Disc in Heroic ToC

[Eletharin]

I've been a disc priest since before it was cool to be a disc priest (imp spirit buff anyone?) but this new content has me questioning disc utility and I'd like to hear some other opinions on it. I fully understand the utility of disc and how awesome shields have been. Back in Ulduar big shields were big and our regen was out of control. Nowadays our regen isn't what it used to be (to be fair its balanced and less OP), and when everything hits so much harder, shields feel more trivial and weakened soul feels longer. Sure there are still the occasional "BAM I JUST SAVED THAT GUY" moments, but they are fewer and farther between.

One of our holy priests started school recently, and I raided as holy the whole night (not just for the AOE intensive fights for CoH/PoM spam) and it just feels more powerful now. Maybe its coefficient scaling with higher gear levels? Maybe its just me? Thought? Opinions? Flame? Either way, I think I might be buying a ticket on the holy bus and wanted to see if I was the only one.

[Heratix]

Holy does gain more spell power from the spirit you have, so on that part Holy somewhat scales with the gear you have, where Disc doesn't. Other then that both specs are somewhat on the same level IMO.

Anyway personally I run both specs, I always decide which spec i'm going to use depending on the fight and the task at hand. (Could have gone with a shadow off-spec but I like healing to much )

Regarding ToC, some fights just require you to be Holy, and others are more preferred as Disc.

[harky]

Eh, there's no fight in ToC where Holy is 'required'. The closest thing is Twin Valks, but that's purely due to PoM bouncing like it's on crack. Pre-Shielding helps just as much. P3 Anub very slightly favors Holy, but still benefits substantially from having 1 Disc Priest on the tank. The other fights all favor Disc.

Honestly, unless you have multiple Discipline Priests, you should be Disc. I'm not sure why you feel our shields are trivial now, or our regen is somehow worse, though... It's really not the case. I guess it feels that way if you ignore DA, or if you're really low on crit.

[Ironfoot]

Disc is awesome. Simple as that. It's never been in a better place than it is right now, and I love it. As a testament to that I now see other Priests who are Disc, and who aren't doing PvP. Previously I saw very, very, very few Disc Priest's that went for PvE, now I see much more.

In relation to PW:S, how can you possibly think it feels trivial?! PW:S is freaking amazing and I love it more than I can possibly say. Yes on a tank taking 15k hits it might be gone in one GCD, but that's roughly 8k damage that was absorbed instead of smashing the tank in the face. It all helps.

I've only done ToC normal so I can't speak from experience in Heroic, but we had no problems what so ever with me being Disc. I never once felt I could of contributed more by going Holy. Not once.

P3 Anub is where Disc shines in my opinion. Spam the raid with PW:S and they can absorb the damage instead of you having to heal them up and possibly heal Anub too much. No other class/spec has that sort of ability.

However if you feel you prefer Holy to Disc then don't let anyone stop you. They are both very viable specs and will work well in most combinations.

Since I've been Disc since early TBC I'll remain Disc until I don't want to heal anymore

[cruxxy]

Disc is awesome. Simple as that. It's never been in a better place than it is right now, and I love it. As a testament to that I now see other Priests who are Disc, and who aren't doing PvP. Previously I saw very, very, very few Disc Priest's that went for PvE, now I see much more.

In relation to PW:S, how can you possibly think it feels trivial?! PW:S is freaking amazing and I love it more than I can possibly say. Yes on a tank taking 15k hits it might be gone in one GCD, but that's roughly 8k damage that was absorbed instead of smashing the tank in the face. It all helps.

I've only done ToC normal so I can't speak from experience in Heroic, but we had no problems what so ever with me being Disc. I never once felt I could of contributed more by going Holy. Not once.

P3 Anub is where Disc shines in my opinion. Spam the raid with PW:S and they can absorb the damage instead of you having to heal them up and possibly heal Anub too much. No other class/spec has that sort of ability.

Since I've been Disc since early TBC I'll remain Disc until I don't want to heal anymore

PREACH IT! AMEN! When I missed a few raids last week, our RL actually had one of the Holy priests go Disc I thought I might have to go Holy for HTwins. But with shield spam, PoM bopping around and an occasional PoH, Disc works very well even there.

