AutomaticJak's 10.2 Discipline Priest First Impressions - Streamlining, Ultimate Penitence, and Talent Issues

PTR Опубликовано 13.09.2023 в 10:00 AutomaticJak

This Public Test Realm (PTR) is a testing environment for the content coming with the Dragonflight: Guardians of the Dream update.
Dragonflight: Guardians of the Dream Update Development Notes
PRIEST

Power Infusion Haste reduced to 20% (was 25%) and duration reduced to 15 seconds (was 20 seconds).
- Developers’ note: Power Infusion has proved to be too impactful due to how it stacks with cooldowns on specializations that excel at dealing damage in a short window. We’re reducing it’s duration and amplitude to balance our burst classes and keep them more in line with steady-state damage dealers.
Shadow Word: Death now deals 8% of the Priest’s maximum health in damage when it fails to kill a target instead of the backlash damage being based on damage dealt.
Tithe Evasion now reduces Shadow Word: Death damage dealt to the Priest by 50% (was 75%).
Shadow Word: Death backlash damage is now reduced by damage reduction effects.
Mass Dispel cooldown is now 2 minutes (was 45 seconds).
- Developers’ note: We’re reducing the frequency that Priests have access to Mass Dispel as the value of the spell is exceeding the value of other utility at its current power level and cooldown. We’re looking to allow for more situations where magic debuffs are applied to multiple players without having a Priest trivializing the intended difficulty of the mechanics.
Improved Mass Dispel is now a PvP Talent and reduces the cooldown of Mass Dispel by 60 seconds (was 20 seconds).
Improved Mass Dispel no longer reduces the cast time of Mass Dispel.
Improved Mass Dispel has been replaced with Mental Agility in the Priest talent tree.
New Talent: Mental Agility – Reduces the mana cost of Purify, Purify Disease, and Mass Dispel by 50% and Dispel Magic by 10%.
Rhapsody now only highlights Holy Nova at max stacks while in combat.
Discipline
- Developers’ note: The goal of these changes is to simplify Discipline’s damage rotation as well as the number of stacking modifiers used when ramping up for burst healing. This should make it smoother to play by reducing the number of abilities pressed in sequence, allowing players to focus on managing Atonement and triaging their allies instead.
- Schism has been redesigned to be a passive talent – Now causes Mind Blast to fracture the enemy’s mind, increasing your spell damage to the target by 10% for 9 seconds.
- Shadow Covenant has been redesigned to be a passive talent – Shadowfiend or Mindbender enters you into a shadowy pact, transforming Halo, Divine Star, and Penance into Shadow spells and increasing the damage and healing of your Shadow spells by 25% for 15 seconds (7 seconds with Mindbender).
  - Developers’ note: Shadow Covenant is another ability that must be sequenced correctly and is usually stacked with other damage modifiers. By merging this effect with Shadowfiend, we can streamline the damage rotation and make Shadowfiend a more exciting cooldown at the same time.
- Mind Blast now has a 24 second cooldown (was 9 seconds).
- Mind Blast damage has been increased by 30%.
- Dark Indulgence no longer grants an additional charge of Mind Blast. Instead, Mind Blast has a 100% chance to grant Power of the Dark Side.
- Inescapable Torment damage increased by 60%.
- Inescapable Torment now triggers from Penance in addition to Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death.
- Inescapable Torment is now a 1-point talent (was 2).
- Power Word: Solace has been removed.
  - Developers’ note: Power Word: Solace has a long history, but it was another example of a short cooldown damage button that cramped the rotation, so we’re removing it.
- Harsh Discipline no longer triggers after 4 spell casts of Smite, Mind Blast, or Power Word: Solace. Instead, Power Word: Radiance has a 30/60% chance to cause your next Penance to be free and fire 3 extra bolts.
  - Developers’ note: While Harsh Discipline was fun to play with, it added another thing you had to do before paying off on your Atonements. By triggering from Power Word: Radiance, this will now automatically happen after applying your Atonements. This will also reduce the frequency of Harsh Discipline procs, and allow regular Penance to deal more damage and healing.
- New Talent: Sanctuary – Smite prevents the next 80% damage dealt by the enemy.
- New Talent: Ultimate Penitence – Ascend into the air and unleash a massive barrage of Penance bolts, causing Holy damage to enemies or healing to allies over 6 seconds. While ascended, gain a shield for 50% of your health. In addition, you are unaffected by knockbacks or crowd control effects.
- New Talent: Heaven’s Wrath – Each Penance bolt you fire reduces the cooldown of Ultimate Penitence by 2 seconds.
- New Talent: Overloaded with Light – Ultimate Penitence emits an explosion of light, healing up to 10 allies around you and applying Atonement at 50% of normal duration.
- Penance damage increased by 15%.
- Penance healing increased by 30%.
- Power Word: Barrier now reduces 20% of all damage taken (was 25%).
- Atonement now heals for 32% of damage done (was 40%).
- Atonement healing is now increased by 50% when not in a raid.
- Flash Heal healing increased by 40%.
- Power Word: Shield absorption increased by 10%.
- Divine Aegis is now a 1-point talent (was 2).
- Light’s Wrath, Resplendent Light, Wrath Unleashed, and Make Amends have been removed.

