Wow, tons of big changes incoming. Here's the TL;DR to entice some of you into reading this:
Looking for a TL;DR summary of all of the changes? Here you go!
*Character stats have been squished into smaller numbers that are easier to understand. It's important to understand that this is not a nerf as enemies have been squished as well.
*A new row of talents has been added for level 100, and new Draenor Perks from levels 91 to 99.
*The Garrison is a new feature available in Draenor, where you can build a base, recruit followers, and send them on missions.
*Balanced functionality of Agility, Strength and Intellect.
*New secondary stats: Bonus Armor, Multistrike, and Readiness.
*Hit and Expertise have been removed; they're no longer needed in order to reliably land attacks!
*The pace of healing has been adjusted to allow for more tactical decisionmaking regarding efficiency and throughput, on both single-target and multi-target heals. Passive and auto-targeted healing have been reduced in effectiveness in order to emphasize the actions and choices of healers.
*Racial traits have been rebalanced so that all races have similar combat performance.
*All classes have had several abilities pruned, with a focus on redundant and less-used abilities, to cut down on button and keybind bloat.
*The amount of crowd control in the game (primarily PvP) has been drastically reduced. Many crowd-control abilities have been removed, and many diminishing returns categories are now merged together.
*Several common buffs and debuffs have been merged, or removed, where they were redundant.
*All characters now learn a few important Major Glyphs automatically as they level up.
*The amount of instant healing in the game has been toned down by giving cast times to several instant cast heals.
*Vengeance has been redesigned and renamed Resolve. Resolve does not increase outgoing damage, but does now increase tank self-healing and absorption based on damage taken.
*Facing requirements (character position) on some prominent abilities have been loosened or removed.
*The mana cost of Resurrection spells has been reduced to make it a little easier to recover from a wipe.
*Professions no longer have combat benefit perks tied to them.
*There are a multitude of class-specific changes, including things like improved distinction between different Talent specializations, and new Masteries. Consult the class-specific sections below for more information.
A lot of that stuff has been out since April. The article has received 2 or 3 updates (in red) since and that was mostly what I was highlighting. Lots of overall game play changes though, for sure.
Recasting periodic damage over time and healing over time effects that are already on the target now extends those effects to up to 130% of the normal duration of the effect.
I think you may be missing something - they're specifically trying to nerf healing so we're not forced to choose between 100% health or dead, and they're doing it across the board. 25% looks bad in a vacuum, but when you take into account all the other seven thousand changes they've made, this actually ought to even out to be in line with all other healing. CTRL+F "retuning health spells" and you'll see their little blurb about it.
As it stands, all heals need some sort of indirect nerf (I shouldn't even call it a nerf, it's a retune) to get in line with the "no more 100% or dead" philosophy. Disc priests aren't getting a stick - everything's just changing. Your heals should do less, so should mine, so should shamans. And they're planning on retuning raid bosses so that stick doesn't matter.
Turns out I was missing something - they specifically mentioned they want people to choose between damage and healing. So yeah... guess you can't do full heals/half damage anymore. :/
However I wouldn't make the call until after you've TRIED healing it in WoD. Keep in mind healing people's shield bar along with their health bar is still going to be EXTREMELY lucrative from a raid leader's point of view. Being able to damage AND half keep up with other healers (who have also been hit by the overall -25%) is also extremely lucrative from a raid leader's point of view.
EDIT: Whoops, missed a bit. EDIT: Goddammit, Markdown. EDIT: Markdown, wtf, are you kidding me? EDIT: Markdown, y u do dis
Based on my read of it, they are tuning Discs to be more of a utility healer / DPS (1/2 dps, 1/2 heals.) I would certainly like to try it. I do see the value in adding a half/half class - it helps tune those 10-15 M raids better. "Two heals isn't QUITE enough... so lets bring a disc priest as 3rd heals!" The reason I say this is that they also nerfed a lot of the shield production mechanics priests had in addition to the atonement reduction.
I think its right that I shouldn't be able to keep up with other healers AND do significant DPS as a disc priest; I just like it being broken.
I also like that we won't be seeing 100% bars all the time. I quite enjoyed prioritizing healers rather than assuming someone at half health was just going to die soon.
Overall, I'm excited to try it out and learn the new classes. (Will definitely try holy, disc, AND shadow.)
Well, nerfing the shield mechanics falls in line with the rest of the global heal nerfs, I don't think they're to blame for making your healing strategy unviable... and can't you skip Atonement healing and go back to doing full heals (instead of half-and-half) on a whim? To me, I see disc priests in line with all the other healers, except they get to focus on absorbs (yes, they're less, but it's in line with everyone else) and have the option to dps, too.
Also... I don't think they're done with disc priests. They want to significantly decrease the usefulness of absorbs (they've said), but they also specifically mentioned "we realize we need to tune this for discipline priests, who rely on absorbs." I think you'll see more stuff.
...They aren't done with pallies, either. See what they did over the last two patch notes? Note 1: "Here's a ton of changes!" Note 2: "Never mind, those suck!"
With a 1.5 second cast time. That spell right now has a 10 second cooldown. I wonder if they plan on that being a spammable spell. (Choose heal or PoM or Prayer of Healing or Holy Nova)
Ryder
Kalamazoo, Mi Icrontian
Comments
Wow, tons of big changes incoming. Here's the TL;DR to entice some of you into reading this:
Looking for a TL;DR summary of all of the changes? Here you go!
*Character stats have been squished into smaller numbers that are easier to understand. It's important to understand that this is not a nerf as enemies have been squished as well.
*A new row of talents has been added for level 100, and new Draenor Perks from levels 91 to 99.
