Why would you go Disc over holy?

[Kuruption]

its more fun

Winner. I joined a guild that had a disc, so I went Holy and I didn't like it at all. Luckily, another holy priest showed up (way better than me) and the disc went shadow which had me go back to disc.

Worked out nicely.

[Hamacus]

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.

Number one is for fun. Also if there is a fight where dps checks are pretty tight I will usually go Disc. I went Disc for Zek'Voz, Zul, and Mythrax. Current tier I find pretty much all the fights doable as Disc though I switch it up depending on Healing comp . I definitely feel like a healer as both.

You have it exactly opposite as to what it takes to be a good healer though. Disc requires much more setup / planning as opposed to Holy and it is much easier to be a decent Priest as Holy than Disc, and neither have a "rotation". That said Holy has many more "oh shit buttons" that allow you to recover from poor play, thereby it is much easier to play by the average player.

[Logwyn]

If Disc could do DPS in a raid as a viable dpsers.. I'd switch to it.

[Nathasil]

My only problem with Disdc is that - as has been pointed out at least 10 times in this thread - playing it "well" means planning the damage patterns of the fight in advance and apply atonement accordingly. Which means you are completely unable to react to unexpected damage when somebody fucks up and takes avoidable damage. If you stop in your planned out route to throw an emergency heal on somebody, you will most likely ruin your burst window.

For the absolute vast majority of players in this game avoidable damage is the default case. Only a very, very, VERY small minority of players are in groups that usually avoid all avoidable damage. So if you are trying to explain to somebody who is constantly forced to emergency heal why Disc is so awesome...you are just talking past each other.

The greatnes of Disc is defined not only by the player but also by the group s/he is healing. This is NOT true for Holy. Not even remotely to the same extend, at least.

[ZazuuPriest]

My only problem with Disdc is that - as has been pointed out at least 10 times in this thread - playing it "well" means planning the damage patterns of the fight in advance and apply atonement accordingly. Which means you are completely unable to react to unexpected damage when somebody fucks up and takes avoidable damage. If you stop in your planned out route to throw an emergency heal on somebody, you will most likely ruin your burst window.

For the absolute vast majority of players in this game avoidable damage is the default case. Only a very, very, VERY small minority of players are in groups that usually avoid all avoidable damage. So if you are trying to explain to somebody who is constantly forced to emergency heal why Disc is so awesome...you are just talking past each other.

The greatnes of Disc is defined not only by the player but also by the group s/he is healing. This is NOT true for Holy. Not even remotely to the same extend, at least.

This only matters for the top 1% because in normal avoidable damage is pretty much negligible so you indeed can heal through it with a PWS and your normal damage rotation

In high level mythic + same story most people doing 11+ keys know how to avoid damage

[Cauli]

Disc is an unique healer and it's really fun preventing damage.

[barrsftw]

Disc is easily the best designed healer. And it's really fun.

[Omedon]

Invincipline is THE spec for the open world and inevitable time spent alone advancing your character overall through quests. You don't have to set your gear up for it, go holy (if you prefer it) or shadow for group content, but discipline rules the open world. Holy kills too slow, Shadow is too squishy for anything that isn't designed to fall over in 5 seconds. You can solo world bosses with invincipline.

A new discipline healer in dungeons is like a tank: There's an unwritten rule of "Don't be new." It's a terrible design to inflict on the community in this vein.

[Yunaqt]

I love the spec, you basically play the fight 12s in the future. I've always been more interested in proactive healers though over re active, even my old mains since Cata were Resto Druid and MW Monk (When Uplift was a thing).

Feels so rewarding to get a huge ramp off pumping 200k+ in that window.

[antelope591]

The OP is obvious bait but disc in its current state is probably one of the hardest healing specs to play properly ever implemented. Ironic considering the state of other classes in BFA but Blizz did get this one right.

[Piesor]

Disc just feels extremely rewarding IF you play with skilled people you know especially in m+. You feel like the MVP of the group most of the time. However it's a total nightmare in pugs. One bad player already messes up everything and will transform you into a one-button-healer (or you just let him die).

