Discipline Priest State in Shadowlands Alpha - Mythic+ Viability, Lackluster GCDs, Covenant Abilities

어둠땅 2020/06/22 시간 03:30에 Squishei에 의해 작성됨

Introduction승천의 보루레벤드레스저주받은 자의 탑 토르가스트죽음의 상흔속죄의 전당역병 몰락지저편티르너 사이드의 안개shouldNy'alotha Eternal Palacemajor

This article is written by Jaydaa a veteran healer and contributing writer to both World of Warcraft content and other Blizzard games content here on Wowhead. I've been raiding in WoW for almost 15 years at various levels of progression. I've contributed to the theorycrafting of multiple healing classes, notably Mistweaver Monks and Restoration Druids. Find me on Twitter or on the Wowhead Discord.

SupsFocused Will Discord

Jak, Healer for Future on EU-Twisting Nether, author of the Holy, Discipline, and Advanced Mythic+ Priest Guides.
He is also the Host of the official World of Warcraft Mythic Dungeon International events. You can catch Jak on Twitter and streaming on Twitch.

Discipline Priest속죄끝없이 치솟는 파도자각몽의 기억Baseline Toolkit Changes

New Baseline Discipline Priest Abilities:
and 어둠의 권능: 죽음 - This array of damaging abilities offers up additional damage to Discipline Priests, but does so with limited to no 속죄 interaction. shares a similar design space to 신성한 폭발 so the choice of use is a bit muddled. Though 어둠의 권능: 죽음 got a recent 100% damage buff when used on targets below 20% health, it will equally increase the damage done to the player if the target doesn't die. How much more damage and whether we'll use all these abilities during periods of healing downtime will likely depend on final tuning.

정신 분열 - An interesting addition to the Discipline toolkit, 정신 분열 gives us a baseline shadow damage cooldown spell with the absorb that used to be part of 성스러운 일격. With decently high damage, you'll definitely want to press 정신 분열 quite often to maximize your healing throughput, but with a 15s cooldown and high mana cost you'll likely need to be more sparing with 정신 분열 to ensure you don't run out of mana or miss incorporating the spell into your 신의 권능: 광휘 and 분파 burst windows.

NEW 마력 주입 (Level 58) - The haste steroid returns as a baseline ability and can now be cast on any player rather than just the Priest. An interesting piece of utility that I'm sure everyone in your raid/party will be clamoring for during their cooldowns. As a Discipline Priest, most of your throughput is baked into short burst windows so any cooldown that helps you pack even more into that window is fantastic. Lining up 마력 주입 with 신의 권능: 광휘, 사도, and 어둠의 마귀 will be phenomenal. Add in the 승천자의 은혜 covenant to this lineup and your burst will be insane. Other players in raid will likely have to pry this ability from your cold dead hands before you give it up for them, but they might have a chance to nab it occasionally in Mythic+.

NEW (Level 52) - After its removal in Mists of Pandaria, 정신의 위안 returns. While it was extremely niche in most situations, it might possibly have renewed use in Mythic+ as skips can be highly valued. i don't expect this one to be cast very often, but I'm sure we'll see a video of a 정신의 위안 skip in Shadowlands at some point.

Shadowlands Leveling Perks:

NEW Rank 2 (Level 17) Fade now reduces the range at which enemies will attack you when used while active.

If 정신의 위안 is meant as a group-wide aggro radius reduction, then this perk is the personal version. Niche perk at best but I'm sure someone will find a use for it somewhere.

Rank 2 (Level 54)

As something that already exists in the live game, it seems weird to remove this for the prepatch just to re-add it as a leveling perk for Shadowlands. On the plus side, you'll likely see this used more often in PvE content such as removing 죽음과 한 몸 from 저주받은 자 사델 in 고통의 투기장.

Rank 2 (Level 48)

The Priest strobe light just got a whole lot more spammy. Overall not a huge change, but a nice quality of life one. Brings the spell up to near levels of damage. This perk creates an issue for AoE damage where you now choose between the player-centered 신성한 폭발 with a mana cost and miniscule healing or the target-centered that's free but does not offer healing.

