Is Disc playable in 5-mans? (With bad groups)

[Saberstrike]

I leveled up a priest alt and noticed that 100% of dungeons I do go this way:

Good group -- no one takes damage, I do fine.

Bad group -- DPS and tanks die in seconds, group-wide damage all around, no one does anything to avoid aoe; I feel very useless because people often die before I can even set up my atonements.

My question is, is there some secret way to play Disc as a 5-man healer for bad groups, or is it hopeless and I should just stick to holy? -- because I noticed how holy can carry horrible groups by just pumping pure hps into everyone with no stupid buff management, while disc struggles with pumping HP into people in even the mildest of stress-situations.

[Deleted]

My question is, is there some secret way to play Disc as a 5-man healer for bad groups.

Shadow mend with grace and twist of fate talented.

[Deleted]

Tbh, this 1st expansion I ever played holy, for sole reason I couldnt heal as disc in 5 mans. I always loved disc, but it just dont work, at least in legion 5 mans. People were dieing left and right and I just gave up.
Spamming shadow mend isnt my idea of fun healing.

[vulena]

Yes. I know this because I only do M+ and routinely pug with terrible groups. We're actually better suited to it than a lot of others, thanks to the power of Penance and Shadow Mend.

You just have to be a bit ahead of the game and keep up Atonement a lot and drink between pulls.

[anon5123]

Tbh, this 1st expansion I ever played holy, for sole reason I couldnt heal as disc in 5 mans. I always loved disc, but it just dont work, at least in legion 5 mans. People were dieing left and right and I just gave up.
Spamming shadow mend isnt my idea of fun healing.

It's either spam Shadowmend as Disc, or spam Serenity + Flash Heal as Holy. Not much of a difference. In higher M+, ALL healers end up spamming their strongest ST heal nonstop.

Disc has it nice though, since Shadowmend is the strongest "flash heal" spell in the game (it has the highest base SP %) and Grace only makes it that much better. You can often crit people for 30-40% of their health with a Shadowmend.

As for OP, yes, Disc is perfectly viable in 5mans. Better than Holy sometimes, due to the extra DPS you can put out. Makes M+ go by faster.

[Nathasil]

Playable? Yes. Enjoyable? Highly subjective.

First, let's agree on what a "bad group" actually is. Imho a bad group is 2 weak DPS that stand in absolutely EVERYTHING, 1 DPS afking at the entrance and a tank that never stops running even though the mobs he pulls obviously don't die anywhere fast enough to warrant this tactic. Since all tanks except DKs have FAR superior movement speed compared to priests, this means you will lose him, sooner or later, and stand in unavoidable CC/AOE abilities by the trashmobs he pulled, trying to keep yourself - and the 2 DPS that actually played - alive while the tank is far, far away.

That, in my oppinion, is a "bad group"...and very common to get in LFG 5mans, which i assume the OP is talking about.

Imho, Disc is not suited for these groups at all. The CDs are shit. Nobody stands long enough in place to use a Barrier and Pain Suppression is a joke compared to other healer CDs. You will have Penance and PW:Shield. Anything else requires standing still, which you will not be able to do in these groups. You can use Plea to setup atonements and trigger them with Penance, which will work better in 7.2.5 because of the extremely extended duration of atonement. Currently it does not work well if you have no time to stand still and hard cast.

Shadowmend was mentioned a lot here. The Question is: If you are constantly forced to use shadowmend...what advantage does Disc offer you compared to Holy? That's really the question it comes down to. Holy has FAR better CDs for bad groups. Hymn and Guardian can actually save someone from death. Yes, you have to stand still for Hymn to cast, but it will actually save everybody 40m ahead and behind you. The most important spell, however, is Serendipidy. Serendipidy is God Mode for Bad Groups. While Disc-Players often say spamming Shadowmend or Spamming Flash Heal is the same - it's not: Spamming Shadowmend makes you feel useless, because you have to abandon ALL of you spec's strenghts to cast it. Spamming Flash Heal resets Seredipidy, which on it's own blows all the cooldowns of Disc COMBINED out of the water for bad groups.

