Disc Vs Holy 5.2

[xXxexpertxXx]

thank you everyone for the help! even to those who tried to troll (who were once in my position) people just dont randomly become a pro at a class. The moment they start playing it. Healing is fairly new to me still on my 90 priest. Looking around on Noxxic, Here. Elitist Jerks, For the best guides. So Far i have become greatly attached to mmo-champion, and is where i go for the MOST/respected help!

[HPLathus]

Lol >_>

That was never intended as a troll... Although everyone took it that way

[Clamidiaa]

It's a shame you can't understand what I am saying.


It's a known fact, either spec is viable. They are viable on different fights moreso then the other.


On heroic empress, theres a lot of burst aoe damage, so you would be disc.

Heroic Garalon, there is more consistant aoe damage so you would play holy.


I don't understand what is irritating about pointing out that each spec works differently depending on the fight, and neither is better then the other.

I have to agree with you.

Holy and Disc are 2 completely different sides of the spectrum. One is for damage mitigation and to prevent any damage at all. While Holy is reactive healing, healing those that have already been hurt. Look at their Cooldowns and tell me different. I prefer holy personally.

Also, each are better in certain situations. Heroic Gara'jal for instance, Holy is terrible for that fight because of the tank damage and if the tank is hit, then the other 3 get hit. That's where a Disc Priest excels by absorbing most of the hit if not all of it and preventing any of the damage to take place. I wasn't in for our first kill or the 2nd, or the 3rd because we needed to use the least amount of heals possible to get over the DPS hurdle. For our first kill of Heroic Empress we used 3 disc priests, 2 Pallies, Shaman, Monk, Druid. That's a lot of Absorbs and Damage mitigation right there.

If you want to look at Skada or Recount for Healing & Absorbs, Disc will win most of the time, if not all of the time. So if you want to win logs and think you are awesome because you absorbed more damage than someone else fine so be it. Personally each fight demands a certain type of healing.

[Noradin]

And also, the crossed sentence
"is no longer guaranteed when Prayer of Healing is cast. The effect now activates when the spell crits." on the front page, doesnt that mean they reverted the change?

No that means that that part of the sentence is no longer needed since its meaning is now included in the newly changed rest of the sentence.

[Crzed]

You seem to be missing the datamined change to DA, which is what my entire post is referring to... The healing "nerf" that I referred to: currently, when a spell crits, we receive 200% of the original heal, plus 50% of the original heal as DA. The datamined change is that we no longer get the extra 100% heal, and it is instead funneled entirely to DA.

Example: You cast a 100k Greater Heal. It crits on live for a 200k heal plus a 50k absorb (ignoring mastery at this point). With the datamined change - you cast a 100k Greater Heal that crits, and you get 100k healing and 100k in absorbs.

In the previous build if you crit w/ a 100k GH it meant a 200k heal plus a 100k*mastery absorb. Now you get a 100k*mastery(1) heal and 100k*mastery(1)*mastery(2) absorb. The change to mastery spread our throughput from being extremely crit-heavy since the previous ptr changes made even PoH a 300% crit heal in comparison to a non-crit heal (including DA). Everything else has been that way since the DA change from 30% to 50%. It is a mechanics change, not really a nerf or buff from the previous ptr build. It brings our secondary stats closer, and makes crit heals analogous to other specs. I'm not a huge fan, but it is what it is (IMO they shouldn't have buffed DA to 50% to start).

All crits now producing a 100% DA instead of +100% heal and ~50% DA. Less healing, more absorbs. Also, PW:S can now crit.

No, everyone gets caught up on the change from 100% to 50%. DA is not doubled, your heal is halved (before mastery). You will see similar DA numbers after this change (with slight variation due to change in mastery).

[Deleted]

Also, each are better in certain situations. Heroic Gara'jal for instance, Holy is terrible for that fight because of the tank damage and if the tank is hit, then the other 3 get hit.

holy is very viable at garajal hc, at least in 10 man cause its much easier to heal tank + dolls alone, just singlechakra and roll renew on all.

[Deleted]

Atonement got a buff, penance got a buff. Our direct healing *non crit* got a buff and pw:s got a buff. Not to mention the binding heal glyph which is a aoe healing buff...

