Going disc vs staying holy. Please help

[gaymer77]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...china/advanced

Looking for advice on my priest's healing spec. I mostly heal for LFR because I hate the wait time for dps eventhough shadow is my main spec. I want to start doing flex raids since I'm 539 and can get into more raids now. Problem is I feel that with the exception of a few fights (Protectors is one example), I just don't compete with a lower geared disc priest. Is this just me not being that great of a healer. By this I mean am I just an average healer who is destined to be middle of the pack on the healing meters? Or is this something that you guys think could be resolved by simply going disc for my healing spec instead?

Also how difficult is it to be a disc healer? Is it mostly smite/holy fire spam & then use penance to actually heal? Or do you use penance to deal dmg too? When should I use spirit shell?

Any advice is much appreciated.

[Trimshadow]

Looking for advice on my priest's healing spec. I mostly heal for LFR because I hate the wait time for dps eventhough shadow is my main spec. I want to start doing flex raids since I'm 539 and can get into more raids now. Problem is I feel that with the exception of a few fights (Protectors is one example), I just don't compete with a lower geared disc priest. Is this just me not being that great of a healer. By this I mean am I just an average healer who is destined to be middle of the pack on the healing meters? Or is this something that you guys think could be resolved by simply going disc for my healing spec instead?

Also how difficult is it to be a disc healer? Is it mostly smite/holy fire spam & then use penance to actually heal? Or do you use penance to deal dmg too? When should I use spirit shell?

Any advice is much appreciated.

While Disc does mainly use Smite / Penance / Solace spam for atonement healing - you still need to be raid aware (nad can't mindlessly spam) to ensure no one dies, Spirit Shell on CD (or hold it a few secs if you know a bit of raid damage is coming - like Sha's swelling pride).

Many use Divine Star for it's short cd compared to Halo - you still need to target / face a stacked group to get the most out of it though, prayer of mending or binding heal when you have no cd's left to use.

Be careful about spamming Single Target shields, as it will suck your mana, use them when you need to stop someone dying (I generally keep one on the active tank all the time) - Especially if you put one on, use penance and get a free-bee to use straight away (and there is the chance it will ignore and not apply the Weakened Soul de-buff), that's about the extent of my disc XP... I'm sure there are others who have more XP and can add to this..

There are also plenty of guides around, Noxxic, Icy-veins, and here at MMO-Champ...

GL

[Deleted]

Don't take lfr as an example, atall.
With virtually no dmg going out any disc will just cover the raid in shields that probably won't even be broken with the amount of damage that goes out.

[Larynx]

Disc is the dominate healing spec for priests. No matter the content you do, disc is going to be equal or better in total raid contribution compared to holy. Do you need to go disc, though? It's not necessary, especially for only flex content.

As for the actual playstyle, disc is about as complicated as any other healer when played optimally. It has a significantly higher skill floor though, so it performs better than other healers when it comes down to LFR quality players.

On a generic fight in 10m, a typical disc playstyle consists of the following:

Managing Halo/DS with incoming raid damage and the LMG
Managing Rapture with the LMG
Managing the PoM CD
Managing Inner Focus
Managing Archangel for maximum uptime vs maximum throughput
Using PW Barrier and Pain Suppression
Using Mindbender/Solace/Shadowfiend on CD
Getting the maximum possible uptime on ToF
Using Spirit Shell properly to avoid incoming raid damage (Sha of Pride for example)
Spot healing with PWS and Penance, especially on a fight like Jugg or Shaman
Knowing when to swap to PoH spam over atonement filler

Most of your healing, in fact, does not come from atonement as disc. Atonement is simply filler that takes up the majority of your active time. On a typical log, atonement will be 7-15% of my healing done for example.

[Samurai]

Changing will depend on how well you can play Disc.

Personally i have just started doing Flex myself, but i have healed Holy since BC, so i am far better at it than i am Disc, so i struggle to get the same level of healing by changing. So if you are not completely comfortable going Disc you will be more use to the raid as holy.

But like everything, just practice and you will get better. I still Holy on Normal, but i am practicing DISC in LFR.

[Packard]

Playing Disc ok is easy to do. Playing disc amazing is very hard to do. Gem all Crit/Crit int/crit spr and mimimize spirit as long as you have the meta

Atonement is for low/med damage times on the fights or while there is nothing to heal.

meta procs you need to get 2 or 3 PWS off and the tier 6 talent. Aegis should be your top heal typically and atonement/pws second. Make sure to use the entire disc tool box and dont focus too much on smiting ... keep archangel up

[egge]

disc for pve, holy for pvp

[Deleted]

disc for pve, holy for pvp

oh, how times have changed

[Pinkbyte]

Also how difficult is it to be a disc healer? Is it mostly smite/holy fire spam & then use penance to actually heal? Or do you use penance to deal dmg too? When should I use spirit shell?

