So from that point of view, I read this article because I am investigating how I should spec Disc. I was happy to see someone try and defend not taking the top-line talent. I respectfully disagree with the article, but that does not mean it was not interesting or should not be posted on the blog. So in summary, the article plus the comments have been helpful to at least one player.

There is nothing to backup his “feelings.” No numbers, no examples, no alternate specs or rotations. There is nothing other than some random drivil based on apparently nothing but the posters limited point of view.

To be honest, the quality of this post is far below what I have come to expect as a long time reader of this blog.

As mentioned, in most feedreaders you dont see the comments. I was so appalled by this post I had to click through just to see if anyone else felt it was as absurd as I did.

You should really put some sort of disclaimer on this one as it is very misleading and opinion or not, simple wrong. This kind of post does more harm than good to any new Disc priest.

Just because you cant help trying to heal with a mob targeted doesn’t mean everyone else has that problem.

Just because other classes are better off not using a 51 point talent doesn’t mean we are.

Just because it can damage or heal doesn’t mean it’s for damaging and healing at the same time. Use it for healing in a dungeon, and use it for damage if you are soloing or PvPing. I’ve never had trouble with it this way.

As far as fitting it into your “flow” goes, I just cast it whenever it’s up if someone needs that much healing. And if they don’t quite need the full heal I cast it anyways for the grace.

Of course, it’s not “necessary” in a very strict way, nothing is. I could play without using any talents if i wanted to. But it would reduce my abilities greatly, and for no reason at all. If you take the time to get 50 points in disc why not get the last point? Give us an alternative and actual reasons we should use it, then I might be interested in what you have to say.

To tell you the truth, we didn’t. Discipline hasn’t been a viable PvE specc until now. You could always argue that a discipline priest could manage to heal a 5-man before or even in a raid where the rest of the players were outgearing the instance. But did we do the job as good as other healers? No. We may have brought some utility (Power Infusion, Pain Suppression) but that was all. Right now we are actually competing with at laest Paladin healers. We can’t really reach the raid healers in numbers and we shouldn’t either (not only because of the totally overpowered CoH and Wild Growth but because of the assignment). A lot of our newfound viability comes from the new mechanics that Penance is so good at keeping up. Exchanging that for something else like Greater Heal almost turns us into nerfed paladins with less armor and health. Why would I want that?

I believe most have most have been said already (exept for that hiting mobs by accident is a L2play-issue but that would only be rude to say, wouldn’t it?) so I won’t repeat the things other have already mentioned too much but I basically agree with most of the reactions. And his was by far the worst opinion I read here in quite a while. But as the recently resigned Horace Engdahl (that presents the Nobel Prize in litterature) always stated: How can you appreciate good litterature if you never read the bad. I believe the same thing applies to discusiions on priest spells.

The man is using MP5 gems in most of his gear, even the absolutely abysmal 3mp5 hybrid gems. This is forgivable for soloing morons but this person is apparently a raider, even going in 25 man naxx some! I do admit that his regen is excellent, but that is all he has. His healing output would be beyond terrible at a measly ~1500 spell power and he is missing nearly all healing boosting talents.

If this guy IS succeeding with this spec and gear he should immediately respec and he will then succeed SO much better. There is no need to handicap yourself like this willingly as a healer, its dangerous to your fellow party members and to your reputation.

-Perceived, Skullcrusher

Honestly though, a word of advice would be to have some minimum standards met before any articles are posted. I was still shocked at this article and thought to myself that yea maybe Penance seemed a little weak to me back when I was not lvl 80 and in decent gear.

I decided to go look at how the OP was spec’d and geared and I completely understand the problem. He has 1471 SP, 1.77% Haste (+3% from talents), and a surprisingly decent 16.8% crit. Almost NONE of the gear has enchants on them (Helm, Cape, Chest, Bracers, Gloves). With this type of gear, Penance would certainly have a lot less luster than how I am equipped. Decent spell Power and Haste Make Penance a really nice spell, especially cast right after a PWS.

As a word of advice to the OP, get all your gear enchanted, aim for at least 1800+ spell power, 10-12% haste, and about 18-20% crit and then try Penance again and let us know how you like it.