1. #1

    Disc or Holy for heroics

    I don't normally ask for help since I know how to play all my characters. I haven't really touched my priest at 85 though. Sitting in a few pieces of gear from random heroics.

    I specced disc when Cata came out and I found that it's no where as easy as it was in WOTLK. It's not very fun either.

    I am atonement specced where you heal through smite. Thought it was cool at first but I find it pretty lame now. I use shields, smite, gheal with inner focus, pom, and penance as my main heals.

    So far I've found the easiest healers to be.

    #1 resto druid
    #2 resto shaman
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    #3 holy pally
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    #4 disc priest

    I healed all the heroics with those other 3 classes in blue/greens with no gems/enchants and had no problem. My priest has full gems and still I go oom.

  2. #2
    If you don't like healing heroics as disc, try holy. It may just be that the playstyle suits you better. Some people do way better as disc, some as holy. I personally prefer heroics as holy because I feel like I'm more able to heal stupid. I prefer raiding as disc lately.

  3. #3
    I prefer holy for heroics, due to the the increased mana regen and the fuckloads of AoE and instant spells (holy words with instant chakra - cant remember the name atm - is sick). Pretty faceroll ^^

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Chinodawg View Post
    I prefer holy for heroics, due to the the increased mana regen and the fuckloads of AoE and instant spells (holy words with instant chakra - cant remember the name atm - is sick). Pretty faceroll ^^
    Disc is insanely easy for heroics to especially when you get gear. I can pretty much heal the new heroics as disc with just atonement and shields. Easily add a descent amount of extra dps and it makes healing a joke once you get use to it. I did holy for a while but once I started playing with disc I refuse to go back. I also have a resto shaman and holy paladin.. healing as disc with atonement is a lot more fun for heroics and a nice change from my other healers.
    Last edited by avx81; 2011-09-24 at 03:56 AM.

  5. #5
    Disc is amazing to heal heroics. Shields + Inner Focus + Train of Thought = GG.

  6. #6
    Deleted
    Not sure where you want to go with this thread.

    Smite-spec is quite fun for heroic IMO because you can speed up things. However, non-smite spec could be easier to begin with.

    But I agree that holy is easier when beginning heroics.

    If you want to go on with disc, I highly suggest getting Ingela's rapture to proc rapture on CD. You could also bind inner focus on PoH, FH. Maybe GH too. Penance on CD. Do not spam shield unless you are in deep shit. Avoid renew most of the time. Learn to use PI and PS to your advantage.

    GL
    Last edited by mmoc4a1158ae20; 2011-09-24 at 03:59 AM.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by avx81 View Post
    Disc is insanely easy for heroics to especially when you get gear. I can pretty much heal the new heroics as disc with just atonement and shields. Easily add a descent amount of extra dps and it makes healing a joke once you get use to it. I did holy for a while but once I started playing with disc I refuse to go back. I also have a resto shaman and holy paladin.. healing as disc with atonement is a lot more fun for heroics and a nice change from my other healers.
    then what am I doing wrong because your post doesn't help me.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by umad View Post
    then what am I doing wrong because your post doesn't help me.
    Because its not difficult or your gear is just bad. I usually just shield a tank and go at it with holy fire / smites with the very rare penance. Obviously if there's a lot of aoe damage or one of the dps are taking big single target damage you may want to chose another heal.. and you have to judge what is best to do there depending on the situation. I really don't see the point in going holy for heroics because I found it to be no easier and you offer absolutely nothing else. Extra dps and cooldowns can really come in handy for bear runs in za with bads also.

    I also have a resto shaman and holy paladin. You cant heal on a disc priest like you do on those characters.

  9. #9
    The Lightbringer Ultima's Avatar
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    Holy is generally considered to be easier. Like others mentioned, they use their Atonement raid spec, but that won't be easy in low gear.

    I'm surprised you've ranked Holy Paladin so low. I would say, for me, it was Resto Druid -> Holy Paladin -> Holy Priest = Resto Shaman -> Disc Priest when they stepped into Heroics from levelling gear/ 333 stuff.

  10. #10
    ~Disc is very gear dependent at the start (See: Rapture). When your PWS doesn't pay for itself with that proc then you will have more trouble. Remedy this with more Int
    ~Compound that with the simple fact that smite healing is more mana intensive than just simple Heal (See: Cast times and the fact that Smite =15% base mana and Heal =9%). Remedy this with more Int.
    ~Dealing with stupid in heroics involves a lot more PWS usage (which at low levels is very rough on mana). Remedy this with more Int.

