Stay Disc or go Holy?

[Deleted]

Hi there,

as you guys recommended I went disc while leveling, and it (is) was great. I had absolutley no problem healing the normal Heroics.

But with the new ICC 5-mans I kinda have a hard time to keep everyone alive since the AoE dmg is huge. Especially Pit of Saron is a pain in the ass for me to heal. I always got PoM and Shields active, but Garfrost and the 3-4 Packs up to the Cave in Pit are really annoying.

Should I try holy or should i stay disc? What would be better to heal some "easy" 10 mans like toc?

Oh, I have about 2200 spellpower.

Thank you (again )

[Outofmana]

For me, Holy has always been the best healing spec. I feel handicapped as disc.

But yeah, the two packs after pit of saron's Eck are hard for any healing spec if you are not overgearing the instance.

I'd say try holy and feel the might of CoH and PoHs. No reason not to try it for a week or two. But in the end it's whether or not you like the healing style of the spec. Which is different for every player.

[Dominate]

Varies a lot depending on the group and how good/ bad the tank is. What disc lacks in party/ raid healing it makes up for pretty much infinite mana. What holy lacks in the danger of /oom'ing you make up for with really strong healing on aoe damage.

PoS is a pain in the ass full stop, especially on the first boss healing pugs and the "lose stacks" concept is lost, people standing in whirlwinds/ poisons, running into each other with the blight, pulling aggro in the gauntlet tunnel. The mobs up to the cave just have me killing the odd dps which is irritating me (just because it's them or the tank and its a pain running back).

I can't comment on trying holy or staying disc too much as I dual specced them both. My advice would be just to run your randoms, go PoS if you need the gear/ badges/ what have you and hope for non idiots. Simply put, you can spec disc or holy as you want and do an amazing job. There's still four other people there to either make it a breeze or a storm in a teacup.

[Calendra12345]

Disc is really forgiving on gear, and basically will be a better raid healer then holy, on 25 man. if only disc priest, that is ofc.

[Elween]

ye its true about the aoe dmg and the pain to heal that as a disc priest, hmn well holy requires some stats to pay off, and they are:

Spell power
Haste
Mana pool / regen

You go oom pretty fast if you dont have i would say 400/500 mana reg min, same goes for your mana pool (replenishment).

Them goes the haste and spell power, its how fast you deliver and how much will be, well here im not sure what are the perfect stats to role holy, i can guess like try to have some haste about 300/400 and the sp you have isnt a problem atm atleast for heroics.

[Deleted]

its good to see that i'm not the only one struggling through pit of saron

My unbuffed stats are

2k SP
24k Mana
391 ManaRegen
304 Haste

(and 304 Hit, but just because those damn shadow items were better than my blues/greens that i was carrying around from leveling. I try to get rid of it as hard as I can :P)

[Elween]

imo you can go holy with that, but if you have dual spec for disc/holy even better. At least until you have a more imba gear.

[Cracka_Bob]

i would say disc is better for minor AoE damage and/or "smart" dps (the ones that know what theyre doing but still take 1 too many hits) so you can focus more on the tank and maybe 1 dps or yourself

but holy for major AoE damage and/or "dumb" dps (like the ones that refuse to lose the debuff on garfrost) where you have to heal a bunch of people at once

however, even though holy can be VERY good at AoE healing, its also mana intensive if you start to spam heals... to counter balance this, it helps to know which spells to use at the right time. Flash Heal is a very fast heal, it can save someone who is low, but spamming someone to full will use more mana than necessary. so for example if you need to get someone up quick use a few flash heals until they can stay up long enough to cast a greater heal

also, renew can be used to "top off" those who are taking minor raid damage as well as PoM (but PoM has a mind of its own so-to-speak)

and in extreme situations where you need HUGE AoE heals you can PoH followed by CoH for a not so quick but very big heal

the AoE potential of holy is phenomenal and its the reason i raid as holy... i say try it out but pace yourself in the beginning to get used to the mana usage

personal tip: what i do is learn about how much my heals will heal for so i dont waste a big heal when not needed. i try not to overheal (except when there is constant raid damage and the healing is needed) so that i dont use too much mana

sorry if any of this is confusing or sounds dumb... its 3:40 ish in the morning sooo yeah >.< lol

[Snowulf]

holy= big numbers for meters
disc= pvp/ damage absorb

I usually raid as holy and do everything else as disc.

