Struggling with Discipline after a long absence

[ringpriest]

I raided as discipline from late BC through the end of Cata. Very broadly speaking, I remember holy and disc as comparable, with holy having slightly better throughput, with disc being more flexible and better at dealing with damage spikes. After healing War Within through leveling 5-mans, some batteground PVP, and just starting to dabble in endgame raiding again, Disc seems... finicky and difficult to manage, while Holy feels like near-faceroll "press buttons, heals go brrrr". I'm at iLvl 597, and I followed the Icy Veins guide on spec, gearing and rotations... and was struggling with Disc. So I spec-changed to Holy, and immediately after swapping, spending only a couple minutes putting spells on bars and going with the "least decision-making required" talents, I'm doing 20% more healing. And more than numbers, I can feel the healing get easier.

Is this anyone else's experience with Disc at present? Or am I likely missing something obvious?

[Zivhayr]

Holy will "feel" better with 0 experience as it is more of a direct healing, reactionary healing style. If someone takes damage, you heal it back up.

Discipline is a ramping healer, they do very little as they cycle atonement onto as many targets as possible, and then they attack like crazy to heal multiple people for small amounts. With good play, this burst window is timed with large AoE damage to keep everyone topped up while providing some extra DPS to the group.

Playing Discipline suboptimally will feel much worse than playing Holy suboptimally. Discipline also feels much better with higher haste levels which you would not have yet at low ilvl. Discipline does not have that big "on demand" healing moments for when someone constantly stands in fire. Discipline will feel more powerful the more competent your group is.

This is all very broadly speaking. Holy tends to rank higher on larger group content and discipline ranks highly in m+ and smaller group content. But at the end of the day it's all personal preference and experience.

Also I'm not suggesting you don't realise most of this and are playing discipline "wrong", just that your enjoyment may improve as you and your gear catch up.

[Shadowferal]

Can't really respond to the problem on hand, but the words "struggling with discipline" is just so true in life in general...I wanted to cry.

[Just Passing through]

Is this anyone else's experience with Disc at present? Or am I likely missing something obvious?

I know what you mean - but I gave up somewhere after MoP with Disc. (at least I think so) - I loved the playstyle of shielding back then, it also worked pretty well as a levelling specc. I pugged and raided as a healer back then - after the changes I have never found the taste to heal again, and my disc priest has been shadow ever since. Still sad about it (as I am an althoholic, I roll a toon with a specc and stick to that spec...normally...unless the specc gets totally botched - and that is what I feel happened to Disc)

[Doomcookie]

I personally feel Holy may be the easiest of the healing specs, and I'm nearly certain that Disc is the hardest of all specs, including tanking/DPS. That alone makes it hard to jump back into. Not only that, it requires more understanding of incoming damage, as opposed to reflexive actions. We all know this last part, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

If you are a decent player, holy will probably be stronger for you in most content, just because it's so much easier to play. Disc isn't going to eclipse it until you really get good at the content, and get comfortable with the spec. That's going to take a while. Disc is the most rewarding spec in the game, but damn does it take a lot of work to master.

[Venara]

Holy will "feel" better with 0 experience as it is more of a direct healing, reactionary healing style. If someone takes damage, you heal it back up.

Discipline is a ramping healer, they do very little as they cycle atonement onto as many targets as possible, and then they attack like crazy to heal multiple people for small amounts. With good play, this burst window is timed with large AoE damage to keep everyone topped up while providing some extra DPS to the group.

Playing Discipline suboptimally will feel much worse than playing Holy suboptimally. Discipline also feels much better with higher haste levels which you would not have yet at low ilvl. Discipline does not have that big "on demand" healing moments for when someone constantly stands in fire. Discipline will feel more powerful the more competent your group is.

This is all very broadly speaking. Holy tends to rank higher on larger group content and discipline ranks highly in m+ and smaller group content. But at the end of the day it's all personal preference and experience.

Also I'm not suggesting you don't realise most of this and are playing discipline "wrong", just that your enjoyment may improve as you and your gear catch up.

I think this is a very astute summary, well said.

I would add that Discipline is very powerful but has a pretty steep learning curve. Grasping the basics is easy enough but executing it well is a whole different topic.

Playing the spec well requires that you basically know the entire dungeon/raid before you enter it - you need to know exactly when certain damage events happen so that you can start ramping early and be prepared for when they hit. This is largely why you will feel Holy is easier. There is no ramp or anything like that. You just cast your spells and fill up those little bars.

The tradeoff is that Discipline can do things that Holy cannot - prevent damage before it occurs, give group members an external damage reduction cooldown, put down a group damage reduction zone, etc.

You may not realize it but preventing damage before it ever occurs is actually a lot more valuable than you might think. Holy has no choice - if a big damage event happens, all you can do is hope that having the bars topped is enough and that people will press their own personal defensives if necessary.

[nvaelz]

Im no expert so just take this as a guess.
From my experience holy is spammy and easy because you just spam heals to refresh your cds on your heals, but as disci you have to rotate your cds which can be complicated, knowing when you have to pre-cds vs damage or when you need to dps is more difficult indeed.

[ringpriest]

Thank you everyone very much for the responses. My broad takeaway is that I'm likely not "missing" any key aspects of the spec, but that a combination of gearing, not really knowing the fights well yet (especially raids), and both myself and my guild being far from playing at the top of our game (we've only been back for a month or so) all add together to make Holy "work" better for me and us than Disc at present.

Which makes sense - when everything does line up, the hps spikes I can put out even as undergeared disc is amazing, but it definitely takes a lot of attention to line everything up, and anything that breaks up the ramp-up wreaks havok on my Disc healing... which seems to be "as intended".

While I'd definitely picked up on the need to manage atonements and the ramp, manging them while also learning the fights and saving peoples' bacon after a mistake (including my own mistakes) definitely been tricky (as Zivhayr mentions). Definitely something of a change in playstyle and mana management from what I recall, even beyond the Discipline's need to ramp and primarially healing via the damage>Atonement pipeline but also the underlying idea for the spec does seem to have remained constant.

One of the reasons I've always liked Discipline is, as Venara says above, that it brings some unique stuff to the healer role. (For example, handling Devouring Plague on the Lich King was always far easier via Disc, which could just prevent most of the damage, than healing everyone back up after it hit.) That said, for right now, still learning fights and saving people who stood in fire, I think Holy is definitely my way to for me.

[PixelFox]

I raided as discipline from late BC through the end of Cata.

See, there's your problem. DISC at the end of Cata (I think that's when it was) was the most fun spec ever. Show up near the top of the DPS and just fling out reactive shields without limit, Atonement hitting everyone, etc. I never had more fun in this game than OP DISC healing at that time.

But nobody can have any fun so now it's a royal pain in the butt and I don't heal anymore because I don't find it fun and don't need that stress in my life. Tanking and Healing to some degree need to be fun if you want people to fill those roles.