Thread: Holy or Disc?

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  1. #1

    Holy or Disc?

    Yeah, I know I'm a little late to the expansion, but I stopped playing back in 4.3 and recently regained interest in WoW.

    I've heard people say that Holy is "useless" and that Disc is much better...this true? I've always been a Holy guy, myself; always enjoyed its huge AoE heals and versatility over Disc, tbh, but if Disc is better, I'll play it. (Kinda like patch 4.2 when Holy was shit compared to Disc because its cooldown sucked and its mana regen was atrocious compared to Disc's)

    No real rush; I don't even have full MoP on my account yet (just the trial, waiting for copy of MoP to arrive on Thursday) but I've started the leveling process on my Priest at least. (it let me get to 8,699,999 / 8,700,000 exp, can't get to level 86 though!)

  2. #2
    Deleted
    Both are still viable specs for healing, Holy still has all the tools in the world but Disc is popular as Attonment spam is easy raid healing, which is odd for Tank healers imho.

  3. #3
    Wait, you mean Atonement is actually viable in raids? For real?

  4. #4
    Deleted
    For real

  5. #5
    Deleted
    Maybe in 10 man, trying to retrain a new Atonement Disc priest for 25man, tanks healers that won't tank heal are a pain.

  6. #6
    Well, seeing as 10man is all anyone ever does nowadays (at least, from what I read in a few places), that certainly sounds like it'd be fun! I've always wanted to raidheal with Atonement ever since it was implemented, but it was never really viable throughout Cata except for fights that had damage buffs.

  7. #7
    Deleted
    Holy is def kinder to a lower ilvl character.

  8. #8
    Atonement is only one piece of a good disc priest's toolkit. It's necessary to activate Archangel via building up Evangelism stacks (From Holy Fire, Smite, Penance).

    If a priest only uses atonement and does not utilize the other spells available to them, they're doing a disservice to the raid. Alternatively, only healing and not utilizing atonement is just as bad. One of the trickiest parts of playing disc is knowing when to use atonement, and when to prepare the raid for damage.

    That being said, other parts of Disc's toolkit include knowing how to maximize PW: S, when to use Spirit Shell, sharing PoM with the HOly priests (and as such, becoming good at when and who to use it on so that it bounces). Not only that both both priests must pick the appropriate tlaents for the fights, which really do vary a lot. I cycle through my talents on a fight per fight basis.

    Holy is just as viable as disc in 10m and 25m. However the playstyle for a 10m holy priest will be different from that of a 25m priest. Though, the same could be said for disc.

    Here is a wonderful resource, that links guides for priest healers (with specific guides on each spec).

    http://howtopriest.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=4484

    I raid both 10m and 25m, though I'm switching over to 10m fulltime. Here's an example of my current raiding logs:

    Galakras 10m Normal-- fairly stacked
    http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=2459&e=3041

    1) Divine Aegis
    2) Divine Star (yay stacked)
    3) Spirit Shell

    Iron Juggernaught 10m Normal -- the opposite of stacked

    1) Divine Aegis
    2) PW: Shield
    3) Halo

    Atonement generally ties for 4th until something is on farm. Then it's #2 only to Divine Aegis.

    Cheers
    Last edited by Sillychan; 2013-09-24 at 08:32 PM.

  9. #9
    Lol, you was holy guy not for long
    I wonder why are you so fond of Arcane mage-style of healing? Disc is so boring...

  10. #10
    Just pick whichever one you want. Discipline is incomparably more popular at the moment - it's hardly possible to find a guild where discipline doesn't outnumber holy 10 to 1, but they're both very much viable.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zanthos View Post
    Holy is def kinder to a lower ilvl character.
    Well this just isn't true. Holy is very unforgiving to lower iLvls, especially compared to discipline. This is mostly because holy tends to have problems with mana, whilst discipline has access to Rapture.
    Quote Originally Posted by Bootybear View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Valancer View Post
    I play as a holy priest and when I ran hfc lfr I noticed after the first boss my heal spell wasn't casting. So I looked at it and it shows that it has a 34.4 min cast time
    Do you have the class trinket? If so, the cast time is correct. /s

  11. #11
    Deleted
    It's necessary to activate Archangel via building up Evangelism stacks (From Holy Fire, Smite, Penance).

