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.
What follows is a lengthy list of removed abilities and merging of spell effects to execute this vision. In this article, we’ll discuss the positives of these changes, what new problems are created, and feedback on areas where more work can be needed.
The Good
A popular idea with Discipline is that more buttons = greater complexity and have decried the recent spring cleaning as simplifying the spec down to nothing. I believe this is extremely far from the truth and I’d like to point out that multiple different popular versions of Discipline featured similar numbers of damage abilities (or less!) than what Dragonflight Season 3 features. Battle for Azeroth, did not have Shadow Word: Death at all and Holy Nova played no role in producing damage to heal, Shadowlands’ Kyrian Covenant gameplay with Boon of the Ascended was incredibly simple as you alternated between Ascended Nova and Ascended Blast to do the majority of your Atonement output.
Reducing spell count does not guarantee a loss in complexity/challenge and I believe Discipline will still be a challenging healer that is more streamlined in your damage sequencing and be better balanced in raids and mythic+ with these first changes.
This may have been breezed past by some but Atonement now has an independent variable for Raid and Mythic+ healing fixing a historically major pain point where Discipline in the past would be undertuned in mythic+ to balance it properly for raids.
And finally, the new talent Ultimate Penitence is incredibly fun, offering an iconic and fresh ability into the talent tree. There is still some work to be done on this ability and the spec as a whole, which we will detail in the next section, but seeing fresh ideas to Discipline that are more than giving us extra damage buttons that Shadow has is always welcome.
General Downsides
It is still very early for Discipline’s rework, with many talents still in need of an update so I’d like to emphasize that it still feels like there is more to come with Disc changes. Some priorities for Disc as it stands are as follows;
- Mindbender procing Shadow Covenant, while fun and interesting, is exceedingly better than Shadowfiend 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 Weal and Woe and Aegis of Wrath continue to feel undervalued/underpowered while Twilight Equilibrium and Expiation were powerful talents when Mind Blast was a low cooldown with charges now become near-useless talents when Mind Blast is changed to merge with Schism. 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. Harsh Discipline is noticeably nerfed by proccing off of Power Word: Radiance 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 Ultimate Penitence 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 Shadow Covenant which feels strange as they advertise it as firing Penance bolts and a key point of excitement is visually seeing the Penance bolts go to darkness when Scov is activated.
Raid Challenges
With the incoming class changes and tier-set bonuses, there are some stand out issues as it stands for Discipline.
- Once again Mindbender/Shadow Covenant 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-Smite of the 4pc looks to provide a massive swing in strength for the spec.
- Ultimate Penitence 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 Boon of the Ascended that baseline abilities like Smite and Penance feel like they do near-nothing like in Shadowlands.
- Rapture has felt very weak this expansion ever since losing the extended Atonement duration of the Shadowlands legendary. Would very much like to see the supporting talents for this to be markedly improved in some capacity. Additional Atonement duration would feel particularly good paired with the duration extension that Smite brings with 4pc.
- Speaking of tier sets, the 2pc seems to give Atonement extension to the lowest-health target rather than the lowest Atonement 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 Flash Heal procs anyway making this particular benefit not as valuable as it otherwise could be.
- With the loss of the Aberrus tier-set Power Word: Radiance 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 Power Word: Radiance 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 Ultimate Penitence not interacting with Mindbender/Shadow Covenant it also does not spread Purge the Wicked. A dream talent by many Disc enthusiasts is a mass Purge the Wicked applicator and it would be particularly epic to have this ability properly spread Purge the Wicked to enemies when it strikes a target with Purge the Wicked 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 Power Infusion,Mind Soothe and Mass Dispel, 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.
- Power Infusion was nerfed due to the strength given to allies but Twins of the Sun Priestess 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 Lenience is an extremely boring talent that is often de-facto run in Mythic+ not because it feels noticeable/impactful.
- Angel’s Mercy was nerfed in 10.1.7 as it gave incredible Desperate Prayer 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
Overall I am very excited that Discipline is receiving this attention and priority for Patch 10.2. I see this as a tremendous opportunity to set up the spec for success in the long-term by shedding unnecessary ability bloat while reinforcing the strengths of a spec that prepares for incoming damage well in advance and reverses it rapidly with high personal damage. I hope that they take the opportunity to establish strong options around the tree to suit different playstyles and situations to allow the spec greater flexibility in talent options.
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