Hi. New to healing.

[OBM]

I originally made a Priest to play Shadow, but then wanted to try healing so I've been giving it a go as Holy. Question about the talent Trait of Light. Can I apply it to my entire group and heal all 5 of us with one flash heal? Also what is the duration?

[Cazz17]

No, it is only to one target (the last one you healed / flashed healed). There is no duration as far as I'm aware. You can cast a Heal on the tank and then 30 seconds heal a DPS - for this case let's say a hunter - the tank will also get the heal. If you then heal a mage, the hunter will get healed but the tank won't

[Mercruxio]

Welcome to the Healer Hut! Trail of Light only applies to the very last person you used Flash Heal on. As far as duration, as long as you stay pretty close by (i.e. in an instance, can visually see them and in range of the heal) it should last until you use the next flash heal. Saying that from experience, it may have some hidden duration of 2 min or something, possibly resetting during the pull of the some bosses like other abilities.

Hope this helps and have fun with healing! Also, I recommend at least trying out Disc! It's a steeper learning curve but I find it much more fun!

[Biomega]

Hope this helps and have fun with healing! Also, I recommend at least trying out Disc! It's a steeper learning curve but I find it much more fun!

If you plan on raiding, I would definitely second this. Disc is not only incredibly powerful in raids, it's also extremely fun to play and rewards skillful play like few other specs.

In M+, however, you are probably better off staying Holy. Too many unpredictable things tend to happen there, especially with PUGs - and Disc is not a good reactive healer. Holy is very reliable for the quintessential whack-a-mole style healing that many 5-man runs are all about.

[Denizly]

In M+, however, you are probably better off staying Holy.

I second this, outside of very very specific affixes and/or low keys holy is better all around.
There are some affixes (bursting, grivious) where disc i just unplayable.

[Clozer]

I second this, outside of very very specific affixes and/or low keys holy is better all around.
There are some affixes (bursting, grivious) where disc i just unplayable.

and yet the first 20 healer priests on raiderio are all disc, well except 1. "unplayable" only for people who are not able to play correctly i guess.

[Biomega]

and yet the first 20 healer priests on raiderio are all disc, well except 1. "unplayable" only for people who are not able to play correctly i guess.

Yes, I would not call it "unplayable" by any stretch - just disproportionately more difficult to play. If you're already really good, you can make the spec shine; for everyone else, Holy is magnitudes easier to play, and will perform perfectly fine at almost every level of M+ content. After all, not everyone is cut out for grinding those M+25 keys >_>

[Voidwielder]

and yet the first 20 healer priests on raiderio are all disc, well except 1. "unplayable" only for people who are not able to play correctly i guess.

Disc is not for pugs - being 800-1.4k RIO range. It needs either a well organized team of people who know each other or extremely well skilled pug players.
God as my witness, I tried to make Disc work in M+pugs. It gave me the stress of the worst kind.

Stick to Holy for M+, it's no Resto but you can do your job well up to +17.

[Denizly]

and yet the first 20 healer priests on raiderio are all disc, well except 1. "unplayable" only for people who are not able to play correctly i guess.

Let me rephrase that, in bursting / grivious weeks, unless you have a team that uses pots / personal heals / eats after the pull, you will have a very hard time or it'll be impossible (on 6+ stacks of burst) to heal them up outside of combat.

If you're going in with guildies / friends, absolutely go for it it's very fun (i go disc on guild groups cuz it's rly fun to play), but if you're pugging, be ready for a headache. In theory disc is superior due to it's dmg, but it relies more on the quality of the whole group then holy does for sure.

[Clozer]

Yes, I would not call it "unplayable" by any stretch - just disproportionately more difficult to play. If you're already really good, you can make the spec shine; for everyone else, Holy is magnitudes easier to play, and will perform perfectly fine at almost every level of M+ content. After all, not everyone is cut out for grinding those M+25 keys >_>

i didnt mean to shit on holy, nor am i a disc fanboy, but spreading this BS.. Disc is simply superior to holy in m+, and yes that doesnt diminish holys usuability.

[Biomega]

i didnt mean to shit on holy, nor am i a disc fanboy, but spreading this BS.. Disc is simply superior to holy in m+, and yes that doesnt diminish holys usuability.

I get what you're trying to say, but "superior" is a very vague term. Does it have a higher throughput ceiling both in terms of damage and healing? Absolutely. But it's also significantly more complicated to play. Just glossing over that with "it's superior" is misleading.

[hellhamster]

I dinged my priest healbot alt, I think at lower ilvls holy is just legit almost double the hps than disc. Disc shields at low int are dogshit even with Rapture. Once you get some good gear though, it will surpass holy in dungeons.

Holy I think in general raiding is a bit better better hps, but disc has far better tools, death prevention and utility. It's a lot harder to play well, any idiot can just cast a few shields and just spam smite, but you need great timing to be able to carry the raid.

[Prag]

I'm enjoying Disc a lot and pug 100% of my dungeons... how bad is Disc at low keys in pugs? Is there anything I can do specifically to close any gaps to make it more viable? It's not that I hate Holy, I just really enjoy Disc atm. Don't want to screw my groups over though.

[Biomega]

I'm enjoying Disc a lot and pug 100% of my dungeons... how bad is Disc at low keys in pugs? Is there anything I can do specifically to close any gaps to make it more viable? It's not that I hate Holy, I just really enjoy Disc atm. Don't want to screw my groups over though.

Disc depends on predictive skill, rather than reactive skill. You need to know when damage is coming and how much, and what to do to deal with it when it happens. Staying there waiting for something to happen and then trying to heal everyone back up is not generally a good spot for Disc to be in. What you want to do is have all your Atonements already in place when the damage comes, so you can line up a barrage of damage to convert to healing immediately - if you wait for damage first and then apply your Atonements, you lose too much time and people can die before the healing actually comes in.

In PUGs, you are much more likely to encounter unpredictable damage. People screw up mechanics, do bad pulls, whatever. It can ruin your day as Disc if you slip into an unintentional damage scenario where you don't know who will get hit and for how much, and then end up in a loop where you try to heal up things but new damage keeps coming in and it spirals out of control.

All that is for high keys, of course. On low keys, you can pretty much do whatever you want because people tend to overgear the heck out of them and there's a lot of latitude with both mechanics and regular damage. People can screw up left and right without wiping. But once you get into the 10+ or 15+ brackets, things become much less forgiving.

[OBM]

I tried Disc but I was very overwhelmed. I get what I'm supposed to do. Throw shields on people and damage the NPCs, but for some reason it isn't clicking for me when I actually go to play it. Either that or it's just not that good low levels while in dungeons. I shield everyone and go to town on enemies and my team just slowly dies and I can't keep them alive.

Right now I'm only 115 and have been doing levels through the WoD dungeons which seems faster to level than questing.

Aren't Holy Priests great raid healers?

[Biomega]

Aren't Holy Priests great raid healers?

They're totally fine. Discipline is better at it if you have the skill, but that doesn't mean Holy is bad. Unless you plan to do hardcore mythic raiding, Holy is perfectly serviceable.