(Disc) Priest becoming FotM?

[Zka]

Been playing holy since vanila... Then respecced disc a bit after Ulduar has arrived and I'm never looking back (unless the mechanics change too much). Disc is so much more fun and powerful.

[Ironfoot]

disc was as good at single target healing as druids and shaman (worse than pallies) but worse than all other classes in AoE healing before 3.0

if you played disc in pve, you'll remember that the AOE spells were restricted to the party only. there was no reason to be disc in raids before penance came about and they became the tank healers

it was as viable as melee hunters and smite spec

That's funny because I was Disc all through TBC and WOTLK and never felt I was holding the raid back.

Saying they are as viable as melee hunters is just stupid trolling at it's best.

Disc has always been viable, I've never had a problem healing a raid just because I'm Disc.

As for the AOE only affecting party only, in any 25 man raids we simply put the Priests in different groups. Not a huge problem.

More people are using it now because it's become more visible and people like to experiment around.

[Hokuto]

Having a disc priest myself, I still find a lot more holy than disc around. Maybe it's because CoH is the "I top meters" button and so people dig the spec more. I personally feel stripped without DA and a stronger PW:S.

I'm glad I don't find so many discs around, tho. I cringe when I find one on the random Naxx25 emblem runs I join, because two in a raid means one will be like a lv75 ret pally in healing gear - no throughput and no regen. So I just switch to holy and endure the rest of the run.

[Zeuq]

Disc has been popular for quite some time now... pretty much after the first buff to disc several patches ago. I don't know why though, I actually had disc as my first OS when LK was first out well before it was popular and thought it was quite good. A lot of people said Disc was garbage etc, but it was a pretty decent spec even then.

After the buff it just became the popular healing spec. It was around this time I got bored with it, the novely wore off really. It's a very easy spec to play and I didn't find it very challenging. The niche aspect was more limiting than I realised and I changed my OS to Holy. Pretty ironic that the vast majority of people did the exact opposite.

I still maintain Holy is far more fun, far more dynamic, far more skilled to play. But the population seems to think Disc is more fun than Holy... I think it's jsut because it's an easier spec to play but people aren't to either admit that or come to terms with it.

I think there's a few good reasons why Discipline has gotten popular. One of them is that Discipline is one of only two primarily tank healers out there. Sure, Druids can do it fairly well too, but with the massive amount of burst damage on tanks and the distribution of raid damage, I'm often finding Druids just make more sense as raid healers. Even moreso, as I'm sure most people are aware, the Disc/Pally MT healing combo is just plain sick and it beats out any other pair of tank healers out there hands down. Secondary to that is that Discipline brings a little bit more utility to the raid with faster/cheaper dispels, Power Infusion, and Renewed Hope, the first is compared to Holy, the but the other two are things that no one else brings. All of this pretty much means that virtually every raid will want a Discipline Priest as the first Healing Priest in the raid.

The other thing is just that the playstyle is very different. Playing Discipline feels a lot more like playing DPS to me than Holy does. A lot of the fun of Holy to me is the mana game, but a lot of people don't seem to enjoy that, and that aspect is largely gone from the Discipline playstyle. Discipline is also a lot closer to having a rotation than Holy is, so while you don't get the epeen from topping the meters of a DPS, you still get about as close to that playstyle as you can with a healer. Of course, I think a lot of the power of Discipline comes from doing more than just spamming on the tank, and I try my best to utilize that because the whole rotation thing is boring to me, but I see a lot of Discipline Priests not taking advantage of the lack of a CD on PWS or BT hasted PoH.

So, I guess, my theory is that Discipline appeals a lot to people who may have rerolled as Priest because they were interested in getting a raidspot and a healer was the only way they could do it. An ideally played Discipline Priest still requires a healer mentality, but it is a spec that a DPS mentality can also do okay with while it would fail miserably at Holy.

[Deathleech]

in pvp, they're the least FOTM/OP healer

LOL. Stopped reading right there. Another tard who either has NO idea what he is talking about, or is blatantly spreading lies to try to keep from getting nerfed.
http://www.sk-gaming.com/arena/playe...l/all/all/all/

Who's the highest healer on that list? Disc priest at over 18%. Next highest? Resto druid at a paultry 6%. In every bracket (2s, 3s, and 5s) they make up 12%+ of the teams and are the highest rated healer by far. Sorry, if that's not OP I don't know WHAT is. Just because you could only get to 1800-2k with one of the most pwoerful healers doesn't mean it's bad by any means. It just means your bad. Play a resto shammy and have fun at 1200. Oh and btw, here is a pro-tip, ANY team will lose if they make even a single mistake, it's how arena works. I don't see paladins or resto shaman forgetting to heal their target and they just live through the dmg regardless.

EDIT: If prot/holy is too powerful and getting nerfed when it's half as strong as disc in arena currently, what does that make disc priest? INC NERF BAT!!!

[Ironfoot]

While Disc Priests are very powerful in Arena, it all depends what you mean by FOTM.

Usually it applies to something that has become very overpowered that everyone an their grandma rolls. This isn't the case with Disc. We've always been strong in PvP, it's not exactly a secret.

Something like DK's when they first came out, or Prot/Holy Pala's, that could be classed as FOTM.

I would say Disc is very powerful, possibly borderline OP in PvP.

It's in a good place right now for PvE tho.

[Healtuff]

In PvE Holy was nerfed to shit by the nerf to PoM.

All three of our Holy Priests went exclusively Disc after that nerf went live.

