10 Man Holy vs Disc

[Deleted]

Hello!

I am kinda new to the class and are gearing up atm as i dinged not to long ago. The reason for rolling priest is easy, I want to heal. As I normally go 10m raids and cant find a proper answer to the question I wonder how the speccs are standing against each other. As far as I understand, Holy is the go to spec if you are in a 2 healer team and disc more powerful when you go as a 3rd healer as for providing dos and smart heals as a "semi dps/ semi healer"?

Would really love it if someone actually can help me solve when, where and why you should use the diffrent speccs.

Edit: I read as much as i can in the discussion on some forums but as i am totally new to the class and not used to it i find it a bit hard at some times to get things clear.

Regards
Wazzax

[Deleted]

Imo for 10 mans disc feels more comfortable due to flexibility and utility: spirit shell on 2 groups only is a raid cooldown that can make certain boss abilities trivial, and the aoe powerhouse that holy is doesn't really have a lot of room to shine on 10 people. Add this the fact that atonement healing 1/10 of the raid every @1.5 second, smart heal with no cd and a very adaptable range, plus the dps is very likely to matter in a 10 man format, and you got a very good package with disc. This doesn't mean holy is an absolute bad idea - they are just as good as any other healer, nobody says you absolutely need a disc to clear content. Thing is - holy and all the other healers are just that, healers. Disc is the closest thing to a hybrid, bringing a little of every good thing - healing, absorbs and dps. Disc is also more efficient at tank/spot healing, which are more likely to happen with fewer raiders. Holy can technically dps too, but chakra cd makes it cumbersome in my opinion, nowhere as comfortable as disc.

[Deleted]

Like said disc can bring alot to raiding. But Holy is generally more powerfull in aoe healing.
But disc is just as powerfull in a 2 man team then 3 man. Tho if you do decide to 2 man heal raids, disc can work as a 2.5 man heal group. By atonement healing if you need that bit more healing.

But in the end, you should play what u enjoy. Try both specs out and see what you prefer.

[Deleted]

Quite encounter dependent. Holy works fine for bosses with constant high raid damage, but disc will rock away anything that requires individual healing. And since blizzard now seems to like having people go down within 4 seconds if not healed, smart heals are quite favored.

I'm just 7/13, so take the following for what you will. But I couldn't see myself speccing holy for any reason in current content. Disc just brings too much utility to a raid.

1) Smart heals. Probably the biggest reason why Disc is so useful.
2) Shields, for obvious reasons.
3) Mana efficiency. No other healer gets so much out of their mana, plus Disc tend to just not overheal all that much in the first place.
4) Atonement "cheesing" - Jin'Rokh more than doubles your atonement healing, Horridon triples it. Elegon in MSV, Garalon in HoF, Sha of Fear are also heavily disc-favored due to atonement. There will always be bosses with damage taken debuffs, SoO will be no different. No one in their right mind would spec holy on a boss with a steep boost to atonement.

The extra raid damage is negligible if you two-heal and have good DPSers. I rarely top 40k DPS on boss fights, while our DPS usually goes from 140k to 220k per person.

Other than that, Disc is a strong healer on its own. It's not some sort of half-assed healer. It uses the same base toolbox as holy, only that you smite instead of using single-target heals. Holy only has the Hymn as a very strong CD, whereas Disc has both SS and PWB, although you can hardly compare all these spells.

Imo Disc is especially useful in two-healing 10-mans. The second healer is there to heal anything that has gotten through the Disc's utilities and to provide the raw HPS. Disc is more of a constant triage healer and death preventer, HPS is for other specs and classes.

[Flura]

If your DPS or/and Tank are bad and/or lazy play Disc to compensate.

[Deleted]

I would go with what you find more fun, i jumped on the disc bandwagon and it bugged me for a long time. Guild let me switch to my Resto Sham, im really happy now.

My GF plays a Holy P in the same raid team, along with a Holy Pally. So, according to most stats the Sham and Holy Priest are lowest rated, yet we are moving through ToT Normal. We have 1 week left to kill last 3 bosses

The GF is doing fine on her Holy, i mean if you take away the bubbles from HPS. Most healers are similar

[Deleted]

I would go with what you find more fun, i jumped on the disc bandwagon and it bugged me for a long time. Guild let me switch to my Resto Sham, im really happy now.

