Disc priest vs Holy priest

[Marlom]

Holy is more funn, you can crit over 30k

and end up whit a 15k overheal..
havent played holy in wotlk, but did play it all tbc, and i find disc a more fun to play. but it realy depends on ur playstyle.

[Kelesti]

When starting out, Discipline has less mana issues than Holy, but both are equally capable of stopping "percent-tank-death".

+5 cool points to anyone who knows the game I'm talking about.

What game is this?

Ohh ops, forgot smily

It all started back at TBC launch for Kara in a couple guilds. Healers would place bets as to what percentage the boss would be at before the MT got instagibbed. As the boss got below, say 50%, a couple people would blurt out over vent some profanity, as usual, as they just lost some good gold.

It gets really good when the Paladin tanks on Morogrim finally figured out what was going on. "Ninety one percent, bitches!" and bubble hearth. Let's just say, everybody was laughing too hard to see their screen, let alone do anything for the rest of the night.

[thoukaia]

since penance, disc's been way better than holy because of 15% more mana and 300% more mana regen through Rapture. end of story

[Berius]

I think that is a very bad disc build. u dont need Divine Fury cos u dont use GH that much....

I disagree. Although the build you posted is good, the spec that u called 'bad' isn't really bad at all. To me, you spec disc to whatever your playstyle is. Some disc priests still use GH, some don't. Me, yes I use GHeal on a situational basis. So for me, investing 5 points in Divine Fury makes sense. Yea you get haste via Borrowed Time, but what about those times where you KNOW you need to land a big heal when Penance is on cooldown? If you don't really use GHeal then don't spec Divine Fury. But if you do, there's nothing wrong with it. That's just how he plays his disc priest.

[Lenerien]

I disagree. Although the build you posted is good, the spec that u called 'bad' isn't really bad at all. To me, you spec disc to whatever your playstyle is. Some disc priests still use GH, some don't. Me, yes I use GHeal on a situational basis. So for me, investing 5 points in Divine Fury makes sense. Yea you get haste via Borrowed Time, but what about those times where you KNOW you need to land a big heal when Penance is on cooldown? If you don't really use GHeal then don't spec Divine Fury. But if you do, there's nothing wrong with it. That's just how he plays his disc priest.

GREAT HEAL should never be used with Disc. Never

They isnt any reason to use it. PoM them and Flash heal in that time you can Penace again.

sheild the tank painsuppression. Use your Disc Talents.

[Berius]

GREAT HEAL should never be used with Disc. Never

They isnt any reason to use it. PoM them and Flash heal in that time you can Penace again.

sheild the tank painsuppression. Use your Disc Talents.

That's purely YOUR opinion. I see you have trouble reading what I wrote so I'll say it again: Some disc priests prefer to still use Gheal and some don't. For a disc priest GHeal is a very situational heal. You DO know what situational means, right? This isn't about using your 'disc talents'. It's all about a matter of playstyle. For YOU there might not be a reason to ever use it, but don' speak for all disc priests...

[greenmasheen]

Yup, that's the cookie cutter spec right there, and no matter how you play around with it I haven't found any way of speccing better.

Divine Fury is trash for 5 points. You'll use GH very very rarely and as Haste is on your shopping list anyways you'll see the GH cast time come down anyway.

there are some iffy talents, renewed hope is situational, imp fort, imp renew...

desperate prayer is also nice, but not necessary.

[cssmall]

Disc should really be working with 3 spells for the majority of the time.

PW:S - Substantial absorbion now through talents, and mana battery from Rapture.
Penance - The greatest single spell ever created, GH healing for FH cost, healing starts instantly and it can be hasted. (and it's pwetty!)
Flash heal - Next to no cost if glyphed once Rapture returns, stable heal for when Penance is on cooldown.

Gear for Intel > Crit > Haste > MP5 / Spirit

The 5SR is just an added bonus if your shield is holding up good and strong, but mana return is from Rapture, Meditation and any replenishment etc.

For group healing I'll use PoH if needed, but shielding and spot healing works fine if you're nimble fingered.

What I'm trying to understand is why Crit is any important to a Discipline priest? Obviously getting a critical effect is a great thing for any healer, but from my count, there's like one crit dependent talent in the whole tree.

If anything, Holy utilizes and refines the use of critical strike now amongst the two healing specs, especially with the probabilities inherent in the Surge of Light, Holy Conc., and Improved Holy Conc. procs. Either way, the question is easily answered. Try out a discipline build that you think will work, tinker with it, try more and see if you like as much as Holy.

