Thread: Disc or Holy?

  1. #1

    Disc or Holy?

    Hi all

    I have a few questions regarding healing as a priest. I reacently dinged 80 and have been running heroics to gear up for raids and such.

    When I first got to 80 I specced holy for healing, however it did not go very well. I found myself being oom within 1min. after we started a boss encounter, having to use pots, fiend and so on. I am aware of the 5sr but my party took so much dam. I couldn't wait 5secs to regen mana.

    I got tired of that and decided to go disc, which I have enjoyed very much. Not too many mana problems and I love penance. I have never been a big fan of COH so I didnt miss it. I just glyphed for Holy Nova and used that to top of my party, otherwise Im using FH.

    Now the problem is, that yesterday I got invited to join a naxx 25man run. I was aware that my gear is nowhere near good enough for that, considering I still have green items however, they invited me anyways. And to my surprise we managed to clear spider wing, plague quarters and most of construction quarters before ppl started to leave because it had gotten late.

    I was sad to discover that I have multiple problems as a disc healer in naxx... 1 of the worst is the fact that your target has to be infront of you, before you can use penance. Im good at using my shield, and im aware that disc is all about preventing dam. but omg I was so low on that healing meter. The 2 other priests we had was holy and they were far closer to the top than I was, even tho they didnt spam COH. And ofc the paladin and shaman was number 1 and 2.

    I guess I would like a bit of advice on which spec to choose for raiding. I have been running alot of heroics and there is not much gear left to get from those, so Im gonna be off to raids as soon as possible. It seems to me that holy is doing better in raids, and I have heard that holy scales better with better gear than disc does. my biggest consern is my mana, cause if I go oom as fast in a raid as I did in the first few heroics, im not gonna be of much use anyways.

    Any advise is most welcome

    Thank you all for your time

  2. #2

    Re: Disc or Holy?

    Quote Originally Posted by christine1000
    Hi all

    I have a few questions regarding healing as a priest. I reacently dinged 80 and have been running heroics to gear up for raids and such.

    When I first got to 80 I specced holy for healing, however it did not go very well. I found myself being oom within 1min. after we started a boss encounter, having to use pots, fiend and so on. I am aware of the 5sr but my party took so much dam. I couldn't wait 5secs to regen mana.
    Here's a macro for you:
    Code:
    #showtooltip Greater Heal
    /stopcasting
    /cast Greater Heal
    Doesn't quite work with Flash, unfortunately. I used this all-throughout TBC whenever I was Holy and Tank healing (various ranks back when it was viable). You push it once, let the heal get 80% done. If the tank needs it? Let it land. If he/she doesn't? Push it again and wind another heal up the tube. This way you're always getting a "big one ready" rather than having to heal reactively. This is also a way to find yourself pretty well using/abusing the 5SR when you get an SoL/IHC proc or use Inner Focus.

    Quote Originally Posted by christine1000
    I got tired of that and decided to go disc, which I have enjoyed very much. Not too many mana problems and I love penance. I have never been a big fan of COH so I didnt miss it. I just glyphed for Holy Nova and used that to top of my party, otherwise Im using FH.
    Nice choice on Glyph of Holy Nova. I'm quite fond of it, but remember that it's only your party, not the raid.

    Quote Originally Posted by christine1000
    I was sad to discover that I have multiple problems as a disc healer in naxx... 1 of the worst is the fact that your target has to be infront of you, before you can use penance.
    This is supposed to be getting fixed in the next patch.
    Quote Originally Posted by christine1000
    Im good at using my shield, and im aware that disc is all about preventing dam. but omg I was so low on that healing meter. The 2 other priests we had was holy and they were far closer to the top than I was, even tho they didnt spam COH. And ofc the paladin and shaman was number 1 and 2.

    I guess I would like a bit of advice on which spec to choose for raiding.
    First real piece of advice: Stop looking at meters. A shaman can stand there and spam chain heal and top meters through Malygos vortex or Sapphiron+X drakes. Does that mean he's better than you? No.
    Quote Originally Posted by christine1000
    It seems to me that holy is doing better in raids, and I have heard that holy scales better with better gear than disc does. my biggest consern is my mana, cause if I go oom as fast in a raid as I did in the first few heroics, im not gonna be of much use anyways.
    Right now, 90% of holy is "lolcircle." And it's a shame. I liked the spell back in 2.3 before it got buffed, loved it in 2.4, and hated it in 3.0. But hey, that's just me. You're right though that Holy scales better than discipline. If you use that macro I gave you, and time it with some awesome procs, you should do alright for Holy. Try to get about a 20% unbuffed crit rate and get a tonne of spirit.

    Discipline's fun, but I wouldn't knock the other boat until you've given it a little more real practice.

    Also: You can have 4 holy priests in a raid and that's fine. But having more than one Discipline priest is a waste.
    ~Former Priest/Guild Wars 2 Moderator~
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  3. #3
    Scarab Lord AetherMcLoud's Avatar
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    Re: Disc or Holy?

