Why would you go Disc over holy?

[shise]

PVE.

Disc is quite wrong. The way it heals, it simply doesn´t feel like a healer.
First of all, there is 0 amount of skill involved. You simply need to learn and understand your spec mechanics and apply them. Simple as that.

Holy, on the other hand, has a large arsenal of spells which you are free to use whenever you want and as you wish, you do not have to follow a strict mechanic gameplay to make it work like you do with Discipline.

Now, don´t take m wrong, I love both, but it feels silly to see all the new priests going Disc and saying "oh it takes skills unlike holy"... /facepalm.

As holy you have freedom of spell you, which means that to be a GOOD healer, not just ok, you must know the fight details, know when exactly the damage is coming and get the appropriate spell ready. Sure, the same can go for Discipline, but the difference is that you can not freely make a difference, you simply follow a "rotation", or call it as you wish.. you trigger mechanics. Holy strictly relies on YOUR time/action decisions, which come at a cost if you use the wrong spells as they might be on a CD when you really need them.

Being in a raid a few hours ago, we were struggling for raid healing, we literally had no raid healer able players. The one priest we had was a discipline and of course he could never get us to even 70%... Holy, meanwhile, not only would take care of the tanks but it would also top up the raid in no time with the proper set of skills in play.

What´s you view?
Do you like a traditional, strong, capable of any healing style (BUT the one you nee to actually think) or a modern DPS support/passive healer where you just need to make sure you keep up the mechanics to heal?

To be honest, I would expect new priests to embrace both specs and KNOW when each is best to use... not just stick to one.

[Demsi]

Because it's fun?

[Ichifails]

This is bait. Poor quality bait .

[Elbob]

Yikes, I don't even know where to start on this. Disc is SIGNIFICANTLY harder than holy to play. Disc burst windows are super sensitive and can be completely ruined by timing them just 1-2 seconds off. Holy's burst window is.... hitting HWSalv. Last patch holy just mashed binding heal, and holy words/pom on cd. This patch isn't much better though there is variation from fight to fight. Sometimes its a ton of Gheal sometimes its PoH spamming in short windows, but the plan is still the same. Get holy words off cd so you can salv atleast twice in the fight.

Disc requires immense planning to do well. Their burst window starts ~15s before the burst damge/hps even happens. One of the main reasons lots of high end priests favor disc is they can more often do monster hps. Evangelism is only a 90s cd and can put out equal or more healing than most healer 3min cds if done properly. Progression fights often pressure raid teams to bring as few healers as possible so the dps check is easier (duh). This puts a lot of emphasis on making sure healer cds are well used for the raid damage mechanics and disc just does that better than holy with its shorter cds.

[Venara]

I would actually agree with OP that Disc doesn't "feel" like a healer when it comes to how you do your healing. It's quite different from all the other healers and I think this is a fair point to raise. Of course one should acknowledge that this is conversely also one of the main reasons people are drawn to it - because it is very different.

Elbob's summary is otherwise pretty fair. I've played Holy ever since Vanilla, only branched into Discipline when it was insanely broken back in the day and absolutely every priest was better off playing it. Ever since Disc was changed to the current iteration, I haven't played it much. I don't find it fun to play personally and very difficult indeed. Anybody can smite and throw a few shields. Disc has a pretty high skillcap, arguably higher than any other healer currently in the game. Playing it truly well at a high level is not easy.

I choose to play Holy because it's more fun and it suits what I want to achieve and what my raid wants to achieve. I can do Mythic up to +12 pretty comfortably too, so that's nice. If you have a good group there's really no reason you can't play Holy for most of the endgame content. Yes playing Disc is pretty much a requirement if you want to do really high keystones but there's no real reward past +10 anyway except a little more Titan Residuum. Doing high keystones is mostly for prestige.

Long story short: Play what's more fun for you. Both specs have the ability to perform well in endgame content.

[Jervaise]

Raiding as disc is about memorizing the encounter and applying the correct spells at the correct time, down to the seconds marker.

It's a proactive healer.

The OP is correct on this one.

The skill involved is about being able to do the above, perfectly.

However, raiding in general is about memorizing the fight.

The difference is that,

A great holy priest can do wonders without studying the fight to the seconds.

A great disc priest can't.

[Purpleisbetter]

Disc priest has a superb design.
You might not like it but it is really well thought.