[Azyoulike]

Disc is very popular right now in PvE for a bunch of reasons. Soul warding made it really powerful for the first time in 3.1, the gear support is decent (T8 was especially good) and it's powerful even at low gear levels because of the Int scaling and the intrinsic mana efficiency. Shield spamming produces stupid amounts of effective healing (if you could but measure it) in almost every encounter and the burst healing from penance is obviously the best out there.

I think though that this is the high water mark for disco - shield spamming isn't going to scale well into the next content patch because it only scales with SP, and our sustained single target healing is lackluster. Blizz might buff us in 3.3 but the consistent strength of disc in PvP makes buffing it very hard for them.

I won't be surprised if most of those PvE disco priests go holy again in 3.3, though it will depend on what the encounters look like ofc.

[Taurenburger]

There is also a lack of tanks; I've a screenshot of ToC HC LFG with 14 people in it, only Warriors, Paladins and DK's and a Druid, not a single one of them listed as a tank.

you'd expect that to be changed since dualspec:P

[TwistedPower]

With most 3's comps gettin nerfed after they do any good and RMP still goes strong I can see for arena why people have disc priests.

[harky]

They were already great in PVP and now with things like skada and guessed absorbs becoming more popular to measure shields in PVE people are quickly realizing that Disc is great for that as well. There are a lot of people assuming it's a PVP/PVE spec all in one and speccing it for that, which isn't quite correct, but it does give them more survivability in BGs than Holy. Disc has an easier entry stat level and more defined role when healing, while being more survivable in BGs... so yeah, they might be called a 'flavor of the month'. It's been going on since 3.1 though and considering that they're no better than Resto Druids/Shaman, or Holy Paladins I doubt it'll go away. I do feel a little sorry for Holy though.

[Mirabelalock]

In vanilla, I was the disc priest with the imp buffs.

In TBC I would bounce between disc for pvp and holy for pve.

I've been playing holy for sometime now, but I'm considering going disc again to change things up. I don't really pvp seriously anymore, so for pve I like to mix things up at times.

[Strykzor]

If Disc is FotM, it tastes like crap.
Disc Priest is just faceroll, pvp and pve.

DK, Paladin, Druid are all still fotm.

[Kelesti]

If Disc is FotM, it tastes like crap.
Disc Priest is just faceroll, pvp and pve.

DK, Paladin, Druid are all still fotm.

KPaD is nowhere near FotM. Although I am seeing some WLD gaining in popularity, it's still not as strong as RMP, despite the nerfs.

[Gannaf]

I play an Arms Warrior and i'll describe what happens when I meet a Disc Priest
I train it like a brotha and wait for the chance of both mortal strike and the extra 25% healing debuff to get on the priest. That is -75% healing. When that happens I pop my trinket for more attack power and use bladestorm when the priest is at 50% ish. Bye priest, you sir are dead.

It works on every single priest that there is and it cannot be counterred unless there's some bubble
Win

[Proletariat]

I play an Arms Warrior and i'll describe what happens when I meet a Disc Priest
I train it like a brotha and wait for the chance of both mortal strike and the extra 25% healing debuff to get on the priest. That is -75% healing. When that happens I pop my trinket for more attack power and use bladestorm when the priest is at 50% ish. Bye priest, you sir are dead.

It works on every single priest that there is and it cannot be counterred unless there's some bubble
Win

[Deleted]

Mortal strike wins as per usual though, yeh a disp priest can take crap loads of DPS, only if no MS is involved. Im at 900 ressillince and 27k hp, rogues and most warriors still drop me within 30 seconds, cant outheal the damage past that god awfull MS / posion.

[Proletariat]

Rogues really aren't that bad above 900 resil unless you got outplayed hard, but warriors simply chew through Priests so easily right now with ArP stacking, it's pretty ridiculous

[Deleted]

Yeh the average rogue isnt so bad, but theres a few that just destroy me, like 1.9k mutilates and 6k evis over and over, bye bye HP.

Warriors are really OP just now in pvp, when it comes to raw * I SMASH U NOW* stuff, and u just cant get away from them, ever, charge charge charge, spamm string MS, AHHH.
Get 100 rage, charge, spamm everything -dead priest.

Feral isnt far behind, some cat managed to crit me for 4.3k with pain suppression up

locks are near easymode these days to, love those 8k -10k chaos bolts. But they still love to QQ they need more buffs.

Mages, DKs, shamens and hunters arent that bad, sure they hurt, but if u play good and have the gear, unless they time everything perfectly, they take a while to wear u down.

[TwistedPower]

Just to let you know about your precious RMP comp. Thinking its OP an what not the best its just realy good. While I love my priest, My pallys Dk and hunter 3's team eats RMP for breakfast. We get RMP and go, yea easy win. Every time. Its lock down the mage, iceblock. Dodge the rogue. Iceblock ended mage gets owned in 20 seconds. Its the same with LRS teams except the locks live a bit longer but they have no block. Easy points. My fav thing is when they dps go after my pally, then my dps go after the priest. And then well I have a bubble and he doesnt and no mass dispell while strangulated :-P.

RMP is not any FotM it is just a good comp. Disc priests are not FotM they are just good. Why does anything good have to be the best, and only before they get nerfed? They dont. Infact I think people who call anything FotM is infact an idiot. Who came up with that stupid term anyways or rather who the hell decided to use it wrong. People need to get it out of their head that there is no 1 great comp every season. Else you would see people with 2800-3k with no losses. but you dont, cuase there is no such thing. Even the best people loose.

If everybody, well somthing like 90% of the people who played arena decided to play Hpally Ret Ret then gues what some of the top teams would be. RMP is just the most played comp becuase it is a fun comp and you can play towards the top due to its versitility. Nothing more or less. Good people tend to drift towards things that are good and interesting.