[Dumsnut]

I think it's just a matter of what healingspecc you prefer. I can't seriously heal anything even if my life depended on it in holy, but in disc, my oh my. For example the instance you are talking about, I went in there, people was hesitating cause of my GS and about half my gear was PvP and I really told them not to worry, by the time we were in the tunnel for the long run, they were just spamming how freaking awesome I was at healing. But I would have never ever fixed it as holy in my current state.

Stay disc if you wanna improve that playstyle, otherwise go holy. Imo.

[Cracka_Bob]

I think it's just a matter of what healingspecc you prefer. I can't seriously heal anything even if my life depended on it in holy, but in disc, my oh my. For example the instance you are talking about, I went in there, people was hesitating cause of my GS and about half my gear was PvP and I really told them not to worry, by the time we were in the tunnel for the long run, they were just spamming how freaking awesome I was at healing. But I would have never ever fixed it as holy in my current state.

Stay disc if you wanna improve that playstyle, otherwise go holy. Imo.

another reason i raid as holy... disc seems way too easy (and therefore boring) for me but hey everyone has their opinions, including me

[Egeldi]

Healing as disc requires more forethought than holy. You have to get a sense for how people take damage in each instance and predict. Pre-shield people wherever possible, especially when group-wide AOE is about to hit. Keep PoM on CD.

Borrowed time is your best friend. Anytime you need to heal people up from a bad AOE, pop a shield on one (preferably the tank) before you do a prayer of healing, it'll cast a lot faster. Then pop a penance on the tank to bring him back up, shield whoevers lowest, and do another prayer of healing. Try hard to avoid casting prayer of healing w/o borrowed time up.

Biggest thing though is just being concious of how damage tends to hit the group and preempt it by putting shields up beforehand.

A good example in a raid environment: Festergut when hes about to do pungent blight, which is the big exahle after hes inhaled 3 times, I blanket shield the raid as best I can. One way to do this is to pop pain supression on the tank 10-15 seconds before pungent blight, so the other 2 healers are able to keep the tank up, then just go down the list shielding everyone. While this isn't nessecary if everyones done their job in getting 3 spores, it can smooth out that big chunk of AOE damage and make it a lot less scary.

TLDR: if you play as disc, you have to think ahead and anticipate damage, and smooth it out via shields. If you play reactively, go holy.

[Cracka_Bob]

Healing as disc requires more forethought than holy. You have to get a sense for how people take damage in each instance and predict. Pre-shield people wherever possible, especially when group-wide AOE is about to hit. Keep PoM on CD.

Borrowed time is your best friend. Anytime you need to heal people up from a bad AOE, pop a shield on one (preferably the tank) before you do a prayer of healing, it'll cast a lot faster. Then pop a penance on the tank to bring him back up, shield whoevers lowest, and do another prayer of healing. Try hard to avoid casting prayer of healing w/o borrowed time up.

Biggest thing though is just being concious of how damage tends to hit the group and preempt it by putting shields up beforehand.

A good example in a raid environment: Festergut when hes about to do pungent blight, which is the big exahle after hes inhaled 3 times, I blanket shield the raid as best I can. One way to do this is to pop pain supression on the tank 10-15 seconds before pungent blight, so the other 2 healers are able to keep the tank up, then just go down the list shielding everyone. While this isn't nessecary if everyones done their job in getting 3 spores, it can smooth out that big chunk of AOE damage and make it a lot less scary.

TLDR: if you play as disc, you have to think ahead and anticipate damage, and smooth it out via shields. If you play reactively, go holy.

this guy obviously doesnt have much experience as holy...

just like disc you have to know when AoE damage is gonna happen but rather than casting a shield, you have to start casting your AoE heals slightly before the damage.... heres a visual of (simplified) holy AoE healing

start casting AoE heal > raid starts taking damage > cast finishes and heals those who took damage

if anything i think disc requires LESS forethought than holy and is more of a "reactive" playstyle

holy requires more precise timing.... cast too early and you risk severe overhealing and thus wasted mana..... cast too late and you risk letting people die and/or wiping the raid

disc is a little more forgiving in that you can shield someone (the tank as you said) which would then reduce damage taken by the raid and you can get away with casting WHILE the raid is taking damage rather than before hand like holy

so explain to me how exactly a good holy priest requires less thinking than a disc priest

[Dumsnut]

another reason i raid as holy... disc seems way too easy (and therefore boring) for me but hey everyone has their opinions, including me

I still have about 29% haste, 35% crit, 28k mana, 400mp5 in combat and 2,9k sp. It's not that my gear is gimped and disc is carrying me. I've just not played anything but disc basically. I just don't have any clue at all on how to play as holy.