10.2 First Impressions of Discipline Priest

The first set of patch notes for 10.2 has brought a major talent revamp for Discipline Priest with a number of Developer notes to describe the reasoning behind these actions. One of the most important of them is the first one in which Blizzard states:

Developers’ note: The goal of these changes is to simplify Discipline’s damage rotation as well as the number of stacking modifiers used when ramping up for burst healing. This should make it smoother to play by reducing the number of abilities pressed in sequence, allowing players to focus on managing Atonement and triaging their allies instead.

The GoodGeneral Downsidesit still feels like there is more to come with Disc changes

procing , while fun and interesting, is exceedingly better than and taking non-bender talents at present. Having a strong buff to your damage being gated behind a 1-min ability (with cooldown reduction potential) versus a 3 minute is no-contest.

With the incoming changes, there are some significant updates required for existing talents. Among these and continue to feel undervalued/underpowered while and were powerful talents when was a low cooldown with charges now become near-useless talents when is changed to merge with . I hope for changes to the former and I expect big updates to the latter.

One of the intended goals of Discipline's rework was to simplify Discipline's damage rotation and stacking modifiers but I do not believe that means that every abilities should be shaved down in the final tier, particularly when they result in a downgrade. is noticeably nerfed by proccing off of and in a world with a reduced quantity of overall damage buttons this could be an area where they revert a change or significantly buff the benefit from proccing off of radiance.

It is still very early for but it seems to be oddly constructed by firing off some damage and healing bolts regardless of who is targetted. It also does not have synergy with which feels strange as they advertise it as firing bolts and a key point of excitement is visually seeing the bolts go to darkness when Scov is activated.

Raid Challenges

Once again / feeling too forced, that other options are not presented or available to compete at the moment suggests that there are more changes to come, especially when the double- of the 4pc looks to provide a massive swing in strength for the spec.

while flashy and new I think it is important to draw attention to its performance so that it is a strong and effective cooldown but not TOO powerful like that baseline abilities like and feel like they do near-nothing like in Shadowlands.

has felt very weak this expansion ever since losing the extended duration of the Shadowlands legendary. Would very much like to see the supporting talents for this to be markedly improved in some capacity. Additional duration would feel particularly good paired with the duration extension that brings with 4pc.

Speaking of tier sets, the 2pc seems to give extension to the lowest-health target rather than the lowest duration target. This will frequently allow for more duration extended onto your tanks in raids and keys but you often will be extending your duration with procs anyway making this particular benefit not as valuable as it otherwise could be.

With the loss of the Aberrus tier-set will once again require a lengthy cast-time. While Discipline has functioned historically as an immobile healer this bonus was particularly helpful in raiding when targetted by mechanics or needing to move while ramping. Since some talents already look like they are in need of updates with Discipline's revamp, why not offer instant-casts, perhaps on a cooldown, as an end-tier talent option or choice-node so that they can be flexxed into as needed by players? This would also add some interesting complexity for when you could use this ability to deal with mechanics vs taking greater output from another end-tier point.

Mythic+ Challenges

Similar to not interacting with / it also does not spread . A dream talent by many Disc enthusiasts is a mass applicator and it would be particularly epic to have this ability properly spread to enemies when it strikes a target with already on it, likely making it a lock for Mythic+ content.

With each new season of Mythic+ bringing new dungeons there are significant impacts to the value of each spec's utility. As we exit a season that heavily benefited from , and , leaving them nerfed, we look to be entering into a season where interrupts will be highly valued and Discipline (and Holy!) are the only two specs in the game that lack an interrupt.

was nerfed due to the strength given to allies but exists as an independent tuning knob to impact the strength of the ability for the Priest, so why hasn't this received any attention to bring it back to pre-nerf value?

With many talents receiving updates it is worth mentioning that is an extremely boring talent that is often de-facto run in Mythic+ not because it feels noticeable/impactful.

was nerfed in 10.1.7 as it gave incredible cooldown reduction due to heavy burst damage. The nerf is very noticeable in Mythic+ and leaves the spec much more vulnerable to damage over its peers, particularly to physical damage.

Conclusion

This guide is written and maintained by Jak, Healer for Incarnate on US-Tichondrius, Author of the Holy and Discipline Priest Guides.

You can catch Jak on Twitter, Youtube and streaming on Twitch if you want to check out more of his content!

Watch live video from automaticjak on www.twitch.tv

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