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Discussion: Discipline Synergy
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Post by
karlusdavius
The Discussion
After looking over the discipline talent tree in some detail today I thought I would start this discussion. I remember calling out for synergy between the spells a discipline priest uses and the debuffs we managed. Upon looking over the tree, it seems we have a micro management of cooldown/debuff reducing abilities happening, along with new goal of DPS via Smite and the time old “Don’t go OOM” game, which is now ever more present than in Live today.
The Abilities and Their Synergy
Penance
As a starting point, Lets have a look at Penance. We now get this beautiful ability at level 10. There is no talent that reduces the Cooldown of Penance by a %. It is now just 12 seconds. Glyph still stands at 2 second reduction (which is mandatory still). Therefore we have a 10 second CD on what will be our most used ability. Or will it be?
Synergy
Mental Agility
- Reduction of cost by 10%
Twin Discipline
s - Healing increase by 6%
Evangelism
- Stacks 5 times, reducing mana cost by 6% per stack
Archangel
- 3% increasing in healing per stack of Evangelism
Renewed Hope
- 10% increased critical strike chance when Weakened Soul debuff is active on target.
Grace
- Will stack grace to max, will also benefit from Grace (4% healing increase per stack)
Inspiration
- Will proc upon critical hit, reducing damage by 10% while active
Divine Aegis
- 30% absorption shield of amount healed upon critical hit
With all of these active, Penance’s healing will be highly potent while being highly efficient. However, these are all general buffs, they effect more than just penance. For our trademark ability, I am somewhat disappointed that it doesn’t do anything...special within our tree. I can see us saving penance for those burst moments rather than using it on CD.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Heal
Welcome back Heal *woooooo!*. This is our go to healing spell while Penance is on Cooldown. Mid range healing with Mid range mana cost. General all round heal. 3 second cast time untalented.
Synergy
Divine Fury
- Reduces cast time by 0.5 seconds
Empowered Healing
- Increases healing by 10%
Twin Discipline
s - Healing increase by 6%
Archangel
- 3% increasing in healing per stack of Evangelism
Renewed Hope
- 10% increased critical strike chance when Weakened Soul debuff is active on target.
Grace
- Will stack grace to max, will also benefit from Grace (4% healing increase per stack)
Inspiration
- Will proc upon critical hit, reducing damage by 10% while active
Divine Aegis
- 30% absorption shield of amount healed upon critical hit
Inner Focus
- Free cost and 25% increased critical strike chance
Key Synergy
Strength of Sou
l - Each heal will reduce the duration of the weakened soul debuff by 4 seconds.
The big one here is Strength of Soul. That is a huge boon to have for the new spell. This is where the micro management of the discipline tree will come into play and the “healing should be fun” factors start entering. As you can see, Heal gets a lot of Synergy within the Discipline tree to bolster the fact that it is the mid range go to heal. That said, we loose Evangelism (mana reduction) making Penance (at full stacks of Evan) our most efficient heal.
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Greater Heal
Oh yes, we now have a whooping great big heal costing a whooping amount of mana. This is our big gun. We (hopefully) won’t be using this too much as you will be OOM in a a few seconds under the new rules of healing. That said, it will be used at certain points and the synergy for this spell is important.
Synergy
Divine Fury
- Reduces cast time by 0.5 seconds
Empowered Healing
- Increases healing by 10%
Twin Discipline
s - Healing increase by 6%
Archangel
- 3% increasing in healing per stack of Evangelism
Renewed Hope
- 10% increased critical strike chance when Weakened Soul debuff is active on target.
Grace
- Will stack grace to max, will also benefit from Grace (4% healing increase per stack)
Inspiration
- Will proc upon critical hit, reducing damage by 10% while active
Divine Aegis
- 30% absorption shield of amount healed upon critical hit
Inner Focus
- Free cost and 25% increased critical strike chance
Key Synergy
Train of Thought
- 100% chance to reduce the cooldown of your Inner focus by 5 seconds.
Mostly the same as Heal, except for Train of Thought. An interesting spell. I can see me wanting to always macro Inner Focus to greater Heal due to the huge cost of the thing. The fact that it reduces the Cooldown of Inner Focus by 5 seconds isn't much, however IF now has a 45 second cooldown, down from 3 minutes. By using this, we essentially have our big heal free every 40 second. That is not a bad thing in any sense of the word. Again, no Evangelism but with the IF macro, this is no big loss.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Smite
(
Holy Fire
)
Mixed reviews all round the WoW community on healers having to DPS. That said, we have some interesting secondary effects associated with smite. Its damage has been upped and we have glyphs to ensure we don’t have to stack any kind of hit rating in order to be viable.
