New 85: Holy or Disc?

[vikus]

Please keep this elitist/troll free, some straight answers would be appreciated.

So, after many years on my shaman, I've finally been burned out. Since that was the case, I have been leveling a Priest over the past few months on and off and have finally gotten it to 85.

I leveled it with the prosepct of healing in mind and would like to start healing right away in Heroics to become accustomed to the way they function.

I've done 5 or 6 Heroics so far on my Priest and I'm torn. Aside from the fact that healing is virtually impossible on fresh 85's, I'm having trouble picking a spec to start off with.

I went with Holy for my first few Heroics and honestly wasn't able to finish them. Being in questing greens/blues and very few epics, I ran out of mana quickly and was unable to keep the tank up considering my lack of haste made every "Heal" feel like 5 seconds. I may be doing something wrong with prioritizing spells to heal with or it's simply a gear issue.

I did my last few Heroics recently as Disc and actually finished them. I was able to keep the group up fairly decently but stopped for mana often. Once again, the mana issue probably results from lack of gear at this time. However, I'm unsure if there is a better, more mana-cost effcient spell order I should be prioritizing or soemthing.

I may have just answered my own question, considering I actually finished/kept group alive as Disc, but what do you guys think?

Disc or Holy for starting PvE?

I've played a shaman for the past 4 years and ONLY shaman, so any other useful advise for a beginning Priest healer would be extremely helpful.

I guess I could've shortened this to "Any helpful tips for a new Priest healer?" but whatever.

[420rogue]

disc will be easier in crappy gear, always has. However once geared, both are equally good and either is acceptable. Just pick the one you like and go with it. you can always convert honor to justice points til your geared enough for heroics

[zakaluka]

there's still a niche for holy even in the current gamestate, don't let anyone tell you otherwise! However, disc is USUALLY stronger because of active mana return. Holy only really wins out where mobility or huge healspikes are important.

I find myself raiding holy more and more often lately. The healing comp I've run with in the last few weeks noms all my throughput if I'm disc. This is opposite for most raid comps, which tend to snipe most of a holy priest's throughput. But I use renew and sanc, a lot, to cheat my healspikes a bit.

[Lirynd]

i do not have any experience on disc for cata, bt i can give some suggestions as to whr you might be gng wrg, if you are interested

if you are just starting out, it wld be a gd idea to ask the grp to help you cc, because thr are many types of spike dmg gng on in each dungeon.

regarding the spells, thr are no fixed rotation. bt it wld be gd to rmb to use prayer of mending, circle of healing, chakra and renew. during each instance, i always use the chakra tht lengthens the renew whn you use a direct healing spell (i forgot the name of tht). and it's a helpful fact tht the renew, once renewed (lol), will have a duration longer than it's original one. use heal whnever you can, becus flash heal is nt mana efficient. hymn of hope when you have the time during encounters. do nt forget to use the guardian spirit, which can prevent death. usually whn i cast this spell, i will spend the starting 5 secs to top up the other members, and thn make sure to top up the one you have the spell on (reason: if within the 10 secs of the duration of the spell, the one who received the spirit hasn't died, it is highly possible tht his hp is now vry low, so 5 secs with 40% extra healing can help top the person up. and the 1st 5 secs isn't spent on the one with the spirit becus he has a chance getting healed to 50% if the spirit dies). rmb to use your shadowfiend for mana too.

so all in all:
- be careful
- prayer of mending
- circle of healing
- chakra (direct healing one), also use it's resulting heal becus it is super mana efficient
- renew on ppl who constantly get dmged
- focus on being mana efficient
- hymns
- guardian spirit
- shadowfiend

i hope this helped you, and you will choose the holy spec becus it is just so fun!

[babylon]

i assumed holy to be easier than discipline at early gear levels at 85.

thing to remember is that you use bit different spells and go for a bit different stats at early gear levels in heroics then later in raids.
as a beginner who runs oom make sure you have all those mana-saving talents (ie veiled shadows, mental agility) and that you stack spirit.
yes, discipline priests drop spirit and are fine without, but it starts at some level of intellect coming from the gear.

as for the spells you use, it would help to see some print from meter or so, without it we can only go with blind advices like (for discipline) try not to use flash heal (till you stop carrying about mana), make sure pom is up, greater heal and poh (macroed with inner focus) are your bff-s.
some people suggest that atonement spec is nice for beginning but im against it, it often leads to players who recognize less than half of the tools they have in books.

[Sakamae]

Make sure you pick up as many 359 JP items as possible, as that will make a huge difference for you in a short amount of time. Just picking up the Core of Ripeness as a fresh 85 is huge. When I hit 85 on my latest toon, I chain queued for Grim Batol, Halls of Origination, and Lost City of the Tol'vir NORMAL, just so I could max out many of my reputations for the exalted gear bonuses. It goes very quickly, especially if you are in a level 25 guild with all the bonuses. Just because you can queue for heroics, doesn't always mean you are ready for them.

