Starting as Priest; Holy or Disc?

[bladeraze]

So I have been mainly tanking as warrior in WotLK and tried paladin for a short while, when Cata launched I leveled my warrior to 85 first, then decided to try and heal a little bit with my paladin and I enjoyed it, I only got to 82 as of now with it through the starting instances and a couple of WotLK faceroll HC's but decided I wanted to make a fresh start on leveling a healing class, so I chose Priest.

Without really thinking about it I specced Holy from 10 till 15 as I completely assumed Holy would be the prior spec for healing, however after my first Ragefire run I figured I ran OOM really fast and the spell I got for Holy spec was a DPS spell (was somewhat confused by that) and so switched to Disc for the really addicting Penance, the healing really felt a lot smoother with the mana efficient spell.

Now I'm kind of wondering what spec should I level with (both quests and instance healing), what is the most effective higher on and what are common mistakes made from people that have not been playing a healing class before?

Oh and btw, I tried the Disc spec in low lvl PvP and me and another same specced Priest completely raped the opposing graveyard in WSG, it was fun seeing enemy players thinking 'lololol a non-Spriest, let's kill it!' and then get nuked down by dots and Penance.

[Deleted]

shadow quests / disc ( at 30 when you get dual spec .. ) untill then quest .. .. after 80 holy for dungeons .. ( will be lots of aoe dmg .. )

[Ynna]

Personal preference. I prefer Holy and leveled completely as Holy. I don't know how mana is as Holy while questing now, but I would advice on getting a dual spec for shadow as soon as possible.

[bladeraze]

Yea I was planning on getting Dual Spec on 30, being Shadow for questing and such.

To add to the story, I went Disc on 15, leveled mostly through instances till 22 and then quested/instanced to 27 which barely took me a few hours to do so.

I really liked the AoE and multiple target healing from Paladins where you put a buff one one of the guys that's most likely taking most damage so it receives 50% of the heals received on any other target, the healing paladin itself gets healed too from just healing any other target and I'm guess the Holy spec is coming close to that.

I'm not familiar with the differences in the specs and I'm looking into them but without playing them both for a while it's hard to tell what major differences will be present when doing HC's for example.

I liked the Paladin healing style, but it felt just.. too easy, I like to have a bit of a challenge and I'm guessing Disc is the challenging healing in HC's and raids and the Holy is the 'easier' way to go.

[Deleted]

I would say don't quest as healer. Ever. You can get away with it as disc in the old world and maybe even somewhat in BC, but in wrath it will become painful and next to impossible in cata. Just save your nerves and go shadow for quests. On early levels mobs die from 2 mind flays, mid levels are a bit painful, since you'll have mana problems until you won't pick up masochism, but after that it's a walk in a park. And at lvl 81 real fun begins ^_^

Regarding healing specs, hands down, disc is immensely overpowered early on both in PvE and PvP, it just does not scale that well later on. Though I think biggest advantage of holy in 85 heroics is the ability to keep up tank with next to no mana. So many fight I had ended with a minute long phase of me barely having 3-5k mana and keeping tank up only on chakra and holy words

[PhilsPhan]

I have to disagree. I leveled 80-85 as Disc without a single death and absolutely zero issues. 80-81 was a joke. Just go with the smite spec for archangel so you wont have any mana issues. Open with a shield on yourself, SW:P, Devour, and smite away for the archangel proc. I never had any mana issues. As far as healing, I heal as Disc. I must say it is a challenge, especially on fights that require a good amount of AE heals. But it is a very rewarding spec.

[ContentsMayVary]

I would say don't quest as healer. Ever. You can get away with it as disc in the old world and maybe even somewhat in BC, but in wrath it will become painful and next to impossible in cata.

I have dual holy/disc spec, and I levelled to 85 with no problems. It was a little slow killing the mobs, but not hard at all, and there was no way they were going to kill me.

[Deleted]

I have to disagree. I leveled 80-85 as Disc without a single death and absolutely zero issues. 80-81 was a joke. Just go with the smite spec for archangel so you wont have any mana issues. Open with a shield on yourself, SW:P, Devour, and smite away for the archangel proc. I never had any mana issues. As far as healing, I heal as Disc. I must say it is a challenge, especially on fights that require a good amount of AE heals. But it is a very rewarding spec.

This.
I leveled 80->85 as Disc too and that was really easy, you can't really die, don't have that much mana issue. And when I see how many people are having problems playing Disc in heroics/raids, I feel really good.

[Maxpowr]

I leveled holy 80-85. Starting off in i277 gear made the first 3 levels a breeze. After that when scaling hits the fan, it becomes painful. I remember at 84 I was basically drinking after every 2 mobs. Now at 85 and in heroic and some raid pieces, it is very manageable.

[Deleted]

Decide for yourself, but basically as priest you have two choices:

1) Reverse Damage (Holy)
2) Prevent Damage (Disc)

Depends what you want to specialize in. Both are roughly equal if you get enough practice and the right gear. I picked disc, because I feel better when I have lots of instant casts and therefore get better movement in fights, whereas a holy has to stand and cast more, but pumps out bigger heals than disc. No issue in what's better whatsoever. Playstyle preference is what matters.