1. #1

    Is holy okay to heal with?

    I have a 85 priest thats my fav spec but I keep hearing the disc is the only way to play. Can a holy priest be good enough for raiding.

  2. #2
    Very much so, I heal as Holy as I much prefer the play style over Discipline.

  3. #3
    yes, even last tier when disc was op one could still be very viable playing holy. The specs are fairly close now, play what you like

  4. #4
    I've played my priest for many years and have moved between holy and discipline in the past. For a long time I really liked discipline but somewhere back in Cataclysm I just stuck to holy. I think mostly because I'm a bit lazy and sometimes don't pay attention so having that spirit thing to prevent someone from dying was good for me hah

    Anyways, I'm holy now and I'm pretty good with it. I think any spec you use a lot and get familiar with will let you excel at what you want to do. I'm pretty casual and I heal all the heroics just fine, even with sub-par tanks/dps. I've healed LFR's successfully up to Last Stand of Zandalari. I like the holy play style in mists and never have a problem keeping up with mana or heals.

    Obviously I can't speak to normal raiding or heroic raids but I suspect it's probably the same but requires a lot more in the way skill from the player for whatever the class or spec. Progression raiding of brand new content is whole other monster but it doesn't sound like that's what you're aiming for so I don't think you should listen too closely to those people.

  5. #5
    No, Holy is purely a DPS spec

  6. #6
    Rawr, no!

    Kidding, I took some logs over the last couple clears to compare the two specs and both were performing equally for me: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/8518012861

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by mdnsiper7 View Post
    I have a 85 priest thats my fav spec but I keep hearing the disc is the only way to play. Can a holy priest be good enough for raiding.
    holy priest is perfectly good for 5mans and raids.
    have fun with leveling your priest to 90 and play it the way you like it

  8. #8
    I was playing holy till the end of cata and really enjoyed it. After MoP launch disc was just so superior so changed to it. Now when I try holy it feels so boring compared to disc. At least you can focus on dps if there isnt much to heal. Although if you fail your absorbs and you need to top off people I miss holy.

  9. #9
    Number-wise, holy is in a very good state in PVE. From HPS to HPM, there isn't really anything wrong with holy. It can do the job, and it never feels weak. Mana is tight, but playing holy is all about mastering that minigame, and it's not as remotely tight as it was in cataclysm. I don't think it is possible to say that holy is bad right now. It may be possible to say that disc is better, but that's irrelevant. Holy is good.

    Mechanics-wise, holy is annoying as heck. I think the debate regarding chakra has been done to death. But it is a problem that really seeps through the entire spec. Because it is so important to be mana optimal, you're hard pressed to use off-stance heals unless it is really important. It ends up restricting your playstyle significantly, and offers very little in return beyond a boring flat and overpowered +healing% bonus.

    But even disregarding chakra, almost every single aspect of the spec seems to just work against eachother. Serendipity for example. It's a great and fun little passive that allows you to build up a buff that makes your next big heal happen very fast. And it's a little boon which you are simply not allowed to use. First of all, casting Flash Heal to any point where it would matter is so far off in the "don't ever do that" zone that the passive is completely irrelevant. And even if you somehow ended up with infinite mana, casting flash heal x2 followed up by a prayer of healing is - you guessed it - contradictary in chakra stances.

    Or Guardian Spirit. When we got it back in WOTLK, it was bugging like crazy. Now it's four years later, and it still doesn't work right half the time. Or Divine Hymn. It's our most amazing raid cooldown. Which is really at a major -30% efficiency if you happen to be in the wrong stance. I mean... it's stuff like that that just makes me want to throw angry fits. Holy is filled with silly issues like this.
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  10. #10
    In general, yes Holy is okay to heal with. Some fights favor Disc. Some fights favor Holy. Some fights show them at roughly equal strength. Why not be able to play both for the fights that strongly favor one or the other, and use whichever you prefer for the ones where both are similar?

  11. #11
    Unless you want to join a progression focused raid group, holy is perfectly fine to heal with, but if you want to play the better healing spec for raids, disc is superior in most of the fights.

  12. #12
    Holy is definitely good to heal with and as far as raw healing is concerned (overhealing not included) it can pull great numbers. This means it's great when your group is actually struggling, but due to its way of healing, on farm content or content with no damage you'll usually get your heals sniped by other healers.

    However, disc on the other side has a very potent instrument in Spirit Shell, which helps negating a few raid mechanics, and contributes a lot to a raiding team's DPS due to atonement, which is what pushes everyone doing progression to Disc. For example, our two disc priests pushed about 105k DPS combined on Heroic Council, which allowed us to kill sul before he got empowered, making the fight far easier.
    Last edited by Fluorescent0; 2013-04-08 at 05:28 PM.

  13. #13
    Deleted
    Holy is really good not so far away from disc and other healers
    got som logs from last night when i was healing (mainspecc is shadow) http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-ozqwe0835sio3peo/
    faily equal but was a little far away from our disc on ji-kun kill, maybe cuz of the absorbs i dont know
    cna maybe note that my healing gear ilvl is 496 vs the discs ilvl of 505-508 something :>

    i was going holy in 5.1 also and had no problems with it, didn't heal all fights but garalon, elegon, tsulong and some other fights which i cant remember when we lacked healers
    on garalon i was pulling more hps then the same disc priest and our holy paladin when my gear also were under them

  14. #14
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    Its pretty OK for raidhealing 25man if you prefer reactive healing, but I wouldnt recommend Holy for 10's mostly because of the lack of flexibility healing both aoe and single target Chakra brings. Holy also have a few spells that could use some attention like Sanctuary that simply is bad and Guardian Spirit that bugs quite often. Overall Disc will put more on your dining table in terms of diversity and utility but not everyone like the dps/preabsorb healingstyle.

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