Pugging as Discipline healer?

[K21Nova]

Having recently leveled an alt priest, which originally used to be a 29 heal twink, from the 50's to 74 at the moment, and having healed lots of low-level instances with not so good gear (just some twink leftovers and a rare or quest reward picked up here and there), I have come to the simple conclusion that...

...holy sucks as a 5-man healing spec...

...when you're leveling. Now, I don't assume to have any knowledge of healing with a priest at level 80 in heroics, but I do know that when our priest has been discipline, and we've run heroics, me on my prot warrior, I've been pretty much invulnerable, and we've not had to sit down for a single mana break.

And that's exactly it. Having been a discipline healer, I've not had any trouble keeping my mana topped almost constantly, even in completely awful gear. After getting the talent Penance, combined with the ability Prayer of Mending, it's been a complete breeze to heal instances. I've healed Azjol-Nerub on level 70-71 with around 500 spell power, and done it without any problems. I've very rarely had to sit down to drink. If I blow away a mob and get spirit tap, I'm full mana in a matter of seconds.

As holy, I was completely lost. I ran out of mana constantly. I went through oceans of water, and I couldn't seem to heal the group well enough at boss fights. Mind you, this is with bad gear.

So, I'd have to say, if you're anywhere else than a raid, whether it's a leveling 5-man dungeon, or heroic Halls of Lightning, thank whichever god you pray to if you happen to get a discipline priest to heal you. They absolutely rock as 5-man healers.

[syanid]

personally i dont like the way disc priests heal. had bad experience with them in 5mans. afaik disc priest are single target healers with mitigation spells(correct me if im wrong) and since im a retri who uses SoB (lots of dmg to myself) it sux when i have to heal myself alot.

When I go as disc, I usually love rets since they are perfect targets for my PoM + PWS, nearly impossible to go oom with you. You are either healed by a bad disc priest or you're talking from ontop of your head. Targets that receive consistent damage are perfect choices for PoM (tank, ret, rogues).

[jb226]

personally i dont like the way disc priests heal. had bad experience with them in 5mans. afaik disc priest are single target healers with mitigation spells(correct me if im wrong) and since im a retri who uses SoB (lots of dmg to myself) it sux when i have to heal myself alot.

You're not wrong, generally speaking. But they do have group heals and even if they didn't, being a single target healer just means you're best at healing a single target -- not that you can't ever (or shouldn't ever) switch off to somebody else. If you're not getting any heals in a 5-man just because you're not the tank, the problem isn't the spec, it's the player. This is somewhat different from when you're raiding, where healers are generally assigned to specific tasks and should tend to stay at them.

Besides which, any priest healer worth his salt would be able to throw a renew on pallies running with SoB on if they're really taking so much damage that they have to fall back to heal themselves. Or, as somebody else said, throw a PoM on them -- since they're damaging themselves, it's a sure thing that that spell is going to bounce almost as soon as it's cast. That said, the ret pallies I've run with tend to heal themselves enough using Divine Storm that the actual rate their HP is going down (assuming they don't pull aggro) is exceptionally minuscule.

...holy sucks as a 5-man healing spec......when you're leveling. Now, I don't assume to have any knowledge of healing with a priest at level 80 in heroics, but I do know that when our priest has been discipline, and we've run heroics, me on my prot warrior, I've been pretty much invulnerable, and we've not had to sit down for a single mana break.

Nah, holy sucks with improper gear and if the healer doesn't know how it plays differently than a Disc healer. (I'm absolutely shocked by how many people I see playing as Holy who gear as if they were Disc.)

A Holy priest stacks spirit hard, and as such they tend to have exceptionally good mana regen at whatever their level of gear. If you've just switched over from Disc or something and you don't have good holy gear, Disc might be slightly better just because their mana regen comes largely through talents rather than stats on gear. It's probably an easier healing spec to dive right into than Holy is (though if you're going to stick with it you'll definitely want to work on your crit).

Also, they play very differently. A Discipline priest wants to keep chain-casting in much the same way as a paladin does when they're spamming Flash of Light. Not only is it their most effective way of healing, with their talented haste, but it also brings back the most mana regen and provides the most mitigation by hitting their crits more. Holy priests don't play this way -- their job is to heal only when they need to heal, and otherwise stand there as long as they can to try to game the FSR. If you never see a holy priest casting Greater Heals in a 5 man, and they're having mana problems, chances are they're not playing well.

A holy priest who is decently geared for his level of content should not be stopping a 5 man group to drink either, unless some pull went horribly wrong. At worst, they might drop down to drink for a couple of seconds while you make the next pull and get right back into the swing the second they're full or the second they're needed to throw a heal, but even that is relatively rare for good priests.

If I were a tank, I would absolutely never hesitate to take a Disc OR a Holy healer along. As is so often the case in WOW, whether or not they do their job effectively is much less about the spec and much more about the player knowing his spec.