Thats pretty much all there is to it, i only have those 4 abilities on my bars!!! /sarcasm off

Honestly play whichever feels more comfortable, and get a good understanding of the abilities in your arsenal and it will be much clearer when you need to use certain abilities - as a healer you have no set rotation but instead a priority based on incoming damage and mana efficiency.

[Deleted]

howtopriest.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1837

Derevka's guides always proved useful when growing up as a priest. Basically the more you know the fights the better a disc priest you become. You need to be preventing the damage incoming because you have literally no burst to catch up (aside from T6 talents) if you get behind.

[Tinkertee]

As Ghostcrawler recently said when he revealed ha plays Holy, Holy can do things Disc can't (ofc the other way is also true).

Holy will have lower healing done since no shields, that doesnt mean that it is actually bad. It has insane burst healing capabilities. Maximizing it is way harder than disc. Mana management is tight. It is probably the most mana hungry healer in the game.

If you feel while playing disc that while your HPS is high because of atonement shields, you are useless healing damage bursts, you might give holy a try.

[PosPosPos]

As Ghostcrawler recently said when he revealed ha plays Holy, Holy can do things Disc can't (ofc the other way is also true).

Holy will have lower healing done since no shields, that doesnt mean that it is actually bad. It has insane burst healing capabilities. Maximizing it is way harder than disc. Mana management is tight. It is probably the most mana hungry healer in the game.

If you feel while playing disc that while your HPS is high because of atonement shields, you are useless healing damage bursts, you might give holy a try.

If you are trying to "burst heal" as a disc, you are doing it fundamentally wrong.

The whole point of running disc is to make sure these damage bursts not exist at all, not trying to top up raid health after one.

[Adinora]

Disc is the dominate healing spec for priests. No matter the content you do, disc is going to be equal or better in total raid contribution compared to holy. Do you need to go disc, though? It's not necessary, especially for only flex content.

Just want to clarify that disc is dominating in 25s, not 10s. Just in case that comes into play later for the OP. That being said I have no idea how poorly holy is faring in comparison to disc in 10s. I'm considering switching to holy just to see how it is doing, though.

I also don't think you *need* to switch specs. A while back, when disc wasn't doing well, many disc priests switched to holy simply because it was better than disc at that time. But there was still a place for disc in a raid, and the same can be said for holy. Disc is a very different play style than holy though, so be sure before you switch that you understand how to play disc.

[Deleted]

As Ghostcrawler recently said when he revealed ha plays Holy, Holy can do things Disc can't (ofc the other way is also true).

Holy will have lower healing done since no shields, that doesnt mean that it is actually bad. It has insane burst healing capabilities. Maximizing it is way harder than disc. Mana management is tight. It is probably the most mana hungry healer in the game.

If you feel while playing disc that while your HPS is high because of atonement shields, you are useless healing damage bursts, you might give holy a try.

This post more or less touches the core point why you will do more HPS with disc than holy. Disc will do HPS with sniping with smart heals during low damage (triage), will do damage with its smart heals, and will snipe with absorbs both when needed as well as when not really needed (where a throughput healer would've done the job as well). If you are running either overgeared (most PuGs do, and nowadays almost everyone is overgeared anyway) or run with too many healers (some 10 man PuGs on my realm insist with 3 healers; which means I insta leave since I can easily 2 heal it with my throughput heal alts) then you'll lag behind as holy. You also will run with the inflexible Chakra mechanic and finally you are taking a spot from an other throughput healer specifically your competition being both resto specs (shaman and druid). You can do something these guys simply cannot do, and the other guy cannot do as well (holy paladin) but as disc. That is why priest healers are generally Disc. That and, as soon as you understand the damage patterns and are outgearing it, you will not only look good on the HPS meters you'll also look good on the DPS meter as an extra bonus.

Just want to clarify that disc is dominating in 25s, not 10s. Just in case that comes into play later for the OP. That being said I have no idea how poorly holy is faring in comparison to disc in 10s. I'm considering switching to holy just to see how it is doing, though.

Disc dominates in 10 as well but for different reasons: it does a lot of damage during downtime (triage), and there is a lot of triage healing in SoO in both difficulties. During the big incoming burst damage disc will shine in 10 as well as in 25. T6 in 25 is obviously amazingly OP.

[Saphyron]

This is how I raid as a disc priest and it seems to work. please do mind I am a flex raider atm but do have 14/14N down.

Low damage intake areas I mindlessly spam atonement healing, but as soon I know some big dmg is gonna go out i precast Spirit sheel on the raid using prayer of healing. Unless the incomming dmg is slightly higher than the low damage intake. In case of low but above low dmg spike i jsut heal with prayer of healing afterwards.

Lets take garrosh Flex for example.