    I find Holy (in Serenity Chakra) to be the easiest to heal with in heroics until you are bored. Atonement becomes more viable later on though I refuse to use it because I prefer having more control over a tank's health with SOS/TOT (but that's a symptom of my own psychosis).

    N.B. smite healing doesn't mean you only smite. I don't know if that was what you were doing (it would explain not being in control of the healing and running oom though). Smite is a tool to get AA up and to satisfy the urge to press buttons constantly (how many druids miss hopping around for entire 2-3 min stretches?) It's filler and actual healing spells always take precedence over healing with atonement when the damage requires it.

  11. #11
    holy has more unexpected damage healing output than disc.

    if you know when damage is about to happen then disc is better

  12. #12
    At just dinged 85 gear levels, Holy, by far, is more manageable on the mana. Once you gear up a bit, Disc will reach and overtake Holy on regen via rapture, and at that point, the AA spec will most likely be easier to handle than holy [for most].

  13. #13
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by [-Spiritus-] View Post
    At just dinged 85 gear levels, Holy, by far, is more manageable on the mana. Once you gear up a bit, Disc will reach and overtake Holy on regen via rapture, and at that point, the AA spec will most likely be easier to handle than holy [for most].
    Funny how this has changed since the start of Cataclysm when Holy by far was the harder of the two specs to heal with at low gear level. I have noticed that at high gear level (378), I find Disc much easier than Holy if you look at it mana wise.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Ariadne View Post
    Funny how this has changed since the start of Cataclysm when Holy by far was the harder of the two specs to heal with at low gear level. I have noticed that at high gear level (378), I find Disc much easier than Holy if you look at it mana wise.
    Honestly, at the start of the expansion, I found holy easier [mana wise] to manage over disc, but only at low gear levels. But, once I geared up a bit, Disc became easier to manage [assuming you understood the spec well]. But, YMMV.

  15. #15
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    It sounds like you're more used to the other healing classes, so Holy would probably be easier. As others have said Holy is also a lot more manageable at lower gear levels, where as Disc is really frustrating and would destroy your mana at lower gear.

    To be honest I almost never use AA in 5-mans. In my experience either everything dies too quickly or people are taking too much damage to be able to afford it, depending on the group. Sure if your party doesn't have awful gear it's pretty fun to do on boss fights, and like Jifjosh said it gives you something to do when damage is light. However I really don't recommend spending the mana on it if you're at lower gear levels though. And if you do decide to AA heal do yourself a favor and make sure you have Glyph of Divine Accuracy, it used to be incredibly depressing seeing Smite miss.

  16. #16
    so disc is just very gear dependant. Like I said I healed everything on my other characters in trash gear. no gems, no enchants, no reforging at all.

    I healed the last 3 bosses on ZA yesterday, but still had close calls.

    going to try holy.

  17. #17
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by [-Spiritus-] View Post
    Honestly, at the start of the expansion, I found holy easier [mana wise] to manage over disc, but only at low gear levels. But, once I geared up a bit, Disc became easier to manage [assuming you understood the spec well]. But, YMMV.
    Really? I found Holy really tough mana wise since Heal didn't cut it and I had to mix with Greater Heals etc. Tank was unhealable on thrash if I just spammed Heal with Serenity and Renew. As Disc I kinda pre shielded, PoM, sat down and drank and Smited up 5 stacks right on the pull. Meh, it was really fun back then. The first two or three days when everyone had just dinged and CC was neccessay and people hovering around 10-20% HP from random damage and me not healing them. Fun times. Wasn't a MMO reader back then so don't know if people whined here but on official forums people were crying.

    EDIT: Especially when most of your gear had no spirit.

  18. #18
    Deleted
    I found disc a little easier on mana once rapture started 'giving' mana instead of just reducing the cost of PW:S. Holy is a little easier at actually topping up a group with CoH, as disc you kinda have to PoH which costs a bit more mana in the long run. If you're tank is taking most of the damage then either should be fine. In either spec, try not to overheal too much, letting people drop down a bit and then using more efficient heals is perfectly fine. There's really nothing in 5mans that requires panick healing assuming people aren't stood in fire.

  19. #19
    I always go Disc for heroics, seems much easier. watch out for good rapture usage, that should be enough to not go oom.

    I've started with weird habbits, i've got near all 378 gear, so this might not work as well if your fresh lvl 85 :-)
    but whenever you have 100% mana (in between pulls, in fight, whenever!) just cast PoH, and try to ceep high shields up. with this tactic, heroics are so easy and smooth (burstdmg on random party members get absorbed), its darn booring :-)

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