I’ve been playing around with Disc Priest for a few weeks now, and it feels quite strong on prepatch. Mostly because of Legos mixing with Conduits and new talents. However, on Beta it’s probably the worst performing spec for M+ at the moment. I’ve spend a week (give or take) healing high(er) keys on Beta, and Disc just severely lacks the ability to come back from big aoe damage. Power Word: Radiance and a big Light’s Wrath or SW:Death dont do the trick, especially with ongoing aoe damage. Our shields absorb 28k damage, there are aoe packs in Academy that do 65k sustained aoe. My flash Heal does about 1/4th of that, and my Penance just about does 50-60k.
I can see why Blizzard decided to go with the 40% damage increase and stamina buff. They want Healers to turret heals again, and not be a 4th DPS. And I noticed that on my Shaman and Druid, and it’s fun. You basically do mechanics, weave in some DPS spells and spend the rest of your globals topping up the party. Resto in particular is very strong with Photosynthesis. Disco however is reliant on damage to heal, but we have very little windows to actually do damage (so, very little room to actually heal). I noticed myself hardcasting Flash Heals and Penance in multiple keys, ranging from between +10s en +20s.
Conclusion is that Disc right now isn’t made for M+, at all. Yes, it’s possible to get KSM and time keys on this spec. However, you’ll have a 500% easier change and more relaxing experience doing so on a Druid or a Shaman. Disc is back to being a PVP spec and perhaps you bring 1 for Raids. Thats it. Just wanted Disc to be good for other content for once. Rant over.
This is exaclty what’s wrong with it. A spec made to heal trough dps which get double nerfed on damage and healing at the same time, and I’m not even considering the mana nerf.
I’m afraid disc will be bad alsoin pvp since we cannot have a silence because (literal quote from devs) other specs already have it, we cannot have shining force because it is too much control available to classes. Plus i don’t recall atonement healing being really a thing in pvp but right now it won’t be sustainable at all. Good to excellent disc priest will always shine but not thanks to the toolkit we have.
Everything could be adjusted just with atonement being less effective with higher appliances, just like the iteration of Sins of the Many, but no we can’t have the easy solution.
Do you work for Blizzard? Seems so with that mindset, haha. Spec is bottom tier by far, way behind others? Just play another spec, reroll to FOTM? Dont see the issue.
If you need to Spam flash heal, youre playing it wrong.
There will be “some” instances where it is needed a little bit but recently shield and atonement make up for over 60% of my healing done.
In m0 and other easy content it will be like that. In high m+ you’ll probably have to rely a bit less on atonement healing, although the changes from SL to DF definitely helped in that regard.
Many experienced healers who did a lot of testing on the beta ranked disc as the worst m+ healer along with rsham. They’re not necessarily bad, but still most likely in the lowest inhabited tier atm.
Other high end mythic healers have rated them middle of the pack which is where id put them also. There were plenty of healers running high(ish) keys on the beta and also stating that most of their heals were coming from atonements and shields - quite a margin more than what it used to be rather than the old shadow mend spam.
Id say given the struggles that MW and Shaman are having at the minute, youd take a disc priest over them for power infusion, Barrier and the burst healing.
I guess time will tell but ultimately I feel like a lot of people of missing an opportunity to play such a fun class (subjective i know) just because someone else rates it bottom for content the person would probably not even do.
I myself will probably only go up to +20 keys where literally any healer is fine. Discs are also almost always chosen in progress raid runs. I feel like theres people like yourself who can say they might be low BUT not bad, and others will watch a video and decline every disc priest to dungeons for the fact theyre disc.
For 70% of wow history you was healing with flash heal. As disc, as holy, as sp. Its not exclusive holy skill. It was always main PRIEST healing spell. They changed it in legion or bfa, cant remember.
Think it’s still better for m+ now than it’s ever been and is really fun. That said there will probably be multiple healers ahead of disc as top choices for m+ for sure. You can also just randomly heal better with flash heal and power word life now too which are available for disc spec. Relying on atonement healing in m+ is huge bait unlike raid.