And that's completely ignoring Sanctify, which, again, is better than all of the Cooldowns Disc offers for bad groups.

I totally expect someone to answer with: "Dude, i'm ilvl915, i don't give a shit about LFG 5mans!" - the OP did not state which kind of content he or she means. Some people would call a M+ 17 group that fails to meet the timer a "bad group". So the definition is obviously very subjective.

From my own experience:
If you are not overgearing the content and have a bad group that actually needs heavy healing to not wipe at every third pull - Holy is ALWAYS able to save and carry these groups. Thanks to Seredipidy and Guardian you might actually have FUN saving people from certain death.
If you tried the same as Disc people will die, without you being able to prevent it. You won't be able to use atonement and constantly spam shadowmend, which will make you feel like a 1.0 Cloth-Paladin.

[Nurasu]

I disagree completely ^. You hit people with shadowmend to keep them up and every 6 seconds you can hit penance for a ton of healing on everyone you've shadowmended. You're one of the most mobile healers in between trash packs thanks to being able to shield and then follow thru with penance/ start multidotting and rolling in those HoT heals. Pain Suppression with the artifact trait is actually probably one of the better single target CDs in the game and doesn't end if they take too much damage, which is the whole point of using something like that. You should already have atonement on everyone at most times, making barrier with the trait incredibly effective - 1) how often are you so spread in 5 mans that you won't hit at least 3-4 people?? 2) it's instant 3) you can do other stuff right after you cast it 4) one penance will top every player in it. Disc struggles with grievous affix and that's about it. Shadowmend with Grace and ToF is also stronger than Serenity and has no CD, FYI [edit] - this isn't quite true I guess, but it's not far off considering you can chain cast it.

- - - Updated - - -

Obviously I'm a little biased, but to me Holy feels like trying to keep the ship from sinking with Flash Heal until you can hit Serenity again.

[Saberstrike]

the OP did not state which kind of content he or she means.

Mainly fresh 110 stuff as I just dinged with the priest, my experience of disc being difficult / fiddly (compared to holy) is from level-up dungeons. I got like 7x eye of azshara via random dungeon, and the snake-boss is always hell. Everyone's running around out of range, no one's killing extra heads, there's so much group damage my disc heals do -nothing-. Meanwhile if I go holy it's not even a challenge.

Imho, Disc is not suited for these groups at all. The CDs are shit. Nobody stands long enough in place to use a Barrier and Pain Suppression is a joke compared to other healer CDs. You will have Penance and PW:Shield. Anything else requires standing still, which you will not be able to do in these groups.

<...>

Shadowmend was mentioned a lot here. The Question is: If you are constantly forced to use shadowmend...what advantage does Disc offer you compared to Holy?

This kind of sums up my thoughts, actually. What's the point of all this weird and annoying-to-manage atonement nonsense when all you do is just spam shadowmend? Wasn't shadowmend meant to be an emergency heal, rather than something you're spamming as a 'core ability'? I also may be wrong but for w/e reason it feels like holy actually does MORE downtime DPS than Disc for those runs where tank is immortal, at least during leveling. While also being able to pump out much more emergency healing. No joke, I've had higher HPS with 100% renew uptime than when I had 5 atonements on everything at all times.

Maybe disc is just not for me, as I see people are mentioning how they're having a lot of success.

[Raiz]

You're not wrong. Disc performs horribly in pugs. And it doesn't help either if you just dinged 110. It'll be slightly better with stuff, but you'll still have to spam shadowmend all day long with retarded groups.

[Memento1]

Nathasil, your argument is pretty terrible. You put Disc under the "worst case scenario" where you can't stand still and hard-cast, but do not do the same for Holy. If Holy can't hard cast, it's....renew? And wait a minute for Serenity / Sanctify since you can't hard-cast to get Serendipity. If you'll allow Holy some wiggle room for hard-casting, you must grant the same for Disc.

