Which healing spec is easier?

[Mamut]

I wanna level up my old priest (shadow only lvl 75) and I wonder which healing spec is easier? I did not play healer long time and did not play priest for more than 1 year and i wonder whats the main differences between disc and holy now. Is discipline stil about absorbs or something changed?

[Shuffled]

Disc is a proactive absorb healing spec. By this I mean Disc priests often focus on mitigating and healing damage before it happens by covering the raid in strong absorb shields with Spirit Shell, Divine Aegis and Power Word: Shield. This smooths out damage in order to give other healers time to top off the raid. This isn't to say the priest isn't also healing, in fact Disc priests will often post among the highest HPS, this is more of a result of the conditions of the game, absorbs and meters right now rather than an accurate representation of disc throughput vs Holy. Your cooldowns will prevent damage from happening or give people shields. Atonement is also a small part of this spec, where you can deal weak damage to the boss in exchange for healing.

Holy, like Shaman and Druid, is a reactive throughput healing spec. Your total healing output will be among the highest in the game, but your only absorb is pretty weak compared to Disc. You'll focus on AoE raid healing often, but will also have some HoTs. Your cooldowns will increase the healing the raid or a player takes, and heal the entire raid for a substantial amount over time.

It comes down to preference for the play style. Both specs are viable, but Disc is considered much stronger thanks to the design of the current content. Holy is supposed to be strong in WoD... but everything remains to be seen. More than anything Raid strategy determines which classes are strong. Either way you should level as shadow.

[Larynx]

Shadow has mana and sustain issues until you get your core toolkit, which is around level 30-40. In my experience from leveling my own Disc in MoP, it does much better than shadow at this level. It's pretty competitive with Shadow until you get to late-WotLK.

Regardless, for leveling Disc is easier to play by miles. You contribute far more DPS (Penance is broken compared to the benefit from Chastise Chakra), and atonement + PWS gets you by any pre-Cataclysm dungeon. Holy should be more obvious to play at level cap (reactive vs proactive), but atm Disc is fucking braindead at level cap and there's no real skill floor vs skill ceiling difference. see: signature

[Deleted]

Easier? I'd say Holy, because it adheres to the classic notion of healing - reactive healing on injured party members. Discipline is driven by an idea that is proactive, which means you have to think a head a little more.

That said, that's just the breakdown of the ideas of the two specs - currently, Disc is easier because you're using two spells and winning everything around. However, that will change with WoD.

If you want to be trained in the more classic way of healing, go for Holy. It gives you all you need to learn how to heal effectively in a reactive way.

[Animalhouse]

I personally prefer atonement healing disc, waaaay more fun than holy. Pre 6.0 holy had far too many buttons for my taste (spend most my time healing on resto druid). Not sure about a pruned holy after patch.

[Deleted]

Both are easy on easy content. e.g. 5mans or crappy raid modes. Unless you are incompetent to play most parts of this game.

When it gets to very hard content, it depends. Disc can be the hardest, especially when we get limited mana at 100.

Disc is the easiest before 100 due to the spam, but I'm pretty sure that's gonna change. Holy can be hard too.

[Kyriani]

I personally prefer atonement healing disc, waaaay more fun than holy. Pre 6.0 holy had far too many buttons for my taste (spend most my time healing on resto druid). Not sure about a pruned holy after patch.

Unfortunately atonement healing died when they made "smart" heals "stupid".

[Deleted]

Make that made smart heals completely useless since if I lose 1 point of HP I may get the heal of a major spell.

[muto]

Holy is is easier like said in the aforementioned posts, because it's a traditional reactive healer whereas Disc is proactive meaning you have to shield before the damage comes out, meaning you have to be well adhered to fight mechanics. Ie. Spirit Shell the raid before the Star hits the wall.

[Noradin]

Right now holy is straight forward with some fun interactions while discipline requires some astounding mix of clairvoyance and being braindead.
But I suppose all healing specs got cut down to the absolute minimum of cookie cutter spells, none of them got for fun, all of them are insultingly simple.