Disc or Holy for allaround content?

[Mamut]

So Im gonna main Shadow Priest in SL and now I cant decide on what healing spec from the two. It only will be used occasionally for some M+ pugs, random raids etc when Im bored and wanna do something else than DPS (or you know for faster queues for weekly etc).

I dont have experience with healing and I dont really want to master two healing specs so I wonder which one would be better/easier choice for somone like me who mostly DPS?

[Asrialol]

Play Disc. It's unknown to mankind why some players play holy over disc. One of the great mysteries of the universe.

[Firebert]

Play Disc. It's unknown to mankind why some players play holy over disc. One of the great mysteries of the universe.

Because Discipline is an abomination of a spec.

[Alja]

Play Disc. It's unknown to mankind why some players play holy over disc. One of the great mysteries of the universe.

I prefer holy honestly, I just don't like the way disc plays. I've played my priest since BC and she was disc for a number of expansions but I personally just don't like the feel of the current spec, so for the last two expansions I've played as Holy. Blizzard has forgotten that holy priests exist though so I usually tell people to try Disc first /shrug.

[RaoBurning]

I'm not a priest expert, but from my play experience Holy is your more standard toolkit heal spec. Big heals, fast heals, aoe heals, some weird stuff I never use heals. Disc is more... showy? Like "look at me I only have like 2 actual healing spell but I can keep you alive anyway with these sick Atonement moves!"

I really enjoyed Disc when Atonement was an automatic group wide smart-heal. I understand why Blizz changed it to the more focused, active version we have now, but it just takes some getting used to. I feel like Disc is great when everyone is on point, but one idiot can really cramp the run. Whereas Holy just rolls through it all regardless.

Mileage may vary, of course.

[apelsinjuice]

it depends, holy generally struggles in high mythic content because they do not have the same DR as Disc and generally do lower damage as well, but right now on prepatch they are topping HPS meters in raid

[BB8]

So Im gonna main Shadow Priest in SL and now I cant decide on what healing spec from the two. It only will be used occasionally for some M+ pugs, random raids etc when Im bored and wanna do something else than DPS (or you know for faster queues for weekly etc).

I dont have experience with healing and I dont really want to master two healing specs so I wonder which one would be better/easier choice for somone like me who mostly DPS?

How the specs are in Shadowland I dont know.
For me Disc was always more interesting but can be more challenging too.
You have to DPS to heal which sometimes means switching target to enemy.
While Holy is easier cause it has more choices to heal.

In a 5 man dungeon as only healer I always found it harder as Disc, while Holy was a bit easier.
In raids Disc was easier with the synergy of other healers.

So you have try both

[Bakis]

If you gonne main SP disc will feel closer to that gamestyle, if that is what you are after.
In terms of healing I presume both will be valid.

[Comfort]

You have to DPS to heal which sometimes means switching target to enemy.
While Holy is easier cause it has more choices to heal.

This is solved with mouse over macro heals so you don't have to drop your enemy target. Just takes a bit of time to adjust. You would do this as holy also as you will want to add dps when you can in any content.

I also mouse over some dps spells also like SW: pain and now SW: death again.

[Echeyakee]

So Im gonna main Shadow Priest in SL and now I cant decide on what healing spec from the two. It only will be used occasionally for some M+ pugs, random raids etc when Im bored and wanna do something else than DPS (or you know for faster queues for weekly etc).

I dont have experience with healing and I dont really want to master two healing specs so I wonder which one would be better/easier choice for somone like me who mostly DPS?

Depends. If you really just want a healing spec to occasionally (read seldom) use, go holy. Yeah, it's not looking great in SL, but it's also not as bad as people make it out to be. And the problem with disc is that it's extremely unintuitive and has a much higher barrier to entry than any other healing spec. So if you're not gonna use it all the time, there is no real point in spending time to learn it on the first place.

The only real reason to go disc in this case is that it's easier to offspec with shadow. You generally want similar gear, and covenant choice is amicable.

[Velerios]

Play Disc. It's unknown to mankind why some players play holy over disc. One of the great mysteries of the universe.

Because the damage is higher. Because of the ability to heal yourself as disc, the damage of your singular abilities is lower. I personally rather quest as holy than as disc, because my heals are better and i never nearly need anything other than holy word: Serenity as a Heal. Chastise allows me to stun one (even without talent) and with SL i can also use less than at release, but still Shadow: Word Pain and Death that also got a damage boost. Is it slower than shadow, yes, but since Holy has far lower ramp-up time i rather quest with this spec.

This said, SL-Disc also has it's benefits, better aoe because for no reason they removed Mind Sear from holy as they promised to give it to ALL the specs before SL. But hey, blizzard lying is nothing new!

[Ragnarohk]

Play Disc. It's unknown to mankind why some players play holy over disc. One of the great mysteries of the universe.

Holy is fun and versatile.

Disc used to be fun before they made it DPS to heal. Not anymore.

[Malania]

Holy is out performed by other pure healing specs (not currently but that will last a few more days) so it's not really worthwhile while Disc offers far superior DR which none of the others can. You bring disc priests because it helps everyone including the other healers. There's a wide variation of pure healing classes to choose from and holy is pretty average. You bring the Holy Priest because the Resto Druid didn't turn up. Play disc.

[callipygoustp]

I like disc in general but I have not, in a long time, really taken a close enough look to see which one would be better.

[Malania]

I like disc in general but I have not, in a long time, really taken a close enough look to see which one would be better.

Yeah the last time I played Holy at a mythic (actually heroic then) raid level was Cataclysm @ Deathwing. It just had to many mana problems. That's probably changed now but the DR of Disc walked us through too many raid bosses including Heroic/Mythic Garrosh puddles where we could just sit in the aoe pools designed to wipe the raid and just heal through them. Disc just offers more than Holy.

[Tyris Flare]

If you just want to mess around, play Holy because it is easy.

If you ever want to do anything competitive, learn Disc.

[kabshiel]

If you’re primarily going to be PUG healing, I’d strongly suggest Holy. It just has an easier time cleaning up other people’s mistakes.

[Swelldude]

Disc priest is the most fun spec of the two. But please go ahead and try holy anyway, it will bore you out after a while because there is little planning ahead or challenging, just reacting to the situation at hand and really bad mobility (which is true for all specs but at least you can shield and heal with atonement while running).

[Lithiac]

If you’re primarily going to be PUG healing, I’d strongly suggest Holy. It just has an easier time cleaning up other people’s mistakes.

This. Discipline can be real frustrating with an uncoordinated PUG.

[Strawberry]

Since you're maining shadow priest and want a break from dpsing, why would you even consider disc?
It's a dps healer spec. Not great at dps and not great at healing, something in between.
Go holy.