Just like legion r.druid (even better actually)

[Deleted]

I liked priest much more before legion. Disc changes was one thing that made me switch to playing holy paladin/druid in legion, because i hate how disc plays right now. Yeah it's hard and it's OP, but like it was mentioned it's not fun for me, and it isn't what i feel healer should be. So yeah i loved how priest has 2 healing specs, but legion disc ruined that for me personally.

[Linri]

I raided as Disc, and Holy, and I much prefer Disc.
Disc I feel is more involved, and is mainly for preventing damage, whilst Holy is your typical "pure heals."

Of course Holy can top players off faster, it is more designed for big heals, long casts.
Disc is more short bursty healing, and sustained heals.

Disc can be more rewarding if you know how the fight works, but it can quickly backfire on you if you mess up.
Holy is more rewarding as it has panic spells, to top your team off.

Disc / Holy are interchangeable for a good healer who knows what they are doing, its just a matter of preference and the raid comp, and the other healers in the raid.

[Kaver]

Holy is very easy based on what you also describe in the post. Some people find this boring.

Disc is more complicated than “just healing” which some people find very fun and therefore play it.

[Zka]

I OP joking or something? While I disagree that disc is extremely hard to play well, the spec is definitely not trivial. On the other hand, holy is trivial. It's so trivial, I only spec it once per expansion just to verify if it's still completely boring as fuck.

[Brighter]

A great holy priest can do wonders without studying the fight to the seconds.

A great disc priest can't.

This hasn't been true since 7.2.5.

[Faesroll]

This hasn't been true since ever.

i think i got it right this time

[muto]

If you actually think a reactive healer is harder to play than a proactive healer idk what to say.

[Xalvia]

this must be bait

holy can be played by a monkey decently, disc is the hardest heal specc to master ever in this game

[PeakedInMoP]

PVE.

Disc is quite wrong. The way it heals, it simply doesn´t feel like a healer.
First of all, there is 0 amount of skill involved. You simply need to learn and understand your spec mechanics and apply them. Simple as that.

Holy, on the other hand, has a large arsenal of spells which you are free to use whenever you want and as you wish, you do not have to follow a strict mechanic gameplay to make it work like you do with Discipline.

trying way too hard

[Hypasonic]

Holy is a joke to play compared to disc, as holy you simply react and press your buttons when people take damage, as disc you have to setup your attonements via radiance/PW:S etc and have certain CD's ready to go to maximise those attonement "burst" windows *before* the damage goes out which requires you to know the timings of all damage patterns to act on them 10-15 seconds in advance.

[ZazuuPriest]

its more fun

[Hyral]

PVE.

Disc is quite wrong. The way it heals, it simply doesn´t feel like a healer.

That's the answer right there for your later point of how new priests go Disc. It doesn't feel like it a healer. That's a good reason for someone who is new to pick it up as it'll be easier for them to apply their old knowledge to the new role.

First of all, there is 0 amount of skill involved.

you must know the fight details, know when exactly the damage is coming and get the appropriate spell ready. Sure, the same can go for Discipline, but

That is a skill and it can be applied to Disc too, yes. No buts about it. The spec is not a 0 skill spec, just a spec that demands a different type of focus than what you prefer. My whole tenure in PvE in this game has been tanking and I think what you focus on and how you think about the game as a tank translates well to Disc. Tanks can't react to damage, they have to proactively focus on mitigating it and making sure the healers don't get overwhelmed by it. That's a skill Disc also uses. You are acting like a gate keeper on that part of your post and onward trying to passively dismiss the spec because it doesn't adhere to your preferred playstyle. I don't know if that's on purpose or just accidentally as a product of animosity towards arrogant newbie priests who brag about playing Disc.

To be honest, I would expect new priests to embrace both specs and KNOW when each is best to use... not just stick to one.

I'll never touch Holy. I switched once to check out the spec and immediately changed back after looking at the spell book. Some people like having 20 abilities that basically do the same thing but it's too much for me and I just like the support playstyle, not really being a dedicated healer. How people can play Holy surprises me, they have a different set of skills than I can hope to do. Besides I just picked up disc because I missed the hybrid support playstyle of old school Ret after all. I'm sure Holy is better, I think everyone says it's better, and they have tons of tools for the job, but the bloat holds not appeal to me disc has enough tools for the job too.

[xindralol]

Because it's fun?

I like to dps as much can I can weave it into my rotation on any healers (not waste globals etc especially with 5 sec rule gone) but for disc it even benefits my healing so yeah it’s fun. Holy is fun too though just a very different playstyle.