    Disc never will top the healing meters for the simple fact that it is more about damage prevention than healing (which it still does very good though). Damage prevented isn't recorded anywhere. You prevent (basically, bugs aside) 30% of whatever you critheal for. Also shield prevents a shitload of damage.
    You know what is better than drinking a beer? Brewing your own beer. And then drinking it. And then... Drinking another beer. And then, punching somebody in the snout! That's what!

  4. #4

    Re: Disc or Holy?

    like people have said disci is all about prevention via Divine Aegis/shields and grace, disci does the job pretty well but its still a bit clunky atm, i think thats why most priests have stuck to holy because CoH doesnt have have a cooldown like pennance does, and so feels less restrictive for myself at least.

    when the CoH cooldown is in place, which effectivly nerfs the max healing-per-second a holy priest can perform there will be less in it than there is now, to me it depends on what your guild needs or what spells you prefere using.

    spec disc - try pennance out, its a sexy spell and i hate that its not available to me as a holy priest =)

    if your guild/group doesnt have a disci priest (id never endorse bringing 2 to a raid really as the aegis' and grace dont stack amongst that you dont need that much MT healing) then it might be worth trying it, but dont expect flashy numbers on healing metres;

    choose disci : if you like using shields/DA proc's, pennance and general raid buffs/utility (pain supression/grace/power infusion), and only really care about the effect you bring, not the big numbers you create

    choose holy : if you like your PoM, CoH and other general multi target stuff, and having bigger stonger direct hots/heals (spiritual guidance/healing)

    xavi
    I tasted bacon.. one day..

  5. #5

    Re: Disc or Holy?

    Disc priests and palladins are tank healers. Ask the raid leader to asign you to tank healing, your healing meter will go up and the tank will love you.

    Yes, holly is much much better for 25 man raiding, even after the incoming CoH nerf. Just look at the talents that give bonus healing and scaling, it's very obvious (+10% healing, +25%sp from spirit, +40/20%scaling, etc...), disc gets 4% healing, and shield scaling...

    But it is a realy fun spec, and is very mana eficient (will be even more so after the bug fixes in patch 3.0.8). It's much better then holy for 5man heroics, and probably also better for 10mans. But in 25man raids you start to see a major difference.

    But don't let that put you down, just stick with you like best!

    EDIT: Oh, almost forgot, the poster above me put PoM in the "choose holy" thing, but PoM is a very, very good spell for disc too! Using it on cooldown will give you a lot of HPS in the meters, and will proc Divine Aegis on crit, and then restore mana from Rapture when the little bubble pops! So the 2xt7 bonus is very cool for disc IMHO.

    EDIT2: oh what the hell, I'll just add that you need different items for disc and holy (unfortunetly), holy will want tons of spirit, but disc focuses more on Int and Crit (and ofc spell power). The more Int you have the more mana efficient you are (Rapture, replenishment etc scale with int!), and I think you already know how important cirt rating is. Spirit is not realy a disc priest thing, since we don't stay OOT5SR (out of the 5 sec rule), so go for mp5 over spirit if you have the choice.

  6. #6

    Re: Disc or Holy?

    Healing meters are the most leading things ever in WoW... healing meters dont measure how much damage you prevented... and CoH means you will always be on top of the healing meters and all you have to do is press 1 button for 3-5mins.

    You far better off measuring healing in the form of deaths... as disc ur a tank healer or a single target healer... how many times did your healing target die? If 0... it's really acamedic what the meter said.

  7. #7

    Re: Disc or Holy?

    well my expirience is based on 5man and 10man
    i always am out of the fsr since im barely using others spells than penance to heal the tank (penance / renew are most of the times enough)
    in 10man i use PoM alot and its like 50% of my heal
    (which is the reason im first in healing meter which doesnt matter at all but still IS possible in 10man if PoM is used)

    in 25.. no chance atm
    but one of the reasons is no healing class has mana probs in 25 atm so everyone is spamming heals like crazy since they will never go oom before the boss dies.. so who cares

    f.e. sarth i stopped healing half way through and startet holy nova'ing the fire eles :>

    and i took every spirit/crit item as disc
    sure if i HAD to heal more often i prolly would use mp5 but atm no need
    around 1000/500 manareg

    but sadly.. u will never be able to beat a palading in tank heal
    yea disc priests wont go oom as fast as a holy priests
    but the same goes for paladins
    paladins wont go oom as fast as disc priests :>
    tbh never seen a paladin that was oom (pvp not counting)

    but.. 1 reason for me being able to heal like i do in 10mans could be cuz i have a holy priest as my partner and i get "free instant flash heal" procs all the time thx to the PoM bug proccing Surge of Light

    ps: i would love a "dmg prevented meter" since thats one i would definitly able to top each time no matter what

  8. #8
    Scarab Lord AetherMcLoud's Avatar
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    Re: Disc or Holy?

