Disc ok?

[Thalas]

So I recently rerolled horde, to play with some old RL friends. Been playing fishface resto shaman forever now, so I am really used to resto healing. I decided to level my old main, a priest. I know that I want to heal when I ding 80, however Disc specc seems far more enjoyable for me, holy doesent appeal at all tbh.

So what I am wondering about, is it even possible to start and finish as disc? To heal heroics, get places in raids and guilds and so on. Kinda afraid of the "OMG WTF HOLY IS BETTER IDIOT" comments?

So have anyone here been disc from the start and have been successfull?

[Spoonerism]

I'm no expert(emphasis here, so dont take this as gospel) - but the disc priests that I have seen seem to be better as single target healers, typically MT healers in large raids. for 5 mans the major advantage of being holy seems to be CoH, so unless your really good at whack-a-mole healing your gonna need some kind of aoe heal.

I'm not saying you cant do 5 mans as disc, it just seems a lil easier as holy (people may expect CoH spec).

[Azyoulike]

Discipline healing is great right now, it's frankly better than holy in heroics and you'll have fewer problems when you first hit 80 due to the superior mana situation.

The only issues are a few people so behind the times they think it's a pvp spec, and potentially problems if your server already has a ton of disc priests. Two disc priests in a 10 man can get annoying (depending on encounter), but then with dual spec many priests go disc/holy so that's not often a problem.

anybody who says 'OMG WTF HOLY IS BETTER IDIOT' should be redirected to EJ and told to read the entire discipline healing thread then stfu

Oh and to the post above, disc has 2 viable AoE heals - holy nova which got a buff in 3.1 and Prayer of Healing which is now party-targettable. That's without even counting Prayer of mending, and the ability to shield the entire party in 5 seconds or so.

[Nezoia]

Holy is *only* good for AoE healing certain RAID fights. Discipline is superior for 5mans and PvP, and most fights in 10 and 25man raiding.

And often you want at least 1 Discipline, and 1 Holy priest, in the raid.

[Nerph-]

Vinyl ok?

[G l o w y r m]

Holy is *only* good for AoE healing certain RAID fights. Discipline is superior for 5mans and PvP, and most fights in 10 and 25man raiding.

And often you want at least 1 Discipline, and 1 Holy priest, in the raid.

Right on, yet still so many guilds are "against" discipline or are asking their current disc priest to go holy so they can have 2...eww...all because of the stupid meters and ignorance. Having 1 holy and 1 disc is great, they really supplement each other.

Just be ready for the holy priest to get all the praise and for every one to ask if you're even worth bringing along. I really wish there was a way to add up exactly how much damage renewed hope mitigated over the course of a fight lol.    Maybe you have a knowledgeable, understanding guild that just cares that the job got done the right way and no one died though.../shrug.

There was a Discipline priest in the 25m Algalon Ensidia kill video, so that should make you feel good about "getting places" with guilds in raids hehe.

DISC4LYFE!!!

[Tumdumdumdum]

I raided holy for 4 weeks then went disc. (I got holy dual spec, some fights holy is better).
So I don't know about disc when you are gearing for hc's. But I think disc will give you less mana issues, so as long as the throughoutput is enough, you'll be fine.

The ppl saying disc isn't good for healing are usually the noobs (I had a DK that thought he could tank, he had 400 defense :P)

[Izenhart]

Holy is *only the best Mass Healing Spec* good perfect for AoE healing certain 90% of RAID fights. Discipline is superior on par with paladins for 5mans and PvP, and most fights perfect for maintank healing in 10 and 25man raiding.

Weeeee fixed for truth, not even by the most anti-holy fanatic I've heard such generalization and indifference.

Right on, yet still so many guilds are "against" discipline or are asking their current disc priest to go holy so they can have 2...eww...all because of the stupid meters and ignorance. Having 1 holy and 1 disc is great, they really supplement each other.

There's really much less scepticism against Disc priests later these days really, before of the current changes Disc was purely a PvP class, and at that time everyone was complaining for DPriest healing in raids, but now, I think it's aknowledged by everyone that Disc's strenght isn't in the Meters.

[Worshaka]

And for the record, Holy is still far more interesting to play. There is no thought process to play disc, you cast penance & PW:S every CD and fill with FH. You don't care if you overheal and you have no mana issues so you have 0 resources to manage. When you get more advance you time your PW:S for large amounts of known incomming damage and abuse the borrowed time haste buff but thats as far as you'll get in making the spec interesting.

Holy on the other hand has several spells to utilise, Renew, Flash Heal, Gheal, PoH, CoH, PW:S, PoM... u have to manage your mana and jump in and out of the FSR which takes a degree of skill. You have serendipity stacks you want to build and use on a quick PoH or Gheal at the right time. You are healing multiple people and not preemptively spamming the 1 target u know is always taking damage, it means you have to think and choose targets well.

I guess if you're idea of fun is easy then disc is the way to go but you'd be hard pressed to find advanced players who think spamming 3 spells without thought is more fun than the current holy setup.

