Priest healing specs in Nighthold

[ticki]

Hello,

I'm a mythic raider with 35 points in holy/disc and I have more than 12 million banked up in AP. The reason is because I am not sure what will be better in Nighthold. I would keep stockpiling but I am currently running out of bank space and need to start investing my AP into one of the weapons. I play both specs similarly well (orange parses with both specs on multiple boss fights, etc). We don't have a boomkin to feed me innervates when I'm disc, but I know firsthand that you don't need innervates to make disc work ( some will say that having a boomkin will change the decision so I am just including this information.)

I know many people will say that it doesn't matter because I am not bleeding edge progression (I don't disagree, it probably won't matter) but it will make me feel a little better getting multiple opinions on which spec will be better come Nighthold. I have fun on both specs but I think that splitting my AP on both weapons doesn't make much sense. Therefore, I want to make a decision to spend some of this AP. I haven't spent much time on PTR so if people that have tested Nighthold fights and/or the priest changes could inform me of a better decision, that would be great.

Thanks!

[Chestysown]

I have not tested, but IMO Disc will be a more unique spec with the coming tier...probably. Again, I have not tested.

[Deleted]

If you're capable of orange parses on both speccs and got an innervate I see no reason for you to pick whichever specc you find most enjoyable.

[Isheria]

If you've actually read you would have seen that he says that he doesn't have any boomkin innervate, in addition to that boomkin innervate is nerfed by 50% in 7.1.5. The answer is play whatever spec has the most optimized gear cause you know both specs require completely different gear from each other. Both specs are equally good and i'm telling you this as someone who have actually tested both in ptr.

[Cervellone]

I play disci and holy but if you can predict huge raid DMG 10 sec before It happens i tell you to play disci. The druid can innervate you if you want big numbers. And Remember that disci do DMG too but its hardest then holy to heal

[ticki]

If you've actually read you would have seen that he says that he doesn't have any boomkin innervate, in addition to that boomkin innervate is nerfed by 50% in 7.1.5. The answer is play whatever spec has the most optimized gear cause you know both specs require completely different gear from each other. Both specs are equally good and i'm telling you this as someone who have actually tested both in ptr.

Thanks for the post, I have both 888-889 gear optimized pretty well (welcome to m+ spam I suppose) for both specs as well, which is making this decision even harder for me. I am now out of bankspace now. I suppose I'll just yolo and make a decision soon...

If you're capable of orange parses on both speccs and got an innervate I see no reason for you to pick whichever specc you find most enjoyable.

I find both specs enjoyable, if that makes it any more difficult

[Deleted]

Thanks for the post, I have both 888-889 gear optimized pretty well (welcome to m+ spam I suppose) for both specs as well, which is making this decision even harder for me. I am now out of bankspace now. I suppose I'll just yolo and make a decision soon...



I find both specs enjoyable, if that makes it any more difficult

Then adapt to what your raid need. Disc is after all quite a niche healer.

[Dawnrage]

Level both up IMO. I think it will be worth it. Not to mention AP is pretty easy to get too once you hit AK 25.

[ticki]

Level both up IMO. I think it will be worth it. Not to mention AP is pretty easy to get too once you hit AK 25.

I will level up both eventually but I am talking about prep for nighthold (can't get to 54 on both!). Additional information, my only relevant legendary out of 4 is the holy waist. I have my loot specialization set to holy in hopes of the holy legs but if they don't drop, I think I will go all in on disc. If anybody else wants to offer additional opinions, please do.

[Dawnrage]

I guess it comes down to, are you comfortable playing disc? I honestly consider disc to be the better spec in a raid situation and worth having one. Holy has a bunch of issues, mostly with mobility, and none of it's strengths is strong enough to match the other healers. That doesn't really change in 7.1.5 since they are trying to move people away from flash heal spam. Disc has it's issues as well, but it brings pretty good single target DPS and more damage is never bad.

From the sounds of it, you play both, so you should kind of be able to figure out what you lean more to? Most people will steer towards holy since it's a lot less stressful to play to get good HPS, if that's your thing.

[Sukhoi]

Switch back and forth depending on the fights. If there's a burst, play disc. No burst? Holy. It's also to keep in mind the disc tier bonuses aren't great. I hate saying this because its a blanket excuse, but it's almost like blizzard doesn't play the spec. Disc priests want shield to break for mana restoring, yet blizzard made the bonuses an increase to healing on shield targets when shields pop after one melee. Our four piece doesn't really benefit gameplay, just makes the ramp up window more forgiving for rapture. Both specs will have their pros and cons.

[Rici]

It's also to keep in mind the disc tier bonuses aren't great.

Tier bonuses for Holy aren't too impressive as well.
Additionally there is only one (!) piece of the T19 set that will give us our best secondary stat (mastery) while the best stats for discs and also shadows (haste/crit) are on 5 out of 6 pieces...

[Syld]

Tier bonuses for Holy aren't too impressive as well.
Additionally there is only one (!) piece of the T19 set that will give us our best secondary stat (mastery) while the best stats for discs and also shadows (haste/crit) are on 5 out of 6 pieces...

This is no longer true, the stats on tier pieces were changed like 3 weeks ago on the PTR.

[ticki]

Switch back and forth depending on the fights. If there's a burst, play disc. No burst? Holy. It's also to keep in mind the disc tier bonuses aren't great. I hate saying this because its a blanket excuse, but it's almost like blizzard doesn't play the spec. Disc priests want shield to break for mana restoring, yet blizzard made the bonuses an increase to healing on shield targets when shields pop after one melee. Our four piece doesn't really benefit gameplay, just makes the ramp up window more forgiving for rapture. Both specs will have their pros and cons.

Hey, thanks for the response. So far on the 10 fights in legion, the fights where I've found disc to be superbly better has been ursoc, cenarius, ilgy and a little more lacking compared to holy on the other fights(I know others will say that disc is better for more fights but this is just my experience talking.)
All the other fights, I've found that I've preferred to play holy, thus I am starting to put points into holy slightly (just enough to free up bank space basically). It is a shame that I don't have any good legendaries to complement holy (and I feel holy is legendary dependant) but I feel that holy is looking like the way to go for me, unless patchnotes/playstyles change differently.

[Spike`]

i have the same question and not sure what to pick for Nighthold

we lost our holy priest and only have one balance druid that not show up regularly, so can't count to have that innervate

seeing some of the fatboss PTR videos (not all boss are there) some fights seems many random damage and 1 or 2 not so much

i love disc but losing holy priest, not having a resto druid and only having 50% change to have the balance druid to give me innervate in a raid night....

[T0oky]

Holy is much more reliable variant for you. DC is more like a niche healer. Unfortunately it does not have any strengths except very powerful burst healing. However it's very hard to keep it going on the progression, when the average fight lasts 6-8mins (or even 10, hello Helya), especially without boomkins. Moreover, DCs healing is not very reliable itself since you can only heal pre-buffed targets and can't switch very easily.

Holy has only one substantional weakness. It's ofc DH. There are some bosses where it's just impossible to use it when your raid needs it. However, in NH encounters are much less hectic than Helya, so it shouldn't be a real problem.

[ticki]

Just an update, I put my loot specialization to holy. If I got cloak or legs, I was going to switch to holy and if I got anything else, I was going to switch to disc. The renew legs dropped so I just dumped all my AP to holy! Good luck to the rest of you guys

[Razorrect]

Gz on the legs, dude! Solid lego

[Deleted]

This is no longer true, the stats on tier pieces were changed like 3 weeks ago on the PTR.

And we have decent mastery crit head while rest of the set is meh, 1 more piece got mastery.
But its not like our set bonus revolves around mastery.