OP, Disc can actually do quite well, but it takes more practice and more experience than other specs, and for this reason I rarely recommend it as an alt / casual toon. As Disc is proactive, you can't reactively apply atonements after damage has happened. You should have atonements on people before the damage hits. This isn't too hard to do since Shield and Plea are instant and fairly cheap - just keep them up all the time if you can't predict damage. The other difficulty is simply getting a feel for how much atonement heals for, so you know when you can heal with atonement alone and when it needs to be supplemented with Shadowmend or a CD. When I was learning Disc, I tried to heal everything with atonement. I needed to get comfortable with using Shadowmend and CDs, and be able to weave them all together appropriately to play Disc successfully. As stated above, Disc in dungeons also has a pretty set talent selection, so if you don't take Grace, for instance, you're pretty much just shooting yourself in the foot. Grace, Castigation, ToF, and Mindbender are pretty standard talents for dungeoning.

If that all sounds like too much work, that's fine. It is just a game and if you don't want to work to improve when there's plenty of healers that do well out-of-the-box, that's completely understandable. But I want to dispel the myth that Disc is simply incapable of healing well with a bad group.

[Shiny212]

Nathasil, your argument is pretty terrible. You put Disc under the "worst case scenario" where you can't stand still and hard-cast, but do not do the same for Holy. If Holy can't hard cast, it's....renew? And wait a minute for Serenity / Sanctify since you can't hard-cast to get Serendipity. If you'll allow Holy some wiggle room for hard-casting, you must grant the same for Disc.

OP, Disc can actually do quite well, but it takes more practice and more experience than other specs, and for this reason I rarely recommend it as an alt / casual toon. As Disc is proactive, you can't reactively apply atonements after damage has happened. You should have atonements on people before the damage hits. This isn't too hard to do since Shield and Plea are instant and fairly cheap - just keep them up all the time if you can't predict damage. The other difficulty is simply getting a feel for how much atonement heals for, so you know when you can heal with atonement alone and when it needs to be supplemented with Shadowmend or a CD. When I was learning Disc, I tried to heal everything with atonement. I needed to get comfortable with using Shadowmend and CDs, and be able to weave them all together appropriately to play Disc successfully. As stated above, Disc in dungeons also has a pretty set talent selection, so if you don't take Grace, for instance, you're pretty much just shooting yourself in the foot. Grace, Castigation, ToF, and Mindbender are pretty standard talents for dungeoning.

If that all sounds like too much work, that's fine. It is just a game and if you don't want to work to improve when there's plenty of healers that do well out-of-the-box, that's completely understandable. But I want to dispel the myth that Disc is simply incapable of healing well with a bad group.

Regardless of skill level it will perform worse than holy priest, paladin, resto shaman/druid in mediocre gear with "bad" group. No one's saying disc cant be made to work, but in 5mans where people fuck up alot, virtually any other healing specc can be made to work better. Like you said, proactive, that means when people take damage they're not supposed to, disc has the hardest time fixing the problem.

[anon5123]

If you are constantly forced to use shadowmend...what advantage does Disc offer you compared to Holy?

Shadowmend being much stronger than Flash Heal, is the advantage.

"ohh but Serenity!!"

has a cooldown, Shadowmend does not.

[Atharaxie]

Shadowmend being much stronger than Flash Heal, is the advantage.

That's a correct statement often used but eluding a bit of reality here.
SM leaves a dot, FH leaves a hot.
Grace boosts SM by 30% Trail of Light boosts FH by 40%
ToF will boost SM as much as Light of T'uure and Blessing of T'uure boost FH
Let's add that Surge of Light and T'uure will free heal.
And as you spam FH you'll eventually get your Serenity.

In the end, Shadomend is stronger than FH, but Holy spec is built around the usage of FH while Disc isn't built around SM.

I do my high keys with friends as Disc but I rather pug as Holy.

[Kylista6]

You're not wrong. Disc performs horribly in pugs. And it doesn't help either if you just dinged 110. It'll be slightly better with stuff, but you'll still have to spam shadowmend all day long with retarded groups.

luls. No different from spamming flash heal, while waiting for serendipity.


If you aren't taking advantage of your damage cds and abilities, disc is going to feel like it cannot keep up with healing.