[jjonj]

I recently got my priest to 80 aswell, and although it has been mainly for pvp, i do prefer disc > holy by far in a pve setting, and i have defo been able to heal whatever challenge i was given (heroics, raid assignments) with relativly bad gear, and watch the pityfull holy priests run oom, whle im still sitting with 70%.

cant explain why i find it so much more fun, but i certainly do.

getting spots might be the harder part, allot of people still think of it as being a pvp talent only, and the smarter ones consider holy the raidhealing spec, and disc the MT healing spec. but those spots are more often given to the holy pala's in my experience, and another thing that can be a problem, is the uselessness of more than 1 disc per raid.

[Bigslick]

Kinda afraid of the "OMG WTF HOLY IS BETTER IDIOT" idiot comments?

Fixed

And for the record, Holy is still far more interesting to play. There is no thought process to play disc, you cast penance & PW:S every CD and fill with FH. You don't care if you overheal and you have no mana issues so you have 0 resources to manage. When you get more advance you time your PW:S for large amounts of known incomming damage and abuse the borrowed time haste buff but thats as far as you'll get in making the spec interesting.

Holy on the other hand has several spells to utilise, Renew, Flash Heal, Gheal, PoH, CoH, PW:S, PoM... u have to manage your mana and jump in and out of the FSR which takes a degree of skill. You have serendipity stacks you want to build and use on a quick PoH or Gheal at the right time. You are healing multiple people and not preemptively spamming the 1 target u know is always taking damage, it means you have to think and choose targets well.

I guess if you're idea of fun is easy then disc is the way to go but you'd be hard pressed to find advanced players who think spamming 3 spells without thought is more fun than the current holy setup.

From your post, I can make the educated guess that were you ever to go discipline you would be one of those who contributes to the bad reputation with which some view them.

Disc rotation involves far more than 3 spells and 1 target. Among the spells you listed as used by holy, the only one we don't use is CoH (though renew is lackluster except for occasionally after a PWS w/ 4pc); and like holy, there are other spells used which you left out in your ellipsis.

Yes, we are generally tasked with MT healing (much like holy is generally tasked with raid healing). But to presume that that is the limit of or scope of our performance is pure ignorance - if you have a disc priest in your raids and they have tunnel vision on the tank they (and your RL's who permit it) need an education.

I played holy CoH spec through BC, clearing MH/BT and 3rd boss in SWP. In LK I have run as disc, and along with a holy pally managed a server-first YS-10 kill and have completed most of the hard mode content -- without any 'aoe' healer. If you feel that that doesn't stretch one's requirements to use every tool in the shed and manage mana to the extreme, I'd suggest you try it to give either you or me the lesson in humility it will reveal. I'm not saying I'm one of the best priests out there, but I do feel that I'm qualified as an "advanced" player as you term it. Personally I found holy to be ridiculously oversimplified by the revised CoH (even since the nerf to CD), and still not suffering from any mana issues unless you try to grossly overreach your design (i.e. Iwannatopthemeter syndrome).

Oh - I agree that our mana regen is still very strong (too strong when geared) but strong regen is appropriate for our task. By nature of the role we play, if we were able to abuse the FSR whenever breaks from healing came up we'd be designed for mana regen in line with primary raid healer types.

Example of alternate role: For raid healing, how many other healers can effectively heal a targeted damaged raid member for 7-9k (absorption and healing) every 1.2 seconds while generating virtually no overheal? Pre-casting shields across raid members before anticipated damage is huge. Disc priests - even when focused on single target - do 'share the love' so to speak with healing. Shields elsewhere for BH and set bonus... PoH after BH... and pre-emptive shielding. And lol at waiting till geared and then abusing the borrowed haste... I "abused" that early on. It simply gains tremendous synergy with 4pc T8. And shame on us for actually using our 10'th level, 5-point talent... That would be like a holy priest taking advantage of the extra healing given to all of their aoe heals by actually *gasp* casting them!

TLDR: By all means, please contribute your opinions in forums - that's what they're about. But providing false information to those attempting to learn things is hardly constructive. I can't help but perceive your blanket statements about discipline's purity of role and methodology of healing betraying either an ignorance from not having played that role or a lack of core competence in it if you have. In either case, do chime in with what you *know* and can contribute, but self-impose some limits on where your expertise truly stands. You might find me occasionally posting thoughts on holy or shadow as I have had extensive and deep-raiding experience with both, but since neither is recent I keep myself humble in the scope of my input.

[Eletharin]

And for the record, Holy is still far more interesting to play. There is no thought process to play disc, you cast penance & PW:S every CD and fill with FH. You don't care if you overheal and you have no mana issues so you have 0 resources to manage. When you get more advance you time your PW:S for large amounts of known incomming damage and abuse the borrowed time haste buff but thats as far as you'll get in making the spec interesting.

Holy on the other hand has several spells to utilise, Renew, Flash Heal, Gheal, PoH, CoH, PW:S, PoM... u have to manage your mana and jump in and out of the FSR which takes a degree of skill. You have serendipity stacks you want to build and use on a quick PoH or Gheal at the right time. You are healing multiple people and not preemptively spamming the 1 target u know is always taking damage, it means you have to think and choose targets well.