Reworked Discipline Priest Abilities:

성스러운 일격 Smites an enemy for (47% of Spell power) Holy damage. Cost changed from 0.5% to .7% of base mana.
With losing the absorb to 정신 분열 and the increased mana cost, 성스러운 일격 feels even worse than before. As the filler ability, it's the final spell you cast after the long and growing list of cooldown based abilities that Discipline Priests are expected to manage. Sure you'll use it, but you won't feel good about it.

신의 권능: 인내

Already the least mandatory buff, cutting 신의 권능: 인내 in half makes it feel even less mandatory, but will still be a nice buff when you can bring a priest.

성스러운 일격신의 권능: 인내마력 주입정신의 위안고통 억제신의 권능: 방벽환희속죄파열치명상Talent Changes

NEW Allies are healed for (210% of Spell power) when they gain benefit of your Power Word: Barrier, and healed again for (210% of Spell power) if they are under your barrier when it expires.
Tier 7 Talent, in place of 관용
빛의 은총 rewards players for smart and well-timed positioning of your 신의 권능: 방벽 and for players staying within it for the entire duration. You'll likely find yourself yelling at your raiders to stay in the bubble until it disperses for that last pulse of healing. For reference, each pulse of healing is a little less than a 재활 in healing meaning 빛의 은총 could be a fairly potent throughput talent. With the addition of 빛의 은총, the level 50 talent row starts to feel a bit weird. There's a talent that rewards you for good 신의 권능: 방벽 timing and positioning; one that allows you to gain some absorb value out of 신의 권능: 방벽 especially when you can't stack up for the 신의 권능: 방벽; and 사도 to create larger burst windows. I'm not sure if having two 신의 권능: 방벽 talents on the same row is weird or if 사도 is the odd man out for not modifying 신의 권능: 방벽. What I do know is that for a specialization that is struggling in Mythic+, this talent row doesn't do a lot to help in that scenario.

As a mandatory pick for entirety of BFA, it makes sense that would be getting a nerf in Shadowlands. The cooldown increase hurts the most as it has the same issues that 정신 분열 does in that lining it up with the 신의 권능: 광휘 cooldown of 20s and shorter 속죄 duration can be frustrating occasionally forcing players to delay the ability for their larger burst windows. Having two 15s cooldown abilities doesn't help that at all.

The laundry list of short cooldown abilities continues to grow with the recent additions: 분파, 회개, , 정신 분열, and sometimes 천상의 별/후광, and 어둠의 서약. Perhaps instead of adding to this list, could augment 정신 분열 or could replace 정신 분열 baking in all the goodness of both spells into a single ability. This could go a long way in pairing down the laundry list.

The new incarnation of 어둠의 서약 is highly thematic to Discipline conjuring images of a Priest so consumed by the void that they can't reach the light. I could envision and would welcome an entire rework of Discipline Priest around this very concept of balancing light and void. Keeping both in check or succumbing to the insanity of the void or the blinding light.

As for the actual talent, this is a strong replacement even from a throughput standpoint. There's still some concern as to the lack of shadow damaging spells beyond 정신 분열, 분파, and 어둠의 권능: 고통. Perhaps allowing a 어두운 면의 힘 proc to turn 회개 into shadow damage could be a very cool interaction that Priests could play around.

Covenant Abilities

Kyrian:
승천자의 은혜 via 승천의 회오리 and 승천의 작렬 - Due to 승천의 작렬's short cooldown, you'll utilize a combination of 승천의 회오리 and 승천의 작렬 to heal and build up stacks culminating in a huge detonation of healing and damage via 승천의 분출 increasing based on the number of stacks built. Because 승천자의 은혜 is classified as a Priest spell, the damage from 승천의 회오리, 승천의 작렬, and 승천의 분출 all convert to healing via 속죄. For 승천의 회오리, only a single target of damage transfers via 속죄 similar to 신성한 폭발; however, all of the final explosion 승천의 분출 damage transfers via 속죄 for all targets hit resulting in a overwhelming burst of healing throughput. Properly coordinating your burst windows around the covenant will be key to maximizing your throughput including using 마력 주입 to build as many stacks as possible and applying 분파 to a target to amplify 승천의 분출. With no stack cap, the potential of this ability is only limited by the number of stacks you're able to generate and any scenario where you can hit multiple enemies will dramatically increase your throughput. The only downside to this ability is the long 3 min cooldown, but beyond that this covenant is absolutely insane for Discipline and will be hard to top in any scenario.