The problem is most encounters they seem to make nowadays are aoe fests. The issue with aoe healing isnt as prominent in 10 mans, where you will need to mix a lot of single target spells, but it is in 25 mans, where all classes spam aoe, and single target spells are very weak. All those buffs are single target spells, but single target healers are not needed in any 25 man environment now. The reason why 25 man disc priests spam poh so much is because with splash healing from 4-5 other healers that all have smart aoe heals, the whole "triage" thing is non-existant. Even tanks are healed by 5-6 healers spamming mostly aoe most of the times. There is close to no need for a dedicated tank healer, nevermind spot healing. Even as a smart spell, atonement in 25 mans overheals a ton, and when ppl are low enough to not cause it to overheal, its generally a large number of them being low enough, so you switch to poh.

The changes leave disc in a good place in a 10 man setting, but disc was already very good in those, with the extra dmg. Now they increased that extra dmg even more. However, facing the aoe fests of 25 mans is a different thing, and the fact there has been 0 testing in those make me pretty wary.

You will still be doing more healing then absorbs, you don't crit 100% of the time and can't rely on crit to increase your healing due to RNG

Actually, you have Inner focus for a guaranteed crit when you need it. Thing is, if you need the shield (aka you know the dmg is incoming), you use spirit shell. IF was a great tool for "oh shit, I could not predict that, and some ppl are low". The mastery change balances out the random crits, but it doesnt take into consideration our "crit on demand" button.

Now, disc priests will be more of what they claim to be - healers. Absorbs will become less reliable and more of the niche they were supposed to be in the fist place.

Would be pretty neat if it was true, but it isnt. They did nothing to our actual healing, and they did nothing to our actual absorbs other than make them RNG. Since absorbs need to be pre-loaded, having them RNG makes them rather moot as intention. The stars might align and you will crit before some dmg happens, or they might not. I agree it can be a good way to tone down absorbs, but I'm not sure just removing 80% of DA and putting nothing instead will make it balanced (and no, 20% extra on penance doesn't get anywhere close to the nerf from DA non-guranteed on PoH, that is like pissing against a hurricane in any 25 man scenario).

[Bartolo]

Not a priest myself, but if I may say I found holy was probably the hardest healing spec to play well among all my toons. Gameplay is rich and I admire those who can play it very well. Disc (and stacking them) certainly helped many guilds beat a content they could not have beaten that fast with holy priest(s), disc does not require being a skilled player, I think the spec was made OP and easy to play as a hidden nerf to raid content so that any guild can still progress

[Deleted]

Not a priest myself, but if I may say I found holy was probably the hardest healing spec to play well among all my toons. Gameplay is rich and I admire those who can play it very well. Disc (and stacking them) certainly helped many guilds beat a content they could not have beaten that fast with holy priest(s), disc does not require being a skilled player, I think the spec was made OP and easy to play as a hidden nerf to raid content so that any guild can still progress

Yes, we're incredibly lucky to have someone who doesn't play a priest give amazing insight on the difficulty of our specs. Feel free to elaborate on why holy is so much harder to play than disc, considering that they use basically the same spells while disc has more cds/buffs to manage and holy has a clunky chakra mechanic.

[Blachshma]

Not a priest myself, but if I may say I found holy was probably the hardest healing spec to play well among all my toons. Gameplay is rich and I admire those who can play it very well. Disc (and stacking them) certainly helped many guilds beat a content they could not have beaten that fast with holy priest(s), disc does not require being a skilled player, I think the spec was made OP and easy to play as a hidden nerf to raid content so that any guild can still progress

Both holy and disc are tough to master. I don't like classes/specs comparing skills because I believe that any class requires a lot of skill to truly master and get the most out of it, even ones that seem easy on paper. Disc in 5.1 was so OP it allowed bad/mediocre priests look like decent ones, where bad holy priests remain...bad. That doesn't mean disc does not require skills, it just means a certain patch made things easier for a while, it happens to many specs/classes on occasion. If holy will receive a CoH that you can spam with no cd, and cost 90% less mana (exaggerating for the sake of the example), you will see holy priests topping all the charts (as well as overhearing charts) on all fights and from a spec that's tough to master it will turn into a one-button spamming festival - not so challenging now is it?

