhanced shield (that way you can put 10or 15 shields easily on your raid) allowing an easier ramp every 1min30.
The only cons is that seems too close to how radiance work
Honestly I’m killing myself with trying to min-max this spec
I’m even buffing my Dots with TE (Lmao!), so this way Expiation gets bigger too.
Tried to put the second penance into Scov everytime while maintaining mindbender with Inescapable torment.
Made complex as hell ramps to do insane 100k+ dmg on big pulls every time.
I must say the rotation is way more complex then many many dps specs i know right now, no healing spells included.
And yet it feels super weak…
We need to think about what spells can get removed. as many as possible really.
our dps rotation could be just 2 or 3 buttons and these spells must pump a lot better.
Also many of the buff-talents should be removed too. these talents that are adding extra complexity… they should have been nodes that would instead remove some complexity. what is wrong with the dev? do i wanna gain a power that makes my time harder? or gain power to make it easier to play? Hello?
For example:
Expiation should not consume our dots, it should spread them more.
TE should be stackable at least so we get to spam sometimes. although I love the first version of TE which was just a passive dual-buff-choice between 10% dmg and 10% mana reduction.
Last of all, can someone change Contrition to make penance jump between everyone with atonement or something. this talent has been useless for so many years, either delete it or make it viable for once
