Great news for those of us still loving the Atonement spec in the form of a couple of recent hotfixes.
First:
The range of the heal on Atonement has been increased to 15 yards. It has been verified to be working correctly for the priest and party/raid members.
(Source)
This is a change we’ve been calling for for a while. You stil don’t get total control over the heal if the melee are taking damage as well, but it makes it much more likely that you’ll be able to hit the tank with Atonement at all.
And second:
The healing effect from Atonement is now being effected by healing modifiers correctly.
(Source)
This means that Atonement is being buffed by both Twin Disciplines (6%) and Archangel (15%). These are multiplicative, so for every 1000 points of Smite, you get 1060 points of Atonement normally and 1219 points of Atonement under a 5-stacked Archangel.
So you can finally push the Archangel button guilt-free now, since you don’t lose the 15% bonus from dropping your Evangelism; it gets transferred to Archangel, and you can rebuild your Evangelism for a bigger buff.
However, Grace does not affect the size of the Atonement heal, according to my testing this evening. It would be nice to have this, especially for tank healing, but it’s a step in the right direction.
The Atonement heal is buffed by TD and AA, but not by Grace?
Good question.
I tested today, Grace makes no difference to Atonement. Maybe that’ll be the next fix.
I hope that blizz figures out a way to make Disc more competitive with other classes without nerfing all of what we need to keep track of. I might be in a great minority, but i enjoy disc healing and have refused to make a holy or shadow spec at all.
I’m going disc and i’m sticking with it. I currently can heal heroics without much problem. If it’s an all guild run (or most guild run) it’s a breeze. even some pugs I am able to carry.
I have stacked +int and +spirit above anything else… even have a few pvp pieces for the simple fact that they had more spirit. I’ve noticed the atonement range buff and am pleased very much with it. Unbuffed i’m sitting at just over 90k mana and 2479 combat regen. Simple fact of cata is that you have to be stingy with heals, Overhealing is wasted mana.
Adding atonement to stack grace i would absolutely hate, but would love it to be buffed by grace. I notice my atonement going to melee a lot, and even ranged a few times today, that giving grace would just be an annoyance. Overall, i just want to tell people who love disc to stick to it.. it IS very possible to be an adequate healer, just have to work harder at it.
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/
I’m not even going to tell you how happy these changes make me for PvE. All of you who have given up and went holy may want to try out a disc spec again if all of these changes on the PTR come live next patch 😀
I cannot tell you how happy this makes me!!!