Discipline in 7.2.5 Cont.

#1 - April 27, 2017, 4:42 p.m.
Blizzard Post
Original thread got capped.

Link: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20754365397#post-1

EDIT: To get everyone up to speed, current changes so far (as of 4/27/2017):

New talent layout:

http://ptr.wowhead.com/talent-calc/priest/discipline

Level 15: [Twist of Fate] - [Castigation] - [Schism]
- Twist of Fate added, The Penitent made baseline.

Level 30: [Angelic Feather] - [Body and Soul] - [Masochism]
- Unchanged.

Level 45: [Shining Force] - [Psychic Voice] - [Dominant Mind]
- Unchanged.

Level 60: [Power Word: Solace] - [Shield Discipline] - [Mindbender]
- Unchanged.

Level 75: [Shadow Covenant] - [Power Infusion] - [Sanctuary]
- Shadow Covenant added, Contrition made baseline.
- Sanctuary added, Twist of Fate moved.
- Sanctuary: Smite's absorption effect is increased by 50%.


Level 90: [Clarity of Will] - [Divine Star] - [Halo]
- Unchanged.

Level 100: [Purge the Wicked] - [Grace] - [Evangelism]
- Shadow Covenant moved, Evangelism added.
Evangelism: Instant cast, 1 min cooldown - Extends the duration of all your active Atonements by 8 seconds.


Spell changes:

[Power Word: Radiance]
Now 2 second cast, 2 charges - 15 second recharge.
A burst of light heals the target and 4 injured allies within 30 yards for (250% of Spell Power), and applies Atonement for 50% of its normal duration.

[Plea]
Now costs 1.5% of base mana, mana cost does not scale with Atonement.

[Shadow Covenant]
Now heals for 500% of Spell Power (was 450%).


Continue discussion here, unless they increase the original thread cap. Keep the feedback flowing!
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Game Designer
#16 - April 28, 2017, 2:31 a.m.
Blizzard Post
Thanks for all the feedback. As I mentioned last week, there was a lot of rapid iteration going on so it was hard to give any detailed updates. This build is a more complete set of changes that seems to be going in a good direction, though there are still some issues to work out.

--Talent balancing. In particular, Evangelism is an idea we like, but finding serious competition for it as a raid talent might be hard. It probably needs to be against heavier hitters like Power Infusion (especially if that helps it be less of a one-note cooldown stacking build). There will likely be further iteration on talent arrangement to better accommodate the new additions.

--Mana. The spell whose cost is most important for balance purposes is Plea, because it is now the most efficient way to convert excess mana into Atonements. We reduced the cost so it would make more sense when compared against Shadow Mend and Radiance, but have to keep an eye on whether that leaves mana as a reasonable limiter on how much Atonement you can spread over the course of an encounter.

--Overall Atonement count. The changes in the last build helped fix a lot of mechanical issues, but also added a lot of raw power to the spec, particularly in terms of Atonement spread/uptime. And particularly Evangelism returns a lot of the burst-Atonement coverage that currently dominates Disc raiding. That's not necessarily a problem if everything else about the spec is working well, and it's good to continue having a bit of a niche that Disc is used to in Legion. But as discussed in my first post, if it's as easy to blanket the raid as it is on live, that limits the spec somewhat.

While this is something we'll monitor throughout PTR, especially with more internal and external raid testing, there is definitely a worry that in order to balance the spec at this point, the Atonement transfer % would have to go down, which is the opposite of the stated goal. We don't want to be in that position at the end of PTR when it's harder to make other changes.