I guess if you're idea of fun is easy then disc is the way to go but you'd be hard pressed to find advanced players who think spamming 3 spells without thought is more fun than the current holy setup.

Kind of long for a troll post, but I hope that's all this was (comming from a shadow priest too). The only spell a holy priest has a disc priest will never cast is CoH, and that's just cause we aren't specced. Even GHeal has a place since you don't want to eat GCD dead time when you get borrowed time in conjunction with either heroism or power infusion.

Tank healing is kind of mindless, but a lot of the time you will find yourself coordinating multiple targets. Only way to get borrowed time more then once every 15s is to cast PW:S on another target I don't want to talk bad about holy either, but targets that intelligently target people that need healing don't require brain surgeons. Regen is strong, but with the direction blizzard has taken MT damage we don't' have the luxury of practicing much conservation.

Disc can be stressfull, you can't say the tank pulled agro and its his fault, but its worth it and really fun imo. Since they nerfed oo5sr regen to the point fsr surfing is pretty much dead I've switch from holy to disc and never looked back.


The original post made it sound like you might be wanting to level disc. While this is possible and makes you popular since not many people level healers, your damage output and sustainability will be much less then if you specced shadow. If you are going to level disc anyway, at least take the first few points in spirit tap before heading down the disc tree

[faralain]

On my priest I play CoH. However I have been fooling around with disc. I find it a strong spec. It does not have the healing output of others healers, however the bubbles allow it to control much of the burst from the fights making the other healers jobs a lot more manageable. In addition it is a very fun spec to play. Any good guild should want one to minimize the damage.

[Silenthand]

Not sure about trash etc, but on hard mode bosses, we normally have a rotation of CD's and it usually involves at least 1 pain supression.

[syanid]

Holy requires more concentration from the player, Disc doesn't.
Disc can use all the spells in the arsenal but what for? PW:S, Penance, fill in with flash heal or throw a Gheal if you want to. Naturally, you can (and should) PoH if you can.
Holy is limited by mana, Disc isn't limited that much. Naturally, both specs excel when an excellent player plays the character. Also, if someone praises a holy priest for topping the healing meter - why play in such guild? It's really stupid to praise someone who ends up #1 on recount because their class design is such that they are designed especially for that purpose - to be #1 on the healing due to spell x and y.

Anyway, to the OP: you can find a spot as disc, always, in any half-good guild that has at least 10 players that know how to play. If someone makes fun of you for being disc, welcome them to your ignore list.

This is a game, it's made to be fun, if you enjoy disc spec over holy - go for it, you won't make a mistake. Just make sure you play it properly.

[-Ethos-]

Holy requires more concentration from the player, Disc doesn't.

I completely disagree. Try raid healing freya+3 as a disc priest with "less concentration" as you would if you were holy. Holy has and always will be about sniping heals, you stare at bars til your eyes bleed, and heal the raid as soon as they drop. As disc, you need to know what the boss is going to do, when they're going to do it, how many people are going to be affected by it and by how much, if you react too late and dont shield + DA a person, they'll die. As disc, we have to watch the health bars before they drop and stop them from dropping. If you think disc requires the least concentration, you need to play it a little better.

[darkdestiny]

Holy is *only* good for AoE healing certain RAID fights. Discipline is superior for 5mans and PvP, and most fights in 10 and 25man raiding.

And often you want at least 1 Discipline, and 1 Holy priest, in the raid.

This ^^

Plus Disc is way more fun to play than holy, but thats just my 2 cents.

[darkdestiny]

Holy requires more concentration from the player, Disc doesn't.

Sorry I scrolled up after i was going to log and saw this post, I had to make another comment. Now way in hell does holy require more concentration than Disc, the only concentration I can think of trying to stay alive while healing. My priest is dual spec and when I used holy It's easy mode and rather boring for me. Disc actually makes you react faster especially when there is aoe dmg that you didn't see comming. No smart ass Heal like CoH for a top off. Now if you know aoe dmg is comming you can quickly spam shields on everyone (again requiring more effort than CoH) to mitigate most of it. But Holy more concentration than Disc? I don't think so.

[harky]

Wow, Blizzard gave a class two successful healing trees and suddenly healers turn into e-peening DPSers. That's awesome.

Disc takes more skill and timing!

No, Holy requires lots of concentration!

Seriously, keep it in perspective. Holy and Disc might as well be different classes. They play very differently and they're both very useful. Your raid should have one of each for its 25 mans. For 10 mans which is better is wholly dependent on what other healers are present. Got a Paladin? Holy is better. Got a Druid? Disc is better. Got a Shaman? Holy is better. Got another Priest? The opposite spec of whatever they are is better.

Trying to argue about one being easier is stupid. Go grab a Paladin and watch how they heal. Seriously, it's boring and completely unsophisticated. They're also the best tank healers in the game. Go figure.

[Alynnea]

I notice alot of people these days are saying their guilds wont let them go disc over holy because of the fact they dont heal as much :P

http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-a...edabsorbs.aspx

I found this recount addon quite useful for proving otherwise, it shows the amount of damage negated by shields enjoy.