Priests are lacking in discipline
by David Bowers 
Oct 16th 2007 at 2:02PM
Though some priests have found a use for the discipline tree, right now, it doesn't quite have a solid purpose/goal, but rather seems to act as a supporting tree. This is something we plan on addressing with Wrath of the Lich King. Originally, the goal of the tree was primarily intended to provide staying power, vs. the holy tree which provides throughput.I'll admit that my own priest is sadly a mere level 8, but I'm aware that this has been one of the big priest issues for a long time. One of my friends strives to be one of those special priests who have "found a use for the discipline tree" and he seems to do pretty well at it, though he admitted that he recently changed some of his talents around, leaving behind lesser-used talents in discipline in exchange for some holy talents. He refuses to give in and become yet another shadow priest, since he revels in succeeding at something few other priests try.
Also, so you're aware, the 41-point discipline talent, pain suppression, is being changed to be usable on others for patch 2.3.
I would be quite interested to see how Blizzard changes the discipline talents in the next expansion. Will they stick with the original "staying power" idea, or will they go for something new? What do you think needs to be done?
Filed under: Priest, Patches, Talents, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Dotixi Oct 16th 2007 2:27PM
They should change the Discipline Tree to make priests into a pseudo -"Monk" class.
eVEAN Oct 16th 2007 6:40PM
seems to me like disc is like arc tree for mages. it adds extra featurs and staying power that going solid one tree doesnt offer.
John Oct 16th 2007 2:59PM
Why would someone with a level 8 priest bother posting? And how do they expect anyone to take their comments seriously?
Tridus Oct 16th 2007 2:37PM
Right now, Discipline is the tree that all Priests put 14 points into, and most Holy Priests put 23 points into.
I couldn't tell you the last time I actually saw Power Infusion or Pain Supression in game.
baylow Oct 16th 2007 2:37PM
Ok, #1... no they shouldn't.
Disc should be damage prevention. Which is what this new version of Pain Supression is.
Improvements to our PW:
Damage Aborbs (or wards as they were called in EQ)
Armor buffs
All focusing around the ability to keep a target from taking damage to begin with, while holy is focusing on healing that damage away.
skalgrim Oct 16th 2007 3:16PM
I've been playing the priest class "almost" exclusively for close to 3 years now and have never, ever, seen the need or point in going past the spirit buff in Disc. And I've never met a "Disc" priest.
Girl Meets WoW Oct 16th 2007 3:04PM
The new damage + threat reduction on pain suppression opens up all kinds of fun possibilities, enough so that I hope at least one of my raid's priests decides to play around with it. As a mage, getting a PS on massive AOE packs sounds fantastic, and in certain fights I'm sure tanks would love it too.
Dana Oct 16th 2007 4:55PM
Well, I recently began doing arenas as I don't have the time to do instances anymore. I found that respeccing almost fully down the disc tree has been a key to improving at arena. Pain suppression has helped me survive a double pyroblast from 2 mages, double team by hunter/warrior, and countless other big damage burst that normally wiped me out of the match. While my gear DOES lack big time, I don't do too bad for someone who has done arenas for 4 weeks now. Granted, my rating hasn't gotten over 1500 for more than a day, but I at least could survive long enough for my partner to have potentially taken down one of the opponents. Oh, and Inner Focus/power infusion rocks with Binding heal or greater heal if you can get it off...
I'll miss the 65% damage reduction. I think blizz should make it 40% on target other than the priest, but when self-cast, it's 65%. Ahhhh, to dream.
Zebedeo Oct 16th 2007 3:53PM
I think discipline should be designed for max buffs and staying power. It would be nice if you got other buffs you could place on your raid besides spirit and fort. Now that pallys are going to be dpsing, tanking, healing and buffing they should make it so priest can take on some of the traditional pally buff role. Yup, lets make it so everyone can do everything that way they can not complain that they didn’t know what they were signing up for.
Blah blah blah Oct 16th 2007 3:56PM
@ #6 - Focused Power, try it sometime. Assuming you pvp. Faster Mass Dispel for the win.
Ben Oct 16th 2007 4:09PM
The problem is that priests really only fill 2 roles and yet we still need 3 talent trees. If you run down the list of classes, you'll quickly see that each of their talent trees has a clearly defined role:
-Warrior: Arms for burst damage / Fury for sustained damage / Prot for tanking.
-Druid: Balance for spell damage / Feral for melee damage/tanking / Resto for healing
-Mage: Arcane for more powerful arcane spells / Fire for raw DPS / Frost for soloing/crowd control
-Warlock: Affliction for DoT damage / Demonology for more powerful pet mechanics / Destruction for bigger nukes
-Hunter: Beast Master for more powerful pet mechanics / Marksmanship for more powerful ranged attacks / Survival for PvP survivabiity/crowd control
-Rogue: Assassination for burst damage / Combat for sustained damage / Subtlety for PvP survivability
-Shaman: Elemental for spell damage / Enhancement for melee damage / Resto for healing
-Paladin: Holy for healing / Prot for tanking / Retribution for melee damage
If you look through that list, you'll see that each of those talent trees allows a class to fill a specific role more effectively, and for the most part each is a valid role that's at the very least situationally useful.