I ran a lot of normal mode dungeons before moving into heroics. This gave me time to try different things and learn the ins and outs of holy healing on my priest with all the changes this xpac. I also ran my first few heroic modes with friends and guild mates, because I was so nervous. Be upfront with people at the start of the dungeon and ask them to CC, since your mana isn't up to snuff to handle all the unnecessary damage. I think they'll appreciate not having to wait for you to drink after every pull and things just go better overall when people use CC. Healing is different for everyone, and it takes time to get used to the different specs. They are both viable at lower gear levels, it just takes practice. There are some great sticky threads here that can help you understand the differences between the two specs. In the end it all comes down to personal preference. Good luck!

[Berri]

Disc is really fun you should try it out

[dryankem]

I can't give you that much help with Holy but I've tried it and I've tried Disc without atonement, but for me it's atonement disc for sure.

I can also give tips for Disc
* 2000-2400 spirit is where you'll start feeling comfortable and you won't need to drink that much in heroics.
* Keep Pray of Mending on CD
* Shield the tank, but use it sparingly on DPS (Greater Heal or Penance is usually all they need)
* Haste - aim for 9-11% (this part is debatable, some people love haste and would go much higher but I think you'll feel comfortable in this range)
* Don't be afraid to use your major CDs; PW: Barrier, Power Infusion, Pain Suppression (I try to use each of them for each boss fight, just to get use to using them more often).
* If you are using Atonement, make macros to hit target of target when using Holy Fire and Smite. With those you can smite and HF while always targeting the tank (allowing you to use Pray of Mending and PW: Shield on CD on your tank without changing targets).
* Ignore Flash Heal, Binding Heal and Renew (only use if necessary). I almost never use any of those with the exception of renew to top someone up after a fight or Flash and Binding Heal if things are really bad. I also have never used heal but you may need it without atonement.
* AOE healing is basically spamming Prayer of Healing and that's it.
* Bind inner focus to Greater Heal & Prayer of Healing (you can do it on Flash & Binding Heal as well)

And finally play with stats and talents but do it slowly so you know what went terribly wrong. Eventually you'll find something that works for you. For me atonement is fun, as you get to add some DPS while things are slow and it tops people up that are close to the boss, but as soon as there is real damage, switch to Greater Heals and Penance ASAP.

[Dyra]

Welcome to the Priest class :3 Hope your stay is long and enjoyable.

Anyway, for starting out in 5mans it is common consensus that Disc is better than Holy. This is simply because you will have far better regen thanks to having Intellect on all your gear, but relatively little Spirit. Since regen from Intellect is far superior for Disc than Holy, initially Holy (especially newer players to the class) will struggle for mana. Once you gather up a few Spirit pieces Holy becomes alot easier if you still want to try it out.

Another reason Disc is better to start with than Holy is because Disc is alot better than Holy at Tank healing, which is where most of the damage should be going .

Again, welcome to the white (class) side. Wishing you all the best of luck with it.

[Deleted]

I would recommend disc for you. I use that for my newly dinged 85 priest, and it is really fun
Penance and Greater heal as your main heals, pw:s for the tank, PoH to AoE heals and holy fire/smite for evangelism stacks and topping up the group.
I would definitely recommend you to use an addon for tracking rapture to get as much mana as possible.
I personally use wow dot curse dot com/downloads/wow-addons/details/ingelasrapture.aspx .

My ilvl is about 355, and as long as the group isn't completely retarded, i don't have that many problem in RZ.

Good luck with your healing

(sorry for the link, i am not allowed to post that yet.)

- edit: I forgot to say that this is based entirely on my experience in 5-man dungeons, and not on raiding.

[jifjosh]

I also have never used heal but you may need it without atonement.

If you don't use atonement, you should be using SOS/TOT build, and with that Heal is also irrelevant. You're better off using gheal to make the most use of Inner Focus for the free gheals and the crit bonus.

[GUESSWHOIAM]

Disc is really fun you should try it out

Disc is not fun at all, it's really annoying to play and bored. Spamming PW:S on everybody is boring!

[Deleted]

Disc is not fun at all, it's really annoying to play and bored. Spamming PW:S on everybody is boring!

You don't spam PW:S on everyone as disc at all, that was only true for WotLK.
You simply don't have the mana to use PW:S on everybody.

[dryankem]

Spamming PW: S has gone the way of the dodo. Disc is a lot of fun and currently a little stronger in a raiding environment (or at least until patch 4.3 comes out)

And thanks for clearing that up jifjosh, it's been a while since I wasn't atonement build.