Holy gameplay is very rich indeed, but disc gameplay is by no means shallow. Its rich as well, just different richness

[HPLathus]

I agree both are hard to master, but I will never agree with disc being as hard to play as holy has ever been.


Holy:
-Manage 6 AoE Healing Spells, 7 if you count Divine Insight

-Selective Casting being our main source of regen, basically making sure you are casting THE MOST beneficial spell you possibly can every single cast

-Knowing how to rotate spells to have the best burst, IE: PoH, being prepared for a divine insight proc, knowing if it would be better to cast the divine insight, or use cascade/CoH/PoH again first, also meaning risking losing potentially 1 divine insight proc due to reproc

-Being able to time mindbenders so they are most useful, IE: If you have hymn up, if another priest has hymn up, or if bloodlust is about to go off

-Chakra...knowing when the best moment to use it is, switching mid fights/phase transitions. Or simply knowing if its better to roll renews on several people, or just sit in AOE chakra. IE: Garajal, totem phases early in the fight renew spamming is the best + binding heal to refresh with cascade. Also because switching to portal realm binding healing in serenity + instant cast heal + serenipity is OP.

Another good example could be stone guards heroic, AOE damage is bursty/spikey. You will probably find yourself going "herm should I switch now or wait"

-Lightwell/spring: Pre casting before a pull, making sure you are able to refresh the lightwell at the proper time without rising a global cooldown.

-Divine Hymn, not much to explain.. just another thing to think about

-CoH/PoM/Cascade cooldowns are all very short, managing those without over using or improper use.

-Preparing Serendipity for a predictable AOE phase, precasting PoM/Precasting Cascade for said AOE phases

-"Do I purpously kill myself at 5% on a boss because I am oom for spirit of redemption?"

-Haste VS Mastery[Although this is less of a debate now, most people prefer mastery such as I do]



I am sure I could continue.. but I think you get the point, if you look at what holy has to manage VS disc to create high amounts of throughput and HPM it's pretty insane how much harder holy is then disc.


Disc

-Shield tanks/someone taking damage for rapture
-Smite/Holy Fire/Penance on DPS phases of low aoe damage
-Grace Stacking[tanks] really only requires doing a penance on the tank every other cast
-Spirit Shell for predictable AOE phases or to just mitigate damage on tanks
-Avengalism/Archangel happens on its own via smite/holyfire/penance
-Mindbender/Fiend cooldown
-Power Infusion knowing when the best time to use this is




You can say the difference, is always going to be that disc can predict, holy can react. I tend to feel disc has always had an easier playstyle because the choices for preparing can usually come 10-15 seconds before the oh shit moment happens, then during the oh shit moment.. they either atonment spam or PoH/cascade.

Holy has to be very, very choosy about what they do at ANY given moment, disc has more wiggle room.

[Deleted]

-Selective Casting being our main source of regen, basically making sure you are casting THE MOST beneficial spell you possibly can every single cast

Like every other healer.

-Knowing how to rotate spells to have the best burst, IE: PoH, being prepared for a divine insight proc, knowing if it would be better to cast the divine insight, or use cascade/CoH/PoH again first, also meaning risking losing potentially 1 divine insight proc due to reproc

Like every other healer.

-Being able to time mindbenders so they are most useful, IE: If you have hymn up, if another priest has hymn up, or if bloodlust is about to go off

Like disc.

-CoH/PoM/Cascade cooldowns are all very short, managing those without over using or improper use.

Like disc.

-Preparing Serendipity for a predictable AOE phase, precasting PoM/Precasting Cascade for said AOE phases

Hardly more difficult than saving AA/evengalism. Like disc.

-Haste VS Mastery[Although this is less of a debate now, most people prefer mastery such as I do

Has no impact on difficulty, and disc has the same debate of crit vs mastery.


Disc has more spells to chose from, grace, rapture and more cds (both short and long) to juggle/time properly. Both holy and disc has to plan ahead for damage, but a disc failing to do so has much more severe consequences. If you want to play perfectly neither spec has any "wiggle room", you use the best spell for the situation at hand. Yes, disc is so damn strong right now that you don't have to be particulary good to put out high hps, but the skillcap is in no way lower.

[ramennoodleking]

While I agree with cookie on most aspects, disc has been the "easier" of the two specs since ICC. Easy/hard is subjective, but it has been easier to produce numbers and keep people alive as disc. You havnt had to worry so much about spell selection since mana for disc has for quite some time been much better.

