Healer choice dilemma

[Dawon]

Ok, so I was healing as a priest in Vanilla/TBC, healing/tanking as pally in Wrath/half-Cata and skipped MOP totally. Now I'm actually intrigued by WOD and tempted to come back to the game... as a healer. But WHICH one to pick? I will have to start pretty much immediately to level up as my schedule is busy with work and a little baby, so I kinda need to make a good decision right away.

Things to take into account:
* Might be biased to post in priest forum but I never managed to get something out from the Pally community in terms of constructive info, so my best bet is here.
* I love the disc playstyle, I am totally OK with pally healing but I kinda hated the holy-priest playstyle.
* I'll probably not go into any serious raiding and will pvp occasionally, most time will sadly be spent in LFR/5mans or soloing/duoing old content.
* I have no Beta access to try shits out and limited time to read up on the million posts about the skills and changes that comes every beta release.

Anyone able to nudge me in the right direction? From what I read, my favorite playstyle (disc) seems to be pretty far down the food-chain, so should I take the safe road with my pally or take a shot at the disc?

Best regards and thanks in advance!

[appro]

Unless you're doing serious Mythic progression it doesn't really matter which you pick.
Play the one you prefer the most, the one that brings you the most enjoyment.

[Deleted]

Paladins have always been great in the first tier and are currently pretty strong on Beta.
Holy is the spec to go for priests atm on beta, since disc is under performing if you hate holy playstyle, i strongly suggest to go for paladin.
Their toolkit is a bit better than holy priests atm,but their mastery is stronger and they are one of the two classes that have some sort of mana regen without wasting some talent for it. Glyph of illumination(or something named similar) which you get 1%mana back,when your Holy shock crits. While they still have alternative resource(Holy power).Priests can get somewhat the same with solace but they will have to pick that over Surge of Light,which is a valuable talent.
I hope this helps a bit.

[Deleted]

A few thoughts of mine that could help you :

* The priest community is awesome indeed. You'll likely to find all the info you want here at MMO and H2P (howtopriest.com) also. My main alt is a pally and I too feel that the holy and retrib pally community is not that friendly. The prot community is great tho ;
* WOD disc playstyle will be different than current disc playstyle. The WOD playstyle is likely to be a, less atonement oriented, watered playstyle. It won't be that different but all people that are used to today's playstyle are expecting new disc to be less interesting. Beta is still not over and Blizzard already said that, at WOD release, it will be on par with other specs, number wise at least ;
* There's a big chance that holy will be stronger than disc coming WOD ;
* If you like to heal, picking a priest allows you to have a choice between 2 healing specs ;
* Holy paladin are very immobile. On top of that, HoPo spenders now have a cast time. Priests are more versatile : they have more mobility and have better options (holy for sure, disc not so much) for AOE healing ;
* Holy paladin with double beacon seem to be as strong as holy priests and way stronger than disc in beta's current iteration. It's just that their heals are tuned for double beacon usage so you won't see huge numbers poping. Their mastery is also very strong (absorb) ;
* Coming WOD, holy paladin's playstyle will see less holy radiance usage and more heal to beacon to generate HP. To me it seems that Hpal playstyle will more look like 1rst tier cata healing ;
* If you want to dualspec shadow, stat priorities with AS gameplay favors crit too so it might be easier to get some of your gear.

I'd say play the spec you want but I realise it's not a good advice because Holy paladin and disc will see their gameplay change. I'd still advise you to choose priest because the paladin's lack of versatility is really a deal breaker for me, and atonement healing's uniqueness is something you might want to stick with, more so if you play at a non mythic level.

[Dawon]

Thanks for all constructive feedback (which is why I always turn to the priest forum when in the need of advice).

I understand that I should play what I prefer most and if I dont mystic, it "doesn't matter", but it kinda still does.. no matter the level you play, last thing you want is feeling gimped... especially if u only run 5mans when ppl get used to the superlightningspeedclear, where it might be tricky to keep up if semi-geared AND with an inferior spec.

Anyway, it's leaning more and more to pick the priest and hope disc will get some proper love before everything goes live, the mobility is something that turned me off with my pally in the past and if that's getting even worse, I dunno if I can enjoy the class at all.

Thanks again, I will most likely dust off the old skellie priest and hope it will work out well.

[Kristya]

When is the last time you healed anything as Holy? Was it during your Vanilla/BC run with your priest?

I raided as Holy in Vanilla and some of BC as well - and the Holy of today is very different than it was back then. Disc is still the more unique spec compared to early WoW healing with a Priest, but you might want to give Holy another look, especially once 6.0 hits.

I still enjoy Paladin healing, but for me both Priest specs are more enjoyable in current WoW than my Holy Paladin.

[Dawon]

When is the last time you healed anything as Holy? Was it during your Vanilla/BC run with your priest?

