Hey,
So as you can tell from the title, I highly rate the new disc priest. I think Blizzard did a great job at giving it an identity as a battle healer and making it a meld of both the holy and shadow specs. Here are just my thoughts on the spec and where its at currently.
Overall I feel like disc priest is a DPS class with a super simple rotation that transfers its damage into healing. When played well you are able to DPS the boss (and adds!) while weaving in some shields and small heals into the raid or dungeon to transfer more damage into heals. If it can be pulled off it is highly rewarding and very fun to play! It still retains its shielding potential (with rapture) that it had in WOD however now I feel like shielding it is much more defined and impactful. Yes I get it, you no longer spam shields and its a different class to what it was in WOD, but I think it changed for the better.
One thing I will agree with is that it has gone from one of the easiest healers to play in WOD to one of the hardest. If not played properly it can easily fail at both healing and keeping up in DPS. I'll be honest, this is what I did at first. I found that all I was trying to do was maintain atonement on as many people as possible while trying to find time to DPS and then just ended up just not doing either. I was very scared/cautious to use Shadow Meld due to the downside. Maintaining atonement on priority targets and using Power Word: Shield on cooldown is how I feel like it should be played. Also, In my experience keeping up with heals in a mythic dungeon was actually challenging. It required me to be constantly thinking about what I was doing, not just mindlessly spamming 1 or 2 buttons.
My recent discovery (and kind of why I'm writing this) is Shadow Covenant. What a spell! If you are unaware, it is an upgraded Power word: Radiance that heals 5 injured allies for 500% spell power but then gives them a healing absorb shield of 250% spell power. To put that in perspective Flash Heal, heals for 475% spell power, 1 target, longer cast. Shadow Covenants AOE healing potential is huge albeit at the cost of large amounts of mana.
So that's my thoughts, super fun, very rewarding, huge AOE potential and a battle healer at its core. I'd be curious as to what you think about it and if you have any questions.
Thanks