Disc or Holy Priest for 10 man? ( with resto druid and holy pally )

[Mehdi]

Our Shadow priest is our backup healer, on days when our resto shaman isn't able to be around. Given the similarities b/w shadow and holy stats, he goes holy.

My question is - are there any major benefits to him going disc instead? Just curious to here some feedback that we may be overlooking.

Thanks!

[Chimaera]

There are a lot of benefits depending on the fights in question (kind of hard to say exactly without specifics) but you will not really see the benefits unless your priest really knows how to play discipline.
The major advantage that applies to all fights is the ability to add damage. Spirit Shell is able to take the bite out of burst mechanics.

[Deleted]

Disc. Spirit shell so broken. Just, so, so broken.

What's that you say, everyone down to 50% at 20% on blade lord? nah, spirit shell?

What's that you say, raid cool downs on rain of blades on wind lord? nah, spirit shell.

What's that you say, Lei shei's push back hurts? Nah, spirit shell.

I can go on. So very very broken

Also, good disc priests contribute 20k or so raid dps, can't complain.

[Clebane]

SS isn't broken. You have to know how to use it for it to work well. We still don't have good throughput, just damage prevention, IMHO that's way Disc is supposed to work.
Go disc.

[Saphyron]

As I am in the situation your shadow priest is in I would say let him go with what he is good at.

Personally I have always been Holy, I must say i haver changed to Shadow/Disc in this raid tier. Yes holy heals alot more than Disc BUT. Disc has a much easier mana management system As holy I can easily go OOM unless I control my mana. With Disc that seem to never be a problem unless it is one of the fights where I will be smite spamming like a mofo, and even there I go less OOM than in Holy. And as said before SS is good to negate mechanics, same with barrier. Yes it is costly to reforge constantly but what the hell have to use my gold on something.

Just click link below for my armory. Thats how i play it.

[Deleted]

As mentioned, spirit shell is very valuable from Disc but, it requires a knowledge of when the damage is gonna come before it happens, knowing when to pop it and start stacking it in preparation, then also stacking up Evangelism for AA before that too. I don't imagine being a pre-emptive healer being easy for an OS, who is not used to the damage patterns on different fights. Also he's right in that the stat priorities between Holy and Shadow are more similar, Disc is essentially the opposite priority and as Shadow he will have low mastery (low mastery = worse spirit shell).

Essentially agree with the above poster, when it's an OS you're better off having him go whichever he plays best, he'll contribute more that way whether it be Holy or Disc.

[Mehdi]

You guys rock. Thanks for the feedback!

[Deleted]

SS isn't broken. You have to know how to use it for it to work well. We still don't have good throughput, just damage prevention, IMHO that's way Disc is supposed to work.
Go disc.

Yes it is when you can completely negate all raid wide bosses abilities.
Zorlok Force and Verve lol jk spirit shell
Blade lord Unseen Strike same^
Garalon Crush-Pheromones same^
Wind lord Rain of Blades same^
Ambershaper ambers same^
Empress Dissonance Field same^

Do I need to continue?

[ramennoodleking]

Both specs are great, both shine in different situations. Disc can almost completely negate some boss mechanics that are otherwise debilitating, but there are other fights where holy will work out a lot better. I use both in raid.

[Deleted]

Disc doesn't have good throughput? These logs disagree.

Yes OP he should be disc, it is far better than holy right now on most fights.

[Deleted]

Disc doesn't have good throughput? These logs disagree.

Yes OP he should be disc, it is far better than holy right now on most fights.

Actually it is far better than any healers in every fight.

[Danner]

I did an LFR yesterday where the disc priest was more or less solohealing it. And due to the absorbs, the rest of us healers just didn't get any heals in.

End result: one disc priest doing 2x the healing of the rest of the five healers combined.

Though it has to be stated that this effect was self-reinforcing. I at least just ended up switching to the chastise chakra and smited my eyes out.
Fun fact that I found out yesterday: smite + chakra:chastise + holy fire glyph + smite glyph + raidbuffs is pretty good dps these days.

--

Disc WILL be nerfed. No questions about it. The question is when. And I suspect sooner rather than later.

[Xelaeno]

I would say if he knows the fight well and knows how to heal he should be disc. You have two excellent raw hps throughput healers, the damage mitigation would be great. However, if he doesn't know when stuff are going to hurt to pre-cast stuff, he will fail terribly as disc and waste half the spec's potential. So if he's not familiar with damage incoming for each encounter, I'd recommend him as holy to be more useful.

[voltaa]

Disc for sure, I did an msv pug on my alt priest the other day and pretty well solo healed spirit kings with spirit shell and PoH

[Deleted]

Actually it is far better than any healers in every fight.

Na Paladins are just as good on most fights, and better on some, likewise for disc.

[vellia]

As a 10 man hc raider, I have found disc more valuable in 10 man than holy. Specially since my other healing m8 are a resto druid and a holy pala. Disc priest and a resto druid, is just so good together. Disc get some aegis on the raid, and when a large raid damage comes, the priest prevents that the raid take too much damage afterwards, while the druid steady heal the raid up.
And in 10 man holy have a disadvantage, since you are less people. Much more benefit from the holy sanctuary and so on in a 25 man raid. The only place i use holy atm, is on tsulong, and sha of fear. For more single target healing. And guardian on Tsulong.