Disc Priest Atonement Nerf Coming in 5.3

Disc priests have been sitting pretty at the top of the healing charts so far for T15, but that could be changing if the current Atonement nerf does go through with the 5.3 patch as it has been announced.

Atonement now heals for 80% of the damage dealt, down from 100%.

This is going to have a pretty significant impact on disc priests and their raids.  First, you are going to see priests move some of their atonement spam healing (usually with smite) into healing spells that will have a higher output of healing.  But second, those raid teams are going to lose the supplemental DPS that disc priests provide with smite, expecially those raid groups that are close on enrage or have lower-than-average DPS.  Losing that smite spam could hurt if the nerfed atonement healing isn’t high enough to compensate for the disc priest using it instead of a better healing spell.

There is also some speculation that disc priests who have relied heavily on atonement for their healing thoroughput could end up being a one trick pony who can’t adjust to the 5.3 atonement healing nerf.  It isn’t unusual for disc priests to have atonement as one of their top 2 heals (it shows up in World of Logs as Atonement), and those priests will suddenly find themselves having to learn a completely new rotation if atonement isn’t providing the HPS their raid leader or healing leader is expecting them to put out.

Why did Blizzard make the change?  We definitely saw Blizzard put a higher emphasis on Mistweavers via fistweaving to be the healer/dps hybrid that disc priests are also currently occupying for the 5.2 patch.  Add to that the fact that Disc Priests are still far above most other healing specs for a good number of fights, so a nerf was kind of expected by hardcore raiding priest healers.  And atonement has long been a spell that many believed was overpowered.  (Spec Score for healers 10M; Spec Score for healers 25M)

Disc priests have been a “flavor of the month” type of healer this expansion, and many non-priest healers have switched to Disc because they have seen it as being particularly strong against other healers.  It is those healers – who aren’t as familiar with the entire disc priest toolset – who could find themselves struggling in 5.3.

Are you concerned you are an atonement one-trick pony?  Now is the perfect time to start practicing your healing rotation in LFR sans atonement or with a lot less emphasis on it and see what kind of HPS you are able to get.  This will help you get more comfortable with your rotation, what heals in your toolset you should (or could) be using, as well as getting feedback from other priests as you relearn disc priest for 5.3.  Doing it now is far better than waiting for the patch to drop and discover your HPS is left in the dust behind other healers because of the 20% nerf to atonement.

To end with, Derevka from Something Wicked (who also blogs at Tales of a Priest) said it perfectly…

TLDR: Use your whole toolkit, and this nerf is really of little consequence.

It will just remain to be seen how many of those atonement spamming priests follow that whole toolkit advice.

Here are current discussions on the atonement change (beware of some of the QQ):
Atonement Nerf, No buff to compensate? (PVE) – World of Warcraft Official Forums
Patch 5.3 PRR. Attonement Nerf – MMO-Champion
5.3 Atonement Nerf – HowtoPriest

UPDATE: Ghostcrawler has hinted that the nerf might be reduced from 20% nerf to 10% nerf.