Holy is just a bit safer. You have a spell for every situation and just need to react to stuff that happens and that's totally fine. I play my priest as holy 90% of the time.

[nothingsjim]

Because it's hard to play and thus challenging and feels rewarding. I play plenty of healers, and I am still not comfortable with PvE Disc healing.

Just check warcraftlogs and set healer percentile from 75 to 95, and you will see how big a jump Disc makes. If you're good, Disc can be insane.

[Rikkuu]

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.

Isnt that.... like the main point of every class and every spec?

0/10 troll

[Memento1]

Disc just feels extremely rewarding IF you play with skilled people you know especially in m+.

Actually, I find unskilled PuGs much more rewarding than my skilled raid group, because there's so much more damage to heal and less competent competition to steal it from me. And I don't find it fun healing unskilled m+ PuGs as any healer.

If one player messes up and drops low, you have to spam Shadow Mend on him, but on Holy you're spamming Flash Heal on him, so that's not at all unique to Disc.

Just check warcraftlogs and set healer percentile from 75 to 95, and you will see how big a jump Disc makes

This only works on mythic. In normal and heroic, even the 95th percentile remains low. It's more about the structure of several fights not matching with Disc's periodic burst playstyle.

[sirethas]

Discipline priest is the definition of pro-active game play which will always be more difficult than reactive game play which Holy Priest is like a king spec of reactive game play. You have to know pattern of the fight and foresee the damage taken output, to be able to plan ahead your short window of absolutely disgusting burst raid-wide healing which Disc priest can provide.

On the other hand you have holy priest which reacts to current damage taken, ofc you want to save your cds for major damage taken, but you can save people on spot, you don't have to plan that much you just press button according to what just happens, not saying that it doesn't require any skill, but it's really dumb to say that it's more difficult.

[ymn]

We need to bring back Shield-only Disc Priests.

On a more serious note, Disc Priests are bloody amazing and are great fun to play. They may be underwhelming when healing players who love fire, standing in circles and checking if poo on the ground will do damage. But if you crawl through that cesspool of players, you'll be rewarded once you can plan your stuff out. Especially if you're playing with friends.

[anon5123]

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.

Yep, this is the reason why I played Holy more than Disc, back in Legion.

It was obnoxious to have to study every single fight and memorize when the raidwide burst damage would happen, and...that was pretty much the only thing Disc did better; it was worse than the other healers in almost every other aspect.

With Holy, I didn't have to spend the entire fight watching DBM timers and Atonement timers, I'd just throw out PoHs and Binding Heals and Holy Words and "OH MY FUCKING GOD WHY CAN DRUID MOVE WHILE CASTING TRANQ BUT HOLY CAN'T MOVE WHILE CASTING DIVINE HYMN WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS BIAS BLIZZARD REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" and that sort of thing.

- - - Updated - - -

We need to bring back Shield-only Disc Priests.

And have them dominate the meters again like in MoP/WoD and have all the other healers constantly crying for you to be nerfed because of that?

No thanks. Being a mindless bubblebot is not my idea of a good time.

[salavon701]

First off, disc>holy in terms of fun in my opinion. Secondly, I am holy because we have a disc priest who is decent, and because I am decent at holy as well that is what I am doing.

[ymn]

Yep, this is the reason why I played Holy more than Disc, back in Legion.

It was obnoxious to have to study every single fight and memorize when the raidwide burst damage would happen, and...that was pretty much the only thing Disc did better; it was worse than the other healers in almost every other aspect.

With Holy, I didn't have to spend the entire fight watching DBM timers and Atonement timers, I'd just throw out PoHs and Binding Heals and Holy Words and "OH MY FUCKING GOD WHY CAN DRUID MOVE WHILE CASTING TRANQ BUT HOLY CAN'T MOVE WHILE CASTING DIVINE HYMN WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS BIAS BLIZZARD REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" and that sort of thing.

- - - Updated - - -



And have them dominate the meters again like in MoP/WoD and have all the other healers constantly crying for you to be nerfed because of that?

No thanks. Being a mindless bubblebot is not my idea of a good time.

I guess it was hard reading the next sentence.

[Brighter]

Disc > Holy