    If a priest only uses atonement and does not utilize the other spells available to them, they're doing a disservice to the raid.
    I don't agree with that. I hardly ever use archangel since it costs 15.2k mana a minute and I only have 6k spirit. It's a big dps loss too. If you spam nothing but atonement (aside from pw:shield during meta procs for mana, of course), you're not doing a disservice to the raid at all, considering the great increase in dps you will see.

    I'll link my logs for Galakras too, so you can compare. On this fight I did use archangel once at the end and I spammed some spirit shell/poh as well there (which I normally don't do), but other than that, I used nothing but atonement spam.

    http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=6044&e=6650

    As you can see, I did 6k less hps, but I also did 86k more dps. Now, would you seriously call that a disservice to the raid?
    Last edited by mmoc83a8f74c22; 2013-09-25 at 04:12 PM.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Saeba View Post
    I don't agree with that. I hardly ever use archangel since it costs 15.2k mana a second and I only have 6.4k spirit. It's a big dps loss too. If you spam nothing but atonement (aside from pw:shield during meta procs for mana, of course), you're not doing a disservice to the raid at all, considering the great increase in dps you will see.

    I'll link my logs for Galakras too, so you can compare. On this fight I did use archangel once at the end and I spammed some spirit shell/poh as well there (which I normally don't do), but other than that, I used nothing but atonement spam.

    http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=6044&e=6650

    As you can see, I did 6k less hps, but I also did 86k more dps. Now, would you seriously call that a disservice to the raid?
    Normal or Heroic? Cuz, yeah, we 2heal both.
    "Auto-correct is my worst enema."

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Saeba View Post
    I'll link my logs for Galakras too, so you can compare. On this fight I did use archangel once at the end and I spammed some spirit shell/poh as well there (which I normally don't do), but other than that, I used nothing but atonement spam.
    Interesting. Do you use Mindbender for additional damage, or PW:Solace for slightly more healing and the higher mana gain to support that low spirit?

    I also noticed you're reforging crit>mastery like most Disc, but since you seem to play more or less like a pure damage dealer, wouldn't it also be possible to go crit>haste for even more damage/healing and because mastery is a pure healing stat?

  14. #14
    Deleted
    Interesting. Do you use Mindbender for additional damage, or PW:Solace for slightly more healing and the higher mana gain to support that low spirit?

    I also noticed you're reforging crit>mastery like most Disc, but since you seem to play more or less like a pure damage dealer, wouldn't it also be possible to go crit>haste for even more damage/healing and because mastery is a pure healing stat?
    Mindbender does a lot more damage (crit scaling is insane) and it's mana returns are pretty good if you have a solid amount of haste. My stat prio atm is crit > 4.8k haste > mastery > spirit. More than 5k haste would give me some mana issues and my smites would go under 1 sec during BL. Since I have a lot of crit, mastery is a huge hps increase, so I'm trying to get some more of it. Wish I could drop some more spirit, cuz 6.4k seems excessive on most fights. 5.5k would be a nice number I think. It's a shame this tier is missing a lot of crit gear, since crit is by far the best stat for both damage and healing.

  15. #15
    Saeba, it's not often I eat my words, but please rejoice in the crunchy sound of me chomping on them.

    I think what you have going for you is the exception, not the norm. However, there are outliers that do very well with their specific playstyle. Not everyone is as skilled as you with atonement.

    I do have a question:

    How does this compare to say, when you're gearing up? How did this build feel in previous tiers? I ask this because we have generous itemization at this point, enough such that we can afford lots and lots of crit. This wasn't always the case, mostly just because we were less geared/less further along in the xpac.