[Kelesti]

Besides which, any priest healer worth his salt would be able to throw a renew on pallies running with SoB on if they're really taking so much damage that they have to fall back to heal themselves. Or, as somebody else said, throw a PoM on them -- since they're damaging themselves, it's a sure thing that that spell is going to bounce almost as soon as it's cast. That said, the ret pallies I've run with tend to heal themselves enough using Divine Storm that the actual rate their HP is going down (assuming they don't pull aggro) is exceptionally minuscule.

This.

Nah, holy sucks with improper gear and if the healer doesn't know how it plays differently than a Disc healer. (I'm absolutely shocked by how many people I see playing as Holy who gear as if they were Disc.)

What shocks me more is people who spec disc but still try to play as Holy. 5SR casting, focus on greater heals, hell some of these people even abhor using Power Word: Shield!

[Knf]

I only heal heroics for fun when I offspec from shadow, but Disc is my spec of choice. I think it's much, much better actualy. Especialy with all the shit tanks (say it: d e a t h k n i g h t s) around in blue and green gear...

Disc can insta heal almost any amount of dmg on the tank, some of the tanks I ran with got hit so hard that it was almost unbelievable that they were alive after each pull...

And you never have to drink. Ever.

[K21Nova]

My gear was nothing but spirit when I hit 60. I got boosted Ramparts and Blood Furnace, got all those cloth healer pieces with plenty of sockets, and put +16 spirit gems in them (they cost like <5g on my realm at the time).

As a result they lasted me well into Northrend as simply nothing better came along.

So if Holy is all about spirit, I had the perfect gear for it, outside of being 70 epic geared. Still, all the way through the 60's and early 70's I kept drinking like a rabid dog. Perhaps Holy in it's current form only supports Sunwell geared priests while leveling, because it didn't work for me half as good as Disc did, when healing in the Nexus, UK, AN and so on.

I had gear such as...

Lifegiver Britches
+16 spirit gem
+16 spirit gem
+9 spell power, +8 spirit gem
+35 spell power, +20 stamina thread

Bloody Surgeon's Mitts
+16 spirit gem
+9 spell power, +8 spirit gem
+28 spell power enchant

Raiments of Divine Authority
+16 spirit gem
+9 spell power, +8 spirit gem
+8 spirit, +8 intellect gem
+15 spirit enchant

Mindfire Waistband
+16 spirit gem
+8 spirit, +8 intellect gem
+16 spirit gem (belt buckle at 70, still had this belt)

...and so on. So I'm fairly certain most of my gear was superb at the lower 60's, at least for someone who's simply leveling through, but still Disc healing felt much better.

Mind you, at those levels you can't really have 13 points in Disc (for the mana regen), and claim to have a Holy build. Well, you can, but with 51 points it would start at something like 13/38/0, or 13/35/3 if you want Spirit Tap for some solo action. That, or you just skip Disc/Shadow completely and go for 0/51/0 which completely failed me in healing.

Now like I said earlier, I don't know about level 80 healing with topped out gear, but at least for a leveling priest Disc felt like 10x better for a healing spec.

[Torture]

Holy at lower levels isn't just about you, it's about your tank.

Disc performs better on undergeared tanks. Talented shield makes a big difference, and Penance throwing down its healing so fast makes it easy to react to unexpected burst. Combine that with the mitigation from Grace and Aegis and you're doing a lot to fill holes in the tanks gear.

Holy on the other hand will tend to be stood there /stopcasting Greater heals, and with an undergeared tank there will be far more spamming going on than in 80 heroics where tanks 'you hope' are better geared and less suceptible to unexpected burst damage. If Holy has to spam, it will OOM far quicker than if Disc is spamming.

For that reason Disc tends to 'feel' more comfortable early on.

[Deleted]

I never get kicked from a group because I was discipline, I even usually get casters whispering me to use Power Infusion on them...

And what Torture said is true, Discipline will be better usage on an undergeared tank then holy. Yesterday I was in Utgarde Keep heroic with a warrior tank from my guild with only 20k life unbuffed, the instance itself went pretty fine, but on Last boss we wiped two times I think and the last time I just loaded the tank with shields, ignoring his rage (which seemed to be fine anyway) and we did it easily.

[Martsus]

Nop, never get those comments anymore. Guess there are lots of people on Vek who keep up with the changes ;p

[K21Nova]

Well, from the tank's point of view, I'm just wondering... If I've survived quite nicely with starter gear at heroics with a Disc priest (him having starter gear as well), quite nicely being an understatement; more like non-stop pulling and no close calls on me, then wouldn't it be logical for me to survive even better when I'm wearing some ilvl213 gear, with most gear heroic/emblem/naxx10 epics, and the Disc priest having gotten upgrades as well?