Divine Fury
- Reduces cast time by 0.5 seconds
Twin Discipline
s - Healing increase by 6%
Evangelism
- Stacks 5 times, reducing mana cost by 6% per stack
Divine Aegis
- 30% absorption shield of amount healed upon critical hit
Atonement
- instantly heal a nearby low health friendly party or raid target within 15 yards from the enemy target equal to 100% of the damage dealt.
Glyph of Smite
- Increases damage by 20% when target is effected with Holy Fire
Glyph of Divine Accuracy
- Increases hit chance by 18%
Key Synergy
Train of Thought
- 100% chance to reduce the cooldown of your Penance by 0.5 seconds.
Huge. Just huge. Smite will not be a mana hog due to Evan reducing it’s cost. It has a lot of damage increasing talents. Upon using it, you will heal a nearby target for 80% of the damage done (this is why I included Holy Fire here as you will want to maximize damage and healing). You don’t need hit rating for it. It gives you access to Evangelism stacks and the ability to use Archangel.
But the real reason why I’m creaming myself right now is train of Thought. By DPS’ing (most likely by the use of focus macro) we are healing the lowest health ally, contributing to DPS, Gaining more efficiency, giving us access to a cooldown and reducing the cooldown of our most efficient heal quicker. Just from a single spell? I for one will be making sure I’m DPSing when I can.
Thoughts
I am interested to see how this micro management plays out. I for one am happy were getting something better to do than bubble spam and we now actually have the capacity to Tank heal once again. The different benefits of critical strike chance, haste and mastery gives us much more diversity in terms of what to gear for and what we would like to specialize in, meaning we can now have two discipline priests in a raid with different gear set ups for two separate play styles.
Do you feel this will bring more depth to healing?
Do you think it will bring back the ability to tell the difference between a good healer and a fantastic healer?
Do you like pop tarts?
Note: Please keep it civil! Yes, it is still beta and things do change. You don't know anything for sure yet, however a light hearted discussion is a good thing to keep us going until cata comes out.
Post by
140518
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
karlusdavius
Your forgetting a shield, penance and heal wont bring a tank thats taken a big heal back to 100%. It would probably be heal x 3. In which case, Greater heal in those situations would be better suited. Granted it wouldn't be all the time, but a free GH every 40 seconds (i don't get your 7th free as you won't be spamming it in any situation)
Greater Heal costs ALOT. so yes, a free GH is a big thing. A controllable free GH is an even bigger thing.
Again, i can imagine focus macro's being used on raid bosses and maybe heroic bosses. there will be times where we won't need to heal, reducing the CD of penance while improving it efficiency and throughput is a big thing in my book.
Post by
Patty
I totally agree about penance. It should be our trump card, but really it's not very augmented, leaving it rather bare...
Post by
91278
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
karlusdavius
Yes and no. Word is that blizzard have made it so weak due to the mastery that it takes about 2 hits and its down with 333 gear. I feel the CD is way too long on such a beautiful spell.
Post by
140518
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
donnymurph
Hit, schmit. I pull over 3k DPS (equal or better than most tanks) on Saurfang 25N without a single point of hit rating.
Post by
Ethix
As of right now, when I smite in 5 mans (90% of what I do cause renew/pom heals for me) I can average about 2.5-3.5k dps depending on buffs. 20% more dmg through evangelism and an additional 20% from glyph of smite when holy fire is up, is huuuge. Add in the capped hit rating, I'd estimate an easy 5k dps with a few of my dps trinkets and such on.
This is a giant boon for 10 man raids. Often times, raid leaders want to bring 2 healers for most fights for the extra dps, but they take 3 to play it safe. This is a complete game changer for 10 mans. You can have 2 main spec healers, and a dps viable disc priest that can also bring
sustained
dps and healing.
Also, all this synergy, penance cooldown lowered through smites, heal reducing weakened soul, and the evangelism/archangel mechanic will make priests, in my mind, the most fun healers around.
I played a Fury in Everquest 2 for the past year, and coming back to healers doing no dps seemed incredibly boring (which is why I play shadow). Fresh innovation like this is what has kept WoW successful.
Post by
skribs
Holy Fire as a healer isn't going to be a good idea, for a couple reasons. First off, Holy Fire doesn't proc attonement, and you'll actually lessen your HPS by using Holy Fire instead of just smite spam.. Second, HF will have -18% hit compared to Smite, assuming you glyphed Divine Accuracy.
My guess is that the smite portion of Train of Thought is mainly designed so that you can quickly switch from DPS to heals, and use your best single-target healing ability.
Post by
DerrHans
If u going to cast smite and heal, theres another talent synergize smite and heal.
Surge of Light
A free flash heal to conserve mana aint a bad thing.
DPSing wont be our main goal, keeping guildy's alive is.
So the hit of the GCD and loss a smite cast wont be bad if u cast a free flash without mana cost.
Just to point out another synergy.