Doing first phase I penance/smite/holy fire garrosh until 5s before desecrate appears (we just stack up and outheal it) then precast SS(spirit Shell) on raider following up with prayer of healing until raid is fully healed and use prayer of healing when ball hits the wall. (high dmg but lower than desecrate) so I am prioritizing. Rest of the time I atonement heal spam with penance/smite/holy fire

In transition I try to not stack on on the raid so I don't need to move as much and can freely cast prayer of healing on raid to keep them up.

Phase 2 I use yet again SS on desecrate and just heal on whirling corruption. When the nasty combo of whirling corruption + desecrate happen I precast SS and use barrier on raid. Rest of time I atonement heal.

Then on 3rd phase I am using most of my mana cause everything start hurting more and more and switch between Greater heal/defensive penance/prayer of healing with SS on whirling corruption. luckly this phase does not last long.

Also forgot to mention I use divine star on CD. I have pretty okay crit so it more often than not adds a good amount of divine aegis on raid and helps damage adds in first phase.

Hope this helps. Can't remember how I played on Garrosh normal but it is not far from above.

I am also using archangel and mind bender on CD
Anyone looking at my armory will see that I have too much spirit. I am not aiming to minmax or anything and I like that I will never go oom. The extra spirit also allows for me to use dps caster meta-gem instead so it is all good.

[Nightstorm]

Holy will have lower healing done since no shields, that doesnt mean that it is actually bad. It has insane burst healing capabilities.

Hpally has amazing burst heal. Holy priest not so much over disc unless you count that holy can crit with halo vs disc.

Coh, is not amazing burst, it's a laughable amount of healing on a low target.
PoH is not bursty without 2piece and is really good about healing a bunch of people who don't need heals

10m Holy has to go haste and would suck in 25m
25m Holy goes mastery and would suck in 10m
Echo of light is the only Hot in the game that gets nothing from haste and there for all hots will tick before it will.
Holy has no time to do damage and the CD on chakra is to high to even try it most fights
Most groups do not like Holy due to low parsing I don't care how great you say holy is if the community lawls at a spec something is wrong.


P.S Ghostcrawler is a troll.. He has the audacity to tell us he plays holy as broken as it is and finds nothing wrong.

P.S 2 If you say "Holy is fine" You're an idiot

[Deleted]

Hpally has amazing burst heal. Holy priest not so much over disc unless you count that holy can crit with halo vs disc.

Coh, is not amazing burst, it's a laughable amount of healing on a low target.
PoH is not bursty without 2piece and is really good about healing a bunch of people who don't need heals

You're not mentioning the other big smart heal CD, Divine Hymn.

Holy is amazing on fight where there is constant pulse damage without much burst. Norushen, for example. If your raiders fail (they refuse to take an orb, or kill the adds) then a disc priest can make up for it for a short amount of time if the disc priest is skilled and quick. But I'd rather wipe then and kick the dipshits who are failing. Holy on the other hand will always do good healing here until you are running with too many healers while outgearing the content. Therein lies the problem. Disc's healing will always go up with better gear. Holy's won't necessarily.

10m Holy has to go haste and would suck in 25m
25m Holy goes mastery and would suck in 10m

A minor inconvenience since you play either 10 man or 25 man, right?

[Nightstorm]

You're not mentioning the other big smart heal CD, Divine Hymn.

Holy is amazing on fight where there is constant pulse damage without much burst. Norushen, for example. If your raiders fail (they refuse to take an orb, or kill the adds) then a disc priest can make up for it for a short amount of time if the disc priest is skilled and quick. But I'd rather wipe then and kick the dipshits who are failing. Holy on the other hand will always do good healing here until you are running with too many healers while outgearing the content. Therein lies the problem. Disc's healing will always go up with better gear. Holy's won't necessarily.

A minor inconvenience since you play either 10 man or 25 man, right?

Most guilds run with to many healers. They bandaid bad players. This causes an almost across the board issue for Holy. Guilds to not actively recruit Holy priests, the ones that play are veteran raiders and the guild is allowing them to be Holy. Guilds that are 11/14+ heroic that is.

[Deleted]

Holy is the better spec but is highly volatile (and u need 2 set). You shouldn't be suprised that the healer that solod 10 man hc was a holy priest. None of the other healers could have done it. Disc is better for normal and semi hc as it is a stable spec. With disc u can kind of change the flow of the battle (which is huge with limited tries).

[IsrafaelMage]

Our priest switches between holy and disc per fight basis.. he goes holy on sustained damage fights like Norushen HC, Jug HC or normal malkorok, and switches to disc when we need cusions (sha hc, immerseus hc, protectors and so on). I never played holy, but as disc i always feel that i have inadequate toolkit for sustained aoe healing.. After divine star and PoM i have nothing but slow and frankly underwhelming PoH.. which either overheals as shammies or druids already covered everyone in rejuv and rain/CH, or just hits 2-3 persons.