Loving Disc, but is it viable end-game?

[Vinicide]

Rerolled a priest, started disc and fell in love. I have dual specced both shadow and holy and I like neither one all that much. I'm a pretty good healer, I think, right now, but how does this translate to end game instances/raids? Am I gonna have to switch to holy to keep up with the joneses or does disc hold their own in healing on the end game? I would love to hear from any of you cata beta testers that has experience with 85 raiding/instancing as a priest.

[harky]

Discipline is doing well with the recent buffs. The healing style in raids may not be to your liking though as it uses Prayer of Healing quite a bit.

[Vinicide]

Discipline is doing well with the recent buffs. The healing style in raids may not be to your liking though as it uses Prayer of Healing quite a bit.

My favorite heal is Penance, which is instant and usually gives me enough leeway to throw a big heal out if the tank is dropping fast. I am 48 currently and just trained PoH, so I haven't really had the chance to use it. I suppose I'll have to see when I get to that point.

Thanks.

[conqq]

the free heal spell is great with PoH

[Deleted]

I just re-rolled back to disc priest myself after trying other healing classes, and from what i could gather after some inquiries from other people in beta, disc is doing quite nicely in 10 men, but not so hot in 25 men.


It seems that in 25 men the best usease of disc priests is atm either main tank healing only or POH+PW:S spamming. In 10 men however it proves a much more versatile buffer healer.

PW: Barrier is suspected to be a mandatory cooldown in progressing heroic modes.


Since i'll be doing 100% 10 men and 0% 25 men, it seems to suit me fine.

[conqq]

I just re-rolled back to disc priest myself after trying other healing classes, and from what i could gather after some inquiries from other people in beta, disc is doing quite nicely in 10 men, but not so hot in 25 men.


It seems that in 25 men the best usease of disc priests is atm either main tank healing only or POH+PW:S spamming. In 10 men however it proves a much more versatile buffer healer.

PW: Barrier is suspected to be a mandatory cooldown in progressing heroic modes.


Since i'll be doing 100% 10 men and 0% 25 men, it seems to suit me fine.

Pretty accurate, but spamming shields is a huge mana drain. Mana being 1000% more important in cata.

[Siraeyou]

Yeah expect to be doing more main tank healing and absorbs than the rest of the healers in 25m settings. I love my Disc Priest, but 10's do seem to be where they shine, though most 25m's desire a Disc priest or two in their rosters it seems

[indigosbro]

Disc priests will always be amazing because of PW:S, the fact that it increases your EH while bypassing effects like healing debuffs or healing absorption is amazing. And as stated above PW:B will be a life saver and probably mandatory for Heroic progression. I would suspect at least 1 dedicated disc priest per raid, and 1 holy priest with a disc offspec for situational fights.

[Phrayze]

Disc is a great spec because it can be very useful as tank/raids heals or both depending on the player. When you say mana will be an issue, depending on the fight a skilled disc priest could use the Rupture talent to their advantage and mana wouldnt be an issue, specially if they gain their T11 4-set bonuses.

In the level you are now you have a good reason to fall in love with Disc. Shield, Renew, Penence, cake. In endgame it is a very useful person to have in your group. Ive been playing a disc priest through WOTLK and will be healing progressive 10s in Cata. A tank healer, raid heals, and a disc priest is a great team. Also, when your get used to fights you can use shields and POH majorly to your advantage using Borrowed Time talent. And also tossing out POM is never a bad thing.

[boseguy22]

Lol if it is anything like Wraith, my guild took a disc priest over holy all the time. Disc is truly unique in a world of big heals vs Big AoE and hots. If you are good, you will get a spot in progression.

[Extremities]

I am also enjoying the new Priest changes however I must stress how dissapointed I am with the strength our shields are as Discipline. Being Holy, our Shield is only about 1,000 less absorption. Discipline - being all about absorption having 1,000 or so more absorption seriously needs more umph to the shields. That isnt nearly enough to entice me or others to want to switch to Discipline. While I must admit, mana management does seem better as Discipline, Im just not impressed with the differences in shield strength between the two specs.

To answer your question - Is Discipline viable end game? At this current state, I personally would say no due to the lack of absorption Discipline provides. Now, we have no idea just how much of an impact Mastery will give to them since we have no gear really with Mastery on it other then reforging right now. For me personally, Im staying Holy till I see any large differences.

[harky]

Pretty accurate, but spamming shields is a huge mana drain. Mana being 1000% more important in cata.

1000% of nothing is still nothing.

note: This is a joke. We had 0 mana problems in Wrath, so 0 * 1000 still = 0. Mana is a concern at 85.

[Drocto]

Vin,

I love penance as well...its perfect for when getting hit hard..then use a flash heal if its like 3 or 4 mobs. But mostly I didn't have to use anything except renew and PW: S. That was until I hit level 60(where I am at now)..people get hit harder and DK tanks have no idea what they're doing. So be careful and be ready.

[Vinicide]

Thanks for all the advice and information. I think I'm going to enjoy staying Disc

[Iannis]

Tank healing is actually enjoyable again. Fun to toss a grin at holy paladins over having about the same throughput (though its still hard to compete with beacon)

[Khallynos]

Pretty accurate, but spamming shields is a huge mana drain. Mana being 1000% more important in cata.

The mana return you get on shields that are broken is larger than the actual cost of the spell. I don't think it should be an issue as long as some of the shields are broken.

I am also enjoying the new Priest changes however I must stress how dissapointed I am with the strength our shields are as Discipline. Being Holy, our Shield is only about 1,000 less absorption. Discipline - being all about absorption having 1,000 or so more absorption seriously needs more umph to the shields. That isnt nearly enough to entice me or others to want to switch to Discipline. While I must admit, mana management does seem better as Discipline, Im just not impressed with the differences in shield strength between the two specs.

To answer your question - Is Discipline viable end game? At this current state, I personally would say no due to the lack of absorption Discipline provides. Now, we have no idea just how much of an impact Mastery will give to them since we have no gear really with Mastery on it other then reforging right now. For me personally, Im staying Holy till I see any large differences.

If you are talking about live, You'll be happy to know that mastery should change this pretty massively.

[Deleted]

I throw a few shields around on heavy dmg targets, use PoH for group heals/shields, keep renew up on a lot of targets (I play high crit renew builds mostly) and stack mastery as much as I can. I only do 10 mans and discipline is more than apt in such environments. The tank healing is also pretty impressive if you roll renew, bubble, penance and use GH to heal the tank, keeping Inner Focus on Cooldown. My favourite part about disc is weaving in smites to keep 5xevangelism up so I know that when I need to I can pop Archangel and throw out some huge heals (and proc some huge shields). Disco will do well in cata with larger health pools (larges DA's with the 20% hp cap) and the triage style making our absorbs ever more valuable.

[Apostolic]

15.5 K HPS on LK25 with PoH + DA + G:PoH. Was doing twice as much as any other class.

[Marraphy]

Every spec of every class is supposed to be viable at end game so I would say Disc is viable.

[deevicoos]

Every spec of every class is supposed to be viable at end game so I would say Disc is viable.

That means nothing. It probably will be buffed if it isn't though. It's not enhancement afterall.

Penance is still amazing cheap and powerful and stacks grace in one cast. I guess during normal (relaxed/low mana use) rotation you shield the tank every CD. I suspect PWS being used beyond that is still going to happen, massive sustained aoe damage? Need to buy time for that FoL? It's like rejuv for druids, it's still a better choice than an expensive heal if it's effective enough. And is probably worth working in with the expensive ones.