So 5.3 caused disc to be miles ahead again.

[Noradin]

you just see 5 x more disc because holy is harder to manage (plus the out-gearing thing lol).

It is? I never noticed, I find it actually really easy (and I played all healers save monks), you always have a button for (almost) every situation.
If I'm feeling lazy and not in the mood to cast only atonement spells I just switch to holy and it plays more than ok even with disc gear (no haste; ~10k spirit, because my job is to be reliable and having mana to spare for emergencies).

[ramennoodleking]

Playing holy like you described above sound absolutely awful.

[Deleted]

Im pretty sure most priests play disc because it is more fun and not because it is easier. Yes its easier to snipe healing on shit easy fights but in general neither holy nor disc is really that hard. As a disc you also feel a lot more useful when your absorbs helps with stabilizing your raid while doing competitive healing and also doing 50k+ dps. I remember the days where disc priests were shit if you just looked at healing/absorb numbers but it was still so much better to bring atleast 1 disc priest just to keep the raid stable.

[meddle]

The only thing that is "hard" about playing Holy is not spamming your mana away... which is really easy to do, even with the meta gem and good gear.

[ramennoodleking]

Im pretty sure most priests play disc because it is more fun and not because it is easier. Yes its easier to snipe healing on shit easy fights but in general neither holy nor disc is really that hard. As a disc you also feel a lot more useful when your absorbs helps with stabilizing your raid while doing competitive healing and also doing 50k+ dps. I remember the days where disc priests were shit if you just looked at healing/absorb numbers but it was still so much better to bring atleast 1 disc priest just to keep the raid stable.

Most play disc because it is currently the better spec. I guarantee if holy was considered better due to utility/etc more would play it.

Disc is easier to achieve numbers on, but just like holy it has a high skill cap. Fun, however, is completely subjective. I think disc is boring as crap but I play it because it is currently better.

[Flura]

This describes how you feel with all that X-yards Atonement-Healing


Left one is Disci, right is some Healer

[vanityking]

I'm main spec Disc, and I play it because I think it's more fun. I was disc when MoP was released and it was the worst spec ever, I was disc when BC was released and was used to deal holy dps and give Power Infusion to the casters, and I was disc in 5.1 when it was insanely overpowered. But people, like apparently Ramen, assume it's the better spec just because you can DPS and Heal. They are both perfectly capable of handling any raid situation with one spec being better with certain mechanics and the other spec being better with other mechanics. The difference is, holy is much harder to manage. Disc is all about overhealing. When you spam Smite, you're often overhealing, when you Spirit Shell before damage comes out, you are overhealing, and because the spec revolves around overhealing, it's mana regen is better (with tools like Rapture and Solace). Absorbs lasts longer than holy's HoTs and can be refreshed by doing more overhealing so when it comes down to it, they are consumed by the damage taken and the actual overhealing is lower than, for example, a druid who is spamming Rejuvenation. If you overheal as holy, in any fight other than heroic Tortos, you're just wasting mana, and Holy's mana is much tighter (they have the same regen disc does, minus the Rapture). But that's the beauty of being a priest, if all you care about is topping the meters we have 2/6 odds of being the best in each patch. :P

[Noradin]

Playing holy like you described above sound absolutely awful.

It is, awfully boring that is, but it gives good healing effordlessly, it is much more relaxed than healing as Disc.
No need to know anything beforehead or watch some boss timers, just mindlessly react and drink some beer on the side and still outheal the paladin.

[Outofmana]

It is, awfully boring that is, but it gives good healing effordlessly, it is much more relaxed than healing as Disc.
No need to know anything beforehead or watch some boss timers, just mindlessly react and drink some beer on the side and still outheal the paladin.

Holy needs a lot of pre-planning as well.

[Deleted]

Disc in 5.1 was complicated. Both disc and holy in 5.3 are no different from other classes.

Disc is nowhere near as strong as holy at dealing with heavy prolonged raid damage. 25% less aoe HPS is not a "little" behind. It is "we should replace you with another class" behind. It is only the encounter design in ToT that lets disc do well healing wise. In 5.3 holy is miles ahead of disc in healing output and on 25man it really shows.

The current disc playstyle on 10man is mindnumbingly boring. Atonement cannot be called healing in the traditional sense. You DPS and it heals passively. You don't really need to plan anything except spirit shell usage and you don't even want to pop archangel too much because you lose DPS and healing from atonement.