[Torture]

What I'm trying to understand is why Crit is any important to a Discipline priest? Obviously getting a critical effect is a great thing for any healer, but from my count, there's like one crit dependent talent in the whole tree.

If anything, Holy utilizes and refines the use of critical strike now amongst the two healing specs, especially with the probabilities inherent in the Surge of Light, Holy Conc., and Improved Holy Conc. procs. Either way, the question is easily answered. Try out a discipline build that you think will work, tinker with it, try more and see if you like as much as Holy.

Crit procs Aegis, absorbs from Aegis restore mana. So, if FH crits, you get mana back from the FH, then additional mana back from the Aegis absorbs (and the tank gets some extra absorb). The more you crit, the more extraneous mana you recieve and if you can keep Aegis up more often you provide a little more burst mitigation to the tank.

[Lenerien]

That's purely YOUR opinion. I see you have trouble reading what I wrote so I'll say it again: Some disc priests prefer to still use Gheal and some don't. For a disc priest GHeal is a very situational heal. You DO know what situational means, right? This isn't about using your 'disc talents'. It's all about a matter of playstyle. For YOU there might not be a reason to ever use it, but don' speak for all disc priests...

Its not just my opinion, With Divine and Grace able to proc 2x with 2 flash heals over one GH id say GH is not situational its not knowing your spec.

As for playstyle if you like GH and you play Disc is because you must suck at Holy and cant figure out eh 5SR and OOM all the time

[Berius]

Its not just my opinion, With Divine and Grace able to proc 2x with 2 flash heals over one GH id say GH is not situational its not knowing your spec.

As for playstyle if you like GH and you play Disc is because you must suck at Holy and cant figure out eh 5SR and OOM all the time

Wow, what a bad assumption. Don't know why you're so hostile about my opinion. I'm not even try to argue with you. Some will use it and some will not. Period. I'm sorry but noone plays the same way. You talk as if I use GHeal ALL THE TIME. My main heals are Penace, PW:Shield, FHeal and PoM. There are times a flash heal isnt going to be enough, let alone two of them, when Peanace is on CD. That's where Gheal comes in. You might shield, flash heal or whatever, but sometimes I just prefer to use GHeal. Unlike you I use ALL MY HEALs depending on the situation. That's what good priests do. I'm not sure why you think that ALL disc priest don't use it, but you probably the type to follow the trend on what everyone else is doing instead of developing your own style. Next time you respond, try to sound more mature, huh? You really sound childish with the little ad honimem attacks. This isn't the WoW forums. Grow up.

[Lenerien]

Wow, what a bad assumption. Don't know why you're so hostile about my opinion. I'm not even try to argue with you. Some will use it and some will not. Period. I'm sorry but noone plays the same way. You talk as if I use GHeal ALL THE TIME. My main heals are Penace, PW:Shield, FHeal and PoM. There are times a flash heal isnt going to be enough, let alone two of them, when Peanace is on CD. That's where Gheal comes in. You might shield, flash heal or whatever, but sometimes I just prefer to use GHeal. Unlike you I use ALL MY HEALs depending on the situation. That's what good priests do. I'm not sure why you think that ALL disc priest don't use it, but you probably the type to follow the trend on what everyone else is doing instead of developing your own style. Next time you respond, try to sound more mature, huh? You really sound childish with the little ad honimem attacks. This isn't the WoW forums. Grow up.

Ok so flash heal might not heal enough but its a faster heal with a chance to get Grace and Divine. with GH its a long cast time and in that time if there is a bust of damage your Tank is DEAD.

So you just keep using GH in your situational situations and ill just keep using Flash Heal.
As for following everyone else's trend, come on. develop your own playing style. This game is based on repetition and if YOUR OWN STYLE doesnt work your OUT and they bring in someone who knows how to heal the Situation the Raid or grp is in.

But its all SITUATIONAL

[dionadar]

Everytime I read you have twice the chance to procc divine aegis I wince... If you have listened to your statistics, you know you are talking crap... Two times less than half the effect is still not better at all...
GHeal provides more HPS than flash heal for a disc specc (albeit very slightly w/o divine fury) than flash heal. In the statistic average you shield a minimal amount more with your divine aegis using GHeal. The only reason you would NOT want to use it is because it is rather expensive without Improved Healing.
And no, grace does not matter if your target is receiving 2k dps - at least not right now.

So, the only question remains is: Is it really worth the talent points?

If you need the HPS then, YES, they are.

[Torture]

GH is of course situational, no sane Disc priest is actually going to remove it from their bar.

Flash Heal is far more mana efficient when glyphed, so using 2 FH instead of 1 GH 'if the incoming damage allows it' will be better for you in the long run, and because rapture doesn't return mana from overhealing it's better to FH someone up to 98% HP than GH someone to 120%.