I raided as Holy in Vanilla and some of BC as well - and the Holy of today is very different than it was back then. Disc is still the more unique spec compared to early WoW healing with a Priest, but you might want to give Holy another look, especially once 6.0 hits.

I still enjoy Paladin healing, but for me both Priest specs are more enjoyable in current WoW than my Holy Paladin.

Yeah pretty much the same, last time I was holy was when my renews ticked for 230 and I screamed of joy when I got Rejuvenating Gem as trinket instead of the Mindtap Talisman...

So perhaps I am too fast in dissing Holy for my priest, however that whole "stand still in Chakra(spelling?)" sounds very harsh to me, I love being as mobile as possible and the very thought of tossing a circle on the floor and aim to stand in it as much as possible, that kinda freaks me out!

[Jimjam38]

Chakra doesnt require you to be still. The circle on the floor follows you around like a faithful dog. Sheesh, we aint no mages :P
The entire healing roll is in a turbulent place in the beta now, so anything you pick could be overpowered just as easily as it could be underpowered. That being said, priests will give you the option to choose from two distincly different styles, and chances are at least one of them will be in a very good position. Priest mobility is also seriously improved since cata with the angelic feather talent, which is just awesome..

The other thing to consider is monks. Mokns will be completely new to you if you skipped mop, and Mistweaver throughput is typically fairly strong, so they're expected to be in a decent place for WoD. They're also very, very mobile. The most mobile healers by far. Roll is fantastic.

Resto druids are never really bad, so thats a safe bet, and they have plenty of mobility and utility. Resto shammys typically can be quiet good or quiet bad, im not sure which why they're leaning in the beta.

Hpalla doesnt seem to be in a great place. I personally feel that holy power is a particularly problematic system for healing, it creates all kinds of throughput bottlenecks, and thats at the moment without cast times on hopo spemders. I think it would be wise to avoid for the time being. At least for the first tier.

Something else you might like to consider and are most likely unaware of having skipped mop, since you said that time is of a concern to you, is that prepurchasing WoD gets you an instant level 90 of your choosing. They've also implemented an option to simply straight up puchase a character level 90 boost to avoid problems with people buying multiple copys of wod purely for the boost. The price is around $55 USD I think. Additionally, if you choose to boost a toon that is already level 60+ you will get instantly boosted professions to the max skill level. Since you're planning to purchase WoD anyway, this is probably a good option for you to prepurchase and get the free boost, and if you're so inclined you may then choose to purchase additional boosts.
I personally dont consider the purchased boost to be worth it considering that leveling is so quick and easy now anyway, but im also a poor university student, so $60 australian is no small deal for me. Thats like 24 pies I could have for lunches instead. However the free boost that comes with purchasing WoD is definately worth it. If you're planning on leveling multiple toons boost one and use it to get heirlooms for the rest, easily done in a few hours of RDF spamming. I also wouldnt recommend boosting a monk with the free boost if you are intending to level other toons, since monks get a daily quest for a 1hr 50% xp buff, and an additional one every 10 levels. With heirlooms this makes monk leveling very very fast, especially to someone who experienced the vanilla leveling grind.

Hope this has been helpful

[MrKnubbles]

It's hard to say until the 6.0 class changes come through.

As a Paladin, I was Holy was Day 1 until Mists released. I didn't like how the healing model changed from Wrath to Cata but I stuck with it because I really liked Holy Radiance. When they changed Holy Radiance a second time, they took all the fun out of the spell and healing got pretty boring for me. I do not like the Mists healing model at all and I fear that it will be worse in Warlords. I'm a full on tank now but would love to get back into healing if the changes make it fun again. Like I said, we'll have to see how 6.0 treats us.

[Jimjam38]

Was that back with the light of dawn cone effect? Similar to how divine star functions right? I reckon they should return to that model for some smart heals, cause just healing random people who might be the least in need of it is really not worth using the ability on.

[Dawon]

Thanks Atonement, lots of interesting input there. I do know about that boost-char but unless it's my priest or pally, I wont be using a boost on a char I never played.. I kinda need the level-process to learn the class instead of getting a shitload of skills and spells as a sledgehammer in the head! The professionboost was nice news tho, totally worth getting to 60 instead of pouring down thousands of gold for powerleveling it.

Very nice with the Chakra then, I totally misunderstood that spell and perhaps holy isn't as bad as I thought then (bad in the sense of how i disliked the playstyle). So if there is hope for either of the priest specs and they are both rather mobile, the choice will be easy. Especially as it doesnt seem pally healing will end up in a very nice place.

Guess I will get back to priest main as healer, with my pally as the oldcontent tank/ret farmer. Sounds like a plan and perhaps I will give the monk a go if I eventually get some spare time!