The big key to remember is that Disc is not a FH spammer. If that's the case, bring a holy pally. Disc is all about mitigation. Shield spam, keep inspiration on your tank, burst heal tanks when needed. That is what we do and it is a tremendous asset to any progression raid.

Reg 25 Anub, shield spam is great in p3. However on heroic Anub, Shield spam is actually a detriment to raid healing I think. Minimizing raid healing is critical to kill under the raid timer, and Raid HoTing is the best way I believe to do so. If you shield a target, their HoTs will "overheal". Shield penetrating cold targets and burst heal tanks.

Holy is a great healing spec. If you want to put out huge number, you can put out BIG numbers. As we were grinding Ulduar, I was really getting bored with Disc. Seemed like all I did was shield spam. But in HToC, I'm really enjoying Disc again. All the fights are very healer-intensive and a lot of fun.

[-Ethos-]

Fairly certain all the guilds that have killed 25HM Anub wouldn't have been able to do it without at least one disc priest.

Funnily enough its probably the first fight so far that is less awkward and more controlled with more than one disc priest.


And in terms of utility. Pick one of your guilds caster DPS, make a whisper macro and train PI onto one of them each time its off CD. Once your other casters start seeing how huge a DPS boost PI-training is, you'll be getting begged by your warlocks and mages for it.

[Feloth]

Discipline is an asset to any raid, and especially in heroics (10 or 25s). As you develop into the discipline spec and learning how to heal with it, you come to realize that very little saves people better from dying than a well placed shield and Penance. Pro-active shielding, combined with insane mana regen, makes disc priests a very strong contributor who can keep people alive - which I hear is the #1 way of winning timed fights. Heroic ToC has fights with large amounts of burst damage to single targets (H beasts and to some extent Jaraxxus), a pvp fight (H faction champs) and 2 fights with lots of continual raid damage (Anub/Twins). Discipline has a role in all of those situations.

I believe the key is here you are looking at this as a "constant gratification". You want to feel as though you are constantly saving people from death. Now you feel as though you are "saving people less and less" as compared to an instance like Ulduar. There are several reasons for that I believe and most of it is a clear situation of fault in ToC design:

1. I think I am confident in saying that ToC is just flat out an easier instance in some cases (even some Heroic) than some given fights in Ulduar and other instances in the past. This contributes to part of why you are seeing people ending up in situations where they are needing saving. I also believe this was intentional by Blizzard.

2. The gear is scaling pretty fast now and people are getting lots and lots of it very quickly with ToC 10 (heroic and non) and 2 25 instances. If your guild is running all 4, then that's a lot of gear and badges in a given week.

3. ToC is only 5 fights. Think of how many times you've done the same fight over and over again? Even in 1 night. People are learning fast how to live and do well in those fights, and thus mitigate more damage and "bad situations" where they could end up taking 3/4 of their life in a single shot, etc. If ToC was 10 fights with trash? It might be different.

What you have to realize is that when you DO save someone, especially in a heroic, you likely just prevented a wipe or you won the fight for the raid. If those same 2 or 3 people would have died, you likely would not have won (or it may have been far more difficult). So think of it as you may be doing your job less, but your job/role is no less important than it was before. I think the need for having lots of disc in a raid is more reduced, but I believe in heroic modes, 25, there are certainly roles for a couple of discipline priests in raid due to heroic spike damage.

[G l o w y r m]

This thread really brings a tear to my eye. I love seeing all of these hardcore Discipline priests defend their spec.

There's not much left to contribute, read all these replies and you'll see that we are a great asset to Hard Modes.

Almost all of the world first's on MMOChampion's front page have had 1 Discipline Priest in the raid.

Discipline is an awesome asset to any and all encounters (HM and regular) as long as you have the proper healing from other classes. Discipline really supplements other healers with buffers and quick spike healing/spot healing. We are awesome at keeping people/tank from dying. Just because shields are gone quick doesn't mean they didn't save that guys life.

If you have only 3 other Pallies healing, then Holy might be a better choice for that makeup. Bottom line is that Discipline can and does handle HM's and does it very very well. Meters are NOT a way to measure healing skill at all.