So, SS disc build

Classes Priest
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Yo guys, how are you feeling after the patch?

My default build is this:
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I switch PoM to either fast MD or roots, depending on what I need. When MD is not needed, I sometimes play VE which I just macro to schism, as I always forget to press it :smiley:

For Disc tree, I only switch two talents - either I take shield discipline or Shadow covenant. The problem with Shadow Covenant it that it’s a weak heal on GD, so when I want to empower my penance, usually it feels better not to do it and cast e.g. regular penance + flash heal. But it may work well vs many interrupts.

I think like putting more points into damage talents is a trap. You need to drop stronger PW:S, hence you have less time to actually deal damage because you need to spam more.

One noob trap, which I see a lot of high ranked discs are falling to, is Stolen Psycho. It’s not a flat boost, but % to your atonement, and also our main damage source is not shadow. So that’s a super weak talent actually, in SS it gives about 1% extra healing.

I believe in ideal world, playing Harsh discipline and Twilight Equilibrium (wtf is that name, can it be harder to spell? xD) would be strong, but… the problem I have with it is it involves a lot of casting, and also is not reactive healing. So works well on training dummy, but not in SS. 30% extra heal on PW:S just feels smoother.

What is your experience? Note I am talking only about solo shuffle, 2s is a different beast, where we can go full damage build for sure.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I have 3 pvp talents locked, pretty much always. Inner light and shodow (where I play light and never change it), radiance, and DoM. Tbh I really have our pvp talebts choice now :frowning: (see my other thread about it)

3

I did some BGs lately, testing the SCov. By itself, the healing is mediocre compared to Radiance, but when SCov window is up, my Mind Blast crits for 90k dmg + expiation burst from consuming dot. I bursted quite many people who did not expect such dmg from a healer. In that scenario, I believe Abyssal Reverie is not that bad. During SCov window, many spells are converted to shadow, so you still have what to do.

Also with the addition of Solace and Mind Blast as triggers to Harsh Discipline, it is now WAY easier to proc it, which gives us another throughput boost.

I will play around with more specs, I also want to test them in arenas once my buddies are online. I think our damage is really strong now, our sustain is better, but still not comparable to druids or evokers. We need to play aggressively and maintain pressure.

4

It is much easier, but still not worth the effort - at least from my experience in solo shuffle. The thing is penance is quite a weak heal, it’s maybe 10-15% of our healing. And in order to get 3 extra bolts for it, you either need to sacrifice stronger shields OR give away expiation, which sucks, because MB is the key you press to generate harsh discipline anyway, so kinda lose just flat ~25k dmg while going for it.

I will test it some more tho.

5

Shields are not the answer to everything either. I would say Expiation is now very strong in any scenario, since it gives great damage buff to both Mind Blast and SW:D + dot consumption. I won many arenas thanks to douple tapping SW:D and bursting the target down. I would also say that shields are not answer to everything, considering abundance of purges/spellsteals or other tools against absorbs.

I haven’t played SS much lately, as I find it extremely frustrating for healers. I might test it again now, with the changes made to it.

I think some optimal build will appear in few days.

6

Shield usually just lasts only a global (and that’s still our best button to press, lol). So I’m not afraid of purges that much, especially that we have 3 buffs to protect it (4 with PoM).

7

So, I did some games in SS, 2s, 3s and RBGs.

SoloShuffle
Playing Shadow Covenant was fine, but sometimes I felt I was really under preassure to afford a global. Now if they removed it from GCD, it would really great improvement.
I also realized that in SS, the problem for disc is most often your teammates. Disc thrives when your team plays aggressively, you have to maintain momentum… but at the same time, your team needs to be aware when to retreat and play defensively.
That’s problem for all healers, but disc suffers from that most of all, since it has the weakest recovery tools of all of them.
I ended up staying with shield builds + expiation.

2v2 arena
Here Shadow Covenant is actually pretty nasty and make our burst really strong. I loved playing it. I’ve noticed that there are now even builds without Radiance focusing fully on dmg and atonement heal, which is viable with Abyssal Reverie.

3v3 arena
Similarly to Solo, you are sometimes global starved, so it’s not that easy to fit the Scov into your rotation. It’s for sure usable, but sometimes, you just sit on the CD and do not use it.

rated BGs
Man, I had SO much fun lately. I believe you still have great freedom what spec to chose. When I had SCov build with abyssal reverie, my dmg was really high for a healer and still maintained high healing done.

I feel that changes made their impact on discipline in SS, arenas and RBG. Double PS is really big deal and FH buff alongside stacking healing bonus from dot makes our FHeals pretty considerable heals.
With Mass Dispel, Void Shift and PI we are in a solid spot I’d say.

What really needs to be addressed is our mobility. I must admit that our mobility is probably the worst of all classes.
Paladins have freedom to protect them from slows and roots and Divine Steed for burst speed.
Warlocks have teleports.
DKs are resistant to slows, have Anti-Magic Barrier which protects them from magic snares and when they can’t chase their target, they just grip it and slow it.
As a priest, we have feather, which is nice, but the speed buff get countered by roots and massive slows most classes throw at us. We also have Body and Soul, but some priests do not even talent into it. During alpha/beta, we asked for reverse leap (Vault of Heavens), but were told it would make Leap of Faith obsolete choice and give that spell to Evoker instead (Verdant Embrace) with bursty heal attached to it.
Unlike DK, we don’t have passive movement speed reduction cap to address this. Unlike paladins, Phantasm does not make us immune to snares and does not work on roots at all.
I believe adding Door of Shadows would be exactly what we need now. Teleport ability on medium CD does not make us mobile class, but help us address our critical weakness. DoS was perfect addition to our kit in Shadowlands. It helped us land fear, it was great to use defensively and offensively and sometimes to bait kicks as well. Being shadow school is now less of trouble for discipline.

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