The only thing more difficult about holy is that unlike other healers, holy priests can oom very quickly even just using stock spells. It really is something to be said for the skill cap of holy: being able to keep up with healing and ending the fight right as you start to run on fumes.

To me, that is the only thing that makes holy more difficult. Otherwise, utilizing the toolkits and the skill caps are very similar (though id argue 5.1 dumbed disc down quite a bit, gladly being changed in 5.2). But holy definitely drains mana quicker than any other healer.

[HPLathus]

Hardly more difficult than saving AA/evengalism. Like disc.

You do know you have to cast either binding heal or flash heal to get this proc correct? Neither of which are free to use, instant cast or cheap on mana costs..

Has no impact on difficulty, and disc has the same debate of crit vs mastery.

Haste is a different play style, you focus a lot more on things like renew on aoe fights to keep the raid up VS PoH for the mastery.

Like disc.

Ever hear of the talent called, Divine Insight. Say on garalon, oh look divine insight, bing bing bing bing bing, had to watch it bounce 5 times while I was casting PoH to recast the PoM that was no longer on cooldown to make sure I didn't overwrite it.

Cascade is also more important as holy, because it does 25% more healing in Chakra: Sanctuary

I also didn't put CoH on that list, not the highest priority spell as holy, but it's another short cooldown to manage

Like every other healer.

If holy healed like every other healer, we would be oom in 2 seconds, Holy has to manage selective casting FAR greater then other healers to ensure they don't go oom so fast. We have one source of regen, shadowfiend/mindbender. Timing things like that with say, a shadow priest casting HoH is EXTREMLEY important as holy.

Sure we can cast PoH 5 times, but why not cast cascade .5 seconds before the aoe, then PoH until the aoe is over, then let the mastery do the rest of the work while I manage my PoM/CoH cooldowns or use my divine insight that proced

Again, yes every healer has to be "selective" but not as selective as holy does without going OOM in 2 minutes.

-Knowing how to rotate spells to have the best burst, IE: PoH, being prepared for a divine insight proc, knowing if it would be better to cast the divine insight, or use cascade/CoH/PoH again first, also meaning risking losing potentially 1 divine insight proc due to reproc

Like every other healer.

I had no idea holy paladins/resto shaman/resto druids/MW monks had 5 AOE healing abilities to manage, most under a 10 second cooldown with varying degrees of HPS.

So if what you were saying was true, holy should only cast PoH with the occasional CoH throughout an AOE phase.... doesn't sound too accurate to me.

-Being able to time mindbenders so they are most useful, IE: If you have hymn up, if another priest has hymn up, or if bloodlust is about to go off

Like disc.

Oh my bad, I forgot holy had rapture to be a more significant regeneration tool[currently]. Holy has mindbender, and mindbender alone, if you are a BE you get arcane torrent, whoop dee doo lol

It's more critical for holy then it is for disc, simply because its ALL we have.

The only thing more difficult about holy is that unlike other healers, holy priests can oom very quickly even just using stock spells. It really is something to be said for the skill cap of holy: being able to keep up with healing and ending the fight right as you start to run on fumes.

Which is why the point of selective casting is highest on a holy priests priority. A holy paladin/resto shaman can do a quick burst of spam not not feel repercussions as much as a holy priest would

A shaman could get mana back if a spell crit, and a holy paladin... well they just don't really go oom ever.

[Deleted]

Cookie, telling a holy priest that he is not a playing the absolutely most hard thing in game is like insulting their whole family :P. I dunno about buttons, but it is the specc with the most representatives of "special snowflake" syndrome. It doesn't matter that since TBC they got about 3 more buttons, and they barely use them, since most are shit (ie chakras and holy words).

Played holy for the first month of mop, after not playing it for 2 expansions. Nothing felt especially hard about it. The only thing that saved me from falling asleep out of sheer boredom was DI. I even got ranked for a couple of kills. I'd like to believe that holy priests will someday get off their high horses but they got that martyrdom complex for so long, it's unlikely. If they dont get any new spell for the next 10 years, while all the other healers in the game change completely, they will still say they are the most complex healer out there. And I think blizzard knows! that's why they dont do much new stuff for holy, because they know they are already happy with being the ultimate complex specc no matter what.

