Talents to AvoidFollow

Actually, Heather, with the addition of Focused Will, deep Discipline has become a potent (and therefore popular) PvP build. Before, many found that they lived longer relying on Blessed Resilience's crit protection. Now, deep Discipline is a rock-solid PvP build.

Deep discipline still isn't a good raiding build, regardless of the high power levels of PI and PS. Why? Lots and lots of filler talents. In order to get up to 41 Discipline and get Pain Suppression, you have to get a bunch of talents that don't help your raiding at all. In a traditional 23/38 or CoH build, no talent is wasted; you can spend every point on something that improves your healing. With deep Discipline, this is not the case.

Enlightenment and Mental Strength are expensive for what they do, and so are barely legitimate choices for raiding. Both of them combined are effectively trumped by Holy Concentration and Spirit of Redemption for half the cost. But that's not the worst of it; the worst is that you still have to take seven points' worth of talents that just aren't good for raiding. Absolution? Dispel isn't a common enough mechanic in PvE anymore. Silent Resolve? Big in 5-mans; in raids, important only in a bare few encounters. Force of Will, Imp. Mana Burn, and so many of the other mid-level Discipline talents have a single common denominator: They are not raiding talents.

All of that said: I am a raiding priest with a deep Discipline build.

The thing is, I have no illusions about it. I *know* my build isn't an ideal one for raiding. I still have my build as it is for two reasons. One, it's a compromise. I have neither the cash nor the inclination to continuously respec between PvP and PvE builds. My build sees me through alright. It's decent for both purposes. Two, it's fun. Have you ever had a whole raid's worth of casters do a roll-off for PI receptions? Ever turned an aggro-happy boomkin into an impromptu off-tank? Ever screwed around with the damage meters using PI and whispering someone "if you don't say anything I won't either"? Ever watched a boss charge at someone who's pulled aggro, use PS, and watch it turn around and go back? I use this build because it has rewards unrelated to its power that make up for its lesser effectiveness.

I got around to testing this on the PTRs finally. I got a warrior with a ~25% crit chance to fight my tier 6 premade priest. She used only her fists to avoid breaking my shield with damage.

For 2 contiguous minutes of Power Word: Shield being up, Martyrdom did not proc once. I took off the shield, and let myself get beat up. Martyrdom proc'd pretty soon after that.

Focused Will is bugged on the PTR or the tooltip does not read correctly on the talent calculator. It procs a lot, all the time, on normal hits (read: not crits) while the shield is up or down. Critical hits are NOT required to activate it, apparently.

...I didn't pay attention to the Blessed Recovery proccings.

But I will say for sure that Martyrdom does not proc on absorbed criticals. I don't know about partially-absorbed crits, though.

Thanks for doing the testing on the test realms, Raglu, rated up. Incidentally, a Rogue with Cold Blood makes that kind of testing much easier. :)

I'm so-so about lolwell.

When used properly, it's not a bad talent. Someone can hit the well, immediately bandage and their HP shoots back up allowing them to get back into the fight.

Unfortunately, rarely will you see lolwell used appropriately. People will click it before the fight begins, they will click in with dots on them, they will click it with mobs beating on them, etc etc etc.

Just save yourself the headache and skip lolwell unless you group with competent people all the time.

Blues have said over and over that crits converted to hits still proc on-crit stuff.
EDIT: My guess is, with resilience, it's still a one-roll system, BUT the bottom x percent of the crit roll is converted into a hit. It still registers as a crit but is then converted, rather than simply lowering the crit range.

EDIT2: Plus one-roll doesn't always mean one-roll. It *appears* casters have a 2-roll system, BUT it's actually a three-roll system, with resistance (level or gear based) as the third roll. When people say one-roll or two-roll, it's assumed that there is an extra roll for partial resists. At least with casters.

Edited, Jan 4th 2008 2:37pm by lsfreak