Disc Leveling - Best of Both Worlds?

[partizan]

This week I've started leveling up a priest alt, and I've got to say, I know folks seem to be a big proponent of shadow as a leveling spec, but discipline really seems to be fitting the role well. Granted, I'm only at 24 right now, using heirloom shoulders/chest/2h/int trinket, but it seems like I can just self-bubble, Holy Fire + Penance and nuke mobs with Smite (can handle 4+ mobs at once using bubbles + Renew), and no mana issues whatsoever. I've not noticed any issues maintaining heals in 5-mans either, and that's without points in Atonement.

It looks like Disc is about to get a few good buffs with 4.0.6, this spec seems to be a good role-filler for both solo-questing and low-end dungeon content, is this normal and to be expected?

[wyldeice]

I think it is normal, I just think people think disc is for healing. I lvled my priest pre Cata changes as disc and dominated in pvp, soloed group quests, and effectivly healed dungeons.

[Oinkz]

lemme put it this way, im 22 right now and have been spamming instances. i out dps most classes (even though with heirlooms) while healing. I have even tanked deadmines after tank had to leave by just bubbling myself and owning the mobs with smite. i ran with a spriest and he was no where CLOSE to me.

So in my opinion yes go disc!

[bromogrin]

I have leveled a few priest alts as disc and it is way better than shadow in my opinion. Pennace at lvl 10 now is just the icing on the cake!

[Krimson]

Totally depends on your level. Early on, I think Disc is better. It gives you most of your important killing tools early on. Penance, 6% dmg in first line of tree, power infusion a bit later, good survability.

The thing is, it doesn't really improve at killing things from there, while the mobs do get tougher. As you go up the tree you get more healing talents, more survivability, more mana regen, etc etc. There is nothing that helps you smite a bit harder.

Shadow starts off slow, but the entire tree is just constantly making you better and better at killing things. At 24 you don't even have shadowform so there is little reason to care. By ~50 or so when shadow has shadowform, VT, VE, mind melt, etc etc, it really does make a big difference. Are you barely taking dmg in this spec with mind-flay kiting, PW:S when they get to you, and self-healing talents keeping what little damage you do take topped up.

I dual spec'd disc and shadow on my priest from 55-85. There were a number of times I would get out of a dungeon and be too lazy to switch spec's and would go out questing as Disc. I'm not going to say Disc levelling was bad, because it was definitely doable, but the killing speed just didn't compare.