I dont think DPS from disc is now an issue in anyway even for 10man. Everyone overgears the encounters. Disc is just easy to do well with on 10man, due to PWS and spirit shell being rather strong with the small number of targets. Holy on 10man suffers too much from overhealing. Perhaps with the new changes holy will be quite strong again in 10man for healing.

[snaxattax]

disc in 10s is absolutely as strong if not stronger than holy regardless of how raid damage goes out. AA PWS spam is nuts. in 25s raid damage can make holy great due to divine hymn and DI... but the reduced raid size in a 10 man really makes PWS crazy.

also i don't know what you're talking about benching a disc priest for a holy priest. disc's tank cooldowns more than make up for any reduction in output. most fights where holy outpaces disc, mistweavers outpace either spec by a much higher margin, anyways, if you're worried about justifying your playstyle going into next tier.

[Noradin]

Holy needs a lot of pre-planning as well.

If you want to play it really well maybe, if you want to just play acceptable or good, then not really.
I don't consider keeping Hymn in reserve for that one ability or saving mana or something 'pre-planning'.
Maybe you can give me a reminder what needs pre-planning as holy? Nothing comes to mind, at least aside form the standards any spec in wow has to keep track of.

[Deleted]

disc in 10s is absolutely as strong if not stronger than holy regardless of how raid damage goes out. AA PWS spam is nuts. in 25s raid damage can make holy great due to divine hymn and DI... but the reduced raid size in a 10 man really makes PWS crazy.

also i don't know what you're talking about benching a disc priest for a holy priest. disc's tank cooldowns more than make up for any reduction in output. most fights where holy outpaces disc, mistweavers outpace either spec by a much higher margin, anyways, if you're worried about justifying your playstyle going into next tier.

http://www.worldoflogs.com/rankings/...f_Thunder/hps/ Check the front page for 25man hc. Seems to me holy priests and mistweavers are neck and neck and leaving disc in the dust.

Disc bring PS and barrier, while holy brings GS and Hymn. Hymn is much stronger than barrier, PS and GS are roughly similar, but holy has 25% or more aoe healing. Using a disc priest for an extra 2% DPS on 25man is pointless now. If that is all you are using the disc priest for, drop him for a boomkin.

[Floopa]

Mmm. The only fight which counts is Lei Shen HC (as everything else is a joke) and is pretty much dominated by Disc Priests. Nothing else matters apart from Lei Shen HC. Just like in T14 the only fight which mattered was HC Elite Protectors (dominated by Disc) and HC Grand Empress (dominated by Disc).

[Anastacy]

Mmm. The only fight which counts is Lei Shen HC (as everything else is a joke) and is pretty much dominated by Disc Priests. Nothing else matters apart from Lei Shen HC. Just like in T14 the only fight which mattered was HC Elite Protectors (dominated by Disc) and HC Grand Empress (dominated by Disc).

Ah, this attitude. Gotta love it.

The only fights that count are the fights that one is progessing on.

[Dracodraco]

Ah, this attitude. Gotta love it.

The only fights that count are the fights that one is progessing on.

Well, yea. The only fight that's even remotely hard in this level of gear is lei shen. Sorry, but any healer setup and any healers will work for all other bosses now. You can take five resto druids to dark animus and still easily do it now, as gear upgrades have made healthpools so much bigger that jolt is a "non-issue". You COULD take a holy priest for alot of fights, and yes, they'd do more HPS than a disc priest. But if you take a holy priest you might aswell use a mistweaver instead, who would do even MORE HPS than a holy priest. Disc fills a niche that no other healer does (instant spam able 150K heals with PW:S, the most potent absorbs of all classes, incredible sustained dps for a healer, and sniping damage on the lowest target before they even take the dmg through atonement). If you want to play holy, go ahead I guess. But it's not benefitting your raid.

[Floopa]

Discipline Priests also do more damage to Ra-den than a MW who uses CJL. Pretty ridiculous given how much mana CJL costs in comparison to Atonement (1/6th of your mana pool vs 0). Ra-den is a joke though. The only fights which matter ultimately are the hardest. While Lei Shen is actually pretty easy at the moment (LMGs and cloaks trivialise the encounter) PW:S is so dominant in the final phase where you can make your raid practically take 0 damage from every Thunderstruck.