"Oh, Saph, here comes 5.2 and we'll see you sucking as holy!" "wiggles finger".
Well, I'm a pretty mediocre disc too, so nothing new there. Good thing I get paid for something else and I dont need to feed my ego with video games "hard stuff" .

[ramennoodleking]

Or there could be sensible holy priests that also play disc each tier, and can give an honest analysis. I dont agree with Lathus on anything more than mana conservation, though i also believe managing lightwell (not lightspring) is difficult when the raid isnt properly trained. No need to be a tool, Saphiramoon.

[HPLathus]

I do play disc depending on the boss, or who I feel I need to carry because they keep getting hit by rings on imperial vizier... oh, sorry random guild rage tangent >_>


To each their own on the topic, I still think holy is 5x harder then disc, if you are FULLY utilizing the spec.

[Deleted]

You do know you have to cast either binding heal or flash heal to get this proc correct? Neither of which are free to use, instant cast or cheap on mana costs..

Relevance? There are things indicating that evengalism would be more complex as well, you use 2 globals to get serendipity stacked, you use 5 to get evengalism stacked, you effectively lose mana from activating AA, etc. Evengalism isn't a complicated mechanic, but neither is serendipity .

Haste is a different play style, you focus a lot more on things like renew on aoe fights to keep the raid up VS PoH for the mastery.

Your spells have a different value based on if you stack crit or mastery as disc, and it should affect your playstyle. Not that either this or regearing for holy means more than a one time adjustment in your playstyle, and has absolutely no impact on the skillcap.

Ever hear of the talent called, Divine Insight. Say on garalon, oh look divine insight, bing bing bing bing bing, had to watch it bounce 5 times while I was casting PoH to recast the PoM that was no longer on cooldown to make sure I didn't overwrite it.

I track my PoM as disc as well, I fail to see the difference.

Cascade is also more important as holy, because it does 25% more healing in Chakra: Sanctuary

Irrelevant for the skillcap of the spec, just means that if you fuck up cascade usage you're even worse off as holy.

Again, yes every healer has to be "selective" but not as selective as holy does without going OOM in 2 minutes.

Again, irrelevant for the skillcap of the spec, simply means that if you fuck up your spell usage completely you are even worse off than another spec.

I had no idea holy paladins/resto shaman/resto druids/MW monks had 5 AOE healing abilities to manage, most under a 10 second cooldown with varying degrees of HPS.

Using their spells properly is just as cruical for every healing spec, if you judge complexity based on the number of short cd spells a spec has to chose from disc would be higher up than holy.

Oh my bad, I forgot holy had rapture to be a more significant regeneration tool[currently]. Holy has mindbender, and mindbender alone, if you are a BE you get arcane torrent, whoop dee doo lol

It's more critical for holy then it is for disc, simply because its ALL we have.

It's more critical for people, like you, who use the same amount of spirit for both specs. You gear to have just enough mana to cover the spells you use if you play properly for this spec. That you chose to give yourself a huge margin of error for disc by gearing for more mana than you can spend doesn't say anything about the spec, it says something about you.

Lathus, all you are saying is that it's harder to be completely shit with disc than with holy (which watching you play disc makes me agree completely with). This has no impact on the skillcap or for a solid player, which for both specs most likely is higher than what a human realistically can achive, it has an impact if you are really fucking bad and if so the raid is better off with a different healer to start with.

[HPLathus]

I am no fool to seeing if disc is better on a certain fight then holy.

I will 100% switch if disc is going to prove more beneficial. IE: Holy VS Disc on wind lord heroic, or Holy VS Disc on Imperial Vizier


But then there are fights like.. Garalon, Stone Guards, Feng, Garajal, Spirit Kings, and even will all on heroic, where I will be holy because disc isn't nessicarily BETTER per say on the encounters, both I could say are equally good, holy pulling ahead on most of those personally though.

---------- Post added 2013-02-22 at 05:51 PM ----------

Relevance? You use 2 globals to get serendipity stacked, you use 5 to get evengalism stacked, you effectively lose mana from activating AA. Serendipity isn't a complicated mechanic, neither is evengalism.

Again... you act like flash heal and binding heal are cheaper costs then smite/holyfire/penance. Plus, you aren't factoring in if someone effs up just before, and you need to spend the serendipity on a gheal to save their worthless hides.