[Bigslick]

Should I try holy or should i stay disc? What would be better to heal some "easy" 10 mans like toc?

To the first, you should definitely try holy healing. It's worth it to determine which style you prefer, as well as to gain a better understanding of how their healing methods contribute to a raid's healing synergy. Once you've done that, provided your eventual raiding group's healing needs allow you the option, pursue the spec you personally enjoy playing more.

To the second, it totally depends on what spec the other healers are in that 10-man raid. Whether you're 2- or 3-healing content, if there's 2 priests healing one should definitely be disc. In my experience when you have a resto druid healing alongside, disc tends to offer better synergy as well.

You may want to consider simply having one as main- and the other as your off-spec, allowing you to shift to the one that best functions with the other healers in a raid or to manage the mechanics of a given encounter.

so explain to me how exactly a good holy priest requires less thinking than a disc priest

It doesn't. Of course, a good disc priest requires no less thinking than holy, either. I'm really hoping this topic doesn't derail into a 'my-spec-is-better/harder/more fun-to-play-than-yours' thread, because the simple fact is that in order to effectively play as holy or as disc you need to be constantly and actively thinking about the encounter.

A good disc or holy priest anticipates damage bursts to individuals and the raid as a whole, watches who is about to pull aggro, constantly evolves the triage list by which they prioritize heals. A good disc or holy priest selects the proper tool from their similarly extensive arsenal with which to treat the problem.

A bad disc priest blindly spams shield w/ PoM on CD, a bad holy priest blindly spams renew w/ PoM and CoH on CD, and a bad gnome is... ok, well that's redundant.

Both specs are proactive, and both specs are reactive. The spells and game talents we apply may differ, but the personal skills we apply are largely the same.

holy requires more precise timing.... cast too early and you risk severe overhealing and thus wasted mana..... cast too late and you risk letting people die and/or wiping the raid

disc is a little more forgiving in that you can shield someone (the tank as you said) which would then reduce damage taken by the raid and you can get away with casting WHILE the raid is taking damage rather than before hand like holy

Actually when there's predictable burst damage coming in, disc is doing the same thing holy is. Take Stinky's decimate accompanied by his AOE damage aura. Disc pre-shields to protect the remaining health of the raid against the first ticks of the aura while holy pre-renews to set the path to health recovery underway, and both time a PoH to land right after decimate.

As to overheal and wasted mana: Shields can be wasted mana and effective overheal too if they are cast on a target who doesn't end up taking the damage - kind of like holy's pre-emptive renew, though admittedly shields are less susceptible as they last longer and don't diminish in potential till they expire. Aside from shields, every other disc spellcast is at similarly high risk for overhealing and thus wasted mana as holy spellcasts.

[Smoopie]

SOOOo happy i re-rolled paladin in sept...

I got so sick of people not understanding how disc works

STILL even in this thread people have to ask and defend disc...

Blizzard really needs to work on tracking aborbs, it is not fun having to defend your spec a full year and a half into an expansion

[Egeldi]

this guy obviously doesnt have much experience as holy...

Actually I do. CoH makes up a large portion of holys AOE healing, it's on a 6 second CD which means its quite spammable.

Yes, you have to line up your Prayer of Healings well, but those make up a smaller portion of your AOE healing, and honestly that's exactly the same as disc, trying to time your prayers of healings for right after a big chunk of AOE damage lands.

The reason I make the differentiation between disc and holy, is that holy heals you after you've taken damage. Disc tries to prevent damage in the first place.

so explain to me how exactly a good holy priest requires less thinking than a disc priest

I never said that. I said that to optimize your disc playstyle you have to anticipate the damage and toss shields in advance (if you're playing a raid healing style).

Heres an example of healing the raid as disc on LK. Infest CD hits in 12 seconds, you start spam shielding the entire raid to try and have shields up on everyone before infest hits.
For holy, you have to watch for when infest CD hits about... 2 seconds. Disc has to think further ahead in order to raid heal well, holy doesn't have to think quite as far ahead.

The challenge for disc is anticipating the damage accurately. Any shield you toss that is not used up is wasted. As holy, you see someones green bar dip below 100% and you heal them, which means its not wasted.