[Tastyfish]

I think whats going to happen is, like it usually does, next xpac you will see a forced shift in heal style and it will fuck up most of the disc and holy pallies for a min. That being said, I really do hate the lvl of management I have to go threw to fistweave Vs the lvl of management atonement has.

---------- Post added 2013-06-16 at 12:05 PM ----------

Ah, this attitude. Gotta love it.

The only fights that count are the fights that one is progessing on.

Its true tho.
Farming is different then progression.

---------- Post added 2013-06-16 at 12:09 PM ----------

http://www.worldoflogs.com/rankings/...f_Thunder/hps/ Check the front page for 25man hc. Seems to me holy priests and mistweavers are neck and neck and leaving disc in the dust.

That's because Holy priests and mistweavers can cover a 25 man better.
Just like shaman AOE is more OP in 25 man because of the fact you have more people in clusters, more targets.

[Deleted]

Well, yea. The only fight that's even remotely hard in this level of gear is lei shen. Sorry, but any healer setup and any healers will work for all other bosses now. You can take five resto druids to dark animus and still easily do it now, as gear upgrades have made healthpools so much bigger that jolt is a "non-issue". You COULD take a holy priest for alot of fights, and yes, they'd do more HPS than a disc priest. But if you take a holy priest you might aswell use a mistweaver instead, who would do even MORE HPS than a holy priest. Disc fills a niche that no other healer does (instant spam able 150K heals with PW:S, the most potent absorbs of all classes, incredible sustained dps for a healer, and sniping damage on the lowest target before they even take the dmg through atonement). If you want to play holy, go ahead I guess. But it's not benefitting your raid.

You can call it a niche, but all classes have good instant heals now. PWS only matters when there is a high chance of ppl being one shotted by stuff and even then you can't have an absorb on a good chunk of the raid. Suggesting that disc helps with things like jolt seems odd to me. Jolt is survivable even with ilvl500 if you use a suitable raid CD (banner, rally etc), so absorbs aren't necessary and even so you can't really get absorbs on everyone. The only question is whether disc through pre-shielding can achieve better HPS overall. After 5.3 they can't, unless you run too many healers, so holy is better for the jolts.

Holy has more and better smart heals than disc, so atonement is not really anything unique. DI-PoM and CoH are better smart heals anyway on 25man.

I don't see why you would have any reason to replace holy with a mistweaver. It is pretty clear that the difference in real output and burst is minor, if you are even contemplating taking a disc priest, then either class will do just fine, drop a healer take a hybrid with a CD and hey presto you got more DPS and no noticeable loss in healing power.

Even if mistweavers were so much better in real terms that you could get a tangible benefit for replacing holy with a monk, why would you then replace a mistweaver with a disc priest, when the disc tools are both unnecessary and ineffective in many fights on 25man.

Both holy and mistweavers produce very high HPS and can benefit your raid, by letting you run less healers.



---------- Post added 2013-06-17 at 02:42 AM ----------

Discipline Priests also do more damage to Ra-den than a MW who uses CJL. Pretty ridiculous given how much mana CJL costs in comparison to Atonement (1/6th of your mana pool vs 0). Ra-den is a joke though. The only fights which matter ultimately are the hardest. While Lei Shen is actually pretty easy at the moment (LMGs and cloaks trivialise the encounter) PW:S is so dominant in the final phase where you can make your raid practically take 0 damage from every Thunderstruck.

Lei shen both normal and hc is not a high HPS fight and on 25man it is not so easy to keep absorbs on even most of your raid. Even so who cares if there is no realistic chance of a one shot. Several early 25man kills on lei shen hc did not use any priests at all, which clearly demonstrates how necessary disc is for that fight.

That being said disc is good on lei-shen and holy fails because of the particular damage pattern. The fight just gives holy no opportunity to cut loose. At the moment the top spots on lei shen hc are druids, palas and monks, though disc still appears in the top 10.

[vanityking]

If you're already 13/13 heroic, grats, but it is ridiculous to assume everyone is as progressed as you are. Most raiders are still progressing. I'm pretty sure I've said this before... but in ANY difficulty, once you out-gear the content, disc is always better. I'm at 532 disc and there is zero competition with me on regular fights, any of them. On my guild's heroic progression our other healers step out from the back and compete. I have not yet seen heroic Ra-den or Lei Shen, but I find it so hard to believe that any fight has an enrage timer so tight that you would need a healer to be constantly DPSing or you don't make it.