Compare that to a priest's expected roles - heal or do damage. Ok, we have two talent trees that will help us specialize into those roles, but what do we do with the third? Clearly we're not going to be tanking anytime soon, so what other role could we fill?
If you look through the talent trees you'll notice that for many classes, especially pure DPS classes, the ultimate goal is still the same - do damage - but the speed/type of damage are subtly different. Certainly we could do that with priests as well: make Discipline into a holy DPS tree. Looking at the bottom part of the tree, that seems to be one of its goals, but it's not cohesive enough, and ultimately a holy DPS priest has no way of truly becoming viable in a group/raid setting. I can definitely see potential for a Discipline tree that allows for high crit rate and high burst damage with holy spells, and with the right adjustments it could certainly become a raid viable spec.
Of course, then we have a priest who has 2 of his 3 trees devoted to damage, and that doesn't seem right for the class that's supposed to be the closest thing to a "pure" healer.
So let's be adventurous. If other classes can have subtle distinctions between the type/quality of their damage, why can't priests have subtle distinctions in the type/quality of their heals? Make Discipline into the "burst healing" spec and Holy into the "sustained healing" spec.
Discipline would contain talents allowing for faster, perhaps occasionally instant cast heals; heals that could be temporarily buffed up on the fly; "panic" abilities that reduce incoming damage or temporarily buff total HP. As a way of distinguishing it gear-wise, it could allow for special bonuses based on crit healing.
Holy, on the other hand, would be about steady, sustained healing and mana regeneration. It would have the talents allowing for regeneration to occur inside the 5SR; more powerful HoTs; more powerful group heals; smaller, more efficient direct heals.
It would be an exciting new change for the game, and it would certainly address the issue of priests not being the "best" healers.
Dotixi Oct 16th 2007 4:28PM
@9 Thank you for making my point because you obviously have a more thorough understanding of the game than I do; however, you have made the argument for my call for using the Disc Tree to turn Priest into Monks. Monks=Holy/Melee Damage.
nav Oct 16th 2007 6:09PM
I've played disc for a while. It's a highly underrated tree. It's more than functional in solo play, and with moderate gear you can heal comfortably - much easier than a shadow priest.
I see it as a support tree. Probably doesn't have much place in a raid, but high end non-raiders would do well to give it a good look I think.
Wolfstalker Oct 16th 2007 7:01PM
Obviously discipline should be the priest tanking tree.
Abdul Oct 16th 2007 8:09PM
Discipline on the PTR is still gimped. While pain suppression and power infusion are great talents, they're too short, and have too great a cooldown. There isn't enough +holy damage gear for you to be an effective source of damage in a party/raid, and as a healer, you're just a lot less effective.
It's a step in the right direction, but still not good enough to use.
maybesew Oct 16th 2007 8:20PM
Discipline can be a reasonable arena build. If you don't have a warlock to partner with and run as a shadow priest, Pain Suppression can come in very handy in arenas.
simplehiker Oct 16th 2007 8:49PM
"I'll admit that my own priest is sadly a mere level 8..."
WHY ARE YOU WRITING THIS ARTICLE THEN? Priests are lacking in discipline and WOWI is lacking an editor.
Andrew Oct 17th 2007 8:11AM
Uhh, I always thought the discipline tree was for pvp healing? I guess I was wrong? Pain suppression, increased PW: S absorption and PW: S reflection? I went 41/10 back at 60 to pvp with a rogue friend and not only did I love it, it was great for pvp healing, if I was getting ganged up on (which as any priests knows is usually the case), I just pop a PW: S and when that's down I pain suppression and just heal my ass off.
If Blizzard is unsure of what they want to make the Discipline tree for, then I hope they make it even more suited for pvp healing (since it seems people want pally pvp healers more than priests).
hpavc Oct 17th 2007 7:58AM
Cannot just ramp Discipline and get those results. With this build, Merciless Gladiator gear, a Piston and the like your very robust (not gimped by high tree talents), very very hard to kill (no crits, no stun locks), and you can easily heal out of many situations with ease..
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxrMuhgzMZfAxocMoV0h
Terrant Oct 17th 2007 10:09AM
I support the idea of a PvP Heal (Disc)/PvE Heal (Holy)/DPS (Shadow) division, as well, which is kind of what happens now. Sure, heavy Disc won't have a place in raids, but... so what? I don't think that's a huge deal, although Blizz probably does. I would like to see more synergy with Disc and Shadow abilities, though, like Force of Will or Focused Power.