Disc is terrible.

[Keelie]

Disc is the best healer ATM, and will probably continue to be in Lich King. Shamans might come close to being competition, but Druids and Paladins will be far behind.

I have to come to the conclusion that you're doing something wrong. While they might not last as long as they used to before patch, that has nothing to do with them being bad, it's because everyone's DPS has about doubled. Priests are faring quite well considering.

[v-ice]

It's sad too see there are still people that have an old perception of the game. Like that in a raid you should get only "pure" specced classes: DPS, healers and tanks. And you are declaring you're against bringing any other specc that is different than your "pure" class roll...have you even try to get a disciple priest in your raid nowadays? I bet you didn't.
Like someone mentioned before...if you heal...no matter your specc and gear...you're a healer. Good or bad that's something different but you get my point.
I'm ok with me not being top of meters as long as at least the tank is alive after the boss or mobs are dead. And that I know I've helped with healing, damage mitigation and increasing other healers effectiveness due to my talents.
So no...I'm not that terrible.

[Pahus]

I can't wait until I get to try disc at level 80. For what I've seen it's as fun and challenging as it was in TBC.

[Ambi]

I've been playing all the specs for a while and I have to say I really love Disc, penance is the greatest healing spell I've seen with its amazing mana efficiency and the use it has in emergencies and just for healing on a budget (though the inability to cast it on yourself irks me, I can see where its coming from =/) heck, its your new bread and butter healing spell.
In PvP I've noticed that I am rather squishy, but I agree that its just the amount everyone was buffed in the expansion.

Just as a side note, what I'm wondering, and it seems many are as well, is which is the talent to take, Enlightenment or Divine Fury? :O

[derevka]

How good Disc is is directly related to your crit.

Until you break around 25% crit the tree is very lackluster. In full T6, socketing for some crit,and a few crit items added, raid buffed im over 30% crit. (No mage focus magic).

[Cayumi]

Enlightenment or Divine Fury? :O

Divine Fury

[Healium]

How good Disc is is directly related to your crit.

Until you break around 25% crit the tree is very lackluster. In full T6, socketing for some crit,and a few crit items added, raid buffed im over 30% crit. (No mage focus magic).

i'm at a bit over 23% unbuffed and it's amazing. for disc crit is more or less the most important stat.

[Bluetoez]

This is based on my experience on beta with a premade discipline priest.
Discipline priests in pvp can survive pretty easily even with all this huge burst damage comming out, we have the best survivability out of any spec in the game, and penace is a life saver. Your parter is about 20% use penace and he'll be back up to 80-95%. it's a very effective heal. You can almost reach a 1 sec mana burn now too, which is deadly when your enemy cast is in sight. Your shield has become very useful, with
1751 spell power self buffed my power shield asorbs 5.4k damage. This would mean reflective shield would be doing 2430 damage, it usually does more due to talents. Then on top of that you got a 25% haste buff aswell as 5% through talents, granting you 30% haste for your next spell within 5 seconds. If you used power infusion you would get 60% haste. This doesn't even include haste through gear or gems.

I have not pved with discipline yet, but i'm pretty sure it would be a a lot different to holy, instead of spamming flash heal and CoH all the time you get to experience a new way of healing with the same class, making it alot more fun, but if you don't like it you can just spec back to holy again.

Just a little question: Is Rapture worth spending 5 points into at level 80 as discipline? I cannot seem to find 5 free points at all. I also spec into holy to get desperate prayer, but thats as far as i go.

[Donjohn]

I have not tried Disc in arena after 3.0 due to the lag.. But ive considered going disc for MT healing but, COH IS SHINY... really i like holy atm and Guardian of spirit is sweet stuff in 5-mans... But i hope Disc will be as it was in season 2-3.