But u need to change some talents around.
Its either inspiration or Surge of Light.
I heal with a shaman guildy and he get a talent like inspiration too.
Dunno if they stack, if not ill go with surge of light.
Post by
skribs
I personally would skip Surge of Light. Making FH free and instant is fine, but it's going to tie up the same amount of casting time either way, and (especially as Disc, with Divine Aegis) making it uncrittable is a big nerf to its potential.
Post by
DerrHans
true, but i dont know how the mana thing going to work out yet.
And inspiration is 15% physical damage, if were not the tank healers than the raid doesnt really need 15% physical damage reduction as they only/mostlikely get magical damage. In my guild thats the shamans task unless cata proves otherwise. (we dont have holy pally).
5mans is different story tho :)
A well, i can only say gief us cataclysm now, as on live realm with 4.0.1 were 5 lvl short thats 2/3 talents points and thats the points we use in the holy tree. So i cannot test what suites our guild the most.
Post by
skribs
It's actually 5 talent points. We get 1 point at 10, then a point every odd level 11-79, and then 1 point every level 81-85.
Post by
donnymurph
No we may not be tank healers, but rest assured, if we're 2-tanking (which we do for most fights in 25-man) the tanks draw about 30% of my healing done. You keep Renew rolling on the tanks (as holy anyway), start your PoM on the MT, (OT if you're disc to prevent sniping), PoH the melee group, Penance the tank as disc, CoH the melee as holy.
We're proccing Inspiration all the time, and as far as I'm concerned if you aren't tracking Inspiration and doing everything in your power to maintain it on the tanks as much as possible, you're avoiding an important aspect of your job.
I have Inspiration and Ancestral Fortitude both showing on my Grid frames in the same box, so as long as the tanks have one or the other, I can rest assured.
Post by
karlusdavius
if a shaman is in my group, chances are ill spec into the shadow tree for more haste. skipping inspiration all together. Considering it takes more rating to get 1% of anything nowadays, 3% haste is a nice chuck to have from talents.
They recently changed Atonement to 50%/100% of smite damage. I am very excited to see how all this plays out. I think the comment out priests being the most fun to play is most certainly going to be true.
Post by
Pachuca
Looks like we're going to have a lot of spells to be juggling... PW:S, Penance, PoM, Smite, Heal (or FH/GH). In 5-man dungeons we can basically pop Archangel between pulls instead of having to drink, and using the 15% buff to pre-shield, PoM and Renew the tank, which should buy us enough time to Smite back up to 5 stacks of Evangelism again.
That said, I haven't tried any dungeons or heroics on the beta yet so I don't know how fast tanks will be taking damage.
All-in-all, it sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun to be a Discipline Priest in
Cataclysm
. More to think about, more playstyle options, and the cross-synergy between absorbs, healing, and Smiting. Looks like there will be a playstyle solution to just about every scenario (soloing, 5-mans, tank-healing, raid-healing)
And I agree with Karl, if my guild continues with 25-man raids I'll probably just skip Inspiration and pick up 3/3
Darkness
.
Post by
karlusdavius
All-in-all, it sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun to be a Discipline Priest in Cataclysm. More to think about, more playstyle options, and the cross-synergy between absorbs, healing, and Smiting. Looks like there will be a playstyle solution to just about every scenario (soloing, 5-mans, tank-healing, raid-healing)
which means were gonna be pretty busy on this forum come cataclysm! *gulp*
Post by
DerrHans
No we may not be tank healers, but rest assured, if we're 2-tanking (which we do for most fights in 25-man) the tanks draw about 30% of my healing done. You keep Renew rolling on the tanks (as holy anyway), start your PoM on the MT, (OT if you're disc to prevent sniping), PoH the melee group, Penance the tank as disc, CoH the melee as holy.
We're proccing Inspiration all the time, and as far as I'm concerned if you aren't tracking Inspiration and doing everything in your power to maintain it on the tanks as much as possible, you're avoiding an important aspect of your job.
I have Inspiration and Ancestral Fortitude both showing on my Grid frames in the same box, so as long as the tanks have one or the other, I can rest assured.
im only doing 10mans, there for i might skip aspiration cuz the shaman has it and he's our tank healer. so i might do what karlus said, skipping it to get other talents like the haste or surge of light.
Were talking about cata and skill synergy's not about people not doing there jobs right in ur opinion.
In cata we dont have the luxurity to fill out 71 (76 @ 85) talent points and get all the goodies, so im looking to what the other healing classes have in my guild and thats @ this point only a shaman and 2xdruid offspec'd in resto. This ofc for 10man raiding.
Post by
donnymurph
im only doing 10mans, there for i might skip aspiration cuz the shaman has it and
he's our tank healer
.
That makes it a different story altogether. Bit of a misunderstanding there on my part.
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