Disc vs Holy

[Doogster]

I love healing as Holy.

Is disc that much more of a far superior spec then holy? If so why?

[Nosonia]

One is not better then the other.. they are very different..

Disc turns you into a single target healer, with SOME aoe healing capabilities... but not much. The majority of your heals are your shields and penance, and your mana regen is based around proper shielding.

Holy is for AOE healing. The AOE chakra makes holy extremely powerful in AOE healing situations. Very fast renews, holy word, circle of healing, etc..

Disc is only better then holy when comparing single vs single.
Holy is better then disc when comparing aoe vs aoe.

In my opinion.. if you find yourself using the single target chakra.. disc will be better off.

[Deleted]

I prefer Disc in 5 man dungeons, and Holy in PvP and raids. I know alot of people will disagree but I personally think that Holy is the better tree.

[Maladi]

Actually, both specs have fairly comparable AoE healing, and disc's tank healing is marginally better. The main thing though is that they heal differently and have different cooldowns. Disc is more proactive (they use a lot of shields before the damage occurs) and holy is very reactive. They're both viable, and raids will generally want both so which spec you should play is determined largely by personal preference and the needs of your specific raid.

[yurano]

With the new Holy Word: Serenity change, shouldn't Holy be at least decent for single target healing? In Serenity Chakra, Serenity keeps Renew up on the target and heals for 12.5K or so every 7 seconds. It also buffs the next heal for ~25% (usually this heal is Greater Heal).

[Antti]

Both are good.
Choose your favorite, because you will play better with it.

For example: I don't holy, ever. I don't like it and it shows. However I am an exceptional disc priest in both tank and aoe situations.

[Doogster]

Thank you for the responses. I shared similar views to most of the comments above.

I personally prefer holy because I like the AE healing in raids, that's my preferred play style. I feel people say disc is better because that is basically what most priests play.

Seeing s how I am gearing up my priest I probably should go disc for 5 mans for now, however I never really had issues healing 5 mans as holy either. Any comments in this regard?

[Maladi]

With the new Holy Word: Serenity change, shouldn't Holy be at least decent for single target healing? In Serenity Chakra, Serenity keeps Renew up on the target and heals for 12.5K or so every 7 seconds. It also buffs the next heal for ~25% (usually this heal is Greater Heal).

Holy's tank healing was already decent. Our only real disadvantage is sustaining it. Serendipity gives us access to some of the highest single target HPS in the game on demand, and now Serenity is pretty awesome.

[Deleted]

disc is superior in pvp. pretty sure it doesnt really matter in pve.

[Biggayshammy]

Both are good.
Choose your favorite, because you will play better with it.

For example: I don't holy, ever. I don't like it and it shows. However I am an exceptional disc priest in both tank and aoe situations.

Im with this guy. Im holy right now because I want to see how awesome it is in 10m.. i 25m LFR i was always top heals on PTR...

Holy feels sloppy to me but it keeps me more alert cause i dont have to rely on my bubbles to keep someone alive.. Disc just feels more "professional" does that makes sense? lol

[Yetiman]

Your raid composition also affects how your healing output with either spec will perform. For example, in Ragnaros H my group uses a holy Pally and a Disc priest (she hates disc :P) while in other fights you might wanna go with holy. There's a sinergy between healing classes that can really improve a raid's survivability, by the mere fact that it's these different classes.

For example, in your classic 10 man raid, you'll have 3 healers (generally speaking). Your best approach is to have a strong tank healer, a strong aoe healer and good spot healer/utility/"whatever floats your boat" guy (xD). Then, each fight differs in its strategy and the way you should be healing it.

In general terms (and PLEASE correct me if I'm mistaken), each spec can cover 2 of the 3 alternatives I described above very well, and the third alternative with varying degrees of success, but generally less useful unless you are over-geared for the encounter (which for discussions sake let's say we are not).