    Quote Originally Posted by fl4shi
    but sadly.. u will never be able to beat a palading in tank heal
    yea disc priests wont go oom as fast as a holy priests
    but the same goes for paladins
    paladins wont go oom as fast as disc priests :>
    tbh never seen a paladin that was oom (pvp not counting)
    I've been Disc a few times when a healer was needed (and I hate holy) and my healing outfit is nowhere near as good as my shadow outfit. Yet I simply cannot go OOM as Disc, no matter how much I spam. Maybe I would with a Druid/Warrior/DK Tank where Rapture doesn't work. It even works shitty on Palas. When they fix that next Patch disc regen will be even better than now.
    You know what is better than drinking a beer? Brewing your own beer. And then drinking it. And then... Drinking another beer. And then, punching somebody in the snout! That's what!

  9. #9

    Re: Disc or Holy?

    yea that might be true but
    palas have insane % crit = 60% mana back from base spell cost
    u wont get THAT much through rupture

    second
    pala 25% mana back from max mana 1min cd

    priest? sfiend 5min cd

    so u just cant beat the pala :>

    ps: if the dds do their job right i wont go oom as well

    pss: one of the reasons disc is better than holy is the equip issue.. i only have "disc priest heal equip" and do 2.4k single target dps as shadow with the same equip

  10. #10
    Scarab Lord AetherMcLoud's Avatar
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    Re: Disc or Holy?

    While Palas have the whole crit-mana thingy going, plus the 25% mana spell, it's not like disc priests have 0 spirit and no meditation.

    I mean even as a shadowpriest, if I only use Mindflay spamming nonstop, I regenerate mana while doing it.
    You know what is better than drinking a beer? Brewing your own beer. And then drinking it. And then... Drinking another beer. And then, punching somebody in the snout! That's what!

  11. #11

    Re: Disc or Holy?

    my only point was that u cant beat the pally mana wise

    and well regarding the sp.. (at least while i was sp)
    i never had to reg mana between bosses and most times not even after a boss

  12. #12
    Scarab Lord AetherMcLoud's Avatar
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    Re: Disc or Holy?

    Quote Originally Posted by fl4shi
    my only point was that u cant beat the pally mana wise

    and well regarding the sp.. (at least while i was sp)
    i never had to reg mana between bosses and most times not even after a boss
    Yeah I never have to reg mana too, if I don't fuck up like last time on Gluth. Badly timed shadow word death coupled with decimation = one dead and battle rezzed shadowpriest with not much mana upon rezzing
    You know what is better than drinking a beer? Brewing your own beer. And then drinking it. And then... Drinking another beer. And then, punching somebody in the snout! That's what!

  13. #13

    Re: Disc or Holy?

    btw: as a priest (no matther the spec) u have to skill meditation
    or rather.. never specced anything (disc/holc/shadow) without it
    maybe shadow would works without it.. doubt holy does (and as disc u skill it anyway to get divine spirit)

  14. #14
    Bloodsail Admiral Moxal's Avatar
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    Re: Disc or Holy?

    My suggestion is- no matter what healing spec you are, always keep a PoM bouncing around. Especially when you get the 2 piece T7 bonus, a max of 6 hops for PoM (unless it decides to bounce back to me... and I'm not taking damage usually) it heals for a LOT.

    Even as a holy priest with CoH in my spec, my top three spells for heroics are (in order) are Greater Heal, PoM, Prayer of Healing.

    As soon as I heard about the CoH cooldown, I switched my CoH glyph to the PoH one and I love it, if your holy again sometime you might try it.

    All in all, good luck, and I hope you stick with your priest
    Mistweaver Monk | Holy Priest

  15. #15

    Re: Disc or Holy?

    Quote Originally Posted by Galdinar
    My suggestion is- no matter what healing spec you are, always keep a PoM bouncing around. Especially when you get the 2 piece T7 bonus, a max of 6 hops for PoM (unless it decides to bounce back to me... and I'm not taking damage usually) it heals for a LOT. just use swd

    Even as a holy priest with CoH in my spec, my top three spells for heroics are (in order) are Greater Heal, PoM, Prayer of Healing. my ones are PoM, Penance/Renew (as disc obviously) just ot show that that spell really is good

    As soon as I heard about the CoH cooldown, I switched my CoH glyph to the PoH one and I love it, if your holy again sometime you might try it.

    All in all, good luck, and I hope you stick with your priest

  16. #16

    Re: Disc or Holy?

    Holy really kicks off when you hit a certain gear level (crit actually helps, holy concentration turns out to be a godsend)
    But you were complaining about the healing meters, what the fudge.
    Healing is not about epeen, you are not defined by that aids infested number on recount.
    If you really think it matters, grab this http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?prie...h=000000000000 and spam CoH until your fingers fall off.
    If you have any sense, go with whichever spec you feel most comfortable with, and which you think fits best with your healing style, and do your damn job, which is keeping people alive and not fapping over figures.
    /rantover
    Not that i feel strongly about the subject.

  17. #17

    Re: Disc or Holy?

    Back when my main was a holy priest and playing digital whackamole, we (healers) rarely cared about healing meters, instead choose to focus on number of deaths and overhealing. As such, given the current state, I would probably play as disc on my priest with the intent on being keeping people alive, not topping meters. If I wanted to top meters, I would roll a hunter. Not a prot pally (my new main). However, if you get a sense of epeen from topping meters, holy priest would be better than disc, as others have said.

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