Or in short: if our average-geared Disc priest healed me as an average-geared prot warrior in heroics, and we not only survived, but thrived, then wouldn't it be even better once our gear level has gone up?

Because to me it feels like it.

Also, seeing as how in the current 5-man instances in heroic runs only the tank takes damage (at least in our runs), seeing as how tanks can keep 100% aggro at all times (at least I can), then there shouldn't be any need for any kind of AoE-healing, which I hear Holy is all about.

I just fail to see how a Disc priest with infinite mana and insane healing capabilities can be beaten in heroic runs by a Holy priest, bar a boss or two, such as Loken, which deals AoE damage.

I'm interested in the subject as my goal is to level my now 74 priest to 80, and take up the healing role full time.

Personally I've felt it's a shame how bad Holy has felt, as I've always thought of Holy as the healing tree, while Shadow is the damage tree and Disc is some kind of a gimmick tree, perhaps meant for PvP healing. I'd much rather be Holy full time but so far I'm unconvinced. I don't mean to even start healing raids, so I'm simply talking about the heroic 5-man instances, and mostly the easier ones at that.

I guess I'll have to think again once I reach 80 and have geared up to heroics.

[Shapeshiftr]

All I can say is - either they just bought their account on eBay or they are 10 years old. Most likely it's both.

[Torture]

Well, from the tank's point of view, I'm just wondering... If I've survived quite nicely with starter gear at heroics with a Disc priest (him having starter gear as well), quite nicely being an understatement; more like non-stop pulling and no close calls on me, then wouldn't it be logical for me to survive even better when I'm wearing some ilvl213 gear, with most gear heroic/emblem/naxx10 epics, and the Disc priest having gotten upgrades as well?

Or in short: if our average-geared Disc priest healed me as an average-geared prot warrior in heroics, and we not only survived, but thrived, then wouldn't it be even better once our gear level has gone up?

Because to me it feels like it.

Also, seeing as how in the current 5-man instances in heroic runs only the tank takes damage (at least in our runs), seeing as how tanks can keep 100% aggro at all times (at least I can), then there shouldn't be any need for any kind of AoE-healing, which I hear Holy is all about.

I just fail to see how a Disc priest with infinite mana and insane healing capabilities can be beaten in heroic runs by a Holy priest, bar a boss or two, such as Loken, which deals AoE damage.

I'm interested in the subject as my goal is to level my now 74 priest to 80, and take up the healing role full time.

Personally I've felt it's a shame how bad Holy has felt, as I've always thought of Holy as the healing tree, while Shadow is the damage tree and Disc is some kind of a gimmick tree, perhaps meant for PvP healing. I'd much rather be Holy full time but so far I'm unconvinced. I don't mean to even start healing raids, so I'm simply talking about the heroic 5-man instances, and mostly the easier ones at that.

I guess I'll have to think again once I reach 80 and have geared up to heroics.

Disc scales well throughout, so yes a well geared disc priest + well geared tank is an excellent combo. It used to work the other way because the better geared the tank, the more they struggled for rage and therefore shield caused more problems than it solved, but the changes in the expansion eradicate this problem to a large extent.

The thing with Holy is that at lower gear levels for tank and healer it isn't as successful as Disc due to reasons discussed in my previous post.

However, with a well geared tank and healer Holy is still very very strong. The gearing of the tank makes exploiting the 5SR far easier and Disc's mitigation becomes a bonus rather than filling fundamental holes in the tank.

So I'd say at lower gear levels Disc shines. At higher gear levels both Disc and Holy are perfectly strong healing specs.

[Darshana]

No pug has ever commented, they spend 1hr looking for a healer that when I join the party they're practically kissing my arse...
I don't spam shields on Warrior's/Druid's, I use them when spike damage hits, I prefer DK and Pala tank's. Although I realised that most Warrior's even without shield spamming them can't hold agro for toffee.

[Knf]

Good tanks don't worry about the shields.

Bad tanks blame the healer for everything.

Disc + bad tank = super qq inc.

[Worshaka]

Disc priest and crap tanks do badly together

Incorrect in my experience... i've spec'd deep in all 3 trees and disc is a lot easier to heal with in 5mans than holy... particular when u dont have uber gear and particular when the tank has poor gear. Disc can pump through a hell of a lot of HPS on a single target and u have pain suppression, power infusion, grace on the tank, very strong PW:S and the most hax healing spell ever, penance... it's very hard for a tank to die with all that up your sleeve.

Even if your tank is bad at holding aggro, i find I can keep dps alive using penance, pain suppresion, PW:S and PoM long enough for the tank to taunt or the mob to be killed...

Disc is vastly underrated, it's a completely differnt type of healing to holy but I dont see holy as superior... holy just has different strengths and is far more adaptable whereas disc is a specialist healing spec.