[meowmeow]

I have not tried Disc in arena after 3.0 due to the lag.. But ive considered going disc for MT healing but, COH IS SHINY... really i like holy atm and Guardian of spirit is sweet stuff in 5-mans... But i hope Disc will be as it was in season 2-3.

from my beta experiance, i'll stay holy for raids, even the Mt healing feels more comfturable for me, especially the fact that i can still heal raid and not assure that i'm only MT healing, while as discipline in raids, i didn't have spiritual guidance, which made spirit pretty much almost useless on my gear, only giving me regen ( :/ )

after trying both specs both as MT healer and as raid healer, in max 10m, nax 25 and obsidian 25m. i can storngly say i will probably not go discipline unless my guild won't have a active holy paladin. if we have, i will stay holy, MT healing as holy is very fun, nice, "wowing" sometimes, and was not extremely tough on my mana (though u can't just spam). with the discipline spec - it was nice for the MT healing, but i felt so limited - this is not my veiw of the priest in a raid.

as for the pvp, after mainly going for 2vs2, and abit of 5vs5 (didn't find the combination i wanted for 3vs3), i can strongly say, from beta xp at level 80, discipline priest has the survivability and the ability to keep others up. i don't take penance as pvp but go for the holy SoR, if gaurdian spirit was in the discipline tree and not the holy i would've taken gaurdian spirit (best mitigation spell ever must say) over the SoR. SoR is very usefull especially in thoughs 2vs2, when i die almost the same time the other healer dies, allowing me additional time to heal without innterrupts.

i do see the discipline tree as problematic: spirit give atm no benifit besides mana regen - just like a amge and a warlock, even they have now talents that make spirit more appealing. for the discipline priest going for the 51 talent pointer, has no talent that provides the same benifit as spiritual guidance. IDS used to give 10% of spirit into spell damage and healing, yet now that the buff was nerfed and changed, there hasn't been offered an alternative to the tree.

i do think that gaurdian spirit and penance should be switched, discipline will be the best mitigation tree, while giving the holy tree the a re-active heal that is more "usable" in a raid invorment and will actually heal. i will miss the gaurdian spirit as holy, yet if i look at the tree's concept - gaurdian spirit suits well in the discipline tree, and will add strengh to the PvP aspect of the discipline priest, while the penance will allow the priest to save either a dying raid member or a tank, with a burst heal - this also suits the tree much more then "mitigation absording death". in addition i think aspiration or renewed hope should be changed to something more benifical to pvp and pve and will include spirit:
for example (these are examples of what i mean, there are alot of similar options): aspiration - 2/2 - your healing spells gain additional 7.5/15% of your total spirit (this is abit more PvE, being this low in the discipline priest can be a nice example of covering up the spirit) another option: renewed hope - increasing your critical strike chance by 2/4% of your total spirit (this talent will allow you to stack on the spirit over the crit for divine ageis to proc more). i believe the discipline tree "forgot" of the pvp mitigation, i dont see penance at all as a good pvp spell, its a cool spell i agree, but for the pvp situations i've seen on beta, would rather have the SoR or gaurdian spirit. As for holy tree in PvP: i will strongly recomend to stay discipline for the pvp (and not holy, with the 960 ressiliance it barely worked so i rly don't wanna say "never" but most likely never). giving the 51 talent point to try to make a full tree available for pvp use is stupid, and trying it out is okey, but its still stupid, and for no reason. i never heard a holy priest ask to get more "PvP".


