Holy vs Disc 5 man hc personal expirience

[Deleted]

Just my point of view...

Disc:
+ Easy to keep up dps/tank with low gear or hp.
+ Fun having utility's to boost dps(Power infusion) or to save someone (Pain suppression)
- Some mana issues in longer fights if dps is low or someone do misstakes.
- AoE healing is expensive.

Holy:
+ Ending trash pack or bosses with 80-100% mana with good grp feels satisfying.
+ Easy to keep grp topped.
- Hard to get tank/dps with low hp fast to full hp.

This is with ilvl 345.

[Kelesti]

Disc:
- Some mana issues in longer fights if dps is low or someone do misstakes.
- AoE healing is expensive.

Both of these are shared with Holy.

Holy:
+ Ending trash pack or bosses with 80-100% mana with good grp feels satisfying.

Not hard to do with Discipline

+ Easy to keep grp topped.

Not much easier, really.

But... this didn't really need to be said. Nothing new here.

[geryon84]

I've had a great time as atonement spec... actually prefering it over holy for most fights.

Definitely found disc to be preferable on encounters where I'm overgearing things (90% of trash fights). With Holy I just sit there, with Disc I toss out damage and heals. Runs go noticeably quicker.

I do have a hard time on AoE encounters or heavy damage as Disc. In order for me to get the output I need, I feel I have to get my Archangel up. Smite healing is comparable to Heal, but those fights really require long periods of Greater Heal in some cases. That means if I Smite heal, my tank dies, so I can't build evangelism stacks so I miss out on 15% +healing. There are a couple boss fights I barely get into archangel at all, which is a shame.

I love the management of Atonement though. I found that renew/chakra balancing was really annoying. Chakra always ran out or I'd be 1 second late to refresh Renew.

Also: I really miss Guardian Spirit. That's one fine "oh crap!" button.

[Iannis]

I switched out from smite heal spec. Put those points in ToT, Strength of Soul and Surge of Light. Yeah SoL proc feel rather rare now, but I do find heal being my main filler on a tank, so whatever. I miss archangel, just hardly ever find myself free enough on heroic bosses to cast smite. Maybe one or two but then I'd be busy healing and it'd just fall off, bah. Thats my biggest complaint with the smite system, having to charge up it to 5. I can see it being fun for trash like you said, but jeez with the kinds of damage heroic bosses are putting out, just cant justify the mana cost/cast times.

grumble

[sacrypheyes]

Inner Focus + Train of Though is king, on tank healing, all those free GH (not accounting crits) are godly, same goes for aoe Healing.

i don't like atonement nor evangelism, triage doesn't always work well with "smart" heals and even though i'd like poping wings more often, i'm not gonna spec evangelism untill they include Heal or GHeal as trigger spells.

[geryon84]

I've actually been pleasantly surprised at how often it comes through for me.

I think the secret I've found is that there's a 30s cooldown and I don't need to use smite as my primary heal. I use GHeal with Inner Focus when I can. Penance/shield is VERY strong combo and the cooldown of penance is further diminished by my smites. I just make sure I get 5 smites in every 30 seconds, which is pretty easy since it's down to a 1.67 casting time for me.

The biggest problem I've seen from other priests is that they think smite healing is the only heal they should use. It's not very efficient after you've got your 5 stacks, and my other heals are much more reliable. I use it barely more than the 5x required to get atonement up on 90% of the boss fights. There are only a few talent points different between a smite Disc build and a non-smite. Most of my play style is as a non-smite disc priest, I just have wings half the time and replace heals with smites when I can afford to.

[Kasuya]

Not hard to do with Discipline

i would love to see you doing a full hc boss fight and end with that much mana without using shadowfiend as a disc 345 priest ( cause depending on the fight, that's a lot of mp )

i just don't think that's possible.

Unless the fight is something like Corla on blackrock caverns, which is rly light on dmg.

[Okais]

i know im still new to the priesthood (havnt actually raided as priest since kara), but i leveled as disc in instances untill level 82. I did the early cata instances and honestly i was having a a tough time keeping up anyone but the tank on aoe heavy fights or high dmg fight. I also didnt like the playstyle of having to keep up evan.

At the moment i am holy and quite frankly im loving it. The versatility of chakra is a godsend, and it has saved me and my grps many a times when "mispulls"happened i would pull 8-10k hps and by the end up the fight id still have like %25 mana.

My vote if this is one is for holy for the sheer utility of the heals.

[Kasuya]

No offense dude.. but I'm not taking into account a low-level opinion... since the real difference in mana usage comes at lv85, when the mana really goes up for every spell, and the mana regen stays the same.
When ur spells cost more than 3k mana each... come and make your opinion again hehe

[Okais]

No offense dude.. but I'm not taking into account a low-level opinion... since the real difference in mana usage comes at lv85, when the mana really goes up for every spell, and the mana regen stays the same.
When ur spells cost more than 3k mana each... come and make your opinion again hehe

If this was directed to me i am in fact 85 as holy. What i was talking about with disc is that i dont have any experience with disc at 85, but my experiences with it in the earlier instances was that of diffaculty.

[PlatedPriest]

i was a "hardcore" disc priest in wotlk. i stuck with it in cata but honestly the second i went holy it was like taking a breath of fresh air. im not saying that it isnt doable as disc but it felt (to me) as if it was adding a layer of stress to healing heroics

[Kasuya]

i have no problem at all healing hcs with disc priest.. some encounters are difficult, like last boss of tol'vir.. but i never end a boss fight with more than 60% mana...

[Bigslick]

i would love to see you doing a full hc boss fight and end with that much mana without using shadowfiend as a disc 345 priest ( cause depending on the fight, that's a lot of mp )

i just don't think that's possible.

Unless the fight is something like Corla on blackrock caverns, which is rly light on dmg.

It is most definitely possible. I run main spec disc, and will attest to the fact that, properly specced and geared, at that gear level most trash packs and many heroic bosses can easily be completed with 80+% mana if you have a competent and balanced group in similar gear that is intelligent in CC (on trash) and avoiding avoidable damage (on all fights). Having more ranged than melee helps as well, as melee just tend to take a lot more damage in most fights than ranged.

Of course, ending mana level depends heavily on the specific boss fight. I haven't seen any fights that heavily tax a properly executed disc style more than a properly executed holy style in heroics (based on comparative observation when I flipped to tanking on my druid with the same group while a similarly geared/skilled holy priest took over my healing duties).

[Deleted]

I haven't played disc (yet) but so far I really like holy because you can quite easily heal everyone using renew and refreshing it with the heal chakra. It's very mana efficient and usually you have plenty of time to heal everyone except the tank up.

Holy also has serenity which means you can do a pretty heavy amount of burst healing casting two flash heals and then a fast greater heal. Not to mention you can also throw in a prayer of mending (and guardian spirit).

Edit: I healed Baradin Hold the other day and the same method using renew and the heal chakra to refresh the renew was working out perfectly. The tanks didn't take a whole lot of damage but the other raid members did. However, the damage was quite predictable and there was plenty of time to heal everyone up to 75%+ before they took damage again (the fel flames were quite hard to heal however).

Edit 2: 70% combat regen?!