청지기 소환 - The steward offers some quality of life options like free talent changes or a vendor to sell things, but it essentially boils down to 평온의 약병, a glorified healthstone for all intents and purposes. The healing will be nice and contribute albeit minimally to throughput, and the personal bleed, curse, and poison dispel for Discipline Priests could come in handy as you can't normally dispel those; however, the circumstances where the phial will be invaluable will be few and far between compared to other covenant abilities which are more universally valuable.

Venthyr:
정신 조작 - A cool idea of turning an enemy against themselves and utilizing their damage to heal is awesome. I dream of a world where I can turn 타락자 느조스's 고뇌의 기원 against him to heal the raid, but I feel like the limitations on this one are just too difficult to overcome. For starters there's no upfront healing, but the upfront damage will transfer via 속죄. Beyond that, you'll only get roughly 400% spell power worth of healing and 4% of mana from the damage conversion out of each 45s use. Compare that to the massive amounts of AoE healing you'll get from the other covenant abilities and this one starts to feel a bit small potatoes. Interesting concept, but the numbers need to be there as well. Has maybe some potential in PvP maybe when trying to secure a kill?

어둠의 문 - Quite possibly the star of the covenant signature abilities, it's hard to say no to a 35yd teleport with a minute cooldown even if it has a 1.5s cast time. This type of movement is almost universally valuable and it's hard to think of an occasion where it'd be useless. Full Venthyr dungeon groups can plan skips around this ability. As a Discipline Priest, I will never say no to more mobility.

Necrolord:
부정한 폭발 - A massive 15yd AoE heal that also infects enemies with an AoE DoT that has a 빛의 심판-like healing component. As of the current build, they've nerfed the healing from striking enemies with 부정한 수혈 down to 12% spell power and applied a ~1.5s internal cooldown to the healing component per player for each target struck. The damage of the 부정한 수혈 converts to healing via 속죄. As such, the more enemies you're able to hit the stronger this ability becomes. This will likely be an exceptional ability in Mythic+ where multiple enemy targets are pretty standard to scale the 속죄 portion of the damage and pretty bland in raid where you're relying on the 빛의 심판 portion to scale based on the number of players. With the significant access that a 1 min cooldown allows for, this could really help shore up some of the power that Discipline Priest seems to lack in Mythic+. It's worth noting that the 1 min cooldown also considerably desynchronizes with 사도 and the 부정한 수혈 DoT lasts 15s compared to the 신의 권능: 광휘 속죄 duration of 9s.

살덩이창조 - This extra self survivability will be nice and as an absorb will contribute minimally to overall throughput, but where this one loses me is the 4s channel. Adding a long channel to our toolkit is not exactly something we want. I would really like to see the channel time reduced or allowing this ability to channel while moving would go a long way to making this ability more palatable. Could be an excellent tool for surviving burst damage especially in high Mythic+, but it's a bit of a hard sell against the other movement oriented covenant signature abilities.