So yes i think the constant whine of shadowpriest really slowers the dev work, noticing that we have a full tree that gives 1 benifit to spirit, seeing our holy tree has to much points and alot of points that should be combined so we will have the choise to invest points in the discipline tree. seeing the meditation, comparing my mana abilities to other classes, i strongly believe meditation should become either 45% spirit regen OR make 30% mana regen base to all priest and meditation down to 1 point of 15% mana regen. i strongly feel a healer priest should benifit more then a mage and a warlock from spirit threw talents, in order for me as holy to prefer spirit stacking i want to see my mana regen benifit for it much more then a mage, same as a discipline priest.

combining talents in the holy tree, making us "chose less", most trees of other classes can easly spend 15 points more or less with skiping only 3 telanets give or take in their "main tree" while as holy i feel much more limited, i always need to chose 1 talent over the other. combining healing prayers with holy reach for example - 1 talent combining both, reducing the amount of point per talent: improved holy conc can easly become 1 point or 2, test of faith should also become 2 points. our choises should be much more easier and allowing us to go to the shadow or discipline tree without hesitating.

twin disciplines should be change to "increase your total spirit by 1/2/3/4/5%" over w/e that thing is now. the increase spirit will benifit holy and shadow and discipline equally while now, this doesn't effect much the healing part (only renew and prom - coh/nova, not that apealing as discipline, and as holy as well). one of my crazy thoughts was making divine providance give 45% regen from spirit, and swap the "divine spirit" and "improved divine spirit", with meditation. giving the holy priest a option to take DS as a buff and not lose the mana regen, not feeling like its "mandatory" to invest points in discipline but will want to get the buff, and ofc throwing meditation out of the "mandatory" for healing. since divine providance will include the regen from spirit. lowering the meditation to require 20 points will assure a priest won't be ably to get both divine providance and meditation.
improved divine spirit became almost a joke, a shamans totem overwrites it, and for my veiw is only with the DS and not improved. perhaps changing the improved to something more "desirable" by raid/pvp, such as "increasing total haste by 2.5/5%" not allowing this ofc to stack with any other raid buffs, making this "apealing" to the pvp and pve spec. (ofc will also compensate of a lack of wrath of air totem or windfury, although totems give more, a 5% haste is a nice "compensate" when you lack the shaman totems).

i really can't wait for these stuff to be "looked" at and changed. i am hoping it will happen soon.

[Kelesti]

[Wall of text summarised in one word, Spirit]

Priests have moved on from the days of stacking spirit over mp5, we are no longer the masters of spirit. Discipline will be more like a paladin with crit and mp5 providing the regen. Therefore there is no need to even make spirit viable for discipline, in fact this is good because it moves around who 'needs' items of gear and some will favour holy etc with spirit and a lot more items crit for disc, mages etc.

They only reason to take IDS is elemental shamans fail...totally and utterly fail...If I am a min-maxer I'd never take another elemental shammy with the current builds and I would reroll resto if I was elemental, as they do the lowest dps (source - multiple google simulation charts). Therefore if you don't have an elemental shammy in your raid you would be happy to have IDS.

Except for the fact that Demonology Warlocks have a 10% spellpower buff on crits (I think?). Even excluding that, your resto shaman has Flametongue totem which BASELINE almost doubles the effectiveness of IDS (145 spellpower to 80?). GG

[AetherMcLoud]

i do think that gaurdian spirit and penance should be switched, discipline will be the best mitigation tree, while giving the holy tree the a re-active heal that is more "usable" in a raid invorment and will actually heal.

You no take penance!

[Cayumi]

I'm not so sure, I feel it depends on your raid make up, you need two types of healer on the tank main, big heal casters for spikes and constant healers for general damage, druids and paladins are the constant healers and if for whatever reason you have few paladins/druids then flash heal spamming between penance would be preferable to greater heal as disc, due to greater heal missing loads of holy talents. Also don't forget when you cast a bubble, your next spell is 25% faster which can be linked with greater heal to give a pseudo divine fury when needed.

My post was regarding pvp and nothig else.

[blackwater]

ATM


holy>disc in pvp


Maybe at 80 it will be different. They seem to be making disc a more hybrid dps/heal class though instead of a survival/heal class.

[Fenixdown]

It's because SoL is extremely OP in PvP. You can use it for a free Smite or a free heal. Discipline is still better for survival. It took 5 Horde beating on me from one side of WSG to the other with only 250 resil to kill me.