Serpent in EoA: atonement on everyone. right before 66%, rapture and get a shield on everyone. pop fiend, stand still and penance/smite. nobody will die. reapply atonement, pop light's wrath, and then top people up with shadowmend. There's no downside to using shadowmend on people, as they will either A)take damage and negate shadowmend's dot, or B) atonement through multidotting will out heal it. Another beauty, is that someone with atonement can out range you and still receive healing from you, great for those people that go off to dps the other heads.

Run Grace, ToF, and Mindbender for 5mans.

[Kokolums]

I have a 110 disc priest, 110 druid and 110 shaman. I've healed with them all. Honestly they are all easy if you stick to one rule: always be pushing heal buttons. I notice when I'm not always pushing heal buttons, I can get overwhelmed just because I have to get into the mindset of always pushing heal buttons. But if I'm always in that mental state, its easy.

[pseudoJ]

It's either spam Shadowmend as Disc, or spam Serenity + Flash Heal as Holy. Not much of a difference. In higher M+, ALL healers end up spamming their strongest ST heal nonstop.

Disc has it nice though, since Shadowmend is the strongest "flash heal" spell in the game (it has the highest base SP %) and Grace only makes it that much better. You can often crit people for 30-40% of their health with a Shadowmend.

As for OP, yes, Disc is perfectly viable in 5mans. Better than Holy sometimes, due to the extra DPS you can put out. Makes M+ go by faster.

Disc is way more mana hungry than holy is -- which on tyranical bosses can be huge problem.
Disc doesn't really have a "oh-shit" button, nor does it have a strong cooldown to deal with stuff -- and apotheosis is hell of a cooldown.
Something like Bursting is going to be hell for disc unless the group is well organised.

According to wowprogress the highest holy priest has about 2.6k M+ rating, while highest discipline player sits at 2.35k M+ rating. There is also a reason why there are almost none discipline priests in top 50 -- not only is the spec difficult to play, it also has recovery issues (sometimes you can't really predict who get's hit by what in m+).

Holy is not the best M+ healer either (Although according to wowprogress it's doing better than I expected), however it has a toolkit better suited for the level of unpredictability M+ dungeons posses.

- - - Updated - - -

I have a 110 disc priest, 110 druid and 110 shaman. I've healed with them all. Honestly they are all easy if you stick to one rule: always be pushing heal buttons. I notice when I'm not always pushing heal buttons, I can get overwhelmed just because I have to get into the mindset of always pushing heal buttons. But if I'm always in that mental state, its easy.

What levels are you running? The gap between resto druids and the other two healers is simply of fact -- on average druids are over 200 M+ score rating above priests.

[Deleted]

Honestly it's all about what spec you learn to play. I can dish out 1.3m HPS on hard trash packs as Holy, I can't as disc. I played Holy since release, I just recently started playing disc.

[Kuruption]

Yes, definitely. Plus you kill stuff faster because you're dpsing most of the time.

Just takes a lot of practice to get comfortable with it.

[Nurasu]

That's a correct statement often used but eluding a bit of reality here.
SM leaves a dot, FH leaves a hot.
Grace boosts SM by 30% Trail of Light boosts FH by 40%
ToF will boost SM as much as Light of T'uure and Blessing of T'uure boost FH
Let's add that Surge of Light and T'uure will free heal.
And as you spam FH you'll eventually get your Serenity.

In the end, Shadomend is stronger than FH, but Holy spec is built around the usage of FH while Disc isn't built around SM.

I do my high keys with friends as Disc but I rather pug as Holy.

This isn't the entire picture either, because SM sets you up to use Penance on the same people you've used SM on every 6 seconds. Disc is built around SM and its other atonement applicators, but not to the extent Holy is perhaps.

- - - Updated - - -

I'd even add that SM absolutely does leave a HoT as well, if you have SW or PtW up on at least one target =]

[Yunzi]

Pre-pull, early-pull, and downtime with Clarity of Will - then it's relatively easy when things go south - everyone has a damage cushion. CoW remains the most underrated spell for M+.