These are my appreciations, so please take them as that, not as law :P :

Strong tank healer: Holy Pally>Disc priest = Resto Shaman (mastery reforged for 4.3) > Holy priest= Resto Druid
Strong Aoe Healer: Resto druid = Holy Priest >= Resto Shaman haste reforged (haven't seen the numbers though, could be way off) > Disc priest > Holy Pally
Spot/utility healer: Really depends on your raid comp. In my groups case, we've got the following:

Holy pally, holy priest and disc priest (me). This comp grants good sinergy because the pally is quite adept at maintaining both tanks up, the holy priest can aoe heal large amounts of damage and I can absorb incoming damage spikes (Bethilac H FTW).

Another good comp would be Holy pally, resto druid, priest (either one, though I'd recommend Disc, since having two strong aoe healers can cause conflicting priorities and plenty of overhealing besides).

Basically, you should try for one of each type of healer in your raid (in 10 mans), and hopefully don't repeat the specs (having a disc and holy priest is still quite viable, although for healing with 2 healers it's a bit more complicated, but doable in most scenarios if your healers know what they're doing).

Maybe I answered your question, maybe I didn't :P. Did you have a specific scenario in mind for choosing between Holy over disc? As in, do you heal dungeons, bg's, raids, heroic raids, etc.?

[Deleted]

I like to think of Disc as a multi single target healer as appose to a single target healer where most people think strictly tank healing, Disc does really well when multiple people are taking random single target spike damage it is raid healing but not in the same style as holy.

My personal knowledge of holy is limited so I can't really comment on how exactly it heals these days.


As for 5 mans think of it this way, as Holy when a player is hit he loses HP which you need to heal but with Disc the absorb is basically adding extra HP on top of a players normal health and above their max so their health bars are not constantly jumping up and down and when it comes to healing them Disc single target spells are equal to that of a holy priest.

So its a tossup of generally faster cast heals from Holy or more HP and strong single target healing from Disc.

[Yetiman]

[QUOTE=CoolNitro;14425567]I like to think of Disc as a multi single target healer as appose to a single target healer where most people think strictly tank healing, Disc does really well when multiple people are taking random single target spike damage it is raid healing but not in the same style as holy.

[/QUOTE

This is exactly what I meant by utility/spot heal, thanks bro! Yes, in many cases you might want someone in charge of topping off people, aiding the tank healer with shields, help with PoH if needed, etc. As everyone keeps repeating, it really just depends on your play-style, and in my case it fits me perfectly.

[Verth Aeyta]

As a healing raiding priest I actually keep both a Holy spec and a Disc spec (as I'm the only healing priest in my guild anyway) this is to allow me the versatility to change to fit the fight I am attempting, Disc I find is great at fights that have wonky spikes of dmg that happen to individuals (orb soakers, dot ticks, ect) and Holy is great when there is pretty constant AoE dmg as well as some "OH SHIT he's going to die!" (raid wide AoE dmg, GS on tanks who take spiky damage), this is not to say one can't do the other but in my experience that's the line that gets drawn between the two. Now I have raid healed as disc and done it successfully and I have used Holy in fights that have little to no AoE dmg and done it successfully. You play what you find to be comfortable, I'm fortunate that I can play both specs comfortably and can transition between the two with ease.

[Yetiman]

I use to run with both specs at the beginning of the expansion, then when my guild started doing rated BG's I switched to Disc PVE / Disc PVP, and finally when we started doing heroic FL I switched my OS to shadow since the other two healers had crap for DPS gear :P. I liked the idea of switching between holy and disc depending on the fight, but, as you say, it requires different playstyles and, in some some cases, different mindsets. Besides, to really get the most out of either spec (for min/max purposes) you would have to duplicate most of your gear with different reforges (not all of it, but plenty enough to be significant).

[Doogster]

Great responses guys, im going to go holy for a while then test out disc as my gear gets better. Reasoning, I just prefer holy.