*The Garrison is a new feature available in Draenor, where you can build a base, recruit followers, and send them on missions.
*Balanced functionality of Agility, Strength and Intellect.
*New secondary stats: Bonus Armor, Multistrike, and Readiness.
*Hit and Expertise have been removed; they're no longer needed in order to reliably land attacks!
*The pace of healing has been adjusted to allow for more tactical decisionmaking regarding efficiency and throughput, on both single-target and multi-target heals. Passive and auto-targeted healing have been reduced in effectiveness in order to emphasize the actions and choices of healers.
*Racial traits have been rebalanced so that all races have similar combat performance.
*All classes have had several abilities pruned, with a focus on redundant and less-used abilities, to cut down on button and keybind bloat.
*The amount of crowd control in the game (primarily PvP) has been drastically reduced. Many crowd-control abilities have been removed, and many diminishing returns categories are now merged together.
*Several common buffs and debuffs have been merged, or removed, where they were redundant.
*All characters now learn a few important Major Glyphs automatically as they level up.
*The amount of instant healing in the game has been toned down by giving cast times to several instant cast heals.
*Vengeance has been redesigned and renamed Resolve. Resolve does not increase outgoing damage, but does now increase tank self-healing and absorption based on damage taken.
*Facing requirements (character position) on some prominent abilities have been loosened or removed.
*The mana cost of Resurrection spells has been reduced to make it a little easier to recover from a wipe.
*Professions no longer have combat benefit perks tied to them.
*There are a multitude of class-specific changes, including things like improved distinction between different Talent specializations, and new Masteries. Consult the class-specific sections below for more information.
A lot of that stuff has been out since April. The article has received 2 or 3 updates (in red) since and that was mostly what I was highlighting. Lots of overall game play changes though, for sure.
Sure, but I hadn't read it at all and figured some others likely hadn't as well.
Bye Disc priest:
Atonement now heals for 25% less.
In effect, I will now have to decide between doing additional damage (1/2 a normal class) or doing full heals. Less absorbs...
Guess I should just dual spec holy / disc and get my hunter for DPS?
LOLOLOLOLO
Maybe I'll go full shadow priest:
Recasting periodic damage over time and healing over time effects that are already on the target now extends those effects to up to 130% of the normal duration of the effect.
I think you may be missing something - they're specifically trying to nerf healing so we're not forced to choose between 100% health or dead, and they're doing it across the board. 25% looks bad in a vacuum, but when you take into account all the other seven thousand changes they've made, this actually ought to even out to be in line with all other healing. CTRL+F "retuning health spells" and you'll see their little blurb about it.As it stands, all heals need some sort of indirect nerf (I shouldn't even call it a nerf, it's a retune) to get in line with the "no more 100% or dead" philosophy. Disc priests aren't getting a stick - everything's just changing. Your heals should do less, so should mine, so should shamans. And they're planning on retuning raid bosses so that stick doesn't matter.Turns out I was missing something - they specifically mentioned they want people to choose between damage and healing. So yeah... guess you can't do full heals/half damage anymore. :/
However I wouldn't make the call until after you've TRIED healing it in WoD. Keep in mind healing people's shield bar along with their health bar is still going to be EXTREMELY lucrative from a raid leader's point of view. Being able to damage AND half keep up with other healers (who have also been hit by the overall -25%) is also extremely lucrative from a raid leader's point of view.
EDIT: Whoops, missed a bit. EDIT: Goddammit, Markdown. EDIT: Markdown, wtf, are you kidding me? EDIT: Markdown, y u do dis
Based on my read of it, they are tuning Discs to be more of a utility healer / DPS (1/2 dps, 1/2 heals.) I would certainly like to try it. I do see the value in adding a half/half class - it helps tune those 10-15 M raids better. "Two heals isn't QUITE enough... so lets bring a disc priest as 3rd heals!" The reason I say this is that they also nerfed a lot of the shield production mechanics priests had in addition to the atonement reduction.
I think its right that I shouldn't be able to keep up with other healers AND do significant DPS as a disc priest; I just like it being broken.
I also like that we won't be seeing 100% bars all the time. I quite enjoyed prioritizing healers rather than assuming someone at half health was just going to die soon.
Overall, I'm excited to try it out and learn the new classes. (Will definitely try holy, disc, AND shadow.)
Well, nerfing the shield mechanics falls in line with the rest of the global heal nerfs, I don't think they're to blame for making your healing strategy unviable... and can't you skip Atonement healing and go back to doing full heals (instead of half-and-half) on a whim? To me, I see disc priests in line with all the other healers, except they get to focus on absorbs (yes, they're less, but it's in line with everyone else) and have the option to dps, too.
Also... I don't think they're done with disc priests. They want to significantly decrease the usefulness of absorbs (they've said), but they also specifically mentioned "we realize we need to tune this for discipline priests, who rely on absorbs." I think you'll see more stuff.
...They aren't done with pallies, either. See what they did over the last two patch notes? Note 1: "Here's a ton of changes!" Note 2: "Never mind, those suck!"
Yea, I think they are having fun with it, which has my hopes up. My apologies for initial dramatic response.
Did you see what they did with periodic spells? Shadow Priests and Warlocks are going to be nuts now.
I've been mostly focusing on this:
Priest healers suddenly just got a lot of synergy with themselves.
With a 1.5 second cast time. That spell right now has a 10 second cooldown. I wonder if they plan on that being a spammable spell. (Choose heal or PoM or Prayer of Healing or Holy Nova)
so many questions. I want to try this so badly.
Oh god... bring me three or four healers in a 20man all dropping PoM on the tank - that tank is staying PUT.