  16. #16
    Deleted
    I've been using this build the entire xpac now. At the start of the expansion, atonement healing was a bit weak (but the entire disc spec was weak), then later on it got a lot stronger with the penance buff and the t14 4set. The nerfs we received afterwards weren't big enough to change anything and t15 had a lot of crit, so atonement healing was still feeling very strong. Right now, it's at its best, due to the stat inflation and the buffs to both mindbender and twist of fate.

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by anon5123 View Post
    I've heard people say that Holy is "useless" and that Disc is much better...this true?
    dont talk to those kids again
    If you want to do 5man, lfr, flex raid even normal raids, both specs will do perfectly fine. on heroic modes you may want to do certain respecs for particular fights for progress.

    Quote Originally Posted by anon5123 View Post
    Wait, you mean Atonement is actually viable in raids? For real?
    scan worldoflogs, atonement is there, used a lot in raids. trick is to remember that there are a lot, lot more of tools in disc arsenal, not just smiting around

    Quote Originally Posted by Saeba View Post
    I'll link my logs for Galakras too, so you can compare. On this fight I did use archangel once at the end and I spammed some spirit shell/poh as well there (which I normally don't do), but other than that, I used nothing but atonement spam.

    http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=6044&e=6650

    As you can see, I did 6k less hps, but I also did 86k more dps. Now, would you seriously call that a disservice to the raid?
    its all great but you dont need 3 healers for galakras 10man (normal nor heroic), taking 3 instead of 2 is already a dps nerf to the raid :/

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Thirteen View Post
    Well this just isn't true. Holy is very unforgiving to lower iLvls, especially compared to discipline. This is mostly because holy tends to have problems with mana, whilst discipline has access to Rapture.
    I wouldn't say holy is unforgiving, in fact it is very forgiving and doesn't need much foreplanning. You have good spells for any situation and you can produce much much more output if needed.

    Saying Holy is bad because you can run out of mana faster is like saying better drive a moped, because a motorbike will run out of fuel sooner when you speed it up to its limit all the time. The mana part is only hard for people who think you have to use your maximum hps spells all the time and on low gear disc runs out with much less healing done. (If any of the two of them run out at all, just casting a PW:S every 12s won't take mana for disc, obviously, but won't produce much healing either.)

  19. #19
    Holy is VERY limited by the amount of spirit they have. They are especially strong once they reach that nice and healthy 10-14k spirit range. It's not even about using mana intensive heals, it's just how Holy works.

    Holy scales very strongly with gear, where-as disc is more linear. Holy is unforgiving to lower ilvls because it scales so strongly with gear. That doesn't mean there is anything wrong with the spec. In fact, Holy can be a great asset in heroic mode content because of how much throughput they can provide when they have the gear for it.

  20. #20
    I run both Disc and Holy on my Priest (just an alt so I'm by no means an expert) but I find Disc to be far, far more forgiving in the gearing and leveling stages than Holy, especially when it comes to mana. Holy chews through mana while Disc is nice and steady.

    As far as which is more fun etc, I really do like Disc a lot and Saeba I really like your style and gearing approach to building around DPS to maximise Atonement. I had thought of doing that but so much content out there says no, so it's nice to see it does in fact work!

    The one thing with Disc that I'm struggling with is when to use PW:S. Should it be kept up on tanks or just used in high damage moments? I keep reading that it's such a vital part of the toolkit when it comes to healing but managing it is a bit of a pain, and more mana intensive.

    As far as heavy Atonement use being a disservice to the raid, I just don't see it. Granted my Priest is pretty much just doing LFR now, but whenever I try to use more conventional healing, it more than pales in comparison to Atonement. I use PoH and Flash Heal regularly as well when needed of course, but Greater Heal and Heal just don't seem to be as useful or efficient as Atonement, so I'm not sure why I'd use them?

    Just seems to me that as Disc, playing with a DPS mentality and gearing plan makes more sense. But maybe I'm wrong?

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