Holy priests?

[Orangelight]

Just recently got my priest to 90 and was so far, only playing as Discipline throughout my leveling experience in dungeons. I found out pretty soon I don't really enjoy it as much as I thought I would. I've been looking around for various Holy Priest guides and whatnot and really haven't found much other than the same thing told over and over.

My question, if possible to answer is: how comparative to other healers are they? Discipline seems extremely good, even with the small nerfs they received with this current patch. Is Holy as competitive? I know their raid-healing is really good, but lacking slightly in single-target. At least, that's what I've gathered from the various guides I've researched.

I was just wondering if someone could maybe give their insight and answer a few questions. That'd be great, thanks!

[Inthislzon]

As i understand holy is not THAT bad atm, it's just disc is so broken it's not even funny.

Anyway it depends on what content do you plan on doing and wether you care or not about holding your group back. LFR/Normals? Feel free to go as holy, it's good enough. heroics? If you want to seriously progress you should spec disc, if it doesn't really matter then you can also stay as holy there.

Anyway keep in mind my source of priest-ly information is a close friend of mine that somehow always plays the "worst class ever". And that was said 3 days ago about a warlock

[ramennoodleking]

Disc is probably your best bet for 10 man due to it's utility and great output. A good disc priest can outpace most other healers on the merits of their absorbs, which you would end up sacrificing some of your dps for, but they can definitely throw their weight around.

Holy is perfectly viable for 10 man content as well, LFR-heroics, but you just risk stealing some of that utility disc offers. Holy will perform, it just depends on the raid group you are with and what speed of progression you are expecting. In the end, if you aren't ultra serious, play whichever is more fun for you.

[Orangelight]

I'm planning to do LFR's to begin with then jump into my regular groups 10-man ToT. I'm going to give it a try, but all I've been hearing is Discipline is years above it, whether or not that's intended.

I just seem to enjoy the difference of the two, but the similarities that I like being a priest.

Are they viable for 10-man's? I know every class can be, depending on the player, but I'm just looking for opinions.

[Inthislzon]

10 man normal? Sure as hell, it can be done as holy.

tbh you could probably clear 13/13 heroic as holy, it's just harded, but not impossible

[vanityking]

The problem with disc is that it scales better than ALL other healers. When you join an LFR, or when you're out-gearing regular modes, disc is all you'll end up seeing in the meters/WoL because absorbs are stronger, they are placed faster and, in essence, last longer. If you're progressing on normal modes or heroics, you'll notice that Holy is just as good as disc for nearly every fight, and even better in others (of course it also works the other way around, disc being better in others.) The reality is you should play whatever you find most fun because, although disc's utility is a lot better than holy's, they are both more than capable of dealing with any situation you might encounter in a raiding environment. I myself am disc main spec, but I do go holy for a lot of fights, I just think disc is more fun.

[Orangelight]

Thanks a lot for the information, everyone. Really appreciate it. To Holy I go!

[Nightstorm]

I love Holy but it has seen better days in pve. You can say there is nothing wrong with holy but when over 90% choose disc in pve there is something not right.

Disc over Holy can make a encounter go from difficult to easy. Not all fights but many.
Disc brings extra damage that Holy will not. Everytime I try to go Holy I get criticised by my guild because they want the extra damage.

imo Holy needs prayer of healing to be a smart heal over disc
Renew needs to hit more than one target or last longer, unless you go with a haste build it is extremely lack luster.
circle of healing could use a small buff to the coefficient
sanctuary needs a buff, I can't tell you how many times I get laughed at when people read what sanc heals for.
Echo of light could use a little more strength, you have to move to all mastery to make it good and even then it's not even close to par with illumination from paladins.

I hope to see a overhaul or some love to holy soon. It's not that its terrible but why would you choose it over disc? (I get asked that everytime I try and go Holy.)

[Orangelight]

So I did the early LFR's last night, MSV, HoT and ToEs. I've found my AoE heals are intense, like, really powerful and bursty. But, whenever there's a lull or spot-healing, my heals are nothing. I ran with a heroic-geared Discipline priest in one of the LFR's and all he did was spam Smite and instantly was top healing.

Is that really all you do in Discipline? Spam Smite and boom, super Atonement healing?

[Deleted]

Holy seems fine in 25s atm, our holy shines in many heroic encounters. Obviously the dps a disc brings is more substantial in 10s, but from all I've seen in our raids holy's doing fine. Ours is topping many fights with me, whereas other classes seem to struggle more.

Either it's a l2play issue from some holy priests pulling them down, or the class-balance in their raids is off. Again, from a 25 pov.
Not claiming disc isn't good, but saying holy is fine throughput-wise, and whereas absorbs are a nice nieche on many fights (most likely even more so on hc Lei Shen and Raden) it doesn't seem quite as "necessary" anymore on most fights. It can ease up situations a lot, but a necessity? Not so much.

Depending on what you're aiming at raiding, 10s, 25s, normals, heroics? Gear up a bit and I'll take you as holy to our raids if that's what you enjoy playing, as in the end, you should be allowed to play the spec you most enjoy playing, which is what our guild has respected thus far on the side of progressing on a semi "hc" level.

[Deleted]

Holy is fine in 25man after the divine hymn buff.

[Nightstorm]

Playing WoW on a 16" monitor is fine too but you just do see it being done.

[Orangelight]

I'm currently gearing for our 10-man ToT but they keep telling me that Discipline is what they'll accept.

[Deleted]

Gear up with them and I'll steal you away as Holy and we live happily ever after! Problem solved

[Orangelight]

Sounds great, Tenaru!

[Nightstorm]

I'm currently gearing for our 10-man ToT but they keep telling me that Discipline is what they'll accept.

That is the issue with priest right now. It used to be disc for pvp and Holy for pve so at least there was room for two healing specs. Hey I like the options but balancing around encounters doesn't factor balancing for popularity. Why would you take a Holy priest when a Disc priest is also a strong healer and will add to DPS? Holy is just not needed, nothing in it's arsenal to offset disc's addition to dps.

[Orangelight]

I just have trouble grasping a spec that literally spams a DPS ability to heal more than everyone else. Yeah, I know there's a little more to it, bubbles, etc, but still. :\

[Deleted]

If it makes you feel better, you can't rely on atonement too much on heroic 25's It's still nifty, but not by far my most used spells. Normals are a different story most of the time..

[vanityking]

If your guild requires your disc priest to be DPSing to meet a boss's enrage timer, something is wrong. Disc's DPS is supposed to be a plus and, while in LFR (and maybe regular Horridon) Atonement is usually all you need to keep everyone alive (even more so when you severely out-gear the content), it should not become your primary focus, you are a healer first and a support DPS second.

[holypriest]

I feel the same way about disc I hate playing it. Honestly if you can pull the same healing in both specs, your raid isn't dying and your guild isn't having problems meeting dps requirements it shouldn't matter which spec you are. You can always take both specs, if your raid is having trouble meeting dps requirements switch to disc if not play as holy.