Disc vs. Shadow - Viability in Mythic+

[mjmiller704]

Up until Legion, I've primary spent my time in game in Areans or BGs, however the concept of Mythic+ really intrigues me. I'm stuck trying though trying to decide which class I want to main spec before Legion comes out.

The reason why it's a concern now, is because I don't want to start dumping my artifact power into one weapon, only to, down the road, regret my decision and switch. To my knowledge there's no way to "refund" artifact power at this time - please stop my now if there is.

Furthermore, I want to chose a spec that's going to be both viable in PVP (3's mostly) and Mythic+ dungeons (I know, I'm asking for a lot here). I already know Shadow is going to be a strong contender in 3's and I'm fairly certain Disc will be as well (I think, I hope). What I don't know, is where do they both stand in Mythic+.

I've stayed away from Legion Dungeons on the beta to avoid spoilers, but on live, they seem to struggle with AoE healing (at least compared to other healers). Has anyone played either spec on the beta, in Mythic+ and would care to share their experience?

I'm sure it'll come up, so let me get it out of the way --- I have no interest in playing Holy. Yes, I know they're an amazing healer. They spec as a whole does not appeal to me, the whole "holy light" thing. I like Disc and Shadow, because of the lore surrounding them and it's what kept me playing a priest for 8 years now.

Thanks in advance for the feedback!

[Servos]

You can maintain 2 artifact weapons for one class with very little downside. 3, not so much.

No one can decide for you what spec is best for you in Mythic+.

[Aydinx2]

You can keep up 2 artifacts without a problem.
But if you really wanna focus, I'd go shadow.
Healers are always needed but Disc is in an unknown area right now.

[Biggles Worth]

Would not needing to have attonement on players so they receive healing from damage been too strong or? I've always played a disc priest and have tried doing a normal dungeon at at very first glance I thought of how convenient not needing to get an attonement on a player will be. I'll need to do an actual dungeon difficulty and have more hands on time to figure out where I stand with the changes. So I'm curious as well to the viability.

[Seneca]

To my knowledge there's no way to "refund" artifact power at this time - please stop my now if there is.

Afaik, there's a way but it costs a lot (of artifact power if I am not wrong), it's not worth basically.

Furthermore, I want to chose a spec that's going to be both viable in PVP (3's mostly) and Mythic+ dungeons (I know, I'm asking for a lot here). I already know Shadow is going to be a strong contender in 3's and I'm fairly certain Disc will be as well (I think, I hope). What I don't know, is where do they both stand in Mythic+.

I've stayed away from Legion Dungeons on the beta to avoid spoilers, but on live, they seem to struggle with AoE healing (at least compared to other healers). Has anyone played either spec on the beta, in Mythic+ and would care to share their experience?

Shadow priests are god tier PvP wise. They share their throne with fire mages (as casters) and sub/outlaw rogues, ww monks, arms warriors (not sure about uh/frost dks).

Dpriests are trash tier PvP wise.

1Rshaman>2Hpally>3Rdruid=3MWMonk>4Dpriest>4Hpriest.


Mythic dungeons wise shadow gets better the higher the Mythic dungeon is, dunno if it eventually catches up with the god tier ones.

Discipline seems to get worse the higher the Mythic dungeon is. Higher is the damage, more useless atonement becomes. It doesn't even seem good to begin with in lower mythics tbh.


All of that is subjective ofc. Someone (with more experience hopefully) might tell you otherwise.

Would not needing to have attonement on players so they receive healing from damage been too strong or? I've always played a disc priest and have tried doing a normal dungeon at at very first glance I thought of how convenient not needing to get an attonement on a player will be. I'll need to do an actual dungeon difficulty and have more hands on time to figure out where I stand with the changes. So I'm curious as well to the viability.

Eventually the damage gets so high that atonement won't be enough. It might probably be too high from base Mythic tbh.

You are supposed to heal by spamming Shadow Mend, the point is that atonement is a huge part of disci playstyle (it is its mastery too) so without atonment the gameplay (and probably the performance) is/are hit severely.

[Franarok]

The atonement is a problem indeed.

Discipline damage doesnt scale well, so his heals are becoming lower and lower as you advance on the difficulty. And on dungeons, you only can spam SM.




People could say what they want...but with old discipline you do more things and uses more spells in dungeons than now xDD (at least a good discipline)

Also on raid, now isntead spam shield you spam plea and use penance to heal them.....The old you use shields as now plea, then penance to heal, same than now, a flash like now SM, place a dot on the boss like now.... But before you also had holy nova, cod, a real area heal and all other spells they quit

Andput a shield instead plea is way more efficient by sooo much. Even place near any other dot is way more efficient than plea unless when you can use penance

[Saiyoran]

Disc is pretty strong for mythic+, even at 10+. I've healed most of the dungeons on 10+ now. Shadow is pretty weak until you get to 10+, where it becomes middle of the pack.

Disc is trash for Arena.

[Flowsion]

Shadow MIGHT be ok, but other classes will still destroy it. Disc sucks compared to other healers in mythic+ dungeons atm, but holy is one of the best. If you're looking to actually do high lvl mythic+ dungeons, both disc and shadow are probably viable up to lvl 10. Shadow looks really good in pvp tho, and since you aren't interested in holy, just go shadow.

[PeopleReady]

Disc is pretty strong for mythic+, even at 10+. I've healed most of the dungeons on 10+ now. Shadow is pretty weak until you get to 10+, where it becomes middle of the pack.

Disc is trash for Arena.

And here I am, not even able to heal regular PuG mythics as disc with ~705 ilvl haha. Probably a good thing I gave up the spec.

[Saiyoran]

Disc sucks compared to other healers in mythic+ dungeons atm, but holy is one of the best. If you're looking to actually do high lvl mythic+ dungeons, both disc and shadow are probably viable up to lvl 10.