GH is still a tool though, and if incoming damage needs the extra healing then saying 'I'm Disc, I won't GH' is kind of crazy. Admitedly I don't have to use it often, PoM + Penance is some pretty big healing, but there are times when I've had to use GH and I'm sure there will be more times in future.

Just because GH isn't the 'best' option to cast as Disc doesn't mean it isn't 'an' option, it's all about learning when to use what.

[Lenerien]

Then its just me.
For i dont use GH.
In fact i dont have it bound. Its not even on my action bar.

[Worshaka]

I used http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?prie...h=050213060203 (disc) and found it draining my mana bar faster then http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?prie...h=050213060203 is it just me terribly bad at disc or that I am just good at the 5SR and thats it? (ignore glyphs dident bother too change em) oh yeah and btw I tested this in 5 man HC just too give it a try... (no replenishment if thats it mabe)

yeah and I found healeing was allot more easyer with Holy then disc, love just useing PoH thru loken and stuff ;D

My offspec for healing is http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?prie...h=160213050203

I have 0 mana issues, while all of the full time holy priests constantly go oom in heroics and require innervates in most naxx encounters. In a heroic I will literally spend 90% of the instances no lower than 80% mana.

Disc is extremely undervalued, it's an extremely effecient high HPS throughput spec and I enjoy it a lot more than holy.

[dionadar]

[snip] holy priests constantly go oom in heroics and require innervates in most naxx encounters [snap]

Wrong.

[...] I enjoy it [disc] a lot more than holy.

Yep, if you cannot play holy without going OOM I can fully understand that...

[Bigslick]

Not going to bother w/ all the quote tags, but here's my thoughts on a few above posts and a couple of random other ramblings...

Regarding Disc & GH: FH is generally the staple direct heal, but GH definitely has its uses - with or without Divine Fury (which I avoid, being of the opinion I get a lot more value elsewhere). GH has greater HPS which can be critical on fights like Patchwerk or when you have a fixed window for delivery like on Loatheb (yeah he doesn't do that much damage, but timing a GH to land just as Necrotic Aura fades means you can deliver a full Penance as well if needed). I'll also frequently throw in a GH immediately following a PWS, or pre-load a tank prior to a pull to a hard-hitting boss w/ PWS, PoM, Renew, and Inner Focused-GH. This can mitigate a tremendous amount of the initial spike damage.

Regarding Disc & Stat priority: Intellect > Crit > Haste > Spirit / MP5 (though I generally prefer Spirit over MP5). Int is insanely good for us, even more so because it scales with both Divine Strength and Blessing of Kings. It impacts mana pool which in turn restores more mana from Replenishment, Rapture, Shadowfiend, Mana Tide, and Hymn of Hope (not so lol when it gives back over 2k mana). Given that Replen/Rapture/MT restore % of mana pool, and that that spells cost % of base mana, there is a mana pool size at which we could spam heal forever and not run OOM. I'm no number cruncher, so won't try to offer where that is, but running raid-buffed w/ 25k mana I have not run OOM in any of the current content (only 25-man Malygos remaining). On mana-intensive fights like Patchwerk, we have 2 holy priests grouped w/ 2 shaman and a holy pally getting dual-MS totem regen, and they're still dangerously close to OOM with that and innervate (of course they don't get to play the FSR at all for that fight).

Regarding Disc and optimal balance: While I don't know what the 'optimal' balance is, I do think there is a point beyond which a stat begins to lose relative benefit. That is to say, more mana, crit, haste, spellpower, etc. is always good, but there is a point where you have 'enough.' Having reached raid-buffed goals for mana pool (25k) and crit (30%), I'm now beginning to focus on haste and will be seeking that as my primary stat upgrade when looking at gear (obv. spellpower will increase w/ any real gear upgrades) until such point that haste begins to take a toll on mana regen. Not saying this is 'the way' to do it, but it's worked phenomenally for me so far.

Current spec: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?prie...h=050213050203 (Given the number of holy priests and resto-shaman in our raids, I went w/o Inspiration (otherwise would consider it a must-have).

Regarding Focus Magic: Make friends with an Arcane mage and have them keep this buff on you. Given a good base level of crit, any other caster would be very hard-pressed to maintain the uptime of their returned buff that we can deliver via the rapid-fire nature of our heals.

Regarding Grace: If your raid typically has enough pallies that Blessing of Sanctuary can be applied across the raid, and resto druids to provide Tree of Life aura, consider reallocating these 2 pts elsewhere since their benefits don't stack.