Pulled from the fine folks at MMO Champion.
Discipline
- Grace doesn’t reduce damage dealt to the target anymore but now increases the healing received from the Priest by 3% (Up from 2%)
- Renewed Hope now also give you a 100% chance to reduce all damage taken by 3% for 20 sec to all friendly party and raid targets when you Power Word: Shield a friendly target.
I remember that Grace conflicted with a Paladin ability before (Improved Devotion Aura). Perhaps now this won’t be a problem. Don’t forget that Grace can only affect one target now.
Renewed Hope just got buffed in a big way. With Soul Warding (Reduced cost and cooldown of Power Word: Shield), Shields just improved even more. A damage reduction on a target? Even when the Shield is removed or falls off? Good stuff! My gut reaction is that we’ll be casting Shields a lot more often on more players.
Thoughts and initial impressions?
I think it’s great. Progression raid groups will love the added stability, casual raid groups will love the reduced strain on their tanks and healers. I think Blizzard did an incredible job implementing a new type of healing with the Disc priest and it’s great to see them continue to work, balance and improve it. I’m glad the synergy with the paladin improved. The disc priest kind of felt like an or-this-or-that choice with the paladin and I hope that increasing their synergy will make them a more desirable combination.
Question. What happens if you run with 7 disc priests? Does the damage reduction stack per priest? Would be quite overpowered, so I’m guessing it doesn’t.
My visceral reaction was actually a “wtf?!?!” one. I played a little on the PTR this morning. Time will tell, but the Grace changes will change the way I go about healing as Disc since part of what I do, is keep up Grace Stacks on the MTs
More testing needed.
Also, i forsee a lot more changes in the trees before 3.1 launches…. a lot.
Derevkas last blog post..PTR 3.1 Notes – Discipline
Grace overlapped with Blessing of Sanctuary’s 3% damage reduction. Improved Devotion Aura overlaps with the tree druid aura.
Actually, that would now have the Grace effect mimicing the Improved Devo Aura effect…surely they won’t let those stack, either?
/ponders
Ambrosines last blog post..On Failing Less While Healing KT
@Ambrosine
I doubt that Grace giving the priest’s heals an extra 3% effectiveness while active will be a problem. Improved Devotion Aura and the tree aura are both 6% to all healing, new Grace is 3% healing to just the priest. I think they’ll stack, considering Grace is weaker and limited.
Why nerf a fun synergystic effect that actually involves gameplay (not popping on an aura) instead of those other effects? This makes grace a mediocre bonus to have on the target, rather than the effectiveness boost for your other healers that it is now.
Just as with the rapture change, it seems to me that they’re hollowing out the mechanics that make discipline unique and interesting, as well as fun to play.
Uhm… I realize I’m kinda late, but it seems like people don’t get it. An extra 1% per stack, ergo we actually didn’t lose a thing from that build. The damage reduction from Grace was *improved* and brought over to Renewed Hope and the +healing we got from it improved by 3%, if you keep grace stacked to three times. =p According to the patch notes anyways. amirite?
Myssidias last blog post..I feel dirty
P.S. Since the bonus healing from grace is priest only and the bonus from tree aura and devo aura are raid wide, I imagine they should stack… example: The bonus sp from inner fire stacks with the bonus sp from the shammy totem. I imagine the bonus to healing from the disc talents are supposed to be the thing that brings them “up to par” (I never saw much of a problem) with holy throughput; therefore, I’ll be angry-fied at Blizz if they don’t stack.
Myssidias last blog post..I feel dirty