As holy, yes, you can heal better if you anticipate damage, but if you screw up you're probably still okay because you have CoH and you can renew spam people that are hurt. In the same situation a disc priest struggles a lot more to patch up the raid: if they don't get the shields out a the right time its hard to catch up.

[harky]

If CoH is ever your top heal you either had too many healers, outgeared content, or you're bad... I'm leaning towards that last bit. In ICC both Holy and Disc play in a reactive and proactive manner. If you aren't, then you shouldn't be healing. Holy, in general, requires a higher degree of skill to do well in ICC. Disc is the easier spec to play on any fight that Disc is worth playing. Note that that list is very small and with the introduction of the now +15% buff, is most likely non-existent in normal modes.

I got so sick of people not understanding how disc works

STILL even in this thread people have to ask and defend disc...

Blizzard really needs to work on tracking aborbs, it is not fun having to defend your spec a full year and a half into an expansion

Yes, Blizz does need to allow proper absorb tracking. If they did then it would be much harder to defend Discipline in T9+ content because it would expose exactly how much absorbs were taking place and less reliance on understanding fight mechanics to judge Discipline's performance. However, unlike the very gung-ho Discipline supporters believe, this would not show Discipline as being very strong, but that they're relatively weak. Comparable to Holy, yes, but not to Druids, or even Shaman. There is an issue with Priest throughput which can only be seen with the ICC buff disabled. Which, in many ways makes it a non-issue as even the 'hardcore' progression guilds are making no effort to disable the buff to really achieve anything in ICC. I'm still hoping that we'll see an LK no-buff kill, but I'm not holding my breath.

Hopefully, if Blizz does add this functionality, we can finally get an objective look at thing. There are too many people who do not trust math and instead blindly follow how they 'feel' about healing. Too many people think there's something zen about healing and we should be measured by how many lives we saved. Want to measure the lives you saved? Divide your healing by the average health of those you healed proportionately to the amount you healed them. Stability should be the goal as a healer. Stability and power.

Probably getting flamed for this one, eh?
<Kelesti soaks harky with fluid that smells like gasoline, and stands close by with a Fire Extinguisher, just in case> -- <3 Kel

[Izenhart]

Just finished to raid, and yet again I'm depressed.

Putricide HM

Shaman 3M and 7k HPS
Druid 2.8M and 6.5k HPS

Me + other HPriest 2M and 4,5-5k HPS


I'd even agree on that if they have a complex and difficult rotation to use.

71% heals from Chain Heal
66% heals from Rejuvenation

What's the point of being holy again?

[fung]

Hi there,

But with the new ICC 5-mans I kinda have a hard time to keep everyone alive since the AoE dmg is huge. Especially Pit of Saron is a pain in the ass for me to heal. I always got PoM and Shields active, but Garfrost and the 3-4 Packs up to the Cave in Pit are really annoying.

Should I try holy or should i stay disc? What would be better to heal some "easy" 10 mans like toc?

Oh, I have about 2200 spellpower.

Thank you (again )

Instead of commenting on the differences between disc and holy, how about i help you regarding that POS pull in particular as disc?

first thing to know is that those mobs are shackleable, and the back-right mob is a good candidate, being a caster that'll still be standing in the same spot after a warrior tank charges in or whatever. mark it up, focus target it, and keep it shackled, refreshing every 15 seconds or so if you can to make sure it doesn't break early. protip: shackle, even on a mob being attacked, can still serve as a spell-interrupt; don't bother with that until you're going for style points though.

second thing to know is that both magic debuffs and disease debuffs are being applied by this pack. a good raidbar setup to keep you informed of this is invaluable. oh, make sure there's an aggro indicator too in addition to magic/disease. you'll pretty much want abolish disease running on the tank the whole time. i like vuhdo because so much is configured the way i like by default, but many perfectionists will tell you grid+addons can't be beat. i'd guess 1/3-1/2 my time spent healing these packs is pure dispel spam.. ESPECIALLY if you haven't shackled anything. if you get behind on healing, pain suppression the tank and catch up while that's going on.

third thing really isn't under your control, but having the dps hold back and make sure the tank has all the threat helps you tremendously here too.

i've taken to stripping all the items that display on my character except wrist hands and feet and healing my heroics "naked" with a sub 4k gs, somewhere around the spellpower you mentioned, just to make them something i need to be awake to play. i assure you, the spec is more than capable. play whichever you enjoy and don't let anyone tell you something can't be done.