Night Fae:
페이 수호자 - While the other Covenant abilities focus more on raw throughput, 페이 수호자 is primarily focused on utility. The 10% damage reduction from could be strong in Mythic+. If you plan your spell usage correctly, you can keep the 10% damage reduction rolling on your tank and another target for 1min and 15s out of every 1.5 mins, an 83% uptime. While it's not much, for Discipline Priest that has to rely more on the damage reduction abilities in dungeons to compensate for their lacking single target throughput, this could be very help. Where I start to become skeptical on this ability is the remaining two benefits. Because 신의 권능: 보호막 still has the 약화된 영혼 effect and you can only bypass it with 환희, you'll likely be using this on a few different targets unless you're willing to burn that cooldown in the process. So you're looking at best 200% resource or 20% mana spread over a few different targets. While that can be helpful, the granted mana hardly pays for the 3.4% mana cost for each 신의 권능: 보호막 paid by the Priest. So you're actually making 신의 권능: 보호막 more efficient in the process of granting mana to other healers. It's more efficient to generate resource and therefore damage but how much damage is questionable, especially when you consider that you're not picking another covenant ability which has damage baked into the cast so you're already losing out on that. Finally, the 신의 권능: 광휘 benefit grants the 5 targets 3s off one of their major abilities. Because 신의 권능: 광휘 has a cooldown, at best you're going to get 2 of these upfront and then maybe 2 more as the charges come back up. On top of that 신의 권능: 광휘 is 5 injured allies that don't already have 속죄 so selecting who is getting the cooldown reduction beyond the first target is questionable in raid. Finally, suboptimal usage of 신의 권능: 광휘 nearly destroys their throughput as careful timing and setup are key to their success. Now consider that Discipline Priests are sacrificing the added damage and throughput of other covenants just for this utility and this covenant's outlook is bleak. For me it's just not worth it. I'm sure you'll see videos of a Priest reducing cooldowns or granting resource here and there for the spectacle, but it's just not a realistic scenario.

영혼형상 As someone who adored 야수 탈주, it's nice to see this come back as an option although more watered down. Blinks and teleports are universally valuable and while it might not be the Venthyr ability this is a strong second place option. You likely won't be coming up with skips for such a limited 10 yard blink, but you get 3 in the 12s duration so you may have some opportunities to blink over some particularly nasty mechanics. It should be noted that you can cast while shapeshifted. Comes with a cosmetic collecting minigame which is fantastic.

Kyrian승천자의 은혜NecrolordLackluster GCDs

환희 - At the start of BFA, 환희 was put on the GCD and given 2 extra seconds of duration to compensate. For 환희, that first activation GCD delays the actual power of the cooldown making it feel a bit more hollow. Fortunately this one is an easy fix. Simply make 환희 a targeted spell that applies a large free absorb to the target on activation in addition to its current effect.

사도 - While the talent has been near mandatory in raids for all of BFA and doesn't need any additional power, the GCD hasn't felt like a particularly strategic or powerful one for awhile. As long as you press 사도 sometime before your large number of 속죄s expires, you're doing it right. Ideally, if there was a moderate pulse of healing on all of your 속죄 targets when you activate 사도 the spell would feel more impactful and could be used more strategically. Repurposing a 뉘우침 heal for this seems easy enough.

마력 주입 - With the return of 마력 주입, there's been some concern about whether it would be on the GCD or not. Before it's removal at the start of BFA it was intended to be placed on the GCD, but due to it's removal this never occurred. With its return in Shadowlands, 마력 주입 remains off the GCD. For parity with abilities like 정신 자극, it probably should be placed on the GCD, but I urge developers to reconsider this and so many other abilities. With 마력 주입 once again being allowed to be used on any ally player, the Priest shouldn't have to pay the GCD cost for another player to have fun.

어둠의 마귀 & 환각의 마귀 - The immediacy and level of impact that these pets cause players to feel less than excited about pressing these GCD abilities. Combine that with an unforgiving pet AI and the complaints start to make a lot of sense. I'm not terribly attached to either of these abilities, but if they can be salvaged I'm all for it.

Mythic+ Viability - While there are a lot of factors that determine how well a spec performs in Mythic+ (utility, damage, single target throughput, etc.), I'd really appreciate if future development could be focused on helping Discipline Priests become stronger and more relevant in dungeon content. I know it's a big ask and there isn't an exact solution, but perhaps the additional systems of Shadowlands could really offer some more tools for Discipline Priests. Since it's rework in Legion, Discipline has always been the healer with the highest skill cap but has rewarded players for mastering this challenging playstyle. While that tends to work out in raid, putting in that same effort in dungeons has only seemed to land them somewhere around the average.

신의의 도약 - While it's cool to be able to move your allies across the field of battle, I miss the added mobility of Reverse Life Grip allowing you to grip yourself to an allies position. While I think it'd be super similar to Druid's 야생의 돌진, perhaps we can give it a more 충돌-like functionality that causes the two players to meet in the middle.

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