My GF plays a Holy P in the same raid team, along with a Holy Pally. So, according to most stats the Sham and Holy Priest are lowest rated, yet we are moving through ToT Normal. We have 1 week left to kill last 3 bosses

The GF is doing fine on her Holy, i mean if you take away the bubbles from HPS. Most healers are similar

But healing done and compare what will be the best choice for your raid is not about taking away the bubbles true? It could be the same to say:

take away the totems from shaman - most healers are similar

[Deleted]

There is one thing that always is the most important in WoW:

Prevent damage is always better then Heal damage.

So, Disc is actually able to do 2 of these things in 10 man, and thats the reason why almost everyone plays disc.

Besides that, with the changes to mindbender, Holy will surely be playable in 10 man in 5.4 if you dont Progress (and even then, if you insist on it, but i will slow down your progress)

Holy has very strong AoE healing abilities and is a very strong healer for sure in 25 man, but in 10 man disc is outperforming him here and there for quite a bit. Like on bosses with heavy movement or Damage mods(Like horridon/Animus/Jikun/leishen).

[Zappidoo]

Whats everyone opinion on having 2 priests in a 10 man progression group. Which scenario would be better overall, 2 disc priests or 1 holy and 1 disc. Guild leader wants me me to go Holy when the other priest is there because she is being groomed to play disc. I can play all 3 specs well. On a side note my objective is to have a healer/rdps toon so I can fill in holes in our grp. We have a Shammy heals and a Disc priest atm, possibly a resto druid. We are full on melee so Pali and Monk wont be an option. Which of the 3 would u go with?

[Basmothh]

Whats everyone opinion on having 2 priests in a 10 man progression group. Which scenario would be better overall, 2 disc priests or 1 holy and 1 disc. Guild leader wants me me to go Holy when the other priest is there because she is being groomed to play disc. I can play all 3 specs well. On a side note my objective is to have a healer/rdps toon so I can fill in holes in our grp. We have a Shammy heals and a Disc priest atm, possibly a resto druid. We are full on melee so Pali and Monk wont be an option. Which of the 3 would u go with?

I wouldn't enjoy healing with 2 Priests in a 10-man, if only for the fact that there's going to be a high chance of sniping each other's PoM.

[Deleted]

Hehe yea your right, but the shield bug me when i see our pally pulling away, but at the end of the day we got to 12/12 before 5.4 so thats what counts.

Did do first 3 bosses in Flex tonight, although failed on the last by 2% a few times.......

Holy Priest was struggling, not only with numbers but with mana again. I dont play Holy, but i cant see a real future for it? How is it ment to be played? I read AOE powerhouse, but how can you AOE with no mana.

[Dorfie]

I think Disc will still be best overall for 10 man, but I intend to give holy a decent try this tier for funs.

[Larinnian]

Holy is fantastic for anything where you're going to suffering high AoE damage. Disc, while not limited to Tank and Single Target healing, absolutely rocks for those 2, and if you're having problems with your mana, Disc seems to be the better option, but hopefully Spirit isn't really a problem anymore with the level of gear we're at now

[Venara]

My raid's currently at 9/14 in SoO. I was Disc for all of ToT after being Holy for years, as it was simply the superior spec.

After doing the first 4 bosses, and now 9 in total, I can say that, so far, all the bosses in SoO have some form of AoE that occurs regularly and hits quite hard. I respecced to Holy after boss 3 after beginning to struggle to keep up with Disc. Holy is just amazing this patch. No mana issues with the Mindbender & Serendipity buff and the AoE capabilities of Holy should be well known.

Since I hadn't played Holy in a while, I was quite surprised how insanely strong Prayer of Mending coupled with Divine Insight is. I topped the meters and ProM was usually the spell that healed the most for me. In one fight it made up over 50% of my healing.

I do miss the DPS part of playing Disc but I reckon I'll be Holy a lot more this patch

[Casimir]

I do miss the DPS part of playing Disc but I reckon I'll be Holy a lot more this patch

Funny thing is, that a Holy priest can do absurd DPS, a lot more then disc priest.
Only they don't heal with doing damage. But in moments that healing requirement is low and you could basicly almost 2 heal it then a holy priest is way better then disc to support the raid with DPS and still can do a lot of emergency healing, Lightspring, Divine Hymn, PoM etc.

You should give it a try, was very funny to hear people on ventrilo; Why are you shadow? While i was Holy