This just isn't true. Disc is very strong for Mythic+, even when you stop being able to dps much, because shadowmend is an absolute fuckton of tank throughput, barrier is very useful for the dungeons that have groupwide near-one-shots like Darkheart and Blackrook, and on trash packs you essentially get to dps the whole time if your tank isn't total garbage. People mistake not being able to exclusively atonement heal with being useless, when Disc has some extremely strong single target throughput healing. The only healers I'd say beat it are RDruid and HPally. Holy is nice for Serenity, but when you're fighting bosses like Tyrannical Oakheart or Tyrannical General (Arcway) the tank damage is too consistently high for Flash Heal to deal with in the way that Shadowmend can. The DPS from disc in Mythic+ is very significant if you've got the correct trinkets and talent setup (Schism is the big one).

[Fleckens]

This just isn't true. Disc is very strong for Mythic+, even when you stop being able to dps much, because shadowmend is an absolute fuckton of tank throughput, barrier is very useful for the dungeons that have groupwide near-one-shots like Darkheart and Blackrook, and on trash packs you essentially get to dps the whole time if your tank isn't total garbage. People mistake not being able to exclusively atonement heal with being useless, when Disc has some extremely strong single target throughput healing. The only healers I'd say beat it are RDruid and HPally. Holy is nice for Serenity, but when you're fighting bosses like Tyrannical Oakheart or Tyrannical General (Arcway) the tank damage is too consistently high for Flash Heal to deal with in the way that Shadowmend can. The DPS from disc in Mythic+ is very significant if you've got the correct trinkets and talent setup (Schism is the big one).

Sounds like you have pretty decent experience with healing mythic+. Disc seems pretty interesting but I can't really decide if I should go with it or holy as my offspec for healing mythic+. Would you say it's just as viable for 5 man as holy? I don't care about raids, not planning on healing there.

[anon5123]

The atonement is a problem indeed.

Discipline damage doesnt scale well, so his heals are becoming lower and lower as you advance on the difficulty. And on dungeons, you only can spam SM.

Yeah, as much as I love Disc, I'm probably going to end up going Holy for first artifact, just to play it safe.

I'm fairly confident Blizz will buff Disc though, just like they did at the beginning of Cata. Even if it's just for 5mans, buffing it the same way they did Divine Hymn: make it heal for XX% more when you're not in a raid.

[Saiyoran]

Sounds like you have pretty decent experience with healing mythic+. Disc seems pretty interesting but I can't really decide if I should go with it or holy as my offspec for healing mythic+. Would you say it's just as viable for 5 man as holy? I don't care about raids, not planning on healing there.

It really depends on your group comp to be completely honest. Holy does better at dealing with unpredictable burst damage (people getting hit by things they shouldn't, standing in fire), but actually has less sustained single target throughput than Disc does (since mana isn't a concern in Mythic+ due to frequent opportunities to drink). Also, most people won't do this, but running with 2 tanks makes Disc pretty amazing, since it covers up your biggest weakness (healing spikes) by allowing tanks to swap frequently. Just a fun little thing you can try.

If you're planning on pugging most Mythic+ dungeons, Holy is a better choice. If you're planning on pushing high Mythic+ with a group of players that can avoid mechanics well, you start hitting Keystone levels where the difficulty comes solely through unavoidable damage, tank damage, and dps checks (Tyrannical bosses can take 3-4 minutes and the dungeon timers start getting really tight because of this). This is where I think Disc shines the most. Our DPS in dungeons is pretty significant, especially on bosses, which helps with the timer, our sustained tank throughput is good due to Shadowmend being extremely strong on targets where the DoT portion won't tick, and we have one of the very few effective health increases in the game with PW:S or CoW (though Clarity you really need timers to use correctly as it's only useful at countering mechanics that will one-shot people, and is otherwise a bad choice since Halo is a LOT of damage). Most of your wipes in a Tyrannical dungeon are going to be to things like Nightmare Bolt on Shade of Xavius, which is an unavoidable random target nuke that can deal over 100% of your dps's hp pool. You can't deal with it outside of personals or shields (or an external if yours is short enough cd, which Holy and Disc's aren't), or Hyrja's Expel Light, which does a similar thing but in a predictable way that allows Clarity to be used effectively given that your tank isn't getting destroyed.

I just personally feel Holy has less tools to deal with those situations, despite its superior AoE healing throughput and spot healing with Serenity.

I'd say the specs are pretty close overall.

[mjmiller704]

Thanks for taking the time to reply! I find the concept of Mythic+ to be very fascinating. I haven't raided on a competitive level since WotLK and I think raid-like difficult on a much smaller scale suits me best! That being said, I can't say if I'll get into at an ultra-high tier or if I'll be stuck pugging each week.

That being said though, I'm just not a fan of Holy Maybe it's because in the 8 years I've played, I've never really given it a solid chance. I just enjoy the concept of Disc so much more. I think I'm leaning more towards main spec'ing Disc.

Sort of an off topic question, maybe you know, how is artifact power applied to the weapon? I know you get artifact power doing pretty much everything, but lets say it's a quest reward, as soon as you turn into the quest, is it applied to your current spec's weapon, or is it in the form of an item, which you can use on the weapon of your choosing?

I guess essentially my question is, can I quest as Shadow and not be forced into using my artifact power? Assuming that I choose to dump it all into Disc? Or would I be forced to change specs anytime I suspect an AP reward coming up?

[Deleted]

I don't see disc as being a good choice for high mythic. Been watching a m10 run y-day, and damage on party was kinda insane, considering they were promising to "slow down the healing". At the very least, you will need way more mana breaks than other healers, since shadow mend is the only thing in your arsenal that can keep up with the damage.