Your spells have a different value based on if you stack crit or mastery as disc, and it should affect your playstyle.

You just said haste/mastery doesn't affect difficulty...

Has no impact on difficulty, and disc has the same debate of crit vs mastery.

Keeping renew refreshed on 5+ people is extremley mana inefficient as well as being more difficult then managing cooldowns.

I track my PoM as disc as well, I fail to see the difference.

Divine Insight, as well as PoM doing a greater amount of healing as hol via chakra. It's higher on the priority then disc.

Irrelevant for the skillcap of the spec, just means that if you fuck up cascade usage you're even worse off as holy.

Skillcap maybe, but mana managment yes. You get more bang for your buck casting cascade at the perfect moment as holy, disc if you eff it up its forgiven by absorbs already set on the raid.

Using their spells properly is just as cruical for every healing spec, if you judge complexity based on the number of short cd spells a spec has to chose from disc would be higher up than holy.

I judge them based on number of CD shorter then 10, because the 5-6 that holy has, are ALL almost equally important and in order to maximize the spec you should be maxing the use on ALL of them[with the exception of CoH at times]

It also forces you to make harder decisions on which one to cast at any moment.

Holy paladins have 2 AOE healing spells to manage. SHaman in 10 man hardly even chain heal, 25 man they only have chain heal/healing rain. Healing rain kinda works on its own.

Monks I could argue having it almost as hard as priests AOE wise, because of chakras and uplift.

Druids, I never see any of those and they are kinda rejuv bots anyway >.>

It's more critical for people, like you, who use the same amount of spirit for both specs. You gear to have just enough mana to cover the spells you use if you play properly for this spec. That you chose to give yourself a huge margin of error for disc by gearing for more mana than you can spend doesn't say anything about the spec.

Lathus, all you are saying is that it's harder to be completely with disc than with holy (which watching you play disc makes me agree completely with). This has no impact on the skillcap, which for both specs most likely is higher than what a human realistically can achive.

Yes, I use the same amount of spirit for both specs. Come 5.2 I will probably be very glad I do as well, and also very glad I already know how to play holy to a "T".

Lathus, all you are saying is that it's harder to be completely with disc than with holy (which watching you play disc makes me agree completely with). This has no impact on the skillcap, which for both specs most likely is higher than what a human realistically can achive.

I am saying, holy has much more to worry about then disc. Yes, holy is harder then disc, and I know a lot of holy priests who will 100% agree with me. People don't play disc right now because its hard and a lot of fun, they play it because it's easy to carry raids through mechanics that might otherwise wipe them.

And there you go, bashing on people again. Grats on watching me as disc, maybe you could learn something from that as well.



And since you wan't to so badly bring logs into this situation, and you want to say I don't know what I am talking about as holy. My logs say otherwise.

[Deleted]

Or there could be sensible holy priests that also play disc each tier, and can give an honest analysis. I dont agree with Lathus on anything more than mana conservation, though i also believe managing lightwell (not lightspring) is difficult when the raid isnt properly trained. No need to be a tool, Saphiramoon.

Idd there are, and I know quite a few of them that dont feel the need to roll their eyes and call other classes/speccs easy or brainless. Training your raid to use lightwell is quite a thing of the past since most just glyph it nowadays, and even un-glyphed, it still makes no difference how skilled the holy priest is, but how much their raid cares. So what exactly makes "training your raid to use lightwell" a skill thing? They either use it or not, but you have no saying in it. I'm sorry, but out of all things, calling out that one that gives you 10% of your healing basically passive (with one gcd and a spoonful of mana) is a bit hard to see as "skillbased".

As said, I played both speccs and I never felt the need to call holy "brainless" like a lot of holy priests do when they talk about disc. I prefer disc because for me, holy is boring, but that doesn't mean others cant find it interesting.

But thank you for confirming my take on the majority of holy priests. I expressed a general opinion, not directed at anybody in particular, and you took it personally and came to the conclusion that I am a tool for expressing my own views without insulting anybody in particular. So if I say that in my opinion, none of the speccs felt particularly harder, I am a tool, but when you and others say that disc is brainless, it's an entirely different matter? Why, what makes your opinion better than mine?